OF THE WISDOM OF THE DIVINE ORDER OF THINGS IN NATURE, AND OF THE
RELATION OF NATURE TO THE OTHER LIFE AND TO THE INVISIBLE WORLD.
The highest and loftiest language would fail us were it our purpose to
speak of the inmost essence of the Godhead, since He is that which no
thought or conception can comprehend, and which no words are sufficient
completely to describe or adequately to express. On the other hand, when
we reflect on God’s work in creation, and of His superintending
providence which rules the course of this earthly world, our thoughts
can not be simple enough, nor, to judge by that principle of the divine
condescension which formed the nucleus of our remarks in the last
Lecture, too familiar or affectionate. In a general way this is commonly
enough admitted, but practically it is neglected. Men do not clearly
present to their minds all that is involved in it, and the remote
consequences to which it leads. And so, in spite of their better
convictions, they insensibly adopt a high-sounding and solemn strain,
when the tone of a childlike reverence is alone the suitable and
appropriate style for expressing the relation between the benignant
Creator and His creatures, and man especially, as simply and as
naturally as it is in reality.
I said as naturally, because it is implied in the very nature of things
that if God did originally create free beings like men, He would give
them all things needful, keep them constantly in His regard, and every
where lend them a helping and directing hand. But from time to time He
might, it is not inconsistent to suppose, withdraw, as it were, His
guidance; for otherwise they would cease to be free beings. In this
respect the divine Providence may be likened to a mother teaching her
child to walk. Having chosen a clear spot, free from all things likely
to hurt the infant in its fall, she places it firmly on its feet. For a
little while she holds and supports it, and then, going back a few
steps, she waits for its love to set its little limbs in motion and to
follow her. But how watchful is her eye, how outstretched her arms to
catch her babe the instant it begins to totter! Such nearly, and equally
simple, is the relation of God to man; and not to individuals only, but
also to the whole human race. For in the divine education and higher
guidance of mankind we may trace the same degrees and natural gradation
of developments as form the basis of the education of individuals, and
may also be observed in all the processes of nature.
Now we take it for granted that God has willed the creation not only of
free and pure spirits, but also of the natural world; for that He has so
willed is a fact that, as it were, stares us in the face. If, then,
along with the free spirits He has also created a nature, _i.e._, a
living reproductive power, capable of and designed to develop and
propagate itself, it is plain that we can not and ought not to think of
such a nature as independent and self-subsisting. For, first of all, it
had not its beginning in itself. Moreover, it would move as a blind
force, and as such manifest itself only in destruction and desolation,
if its Maker had not originally fixed and assigned to it the end toward
which all its efforts were ultimately to be directed. Nature, indeed, is
not free like man; but still it is not a piece of dead clock-work,
which, when it is once wound up, works on mechanically till it has run
itself down again. There is life in it. And if a few abstract but
superficial thinkers have failed to discern, or even ventured expressly
to deny this truth, the general feeling of mankind, on the other hand,
bears witness to it. Yes, man feels that there is life rustling in the
tree, as with its many arms and branches, its leaves and flowers, it
moves backward and forward in the free air; and that, as compared with
the clock, with all its ingenious but dead mechanism, it is even a
living thing. And what the common feeling of mankind thus instinctively
assumes is confirmed by the profounder investigations of physical
science. Thus we know that even plants sleep, and they, too, as much as
animals, though after a different sort, have a true impregnation and
propagation. And is not nature, on the whole, a life-tree, as it were,
whose leaves and flowers are perpetually expanding themselves and
seeking nourishment from the balsamic air of heaven, while, as the sap
rises from the deep-hidden root into the mighty stem, the branches stir
and move, and invisible forces sweep to and fro in its waving crown.
Most shallow and superficial, in truth, is that physical science which
would consider the system of nature, with all the marvels of beauty and
majesty wherewith its Maker has adorned it, as nothing more than a piece
of lifeless clock-work. In such a system the all-mighty Creator must
appear at best but a great mechanical artist who has at his command
infinite resources; or, if we may be allowed so absurd an expression, as
the fittest to expose the absurdity of those who would regard the divine
work, both in its whole and in its parts, as dead, an omnipotent
clockmaker. If, however, to meet the needs of man’s limited capacity, we
must, when speaking of the Creator, employ such trifling and childish
similes, then of all human avocations and pursuits that of the gardener
will serve best to illustrate the divine operations in nature.
All-mighty and omniscient, however, He has Himself created the trees and
flowers that He cultivates, has Himself made the good soil in which they
grow, and brings down from heaven the balmy spring, the dews and rain,
and the sunshine that quicken and mature them into life and beauty.
If, then, there be life in nature, as, indeed, observation teaches, and
the general feeling of man avouches, it must also possess a vital
development, which in its movements observes a uniform course and
intrinsic law. In truth, the Creator has not reserved to himself the
beginning and the end alone, and left the rest to follow its own course;
but in the middle, and at every point, also, of its progress, the
Omnipotent Will can intervene at pleasure. If He pleases He can
instantaneously stop this vital development, and suddenly make the
course of nature stand still; or, in a moment, give life and movement to
what before stood motionless and inanimate. Generally speaking, it is in
the divine power to suspend the laws of nature, to interfere directly
with them, and, as it were, to intercalate among them some higher and
immediate operation of His power, as an exception to their uniform
development. For, as in the social frame of civil life, the author and
giver of the laws may occasionally set them aside, or, in their
administration, allow certain special cases of exception, even so is it,
also, with nature’s Lawgiver.
