"Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty."
There is in the human intellect an insatiable eagerness and an
indomitable energy of acquisitiveness. It carries in its consciousness
an ineradicable instinct of domination, that spurs it to boundless
enterprise and prompts it to spurn defeat. This lordly quality of the
human mind is the natural outcome of its sovereignty over the physical
creation, and the appropriate expression of its kinship with the
Creator. It is part of man's Divine birthright, and the insignia of his
nobility. But it brings with it the peril of all special prerogative,
the inevitable temptation that accompanies the possession of power. It
tends to breed a haughtiness that is restive of restraint, a
self-sufficiency that forgets its own boundaries, and an arrogance that
refuses to wield the sceptre of aught but an unlimited empire. So it
comes to pass, when reason in its restless research is brought to a stop
by the invisible but very actual confines of human knowledge, it resents
the suggestion of limitation, and declines to accept the arrest of its
onward march. The temptation that besets it is twofold. On the one hand,
pride, irritated by the check, but too clear-sighted to ignore it, is
tempted to refuse to admit any truths it cannot fathom or substantiate,
and to deny the real existence of any realm of being beyond its natural
ken. This is the characteristic error of Rationalism and Positivism. On
the other hand, there is in the opposite direction a tendency, born
equally of intellectual pride and self-will, to refuse the restriction,
to ignore reason's incapacity, and so to venture to state and explain
that which is inexplicable. Alike in the spheres of science and of
religion men strive recklessly to remove from God's face the veil which
His own hand has not drawn, and irreverently intrude into mysteries
hopelessly beyond human thought to conceive or human speech to express.
This is the transgression of rash speculation and of arrogant dogmatism,
and it is in itself as sinful, and in its consequences as harmful, as
are the blank negations of scepticism.
Each of these errors the author of our poem was fortunate enough to
escape. Recognising the limitation of all earthly knowledge, he does not
rage against the restrictions and beat himself against the environing
bars. He does not take it on himself, by a foolish fiat of his finite
littleness, to decree the non-existence of everything too subtle for his
dim eyes to perceive, or too fine for his dull ear to hear. Where he
fails to understand the wisdom or goodness of God's ways he does not
intrude and try to alter them, neither does he wildly struggle to
comprehend their meaning, nor madly refuse to submit to them. He adapts
himself to the Divine dealing, and is content to obey without insisting
on knowing the reason why. He curbs in the cravings of his mind, nor
will suffer the swift stream of his thought to rush on like an impetuous
torrent, dashing itself against obstructing rocks, and fretting its
waters into froth and foam. He possesses his soul in patience, and does
not "exercise" himself "in great matters, or in things too high" for him.
This attitude of acquiescence is the position imposed on us by
necessity, and prescribed by wisdom. But, as a matter of fact, its
practical possession depends on the presence of a certain inner mood or
disposition. We have seen that the denials of scepticism and the
excesses of dogmatism are alike the offspring of pride, and spring from
an over-estimation of the potency of reason. Therefore, as we might
expect, the poet's simple acceptance of limitation and contentment with
partial knowledge are due to the fact that he has formed a modest
estimate of himself. "Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes
lofty." His submission to restraint has its root in humility. He does
not exaggerate his capacity. He takes the measure of his mind
accurately. He does not expect to be able to accomplish more than his
abilities are equal to. It seems to him quite natural that men should
not be able to comprehend all God's ways. It is to be expected that
there should be many things in God's operations beyond their knowledge,
and in his thoughts passing their understanding. It is, therefore, no
matter for surprise that men should encounter in God's universe "great
matters," and "things too high" for them. Nay, the wonder and
disappointment would be if there were no mysteries, no infinitudes,
transcending our narrow souls. Would it gladden you if indeed God were
no greater than our thoughts of Him? What if the sun were no brighter
and no vaster than the shrunken, dim, and tarnished image of his
radiance framed in a child's toy mirror? Alas for us if God and the
universe were not immeasurably grander than mankind's most majestic
conceptions of them! Measuring ourselves thus, in truth and lowliness,
over against God, who will not say, with the poet of our Psalm, "Lord,
my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty: neither do I exercise
myself in great matters, or in things too high for me"?