Metaphysical Realism professes to be the improvement of scholars upon

the unsifted notions of the vulgar. It is the system to which, in

its earlier and cruder form, Berkeley a century ago gave what once

appeared to be its death-blow, but what may perhaps turn out to have

been a wound sufficiently severe to cause prolonged insensibility,

but not absolute extinction. It is not, however, with the purpose of

completing the work of destruction, but of examining whether it affords

a possible escape from the necessity of the religious postulate, that

I refer to it here. Metaphysical Realists perceived clearly enough

that the apparent qualities of sensible objects could not be the

objects themselves. Even if they did not recognize this with regard to

all the apparent qualities, they did so with regard to those termed

"secondary," such as taste, smell, and color. Later representatives of

the school, such as Kant, extended the process by which this conclusion

was reached to all apparent qualities, whatsoever. Below the apparent

qualities, however, these thinkers assumed a substance, "_substantia_,"

in which they inhered, and by which they were bound together, so as

to constitute the object. And this substance—something unperceived

underlying the qualities perceived—was their notion of matter. Observe

now the position we have arrived at. No sooner does Realism abandon the

untenable hypothesis that the qualities of the object are the object

itself, than it is driven upon the assumption of an utterly unknowable

and inconceivable entity; a matter which is not perceptible by any of

our senses, which is below, or in addition to, phenomena concerning

which we can predicate nothing, and whose relation to the qualities

it is supposed to support we cannot understand. But the necessity of

some such assumption is the very assertion implied in all forms of

religious faith. Realism, then, does not escape the pressure of this

necessity, even though the entity it assumes is not precisely of the

same character.

But is the difference in its character one that tells in favor of this

variety of Realism, or in favor of religion? Assuredly substance,

or matter, imagined as the bond between apparent qualities, is not

an easier, simpler, or more intelligible conception than that of

a universal power as the origin, source, or objective side of all

physical phenomena. Granting even that the latter conception cannot

be represented to the mind, a representation of the former is equally

impossible. But does it explain the facts better? Let us see. In

the first place, we must demand an accurate definition of what this

supposed matter is. Is it passive, inanimate, incapable of independent

action, and unable to develop out of itself the living creatures which

in some way have come to exist? If so, we plainly require another

entity in addition to matter, both to account for the active forces

of our universe, and to originate the phenomenon of life. For if the

qualities of body need a substratum, so also do those of mind. If it be

held that the power from which mind emanates be the same as that which

is evinced in so-called physical forces, then we have two distinct, if

not independent, substances, beings, or whatever we may prefer to call

them: matter, pervading material objects in their statical condition,

and force or life, pervading both consciousness and material objects in

their dynamical condition. Or if the first be regarded as sufficient to

account for motion as well as matter, then we have still two powers,

one subsisting throughout the physical, the other throughout the mental

world. How are these two substances related to one another? Is the

substance of mind supreme, governing its material colleague? or is

that of matter at the head of affairs, and that of mind subordinate?

or are they equal and coördinate authorities, as in the Gnostic

philosophy? Suppose we endeavor to elude these difficulties by the

assertion that there is nothing else but the unperceivable substratum

supporting material objects, and that in this all modes of existence

take their rise, we are met by further and still more troublesome

questions. For if, under the manifestations of this substance we

include consciousness, then the distinction between matter and mind

has vanished, and in calling this substance matter we are simply

giving it an unmeaning name. In fact, it is a substance supporting

not only the qualities of bodies, but also the chemical, electric,

molar, molecular, and other forces throughout the universe, as well as

sensation, thought, and emotion. Matter in short does everything which

deity can be required to do; it originates motion; it produces living

creatures; it feels; it thinks; it lives. Thus we have but stumbled

upon God in an unexpected quarter. Suppose, however, that we take what

is in this system the easier and more natural hypothesis of a substance

of matter, a substance of mind, and a still more hidden power superior

to both, and from which both are derived, then we have but abandoned

the perplexing questions raised by metaphysical Realism to take refuge

in the religious position from which it seemed to offer a plausible

deliverance.

Does Idealism help us? Idealism is of several forms. That represented

by Berkeley need not occupy us here, for Berkeley not only admitted,

but expressly asserted, the existence of an all-comprehending Power,

and without this his philosophy would have appeared to himself

unmeaning and incomprehensible. Nor need we stop to examine that more

recent species of Idealism, as I hold it to be, which its illustrious

author, Mr. Herbert Spencer, has christened Transfigured Realism.

Whatever differences may exist between Spencer and Berkeley—and

I believe them to be more apparent than real—they are at one in

the cardinal doctrine that sensible phenomena are but the varied

manifestations of this ultimate Power. All such Idealism as this is

in harmony with religion. But there are two forms which seem to be at

variance with it, one of which I will term Moderate, and the other

Extreme Idealism.

Moderate Idealism agrees with Berkeley in dismissing to the limbo of

extinct metaphysical creatures the substance supposed to lurk beneath

the apparent qualities of bodies. It holds that there is no such

substance, and that these qualities, and therefore bodies themselves,

exist only in consciousness. But it differs from Berkeley in omitting

to provide any source whatever, external to ourselves, from which these

bodies can be derived. Not only are they in their phenomenal aspect

mere states of our own consciousness, but they have no other aspect

than the phenomenal one, and are in themselves nothing but phenomena.

Rather inconsistently, this school of Idealism does not push its

reasoning to its natural results, but concedes to other human beings

something more than a merely phenomenal existence. Nothing exists but

states of consciousness; but those peculiar states of my consciousness

which I term men and women may be shown, by careful reasoning, to

possess (in all probability) an existence of their own, even apart from

my seeing, hearing, or feeling them. The process by which we reach this

conclusion "is exactly parallel to that by which Newton proved that

the force which keeps the planets in their orbits is identical with

that by which an apple falls to the ground."[98]

Those peculiar modifications of color, and that special mode of

filling up empty space which I term "my friend," do indeed seem, if

we push matters to an extreme, to come into existence only when he

enters my room, and to cease to exist the moment he quits it. If he

has any further vitality, it is only in the shape of that state of

consciousness which is known as recollection. But Moderate Idealism

escapes from this consequence, on the ground that modifications of

body and outward actions, since they are connected with feelings in

ourselves, must be connected with feelings also in the case of those

other phenomena which we term human beings, and perhaps in the case of

those we term animals.[99] But if this be so, how did so extraordinary

a fact as that of consciousness arise? _Ex hypothesi_, there was

nothing before it. Did it then suddenly spring into being, full-grown

like Minerva, but, unlike Minerva, with no head of Jupiter to spring

from? Or was it a gradual growth, and if so, from what origin? Go back

as far as you will, you can find nothing but consciousness, and that

the consciousness of limited beings (either men or animals); and it

is no less difficult to conceive the beginning, from nothing at all,

of the least atom of conscious life, than to conceive that of the

profoundest philosopher. Observe, there is no world of any kind, and

in this no-world (the contradiction is unavoidable) there suddenly

arises, from no antecedent, a consciousness of external objects which

are no-objects. Geology upon this theory is a myth; so is that branch

of astronomy which treats of the formation of our planetary system

from nebular matter. Stars, suns, planets, and crust of the earth

only arose when they were perceived, and will cease to be when there

is no living creature to perceive them any longer. Since, however,

conclusions like these are in reality unthinkable, whatever efforts

metaphysicians may make to think them, Moderate Idealism must of

necessity complete its fabric by the admission of a Power from which

both consciousness and the objects of consciousness have taken their

rise. Should it persist in denying anything but a mental reality to

the objects of consciousness, it must still suppose an unknown source

from which consciousness itself has been derived; otherwise it will

entangle itself in two unthinkable propositions. First, that before

men (or animals) existed there was absolute nothingness, an idea which

we cannot frame; secondly, that where there was nothing at one moment

there was the next moment something, a process which we _cannot_

realize without supposing a time antecedent to that something, and

which we _may not_, without the contradiction of introducing time in

the midst of nothingness, realize by supposing a time antecedent to

that something.

It was no doubt the vague feeling of these perplexities that forced

John Stuart Mill, the most eminent defender of this school of thought,

to denominate matter a Permanent Possibility of Sensation. This

singular phrase well exemplifies the difficulties of his position.

For is matter an external substance, existing independently, or not?

If it is, then what becomes of the Berkeleyan doctrine? Mill and his

followers are simply metaphysical Realists. But if not, what becomes of

the permanence? It is not in us, for our sensations are not permanent;

it is not in the matter, for there is none. And what is there a

possibility of? Causing sensation, or having it? Not the former, for

there is nothing to cause it; not the latter, for the possibility of

our having sensations is a mere fact of our nature, and cannot serve

to define matter. And where is the sensation located? The phraseology

would seem to imply, that matter is in the permanent condition of

possible feeling; just as the nerve may be in the permanent condition

of possible excitation. But this would be placing sensation in the

wrong quarter. And if sensation be in us, we have not a permanent

possibility, but a permanent actuality of sensation. So that unless

the words be construed to mean that there is outside of us a permanent

something which excites sensation, of which the modes vary (for this is

the sense of possibility), they have no assignable meaning whatever.

Mill, in fact, had been compelled, without wishing it, to recognize an

ultimate power in nature; and his perception of this truth conflicted

strangely, in his candid mind, with his idealistic prepossessions.

A more consistent and rigorous form of Idealism is that which has been

referred to as the strict consequence of Moderate Idealism. This form,

which I will term Extreme Idealism, denies the existence of persons as

well as things. The Extreme Idealist believes himself to be the only

being in the universe. There is to him no period preceding his own

existence; none succeeding it. Past and future, except in his own life,

have no meaning for him. We cannot reason with him, for all we may say

is only a transient mode of his own sensations. Obviously, to such a

philosophy there is no reply but one: it is simply unthinkable. Were

any one seriously to defend it, the very seriousness of his defense

would prove that he did not believe it. For against what or whom would

he be contending? Against a phantom of his own mind. And the more pains

he took to prove to us that he believed us to have no existence but as

a part of himself, the less credit should we attach to his assertions.

Philosophy, therefore, is under a logical compulsion to make the same

fundamental assumption as Religion—that of an ultimate, unknown, and

all-pervading Power Origin, or Cause. Science, in a variety of ways,

does the same. It does so, first, in its belief of a past and a future

in the history of the solar system far transcending the past and

future of humanity, or indeed of any form of life whatever. Passing

at a glance over our brief abode on the face of the earth, Geology

pushes its researches back into a time preceding by innumerable ages

the existence of mankind, while her elder sister Astronomy carries her

vision to a still remoter age, when even the planet we now inhabit was

but a fragment in one indistinguishable mass. But it is not only these

two sciences that assume the continuance of nature quite independently

of our presence or absence; every other science does the like. The

botanist, the chemist, the physicist, all believe that the facts they

assert are facts in an external nature, the relations of which as now

discovered by their several sciences held good before man existed, and

will hold good after he has ceased to exist. But to say this, is to

say in effect that there is something more than the mere phenomena

disclosed by investigation; namely, an external reality persisting

through all time in which the varied series of phenomena take their

rise.

More clearly still does Science assert some such reality in its great

modern doctrine of the Persistence of Force. Not that this doctrine is

entirely new; for regarded in its metaphysical rather than its physical

aspect it is but an expression in the language of the day of a truth

which has long been realized as a necessity of thought. It is the

converse of the ancient axiom, "_Nihil ex nihilo fit_," for if nothing

can be made from nothing, neither can something pass into nothing. The

Persistence of Force is an expression of the fact that every cause

must have an adequate effect; that in nature nothing can be lost, no

particle of force pass into nonentity. Concentrated forces may be

dissipated, and dissipated forces may be concentrated; or one variety

of force may pass into another. But the ultimate fund of force remains

ever unchangeable; nothing is ever created, nothing destroyed.

Observe, then, that Science, however cautiously it may keep within

the range of the material world, however eagerly it may repudiate all

investigation of ultimate causes as fruitless and unprofitable, cannot

take one single step towards proving the propositions it advances

without tacitly laying down an ontological entity as the basis of

its demonstration. For to speak of its discoveries as laws of nature

is simply to predicate a constant, unvarying force, which under like

conditions always produces like results. And to declare the uniformity

of nature, is merely to say that the methods of that force do not

change—that it is the same now as it ever was, and will be the same

throughout the eternal ages.

"Thus," writes Mr. Herbert Spencer, "by the Persistence of Force,

we really mean the persistence of some Power which transcends our

knowledge and conception. The manifestations, as occurring in ourselves

or outside of us, do not persist; but that which persists is the

Unknown Cause of these manifestations. In other words, asserting the

Persistence of Force, is but another mode of asserting an Unconditional

Reality, without beginning or end" (Spencer's "First Principles," § 60,

p. 189).

Philosophy, or Reasoned Thought, and Science, or Reasoned Observation,

have both led us to admit, as a fundamental principle, the necessary

existence of an unknown, inconceivable, and omnipresent Power, whose

operations are ever in progress before our eyes, but whose nature is,

and can never cease to be, an impenetrable mystery. And this is the

cardinal truth of all religion. From all sides then, by every mode of

contemplation, we are forced upon the same irresistible conclusion. The

final question still remains, Is this ultimate element of all religion

"the correlative of any actual truth or not?"

But for the prevalence, in recent times, of a philosophy which denies

all connection between the necessity of a belief and its truth, I

should have regarded such a question as scarcely worth the answering.