Now, this immediate operation, and occasional interference of Supreme
Power with the order of nature, is exactly what constitutes the idea of
miracle. The general possibility of miracles is a principle which man’s
sound and unsophisticated reason has never allowed him to deny. But, on
the other hand, it is evidently essential to their very idea that they
should be thought of simply as deviations from the usual course of
nature’s operations; if they were not exceptions to the laws of nature,
then were they no miracles. Such miraculous exceptions, however, it may
be observed, need not invariably to be _contrary_ to the course of
nature, though _above_ nature, and far transcending its ordinary
standard, they always are. Exceptions, therefore, they are; but such, at
the same time, as do not permanently disturb the natural course and flow
of the vital development, which, on the whole, continues unchanged. For
it is only agreeable with Creative wisdom to maintain the world so long
as the present state of things subsists, and the final consummation has
not yet arrived, in the order originally prescribed to it by His
omnipotence.
To this an objection might be made in the opposite sense. Taken then in
their principle, the laws of nature, no less than those exceptions to
them which are usually called miracles, are one and the same; they are
alike from the Creator of all--and the laws themselves, therefore, are
equally miraculous. This remark is quite true; but it only teaches us
that we ought not to be too ready to see a miracle in every
extraordinary event. But still, there will ever remain an essential
difference between an immediate operation of omnipotence and the
Creator’s original production of a living force, implanting in this
creature an inner law, and thereupon leaving to it the further evolution
of its powers in the course marked out for and assigned to it.
Now, if such a creature, like this terrestrial nature, be of a mixed
constitution, composed of a principle of destruction as well as of a
principle of productive development and progression--if its life be a
constant struggle with death, then it is manifest that only by the same
hand which first formed it, gave it laws, and prescribed its order, can
its wise and divine economy be preserved, and the permanence of the
organic evolution of its whole system be secured, and the outbursts of
elementary dissolution, which are perpetually menacing it, held in check
and averted. If this restraint be once relaxed, if the destructive
energy of the wild elements be once let loose, and free scope given to
their fury--and this globe presents the manifest traces of one such
catastrophe, at least--then this, too, must be regarded as an exception,
and is only explicable by the higher principle of divine permission.
Viewed, however, as the retribution of divine justice on a guilty
world, it forms an exception and a miracle of a peculiar kind, and must
be distinguished from those other extraordinary operations properly
called miracles, wherein, with some saving or quickening purpose, the
Almighty, as it were, raises nature above herself, and takes her out of
her usual course.
In this way, then, we ought unquestionably to refer every thing in the
world to its author and preserver, whether it be conformable to the
usual course and order of nature, or, as an extraordinary phenomenon,
bespeak a higher and more immediate operation of divinity. But, at the
same time, we must never forget that nature itself is a living force
endowed with a capacity of self-development. Nature, indeed, is not free
in the same sense that man is, possessed and conscious of a power of
self-determination and choice; but as all life contains in itself the
germ of a free movement and expansion, and while it expands itself a
hidden and slumbering consciousness begins to stir and awake, so also in
nature, an initiatory or preparatory grade of it, if not fully
out-spoken, is at least indicated. In this respect it may be regarded as
the vestibule of that temple of freedom which in man, the crowning work
of this earthly creation, and made after the divine image and likeness,
stands forth in its full dimensions and proportions. Considered from
another point of view, the sensible world may be looked upon as a veil
thrown over the spiritual world--the light-flowing and almost
transparent robe, and, as it were, in all its parts the significant
costume of the invisible powers. But in no point of view can we rightly
consider nature as properly self-subsisting, or independent of its
Creator, and, therefore, in no case as isolated by itself and apart from
all reference to a superior being. Rather is it a living force, and one,
too, doubly significant, both from within and from without; to which
property an allusion is contained in the simile already employed, of a
book written both on the inside and the outside. These two ideas, then,
of the free will of man and of the living development of nature, must be
taken as the basis, and serve as the fixed point of every attempt to
ascertain the divine order in nature. On this account we have placed
them in the foreground of the present Lecture, which will, in the main,
be consecrated to such an investigation.
If, now, this demonstration of a divine order in nature seem to contain
nothing less than a kind of Theodicée[29] (so far as man can establish a
justification of God’s ways), I, for my part, must confess that I would
much rather have before my eyes a Theodicée for the feelings, conceived
in the very spirit of love, than any purely rational theory. For such
theories, founded in general on far-fetched hypotheses, subtilly
introduce into nature numberless divine purposes and designs, of which,
however, we are able neither clearly to understand, much less to prove
that they were intended by the everlasting counsels, or even that such
vestiges of a divine purpose are really discernible in the universe. In
this province of speculation we must not be too rigorous in our
determinations, and especially we must guard against systematizing. But,
above all, we can not be too watchful against the fault which so many
reasoners fall into, of transferring into the realm of nature, or of
God, that logical necessary connection which is a part of and connatural
with our rational constitution, and an indispensable aid to our limited
intellectual powers. Such a way of thinking would inevitably lead us to
that most mistaken notion of a blind fate--the phantom of destiny.
On the other hand, how many are the questioning feelings and
perplexities which arise in the human heart at the sight of certain
natural objects. And these even, because they are far from amounting to
doubts and objections, or at least from assuming a definite expression
or a scientific dignity, seem, on that account, only the more loudly to
demand an answer. The mournful cry of some helpless and innocent animal
when killed by man--or in a different category--the hissing of the
venomous serpent; the lothsome mass of maggots in the putrid corpse: all
these are but so many dumb exclamations which, as it were, do but keep
back the question, Are, then, these the productions of the all-perfect
Being--of the Supreme Intelligence?
