A divine science of nature--one, _i.e._, which is ever looking to and
has its root in God, unlike the old heathen physiologies--sees something
more in nature than a mere endless play of living forces and the
alternations of dynamical action. Contemplating it rather as a whole,
and in the connection of its several parts, it traces it from the first
foundation on which it was originally raised, up to the final
consummation which the Almighty has designed it to attain. Now, to such
a mode of studying it, nature appears to be in its beginning, as it
were, a bridge thrown across the abyss of eternal death and eternal
nothingness. And in perfect agreement with this origin or foundation, it
exhibits itself at the outset as a house of corruption, a character
which, to a certain degree, it subsequently and long afterward retains.
After a while, however, this house of corruption is transformed, by the
omnipotence of the good Creator, into a laboratory of new life, and
finally is raised into a ladder of resurrection, ascending, or, rather,
is made to conduct, step by step, to the highest pitch of earthly
glorification, in which nature, too, has a promise that she shall
partake. This was the subject of the preceding Lecture, and it naturally
enough suggests the further question, whether a similar scale of gradual
exaltation exists for the human soul, which, even while it is in many
respects akin to mother earth and to nature generally, is, nevertheless,
far more excellent, and, by its innate dignity, claims to be regarded as
the very head and crown of this earthly creation. The inquiry then,
whether the soul of man, gradually rising out of the depths of this
perishable existence and the bondage of corruption, up to God, can
approach nearer to, and finally be totally identified with Him; or at
least, whether it is capable of being united in a perfect and lasting
harmony with the superior powers of a higher and a diviner region--this
will form the theme of our present disquisition. In discussing it,
however, our attention will be directed principally to its psychological
aspect--its relation, _i.e._, to the theory of consciousness. For the
moral examination of this subject, even if it be not allowable to assume
that it, at all events, is well known, belongs to another department of
inquiry.
Now, on this head, the following remark immediately and naturally
suggests itself to the reflecting mind. Unless the soul be at unity with
itself it can not hope ever to be one with, or to attain to an harmonic
relation with that Being, who, as he is the one source and principle of
all and on whom all depends, is in himself a pure harmony. But so far is
this condition from being fulfilled in the actual state of the human
consciousness, that the latter appears rather to consist of pure and
endless discord. Fourfold, I said, is man’s consciousness; and I called
its four conflicting forces, viz., understanding and will, reason and
fancy, its four poles, or chief branches, or even the four quarters of
the internal world of thought. How seldom, however, do the understanding
and will agree together. Does not each of them prefer to follow an
independent course of its own? How seldom do men really and
perseveringly will and desire what they clearly see and acknowledge and
perfectly understand to be the best! And how often, on the other hand,
do we understand little or nothing of that, which yet in the inmost
recesses of our hearts, we most desire and wish, and most ardently and
determinedly resolve upon! Reason and fancy, too, both in the inner
thought and in outward life also, are, on the whole, in hostile conflict
with each other. Reason would wish to suppress or at least to dispense
altogether with fancy, while fancy, caring, for the most part, but
little or nothing for the reason, goes its own way. The will, moreover,
unceasingly distracted, is never even at peace with itself, while the
reason, standing alone in the endless evolution of its own thought,
entangles itself at last in a labyrinth of irreconcilable
contradictions. The understanding, again, has so many grades and
species, and divides itself among so many spheres and functions, that in
this respect we might be justified in saying: This one understanding
understands not the other, even though it be equally correct both in
itself and in its mode of operation. And thus, too, in the individual:
his understanding, the sum, _i.e._, of all that he understands,
consists, for the most part, but of rags and fragments of truth, which
often enough do not match very well, and seldom, if ever, admit of being
made to blend harmoniously together. And so, too, is it in all that
belongs to, and is under the influence of fancy. The subjective views,
for instance, and conceits of man--the delusions of his senses, the
rapidly changing meteors and unsubstantial phantoms of human passion,
are things only too well known, self-evident, and universally
acknowledged.
So profound, then, even in a psychological point of view, and apart from
the multiplied phases which the moral aspect presents, appears the
discord which reigns in our whole mind as at present constituted!
