CHAPTER IV.

BELIEFS OF REASON.

In the last section, we have examined a number of intellectual

perplexities, running closely parallel to certain _primâ-facie_

objections commonly alleged against Natural Theism. We have seen

that they are, in reality, difficulties arising from the impotence

of the Human Mind, whenever it is directed to the contemplation of

first or supreme, Principles. In all reason therefore, they cease to

be objections. We are, in fact, constantly finding ourselves obliged

to accept as an undeniable truth, or a real existence, what when

placed objectively before our mental vision, appears inexplicable,

self-contradictory, or absolutely unthinkable.

The power which compels us to many an admission of this kind is

the _mind itself_, asserting a strength of insight, in-born and

inalienable, notwithstanding the symptoms of weakness, which

(psychologically speaking) may have seemed threatening to overcloud and

disable it.[ac]

Hence, we are led to suspect that some at least of those symptomatic

weaknesses, are mistakes in diagnosis. This suspicion will be shared by

most persons tolerably acquainted with the present state of psychology,

and particularly with the manner in which foregone theories are

supported by over-refined analysis. At all events, the reactionary

strength of the mind is best shown in the concrete beliefs resulting

from its own simplest activities.

Our simplest mental activities are naturally our earliest. Amongst

them, none are more distinctly marked than our impulses to believe

and act upon certain definite pre-suppositions. These differ from the

vague and purposeless dreams of childhood, by gradually becoming clear,

practical, and expansive. One of the most vigorous, permanent, and

prevailing, amongst them all, is our human belief in the existence of

supernatural power. Upon another presupposition (not originally the

clearest), seems to rest, in the first degree, that principle which

gives validity to all the inductive sciences. We will carefully examine

this latter belief, with the object of drawing from the process certain

aids for an examination of the former.[ad]

Induction is defined as the legitimate inference of the more general,

from the less general;--the general from the particular;--and (with

more startling distinctness) of the Unknown from the Known. It is at

once evident that, whatever may be the logical form into which this

mode of inferring is thrown, there must in the nature of things be

some ulterior principle to give it legitimacy. This principle, when

raised to the rank and dignity of a philosophic postulate, is commonly

known as the Law of Natural Uniformity. A law claiming such extensive

dominion that one cannot help asking in what code, human or Divine, of

reason or of experience, it was originally found written.

Let us have recourse to the code of reason first. Euclid gives

admirable instances of things true by necessity of reason. The moment

we understand what right lines are, we see at once and for all time

that two straight lines, infinitely prolonged, can never inclose a

space. No one ever did see a mathematical line of any kind ("length

without thickness"),--no one ever saw or conceived any real or ideal

thing of infinite extent, neither can we think infinity at all. Yet

the terms of the geometrical proposition carry their own evidence. We

may sum the case, as Euler the mathematician put it. He finished a

demonstration upon _Arches_ by saying, "All experience is contrary to

this, but that is no reason for doubting its truth."

Now, there appears nothing in the least resembling this case, in the

conception of Natural Uniformity. No thinker can predicate substantial

impossibility of the idea that Nature should ever be otherwise than

Uniform.

Suppose, then, we consider the code of Experience. Where shall we find

the experience required? Ours is far short of universal, either in an

absolute or an approximate sense. We are the children of to-day--yet

the law wanted must be to all intents universal. It has been answered

to this obvious requirement, that we enjoy the results of an experience

constant and uniform, "coextensive not with the life of the single

individual who employs them, but with the entire history of the human

race."[154] But in what history is any such experience written?

History in its _letter_, is full of events which contradict Nature's

uniformity, of interruptions, marvels, miracles. For cattle to speak,

is quite a common occurrence in Livy. An ordinary Roman would have been

perplexed by the absence of signs and wonders; he would have felt it

something to be accounted for. History tells us on every written page

to believe in what seems impossible; and some writers on historical

evidence, claim for it a greater amount of credibility whenever it

testifies to the greater number of improbable incidents. For, do not

writers of fiction deal in probabilities?[155]

Another method of giving force to the principle of natural Uniformity,

is based on our alleged sense of personal subjection to the chain

of events;--the outer world is said to penetrate the inner by an

impression of its unvarying sequence, its laws of unbroken continuity.

But does the lesson of life really go this way? Most men, when

meditating over their own lives, think rather of the causation they

have themselves exercised, or might have exercised, than of any iron

links of causality in nature. So strongly do they feel their causal

power, that, whereas one man boasts of being the architect of his own

fortunes, another blames himself because he has been foolish enough

to let things take their chance. What people chiefly realize and act

upon, is the relation between Man and Nature--or, else between Man

and Man;--relations prolific in consequences which we shall have to

consider by-and-bye.

A more summary mode of explaining our human impression of natural

Uniformity, is by resolving it into certain laws of Association. We

see antecedent and consequent every day, and get to consider them as

indissolubly associated. If we see a present antecedent, we expect a

coming consequent. The event and its futurity, are thus fused in a

common solvent. Yet, one palpable objection lies against this theory,

and it is fatal. Fatal against it, and against all theories which rest

our belief upon experience, or upon any process of reasoning, inductive

or demonstrated. The objection consists in the plain fact, that this

belief resembles animal instinct[156] in _one_ definite particular--it

exists previously to all observation or exercise of intelligence on the

subject.

