and by popular belief among a race of personifications, in whom the idea
of descent replaced that of cause, or of pantheistic evolution, was
restored, without subdivision or reservation, to nature as a whole; at
first as a mechanical _force_ or _life_; afterward as an all-pervading
_soul_ or inherent _thought_; and lastly as an external directing
_Intelligence_.
The Ionian revival of pantheism was materialistic. The Moving Force was
inseparable from a material element, a subtle yet visible ingredient.
Under the form of _air_ or _fire_, the principle of life was associated
with the most obvious material machinery of nature. Everything, it was
said, is alive and full of gods. The wonders of the volcano, the magnet,
the ebb and flow of the tide, were vital indications, the breathing or
moving of the Great World-Animal. The imperceptible ether of Anaximenes
had no _positive_ quality beyond the atmospheric air with which it was
easily confused: and even the "Infinite" of Anaximander, though free of
the conditions of quality or quantity, was only an ideal chaos, relieved
of its coarseness by negations. It was the illimitable storehouse or
Pleroma, out of which is evolved the endless circle of phenomenal
change. A moving Force was recognized _in_, but not clearly
distinguished _from_, the material. Space, Time, Figure, and Number, and
other common forms or properties, which exist only as _attributes_, were
treated as _substances_, or at least as making a substantial connection
between the objects to which they belong: and all the conditions of
material existence were supposed to have been evolved out of the
Pythagorean Monad.
The Eleatic philosophers treated conceptions not only as entities, but
as the only entities, alone possessing the stability and certainty and
reality vainly sought among phenomena. The only reality was Thought.
"All _real_ existence," they said, "is _mental_ existence;
non-existence, being inconceivable, is therefore impossible; existence
fills up the whole range of thought, and is inseparable from its
exercise; thought and its object are one."
Xenophanes used ambiguous language, applicable to the material as well
as to the mental, and exclusively appropriate to neither. In other
words, he availed himself of material imagery to illustrate an
indefinite meaning. In announcing the universal being, he appealed to
the heavens as the visible manifestation, calling it _spherical_; a term
borrowed from the material world. He said that God was neither moved nor
unmoved, limited nor unlimited. He did not even attempt to express
clearly, what cannot be conceived clearly; admitting, says Simplicius,
that such speculations were above physics. Parmenides employed similar
expedients, comparing his metaphysical Deity to a sphere, or to heat, an
aggregate or a continuity, and so involuntarily withdrawing its nominal
attributes.
The Atomic school, dividing the All into Matter and Force, deemed matter
unchangeable in its ultimate constitution, though infinitely variable in
its resultant forms. They made all variety proceed from the varied
combinations of atoms; but they required no mover nor director of the
atoms external to themselves; no universal Reason; but a Mechanical
Eternal _Necessity_, like that of the Poets. Still it is doubtful
whether there ever was a time when reason could be said to be entirely
asleep, a stranger to its own existence, notwithstanding this apparent
materialism. The earliest contemplation of the external world, which
brings it into an imagined association with ourselves, assigns, either
to its whole or its parts, the sensation and volition which belong to
our own souls.
Anaxagoras admitted the existence of ultimate elementary particles, as
Empedocles did, from the combinations whereof all material phenomena
resulted. But he asserted the Moving Force to be Mind; and yet, though
he clearly saw the impossibility of advancing by illustration or
definition beyond a reasonable faith, or a simple negation of
materiality, yet he could not wholly desist from the endeavor to
illustrate the nature of this non-matter or mind, by symbols drawn from
those physical considerations which decided him in placing it in a
separate category. Whether as human reason, or as the regulating
Principle in nature, he held it different from all other things in
character and effect, and that therefore it must necessarily differ in
its essential constitution. It was neither Matter, nor a Force conjoined
with matter, or homogeneous with it, but independent and generically
distinct, especially in this, that, being the source of all motion,
separation, and cognition, it is something entirely unique, pure, and
unmixed; and so, being unhindered by any interfering influence limiting
its independence of individual action, it has Supreme Empire over all
things, over the vortex of worlds as well as over all that live in them.