To say that a belief is necessary and to say that it is true, would

appear to all, but adherents of the extreme experiential school, one

and the same thing. But in the present day this cannot be taken for

granted, and I should be the last to complain that even that which

seems most obvious should be tested by adverse criticism.

Ingenious, however, as their arguments are, philosophers of this

school, when driven to reason out their views, cut their own throats.

They commit a logical suicide. For what is the test of truth they

hold up to us in lieu of necessity? Experience. But what in the last

resort does our belief in experience rest upon? Simply upon a mental

necessity. Nobody can tell us _why_ he believes that the laws of nature

will hold good to-morrow as they do to-day. He can indeed tell us that

he has always found them constant before, and therefore expects them

to remain so. But this is merely to state the belief, not to justify

it. Experience itself cannot be appealed to, to support our confidence

in experience. True, we habitually say that we believe such and such

results will follow such and such antecedents _because_ we have always

found them follow before. But our past experience is not the whole of

the fact involved in the belief. It is our past experience, conjoined

with the mental necessity of thinking that the future will resemble the

past, that forms the convictions on which we act. Experience alone,

without that mental necessity, could teach us nothing. If therefore

our necessary beliefs need not be true, the belief in experience falls

to the ground along with the rest, and experience cannot be put in

place of necessity as a test of truth. In fact, every argument drawn

from the past fallibility of the test of necessity might be retorted

with tenfold force against the test of experience. Observation has

constantly misled mankind, and thousands of alleged facts, accepted

upon imagined experience, have been disproved by more accurate

examination. Observation and reasoning combined (as they often are) are

exposed to the double danger of false premises and false inferences

from true premises; while the addition of an element of testimony (a

circumstance common in scientific inquiries) exposes every conclusion

to a threefold possibility of error. Human beings are no more exempt

from the possibility of mistaken science than from that of hasty

metaphysics. But as, in matters of physical research, we do not

discredit the use of our eyes because their perceptions are sometimes

inaccurate, so in matters of metaphysical inquiry we need not discredit

the use of our minds because their apparent intuitions are now and then

fallacious. In the one case, as in the other, the proper course is not

to cast contempt upon the only instruments of discovery we have, but to

apply those instruments again and again, omitting no precaution that

may serve to correct an observation and to test an argument. But when

we have done our utmost to attain whatever certainty the nature of the

subject permits, we cannot reasonably turn round upon ourselves and

say: "True, my eyes assure me of this fact, but human eyes have erred

so often that I cannot accept their verdict;" or, "No doubt my mind

forces this conclusion upon me as a necessity of thought, but so many

assumed necessities have turned out not to be necessary at all that I

must refuse to listen to my mind:" for this is not really the caution

of science, but the rashness of philosophic theory. For we can have no

higher conviction than that arising in a necessity of thought. Nothing

can surpass the certainty of this. Grant that we may yet be wrong: we

can never know it, and we can have no reason to think it. To oppose to

a necessary belief such a train of reasoning as this:

Necessary beliefs (so-called) have often proved false:

This is a necessary belief (so-called):

Therefore it may prove false,

is in reality to seek to overthrow a strong conviction by a weak one;

an intuition by a syllogism; a proposition felt immediately to be true

by an inference open to discussion. Arguments like this resemble the

procedure of a man who should tell us, when we meet a friend, that

we cannot possibly be sure of his identity because on some previous

occasion in our lives we mistook Jones for Thompson.

Exaggerated as this doctrine of the experiential school is thus seen

to be, yet it has done good service by putting thinkers on their

guard, not to accept as necessary and ultimate some beliefs which are

only contingent and dissoluble. Two conditions must be fulfilled in

order to effect a presumption of necessity. The belief must always

arise under certain conditions; that is, it must be universal in the

only sense in which that term can fitly be applied. Having arisen, it

must be incapable of expulsion from the mind; its terms must adhere

together so firmly that they cannot be parted by adverse criticism,

either our own or that of others. Both these conditions are fulfilled

by the fundamental postulate of religion. Given the appropriate

conditions—human beings raised even a little above the lowest

savagery—and it at once takes possession of their minds. After this, it

persists in spite of every attempt to do without it, and the highest

philosophy is compelled to give it the place of honor in the forefront

of its teaching.

Observe now, that what this philosophy accepts and incorporates into

its system is religion and not theology. These two must be broadly

distinguished from one another. Religion might be described as the soul

of which theology is the body. Religion is an abstract, indefinable,

pervading sentiment; theology a concrete, well-defined, limited

creed. The one is emotional; the other intellectual. The one is a

constant element of our nature; the other fluctuates from generation

to generation, and varies from place to place. Theology seeks to

bind down religion with immovable forms. Against these forms there

is constantly arising both an intellectual and an emotional protest.

The intellect objects to them as untrue in the name of science (in

the largest sense); the emotions struggle against them as cramping

their freedom in the name of religion itself. Thus between the human

mind and dogma, between the religious sentiment and dogma, there is

going on a perpetual warfare. Religious sentiment is no sooner born

than the tendency to limit and to define makes itself felt. It is

confined within a set of dogmas, and forbidden under every species of

pains and penalties to pass over its allotted bounds. Sooner or later,

religious sentiment bursts through every restriction; seems for a

moment to breathe the invigorating air of freedom, but falls again into

the hands of new theologians, with another framework of dogmas; to be

again broken through in its turn when its fettering influence can be no

longer borne. In carrying on this continually renovated contest—which

is seen in its highest activity in great religious reformations—the

religious sentiment seeks the alliance of intellect, which latter

supplies it with deadly weapons drawn from the armories of science,

logic, and historical research. Thus the overthrow of theology is in

great part an intellectual work. But it must not be forgotten that

the very deepest hostility to theological systems is inspired by the

very emotion to which these systems seek to give a formal and definite

expression.

The historical progress of religion is thus in some degree a

counterpart of the progress described by Heine (in the lines heading

this Book) as that of his individual mind. First of all there arises

in the mind of man, so soon as he begins to speculate on the world in

which he lives, the idea of a Creator. He cannot conceive the existence

of the material objects with which he is familiar without conceiving

also some being more powerful than himself who has made them what they

are. His notions of creation may be, no doubt often are, extremely

limited. He may confine the operations of his God to that small portion

of the universe with which he is most familiar. But that the idea of

an invisible yet preëminent deity arises very early in the mental

development of the human race, and remains brooding dimly above the

popular idolatry, has been abundantly shown. This is the belief in God

the Father. The second stage, so closely interwoven with the first as

to be inseparable from it in actual history, is the incarnation of this

idea. The supreme Creator is too lofty, too abstract, too great, to

be held steadily before the mind and worshiped in his unclouded glory.

The children of Israel cannot bear the immediate presence of Jehovah,

nor can even Moses meet the brightness of his face. Hence the material

shapes in which the objects of adoration are embodied. When divine

attributes are given to idols; when a golden calf is taken instead of

the invisible God; when the Father is said to assume the form of a man

to live a human life, and die a human death, when apostles, saints, and

virgins are addressed in prayer or celebrated in praise, an incarnation

has occurred. In the language of the traditions we have quoted, the

supreme God has gone away and left the government of the world to his

inferiors. Practically, such incarnations belong to the earliest period

of religion, and no popular creed has ever been entirely without them.

No sooner is the religious idea conceived in the mind, than it begins

to be clothed in flesh and bones. But in the order of thought these two

stages are separable. For idols are not worshiped until the notion of

some power which is not human, of which the nature is not understood,

has arisen in the worshipers. Then a concrete expression is desired,

and we have in poetical language the belief in God the Son.

Last of all comes the belief—more properly an emotion than a belief—in

the Holy Spirit. With this step a far higher grade of religious

sentiment is reached. For God is now conceived, not only as creating

or as governing the world without, but as entering into the mind of

man to inspire his actions and influence his heart. A relation which

up to this point was merely external—like that of the Creator to the

created, or of superior to inferior—is rendered internal and intimate.

The Holy Spirit not only speaks _to_ our souls, but it speaks in them

and through them. We receive, not the arbitrary command of an almighty

potentate, but the inspiring force of a being who, while raising us

above ourselves, is still a part, the best part, of ourselves. This

indeed, in the deep imagination of the poet, makes all men noble.

Yet not in such a creed as this, sublime as it is in comparison

with those that have gone before it, is the final resting-place of

religious feeling. For every word or phrase in which we endeavor to

give form to that feeling tends to lower and to corrupt it by the

admixture of elements which are foreign to its genuine nature. To

clothe this sentiment in language is itself an incarnation. For whether

we speak of a Force, a Power, or a Spirit, of an ultimate Cause, or

an all-pervading Essence; of the Absolute, or of the Reality beyond

phenomena, these terms are but symbols of the Supreme, not the Supreme

itself.

"Name ist Schall und Rauch

Umnebelnd Himmelsgluth."

All that we can say is, that while we _know_ nothing but that which

either our senses perceive, or our minds understand, we _feel_ that

there is something more. Both the world without and the world within,

both that which is perceived and that which perceives, require an

origin beyond themselves. Both compel us to look, as their common

source, to a Being alike unknown and unknowable, whose nature is

shrouded in a mystery no eye can pierce, and no intellect can fathom.

This is the great truth which religion has presented to philosophy,

and which philosophy, if she be truly (as her name implies) the love

of wisdom, will not disdain to incorporate with the more recently

discovered treasures belonging to her peculiar sphere. For it is not

the part of wisdom to spurn as worthless even the childish lispings

prompted by the profound idea that has inspired the faith of men, from

that of the far past to that of the present hour, from that of the

rudest African to that of the most enlightened European. Rather is

it the part of wisdom to excavate that idea from amidst the strange

incrustations under which it is hidden, to understand its significance,

and to recognize its value. Thus may we assign to it a fitting place

within the limits of a system which does equal honor, and accords equal

rights, to the scientific faculty and to the emotional instinct.

CHAPTER IX.

THE SUBJECTIVE ELEMENT.

When speaking of the fundamental postulates involved in the religious

idea, we pointed out that, besides the unknown cause of physical

phenomena, "every religion assumes also that there is in human nature

something equally hyperphysical with the object which it worships,

whether we call this something soul, or mind, or spirit." Let us call

it soul. And first let us examine what it is that religion says of the

soul, after which we may be in a position to consider what degree of

truth, if any, is involved in its assertions.

Now the great fact which presents itself to our notice in this inquiry

is the broad line of demarcation which religion has everywhere drawn

between the mental and corporeal functions of man, or in other words,

between his soul and his body. Generally, it expresses this grand

distinction by the assertion that the soul continues to live after the

body is dissolved. This doctrine is very ancient and very wide-spread.

A few illustrations of its prevalence are all that can be given

here.[100]

The rude people of Kamtschatka, who had so little notion of a

providence, believed in a subterranean life after death. The soul they

thought was immortal, and the body would at some time rejoin it, when

the two would live on together, much as they do here but under happier

conditions. Their place of abode was to be under the earth, where there

was another earth resembling ours. Some of them objected to being

baptized, because they would then be compelled to meet their enemies

the Russians, instead of living among their own people under ground.

Animals too were all of them to live again (Kamtschatka, p. 269-273).

The Tartars, when visited by Carpin, had some notion that after death

they would enjoy another life where they would perform the same actions

as in this (Bergeron, vol. i. art. 3, p. 32). "The most intelligent

Greenlanders," writes a traveler among that people, "assert that the

soul is a spiritual being quite different from the body and from all

matter, that requires no material nourishment, and while the body is

decaying in the ground, lives after death and needs a nourishment that

is not corporeal, but which they do not know" (H. G., p. 242). The

American Indians firmly believed in the immortality of the soul. They

thought it would keep the same tendencies after death as the living man

had evinced; hence their custom—one that is widely spread—of burying

the property of the dead along with the body. The souls were obliged

after death to take a long journey, at the end of which they arrived

at their appropriate places of suffering and enjoyment. The Paradise

of virtuous Indians consisted in the very definite pleasures of good

hunting and fishing, eternal spring, abundance of everything with

no work, and all the satisfactions of the senses (N. F., tome 3, p.

351-353). The Kafirs, as we have already seen, worship their ancestors,

whose "Amadhlozi," or spirits, they believe to continue in existence

after death. What they mean by Amadhlozi they explain with tolerable

clearness by saying that they are identical with the shadow. These

spirits are the true objects of a Kafir's worship, being supposed to

possess great power over the affairs of their descendants and relatives

for weal or woe. They are believed to reappear in the form of a certain

species of harmless snakes, and should a man observe such a snake on

the grave of his deceased relation, he will say, "Oh, I have seen him

to-day basking on the top of the grave" (R. S. A., pt. 2, p. 142.—K.

N., pp. 161,162). Similar reverence for the dead is shown in other

parts of Africa. In his lecture on the Ashantees, Mr. Reade says that,

"on the death of a member of the household he is sometimes buried under

the floor of the hut, in the belief that his spirit may occasionally

join in the circle of the living. Food also is placed upon the grave,

for they think that as the body of man contains an indwelling spirit,

so there exists in the corruptible food an immaterial essence on which

the ghost of the departed will feed."

To come to races standing higher in the scale of civilization: the

Peruvians had definite notions of a future state, with an upper world

in which the good lived a quiet life, free from trouble, and a lower

world in which the bad were punished by suffering all the miseries

and troubles of this terrestrial condition without intermission (C.