We see it in all young creatures. The instinct of children is to act

upon a supposition that the thing they have enjoyed or suffered shall

recur regularly and without interruption. The darling brought down to

dessert every day for a week, feels injured by a breach of the custom,

just as the cat or dog fed from their masters' table expects the same

hand to continue always kind. Child, kitten, and puppy, need no second

scalding to look askance at the tea-kettle. Grown people's confidence

in the stability of Empires often reposes on no much stronger

foundation. Most men rest satisfied with an indefinite and unreasoning

presumption all their lives long. They desire no further explanation--a

happy circumstance, perhaps, considering the theories they might have

to investigate.

Mr. James Mill in his "Analysis of the Human Mind" made great and

continual use of the laws of Association. He applied them (amongst

other ways) to our belief in the uniform futurities of Nature. "There

can" he writes "be no idea of the Future; because strictly speaking

the Future is a non-entity--of nothing there can be no idea.... Our

whole lives are but a series of changes, that is, of antecedents and

consequents. The conjunction, therefore, is incessant; and, of course,

the union of the ideas perfectly inseparable." (Vol. I. pp. 362-3.)

And again, (p. 367,) "But I am told, that we have not only the idea

of to-morrow, but the belief of to-morrow; and I am asked what that

belief is. I answer, that you have not only the idea of to-morrow, but

have it _inseparably_. It will also appear, that wherever the name

belief is applied, there is a case of the indissoluble association of

ideas. It will further appear, that, in instances without number, the

name belief is applied to a mere case of indissoluble association; and

no instance can be adduced in which anything besides an indissoluble

association can be shewn in belief. It would seem to follow from this,

with abundant evidence, that the whole of my notion of to-morrow,

belief included, is nothing but a case of the inevitable sequence

of ideas."--This theory Mr. Bain (no hostile critic) annotates as

follows. "The case that is most thoroughly opposed to the theory of

indissoluble association is our belief in the Uniformity of Nature. Our

overweening tendency to anticipate the future from the past is shown

prior to all association; the first effect of experience is to abridge

and modify a strong primitive urgency. There is, no doubt, a certain

stage when association co-operates to justify the believing state.

After our headlong instinct has, by a series of reverses, been humbled

and toned down, and after we have discovered that the Uniformity, at

first imposed by the mind upon everything, applies to some things and

not to others, we are confirmed by our experience in the cases where

the uniformity prevails; and the intellectual growth of association

counts for a small part of the believing impetus. Still, the efficacy

of experience is perhaps negative rather than positive; it saves, in

certain cases, the primitive force of anticipation from the attacks

made upon it in the other cases where it is contradicted by the facts.

It does not make belief, it conserves a pre-existing belief." In Mr.

Bain's comment it is worthy of particular remark that he considers

experience less as a foundation, than a _test_ always,--a _limit_

sometimes,--of that law which gives life to all the experimental

sciences. "The uniformity imposed by the mind," he observes,

"applies to some things but not to others." His view, therefore,

places the principle itself in the light of a generality given by

the mind and apprehended as a leading maxim. Its field is sometimes

reasserted,--sometimes contracted,--by experience; but in both cases

the effect is a process of discrimination.

In support of this view, it may be fairly urged that a child calculates

on the uniformity of human character and conduct, to an extent not

justified in after life. Any child correctly expects a stone to fall

when thrown into the air, without the least idea of that special reason

for its fall, which can be mathematically extended to the stars. In

like manner, our very earliest belief in the reality of men and objects

outside us, confuses persons and things as resisting antagonists which

ought to be punished and overcome. Experience, therefore, brings

discrimination. Thus, too, the natural apprehension of a power above

nature, occupies a more defined sphere in our own old age than the

first radiant glimpses of our wondering upward-springing childhood. And

the same may be said of the world's several eras of religious thinking.

Yet, if some eminent writers are correct in contending that the belief

in a Supreme "_Heaven-Father_," (so strong in the Aryan[157] family,)

was of extreme antiquity, we must admit that our race's infancy

cherished a more truly Theistic faith, than many intervening ages of

moral degeneracy retained.[158] But, side by side with this admission,

we ought to place _two_ notable facts,--_first_ that our sense of the

supernatural has really educated the great heart of Man; teaching him

from the love of God to love his neighbour likewise.--_Next_,--that

the awful impression has, on the whole, grown with his growth, and

strengthened with his strength; acquiring fresh light and beauty with

every fresh access to his noblest illumination. Exactly in proportion,

as man increasingly learns to love and live for his neighbour, he has

always increased the depth and earnestness with which he lives for and

loves his God. In these two facts is bound up the secret of our Western

civilization.