It is most penetrating and powerful, mixing with other things, though no
other thing mixes with it; exercises universal control and cognition,
and includes the _Necessity_ of the Poets, as well as the independent
power of thought which we exercise within ourselves. In short, it is the
self-conscious power of thought extended to the Universe, and exalted
into the Supreme External Mind which sees, knows, and directs all
things.
Thus Pantheism and Materialism were both avoided; and matter, though as
infinitely varied as the senses represent it, was held in a bond of
unity transferred to a ruling power apart from it. That Power could not
be Prime Mover, if it were itself moved; nor All-Governing, if not apart
from the things it governs. If the arranging Principle were _inherent_
in matter, it would have been impossible to account for the existence of
a chaos: if something _external_, then the old Ionian doctrine of a
"beginning" became more easily conceivable, as being the epoch at which
the Arranging Intelligence commenced its operations.
But this grand idea of an all-governing independent mind involved
difficulties which proved insuperable; because it gave to matter, in the
form of chaos, an independent and eternal self-existence, and so
introduced a dualism of mind and matter. In the Mind or Intelligence,
Anaxagoras included not only life and motion, but the moral principles
of the noble and good; and probably used the term on account of the
popular misapplication of the word "God," and as being less liable to
misconstruction, and more specifically marking his idea. His
"Intelligence" principle remained practically liable to many of the same
defects as the "Necessity" of the poets. It was the presentiment of a
great idea, which it was for the time impossible to explain or follow
out. It was not yet intelligible, nor was even the road opened through
which it might be approached.
Mind cannot advance in metaphysics beyond self-deification. In
attempting to go further, it only enacts the apotheosis of its own
subtle conceptions, and so sinks below the simpler ground already taken.
The realities which Plato could not recognize in phenomena, he
discovered within his own mind, and as unhesitatingly as the old
Theosophists installed its creations among the gods. He, like most
philosophers after Anaxagoras, made the Supreme Being to be
Intelligence; but in other respects left His nature undefined, or rather
indefinite through the variety of definitions, a conception vaguely
floating between Theism and Pantheism. Though deprecating the
demoralizing tendencies of poetry, he was too wise to attempt to replace
them by other representations of a positive kind. He justly says, that
spiritual things can be made intelligible only through figures; and the
forms of allegorical expression which, in a rude age, had been adopted
unconsciously, were designedly chosen by the philosopher as the most
appropriate vehicles for theological ideas.
As the devices of symbolism were gradually stripped away, in order, if
possible, to reach the fundamental conception, the religious feeling
habitually connected with it seemed to evaporate under the process. And
yet the advocates of Monotheism, Xenophanes and Heraclitus, declaimed
only against the making of gods in human form. They did not attempt to
strip nature of its divinity, but rather to recall religious
contemplation from an exploded symbolism to a purer one. They continued
the veneration which, in the background of poetry, has been maintained
for Sun and Stars, the Fire or Ether. Socrates prostrated himself before
the rising luminary; and the eternal spheres, which seem to have shared
the religious homage of Xenophanes, retained a secondary and qualified
Divinity in the Schools of the Peripatetics and Stoics.
The unseen being or beings revealed only to the Intellect became the
theme of philosophy; and their more ancient symbols, if not openly
discredited, were passed over with evasive generality, as beings
respecting whose problematical existence we must be "content with what
has been reported by those ancients, who, assuming to be their
descendants, must therefore be supposed to have been well acquainted
with their own ancestors and family connections." And the Theism of
Anaxagoras was still more decidedly subversive, not only of Mythology,
but of the whole religion of outward nature; it being an appeal from the
world without, to the consciousness of spiritual dignity within man.