Dissension seems to be interwoven into its fundamental fabric. Instead,
therefore, of saying the human consciousness is fourfold, with equal, if
not with greater correctness, we might and ought to say, it is divided,
or, rather, split, into four or more pieces. It is common enough to
speak of _facts_ of consciousness. And yet how seldom among philosophers
is any thing more meant by this expression than the mere thinking of
thoughts, in the eternal repetition of the same empty process in which
the thinking _Ego_ thinks itself, and by means of which the _Me_ is, as
it were, seized in the very act, and then, as the first beginning, the
imaginary Creator and Demiurge of the ideal world, this _Me_ is hung out
like a gilded pennon from the top of the whole artificial system.[25]
The only fact of the consciousness that really deserves to be so named
is its internal dissension. And this discord not only reveals itself in
thought between the Me and Not Me, but pervades the whole and all its
branches, or parts and forms, its species and spheres, in mind and soul,
understanding and will, reason and fancy, which every where manifests
itself, and of which the thousandfold material discords of man’s outer
life is only the reflection--its natural consequence and further
development. From this fact of the manifold and ever-varying dissension
of the human consciousness an exposition of philosophy might not
inappropriately set out, in order from this point to seek the solution
of its peculiar problem, and the right road for the attainment of its
end. For the problem of philosophy, as contemplated from this side,
would consist in the restoration of that original, natural, and true
state of the consciousness in which it was at unity and in harmony with
itself. It is a leading error of philosophy that it views the present
state of the human consciousness as even its right one, which requires
only to be raised to a higher power in order to be cleansed from the
taint of commonness of the ordinary way of thinking which clings to it
among the ignorant and unphilosophical, and thereupon to be comprised in
strangely artificial and seemingly most profound formulæ. But by such an
involution to a higher power the error is not got rid of, but rather the
evil itself is aggravated, since it is contained in the root itself, and
is to be found in the inmost structure of the consciousness. Besides, it
can not have been the original constitution of man’s mind to be thus a
prey to manifold dissension, and split, as it were, into pieces and
quartered. This discord is, undoubtedly, in the true meaning of the
word, a fact, the only one which every individual can without hesitation
vouch for on the immediate and independent testimony of his own
experience. For the cause of this well-authenticated fact we have only
to look to that event which revelation has made known, of which each man
must perceive the sad traces within his own heart. It began with that
eclipse of the soul which preceded and commenced the present state of
man, and was occasioned by the intervention of a foreign body between it
and the sun which gave it light. But if the soul, the thinking as well
as the loving soul, be the center of consciousness, then, in this great
and general darkening of the center, the entire sphere, in its whole
essence and structure, must have been altered. And, consequently, in its
philosophical aspect, and apart from all special moral depravity in the
independent actions, evil habits and passions of individuals, the soul
is no longer what it was originally, as created and designed by the
Almighty.
Thus, then, the whole human consciousness is filled with unmitigated
discord and division, not merely in its mixed rational and sensuous or
terrestrial and spiritual nature, but thought itself is at issue with
life. And, moreover, while in the thought the internal and the external,
faith and science, are involved in a hostile contrariety, disturbing and
destroying each other, so is it also in life with the finite and the
infinite, the transitory and the imperishable. In such a state of
things, therefore, and from this point of view, the problem of
philosophy, as already remarked, can not well be any other than the
restoration of the consciousness to its primary and true unity, so far
as this is humanly possible. Now that this true and permanent unity, if
it be at all attainable, must be looked for in God, is at all events an
allowable hypothesis. For it will not be disputed, except by one who
holds both this unity itself and its restitution to be absolutely
impossible. But this is a point on which much may be advanced on both
sides, and which, therefore, since mere disputing can avail nothing
either one way or the other, can only be decided by the fact--the issue
of the attempt. On this hypothesis, then, even philosophy must in every
case take God for the basis of its speculations--set out from Him, and
draw in every instance from this divine source. But then, considered
from this point of view, and pursuing this route, it is no idle
speculation and simple contemplation of the inner existence and thought
alone--no dead science--but a vital effort and an effectual working of
the thought for the restoration of a corrupt and degraded consciousness
to its natural simplicity and original unity. And this is the way which
we have marked out for the course of our speculations, or, rather, the
end which we must strive, however imperfectly, yet at least to the best
of our abilities, to attain to. And, accordingly, each of the four
preceding Lectures, although in free sketchy outline, contains an
attempt to put an end to and reconcile some particular schism among
those which are the most marked and predominant in the consciousness,
and which in essential points must disturb the whole of life. How far in
these four introductory essays this problem has been satisfactorily or
completely solved and happily settled, is a question which will be best
and most fairly tested by the idea of philosophy, as having its true end
and aim in the restoration of this corrupt consciousness to its sound
state--to its original unity and full energy of life.
The discord between philosophy itself and life was the first that I
attempted to get rid of. But now, if in the place of abstract thought
and the dialectical reason, we are entitled to look to the thinking and
loving soul for the true center of man’s consciousness, then the
imaginary partition-wall between science and life at once crumbles away.