The sufferings of animals are indeed a theme for man to reflect upon;
and I, for my part, can not concur with him who would regard this as a
topic unworthy of his thoughts, and expel from the human bosom all
sympathy with the animal creation. The consideration, however, of this
subject, naturally enough gives rise to the question as to the soul of
animals. Now, it certainly would do no discredit to philosophy, if it
should succeed in giving a satisfactory answer to this question, and
enable us to follow a middle course; as remote from the exaggerated
assumptions of ancient nations with regard to animal existence, on the
one hand, as on the other, from the unfeeling conclusions of modern
science, which refuses to regard or to sympathize with any pains, and
absolutely is unable to conceive the sufferings of any being which does
not possess the character of rationality exactly in the same manner and
degree as man. As greatly, on the other side, does the Hindoo theology
err. Its dogma of the metempsychosis not only ascribes an immortal soul
to animals, but it also further teaches that human souls are imprisoned
in animal bodies, as the penalty of a guilt incurred in a previous state
of existence. Beautiful, however, as is the compassionate sympathy with
the sufferings of the brute creation, which this theory has occasioned,
and confirmed by the sanction of a religious duty, still the assumption
on which it is founded is wholly arbitrary, and the extension of the
immortality of the soul to these creatures of our globe is an
unwarrantable exaggeration, and has no foundation in observed phenomena.
Moreover, the hypothesis of such a migratory state of departed souls is
inconsistent with every notion of the divine government of the world;
inasmuch as such a temporary punishment can produce no salutary effect,
either of purification or of preparation, and consequently would be
wholly motiveless and absurd.
Very questionable, moreover, does it seem, whether, with propriety, an
individual soul can be attributed to animals. With those that are most
closely domesticated with man, there does undoubtedly arise, as it were,
by a sort of mental contagion, the appearance of individuality and
difference of character, just as the artistic structures of certain
species form a kind of analogy to human reason, and as the melodious
intonations and feelings of some others seemed to me entitled, in a
similar sense, to be termed reverberations of fancy. In all those kinds,
however, which remain undisturbed in their natural state, the whole
species possesses the same character, and have, consequently, the same
common soul.[30] The species itself is only an individual; and,
consequently, the several species must be considered as so many living
forms of the general organic force of animated nature, since an
immortality of individual souls can, in the case of animals, neither be
assumed nor allowed to be assumable.
Among those perplexities, or, as I termed them, questioning feelings
about nature and its animating principle, I turn now to the
consideration of the last instance, that of the maggots of putrefaction.
Is not this one of the clearest possible proofs that all nature is
animated?[31] So much so, and so eminently is this the case, that even
in death and corruption, in foulness and disease, it still livingly
operates and produces life--the lowest grade, undoubtedly, of life--or,
if any so prefers to call it, a false life--but still a life. Now, can
such morbid productions of nature, the worms, _e.g._ [_entozoa_], which
in certain diseases are engendered in the bowels, be regarded as real
creatures? Naught are they but the dissolving and crumbling matter of
life, which even in dissolution is still living.[32] And this fact is
not confined merely to organic corruption and disease. Even the
element--the fresh water from the spring--is full of life, and it is the
more so the clearer and the better it is and the purer from the
microscopic animalculæ, which swarm in it more and more the longer it
stagnates and becomes foul, until at last, as frequently happens when it
has been kept long on shipboard, with the growing foulness of the water
they increase in size, and swim about as worms of visible magnitude.
Many other instances might be adduced in proof of this origination of
worms and vermin out of corruption, and testifying to it as a general
principle of nature. And are not those swarms of locusts which in
Asiatic countries are a general plague of the lands over which they
sweep with their thick and dark migratory hordes, a sickly proof that
the atmosphere that has engendered them is passing, or has already
fallen into corruption beneath the influence of some other contagious
element?
That the air and atmosphere of our globe is in the highest degree full
of life, I may, I think, take here for granted and generally admitted.
It is, however, of a mixed kind and quality, combining the refreshing
and balsamic breath of spring with the parching simoons of the desert,
and where the healthy odors fluctuate in chaotic struggle with the most
deadly vapors. What else, in general, is the wide-spread and spreading
pestilence, but a living propagation of foulness, corruption, and death?
Are not many poisons, especially animal poisons, in a true sense, living
forces?
Now, may we not give a further extension to this mode of view, and
apply the fact of a diseased propagation of a false life, as in the
worms of putrefaction, to other unsightly productions of nature. May we
not, for instance, consider serpents and snakes as the entozoa or
intestinal worms of the earth? That the evil spirits are not without
some influence on our terrestrial habitation, and that in many places
their malignant influence is distinctly traceable is, at all events,
undeniable. And accordingly, some have supposed the monkey tribe not to
be an original creation of the Deity, but a satanic device and malicious
parody upon man, as the envied favorite of God. That the “Prince of this
world”--which expression, in its latter half, is surely not to be
understood exclusively of man’s fallen race, but very evidently and
expressively alludes to the existing fabric of nature and the corrupted
world of sense--that the Prince of this world can exercise a certain
degree of pernicious influence on the productive energies of the natural
system in its present corrupt and vitiated condition, and that also,
there is in nature itself a power to produce evil, are facts which do
not admit of denial, and are noways inconsistent with revelation. Only
we must not suppose that this baneful influence is not confined within
certain limits. He to whom the Prince of this world, no less than the
world itself, is subject, has, in His infinite wisdom, set a definite
limit both of quantity and duration to this pernicious influence, as, in
general, He does to every permission of evil.
At all events we must not for one moment suppose that in the book of
nature we have a pure and uncorrupt text of God, and such as it
originally came from the hands of its Author. It is of the highest
consequence, for a due and right appreciation of the divine economy in
nature, that we give full consideration to this fact. On this account it
is important to keep in mind the distinction implied in that expression
already quoted from the Mosaic history--“Let the earth bring forth.”
For, according to this, it does not seem indispensably necessary to
ascribe immediately to the good and wise Creator every thing that the
earth brought forth; no, nor every thing that is produced by a nature
now so imperfect--so diseased, too, in many parts--and visibly
constrained to submit to hostile and foreign influences.