R., b. 2, ch. vii). In China the utmost respect is paid to deceased

progenitors, who are the objects of a regular _cultus_. India has

had from early ages its highly-developed and subtle notions of the

distinction of spirit from body, and the former is held to prolong its

existence after its separation from the latter, both as disembodied in

heavens or hells, and embodied in animals or other men. Some schools

believed in the immortality of the soul; others asserted that its final

destination was extinction. Buddhism ranged itself with the latter

opinion, while still maintaining the doctrine of metempsychosis, and

of rewards and punishments both in this world and in numerous others

to which spirits went in the course of their wanderings. Parsee souls

hover about the grave a few days; then proceed upon a long journey. At

its conclusion they pass over a narrow bridge, which the good traverse

in safety to enter Paradise, while the bad fall over it and go into

hell. In the Mussulman faith there are likewise but two destinies open

to man—eternal happiness and eternal suffering. Among the Jews in the

time of Christ two doctrines prevailed. Their ancient religion, while

aware of the distinction between the spirit and the body, left the

continued life of the former an open question. Hence the Pharisees

asserted, while the Sadducees denied, a future state. Christ was in

this respect a Pharisee of the Pharisees. He, however, like Mahomet,

provided only two abodes for the souls of men; one in heaven with

his Father, the other in hell, where the fire was never quenched. It

was felt, however, by the general Christian world that this sharp

separation of all mankind into black and white, goats and sheep, was

quite untenable. Hence the Catholic institution of Purgatory, which,

whatever may be said against it, is a wise and liberal modification

of the harsh doctrine of Christ, affording a resource for the vast

intermediate mass who are neither wholly virtuous nor wholly wicked,

and providing an agreeable exercise for that natural piety which

prompts us to mingle the names of departed friends in our devotions,

whether (as in Africa) to pray to them, or (as in Europe) to pray for

them.

From this brief review of the opinions of various races, it will be

evident that some conception of a spirit in man as distinguished from

his body prevails and always has prevailed throughout the world. The

special characteristic of this spiritual essence has always been held

to be its immateriality. All religions conceive it as distinct from

the body, most of them evincing this view by treating it as capable of

independent existence. Many of them no doubt invest the spirit after

death with a material form, but this is the clothing of the idea, not

the idea itself. The form is received after the spirit has left its

terrestrial body, and does not originally belong to it; as in the case

of the serpents in South Africa, in which ancestral souls are thought

to dwell. This immaterial nature is clearly expressed—so far as such

an abstract idea can find clear expression from a rude people—by those

Kafirs who compare the soul to a shadow. Nothing in the external world

seems to have so purely subjective a character as shadows; things which

cannot be felt or handled, and which appear to have no independent

substance.

Immateriality then is universally asserted (or attempted to be

asserted) of the soul. This is of the very essence of the idea. No

race believes that any portion of the body, or the body as a whole,

is the same thing as mind or spirit. But immortality is not equally

involved in the idea or inseparable from it. Notably the Buddhistic

creed—held by a considerable fraction of mankind—teaches its votaries

to look forward to utter extinction as the _summum bonum_. True, the

masses of average believers may not dwell upon the hope of Nirvâna,

but upon that of heaven.[101] But the authorized dogma of the Church

is, that "not enjoyment and not sorrow is our destined end" or goal,

but the absolute rest, if so it may be called, of ceasing to exist.

And that this dogma was fervently accepted and thoroughly believed in

as a genuine "gospel," the early literature of Buddhism amply proves.

The Jews, a most religious people, had no settled hope of immortality

provided by their creed, though the account of the creation of Adam

shows how clearly they distinguished mind from matter. Warburton indeed

infers the authenticity of the Hebrew Revelation from the very fact of

the absence of the doctrine of immortality; for no author of a popular

religion, except God himself, could have afforded to dispense with so

important an article. The more defective Judaism was, the more clearly

it was divine. Nor were the classical nations of Greece and Rome at all

more certain. With them also opinions differed—some, like Plato and his

followers, asserting the immortality of the soul; others, like Epicurus

and his school, denying it. Cicero discusses it as an open question,

though himself holding to the belief in future existence. His two

possible alternatives are continued life in a condition of happiness,

or utter cessation of life; either of which he accepts with equal

calmness. The fear of hell did not torment him: "post mortem quidem

sensus aut optandus aut nullus est" (Cato Major, xx. 74). Even if we

are not to be immortal, as he hopes, nevertheless it is a happy thing

for man to be extinguished at the fitting season (Ibid., xxiii. 86).

Less philosophical people, however, were troubled, like Christians,

with the notion of a future world of punishment; and Lucretius

addresses himself with all the ardor of a man proclaiming a beneficent

gospel to the dissipation of this popular delusion:—

"Nil igitur mors est, ad nos neque pertinet hilum,

Quandoquidem natura animi mortalis habetur."[102]

Like other thinkers of his time, he distinguishes between the _animus_

and _anima_—spirit and soul, and this threefold division of the nature

of man subsisted for a time in the language and ideas of Christians.

But the essential point is that, whatever further subdivisions may have

been made, all schools, ancient and modern, pagan and Christian, agreed

in the fundamental distinction between the spiritual principle and the

material instruments; between mind and matter, or soul and body.

Such, then, is the universal voice of the religious instinct. Let us

test the truth of this second postulate as we did that of the first: by

endeavoring to do without it. Then we have matter and motion of matter;

and the problem is:—Given these elements to find the resultant, mind.

Motion is merely change of matter from place to place; therefore the

question is, whether in any kind of matter and any changes of matter

we can discover mind. Consider the material world statically. As known

to science (and we have no right to go beyond scientific observation

now), it contains certain properties perceptible to the senses, such

as color, sound, taste, and smell, roughness, smoothness, and other

tangible qualities, with extension and resistance, discoverable by

the muscular sense and touch combined. Any further properties which

a deeper analysis may disclose will still belong to the domain of

sensible perception, the senses being the instruments employed in their

discovery. In which of these statical conditions of matter can mind be

shown to be involved? Or what combination of statical conditions can

produce mind as a part of the compound? Plainly any attempt to discover

it in matter at rest would be an absurdity. Now consider the world

dynamically. Here we have matter in motion, matter as the recipient

and the transmitter of certain qualities of force. The mode of motion

may be either molar (that of masses through space), or molecular

(that of particles within a mass). In either case it is nothing but a

change of position relatively to other objects. Now, how can change of

position either be mind, or result in mind? Take the case of a planet

whirling through space. Does this molar motion, considered in any

conceivable light, bring us one step nearer to mental phenomena? But

all molar motion is of the same kind, and however completely analyzed,

can lead to nothing but matter changing its position in space. Is

molecular motion in better case? When light is transmitted to the

eye, the vibrations of the atmosphere, which form the objective side

of this phenomenon, arriving at the optic nerve, cause corresponding

vibrations in it, and these transmitted to the brain result in certain

movements in its component particles. Which of all these vibrations and

movements is sensation? At what point does the physical fact of changes

in molecules of matter pass into the mental fact of changes in the

quantity or quality of the light perceived? Evidently no such point

of transition can be found. And not only can it not be found, but the

bare hypothesis of its existence is negatived by the fact that every

physical movement produces an exactly equivalent amount of physical

movement; so that there is nothing whatever in the resultant which is

not accounted for in the antecedents, and nothing in the antecedents

which has not its full effect in the resultant. There is thus no room

left for the passage of the objective fact of molecular motion into the

subjective fact of feeling.

Although these considerations practically exhaust the question, yet

another aspect of it may, for the sake of greater clearness, be briefly

touched upon. If the doctrine of abiogenesis be accepted, it may be

thought to afford some confirmation to the materialistic hypothesis

that mind is but a function or property of matter. Do we not here

see (it may be asked) life and sensation arising out of non-sentient

materials? And if a single living creature can thus arise, then, by

the doctrine of evolution, all mind whatever is affiliated on matter.

Such a conclusion, however, would be quite unwarranted by the facts

observed. In abiogenesis unorganic matter is seen to pass into organic

matter, and this is the whole of the process known to science. To

assume that at some period in this process the material constituents

of the newly-formed creature acquire the property of sensation is, to

say the least, a very unscientific proceeding. For, throughout all

their permutations, the component elements can (or could with improved

instruments) be exactly observed, measured, and weighed; enabling us to

say that so and so much, such and such of the inorganic elements has

become so and so much, such and such of the organic compound. Now the

factors of this compound do not (_ex hypothesi_) contain sensation.

How, then, did the compound acquire it? Where is your warrant for

suddenly introducing a consequent sensation—for which you have no

assignable antecedent?

Thus it is evident that between mind and matter, between spirit and

body, between internal and external phenomena, there is a great gulf

fixed, which no scientific or metaphysical cunning can succeed in

bridging over. Matter is never sensation, and cannot be conceived as

ever becoming sensation. The chain of material phenomena, with its

several series of causes and effects, is never broken; no physical

cause is without its adequate physical effect, nor is any physical

effect without a physical cause sufficient to produce it. The body is

to the mind an external, material phenomena; closely connected indeed

with mental states, and always more or less present to consciousness,

but no part of our true selves, no necessary element in our conception

of what we actually are. Every portion of the bodily frame can be

regarded by us as an outward object, wholly independent of ourselves,

and logically, if not practically, separable from ourselves. Many

portions, such as the limbs, are actually so separable; and all of them

are separable in thought.

Still more impassable is this chasm in nature seen to be when we

remark, that there are two all-pervading elements in which mind and

matter have their being, and that the phenomena within each element

have definite relations to other phenomena within the same element,

but are incapable of being brought into a like relation with those of

the other element. These two elements are Space and Time. Material

particles are related to one another in space, and in space alone. They

are nearer to, or more distant from, above or below, to the north,

south, east, or west of, the other material particles with which we

compare them. But they are not earlier or later than other particles.

The existence of concrete objects may be earlier or later than that of

other concrete objects; but when we talk of their existence as earlier

or later, we are talking of their relation to consciousness, not of

their relation to one another. It is the total framed and classified

by the mind that has a relation in time to some other similar total;

each total, analyzed into its ultimate atoms, has only relations in

space to the other total, likewise analyzed into its ultimate atoms.

Contrariwise, mental objects, or states of consciousness, are related

to one another in time, and in time alone. States of consciousness can

be compared as earlier or later, simultaneous or successive. They have

no space-relations either to one another or to the material world. It

is common indeed to consider the mind as located in the body, but this

is incorrect. For absolutely nothing is meant by saying that anything

is in a given place except that it stands in given space-relations to

surrounding objects. My body is in a place because it is _upon_ the

ground, _in_ the air, _below_ the clouds, _amid_ a certain environment

which constitutes the country and locality of that country which it is

in. But my mind has no surrounding objects of this nature at all. The

thought, say, of a distant friend can by no possibility be imagined

as enclosed within the grey matter of the brain, just to the right

of a nerve A, and in contact with a ganglion B. This thought, and

its accompanying emotion, could not be found by any vivisection (if

such were possible), though its correlative physical condition might.

Hence the mind is not in the body, but is an independent entity whose

phenomena, successive in time, run parallel to but never intermingle

with the phenomena of body, extended in space.

From the view here stated of the irremoveable distinction between

mind and matter an important corollary will be seen to follow.[103]

No physical movement (it has been shown) can be conceived as passing

into a state of consciousness, for each physical movement begets

further physical movement, and while it is fully spent in its physical

consequent is itself fully accounted for by its physical antecedent.

The converse of this doctrine must therefore be equally true. That is

to say, no state of consciousness can pass into a physical movement,

for, if it could, this movement would have another than a physical

antecedent. In other words, the mind can in no way influence the

actions of the body. It cannot stand in a casual relation to any

physical fact whatever. Hence the doctrine of the will (not only

of free will but of any will) falls to the ground. For the current

conception of a will supposes that a chain of material events passes at

some point in its course into a state of consciousness, and that this

state of consciousness again originates a chain of material events. Say

that I hear some one call my name, and go to the window to ascertain

who it is. Then the common explanation would be, not only that the

atmospheric undulations, which are the material correlative of sound

passing into the brain by the auditory nerves, produced the sensation

of hearing, which is true, but that this sensation in its turn produced

those exertions of the limbs which result in my arrival at the window,

which is erroneous. According to the view here adopted, the atmospheric

undulations stand in a direct relation of causation to the affection

of the auditory nerve, and this affection, in a direct relation of

causation, to the resulting movements. The states of consciousness

in like manner stand in a direct relation of simple sequence to each

other; the sensation of sitting in a room being followed by that of

hearing my name, this by the thought that there is some one outside

calling me, this by the sensation of motion through space, and this

last by that of seeing the person from whom the call emanated standing

in the expected place. But at no point can the one train of events be

converted into the other. And while the train of external sequences

does influence the train of internal sequences, this latter has no

corresponding influence upon the former. For this would imply that at

some period in the succession physical movements lost themselves in

consciousness; ceased to _be_ physical movements, and became something

of an alien nature. It would imply further that such movements

originated _de novo_ from something of an alien nature having no

calculable or measurable relation to them. Either of which implications

would constitute an exception to the Persistence of Force.

Man is, in short, as the adherents of this opinion have called him,

a "conscious automaton." He does not will his own actions, nor do

external manifestations, whether those of the unconscious or the

conscious orders of existence, influence his will. But along with

the set of objective facts there is always present a parallel set of

subjective facts, and the subjective facts stand in an invariable

relation to the objective facts. So that where the material

circumstances, both those of the surrounding world and those of the

body, are of a given character, the non-material circumstances,

the state of mind, is also of a given and precisely corresponding

character. Variations in the one imply variations in the other;

feelings in the one change or remain fixed with changes or fixity in

the other.