Our second Lecture was occupied with the discord which subsists between
the finite and the infinite--the eternal and the perishable; and,
because this involved a problem which can only be solved by life and
reality, I therefore confined myself to pointing out the way in which we
may hope to discover their unity and equation. With this view, I
attempted to establish a vivid conviction that there is a true
enthusiasm wherein the illimitable feeling manifests itself as actual,
and that even the earthly passion of love assumes, in the holy union of
fidelity and wedlock, the stamp of the indissoluble and eternal, and
becomes the source of many divine blessings, and of many moral ties,
which are stronger, and furnish a firmer moral basis to society, than
any general maxims, or than any ethical theory which is built upon such
notional abstractions, far more than upon the pregnant results of the
experience of life. And lastly, in pure longing, I pointed out an effort
of man’s consciousness directing itself to an infinite, eternal, and
divine object. But, as this longing can only evince its reality by the
fruits it brings forth, I reserved, to a future opportunity, the more
precise determination of this question. The theme of our third Lecture
was the existence and the reconciliation of that schism which, both in
thought and life, divides the internal and the external worlds. If all
knowing be a mere process of the reason, then must this discord between
the inner and the outer be forever irreconcilable, and we should be
utterly at a loss to conceive how a foreign and alien body could ever
have found entrance from without into our Me, and become an object of
its cognition. But if every species of knowing be positive--if, also,
the cognition of the spiritual and divine be nothing else than an
internal and higher science of experience, then the idea of revelation
furnishes at once the key to explain, while it establishes the
possibility of a knowledge of the divine. And this remark admits, also,
of application to nature itself, when we consider it in its totality and
internal constitution, and speak of a knowledge of these things--of the
vital force which rules in it, or its animating soul; for this, indeed,
eludes our grasp, but yet speaks plainly to us--to him, at least, who is
wise to understand nature’s language. For if, in attempting to
understand nature, we isolate her, as it were, and exclude all reference
to Him who gave her being, and has assigned, also, her limits and her
end--if, in short, we disturb the two poles of a right understanding of
nature, then, most assuredly, will the effort be fruitless, and all our
labor unprofitable. Man, however, has gone still further, and by
transferring the innate discord of his internal consciousness to outward
objects, has forcibly rent asunder God and Nature--he has thus divorced
the sensible world and its Maker, and set them in hostile array against
each other, and thereby brought physical science in collision with the
knowledge of divine things and with revelation. Our fourth Lecture,
therefore, was consecrated to an attempt to effect here, also, a
reconciliation, or, at least, to lay the first stone, and to mark out
the road by which alone we could hope to arrive at so desirable a
result: and this is a problem which is even the more important the truer
it is, that this discord is not confined to science and the scientific
domain, but extends, also, to real life, where these discrepant views
and modes of thinking are arrayed against each other in so many hostile
and conflicting parties. And although, as differing merely as to the
form and direction of thought, they do not come forward in so distinct a
shape, or under such characteristic names, as the parties in religion
and politics, still this dissension is not, therefore, less real and
universal, or its effects and influence less noticeable. Of these
parties the first, and by far the most numerous, is the sect of the
rationalists, who doubt indiscriminately of all things, and test every
matter by the standard of their own skepticism. The second class is
formed of the exclusive worshipers of nature, and has many members among
scientific men; while, lastly, the third consists of those who derive,
from the positive source of a divine decision, the law of their thinking
and the standard of their judgment. Now, this last party, if it would
only go a few steps farther, and draw still deeper from this source,
would be able to assign its appropriate place and value to every potence
and truth in the other species of thought and knowledge, and even
thereby might qualify itself to dissolve and reconcile the all-pervading
discord. But inasmuch as they do not adopt this conciliatory attitude
toward natural, historical, and even artistic knowledge, so far as they
are true, but, on the contrary, in a spirit of animosity, attempt to
circumscribe and set negative limits to them, if not absolutely to
reject them as worthless and profane--then, when they least wish it,
they really sink into a party no less than the other two. And thus,
while they might occupy a far higher position, they fall to the level of
the rest, and contribute, on their part, an element to the intellectual
strife, and tend to promote and perpetuate it. The three parties, then,
which by their ruling ideas divide life and age, are the rational
thinkers, the worshipers of nature, and those who, in all controverted
questions, appeal absolutely to a higher and divine authority; for
inasmuch as the sentence of the latter is only of a negative import, it
is therefore insufficient to meet all the requisitions of life.
Thus, then, have I led your consideration to four different points, in
order to seize and exhibit, in as many different forms and spheres, this
great fact of the dissension in man’s consciousness, as it exists at
present. In a similar manner, too, a fourfold attempt has been made to
remedy its hereditary disease, which has been inherent in it since the
original darkening of the soul at the Fall, and, by appeasing the
discord which, as it is all-pervading and universal, assumes manifold
shapes and forms, to make the first step of return and approximation
toward the original harmonic unity. Having considered the matter in
these four special points of view, it will not, I hope, appear premature
if I now propose the question in a more general point of view, which
will embrace the whole human consciousness itself; but, at the same
time, limit our consideration of it exclusively to its psychological
aspect.