Many writers who, with the best intentions, undertake the task of
indicating the divine wisdom in the existing order of things, and of
defending the ways of Providence against the objections of human
presumption and conceit, generally err by taking too narrow a view of
their subject, and rigorously insisting on some one general principle,
which, by means of very hazardous assertions, they succeed in finding in
the whole and every part of the system of the universe. They leave out
of sight altogether that Mosaic distinction already alluded to, which in
appearance indeed is trifling enough, but yet in reality most
essentially important. Consequently, the good work which they take in
hand, instead of producing that general concurrence and conviction that
it otherwise might, gives rise rather to fresh doubts and objections.
The best solution of all such doubts--the most satisfactory answer to
all such or similar questions or questioning feelings--lies in the final
cause of the present constitution of things, considered as a whole and
in general, and judged of from a regard to its triple character and
triple destination. Now, according to this triple principle, we have, as
already shown, to regard the present system of nature as being primarily
a tombstone raised by Almighty benevolence--a bridge of safety thrown
across the gulf of eternal death--a bridge, however, which we must not
think of as quite so simple, broad, and straight as a bridge made by
human hands, but an animated and ensouled bridge of life, and multiform,
with many arms and branches, and presenting in some parts nothing more
than a narrow footing, where the first false stop precipitates into the
abyss beneath. But secondarily, according to this view, nature is
grounded on and devoted to progress; a wonderful laboratory of manifold,
diversified, and universal reproduction; and lastly, a glorious scale of
resurrection, ascending up to the last and highest summit of terrestrial
transfiguration. Now this laboratory lies in the hidden womb of nature,
while in the noble outward structure of its organic formations this
gradational scale manifests itself with a warning, a prognostication of
the height of excellence to which it eventually leads. But now, if
nature--as, judging from its original design, we may and must
assume--were a Paradise for the blessed spirits of the previous
creation, for the first-born sons of light, then most assuredly has it
not continued so, any more than the first man has remained in the garden
of Eden. No doubt, over a few favored spots of the existing globe, a
rich fullness of ravishing beauty still hovers, awakening in the heart,
as it were, the fleeting images of Paradisaical innocence--dying strains
of a primal harmony--mournful reminiscences of the happy infancy of
creation. For the powers of darkness and hostile spirits broke in upon
the fair beauty of primeval nature, and laid it waste and wild. The
garden of the earth in which the first man was placed, “to dress it and
to keep it,” is, no doubt, called Paradise; and assuredly it was
infinitely more beautiful, more wonderful, purer, and fuller of life,
than the loveliest scenery which meets the eye in the fairest spots of
the earth, and seems to be of an almost celestial beauty. But this is
said only of the immediate inclosure, the immediate habitation of our
first parent; the spot chosen and blessed by God--the garden watered and
surrounded by the four streams. All the rest of nature, the whole of the
world besides, must have ceased at that time to be a Paradise; for,
otherwise, whence could the serpent have come? So that even according to
the simple sense of the expression, “that old serpent,” he was already
there, in the midst of the natural world. And was it not probably a part
of the destination of man--at least, in its natural aspect--that,
setting out from this divine starting-point of a Paradise prepared for
and given to him, he was to go forth and convert the rest of the world
into a similar Eden?
But this destination he did not, however, fulfill, and consequently lost
even this beginning and model of the first Paradise. The names of the
four streams which watered it are indeed still preserved in those
regions of Asia, which even to this day are the richest and most
fruitful, and, according to history, were the earliest inhabited. But
the one source out of which they all took their rise has disappeared,
and no vestige of it remains. With the loss of Paradise all is changed,
not only in man himself, but in the earth as his place of abode.
The way of return out of this bewildered nature, or, if men prefer so to
speak, out of this sunk and degraded, not to say unsound and sickly,
state of the earthly and sensible world (and this way of return is even
the way of obedience to the course of the divine order in nature), is
indicated even by these three grades of its inmost character, its
tendency, and ultimate destination. And in these, and in the final cause
of the whole constitution of things, is contained its true key and
interpretation, as well as the answer to so many questions about nature,
which engage not merely the curious intellect of man, but also attract
the sympathies of his soul, sweeping across it either with dark doubts
and fears, or with bright intimations of life and glorious anticipation.
I spoke deliberately when I said to _many_ of these questioning feelings
and perplexities of the human mind, and not all of them. For to expect a
satisfactory answer to them all in the present state of science, or
generally in this terrestrial life, brief as it is, and limited on all
sides and short-sighted, would be agreeable neither with the course nor
whole constitution of human affairs. A thoroughly complete and perfectly
systematic demonstration of the wisdom in the divine order of nature,
which should meet and explain every difficulty, would, even on account
of such a pretension, command little respect, and be of slight
influence. Much is there in nature which is to remain long hidden from
man; much, too, which we shall see first of all in the other world, when
death shall have opened our eyes and made us clear-sighted in one
direction or another. But the beginning and the end are even here and
now placed clearly and intelligibly before us, if only we are ready and
willing to walk by the light that is so graciously given us, and here,
as elsewhere, invariably to refer the first cause and the final
consummation to the Creator and to God. Without such a reference,
without thus, as it were, placing its two poles in God, the right
understanding of nature is absolutely impossible, and every scientific
attempt to attain it apart from and independently of God, must simply as
such prove vain and involve itself in absurdities. Hence it is, however
paradoxical it may sound, that we can recognize more distinctly, and
better understand the end of nature, its meaning and significance as a
whole, than we can the final cause of many a single object in it, which,
however, as contrasted with the whole, appears inconsiderable and
trifling. For the clear perception that we have of the final cause of
nature comes immediately from the divine illumination, which therefore
we can, so far as it is given to us, see and understand. But in the
darker levels, in the subterranean shaft of the obscure sensible world,
the prophetic candle of an antlike burrowing science, even though it be
originally kindled at that higher light, can not reach to every quarter,
can not illuminate every object in this mine of darkness.