Could the friends of dogmatic religion know the things belonging

to their peace, they would bestow upon this doctrine their most

earnest support; for it deals the death-blow to that semi-scientific

materialism which derives a certain countenance from the discoveries

of the day, and which is—second to religious dogmas themselves—the

most dangerous enemy of the spiritual conception of the universe and

of mankind. Not that in lifting a voice against materialistic views, I

mean for a moment to lend a helping hand to the vulgar and irreverent

outcry which is so often raised against matter itself as something

gross and degraded, and deserving only of a contemptuous tolerance

at our hands. I should have thought that the endless beauty of the

material universe, and the varied enjoyments to be derived from its

contemplation, as also the profound instruction to be obtained by its

study, would have sufficed to give it a higher place in the estimation

of religious minds. With such opposition to materialism as this I can

have no vestige of sympathy. The form of materialism which I contend

against, not as irreligious but as unphilosophic, is that which

confounds the two orders of phenomena—physical and mental—under one

idea, that of matter. Matter is supposed in this philosophy to be the

parent of mind. A bridge is sought to be thrown across the great gulf

which is fixed between us and the world without. But the moment we seek

to walk over this imaginary bridge it crashes beneath our feet, and we

are hurled into the abyss below.

Between that which feels, thinks, perceives, and reasons on the one

hand, and that which is felt, thought about, perceived, and reasoned

on, there is no community of nature. The distinction between these two,

though it need not be ultimate in the order of things, is absolutely

ultimate in the order of thought. In their own undiscoverable nature

these two manifestations may be one; in their relation to us they are

for ever two.

CHAPTER X.

THE RELATION OF THE OBJECTIVE TO THE SUBJECTIVE ELEMENT.

One final postulate has been found to be involved in all religion,

namely, that between the human essence spoken of as the subjective

element, and the power spoken of as the objective element, "there

is held to be a singular correspondence, their relationship finding

its concrete expression in religious worship on the one side and

theological dogma on the other." Ritual, consecration of things and

places, ordination of priests, omens, inspiration of prophets and of

books, all of them imply the supposed possibility of such a relation.

All of them, however, from their contradictory and variable character,

prove that they are but imperfect efforts to find utterance for the

emotion which underlies them all. But that this emotion is incapable of

an explanation consistent with rational belief is not therefore to be

taken for granted.

Consider, first, that in order to be aware of the existence of the

ultimate and unknown power, we must possess some faculty in our

constitution by which that power is felt. It must, so to speak, come in

contact with us at some point in our nature.

Now, no sensible perception can lead us to this conception as a

generalization. The whole universe, regarded merely as a series of

presentations to the senses, contains not a single object which can

possibly suggest it. Nor can any combination of such presentations be

shown to include within them any such idea. Neither can the existence

of such a power be inferred by the exercise of the reasoning faculty.

There is no analogical case from which the inference can be drawn. When

we reason we proceed from something known to something unknown, and

conclude that the latter, resembling the former in one or more of its

qualities, will resemble it also in the quality yet to be established.

In exploring, for instance, some deserted spot, we find traces of a

building. Now, previous experience has taught us that such buildings

are only found where human builders have made them. We conclude,

therefore, that we have stumbled upon a work of human hands. Suppose we

explore further and find the remains of the building very extensive.

We now draw the further inference that it was inhabited by a wealthy

man, because we know that only the wealthy can afford to live in

magnificent houses. But if prolonged excavation lead to the discovery

of long rows of buildings, of various sizes and having streets between

them, we confidently assert that we have unearthed a ruined city; for

we are aware that no single man, however rich or powerful, is likely

to have built so much. Of these three inferences, the first only is,

strictly speaking, infallibly true. But the others are rendered by

familiar analogies so highly probable as to be practically certain. Now

let the thing sought be, not some single cause of a single phenomenon,

or the various causes of various phenomena, but the ultimate cause

of all phenomena whatever,—where is the corresponding case on which

we can proceed to argue? Plainly there is none. There is no _other_

world or system to which we can appeal and say, "Those stars and those

planets were made by a God, therefore our own sun and its planets must

have been made by a God also." Every single argument we can frame to

establish the existence of deity assumes in its major premiss the

very thing to be proved. It takes for granted that phenomenal objects

require a cause, and were not the idea of this necessity already in the

mind it could not take one single step. For if it be contended, say,

that the world could not exist without a Creator, we have but to ask,

"Why not?" and our adversary can proceed no further with his argument.

All he can ever do is to appeal to a sentiment in us corresponding to

the sentiment of which he himself is conscious.

Thus it appears that neither direct observation, nor reasoning, which

is generalized observation, supplies the material for an induction as

to the existence of an Unknowable Cause. Yet this idea is so persistent

in the human race as to resist every effort to do without it. In one

form or another it invariably creeps in. There is but one possible

explanation of such a fact: namely, that it is one of those primary

constituents of our nature which are incapable of proof because they

are themselves the foundations on which proof must be erected. We

cannot demonstrate a single law of nature without supposing a world

external to ourselves. And we cannot suppose a world external to

ourselves without referring explicitly or implicitly to an unknown

entity manifested in that world. The faculty by which this truth is

known must be considered as a kind of internal sense. It is a direct

perception. And precisely as objects of direct perception by the

senses appear widely dissimilar at different distances, to different

men, and to the same man at different times, so the object of the

religious emotion is variously conceived in different places and ages,

by different men, and by the same man at different times. Moreover, as

the religious sentiment in the mind of man perceives its object, the

Ultimate Being, so that Being is conceived as making itself known to

the mind of man through the religious sentiment. A reciprocal relation

is thus established; the Unknowable causing a peculiar intuition,

the mind of man receiving it. And this is the grain of fact at the

foundation of the numerous statements of religious men, that they have

felt themselves inspired by God, that he speaks to them and speaks

through them, that they enter into communion with him in prayer,

and obey his influence during their lives. We need not discard such

feelings as idle delusions. In form they are fanciful and erroneous; in

substance they are genuine and true. And in a higher sense the adherent

of the universal religion may himself admit their title to a place in

his nature. To use the words of a great philosopher, "he, like every

other man, may consider himself as one of the myriad agencies through

whom works the Unknown Cause;" "he too may feel that when the Unknown

Cause produces in him a certain belief, he is thereby authorized to

profess and act out that belief" (Spencer's "First Principles," 2d ed.,

§ 34, p. 123).

But we may go still deeper in our examination of the nature of the

relation between the Ultimate Being and the mind of man. To do so we

must briefly recur to the philosophical questions touched upon in the

eighth chapter of this Book. We there discussed four possible modes

of viewing the great problem presented by the existence of sensible

objects: Common and Metaphysical Realism, Moderate and Complete

Idealism. Let us briefly reconsider these several systems to discover

whether any of them affords a satisfactory solution.

Common Realism is excluded by the consideration that it treats the

qualities of external objects as existing in those objects and not in

the percipient subject. It requires but little reflection to prove

that such qualities are modes of consciousness, not modes of absolute

being. This defect is surmounted in Metaphysical Realism, which,

however, is liable to the fatal objection, that it takes for granted

an abstract substance in material things, which substance is like the

Unknowable, utterly inconceivable, yet is not the Unknowable, and is

incapable of accounting for any of the manifestations belonging to the

mental order. So that we should have a superfluous entity brought in

to form the substance of matter, of which entity neither our senses,

nor our reason, nor our emotions, give us any information. For matter,

in the abstract, is not the matter perceived by the senses; nor is it

the object of the religious sentiment; nor is its existence capable

of any kind of proof save that which consists in establishing the

necessity of some kind of Permanent Reality below phenomena. And this

Reality is not only the substratum of material, but of all phenomena

whatsoever. Moderate Idealism is in no better case. For in denying all

true existence except to living creatures it fails utterly to give

any rational account of that order of events which is universally and

instinctively referred to external causes, nor can it find any possible

origin for the living creatures in whose reality it believes. Extreme

Idealism recognizes no problem to be dealt with, and can therefore

offer no solution.

Each of these systems, however, while false as a whole, contains

a partial truth. Extreme Idealism is the outcome of the ordinary,

unreflecting Realism; for if the Common Realist be convinced that

appearances do not imply existence, and if he believe in no existence

but appearances, the ground is cut from under his feet, and he remains

standing upon nothing. He knows only phenomena, and the phenomena are

mere ideas of his own mind. The truth common to these two extremes is

that so emphatically asserted by Berkeley, that the _esse_ of material

objects is _percipi_; that we exhaust the physical phenomenon when

we describe its apparent qualities, and need not introduce besides

these a material substance to which those qualities are related as its

accidents. They are not the accidents, but the actual thing, in so

far as it is material. Metaphysical Realism and moderate Idealism are

united in the recognition of the truth that the phenomena are not the

ultimate realities, and that the qualities of bodies, when analyzed,

are subjective, not objective; forms of the human mind, and not

independent, external existences.

Hence these various philosophies, like the various religions of which

they are in some sort metaphysical parallels, must be considered as

preparing the way for the admission of that all-embracing truth which

is the common ground of metaphysics and religion.

Examine a simple objective phenomenon. Then you find that you can

separate it into all its component qualities: its color, taste, smell,

extension, and so forth; and that after all these qualities have

been taken into account nothing of the object remains save the vague

feeling of an unknown cause by which the whole phenomenon is produced.

All the apparent qualities, without exception, are resolvable into

modes of consciousness, but the whole object is not so resolvable.

For the question still remains, How did we come to have those modes

of consciousness? Thus the analysis of the commonest material object

leads us straight to an unknowable origin of known manifestations.

And each particular phenomenon brings us to the same result. But are

we to assume a special Unknowable for each special object? A little

consideration will show that the division and subdivision we make of

the objects of sensible perception resembles their apparent qualities

in being purely subjective, and indeed more than subjective, arbitrary.

For I consider an object as one or many, according to the point of view

from which I regard it. The glass which I hold in my hand is at this

moment one; but the next moment it is shivered into a thousand atoms,

and each of these atoms is of complex character, and resolvable into

still simpler parts. The planet we inhabit is, for the astronomer, one

object; for the geologist a number of distinct rocks; for the botanist

it is composed of mineral and vegetable constituents, and of these, the

latter, which alone engage his attention, are numerous and various;

for the chemist it consists of an infinite multitude of elementary

atoms variously combined. Hence unity and multiplicity are mere modes

of subjective reflection; not ultimate modes of objective being. And

the Unknowable cannot, strictly speaking, be regarded as either one or

many, since each alike implies limitation and separation from something

else. Rather is it all-comprehending; the Universal Foundation upon

which unity and multiplicity alike are built.

Material things, then, are analyzable into modes of consciousness

with an unknown cause to which these modes are due. But what is

consciousness itself? Like matter, it has its subjective and its

objective aspect. The subjective aspect consists of its various

phenomenal conditions; the sensations which we ascribe to outward

objects as their producing causes, and the emotions, passions,

thoughts, and feelings which we conceive as of internal origin.

The objective aspect consists of the unknown essence itself which

experiences these various states; of the very self which is supposed

to persist through all its changes of form; of the actual being which

is the ultimate Reality of our mental lives. The existence of this

ultimate Ego is known as an immediate fact of consciousness, and cannot

be called in question without impugning the direct assurance which

every one feels of his own being as apart from his particular and

transient feelings. Nobody believes that he is the several sensations

and emotions which he experiences in life; he believes that he _has_

them. And if the existence of the Unknowable underlying material

manifestations is perceived by a direct, indubitable inference, the

existence of the Unknowable underlying mental manifestations is

perceived without an inference at all by an intuition from which there

is no appeal. For no one can even attempt to reason with me about this

conviction without resting his argument upon facts, and inferences from

facts, which are in themselves less certain than this primary certainty

which he is seeking to overthrow.

Existence, then, is known to us immediately in our own case; mediately

in every other—consequently, the only conception we can frame of

existence is derived from ourselves. Hence when we say that anything

exists, we can only mean one of two things: either that it exists as a

mode of human consciousness, as in the case of material things; or that

it exists _per se_, and is the very substance of consciousness itself.

And the former of these modes of existence is altogether dependent

upon a conscious subject. A material object is a congeries of material

qualities, none of which can be conceived at all except in relation to

some percipient subject. Take away the subject, and color, extension,

solidity, sound, smell, and every other quality, vanish into nothing.

The existence of these qualities, and hence the existence of matter

itself in its phenomenal character, is relative and secondary. There

remains therefore only the second of these two modes of existence as

absolute and primary. The substance of consciousness, then, is the one

reality which is known to exist; and in no other form is existence in

its purity conceivable by us. For if we attempt to conceive a something

as existent which is neither object nor subject, neither that which

is felt nor that which feels, neither that which is thought nor that

which thinks, we must inevitably fail. There is no _tertium quid_

which is neither mind nor matter of which we can frame the most remote

conception. We may, if we please, imagine the existence of such a

_tertium quid_, but the hypothesis is altogether fanciful, and would

have nothing in science, nothing in the construction of the human mind,

to render it even plausible. Indeed, it would be making an illegitimate

use of the word "existence" to apply it in such a sense. Existence to

us _means_ consciousness, and never can mean anything else. We cannot

by any effort conceive a universe previous to the origin of life in

which there was no consciousness; for the moment we attempt to conceive

it, we import our own consciousness into it. We think of ourselves

as seeing or feeling it. The effort, therefore, to frame an idea of

any existing thing without including consciousness in the idea is

self-defeating, and when we predicate Existence of the Unknown Cause,

we predicate its kinship to that ultimate substance of the mind from

which alone our conception of absolute existence is derived.