Now it is in nowise difficult to conceive of the human soul as much
simpler than it is, and apart from that division of it into several
faculties, which is at most, and properly, but an accident of its
existence. One of the first among the modern philosophers of Germany,
says somewhere of the soul, that the supposition of its existence is
superfluous, and that it is a pure fiction.[A] But this statement was
the result of his having abandoned in his system the true center of life
and consciousness; whoever, on the contrary, adheres steadily thereto,
will never concur in a position which simply, as contradicting the
general feeling of human nature, requires no elaborate refutation. But
as regards the two parts into which the soul is divided, viz., Reason
and Fancy--these, at any rate, are no fiction, but exist really and
truly within the consciousness, where, as in life itself, they often
stand confronting each other in hostile array. This division can not
well be called superfluous, but yet it does not admit of being
considered absolutely necessary, and belonging to the soul’s original
essence. If all thinking were a living cogitation--if the thinking and
the loving soul had remained at unity in their true center, then the
external methodical thought and the internal productive thinking,
meditating, and invention, would not be separate and divorced--at least
they would not come into hostile conflict with each other, but would
rather be harmoniously combined in the living cogitation of the loving
soul. The several forms, too, of a higher love and a higher endeavor,
aye, every lawful earthly inclination, would be blended in this harmony
of the soul, and no longer stand out as a separate and isolated faculty,
occasionally conflicting with all the others. Even the conscience would
no longer appear as a special act or function of the judgment, of a
distinct and peculiar kind, but would be absorbed in the whole as a
delicate internal sensibility and the pulse of the moral life.
As for sensation and memory, they are in any case but ministering
faculties, which only appear distinct and independent under the
influence of the prevailing tendency to separation and disunion, but on
the supposition of a simpler and more harmonious consciousness, would be
counted merely as bodily organs. If, then, the soul had not suffered an
eclipse--if it had remained undisturbed in the clear light of God--then
would man’s consciousness also have been much simpler than it now is,
with all those several faculties which we at present find and
distinguish in it. In such a case, it would consist only of
understanding, soul, and will. For if, according to the three directions
of its activity, any one should still be disposed to divide it into the
thinking, the feeling, and the loving soul, still this would not be
founded on any intrinsic strife or discord, but they would all combine
harmoniously together, and in this harmonious combination be at unity
among themselves. As for the distinction between understanding and will,
that would still remain, since it is essential to mind or spirit, and
may, in a certain sense, be ascribed even to the uncreated spirits. But
in this garden of the soul of inward illumination--on this fruitful soil
of harmonized thought and feeling--they would walk amicably together,
and work in common, and would not, as hostile beings, turn aside in
opposite directions, or as is mostly the case in actual life, be divided
from each other by an impassable gulf, and never meet in friendly
contact.
Thus nearly, or somewhat similarly, must we conceive of, and attempt to
represent to ourselves, the human mind in its original state, before it
was darkened, rent asunder, and condemned to lasting discord, but was as
yet eminently simple and perfectly harmonious.
And now as regards understanding and will, as a division of powers
essential to the mind or spirit, which, however, as such, is not
necessarily inharmonious: the expression already touched upon of another
of our modern German philosophers, will serve as a transition to and
commencing point for my remarks. According to this memorable assertion
with regard to the mind [_geist_], and which will serve as an
appropriate pendent to that last quoted about the soul, the essence of
mind or spirit in general consists in the negation of the opposite.[26]
Now I can not stop at present to inquire what sense this would give, if
applied to the uncreated spirit, and the Creator of all other spiritual
beings. But as concerns created spirits: their essence, contrariwise,
consists principally in an eternal affirmation. But this, however, they
have not of and from themselves, but it is the affirmation of the one to
which God has exclusively destined them. But it is not of themselves,
but of God and His energy, of whom these created spirits are, as it
were, but a ray--a spark of His light--therefore, in this ray, not only
sight and understanding, but also thought and deed, will and execution,
are simultaneous and identical. And it is in this respect that they are
so totally different from men. Now this ray of light, imparted to them
from God, is nothing less than the thought of their destination--of the
purpose of their being--in a word, their mission, if we may speak after
a human fashion, and in the prevailing phraseology. And, indeed, in all
ancient languages, the pure created intelligences have these names from
that mission which constitutes their essence; for their essence is even
perfectly identical with this divine mission or inborn eternal
affirmation. To the fallen spirits, on the other hand, the maxim above
quoted applies truly enough: their essence consists, not in the divine
affirmation, or the mission which they have abandoned, but rather in the
eternal, though bootless, denial of their opposite, which is even
nothing less than the divine order. For to their ambitious intellect and
perverse wills, the latter, in all probability, appeared far too loving,
and, therefore, unintelligible; while, to their censorious judgment, it
seemed deficient in rigor of consequence, and not unconditional and
absolute enough.
All that has hitherto been said reduces itself to the following result.