We must return, however, for a few paragraphs to the general

consideration of what may be called our pre-rational beliefs.[ae] That

they are pre-rational (account for them as we will), is evident since

from them spring our first tendencies to reason in special directions,

and our first ability to receive and assimilate such mental food as

may be afforded us. "The primary facts of intelligence,"--says Sir

W. Hamilton, "the facts which precede, as they afford the conditions

of, all knowledge,--would not be original were they revealed to us

under any other form than that of natural or necessary beliefs."[159]

A central point this; and one most essential for the Psychologist!

Indeed, every one who explains such beliefs into laws of association,

commits the oversight of refining away the chief fact involved in

those laws themselves. For, the very idea of association presupposes

a guiding impulse. How can we classify without a standard of

classification, arrange or connect without threads of connection or

arrangement? Laws of association must cluster round an associating

principle, just as translucent halos encircle the Sun. Laws of

association do not make principles; but an operative principle evokes

associations, and manifests itself in their law.

Oversights like this, and the one before noted by Mr. Bain, are

examples of the paralogism incident to all attempts at explaining the

inexplicable. In his eagerness, the metaphysical refiner subtilizes

away the truth under analysis. Even so, in days of old, Alchemists used

to sublimate the gold intended for transmuting inferior metals, till it

flew off in elastic vapour, and all that _had been_ precious, vanished

from the eager speculative man. A frequent issue this, to searchers

after our true philosopher's stone.

The catalogue of pre-rational beliefs or impulses to believe, is

considerable, and might easily be enlarged. But there is much to hinder

a full enumeration. In the first place, they emerge from a border-land

between the brute and the man; and border territories are proverbially

fertile in disputes. Next, they have to be sought out and examined

in the birthplace of intelligence; and the beginnings of knowledge

like the beginnings of history are overshadowed by a twilight haze.

Then, too, amongst the painters of human nature, (who after all are

but men,) there prevails a disinclination to confess how largely our

human life is cradled under the rule of unreason and impulsiveness.

Most of us hardly know why we act, yet, every one likes to believe

himself reasoning and reasonable. Finally, some religious minds

shrink back from realizing the idea of an _instinctive_ belief in the

moral antithesis of Right and Wrong, or in a Supreme First Cause and

Judge of all men. They feel as if to admit it were almost degrading

to Faith,--forgetful that the philosophic Apostle took this view and

expressed it with the utmost boldness.[160] Forgetful, also, that from

whatever source Man's reason sprang, from the same welled forth every

bright stream of practical activity,--impelling him to work in spheres

as yet unconquered by the force of his own understanding.

The hindrances now described are, after all, grounded on an inadequate

conception of the true distinction between the Animal and the Man.

Apart from the fact that ultimate objects of instinct differ as widely

as the idea of a future life differs from the poorest enjoyments of

the brute world,--quite apart from all consideration of aims and

ends,--the impulses themselves are in their own activities very far

indeed from occupying the same level. There are instincts of the

utmost importance to all self support and self protection, and to

the sustenance and care of others, which appear in their own nature

simple and unalterable;--unerring within their direct line, but beyond

it helpless and narrow in their field of operation. Other instincts

again,--such, for example, as impel animals to construction, and human

beings to art,--are evidently influenced and enlarged by intelligence.

Beavers adapt their dams, birds their nests, and the bee her comb,

to all kinds of circumstances, so far as they can command the means

of adaptation. Their intelligence also delights itself in different

kinds of adornment.[161] But the power of meeting exigencies, is

manifestly limited throughout the lower creation. The bee has, for

ages, worked upon marvellously accurate principles, unintelligible

to mathematicians before the calculus was invented, and only fully

explained of late years. She always erects one effectual and skilful

kind of barricade[162] against hostile swarms, as well as that

dreaded assailant, the Death's head moth. Furthermore, she evinces

readiness in fitting all her material structures to place, occasion,

and circumstance. Yet, observe the same bee exhausting herself by

vain struggles against the sloping roof of a greenhouse, of which

every window is thrown wide open. She perseveres, hour after hour, in

unavailing endeavours to escape by her one accustomed upward track

of flight, unable to conceive the possibility of transparent but

impenetrable glass; and incapable of learning the fact by her repeated

disappointments. In this way, hundreds of bees, butterflies, and other

winged insects, perish miserably every summer. So, too, the highly

educated and intelligent dog, will try to scratch holes in hard flag

stones, and, after trials innumerable, still scratches on without

seeming to discover that he never succeeds in making a single hole.

Thus, also, birds in captivity keep up the perpetual motion of their

heads--(useful to the poor prisoner no longer!) and generations after

generations of captives maintain the instinctive practice. Numberless

instances might easily be adduced to the same effect. But _no_ similar

observation holds good of man. The child soon discontinues its efforts

to thrust an arm through a glass window; and every day learns some new

lesson in the properties of material objects. The engineer builds dams

as well as the beaver;--but, beside dams, what marvels innumerable

does he achieve with his earthworks, his timbers, and his stones!