Here, then, we have a second and more intimate relationship between

the objective and the subjective elements in the religious emotion.

They are found to be of kindred nature; or, to speak with stricter

caution, it is found that we cannot think of them but as thus akin to

one another. We must ever bear in mind, however, that our thoughts

upon such a subject as this can be no more than partial approximations

to the truth; tentative explorations in a dark region of the mind

rather than accurate measurements of the ground. Thus, in the present

instance, we have spoken of the Unknowable as more or less akin to

the mind of man; yet we cannot think of the Unknowable as resembling

the fleeting states which are all that we know by direct observation

of the constitution of the mind. It is not the passing and variable

modes, but the fixed and unchangeable substratum on which these modes

are conceived to be impressed, which the Unknowable must be held to

resemble. And this substratum itself is an absolute mystery. We can in

no way picture it to ourselves without its modes, which nevertheless

we cannot regard as appertaining to its ultimate being. One further

consideration will establish a yet closer relationship than that of

likeness. The Unknown Reality, which is the source of all phenomena

whatsoever, mental and physical, must of necessity _include_ within

itself that mode of existence which is manifested in consciousness;

for otherwise, we must imagine yet another power as the originator of

conscious life, and we should then have two unknown entities, still

requiring a higher entity behind them both, to effect that entire

harmony which actually subsists between them. The Unknowable is,

therefore, the hidden source from which both the great streams of

being, internal and external, take their rise. Since, then, our minds

themselves originate in that Universal Source, since it comprehends

every form of existence within itself, we stand to it in the relation

of parts to a whole, in which and by which those parts subsist. There

is thus not only likeness but identity of nature between ourselves and

our unknown Origin. And it is literally true that in it "we live, and

move, and have our being."

* * * * *

From the summit to which we have at length attained, we may survey

the ground we have already traversed, and comprehend, now that they

lie below us, a few of the intricacies which we met with on our way.

The apparent puzzle of automatism, for example, may be resolved

into a more comprehensive law. It was shown, at the conclusion of

the preceding chapter, that a train of physical events could in no

way impinge upon, or pass over into, a train of mental events, nor a

state of consciousness be converted into physical movements. But it

was hinted that, while the distinction between the two great series

of manifestations, those of mind and those of matter, was ultimate in

the order of thought, it need not be ultimate in the order of things.

Of this suggested possibility we have now found the confirmation;

for we have seen that material phenomena, analyzed to their lowest

terms, resolve themselves into forms of consciousness, and forms of

consciousness, analyzed in their turn, prove to be the varied modes

of an unknown subject; and this unknown subject has its roots in the

ultimate Being in which both these great divisions of the phenomenal

universe find their foundation and their origin. The distinction,

therefore, between the mental and the material train belongs to these

trains in their character of phenomena alone. They are distinguished

in the human mind, not in the order of nature. Thus, if we recur to

the illustration used in explaining automatism, we pointed out that in

the circumstance of hearing a call and going to the window, two series

might be thus distinguished: 1. The material series, consisting of

atmospheric undulations, affections of the nerves and matter of the

brain, movements of the body; 2. The mental series, consisting of the

sensations of sitting still, and hearing of the thought of a person, of

the sensations of motion, and seeing the person. Now, if we take the

trouble to observe the terms of which the first series is composed, we

shall see that they also express states of consciousness, though states

of a different kind from those contained in the terms of the second

series. Undulations, nervous affections, movements, and so forth, are

only intelligible by us as modifications of our consciousness. To

conceive in any degree the atmospheric perturbations which are the

physical correlatives of sound, we must imagine them as somehow felt

or perceived—for instance, as a faint breeze. To conceive the cerebral

changes implied in hearing, we must imagine ourselves as dissecting

and examining the interior of the brain. In other words, the external

train of events to which consciousness runs over parallel can only be

represented in thought by translating it into terms of consciousness;

and the absolute harmony of both these trains, the fact that while

states of consciousness do not originate the movements of our bodies,

they yet bear so unvarying a relation to them as to be mistaken for

their causes, finds its solution in the reflection that, when we look

below the appearances to the reality pervading both, it is the same

Universal Being which is manifested in each alike.

Hence, too, the sense of independent power to produce physical effects

in accordance with mental conceptions, which forms the great obstacle

to the general admission of the doctrine of human automatism. Reason as

we may, we still feel that we are reservoirs of force which we give out

in the shape of material movement whenever we please and as we please.

And if the doctrine of the Persistence of Force appears, by showing

that every physical consequent has a purely physical antecedent, to

contradict this feeling, we naturally give the preference to the

feeling over the doctrine. But since the Persistence of Force is itself

no less firmly seated in consciousness than the sense of independent

power—since all nature would be a chaos without the Persistence of

Force—it is the part of true philosophy to give its due to each. And

this may be done by admitting the particle of truth contained in the

belief that the human will influences the external world. We are

indeed reservoirs of force. But it is not our own peculiar force that

is exerted through us; it is the Universal Force, which is evinced no

less in the actions of men than in the movements of inanimate nature.

And since those actions are in constant unison with their wishes,

there is not, and cannot be, the sense of constraint which is usually

opposed to voluntary performance. Thus, to take a simple illustration,

the necessities of our physical constitution absolutely compel us to

support ourselves by food; yet no man feels that in eating his meals he

is acting under external compulsion.

It would be a strange except ion indeed to the universal prevalence

of unvarying law, if human beings were permitted to exert independent

influence upon the order of events. Not in so slovenly a manner has

the work of nature been performed. We are no more free to disturb the

harmony and beauty of the universe than are the stars in their courses

or the planets in their orbits. Our courses and orbits are no less

fixed than theirs, and it is but the imperfection of our knowledge, if

they have not been, and cannot yet be discovered. But it would be a

lamentable blot upon a universe, where all things are fixed by a Power

"in whom there is no variableness nor shadow of turning," were there

permitted to exist a race of creatures who were a law unto themselves.

Again, the relation now established between the human mind and the

ultimate Source both of mind and matter, serves to throw light

upon that dark spot in the hypothesis of evolution—the origin of

consciousness. For while in this hypothesis there is a continual

progression, of which each step is the natural consequence of another,

from the gaseous to the solid condition of our system, from inorganic

to organic substances, from the humblest organization to the most

complex, there is absolutely no traceable gradation from the absence

to the presence of conscious life. No cunning contrivance of science

can derive sensation from non-sentient materials, for the difference

between the two is not a difference in degree of development, but

in kind. There is a radical unlikeness between the two, and it is

unphilosophic, as well as unscientific, to disguise the fact that a

mere process of material evolution can never lead from the one to the

other. "The moment of arising of consciousness," says Mr. Shadworth

Hodgson, "is the most important break in the world of phenomena or

nature taken as a whole; the phenomena above and the phenomena below

it can never be reduced completely into each other; there is a certain

heterogeneity between them. But this is not the only instance of such

a heterogeneity" (Hodgson's "Theory of Practice," vol. i. p. 340).

I venture to say that it is the only instance, and that there is

nothing else in nature which can properly be compared with it. The

instances of similar heterogeneity which Mr. Hodgson gives appear to

me less carefully considered than might have been expected from so

careful a writer. That between Time and Space, which is his first

case, is involved in that between mind and matter, and is only another

expression of it (see _supra_, p. 447); while "curves and straight

lines," and "physical and vital forces," are not truly heterogeneous

at all, unless under "vital forces" we include mental effort, and

so again illustrate the primary unlikeness by a case included under

it. But the last example is remarkable. "Until Mr. Darwin propounded

his law of natural selection, it was supposed also [that there was

heterogeneity] between species of living organisms in physiology."

Now it is the great triumph of the evolutional system to have rid us

of this unintelligible break, and to have shown that the whole of

the material universe, inorganic and organic, is the result of the

unchangeable operation of laws which are no less active now than they

have ever been. In other words, evolution dispenses with the necessity

of supposing the existence, at some point in the history of the planet,

of a special law for the production of species brought into operation

_ad hoc_.

But the general principles which apply to the origin of organic

products must apply also to the origin of conscious life. This also

must be figured as an evolution. This also must take place without

the aid of a special law brought into operation _ad hoc_. Like the

evolution of material products, it can only be conceived as taking

place from a preëxisting fund, containing potentially the whole of the

effects which are afterwards found in actual existence.

Let us test this by trying to conceive the process in other ways.

Consciousness might be supposed to arise in two ways: by special

creation, and by uncaused origin, from nothing. Both possibilities are

in absolute contradiction to the fundamental principles of evolution.

Creation by a superior power is a hypothesis standing on a level with

that of the creation of man out of the dust of the earth. To realize

it in thought at all we must suppose the very thing intended to be

denied, namely, the material of mind already existing in the universe,

as that of body existed—in the earth. Otherwise, we should be obliged

to admit the unthinkable hypothesis of the origin of something from

nothing. This latter difficulty presses with its full force upon the

second supposition. Mind would thereby be represented as suddenly

springing into being without any imaginable antecedent. For no material

antecedent can produce it without an exception to the Persistence of

Force, which requires a material consequent. And it cannot arise

without any antecedent but by a similar exception.

Neither creation nor destruction can in fact be represented as

occurring in nature. We cannot conceive a new being arising out of

nothing, or passing into nothing. As the development of the physical

universe takes place by the change, composition, decomposition, and

re-composition of preëxisting constituents, so it must be with the

development of mind. We cannot suppose the origin of sensation, its

advance to more varied and complex kinds, through emotions, passions,

and reasonings to the most subtle feelings and the profoundest

thoughts, without believing that all of these have their source in the

Ultimate Reality of nature, which comprehends not these only, but every

further perfection of which we may yet be capable in ages to come.

Here, then, is the solution of the difficulty which was shown (p. 690)

to beset the theory of abiogenesis; a theory which, if ultimately

accepted by science, as I believe it will be, will for the first

time bring perfect unity into our conceptions of the development

of the world we live in. While science will thus show that there

is no impassable break between inorganic and organic forms of

matter, philosophy will confirm it by showing, that there is no real

distinction between the universal life which is manifested in the

(so-called) inanimate forces and constituents of our system and the

fragmentary life which comes to light in animated creatures. There is

heterogeneity nowhere. There are no breaks in nature. There are no

unimaginable leaps in her unbroken course.

From the point of view now reached we can understand also—so far as

understanding is possible in such a case—the apparent riddle of our

knowledge of the existence of the Unknowable. We can explain the

universal sentiment of religious minds that there is some direct

relation between them and the object of their worship. The sense of

an intuitional perception of that object, the sense of undefinable

similarity thereto, the sense of inspiration and of guidance thereby,

are included under and rendered intelligible by the actual identity

in their ultimate natures of the subject and the object of religious

feeling. And the incomprehensibility of the latter is shown to have an

obvious reason. For the part cannot comprehend the whole of which it

is a part. It can but feel that there is a whole, in some mysterious

way related to itself. But what that whole is, the conditions of its

existence render it impossible that it should even guess.

Imagine the whole of the atmosphere divided into two great currents:

a hot current continually ascending, and a cold current continually

descending. And let the hot current represent the stream of conscious

life, the cold current the stream of material things. To complete

the simile, conceive that there is a sharp boundary between the two

currents, so that atoms of air can never cross to and fro; while yet

the conscious atoms in the hot current are aware of the existence of

the unconscious atoms in the cold one. Now if the atoms or particles

in the conscious current should be gifted with senses in proportion to

their size, they will see and feel an infinitely minute portion both

of the ascending current in which they they themselves are placed, and

of the descending current they are passing by. But of the whole of

the atmosphere of which they are themselves fragmentary portions they

will be able to form no conception whatever. Its existence they will

be aware of, for it will be needed to explain their own. But of its

nature they will have no idea, except that in some undefinable way it

is like themselves. Nor will they be able to form any picture of the

cause which is continually carrying them upwards, and forcing their

homologues in the opposite current downwards. While, if we suppose

these opposite movements to represent the elements of Time and Space,

they will be conscious of themselves only in terms of movement upwards,

and of the unconscious particles in terms of movement downwards. They

will suppose these two movements to be of the very essence of hot and

cold particles, and will be able to conceive them only under these

terms. Suppose, lastly, that at a certain point in their progress the

hot particles become cold and pass into the opposing current, losing

their individual, particular life, then their fellow-particles in the

hot current will lose sight of them at that point, and they will be

merged in the general stream of being to emerge again in their turn

into the stream of conscious being.

Imperfect as this simile is, and as all such similes must be, it

serves in some faint measure to express the relation of the mind of

man to its mysterious Source. And it serves also to illustrate the

leading characteristics of Religion and Theology, or Faith and Belief,

the function of the first having ever been to conceive the existence

of that relation, and the function of the second to misconceive its

character. Thus there runs through the whole course of religious

history a pervading error and a general truth. In all its special

manifestations these two have been mingled confusedly together, and the

manifold forms of error have generally obscured from sight the single

form of truth.

The relation held by Faith to Belief, by the true elements to the

false, in special creeds, may be thus expressed: That the creeds have

sought to individualize, and thus to limit that which is essentially

general and unlimited. Thus worship, in its purest character a mere

communing of the mind with its unknown Source, has been narrowed to the

presentation of petitions to a personal deity. Particular places and

peculiar objects have been selected as evincing, in some exceptional

manner, the presence of the infinite Being which pervades all places

and things alike. Certain men have been regarded as the exclusive

organs of the ultimate Truth; certain books, as its authorized

expressions; whereas the several races of men in their different modes

of life, and in the diverse products of their art and their culture,

are all in their variety, and even in their conflict, inspired workers

in the hands of that Truth which is manifested completely in none,

partially in all.