As by the first obscuration and eclipse of the human soul the very body
of man was deteriorated, and having been originally created with a
capacity of immortality, fell a prey to death, and received the germs,
or became liable to many diseases, as roots of death--which is not guilt
itself, but the natural result of guilt--so in his consciousness there
was then implanted, and has ever since been propagated, a germ of
intellectual death, and manifold seeds of error, which, however, are not
a new sin, but merely the natural consequences of the first sin and the
original corruption of the soul. In four different forms, according to
the four cardinal points and fundamental faculties of the human
consciousness, does this inborn error and fruitful germ of erroneous and
false thinking show and develop itself. We have already spoken of this
futile idea of the deadness of all external life, which has taken such
deep root in the center of all human thought--in the dead abstract
notion and the empty formula, and which, clinging as an original taint
to the human mind as at present constituted, renders it so difficult for
all those who, not content with merely observing nature, wish really to
understand it in its living operation, and, moreover, to imitate in
thought its dynamical law, and the inner pulse of its vital forces. For
in the abstract notion all this evaporates, and when confined within
such dead formularies, the true life of nature quickly becomes extinct.
This, therefore, is the primary source of error--the leading species of
barren and futile thinking in the abstract understanding. But now this
dead and lifeless cogitation of abstract ideas, with its processes of
combining and inferring, or of analyzing and drawing distinctions, may
be carried on into infinity, as being that wherein the essence or
function of reason consists, and also as giving rise to interminable
disputes and contradictions. Consequently this form of the reason, which
is ever pursuing dialectical disputations, or else skeptically
renouncing its own authority, even because it never allows itself to
proceed in what alone is its legitimate course, becomes thereby a second
source of error and false thinking among men. And, indeed, this
erroneous procedure of the dialectical reason, which is incessantly
working out or analyzing its abstract notions, is the effect of the
present constitution of the human mind; so that no individual can in
justice be blamed on its account, nor can its perverted conclusions and
corrupting results be fairly imputed to ulterior views and principles of
an immoral character.
In considering the imagination as a source of error, we have no need to
select the instance of a fancy satanically inflamed to passion, or
satanically deluded, or even one of a purely materialistic bias and
leaning. For fancy, even in its greatest exaltation and purest form, is
at best but a subjective view and mode of cogitative apprehension, and,
consequently, as such, is ever a fruitful parent of delusion. How very
rarely an imagination is to be found which is not predominantly
subjective, is shown precisely in the very highest grade of its
development--in the creations of imitative art. Of the exalted geniuses
who in single ages and nations have distinguished themselves from the
great mass, and attained to that rare eminence--the reputation of the
true artist; out of this short list of great names, how few can be
selected of whose productions it can be truly said and boasted--Here in
this picture we have something more than a mere general view, or the
peculiar fantasy of an individual; here life and nature stand before us
in their full truth and objective reality, and speak to us in that
universal language, which is intelligible to men of all countries and
all times! And the same remark applies to the whole domain of scientific
thought in general; but especially to physical and historical science.
In like manner, in the sphere of the will, it is not merely immoral
volitions, which, as such, must ever be false and wrong, that are
exclusively the source of erroneous thought. The spring of those errors
which we are at present considering lies in the very form of the will
itself, _i.e._, in the absolute willing, even though its object and end
be, in themselves, perfectly legitimate and unexceptionable. That this
absolute willing--or, to speak more humanly, and in ordinary language,
self-will and obstinacy--is a fundamental and hereditary failing of the
human character, as at present constituted, which shows itself in the
very youngest children, with the first dawn of reason, and requires to
be most watchfully checked, is but too well known to every teacher and
every mother. But not in infancy only, but also in the most important
and comprehensive relations of life--nay, even in the history of the
world--this same absolute willing proves the most pernicious of all the
sources of error and corruption in the soul and life of man, even when
its object is not unmitigatedly bad, or when, perhaps, it may even
deserve to be called great and noble. It is through this absolute
willing that the sovereign with unlimited authority, even though he be
gifted with a strong and comprehensive intellect, and possessed of many
estimable qualities and moral virtues, becomes, nevertheless, the
oppressor of his people and the merciless tyrant. Through it, also, in
states which are not monarchical, but where the supreme authority is
divided among several estates, views and principles which, calmly
considered and duly limited by opposing principles, are true and
beneficial, by being advanced absolutely, and without qualification, are
converted into so many violent factions, which, distracting the minds of
men and inflaming their passions, produce a wide-spread and fearful
anarchy.
The dead abstract notions of the intellect, the dialectical disputes of
the reason, the purely subjective and one-sided apprehension of objects
by a deluded fancy, and the absolute will, are the four sources of human
error. Considered apart from the aberrations of passion, special faults
of character, and prejudices of education, as well as the false notions
and wrong judgments to which the latter give rise--these four are the
springs from which flows all the error of the soul which makes itself
the center of the terrestrial reality, and which, springing out of this
soil, is nourished and propagated by it. To what, then, are we to look
to dispel these manifold delusions but to a closer and more intimate
union of the soul with God as the source of life and truth?