Speaking generally, we perceive that man has an instinctive tendency to

lay hold of a practical fact, idea, and law of action, as a concrete

whole;[163]--seizing it, at first, as the animal does without being

able to analyze, recompound, or extend it. But reason holds the candle

to instinct.[af] The impulse deepens and widens,--becomes distinguished

by boldness and comprehensive breadth;--and it is difficult, if not

impossible, to fix boundaries to its ultimate expansion. An expansion

coextensive with the completed destinies of mankind.

We say thus much of our lower instincts, transformed and made glorious

by reason shining through them; just as the setting sun transforms and

glorifies the clouds floating high overhead, or the half-translucent

foliage of the grove in which we walk. But there belong exclusively to

Man, instinctive beliefs, impulses, and ideas, which possess a glory

of their own;--raise him, _first_ above the brutes,--_next_ above

himself as he now exists,--and make him know that he may aspire to

become the denizen of a brighter world than this. Among them, is the

feeling that Nature herself is (like the tree or cloud illumined by the

sun), everywhere penetrated by a beauty and a power streaming through

her;--compared with the reality of which she is but a filmy veil,--or

it may be an illusive image. The sun himself, the light and life of the

lower world, symbolizes an existence more truly kindling and ensouling,

which animates and makes brilliant the blue arch of sky. Such thoughts

as these haunted the first utterances of our race,--and it needed but

another step to make us feel that this living light shines within

ourselves,--and that, go where we will, a strength and Majesty go with

us, which are not of the earth, earthy. Thus, the consciousness grew

upon Man that his inner being glows with a radiance more sparkling than

the stars, to which he lifts his bodily eyes. By-and-bye, he learned

to think of the heaven within him, as symbolic also;--and to cherish a

trembling trust that, when he dies, its brightness will grow pale, and

vanish away only by reason of a glory which excelleth.

The Apostle beloved of his Master, told us of a true Light that

lighteth every man. Yet, we might have been slow to realize the

purer splendours over-arching our human soul, if they had not

autotyped themselves on the language we commonly speak. Perhaps, a

more convincing proof still to some of us, is what every now and

then becomes incidentally known;--the God-ward impulses of a happily

developed childhood, under circumstances favourable to the growth of

"natural piety." In the heart of a child, feelings like those we have

described, dwell untutored, as in their native and and appropriate

home. An awe and dread accompany them amongst the world of men, but to

the child they are never overpowering or oppressive. His finely-strung

imagination works painlessly. The voices he hears when no human voice

speaks, cause him no fear;--they call to him from a region towards

which his young soul springs up. They soothe him with sensations of

hope and peace and love unutterable. This yearning affection for things

unseen, makes the deepest joy of a happy childhood; it is a reason why

Christ said, "Of such is the kingdom of Heaven."

A beautiful childhood is a very beautiful reality. Partly because

of the exquisite simplicity which tones down and harmonizes all its

impulses. But, very often, its beauty is only known in its loss;--and

we mourn in after years over hope, love, and peace, broken down by

life's attrition;--yet fair to look upon, even in their ruins.[ag]

No one is likely to doubt that the belief we have been describing, is

peculiar to and characteristic of Man. A more subtle question would be

this;--Suppose it could be taken away, how nearly would Man and brute

approach each other?[164] A question deserving the attention of every

one, who lives

"In self-adoring pride securely mailed."

Probably, the proudest of mankind little think how deeply their

culture, art, and refinement, are indebted to a faith shared by the

lowliest. One point, at least, seems clear,--if Morality did not perish

in the wreck, a true and independent moral sense would bring us back to

a belief in our own souls, their immortality, and their God.

Another question more essential to our purpose has been buried under

heaps of fallacy and misconception. Theists are often told that the

ideas of a Deity,--a future life,--and generally all that is conceived

as supernatural, have no absolute trustworthiness;--they are not

self-evident axioms, and they cannot be demonstrated. One answer to

these alleged difficulties has been implicitly given in the last

Chapter. If such objections are valid at all, they are valid against

every practical first-truth therein considered. They are valid against

_all_ primary practical truths, looked at from the theoretical side,

and tested by the rules proper to what is called pure Reason;--Reason,

that is to say, not applied, but speculative. But, then, it is from

this very employment of tests upon truth not _in pari materia_,

that the first stage of fallacy begins. The _second_ step in error

follows naturally from the first. Compared with the clearness and

definition of mathematics, all other axioms and proofs appear dim and

dubious. The consequence is, that our minds fall into trains of false

comparison on the all-important subject of certitude. Errors of that

kind are always growing mischiefs; our tongues follow the lead of

our thoughts, and hazy thinking becomes hazy speaking. Not only so,

but words develope themselves into the leaders of thought; and hazy

speaking engenders a hazier thinking still. People take mathematical

certainty to be the sole type of all true and valuable certainties.

Practical maxims are spoken of, as merely probable, Right and Wrong as

the efflux of moral sentiments.[165] Few seem to be aware _how_ the

philosophical arrangements of first-truths ought to be applied. They

should be applied to discriminate the _processes_, by which various

kinds of truths are discoverable;--they stamp a character upon them,

when discovered; but they do _not_ determine the intrinsic worth and

validity of the discoveries.