But this final cause of creation, such as it is given to us clearly and
intelligibly, will be rendered most clear by a comparison and contrast
with the conceptions of the end of nature which human reason has put
forth. If the proposition already quoted from one of the latest of
German philosophers, that the essence of mind consists in the negation
of the opposite, be now applied (which was the application I then had in
my mind) to the Creator of the world and uncreated Intelligence, then
the following must be the meaning involved in it. That which is the
opposite of God or the Creator is nothing; and so far the proposition is
quite true, since man can not but admit that the Almighty has created
the world out of nothing. For if, with some of the ancient philosophers,
we were to suppose a matter existing from all eternity, out of which God
did not so much create as form the world, then in this case we should
have two Gods, and both imperfect and finite, instead of the one
all-perfect and self-sufficient Being. But if, on the other hand, the
Deity be regarded as merely a not-nothing; if the final cause of
creation be simply the negation of naught, then would such a view
ascribe a sort of imaginary reality to the nothing, and it would seem
that the world was created solely in order to get rid of the nothing,
which comes pretty much to the same as saying--if we may allow ourselves
so Lessing-like a boldness of expression--the Infinite made the world
out of _ennui_. Thus, in every case do the skeptical views and empty
negations of idealism lead to a contradictory nothing.
But, in reality and truth, it was out of love that God made the worlds;
and, indeed, out of a superabundant love. This we may well venture to
assert, and even to call it a fact; and that the divine love is also the
final cause, as well as the beginning of creation. A superabundance of
love in God we must, however, call the final cause-ground of creation,
inasmuch as He stood in no need of it; no need of the love of the
creature, nor absolutely of the world itself, or created things. For in
His inmost essence, where one depth of eternal love responds fully and
eternally to the other, He was perfectly sufficient for himself. And yet
it is even so: there is in God the superabundance of love, for He has
created the worlds, and it is the divine will to be loved by His
creatures. For this end and purpose has He created them; and because He
would have their love, He has created them free, and given both to the
pure spirits and to men a free will. The whole secret in the relation
subsisting between the creature, and man especially, and the Creator,
lies even in this great fact, that He has created them out of love, and
requires in return the service of their love. There is, perhaps,
something awful in this requisition, and in the relation thus found to
subsist between a weak and imperfect creature and the infinite and
omnipotent Being. But it is even so: we are really free, and are really
required by God to give him our love. But now a finite and created being
can only be free so far as God leaves him free; and this is only
conceivable in the light I have already set it in by the simile of a
fond mother teaching her babe to walk, and in order to tempt it to make
the first essay with its little limbs, stepping back from it a few
steps, and leaving it a moment to itself. No creature could be free did
not God, in a similar way, leave it to itself, and, after the first
impulse of creation, withhold from it His controlling energy. But if He
did not do so--were He, on the contrary, to act upon His creatures
without reserve, and with the whole infinite extent of his might--then
the liberty of the latter, overwhelmed in His omnipotence, must be
destroyed, as being only possible through the spontaneous limitation of
the divine power, which results from the superabundance of creative
love.
Now we can, it is true, distinguish in the essence or energy of God,
between His intelligence and His will--His omniscience and His
omnipotence; but they can not be absolutely separated from and opposed
to each other, for in Him and in His operations, they, as indeed all
else in Him, are one. It would, therefore, be nothing but a foolish and
unmeaning subtlety to demand, “Why, then, has the Omniscient created
rational beings, of whom He must assuredly have known beforehand that
they would fall and perish?” For it is but a logical illusion, when we
transfer from the human to the divine mind a form of thought fluctuating
between the conceivably possible and the apparently necessary. Man’s
freedom undoubtedly consists in the choice between one possibility and
another, or in that indefinite possibility which subsists half way
between one necessity and another. But God’s freedom is not as man’s: in
Him there is neither contingent possibility nor unconditional necessity.
All in Him is truly actual, living, and positive. His freedom lies even
in the superabundance of His essence--the fact, viz., that He is not
bound by any law of necessity to remain contented with this His own
internal fullness. For otherwise He were a Fate rather than a free God,
and to that conclusion the doctrine of the Stoics consistently enough
arrived at last. Extremely difficult must it ever be, in such a system
and with such a conception of an intrinsically necessary God, and one
bound by this necessity, consistently to account for the creation of the
world, which, in appearance, is so irreconcilable with the idea of the
self-sufficiency of the divine Being. On this account some of the
similarly rationalizing systems of ancient times had recourse to the
ingenious device of ascribing the work of creation to a spiritual being
of an inferior order, and degrading this secondary deity far below the
infinite perfections of the supreme and all-sufficient God. But by this
expedient men did but fall, as is, alas! but too commonly the case, from
one error into another still greater and even more monstrous. It is, in
short, nothing but a mere logical delusion and an illegitimate
transference from our limited faculty of thought to the divine
intelligence, which gives rise to these pernicious doctrines of an
absolute and unconditional predestination, which fundamentally amount
and bring us back to a blind and heathenish fatalism.
Thus much, as connected with our subject, will be sufficient on the
difficult subject both of the freedom of the pure created spirits and
also of man’s will, as regarded solely from its philosophical aspect,
and without any reference to the moral theory, and solely in relation to
the system of the universe. Difficult, however, is this subject, merely
on one account. The logical illusion, from which springs all error,
strife, and confusion, and which we are too apt to transfer to the
divine mind, is so far innate in the very form of man’s finite
intellect, than even when we have recognized it for what it really is;
yet, so long as we confine ourselves to mere logical reasoning, and are
seduced by its seeming rigor of consequence, we are ever ready to fall
anew into this dangerous error without even remarking it.