What, let us therefore ask, is the organ by which such closer union with
and immediate cognition of God is to be effected? Plainly not the
understanding, even though as the cognitive sense of a revelation of
spirit, and of the spirit of revelation, it carries us through the first
steps toward a right understanding of ourselves and the Creator. For so
long as we confine ourselves to the understanding, which, at most, is
but a preparatory and auxiliary faculty, we shall only make an
approximation. It is only when the divine idea, passing beyond the
understanding--the mere surface, as it were, of our consciousness--penetrates
into the very center of our being, and strikes root there, that it is
possible, with a view to this end, to draw immediately from the primary
source of all life. Now, the organ which essentially co-operates in
this work is the will, which, in such co-operation however, divests
itself entirely of its absoluteness. On this account I called the will
the sense for God, or the sense which is appropriated to the perception
of Deity.
But before I proceed in my attempt to define and elucidate the nature of
this reciprocal action, and show how it is possible or generally
conceivable, it will be necessary to premise one essential remark. I
have already attempted to discover and establish a special and
characteristic mark for every sphere of life, and its highest and
lowest grades. Thus, the proper and distinctive signature of nature, and
all that belongs to it, is a state of slumber or sleep; the
characteristic property of man, which distinguishes him from all other
intellectual beings, is fancy; while the essential property of the pure
created spirits is the stamp of eternity which is impressed on all their
operations, by means of which they perform, with untiring energies,
their allotted duties, without the alternation of repose or the
necessity of sleep, and by reason of which they remain forever what they
once begin to be. Applying the same line of thought to a higher region,
I would now attempt to discover there some characteristic sign, by
observing which man may, perhaps, be able to find his true position.
Proceeding, then, in this line of thought, and preserving a due regard
to the weakness of the human capacity, I would observe as follows. The
characteristic, not, indeed, of the divine essence--for that is too
great for man’s powers of apprehension--but of the divine operations and
His influence on the creation and all created beings, consists in His
incredible condescension toward these His creatures, and especially
toward man. Incredible, however, it may, nay, must and ought to be
called, inasmuch as it transcends every notion, nay, all belief, even
the most confiding and childlike, and the more it is contemplated,
appears the more inconceivable and amazing. Only it admits of question,
whether the expression be sufficiently simple and appropriate, and,
consequently, well-chosen; for the fact itself of this divine
condescension is affirmed in every line and word of revelation. And by
revelation I mean not merely the written revelation, but every
manifestation more or less distinct of God, and His divine operations
and providence--history, nature, and life. Now, on no one point are the
voices of all, who on such a matter can be regarded as authorities, so
perfectly concordant and unanimous, as on this wonderful attribute of
the Godhead, which, on the supposition that the belief in one living God
is universal, may be considered as placed beyond doubt or question.
In order to demonstrate how essential is the co-operation of the will to
that living intercommunion with God, which is something more than a mere
understanding, we advance the following assumptions. Supposing that in
the incredible condescension of His love, God has made Himself known to
a man, just as in the first books of our Holy Scripture He is described
as conversing with Moses, and as familiarly as one friend talks to
another; supposing also that He revealed to him all the secret things of
heaven and earth without reserve; that He at the same time laid open to
him His will and hidden counsels, and that not summarily and in a
general way, but definitely and in detail--expressly making known to him
His gracious purposes, both in what He at present requires of him and
designs for him hereafter; that He has also pointed out to man the means
which will enable him to accomplish His will, and, moreover, has added
the highest possible promises for his encouragement; supposing all this,
is it not evident that it nevertheless could not help or profit man
unless he consented to receive it? The whole divine communication would
be in vain if man obstinately continued in his old Egoism, mixed and
compounded of evil habits, fears, and sensual desires, and, unable to
tear himself away, still clung close to the narrow limits of self and
his own Me.
Now it is nothing but this intrinsic consent and concurrence in the will
of God, this calm affirmation of it, that can help man, who is now left
to his own free determination even as regards the Deity, and that can
lead him to God. On this account I called the will, rather than the
understanding, man’s sense for the divine. But all that is here required
is the internal assent, and not the power of actual performance; for
that varies even according to the standard of nature, or rather of that
which is imparted to him from above, since of himself man has no
capacity for that which is higher and more excellent, nothing being
man’s own but his will. Now this internal assent and submission of man’s
own will to the divine is clearly inconceivable where it has not, to a
certain degree, withdrawn from the sensible world which surrounds him
with so many ties and allurements, and where it has not loosened and set
itself free from the narrow domain of self to which his Ego so closely
clings.