Why, let us ask, does Mathematical truth occupy so lofty a position?

Because, _first_, the constitution of our nature obliges us to accept

its axioms, and by consequence each successive step in its impregnable

demonstrations. _Next_, because we can verify so many of its theorems

objectively. We apply them to remote planetary and stellar spheres

beyond our own reach; where our own minds can neither alter nor colour

anything. What then ought to be the fair and legitimate inference from

an issue magnificently tried throughout the celestial universe? Surely

this, and no other. It confirms, in the very highest possible degree,

the truth-telling power of our own human nature. Whatsoever our mental

constitution clearly compels us to accept, that same we ought to hold

true, and maintain unswervingly.

Henceforth, therefore, we ought to look upon our Reason as having been

put upon its conclusive trial. Every year that passes renders the

verdict if possible more triumphant. We ought, henceforth, to make our

assent absolute and unhesitating in the case of those other truths,

which, while things continue as they now are, can never be tried and

confirmed by an appeal of the same description.

It is not difficult to see how opposite would have been the issue

from an employment of improper tests;--the test, for instance, of the

_Unthinkable_. The universe, we should then have said, must be thought

of as finite or as infinite. Either way it is inconceivable;--therefore

the Universe cannot exist objectively at all.

Vicious as such a process would be, it is not so faulty as that of

confounding the proper methods and attestations of speculative and

practical truth.[166] Our human consciousness must in _both_ cases

give our data. We have to ask and obtain its answers,--but, in the

two different spheres of knowledge, we must frame our interrogatories

differently, and expect assurances differing not in _degree_ of

certainty, but in _kind_;--in _value_ to human action;--and in the

_mode_ of their deliverance. We inquire into Speculative truth by

_analysing_ it, until we arrive at undemonstrable axioms which assert

their own validity. We assure ourselves that Practical principles are

true by following them in their _synthetic_ growth. Do they spring from

a maxim we find ourselves urged by our own nature to accept,--and the

opposite of which we cannot but broadly reject;--and do they really

_work_ in the world,--exert an ennobling influence within their own

domain, and intertwine themselves with the other truths and activities

of our human life? If so, we may be assured of their vitality and

their certitude. We know them, in short, by their stringency,--and by

a happy experience of their power. Consequently, our knowledge ought

to grow and strengthen, as our human age and the world's age both

roll on. Practical truth, thus tried and acknowledged, is indeed the

silver thread which leads us always. Some shrink from trusting it when

stretched across the grave; yet, without it, all beyond is lost in

haze, and our present life becomes enigmatical and self-contradictory.

Let us then apply the tests (found valid in their own practical sphere)

to the case of our belief in a Supernatural and supreme Power. But,

that we may do so with more evident effect, it will be well to place

in juxtaposition with it _another_ powerful belief, and our progress

will be rendered easier if we fix upon one which has already been,

in part at least, under discussion. Nothing seems better fitted for

this purpose, than what Professor Masson calls "the paramount fact,"

resulting alike to Hamilton and to Mill,--the universal persuasion in

men of their own existence, as beings distinct from, but related to, an

external world around them. It will be observed that, thus described,

the fact is of a most concrete sort,--our inner reality in relation to

an outer reality,--just as believing in a Supreme Being we believe in a

Power that holds solemn relations to our individual selves and to our

common Humanity.

We have therefore to observe the impression made upon our human

endowment of practical Reason, when looking face to face at these two

fact-beliefs, which for brevity's sake we shall call the _Natural_ and

the _Supernatural_.

Did the uninstructed and stammering childhood of our race, separate,

in thought, the _Supernatural_ from surrounding nature? Can we

absolutely say either yes or no to this inquiry? The "Heaven-Father"

of pre-historic[ah] day would seem if fully considered to make the

separation clear. The type-idea, thus outlined, is drawn, not from

symbolizing and personified Nature, but from an actual, living,

fatherly, Man. And the tendency of primitive Man might rather be to

raise natural objects into living beings, than to lower persons into

things.

It is so, we are sure, with our children's apprehension of the

_Natural_. They know a world of persons and things antagonistic to

their own wills and efforts, but they begin by making the things

into _persons_. A thwarted baby-boy beats the table, his kitten, and

his nurse indifferently. So far as observation has been extended to

the religious apprehensions of the very young, they would seem to

spiritualize the material universe;--to behold unseen powers in the

changing clouds, and hear them in the sighing of the wind. Wordsworth's

"Ode on Immortality" is a picture as full of childlike human truth, as

it is of unearthly beauty.

But, as regards _both_ principles, the human train of thought is nearly

similar in its first rise, and grows in definiteness and expansion by

a nearly similar process. A true Man sets each principle to work, and

from its working gathers its real value and verification.

If the world outside him were a phantastic shadow, the practical

conclusion fairly inferred would be _quietism_. Bolingbroke said to

King Richard--

"The shadow of your sorrow hath destroyed

The shadow of your face."