And as it has been with the special objects upon which Theology has

fixed its gaze, so it has been with the general object which underlies

them all. This, too, has been individualized, limited and defined. It

has been forgotten that we are but forms of that which we are seeking

to bring within the grasp of our reason, and cannot therefore see

around it, above it, and below it. But this truth, which Theology is

ever forgetting, Religion must ever proclaim. The proclamation of this

truth is the title-deed of its acceptance by mankind. Without this,

it would sink into the dishonored subject of incessant wranglings

and profitless dispute. When it begins to define the Infinite, it

ceases, in the purer sense of the word, to be Religion, and can only

command the assent of reasonable beings in so far as its assertions

comply with the rigorous methods of logical demonstration. But this

condition is in fact impossible of fulfillment, for the nature of the

object concerning which we reason, renders the exact terms of logical

propositions misleading and inadequate. The Unknowable Reality does not

admit of definition, comprehension, or description. How should we, mere

fragments of that Reality, define, comprehend, or describe the Infinite

Being wherein we have taken our rise, and whereto we must return?

* * * * *

Thus is Religion analyzed, explained and justified. Its varied forms

have been shown to be unessential and temporary; its uniform substance

to be essential and permanent. Belief has melted away under the

comparative method; Faith has remained behind. From two sides, however,

objections may be raised to the results of this analysis. Those who

admit no ultimate residuum of truth in the religious sentiment at all,

may hold that I have done it too much honor in conceding so much; while

those who adhere to some more positive theology than is admitted here,

will think that I have left scarcely anything worth the having in

conceding so little.

To the first class of objectors I may perhaps be permitted to point

out the extreme improbability of the presence in human nature of a

universally-felt emotion without a corresponding object. Even if they

themselves do not realize in their own minds the force of that emotion

they will at least not deny its historical manifestations. They will

scarcely question that it has been in all ages known to history as an

inspiring force, and often an overmastering passion. They will believe

the evidence of those who affirm that they are conscious of that

emotion now, and cannot attribute it to anything but the kind of Cause

which religion postulates. The actual presence of the emotion they will

not deny, though the explanation attempted of its origin they will.

But those who make the rather startling assertion that a deep-seated

and wide-spread emotion is absolutely without any object resembling

that which it imagines to be its source, are bound to give some tenable

account of the genesis of that emotion. How did it come into being at

all? How having come into being, did it continue and extend? How did

it come to mistake a subjective illusion for an objective reality?

These are questions pressing for an answer from those who ask us to

believe that one of our strongest feelings exists merely to deceive.

But it will be found, I believe, that all explanations tending to show

that this emotion is illusory in its nature assume the very unreality

they seek to prove. Should it, for example, be contended that human

beings, conscious of a force in their own bodies, extend the conception

of this force to a superhuman being, which extension is illegitimate,

it is assumed, not proved, in such an argument as this, that the force

manifested in the universe at large is not in some way akin to that

manifested in human beings. Again, should it be urged that man, being

aware of design in his own works, fancies a like design in the works of

nature, it is a mere assumption that this attribution of the ideas of

his own mind to a mind greater than his is an unwarrantable process.

The argument from design may be, and in my opinion is, open to other

grave objections; but its mere presence cannot be used as explaining

the manner in which the religious emotion has come to exist. Rather is

it the religious emotion which has found expression in the argument

from design. The same criticism applies to all accounts of this

sentiment which aim at finding an origin for it sufficient to explain

its presence without admitting its truth. They all of them assume the

very point at issue.

But the real difficulty that is felt about religion lies deeper than in

the mere belief that a given emotion may be deceptive. It lies in the

doubt whether a mere emotion can be taken in evidence of the presence

in nature of any object at all. Emotions are by their very nature

vague, and this is of all perhaps the vaguest. Nor are emotions vague

only; they are inexpressible in precise language, and even when we

express them as clearly as we can, they remain unintelligible to those

who have not felt them. Now this general and unspecific character of

emotions renders it hard for those who are wanting in any given emotion

to understand its intensity in others, and even fully to believe in

their statements about it. Were religion a case of sensible perception

they would have no such doubt. Color-blind persons do not question

the faculty of distinguishing colors in others. But while the sharp

definitions of these senses compel us to believe in the existence of

their objects, the comparatively hazy outlines drawn by the emotions

leave us at least a physical possibility of disputing the existence of

theirs.

Yet the cases are in their natures identical. We see a table, and

because we see it we infer the existence of a real thing external

to ourselves. The presence of the sensations is conceived to be an

adequate warrant for asserting the presence of their cause. Precisely

in the same way, we feel the Unknowable Being, and because we feel it

we infer the existence of a real object both external to ourselves and

within ourselves. The presence of the emotion is conceived to be an

adequate warrant for asserting the presence of its cause. Undoubtedly,

the supposed object of the sensations and the supposed object of the

emotion _might_ be both of them illusory. This is conceivable in

logic, though not in fact. But there can be no reason for maintaining

the unreality of the emotional, and the reality of the sensible

object. Existence is believed in both instances on the strength of an

immediate, intuitional inference. The mental processes are exactly

parallel. And if it be contended that sensible perception carries

with it a stronger warrant for our belief in the existence of its

objects than internal feeling, the reasons for this contention must

be exhibited before we can be asked to accept it; otherwise, it will

again turn out to be a pure assumption, constituting, not a reason

for the rejection of religion by those who now accept it, but a mere

explanation of the conduct of those who do not.

In fact, however, the denial of the truth of religion is no less

emotional than its affirmation. It is not denied because those who

disbelieve in it have anything to produce against it, but because the

inner sense which results in religion is either absent in them, or too

faint to produce its usual consequences. For this of course they are

not to blame, and nothing can be more irrational than to charge them

with moral delinquency or culpable blindness. If the Unknown Cause is

not perceptible to them, that surely is not a deficiency to be laid to

their charge. But when they quit the emotional stronghold wherein they

are safe to speak of those to whom that Unknown Cause is perceptible as

the victims of delusion, these latter may confidently meet them on the

field which they themselves have chosen.

First, then, it is at least a rather startling supposition that their

fellow creatures have always been, and are still, the victims of a

universal delusion, from which they alone enjoy the privilege of

exemption. Presumption, at all events, is against a man who asserts

that everybody but himself sees wrongly. He may be the only person

whose eyes have not deceived him, but we should require him to give

the strongest proof of so extraordinary an assertion. And in all cases

which are in the least degree similar, this condition is complied with

without the smallest hesitation. There are, so far as I am aware, no

instances of proved universal delusions, save those arising from the

misleading suggestions of the senses. That the earth is a flat surface,

that the sun moves round it, that the sun and moon are larger than the

stars, that the blue sky begins at a fixed place, are inferences which

the uninstructed observer cannot fail to draw from the most obvious

appearances. But those who have combated these errors have not done

so by merely telling the world at large that it was mistaken; they

have pointed out the phenomena from which the erroneous inferences

were drawn, and have shown at the same time that other phenomena, no

less evident to the senses than these, were inconsistent with the

explanation given. They have then substituted an explanation which

accounted for all the phenomena alike, both the more obvious phenomena

and the less so. Precisely similar is the method of procedure in

history and philosophy, though the methods of proof in these sciences

are not equally rigorous. Great historical delusions—such as the Popish

plot—are put to rest by showing the misinterpreted facts out of which

they have grown, exposing the misinterpretation, and substituting true

interpretation. Imperfect psychological analysis, say of an emotion, is

superseded by showing from what facts this analysis has been obtained,

and what other facts it fails to account for.

Observe, then, that in all these cases the appeal is made from the

first impressions of the mistaken person to his own impressions on

further examination; not to those of another. Considerations are laid

before him which it is supposed will cause him to change his mind,

and in all that class of cases where strict demonstration is possible

actually do so. To a man who believes the earth to be a flat extended

surface we point out the fact that the top of a ship's mast is the

first part of it to appear, and that this and other kindred phenomena

imply sphericity. Our appeal is from the senses to the senses better

informed; not from another man's senses to our own. And we justly

assume that were all the world in possession of the facts we have

before us, all the world would be of our opinion.

What, then, is the conclusion from these analogies? It surely is, that

those who would deny the reality of the object of religious emotion

must show from what appearances, misunderstood, the belief in that

object has arisen, and must point out other appearances leading to

other emotions which are in conflict with it. As the astronomer appeals

from sensible perception to sensible perception, so they must appeal

from emotion to emotion. But it must not be their own emotions to which

they go as forming a standard for ours. They can demand no hearing at

all until they attempt to influence the emotions of those whom they

address.

Generality of belief need not, for the purposes of this argument, be

taken as even a presumption of truth. We can grant our adversaries this

advantage which, in the parallel cases of the illusions of the senses,

was neither asked nor given. But we must ask them in return to concede

to us that, if the generality of a belief entitles it to no weight in

philosophic estimation, the singularity of a belief entitles it to

none either. All mankind may be deluded: well and good: _a fortiori_ a

few individuals among mankind may be deluded too. Grant that the human

faculties at large are subject to error and deception, it follows from

this that the faculties of individuals lie under the same disability.

No word can be said as to the general liability to false beliefs, which

does not carry with it the liability to false beliefs of the very

persons who are seeking to convince us.

By whom, in fact, are we asked to admit, in the interests of their

peculiar theory, the prevalence of a universal deception, and a

deception embracing in its grasp not only the ignorant multitude, but

men of science, thinkers and philosophers of the very highest altitude

of culture? By whom is it that the great mass of humankind is charged

with baseless thoughts, illusory emotions, and untenable ideas? By

those who, in thus denying the capacity of the whole human race to

perceive the truth, nevertheless maintain their own capacity to see

over the heads of their fellow men so far as to assert that they are

all the victims of an error. By those who, while bidding us distrust

the strongest feelings, nevertheless require us to trust them so far as

to banish, at their bidding, those feelings from our hearts. Not from

our reason to our more instructed reason do they appeal, only from our

reason to their own. But I deny the competence of the tribunal; and I

maintain that until not merely disbelief, but disproof, of the position

of Religion can be offered, Religion must remain in possession of the

field.

Yet there is one mistake which, as it may tend to obscure the issue, it

will be desirable to clear away. It is often contended, oftener perhaps

tacitly assumed, that the burden of proof must rest on those who in

any case maintain the affirmative side of a belief, while the negative

on its side requires no proof, but can simply claim reception until

the affirmative is established. Now this principle is true, where the

negative is simply a suspension of judgment; the mere non-acceptance

of a fact asserted, without a counter-assertion of its opposite.

To understand the true application of the rule we must distinguish

between what I will term substantial affirmations or negations, and

affirmations or negations in form. Thus, to assert that A. B. is

six feet tall, is a substantial affirmation. Out of many possible

alternatives it selects one, and postulates that one as true, while

all the rest it discards as false. Since, however, there are numerous

possibilities besides this one with regard to A. B.'s height—since he

may be either taller or shorter by various degrees—the negative, in the

absence of all knowledge on the subject, is inherently more probable,

for it covers a larger ground. It is a substantial negation. That is,

it affirms nothing at all, but simply questions the fact affirmed,

leaving the field open to countless other substantial affirmations.

So, in law, it is the prosecution which is required to prove its

case; for the prosecution affirms that this man was at a given place

at a given time and did the criminal action. The opposite hypothesis

of this covers innumerable alternatives: not this man but another,

may have been at that place, or he may have been there and not done

the action charged, or some other man may have done it, or the crime

may have not been committed at all, and so forth. These are cases of

substantial affirmations; asserting one alone out of many conceivable

possibilities, and therefore needing proof. And their opposites are

substantial negations; questioning only the one fact affirmed, and even

with reference to that merely maintaining that in the absence of proof

there is an inherent probability in favor of the negative side.

Widely different is the case before us. Here the affirmation and

negation are affirmative and negative in form alone. The assertions,

"An Unknowable Being exists," and "An Unknowable Being does not exist,"

are not opposed to one another as the affirmative and the negative

sides were opposed in the previous cases. The latter proposition does

not cover a number of possible alternatives whereof the former selects

and affirms a single one. Both propositions are true and substantial

affirmations. Both assert a supposed actual fact. And the latter does

not, as the previous negative propositions did, leave the judgment in

simple suspense. It requires assent to a given doctrine. That the one

cast is in a negative form is the mere accident of expression, and

without in any way affecting their substance, their positions in this

respect may be reversed. Thus, we may say for the first, "The universe

cannot exist without an Unknowable Being;" and for the second, "The

universe can exist without an Unknowable Being." There are not here a

multitude of alternatives, but two only, and of these each side affirms

one. Each proposition is equally the assertion of a positive belief.

Thus, the reason which, in general, causes the greater antecedent

probability of a denial as against a positive assertion, in no way

applies to the denial of the fundamental postulate of Religion. The

statement that there is nobody in a certain room is not in itself

more probable than the statement that there is somebody. And the

proposition: "all men are not mortal," though negative in form, is

truly as affirmative as the counter-proposition: "all men are mortal."