In the doctrines of Aristotle, the world moves on uninterruptedly,
always changing, yet ever the same, like Time, the Eternal Now, knowing
neither repose nor death. There is a principle which makes good the
failure of _identity_, by multiplying _resemblances_; the destruction of
the _individual_ by an eternal renewal of the _form_ in which matter is
manifested. This regular eternal _movement_ implies an Eternal Mover;
not an inert Eternity, such as the Platonic _Eidos_, but one always
_acting_, His _essence_ being _to act_, for otherwise he might _never_
have acted, and the existence of the world would be an accident; for
what should have, in that case, decided Him to act, after long
inactivity? Nor can He be partly _in act_ and partly _potential_, that
is, quiescent and undetermined to act or not to act, for even in that
case motion would not be eternal, but contingent and precarious. He is
therefore _wholly in act_, a pure, untiring activity, and for the same
reasons wholly immaterial. Thus Aristotle avoided the idea that God was
inactive and self-contemplative for an eternity, and then for some
unknown reason, or by some unknown motive, commenced to act outwardly
and produce; but he incurred the opposite hazard, of making the result
of His action, matter and the Universe, be co-existent with Himself; or,
in other words, of denying that there was any time when His outward
action _commenced_.
The First Cause, he said, unmoved, moves all. _Act_ was _first_, and the
Universe has existed forever; one persistent cause directing its
continuity. The _unity_ of the First Mover follows from His
immateriality. If He were not Himself unmoved, the series of motions and
causes of motion would be infinite. Unmoved, therefore, and unchangeable
Himself, all movement, even that in space, is caused by Him: He is
necessary: He cannot be otherwise than as He is; and it is only through
the necessity of His being that we can account for those necessary
eternal relations which make a science of Being possible. Thus Aristotle
leaned to a seemingly personal God; not a Being of parts and passions,
like the God of the Hebrews, or that of the mass even of educated men in
our own day, but a Substantial Head of all the categories of being, an
Individuality of Intelligence, the dogma of Anaxagoras revived out of a
more elaborate and profound analysis of Nature; something like that
living unambiguous Principle which the old poets, in advance of the
materialistic cosmogonists from Night and Chaos, had discovered in
Ouranos or Zeus. Soon, however, the vision of personality is withdrawn,
and we reach that culminating point of thought where the real blends
with the ideal; where moral action and objective thought (that is,
thought exercised as to anything outside of itself), as well as the
material body, are excluded; and where the divine action in the world
retains its veil of impenetrable mystery, and to the utmost ingenuity of
research presents but a contradiction. At this extreme, the series of
efficient causes resolves itself into the Final Cause. That which moves,
itself _un_moved, can only be the immobility of Thought or Form. God is
both formal, efficient, and final cause; the One Form comprising all
forms, the one good including all good, the goal of the longing of the
University, moving the world as the object of love or rational desire
moves the individual. He is the internal or self-realized Final Cause,
having no end beyond Himself. He is no moral agent; for if He were, He
would be but an instrument for producing something still higher and
greater. One sort of act only, activity of mind or thought, can be
assigned to Him who is at once all act yet all repose. What we call our
highest pleasure, which distinguishes wakefulness and sensation, and
which gives a reflected charm to hope and memory, is with Him perpetual.
His existence is unbroken enjoyment of that which is most excellent but
only temporary with us. The divine quality of active and yet tranquil
self-contemplation characterizing intelligence, is pre-eminently
possessed by the divine mind; His thought, which is His existence,
being, unlike ours, unconditional and wholly _act_. If He can receive
any gratification or enjoyment from that which exists beyond Himself, He
can also be displeased and pained with it, and then He would be an
imperfect being. To suppose pleasure experienced by Him from anything
outward, supposes an insufficient _prior_ enjoyment and happiness, and a
sort of dependency. Man's Good is beyond himself; not so God's. The
eternal act which produces the world's life is the eternal desire of
good. The object of the Absolute Thought is the Absolute Good. Nature is
all movement, and Thought all repose. In contemplating that absolute
good, the Finality can contemplate only itself; and thus, all material
interference being excluded, the distinction of subject and object
vanishes in complete identification, and the Divine Thought is "the
thinking of thought". The energy of mind is life, and God is that energy
in its purity and perfection. He is therefore life itself, eternal and
perfect; and this sums up all that is meant by the term "God". And yet,
after all this transcendentalism, the very essence of thought consists
in its mobility and power of transference from object to object; and we
can conceive of no thought, without an object beyond itself, about which
to think, or of any activity in mere self-contemplation, without outward
act, movement, or manifestation.