But, suppose both face and sorrow were themselves only shadows? What

worth in Man's body then,--what worth in his soaring mind? The natural

issue would be to drift down the shadowy[167] stream into a darker

abyss of Nothingness.

Speculation[168] must lay down its arms, as powerless against such a

supposition. The evidence of our senses[169] themselves is resolvable

into shadows.

It was not by speculation that our strong Western will encountered the

ideal enigmas of every day life. Act upon externalities, and they will

_re_act upon you. As a matter of fact, it is necessary to commence by

admitting that the souls of others are as _impenetrable_ to us, as the

material things into which we cannot force our way. But, things and

persons react upon us _differently_; and we act upon them in widely

_different_ ways. By an exertion of our will, we can change or stop a

_natural_ tide of inorganic antecedents and consequents and direct it

to our own purposes. _Beings_ like ourselves, we must allure, manage,

inform, and persuade. Soon we find, by experience, that other human

beings are very like ourselves; and the higher animals nearer to us

than stocks and stones. We find this through the exercise of our own

causal activities upon them.

The idea of the _Supernatural_ marches along no very dissimilar route.

The strong man subjects Nature, but the Supernatural is above both

it, and him. He cannot even _possess_ the thought of the Supreme.

Whether he will or no, it _possesses him_. To his reason, Nature

cannot subsist, as the true and independent ground of anything;--her

laws are the servants of his volition;--and her chain of antecedent

and consequent hangs between a First and a Last, without giving any

sufficient account of either. If the Universe began in a shining

Nebula, the question remains unsolved,--what first brought the thin

cloud into being? The practical Reason, confirmed by experience,

distinctly perceives that productive nature transforms all things,--but

originates nothing;--that, contrariwise, when human nature wills to

commit a wrong,--it really _originates_ the crime. A disputant may

assert that Man's will originates no act;--the criminal is never

guilty,--and the judge and jury who try him are not answerable for

their own decision. The same disputant may add that the Court in

which, they sit is unreal, and their bodily persons only shadows. The

one set of suppositions is as tenable as the other, and precisely as

unpractical.

In the common course of Nature, then, Mankind has learned to maintain,

as a truth of reason, that the Supernatural Power is a Will,--that is a

Personality. In other words Man becomes a Theist.

As in Natural Realism, so in realistic Theism, we try how our

principles will _work_. Realists in thought, we treat men and

things as natural realities; diverse when compared together, but

alike in outsideness as they stand related to ourselves. Action and

reaction then go on as are to be expected. Life seems to us one long

verification of the truth we began by accepting.--And so, too, it is

with our belief in a Being Supernatural and Divine. If we succeed in

figuring to ourselves a world of adaptation, order, law, progress,

unity, we have but to open our eyes, and it appears spread out before

us. If we think that the world's creation would blend all _physical_

needs into pleasurable pursuits and satisfactions, we may look and

see the union accomplished. If we frame a scheme of trial and _moral_

discipline, to raise the feeble and confirm the strong, its realization

is not wanting amongst us. From our own feelings, we can imagine how

a Father's eye would look pityingly down upon fear and sorrow, and

all the strains incidental to moving laws; the attrition of other

wills, the tumults, failures, ill doings, and perversities of our

sensitive and social existence. How a Father's hand would bind up

all that is weak, wild, and wilful in his children, with threads of

rainbow coloured hope and joyful anticipation; bidding them believe

that ere long the uncertain dimness, which is as morning spread upon

the mountains, shall brighten into steady splendour, shining on to a

perfect and unclouded day.

We find as a matter of fact that this hope is no stranger to the

human breast; that numbers live in it; numbers have died for it; and

pre-eminently those of whom the world was not worthy.

The growth of thought from a bare idea of the Supernatural to a belief

in a pure and sublime Theism,--and the sufficient account it renders of

the world, ourselves, and our destinies, must be looked upon as matters

of fact in the work-day history of mankind. Practical human reason

has really travelled by this track, and, from day to day, perceives

new truths to verify the old conclusion. Every attempt to adapt other

theories to the working facts become, by their unfitness for the

purpose, indirect evidence for Theism. How short a time has passed

since Campbell lamented over--

"The hopeless dark Idolater of Chance;"

and since the authors of "Rejected Addresses" ridiculed a system

which made the universe an accident.[170]--_Now_, chance sounds

as strangely in scientific ears as Fate did to our strong-willed

forefathers. Next, came that unintelligible contradictory phrase, a

"_blind intelligence_;" a thing called a _mind_, that goes it knows

not whither, and moves it knows not why. From this thing, immersed in

the darkest ignorance, and unconscious even of its own existence, we

were asked to believe that arrangement, harmony, excellence, beauty,

were the productions. No wonder if men soon concluded that a moving

force,--material and soulless,--would equally fulfil the same exalted

functions. And, surely, one _thing_ is an account of the Universe as

reasonable and as sufficient as the other.