But this argument, inasmuch as it places the denial of all truth in

the religious emotion on a level with its affirmation, fails to do

justice to the real strength of the case. There are not here two

contending beliefs, of which the one is as probable as the other. In

conceding so much to the skeptical party we have given them a far

greater advantage than they are entitled to demand. Generality of

belief is, in the absence of evidence or argument to the contrary, a

presumption of truth; for, unless its origin from some kind of fallacy

can be shown, its generality is in itself a proof that it persists in

virtue of the general laws of mind which forbid the separation of its

subject from its predicate. And it is not only that we have here a

general belief, or, more correctly speaking, a general emotion, but we

have categories in the human mind which are not filled up or capable

of being filled up by the objective element in the religious idea.

There is, for example, the category of Cause; Nature presents us not

with Cause, but with causes; and these causes are mere antecedents,

physical causation in general being nothing whatever but invariable

antecedents and invariable sequence. But this analysis of the facts

of nature by no means satisfies the conception of causation which is

rooted in the human mind. That conception imperiously demands a cause

which is not a mere antecedent, but a Power. Without that, the idea

would remain as a blank form, having no reality to fill it. And how do

we come to be in the firm possession of this idea if there be nothing

in nature corresponding to it? From what phenomena could it be derived?

Akin to our notion of Cause is our notion of Force. When the scientific

man speaks of a Force, he merely means an unknown something which

effects certain movements. And Science cannot possibly dispense with

the metaphysical idea of Force. Yet Force is not only unknowable; but

it is _the_ Unknowable manifested in certain modes. Again, therefore,

I ask, whence do we derive ineradicable feeling of the manifestation

of Force, if that feeling be a mere illusion? Similar remarks apply

to other categories which, like these, have no objects in actual

existence in the conformity of the religious sentiment to truth be

denied. Such is the category of Reality. Imagination cannot picture the

world save as containing, though in its essence unknown to us, some

real and permanent being. We know it only as a compound of phenomena,

all of them fleeting, variable, and unsubstantial. There is nothing

in the phenomena which can satisfy our mental demand for absolute

being. As being transient, and as being relative, the phenomena in

fact are nothing. But our intellectual, our emotional, and our moral

natures demand the τό ὃντως ὄν—that which really is, as the necessary

completion of τὰ φαινόμεα—that which only appears. And it is precisely

the unshakeable belief in an unchangeable, though unknowable Reality;

an everlasting Truth amid shifting forms, a Substance among shadows,

which forms the universal foundation of religious faith.

A ship that has been driven from her intended course is drifting,

with a crew who have no clear knowledge of her whereabouts, upon an

unexplored ocean. Suddenly her captain exclaims that he sees land in

the distance. The mate, however, summoned to verify the captain's

observation, fancies that the black speck on the horizon is not land,

but a large vessel. The sailors and passengers take part, some with

the one, some with the other; while many of them form opinions of

their own not agreeing with that of either, one maintaining it to be

a whale, another a dark cloud, a third something else, and so forth.

Minor differences abound. Those who take it to be land are at issue as

to its being a plain or a mountain, those who think it a vessel cannot

agree as to the description of the craft. One solitary passenger sees

nothing at all. Instead of drawing what would appear to be the most

obvious conclusion, that he is either more shortsighted or less apt

to discover distant objects than the rest, he infers that his vision

alone is right, and that of all the others, captain, passengers, and

crew, defective and misleading. Oblivious of the fact that the mere

failure to perceive an object is no proof of its non-existence, he

persists in asserting not only that the speck seen in the distance,

being so variously described, probably does not resemble any of the

ideas formed of it on board the ship, but that there is no speck at

all. Even the fact that the crews of many other ships, passing in this

direction, perceive the same dim outline on the horizon, does not shake

his conviction that it is a mere "idol of the tribe." Such is the

procedure of those who deny the reality of the object of the religious

idea. Instead of drawing from the diversity of creeds the legitimate

inference that the Being of whom they severally speak is of unknown

nature, they conclude, from the mere absence of the idea of that Being

in their individual consciousness, that its very existence is a dream.

Lastly, a few words, and a few only, must be said in reply to those

who will think that the cenception of the Unknowable resulting from

our analysis is too vague and shadowy to form the fitting foundation

for religious feeling. They will probably object that the Being whom

that feeling requires is not an inconceivable Cause or Substance of the

Universe, but a Personal God; not an undefined something which we can

barely imagine, but a definite Some one whom we can adore and love.

There is nothing, they will say, in such a conception as this either

to satisfy the affections or to impress the moral sentiments. And both

purposes were fulfilled by the Christian ideal of a loving Father and a

righteous Judge.

To these objections I would reply, first of all, that I have simply

attempted to analyze religion as I found it, neither omitting what

was of the essence of the religious idea, nor inserting what was not.

If this analysis is in any respect defective, that is a matter for

criticism and discussion. But if it has been correctly performed—of

which I frankly admit there is abundant room for doubt—then I am not

responsible for not finding in the universal elements of religion

that which is not contained within them. The expression found for the

ultimate truths must embrace within it, if possible, the crude notions

of deity formed by the savage, and the highly abstract ideal formed by

the most eminent thinkers of modern times. Even then, if I myself held

the doctrines of the personality and the fatherhood of God, I could

not have required from others any admission of these views of mine as

universal ingredients in religious faith. The utmost I could have done

would have been to tack them on as supplementary developments of the

idea of the ultimate Being. And thus it is still open to any one who

wishes it to do. Difficult as it is to reconcile the ideas of Love and

Justice with unlimited Power and absolute Existence, yet if there are

some who find it possible to accomplish the reconciliation, it may be

well for them so to do.[104] Undoubtedly, however, all such efforts do

appear to me mere hankerings after an incarnation of that idea which,

by its very nature, does not admit of representation by incarnate

forms, even though those forms be moral perfections. And I would reply,

secondly, to the above objection, that, while we lose something by

giving up the definite personality of God, we gain something also. If

we part with the image of a loving Father, we part also with that of a

stern monarch and an implacable judge. If we can no longer indulge in

the contemplation of perfect virtue, embodied in an actual Person, we

are free from the problem that has perplexed theologians of every age:

how to reconcile the undoubted evil in the world with the omnipotence

of that Person. I know that there are some who think it possible to

retain the gentler features in the popular conception of deity, while

dropping all that is harsh and repulsive. To them the idea of God is as

free from terror as the idea of the Unknowable, and the first of these

gains is therefore no gain to them. But the problem of the existence

of evil presses perhaps with greater severity upon them than upon any

other class of theologians. To suppose that God could not prevent the

presence of wickedness, or could not prevent it without some greater

calamity, is to deny his omnipotence; to suppose that he could, and

did not, is to question his benevolence. But even admitting the

improvement made by purging from the character of God all its severity,

its vindictiveness, and its tendency to excessive punishment, the fact

remains that the conception thus attained is not that of the popular

creed at all, but that of a few enlightened thinkers. And it is with

the former, not with the latter, that the doctrine of the Unknowable

must be compared, in order fairly to estimate its advantages or

disadvantages in relation to the current belief in a personal God.

Moreover, it must be borne in mind that the dim figure we have shadowed

out of an inconceivable and all-embracing ultimate Existence, if

widely different from the more ordinary theological embodiments of the

religious idea, is altogether in harmony with many of its expressions

by the most devoutly religious minds. If religion has always had a

tendency to run to seed in dogma, it has also always had a tendency

to revert to its fundamental mysticism. The very best and highest

minds have continually evinced this tendency to mysticism, and it has

mixed itself up with the logical definitions of others who did not

rise to so exalted a level. So that the examination of the writings of

religious men will continually disclose that profound impression of the

utterly incomprehensible and mysterious nature of the Supreme Being

which is now, in its complete development in the form of Agnosticism,

stigmatized as incompatible with genuine religious faith.

That tendency to be deeply sensible of the impossibility of conceiving

the Absolute which Religion has thus evinced, it is the result of

Science to strengthen and to increase. Science shows the imperfection

of all the concrete expressions which have been found for the

Unknowable. It proves that we cannot think of the Unknowable as

entering in any peculiar sense into special objects in nature, dwelling

in special places, or speaking through special channels. Miraculous

phenomena, which were supposed to constitute the peculiar sphere of its

manifestations, are thrown by Science completely out of the account.

But all phenomena whatsoever are shown to manifest the Unknowable.

Thus, while scientific inquiry tends to diminish the intensity of

religious ideas, it tends to widen their extension. They do not any

longer cling to partial symbols. They do not attach themselves with the

same fervor to individual embodiments. But, in becoming more abstract,

they become also more pervading. Religion is found everywhere and in

everything. All nature is the utterance of the idea. And, as it gains

in extension while losing in intensity in reference to the external

world, it goes through a similar process in relation to human life.

No longer a force seizing on given moments of our existence, at one

moment inspiring devotional observances, at the next forgotten in

the pleasures or the business of the day; at one time filling men

with the zeal of martyrs or crusaders, at another leaving them to the

unrestrained indulgence of gross injustice or revolting cruelty, it

becomes a calm, all-pervading sentiment, shown (if it be shown at all)

in the general beauty and spirituality of the character, not in the

stated exercises of a rigorous piety, or in the passionate outbursts

of an enthusiastic fervor.

But these considerations would lead me on to a subject which I had

once hoped to treat within the boundaries of the present volume, but

which I am now compelled, owing to the enlargement of the scheme, to

postpone to a future time. That subject is the relation of religion

to ethics. It may have struck some readers as an omission that I have

said nothing of religion as a force inspiring moral conduct, which

is the principal aspect under which it is regarded by some competent

authorities. But the omission has been altogether intentional. It would

take me a long time to explain what in my judgment has been the actual

influence of religion upon morals in the past, and what is likely

to be its influence in the future. Meanwhile I merely note the fact

that this analysis professes to be complete in its own kind; that I

have endeavored to probe the religious sentiment to the bottom, and

to discover all that it contains. Thus, if religion be not only an

emotion, but a moral force, it must acquire this character in virtue

of the relation of its emotional elements to human character, not in

virtue of the presence of ethical elements actually belonging to the

religious emotion, and comprehended under it by the same indefeasible

title as the sense of the Unknowable itself.

At present, however, I can attempt no answer to the objection which

will no doubt be urged, that so abstract and cold a faith as that

expounded here can afford no satisfaction to the moral sentiments.

Indeed I must to a certain extent admit the reality of the loss which

the adoption of this faith entails. There is consolation no doubt in

the thought of a Heavenly Father who loves us; there is strength in

the idea that he sees and helps us in our continual combat against

evil without and evil within; there is happiness in the hope that

he will assign us in another life an infinite reward for all the

endurances of this. Above all, there is comfort in the reflection

that when we are parted by death we are not parted for ever; that our

love for those whom we have cherished on earth is no temporary bond,

to be broken ere long in bitterness and despair, but a possession

never to be lost again, a union of souls interrupted for a little

while by the separation of the body, only to be again renewed in far

greater perfection and carried on into far higher joys than can be

even imagined here. All this is beautiful and full of fascination: why

should we deny it? Candor compels us to admit that in giving it up with

the other illusions of our younger days we are resigning a balm for the

wounded spirit for which it would be hard to find an equivalent in all

the repertories in Science, and in all the treasures of philosophy. Yet

it must be borne in mind that every step from a lower to a higher creed

involves a precisely similar loss. How much more beautiful was nature

(as Schiller has shown us in his poem on the gods of Greece) when every

fountain, tree and river had its presiding genius, when the Sun was

driven by a divine charioteer, when the deities of Olympus intervened

in the affairs of men to prevent injustice and to maintain the right.

How cold and lifeless, nay, how profoundly irreligious, would our

modern conception of the earth and the solar system have appeared to

the worshiper of Poseidon and Apollon. And if the loss of the Christian

as compared to the Pagan is thus great, how great also is the loss

of the enlightened Protestant as compared to the ignorant Catholic

peasant. What comfort must be found in the immediate intervention

of the Virgin in answer to prayer, what security afforded by the

protection of the local saint. Or again, how great the pleasure of

contributing by our piety to the release of a friend from purgatorial

torment, and of knowing that our friends will do us the same kindly

service.

Even without contrasting such broad and conspicuous divisions of

Christianity as these, we shall find enough of the same kind of

difference within the limits of Protestantism itself. What mere

intellectual conviction of a future state can vie with the consoling

certainty offered by the Spiritualistic belief, that those whom we have

lost on earth still hover around us in our daily course; sometimes even

appear to us in bodily form, and converse with us in human speech. No

mere hope of meeting them again can for a moment equal the delight of

seeing their well-known shapes and hearing their familiar tones. Hence

the Spiritualist has undoubtedly a source of comfort in his faith which

more rational creeds can offer nothing to supply. But who that does not

share it can envy them so baseless a conviction, so illusory a joy?

It is, in fact, the very condition of progress that, as we advance in

knowledge and in culture, we give up something on the road. But it is

also a condition that we do not feel the need of that which we have

lost. Not only as we become men do we put away childish things, but we

can no longer realize in thought the enjoyment which those childish

things brought with them. Other interests, new occupations, deeper

affections take the place of the interests, the occupations, and the

affections of our early years. So too should it be in religion. Men

have dwelt upon the love of God because they could not satisfy the

craving of nature for the love of their fellow men. They have looked

forward to eternal happiness in a future life because they could not

find temporary happiness in this. It is these reflections which point

out the way in which the void left by the removal of the religious

affections should hereafter be supplied. The effort of those who cannot

turn for consolation to a friend in heaven should be to strengthen the

bonds of friendship on earth, to widen the range of human sympathy and

to increase its depth. We should seek that love in one another which

we have hitherto been required to seek in God. Above all, we should

sweep away those barriers of convention and fancied propriety which

continually hinder the free expression of affection, and force us to

turn from the restrictions of the world to One towards whom there need

be no irksome conformity to artificial regulation, and in speaking to

whom we are under no shadow of reserve.