Plato endeavors to show how the Divine Principle of Good becomes
realized in Nature: Aristotle's system is a vast analogical induction to
prove how all Nature tends toward a final good. Plato considered Soul as
a principle of movement, and made his Deity realize, that is, turn into
realities, his ideas as a free, intelligent Force. Aristotle, for whom
Soul is the motionless centre from which motion radiates, and to which
it converges, conceives a correspondingly unmoved God. The Deity of
Plato creates, superintends, and rejoices in the universal joy of, His
creatures. That of Aristotle is the perfection of man's intellectual
activity extended to the Universe. When he makes the Deity to be an
eternal act of self-contemplation, the world is not excluded from His
cognizance, for He contemplates it within Himself. Apart from and beyond
the world, He yet mysteriously intermingles with it. He is universal as
well as individual; His agency is necessary and general, yet also makes
the real and the good of the particular.
When Plato had given to the unformed world the animal life of the
Ionians, and added to that the Anaxagorean Intelligence, overruling the
wild principle of Necessity; and when to Intelligence was added
Beneficence; and the dread Wardours, Force and Strength, were made
subordinate to Mildness and Goodness, it seemed as if a further advance
were impossible, and that the Deity could not be more than The Wise and
The Good.
But the contemplation of the Good implies that of its opposite, Evil.
When God is held to be "The Good," it is not because Evil is unknown,
but because it is designedly excluded from His attributes. But if Evil
be a separate and independent existence, how would it fare with His
prerogative of Unity and Supremacy? To meet this dilemma, it remained
only to fall back on something more or less akin to the vagueness of
antiquity; to make a virtual confession of ignorance, to deny the
ultimate reality of evil, like Plato and Aristotle, or, with Speusippus,
the eternity of its antithetical existence, to surmise that it is only
one of those notions which are indeed provisionally indispensable in a
condition of finite knowledge, but of which so many have been already
discredited by the advance of philosophy; to revert, in short, to the
original conception of "The Absolute," or of a single Being, in whom all
mysteries are explained, and before whom the disturbing principle is
reduced to a mere turbid spot on the ocean of Eternity, which to the eye
of faith may be said no longer to exist.
But the absolute is nearly allied to the non-existent. Matter and evil
obtruded themselves too constantly and convincingly to be confuted or
cancelled by subtleties of Logic. It is in vain to attempt to merge the
world in God, while the world of experience exhibits contrariety,
imperfection, and mutability, instead of the immutability of its source.
Philosophy was but another name for uncertainty; and after the mind had
successively deified Nature and its own conceptions, without any
practical result but toilsome occupation; when the reality it sought,
without or within, seemed ever to elude its grasp, the intellect,
baffled in its higher flights, sought advantage and repose in aiming at
truth of a lower but more applicable kind.
The Deity of Plato is a Being proportioned to human sympathies; the
Father of the World, as well as its Creator; the author of good only,
not of evil. "Envy," he says, "is far removed from celestial beings, and
man, if willing, and braced for the effort, is permitted to aspire to a
communion with the solemn troops and sweet societies of Heaven. God is
the Idea or Essence of Goodness, the Good itself [τό άγαθόν]: in
goodness, He created the World, and gave to it the greatest perfection
of which it was susceptible; making it, as far as possible, an image of
Himself. The sublime type of all excellence is an object not only of
veneration but love." The Sages of old had already intimated in enigmas
that God is the Author of Good; that like the Sun in Heaven, or
Æsculapius on earth, He is "Healer," "Saviour," and "Redeemer," the
destroyer and averter of Evil, ever healing the mischiefs inflicted by
Herè, the wanton or irrational power of nature.