If we place a non-theistic theory in relation to our human inner

nature, there ensues the same monstrous incongruity. The plenitude of

loveliness, which overflows creation, as it were with multitudinous

waves of light, we are asked to think of as the work of blind

non-being. But, there is a greater plenitude of loveliness, in the

good and noble acts, words, and thoughts of one bright soul of

heaven-aspiring Man. Must we, then, believe that truth, sincerity,

justice, rightness, goodness, purity, are all the offspring of a

something infinitely lower than our weakest human will?[171]--Is that

unknown something to be also the beacon of our hopes, the refuge of

each forlorn and shipwrecked brother, the happiness giving itself to

satisfy the unsatisfied aspirations of our long-enduring hearts?

Surely, the mockery of madness could go no further. What can the

morally impotent or the morally imperfect do for us? Even to the

careless eye of common sense, it is clear at a glance, that with the

_Impersonal_ our distinctive spiritual life can have no possible

relations. If this be so, the very first idea of Supernatural

Power is not advanced.--Contrariwise, it is distorted, frustrated,

nullified. And with it is destroyed our trust in our own conscious

nature. The instinct of immortality lives and moves within us only to

betray.--Man,--whose being is the highest reason for the world's whole

being,--is henceforth a palpable inconsistency. There cannot in the

dreams of fiction be found a stranger tissue of more startling,--or

one might venture to say,--more revolting moral absurdities. And a

moral absurdity contradicts the constitution of Man's mind, quite as

thoroughly as an absurdity purely intellectual. It is, in reality, the

most self-condemned of all conceivable contradictions.

Let us place side by side with this issue, _first_, the commonly

conceived relation between a Personal supreme Being and his

creation;--_secondly_, the apprehension of Theistic truth within the

soul, as it comes to us substantiated by religious men. We shall, at

all events, gain the advantage of a strong contrast between Theism

and non-Theism;--and strong contrast with shadows is often a strong

enlightenment.

First, then, to consider the idea of Creation as the work not of a

blind thing, but a supremely wise and powerful Being. It is plain

that (to say the very least) this idea is encompassed with slighter

and fewer difficulties. If a doubter is not convinced by the ordinary

argument from Design, he cannot avoid admitting the fact of its

possibility;--that it is applicable, and has been applied, argued,

and reargued, without any overwhelming rejoinder or refutation. And

there are _two_ obvious reasons why it has never been successfully

refuted. One--the evident truth that, whatever rival theories[172]

might or might not be expected to do, this theory explains the world.

Next--that no other attempted explanations have ever found a First

ground for any existing thing. In the theory of Design it continues

an open question how far we may conceive the Creator's first act as a

grand finality,--the launch of a vast assemblage of worlds formed,--or,

being formed;--so built upon law and guided by far-stretching wisdom,

that the Universe sails gloriously through the Ocean of Space like

a thing of Life; each breath of Force, each wave of Time wafting it

securely on. But, let any idea of a true creation be admitted, and no

belief in existing laws of any kind, will ever banish the great and

good God from the world which He has created and made. His presence

adds glory to its fabric, and, when we walk in its garden of delights,

we feel that He walks and speaks there too.[173]

The argument from Creation to Creator forms the subject of the next

Chapters. Therefore, we press it no farther here.

The point to be remembered now, is that this line of reasoning has

alone offered a tenable explanation of the world's existence. And a

like remark holds good of Natural Realism as opposed to Speculative

Idealism. It is impossible (as we have seen), to prove or disprove

either by bare argumentative abstractions. But, as a question of

practical reason, the Natural Realist explains the outer world of

individual existences, and his explanation tallies both with its

phenomena and our own relations to them. Our material progress (that

antithesis of oriental quietism), depends upon activities we should

never have exerted had we not fully believed in a world of working

energy within ourselves, and an outside world of reacting forces for us

to work upon.

From mere material progress, let us turn our eyes to the nobler

civilization of Mankind. A respect for human life because it _is_

human,--honour paid to all men, inasmuch as manhood possesses an

intrinsic title to honour,--the desire to do justice and love

mercy,--sympathy with privation, suffering, and aberration, both moral

and intellectual,--these are the true elements that soften and improve

our race. And they are pre-eminently the dowry of nations believing in

Theism. Theism is to these spiritual powers what Realism has been to

material powers. Human beings are, by these two agencies, brought into

contact with both the outer and the inner work of life. And as regards

life's central work, the lesson of history is now what it always has

been. To move man from a lower to a higher sphere, his soul must first

be deeply stirred. And a spiritual stir and movement is the applied

strength of a spiritual power.[ai]

We propose, then, to see by example, what Theism may be to mankind.

Many examples will not be needed, provided those selected are typical.

We shall therefore choose some two or three distinctive types.