In the same way, now, that the existence of free beings follows
naturally from the love of God, as the final cause of creation, so, on
the other hand, the permission of moral evil is a mere result of that
freedom in and through which these created beings have to run their
appointed time. For this freedom, as considered with a reference to God
and futurity, or to the immortality of the soul, is nothing else than
the time of trial and the state of probation itself. But, perhaps it
will be asked, “Why, then, does not God, by one nod of retributive
justice, by one breath of His omnipotence, annihilate forever, as He so
easily might, the whole company of evil and rebellious spirits, together
with their leader, the Prince of this world, and so purify the whole
visible creation, and release external nature from their desolating
influence?” To this the answer is simple and at hand. Man is placed in
this world on his trial and for a struggle with evil, and this warfare
is not yet ended. But by such an annihilation of evil, the living
development of nature would be precipitated in that course which God
originally designed it to advance through, and cut short before the
appointed time of final purification, when, according to His promise, He
will, as Holy Writ expresses it, create new heavens and a new earth, and
make perfect the whole creation.[33]
Man is free, but utterly unripe as yet; and thoroughly incomplete also
is nature, or the sensible world, and material creation; consequently,
the immortality of the soul is the corner-stone and key for
understanding the whole. For the mere beginning of creation is perfectly
unintelligible so long as we do not take into consideration the other
extreme or end--its final completion and ultimate consummation. Just as
the half of human life on this side the grave can not be understood
unless we contemplate, at the same time with it, its second half on the
other side of the tomb, as its complement, and as a necessary element
toward the elucidation of the whole.
As, then, the permission of evil finds a satisfactory explanation in
man’s probationary state, and in God’s love, as the final cause of the
creation, so also the physical evils and sufferings to which the free
being is liable are fully accounted for on that principle. This is the
key of the enigma of their existence. None of the sufferings of the free
being, on either side of the grave, are unprofitable and without a
motive. They all serve, either in this preparatory state of earthly
existence, for probation, for discipline, or for confirmation, or else,
after it, for the perfect healing of the soul, and its purification from
all the remaining dross and taints of earth.[34] Scarcely ever can the
diseased matter be got rid of and expelled from the organic body with
out a struggle, and very seldom without pain. Gold is purified by the
fire, and pain is the fiery purification of the body. This belief is one
which ought least of all to have been called into question, inasmuch as
it is only consonant to the simple feelings of human nature. For
otherwise, how narrowly must the hopes of the future be confined, if
nothing that is unclean shall enter into heaven--the Holy of Holies--the
immediate presence of the pure and holy God!
It is not, however, my intention to make this consolatory and blessed
hope of a loving and longing heart the topic of dispute, especially
since it lies altogether beyond my present limits. I will only allude to
the words of the Savior, “In my Father’s house are many mansions.” By
the “Father’s house” we must, it is clear, understand the future world.
On other side, therefore, of the grave, as well as on this, many
divisions, many degrees, and many different states, and also manifold
transitions, are not merely conceivable and possible, but must of
necessity be assumed as actually existent, even though we can not be too
cautious in avoiding all hasty decisions as to what is going on in this
hidden world. Only we must ever remember that any absolute line of
demarcation which on one side has nothing but white, while all that lies
on the other is black, is very rarely the line of truth. And this
principle holds good, it is plain, in every relation and every possible
application. For such a trenchant line of sharp and unmitigated contrast
between black and white is even one of those intellectual deceptions
connatural to man, which disposes him too hastily to transfer to all
without him the limited form of his own finite intellect. All the pains,
therefore, and all the sufferings of the creature, whether on this or
the other side of the grave, serve either to exercise and strengthen, or
to heal and purify, the yet imperfect being, with the single exception
of that bitterest of all agonies--the pain of being left eternally to
ourselves. But even here, although there is no hope of a salutary
effect, a species of converse propriety seems to hold.
It is, we remarked, the problem of philosophy, leaving to physics the
whole development of life that lies intermediate between the beginning
and end, to explain the two extremes of nature. As, therefore, we have
examined one of these extremes, and have discovered in the whole
terrestrial creation a Paradise as the blessed state of the still
innocent infancy of nature, before the revolt of the rebellious spirits
and the fall of the first man, the present seems the place for a few
words touching the opposite extreme--the regions of outer darkness. We
can safely admit that the figurative representations, not merely of
painters and poets, but occasionally also of the preacher, are so
horrible, and heaped together with so little consistency--the dark
colors laid on so thick, that the whole assumes to the feelings an
appearance of improbability, and, on this account, makes, for the most
part, no very deep impression. But the spiritual significance of these
sufferings, and the sort of propriety and design which holds, even in
this unnatural state, on the utmost borders of creation, may, perhaps,
be made clear by a very simple illustration. Most reluctantly, and with
a heavy heart assuredly, would an earthly parent resolve to turn out of
his house, and formally to disinherit, his first-born and beloved son,
even though he should have proved himself utterly worthless and
hopelessly depraved. But even if an earthly parent might be too hasty in
his anger, and actually be harsh and unjust, still we may boldly assume
that the love of our Heavenly Father, in patience and gentleness, far
transcends the truest parental love that is to be found on earth. But
when it actually comes to this point of offended mercy and justice, then
the disinherited, cast out into the regions of darkness, joins the band
of robbers who in the night lurk about his father’s house, seeking where
they may break into it. No other choice is left him than to become a
robber, and, whether he will or no, he must obey the leader of the band.
But better taught and as yet softer of heart than the rest, he must go
through many hardships and sufferings ere he becomes quite like the
others--as hard-hearted as the “murderers from the beginning,” who the
while look down upon him with scorn and contempt.