Plato only asserts with more distinctness the dogma of antiquity when he
recognizes LOVE as the highest and most beneficent of gods, who gives to
nature the invigorating energy restored by the art of medicine to the
body; since Love is emphatically the physician of the Universe, the
Æsculapius to whom Socrates wished to sacrifice in the hour of his
death.
A figurative idea, adopted from familiar imagery, gave that endearing
aspect to the divine connection with the Universe which had commanded
the earliest assent of the sentiments, until, rising in refinement with
the progress of mental cultivation, it ultimately established itself as
firmly in the deliberate approbation of the understanding, as it had
ever responded to the sympathies. Even the rude Scythians, Bithynians,
and Scandinavians, called God their "Father"; all nations traced their
ancestry more or less directly to Heaven. The Hyperborean Olen, one of
the oldest symbols of the religious antiquity of Greece, made Love the
First-born of Nature. Who will venture to pronounce at what time God was
first worthily and truly honored, or when man first began to feel aright
the mute eloquence of nature? In the obscure physics of the mystical
Theologers who preceded Greek philosophy, Love was the Great First Cause
and Parent of the Universe. "Zeus," says Proclus, "when entering upon
the work of creation, changed Himself into the form of Love: and He
brought forward Aphrodite, the principle of Unity and Universal Harmony,
to display her light to all. In the depths of His mysterious being, He
contains the principle of love within Himself; in Him creative wisdom
and blessed love are united."
"From the first
Of Days on these his love divine be fixed,
His admiration; till in time complete
What he admired and loved, his vital smile
Unfolded into being."
The speculators of the venerable East, who had conceived the idea of an
Eternal Being superior to all affection and change, in his own
sufficiency enjoying a plenitude of serene and independent bliss, were
led to inquire into the apparently inconsistent fact of the creation of
the world. Why, they asked, did He, who required nothing external to
Himself to complete His already-existing Perfection, come forth out of
His unrevealed and perfect existence, and become incorporated in the
vicissitudes of nature? The solution of the difficulty was Love. The
Great Being beheld the beauty of His own conception, which dwelt with
Him alone from the beginning, Maia, or Nature's loveliness, at once the
germ of passion and the source of worlds. Love became the universal
parent, when the Deity, before remote and inscrutable, became ideally
separated into the loving and the beloved.
And here again recurs the ancient difficulty; that, at whatever early
period this creation occurred, an eternity had previously elapsed,
during which God, dwelling alone in His unimpeached unity, had no object
for His love; and that the very word implies to us an existing object
toward which the love is directed; so that we cannot conceive of love in
the absence of any object to be loved; and therefore we again return to
this point, that if love is of God's essence, and He is unchangeable,
the same necessity of His nature, supposed to have caused creation, must
ever have made His existence without an object to love impossible: and
so that the Universe must have been co-existent with Himself.
The questions how and why evil exists in the Universe: how its existence
is to be reconciled with the admitted wisdom and goodness and
omnipotence of God; and how far man is a free agent, or controlled by an
inexorable necessity or destiny, have two sides. On one, they are
questions as to the qualities and attributes of God; for we must infer
His moral nature from His mode of governing the Universe, and they ever
enter into any consideration of His intellectual nature: and on the
other, they directly concern the moral responsibility, and therefore the
destiny, of man. All-important, therefore, in both points of view, they
have been much discussed in all ages of the world, and have no doubt
urged men, more than all other questions have, to endeavor to fathom the
profound mysteries of the Nature and the mode of Existence and action of
an incomprehensible God.
And, with these, still another question also presents itself: whether
the Deity governs the Universe by fixed and unalterable laws, or by
special Providences and interferences, so that He may be induced to
change His course and the results of human or material action, by prayer
and supplication.