Here, then, naturally arises the question, how far a renunciation of the
world and self-sacrifice, on which even the Platonic philosophy so
greatly insisted, is necessary, if we would advance one degree, or at
least one step, nearer to God, as the supreme good and all-perfect
Being, and what are its true and proper limits? In obedience to this
idea of the renunciation of the world as indispensable to communion with
God, the Hindoo fakir will sit for thirty years in one spot, with his
eyes fixed immutably in the same direction, so that he not only
surpasses all the limits of human nature, but also erases and
extinguishes all traces of it in himself. Or perhaps, in spite of the
simple principle and rule of sound reason, that man, as he is not the
author of his own being, has no right to terminate it, he follows a
false idea of self-sacrifice, and mounts the flaming pile in order to be
the sooner united to the Deity. In the fundamental idea of these
extravagances there is doubtless a germ of beauty and of truth, though
in the perverse application and gigantic scale of exaggeration that we
meet with it among the primeval nations of Asia, it is distorted into
monstrous falsehood. A simple illustration, taken from the different
ages of man’s life, will perhaps serve to set in a clear light the point
on which every thing turns in this matter of the assent of the human to
the divine will, and to determine the sense and the degree in which man
ought not to give himself up entirely to the world, or to revolve
closely round the center of self, if he would yield a sincere and hearty
submission to a higher voice and that guiding hand which conducts the
education of the whole human race, and watches with equal care the
development of individuals and of ages. The child may and must play, for
such exercise is wholesome and even necessary for the free expansion of
its bodily powers; but at its mother’s call, for to the child hers is
the higher voice, it ought to leave its play. Youth, again, ought to be
merry and enjoy the verdant spring; but when honor and duty summon to
earnest action, then must he be ready to lay aside all light-hearted
amusement for sterner avocations; or to take another view of the
youthful temperament, should its joyousness touch too rudely, not to say
overstep, the bounds of morality, then at the first hint of warning it
must abandon its treacherous pleasures. The full-grown man, too, having
to make his way in the world and to fight with fortune in the hard
struggle of life, has little leisure for idle feelings and meditations;
only he must not renounce all higher and nobler sentiments, nor dismiss
from his mind the thought of the Godhead and the divine (which indeed
for its mere preservation requires no outward ordinance or loss of
time), as belonging to the boy, and suitable only for the unripe years
of youth. Or to regard life under its passive aspect, let us think of
the happy wife by the side of a husband she loves, and living only in
her children, and possessing of worldly good as much as she wishes or
requires: suddenly, by one of those changes and chances which prevail in
this transitory life, she is bereaved of all--the partner of her joys
and cares, the children of her bosom, and perhaps, too, of her rank and
consideration, while beneath the repeated strokes of affliction her very
health sinks. Who would check her tears or blame her natural sorrow if
she feels and tells her woes? No one: for holier eyes than man’s look
upon her with compassion. One thing, however, may fairly and reasonably
be expected of her--that she do not give way entirely to despair, nor
murmur against Providence. More, therefore, than man requires of man in
the ordinary relations of life, God requires not of the human will; and
on that alone does He make any requisition, in respect to that free
assent and internal concurrence which alone can bind us in personal
union with the Godhead, and bring us near to Him; a consummation which
no mere intellectual apprehension of all possible revelations, whether
written on the pages of inspiration, or on the open tablets of nature,
or engraven on the imperishable annals of history, is sufficient to
bring about.
So much and nothing more is required for this essential concurrence of
the human will with the divine, in the general relations of life. But,
in the case of any special vocation and profession--if, for instance, a
man feels himself disposed to become a minister of the revealed Word, an
instrument and messenger of the divine communications--then, no doubt,
higher and sterner requisitions must come into consideration. To men of
native courage, what vocation can be more universal than that of a
soldier and defender of his country? but does not it require, besides
undaunted courage and contempt of death, the patient and enduring
fortitude which bears up under countless hardships and privations? What
vocation, again, can be simpler and more fully founded in nature, than
that of the softer sex to become a mother? but how many sufferings, and
fears, and dangers, compass it about, and how infinite are the great and
little anxieties to which a mother’s love--that purest and truest of all
earthly affections--is exposed? And it is even herein that human love
most betrays its weakness; it may suffice for some one determinate
direction, some transitory period of life, for some single effort of
magnanimity or self-sacrifice, but it rarely survives the changes of
time and fortune, and its faith and ardor too often are extinguished
amid the petty trials of every-day life, and its numberless cares and
anxieties.
And as with the love, so also is it with the faith of men: it enters not
sufficiently into minutiæ; it is not personal enough, nor sufficiently
childlike and confiding; it is not made to refer enough to ourselves.
Most men, indeed, have only too high an opinion of their own worth--an
overweening confidence in their own powers; at least, the opposite fault
of extreme diffidence is a rare exception. But yet, it is true, men
generally take far too low an estimate of their true vocation and proper
destiny; they believe not in its high dignity; and as viewed in its
place among the vast universe, they hold it and themselves as
comparatively insignificant. But this is a total misconception. Every
man is an individual entity--an inner world of his own, full of life--a
true microcosm (as has already been said in a different sense) in the
eye of God and in the scheme of creation: every man has a vocation of
his own, and an appropriate destiny. Could men’s eyes be but once opened
to see it, how would they be amazed at the infinity which they have
neglected, and might have attained to, and which generally in the world
remains neglected and unattained. But of the many thousands whom this
remark concerns, how very few ever attain to a clear cognition of their
real destination! And the reason of this is simply the fact, that the
faith of men is all too weak, and, above all, that it is too vaguely
general, too superficial, too little searching or profound--not
sufficiently personal and childlike.