What I would say is this: many degrees, and undoubtedly extreme degrees,
of pain and torment, are necessary before the man cast out from the
presence of God can be wholly and completely transformed into an evil
spirit. And this is, perhaps, the proper meaning and essential character
under which we are to think of these endless torments of spiritual
death and ruin. If, moreover, this eternal death is often described as
an unquenchable fire, then unquestionably there lies in this figure,
even physically considered, a certain truth, inasmuch as even in this
world and in visible nature, fire, when left to itself and to its true
essential character, is the proper element of destruction. In the sun’s
genial influence, indeed, and in the blood of the living soul, it is
constrained and moderated into the wholesome warmth of life; but in
itself, and working in its elementary state, it is destructive and
opposed to all the other elements. To the light all that has life turns
instinctively, and in the air it breathes and pulsates, and from water
it draws a part at least of its nourishment. It is only incidentally
that the air and water become destructive, but the fire is so in its
proper nature. A perfectly organized animal that lived in fire would, in
a greater or less degree, fill every mind with horror and alarm, as
having no part in and wholly alien from that nature which is known to
and friendly to man. On this account, many even of the ancient
philosophers taught that the end of the present visible and the external
and sensible world, would be brought about by a general conflagration.
The permission of evil is an immediate consequence of the creation of
free beings. But although it may be regarded as a fact, that God has
created free both the spirits and man, still we must be on our guard how
we introduce into this matter any notion of necessity, and suppose that
God must have made them free, and could not have created any other. For
man is only too prone to transfer his own imaginary conceit of necessity
to the Deity himself, and to feign to see it in Him. This, however, were
a most grievous error; and yet it is one into which men almost
inevitably fall when they adopt either a rigorously systematic or purely
logical view of the matter. Could not God in his omnipotence have
created powers and dominions which, even though they were living
energies and ensouled principalities, should, nevertheless, be without
the property of self-determination and a true liberty, and which would
consequently require some other nature, but similar to themselves, to
rule and direct them? In this sense we read of the spirits of nature,
ensouled elementary powers and living forces, which are described as
being seized and taken possession of by the power of evil, but as
hereafter to be set free by the efficacy of redeeming love, and again
subjected to and united to God. Now, as connected with this subject, it
is deserving of consideration, that in all the declarations and
allusions of the Eternal Truth this present earthly nature is spoken of
as the battle-place of invisible powers, the debatable ground on which
the two armies of good and evil spirits and elements are posted in
hostile array against each other, and perpetually coming into
collision.[35]
Could not God, had such been His pleasure, have created other beings,
and by the fiat of His all-mighty will have raised them at once above
all the dangers of liberty, and enduing them with perfect holiness, and
exempt from all liability to fall, have drawn them to Himself in eternal
love?
I have hitherto, wherever it has been my object to give a clearer and
sharper characterization of the human consciousness by means of a
comparison with the faculties of intellect and will possessed by
superior but created spirits, confined myself to the idea of the pure
spirits, genii or angels. But if it should have been the divine pleasure
to create other spiritual beings with an organic body--one, perhaps, not
like the human, but still of a very noble though animal form, endued of
course with an immortal soul and with a knowledge of God--who is there
in such a case to set limits to the omnipotent will? Now if, as already
supposed, they were created in perfect holiness, and exempt from the
liability to fall, it is easily conceivable how in this respect they
would be higher than frail and imperfect man, and must be regarded as a
part of the spiritual world, rather than as belonging to the human race
or to the existing system of nature.
All these are not so much inappropriate and impertinent conjectures and
idle fancies, as calmly mooted questions for explanation, which arise
out of and are suggested by certain traditions and points of revelation.
Lastly, if the Almighty had resolved to create a perfect being, so far
above and before all the other creatures of His will, as to stand next
to Himself, and be, as it were, the mirror and reflection of His own
infinite perfections--and many a word in Holy Writ seems to allude to
something of the kind--then it is not difficult to see how the
already-quoted expression of a soul of God would receive a better sense.
This being, so superior to all other created spirits, must in any case
be regarded as a soul, and for the most part of a passive essence, for
otherwise it would stand too close and near to Deity itself. And it is
manifest, that even here the ever-immeasurable interval which separates
the Creator from the most perfect of creatures must be most carefully
kept in view. And at all events this expression must in no case be
applied to the second or third persons of the Godhead, nor be confounded
therewith, otherwise this designation would not only be false, but
altogether an abomination.
Revelation contains an inexhaustible mine of verities, and I have only
wished, by the way, to call attention to these as yet unexplored
treasures. But it is above all important, for the philosophical point of
view, steadily to insist upon and enforce the truth, that in no respect
can we form a notion adequately grand and lofty, or rich and manifold
enough, of the Creation. The compactly-closed and orderly-arranged
system is almost always the death of truth. So also is that line--which,
however, seems to be a connatural fault in the very form of man’s
faculty of judgment--that straight line between black and white, for
even if it be not radically wrong, it yet leaves much on both sides
unconsidered and ill understood.