Were we thus permitted to find in our fellow creatures that sympathy

which so many mourners, so many sufferers, so many lonely hearts, have

been compelled to find only in the idea of their heavenly Father, I

hesitate not to say that the consolations of the new religion would

far surpass in their strength and their perfection all those that were

offered by the old. Towards such increasing and such deepening of the

sympathies of humanity I believe that we are continually tending even

now. Meantime, while we are still far from the promised land, the

adherents of the universal religion are not without a happiness of

their own. Their faith is at least a faith of perfect peace. Untroubled

by the storms of controversy, in which so many others are tossed about,

they can welcome all men as brothers in faith, for all of them,

even the most hostile, contribute to supply the stones of the broad

foundation upon which their philosophy is built. Those therefore who

contend against them, be it even with vehemence and passion, yield,

them involuntary help in bringing the materials upon which their

judgment is formed. No man can truly oppose their religion, for he

who seems to be hostile to it is himself but one of the notes struck

by the Unknowable Cause, which so plays upon the vast instrument of

humanity as to bring harmony out of jangling sounds, and to produce

the universal chords of truth from the individual discords of error.

Scientific discoveries and philosophic inquiries, so fatal to other

creeds, touch not the universal religion. They who accept it can

but desire the increase of knowledge, for even though new facts and

deeper reasoning should overthrow something of what they have hitherto

believed and taught, they will rejoice that their mistakes should be

corrected, and their imperfections brought to light. They desire but

the Truth, and the Truth has made them free. And as in their thoughts

they can wish nothing so much as to know and to believe that which

is true, so in their lives they will express the serenity which that

desire will inevitably bring. They are not pained or troubled because

other men see not as they see. They have no vain hope of a unity of

thought which the very conditions of our being do not permit. They aim

not at conquering the minds of men; far rather would they stimulate

and help them to discover a higher Truth than they themselves have

been permitted to know. And as their action will thus be inspired with

hope of contributing their mite to the treasury of human knowledge,

well-being, and moral good, so their death will be the expression of

that, peaceful faith which has sustained their lives. Even though

torn away when, in their own judgment, they have still much to do,

they will not repine at the necessity of leaving it undone, even

though they are well aware that their names, which might have been

illustrious in the annals of our race, will now be buried in oblivion.

For the disappearance of a single life is but a ripple on the ocean of

humanity, and humanity feels it not. Hence they will meet their end

"sustained and soothed by an unfaltering trust,"

"Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch

About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams."

But the opposite fate, sometimes still more terrible, that of

continuing to live when the joys of life are gone, and its purest

happiness is turned into the bitterest pain, will be accepted too.

Thus they will be willing, it need be, to remain in a world where

their labor is not yet ended, even though that labor be wrought

through suffering, despondency, and sorrow; willing also, if need be,

to meet the universal lot—even though it strike them in the midst of

prosperity, happiness, and hope; bowing in either case to the verdict

of fate with unmurmuring resignation and fearless calm.

THE END.

INDEX.

Abhidharma-Pitaka, its metaphysics, 473-476

Abiogenesis, the theory of, 690;

its destined functions, 702

Abraham, a Hanyf, 195;

story of, 545-546

Acts, the book of, its value, 604;

review of, 604-617

Aditi, the godess, 437

Africa, burial rites in, 430;

divination in, 114;

ordeals in, 119

Africans, western, sacrifice among, 42;

drink-offerings among, 47

Agag hewn in pieces, 598

Age, a golden, traditions of, 538, 539

Agni, the god, 430

Agnosticism allied to mysticism, ii. 489

Ahab, his troubles, 598

Ahuna-Vairya, the, 503, 504

Ahura-Mazda, and Zarathustra, 182, 183;

the god of the Parsees, 185;

ancient worship of, 486, 487;

praise of, 487, 488;

rank and character, 489;

address to, 489, 490;

worship of, 490-492;

fire and water given by, 493;

questioned by Zarathustra, 497-504;

things which please and things which displease, 497, 498;

prescribes for medical training, 499;

the same as Ormazd, 505;

throughout the god of the Parsees, 508;

creates the world, 535

Aischylos, his conception of the commercial relation between gods

and men, 38

Akaba, the vow of the first and second, 188

Ali, sign at his birth, 226

Amatongo, sacrifice to the, 40

Amuzulus, sacrifice among the, 47

sneezing as an omen among, 111

Amos, his prophecy and history, 61;

conduct towards Amaziah, 573

Anâgâmin, the, 478, 479 (note)

Analysis, ultimate metaphysical, 464

Ananda and the Matangi girl, 285;

and Buddha, 134, 136

Ananias and his wife, story of, 607

Ancestors, worship of, in Fiji and among the Kafirs, 650, 651;

in Peru, 651.

Angekoks, the, consecration of, 100, 101

Apocalypse, the, its author, 634;

its style, 634;

compared with the "Pilgrim's Progress," 634;

its visions, 635, 636

Apollo, worship of, 38;

his sense of gratitude appealed to, 38;

oracle of the Clarian, 127

Âranyakas, the, 127

Arhats, the, rank of, 444, 445, 457, 458

Asceticism, various degrees of, 89;

in Mexico and Peru, 90-92;

rules of Chinese, 461

Ashem-Vohû, the, 503, 504

Asiti, the Rishi, the child and Buddha, 231

Asoka, the Buddhist king, 450, 451

Astrology, 118

Astrologers in Thibet, 144

Asvagosha, a Buddhist preacher, 122

Atharva-Veda-Sanhitâ, the, 426, 427

Atman, 661

Atmospheric currents, an illustration, 471

Automatism, apparent puzzle of, resolved, 464-466

Australia, burial rites in, 77

Babel, confusion at, 597

Balaam, treatment of, 597

Balaki, the Brahman, 446

Banshee, the Irish, 114

Baptism, a general religious rite, 58;

in Fantee, 59;

among the Cherokees, Aztecs, &c., 59;

in Mexico, 59;

in Mongolia and Thibet, 61;

among the Parsees, 61;

in the Christian Church, 61, 62;

meaning of the rite, 62, 63

Barabbas, 215, 216

Barnabas, and Paul in Antioch, 611;

taken for Zeus, 611;

separation, 613

Beatitudes, the, 350, 351

Beauty and Bands, allegory of, 573

Beliefs, necessary, vindication of, 678-680;

conditions of, 680;

example, 695, 696

Benfey, translation of the Sâma-Veda Sanhitâ, 425

Bhikshu, a defined, 95

Bhikshus and Bhikshunîs, the, 479

Bible, the, though above, yet among the sacred books of

the world, 369, 370;

forced interpretations of 379, 380;

mostly anonymous, 386;

style of, 389, 390

Birth, religious rites at, among savage nations, 57, 58;

in Mexico, 59, 60;

in Mongolia and Thibet, 61

Bodhisattva, 175-180;

in the womb, 225;

the nature of, 477, 478;

their sacrifice of Nirvâna, 478

Bogda, thaumaturgic powers of, 122

Books, sacred, all civilized nations nearly have, 370, 371;

Greeks and Romans without, 370;

list of, 370;

their external marks—recognized inspiration, 371, 372;

supposed merit of reading or repeating them, 372-375;

subjection to forced interpretations, 375-383;

internal marks—transcendental-subject-matter, 382-384;

authoritativeness, 384, 385;

general anonymity, 23-26;

formlessness, 385-389;

of the Chinese, 390-424;

seldom written by the authors of the religion, 413;

of India, 425-448;

of the Buddhists, 449-482;

necessity for, 449;

of the Parsees, 482-509;

of the Moslems, 500-520;

of the Jews, 518-603;

of Christianity, 604-641

Bo-tree, sanctity of, in Ceylon, 127

Buddha, under, 180, 181

Brahma, his incest, 600;

not worshiped, 405, 406;

and Brahm, 406, 407

Brahman, the caste, 183;

the supreme, 405

Brâhmanas, the, 379, 425, 426;

their character, 444, 445;

ritualistic appendages to the Vedas, 444, 445;

teaching of apologue, 445;

on a universal soul, 445, 446;

on the future of the soul, 447;

on patience, 447;

references to moral conduct, 448

Bread and wine in the Eucharist, virtue of, 135

Buddha, Gautama, a thaumaturgist, 122;

the tooth of, 124, 125;

preparation for his last manifestation, 170;

uncertain data to go upon for his life, 171;

when he lived, 172;

early asceticism, 172, 173;

abolishes caste, his theoretic, 217;

his four truths, 173;

the interpretation of these, 173;

his death, 274;

his chief disciples, 274;

spread of his religion, 274;

essential principles, 174, 175;

his blamelessness, 175;

the mythical twelve periods of his life, i. 176;

resolution to be born, 176;

choice of parents, 176;

his birth, 177;

various names of, 177;

adoration by an old Rishi, 178;

qualifies himself for marriage, 178;

enjoyment of domestic life, 179;

departure from home and assumption of the monastic character, 178;

temptations, 178;

his horse Kantaka, 178;

his penances, 180;

his triumph over the devil, 180;

becomes perfect Buddha, 180, 181;

turns the Wheel of the Law, 180;

his reception by kings, 180;

his first conversions, 180;

founds monastic institutions, 180;

enters Nirvâna, 449;

funeral rites, 181;

relics, 181;

aristocratic descent, 221;

gestation of, 224, 225;

signs at his birth, 226;

infant, recognized Simeon-wise by the Rishi Asita, 231;

his temptations in the wilderness, 231;

and the Matangi girl, 285;

compared with Christ, 242-344;

and the widow's mite, 342, 343;

and the cup of cold water, 344;

as a fisher of men, 344;

exalts humility and poverty, 345;

on divorce, 345, 346;

and Christ, 362-365;

his sayings collected, 343;

sects in the Church of 449;

extravagant adoration 458;

painting the picture of, 458, 459;

and the two condemned felons, 136-139;

central figure of Buddhism, 146;

successive manifestations, 476;

worship of, 477;

training of, 476, 478, 481;

disciples of, 480

Buddha Sakymuni, leaps into the fire, 58

Buddhas, the, Pratyeka, 478.

Buddhism, ascetic nature and rules of, 93-95;

fathers of, miracle workers, 121, 122;

goal of, 120;

its sacred canon, 449-451;

ten commandments of, 467;

boundless charity of, 468;

regard for personal purity, 469-471;

its four truths, 473;

Buddha its central figure, 476;

gods of, 476;

grades in, 478, 479;

morality of, 480-483;

five commandments of, 550;

not without a god, ii. 655-657.

Buddhists, 93-95;

antecedent to Buddhism, 95;

in India, 96, 97;

of Visvamitra, 96, 97

Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" compared with the Apocalypse, 366, 367

Caaba, the, 188-190.

Carlyle, Thomas, forestalled by Confucius, 167;

his "Everlasting No." 186;

on Mahomet, 192

Cause, the notion of, 484;

the known. See POWER.

Ceylon, religious observance in, 51;

festivals in, 53;

marriage in, 75, 76;

burial rites in, 78;

omens in, 112, 113;

divination in, 117;

the Bo-tree, 127.

Child, myth of the dangerous, 227-230

China, Emperor of, praying for rain, 36;

sacrifice in, 42;

divination in, 117, 118;

in the days of Confucius, 159;

official creed of, 391;

sacred writings of, 39;

authentic history of, remote, 403;

fate of the early Emperors of, as good or bad,

403-406;

its sages and kings, 405-407;

the "religiones licitæ" of, 413

Chinese, the, sacred books once nearly destroyed, 391;

their political doctrines, 394;

their ethics, 395, 396;

their loyalty to the heroes as heaven-appointed, 398, 399

Christ, Jesus, conceived necessity of his death, 47;

his appeal to miracles, 123;

divinity of, not found in the New Testament, 326, 327;

Mahomet's view of, 513, 514;

worship of, 665.

See JESUS.

Christians, the early, communists, 607;

first breach among, 608;

severe discipline of, 614

Christianity, fundamental conception of, 48, 49;

festivals of, 52;

ascetic spirit of early, 97;

ascetic development of, 98, 99;

powerless over the Jews since the death of Christ, 314, 315;

originally Judaic, 334;

its worship of Christ, 308;

its treatment of the Father and the Spirit, 309, 310

Christmas, a pagan festival, 53.

Church, the, necessary infallibility of, 152

Choo He, his criticism of preface to Chinese odes, 380, 381

Chow, the Duke of, on the favor of heaven, 406

Ch'un Ts'ëw, the, forced interpretation applied to, 376-378, 411;

its subject matter and authorship, 411-413;

opinions of Dr. Legge, 411-413,

of Mang, 411, 412;

extract, 412;

topics, 412

Chung Yung, the, authorship of, 394;

its doctrine of the "Mean," 394, 395;

its doctrine of virtue and heaven, 395, 396

Cicero on immortality, 688.

Circumcision, wide-spread practice of, 63;

among the Jews, 64;

of women among the Suzees and Mandingoes, 73, 74

Clement, quotation from, on second coming, 338, 339

Clergy, secular and regular, 100

Cobbe, Frances Power, 641

Coming, the second, apostolic doctrine on, 334-339.