A childlike faith, and a love that endureth unto the end--these are the
true bonds to hold the soul of man in intimate union with God. But it is
in hope, such as is at present found among men, that the chief defect
lies; for hope ought to be strong and heroic, otherwise it is not that
which the name expresses. Few men, perhaps, are entirely devoid of faith
and love, only they are not sufficiently carried into the details and
trifles of life, as human wants require; for it is exactly to these that
all that is divine in men’s thoughts and deeds ought to be directed. In
hope, on the contrary, the inner man must raise himself and ascend up to
God: it must, therefore, be strong and energetic, if it is to be
efficacious. On this account we might well expect it to be far more
rare, comparatively, than faith and love, considered according to the
human scale of reasoning; on the other hand, probably, there are many
men who, internally, are almost totally destitute of hope.
The longing after the eternal and divine, which has been already
described, is the seeking of God; but this calm, inward assent of the
will, whenever, with a childlike faith and enduring love, and in
steadfast hope, it is carried through and maintained with unwavering
fidelity throughout life, is the actual finding of Him within us, and a
constant adherence to Him when once we have found Him. As the root and
principle of all that is best and noblest in man, this divine longing
can not be too highly estimated, and nowhere is it so inimitably
described, and its excellence so fully acknowledged, as in Holy Writ
itself. A remarkable instance of it is the fact that a prophet who was
set apart and called by God Himself to his office, and was for that
purpose endued with miraculous gifts, is expressly called in Holy Writ
the man of longings.[27] And yet this longing is nothing but the source,
the first root, from which springs that triple flower in the lovely
symbol of faith, hope, and charity, which afterward, spreading over
every grade and sphere of moral and intellectual existence, expands into
the richest and most manifold fruits.
Now, it is very possible in some serious and intellectual work to feel a
pleasure in this triple union of holy thoughts and sentiments, as with
any deeply-significant picture in general, without duly entering the
while into its precise requisitions and profound meaning. But from one
particular end of a philosophy of life, _i.e._, of a thorough knowledge
of the human consciousness, the psychological aspect of the subject
assumes a peculiar importance, and essentially demands our attention.
With this view, I venture to assert that the human consciousness, which
otherwise and in itself is entirely a prey to discord, and split into
irreconcilable contraries, is, by faith, hope, and love, redeemed from
this dissension--is raised from its innate law, of an erring and dead
thought, and of an absolute will, which is no less dead and null, being
restored gradually to a perfect state of unison and harmony. Under the
influence of faith--and by this term I understand, not the cold and
heartless repetition of a customary formulary, but a living and personal
faith in a living and personal God and Savior--under the influence of
such a faith, the living spirit of truth steps into that place of the
consciousness which before was usurped by the mere abstract thinking of
a degraded understanding. And whenever, on the other hand, a refined
goodness and love have in patient endurance become the soul of
existence, there is no room for the stormy obstinacy or passionate
wildness of an absolute will. Even in the will itself all is now life;
discord is banished from it, and all the threatening elements of strife
are forever appeased. And in that trusting confidence with which the
loving soul leans upon God--in the strong godlike hope which takes its
stand upon the Eternal, the reason, with its ordering, regulating, and
methodical processes, and the fancy, with its dreams of the infinite,
are again completely reconciled, and thereby the harmony of the human
consciousness restored. Fancy, I remarked formerly, is the
characteristic property of man, as distinguished by it from other
spiritual intelligences; for reason, as a mere faculty of negation,
affords only a negative distinction of his nature as compared with
irrational creatures. But now, in a more comprehensive view, and, at the
same time, with profounder significance and greater truth of
description, we may say of man, in the same sense and in the same
relation, hope forms his characteristic property and his inmost essence.
Here, then, in this holy hope, is longing, that marvelous flower of the
soul, expanded into its perfect and noblest fruit. If, in judging of the
three, man looks to the end to which he is to attain--if, in thought, he
places himself at this point of view, then assuredly will love appear
the highest and the best; for hope ceases when fulfillment comes in, and
sight enters into the place of faith, but love abideth forever.[28] As
long, however, as man has not yet attained unto that which is perfect,
and is still in pursuit of it, hope must be regarded as the greatest,
for it is even the true vital flame of faith, as well as of love, and of
all higher existence.
This divine hope is even the fruit-bearing principle and the
fructification of the immortal soul by the Holy Spirit of Eternal
Truth--the luminous center and focus of grace, where the dark and
discordant soul is illuminated and restored to unison with itself and
with God.