With this impression, I shall allow myself to notice an opinion but
little known, which, moreover, if I had not met with it in writers who,
in this province of inquiry, are of the highest authority, I should
scarcely have ventured to adduce. In this department of spiritual
knowledge, a man would much rather confine himself to the simple primary
truth than call attention to mere opinions. The opinion I allude to is
to be found in St. Jerome, _i.e._, in that very Father who, for
theological judgment, is acknowledged by all to be the first and the
greatest. It was held also by St. Francis de Sales, that holy saint of
spiritual love, and who, even on that account, is so superior to the
many hundreds of the schoolmen before him, as also to so many
ideologists after him. Lastly, it occurred to Leibnitz, who, of all
philosophers, was most possessed of a true and fine intellectual tact to
perceive and discover all the most secret, delicate traits of a great
system, even though most remote in character from his own. But still,
with this array of great authorities, it remains nothing more than a
wholly problematical opinion, on which, as an article of positive faith,
nothing is or ever can be decided. Now this opinion is, that in the
revolt of the rebellious spirits, while those who remained in their
state of innocence and in their allegiance rallied only the closer round
their Creator, a considerable number, fearful and undecided, vacillated
between good and evil, and, as we might justly say, with the weakness of
the human character, remained neutral in the conflict, and thereby lost
their original place in the hierarchy of the heavenly host, without,
however, being counted among the utterly lost. As a fourth authority for
this opinion, I might adduce Dante. He is indeed a poet, but still a
theological poet, and deeply versed in theology, who would never have
arbitrarily devised or invented, or even adopted such a notion, had he
not found it existing among others before him, and had he not been able
to adduce a good and valid authority for it. As a good Ghibelline, he
was, moreover, no friend of neutral spirits, either in this world or the
other; and he passes the most severe sentence upon those beings whom, as
he says, heaven has cast out, and hell would not receive.[36]
But what--if we may propound the question with something more of
philosophical indifference than the poet--what, according to the analogy
of the divine economy and merciful justice, as elsewhere displayed, are
we to suppose the doom of these undecided and wavering spirits? In the
first place, we may well suppose that they would be submitted to a new
probation: just as a general gives another opportunity to the troops,
who in some evil moment have shown a want of spirit, to retrieve their
honor. Now, if it be allowable to assume that this, or some similar
idea, or some tradition of the kind, had an influence on and gave rise
to the doctrine of the pre-existence of men, which is so generally
diffused among the Hindoos, and which was also held by the Platonists,
and even Christian Platonists, of the first centuries, we can then
conceive how this otherwise so arbitrary assumption and groundless
hypothesis could have arisen. Groundless, however, it may well be named,
not only because no cause or explanation of it is adduced, but as being
agreeable neither to the nature of the soul nor to the constitution of
things; so that, regarded even in this light, it must be looked upon as
a singular instance, and consequently as an exception from the laws of
nature and as a miraculous intervention of divine power. But a mere
pre-existence of spirits would, however, be no true pre-existence in the
sense of the Hindoo theology, or of the Platonists, since, by its union
with and by the accession of a soul, it becomes a wholly different and
quite a new being. Moreover, in this hypothesis, as it is further worked
out in the Hindoo and Platonic systems, the whole character and true
destination of human life is entirely misunderstood, inasmuch as it is
represented as a place and period of punishment; whereas, rightly
conceived, and even philosophically contemplated, it appears rather as a
battle-place, and the time of discipline and preparation for eternity.
It is the problem and vocation of philosophy not merely to set forth the
truth clearly and simply, but also, whenever it can be done incidentally
and easily, to account for and explain great and remarkable errors,
especially such as were prevalent among the earliest nations and ages.
Now, among those errors which are most remarkable in ancient history,
this of the Hindoos and Platonists holds in my eyes a very prominent
place. But philosophically to explain an error, means not to reject it
at once as absurd and undeserving of notice, but requires rather that we
should first of all really understand it, _i.e._, that we should study
it, and, to a certain degree, enter into its spirit, and seek to
discover its best significance, or, in other words, that interpretation
which is nearest to the truth, and then in conclusion accurately to
determine the point where error begins and truth is violated.
All this, however, may now be left to its own merits. In touching upon
it, my only object has been to call attention to the wonderful variety
of God’s creative power, even in the copious theme of the immortality of
the soul. And in this view it appeared to me not unprofitable to notice
even the most discrepant theories on the subject, as being nevertheless
well calculated to throw a clear and steady light on the simple truth.
In the last age, since the Hindoo metempsychosis, as it is now
accurately and authentically known, appeared too serious and sad a
doctrine to meet with the welcome and concurrence of the existent
generation, a brighter and more fanciful theory was propounded. In it
this life has been astronomically depicted in the brightest and most
attractive colors as a walk among the stars, continually ascending from
one sidereal existence to another. In the limited range of human
knowledge, it is alike impossible to deny or to prove the possibility of
such a migration among the stars. But it is evidently a wiser course,
and one far more agreeable to the nature and limits of man’s powers of
understanding, for him to confine his views to his own immediate
home--the earth--investigating, sifting, and divining its mysteries,
than to lose himself in airy dreams amid the whole starry universe. For,
perhaps, that which man is seeking so far off he may find much closer to
his own doors than he suspects. For it is not improbable that this
planet of our earth contains in its interior many subterranean courses
and secret chambers of death, together with the seeds of light which are
to spring up into the future resurrection.
But this may be reserved for consideration in another place. Here I will
only add, in conclusion, that opposite to that gradational scale,
already so often mentioned, which the vast pyramid of nature forms in
relation to God and its own living development, stands another scale for
man, adapted to his needs and suited to his narrow position and limited
intelligence. In this scale, nature, _i.e._, in this sense, the nature
which most immediately surrounds and environs man, this planet of our
earth which bears and nourishes the human race, is first of all man’s
habitation, teeming, indeed, with life, and even itself a living thing,
in which, however, he is ever meeting here and there with something that
tells him it is not his proper home. In the second step of this view of
nature, which contemplates it principally in its relation to man and
man’s wants, the natural world in its present form appears as the
battle-place and debatable ground of the still undecided, or, rather,
not as yet terminated, struggle between the good and evil powers, and
the fiercer the strife again begins to be, the more necessary is it not
to overlook this aspect of the matter. The third gradation in this view
of nature, considered relatively to the mind or spirit of man in his
finite existence, is that which teaches him to look upon it as the
visible veil of the invisible world, covered all over and richly
ornamented with significant symbols and hieroglyphics. And even because
nature itself is even a symbolical being, therefore, when we speak of
its inmost life and its spirit, or its meaning as a whole, _i.e._, when
we attempt to study and to understand it, not physically only, but even
philosophically, we can only hope to convey our meaning symbolically, by
employing scientific illustrations and living symbols.