The task of selection reminds us to protest, once for all, against the

weak and cynical way of illustrating human nature which threatens to

become prevalent. If we want to see what a true man is, we must not

seek his fossil effigies, by delving into the scanty and disputable

records of primæval savagery,[aj] and unearthing the crumbled seeds

of better things, which died before coming to perfection. It is like

estimating the Oak from a mouldy Acorn. It is worse!--Barbarism tends

to distortion and degeneracy. We might as wisely pronounce a maimed

dwarf with carefully flattened forehead, the beau ideal of human

strength and beauty, as seek to know the mind of man amid its wrecks

and perversities. We must rather look at our race in its strongest and

noblest development. The healthy acorn grows into a spreading oak;--the

truly human child becomes, not a crooked dwarf, but an upright

intellectual giant. The investigation of maimed deformities may have

its interest for comparative purposes, but no ancient Greek nor Hebrew,

no modern European nor American, ought to be painted with lineaments

which are revolting to his higher nature. Let us help the savage by

every means we can, _except_ by asking him to sit for a _model of

Humanity_. When we do this, we have assuredly lost our very best reason

for helping him at all.

The examples following, no one will doubt to be types of true and

highly developed men. The first, is intended to shew how Theism

stands out before the apprehension of a Man engaged in searching out

_abstract_ truth.

The Philosophy of Sir W. Hamilton has become familiar to most people,

so far as his theory of "the Conditioned" is concerned. They are

aware that his mind dwelt on the speculative difficulties surrounding

a knowledge of the Absolute, the self-subsisting First Cause, and

true Ground of all things. Yet, to the veracity of God he appeals

for the veraciousness of our primary beliefs. Over against a whole

school of Idealists, he places, as the one fatal objection, this

same veracity--"Either maintaining the veracity of God, they must

surrender their hypothesis;--or, maintaining their hypothesis, they

must surrender the veracity of God."[174] And, if the existence of a

Deity is known, there can be no doubt that His truth is amongst the

highest and clearest _to us_, of all His essential attributes. We

cannot (as Sir William says) "suppose that we are created capable of

intelligence, in order to be made the victims of delusion; that God

is a deceiver, and the root of our nature a lie."[175] Therefore, he

drew a wide distinction between, on the one hand, knowing the Absolute

and the Supreme so as to examine and explain His nature, and, on the

other hand, believing that He truly is, so as to affirm the fact of His

being, and the necessary consequences of His existence. "When I deny,"

he writes, "that the Infinite can by us be _known_, I am far from

denying that by us it is, must, and ought to be, _believed_!"[176]--In

this belief, Sir William saw a sufficient reason for accepting, as

Mr. Mill advises all to accept, "the inexplicable fact." And indeed

the problem of truth perpetually does come, (evade the conclusion as

we will), in one shape or another, to this same necessity of final

acceptance. Mr. Coleridge's _Friend_ is one long investigation into

this necessity, and he fairly closes his argument by saying that

always,--start from whatever point we may,--"reason will find a chasm,

which the moral being only, which the spirit and religion of man alone

can fill up."[177]

3 For Sir W. Hamilton, Theism bridged the vast abyss! No one could

more strongly estimate its vastness, and the poverty of our visual

powers when we stand beside it;--the dim feeling which makes us shrink

back from its awful verge. But Theism became to him the strength of

a noble life;--a life of much self-sacrifice, and meagre earthly

recompense.[ak]

The next typical thinker we shall quote is one pre-eminent for his

careful study of the constitution of _Man_, the course, the aims,

and aptitudes of his _moral_ existence. It seems hardly necessary

to add the name of Bishop Butler. The reader will find pleasure and

instruction, if he peruses Butler's two sermons on the Love of God,

from the second of which the following passages are cited:--

"Nothing is more certain, than that an infinite Being may himself be,

if he pleases, the supply to all the capacities of our nature. All the

common enjoyments of life are from the faculties he hath endued us

with, and the objects he hath made suitable to them. He may himself

be to us infinitely more than all these: he may be to us all that we

want. As our understanding can contemplate itself, and our affections

be exercised upon themselves by reflection, so may each be employed

in the same manner upon any other mind; and since the supreme Mind,

the Author and Cause of all things, is the highest possible object

to himself, he may be an adequate supply to all the faculties of our

souls; a subject to our understanding, and an object to our affections.

"Consider then: when we shall have put off this mortal body, when we

shall be divested of sensual appetites, and those possessions which

are now the means of gratification shall be of no avail; when this

restless scene of business and vain pleasures, which now diverts us

from ourselves, shall be all over; we, our proper self, shall still

remain; we shall still continue the same creatures we are, with wants

to be supplied, and capacities of happiness. We must have faculties of

perception, though not sensitive ones; and pleasure or uneasiness from

our perceptions, as now we have.

"There are certain ideas, which we express by the words, order,

harmony, proportion, beauty, the furthest removed from anything

sensual. Now, what is there in those intellectual images, forms, or

ideas, which begets that approbation, love, delight, and even rapture,

which is seen in some persons' faces upon having those objects present

to their minds?--'Mere enthusiasm!'--Be it what it will: there are

objects, works of nature and of art, which all mankind have delight

from, quite distinct from their affording gratification to sensual

appetites; and from quite another view of them, than as being for

their interest and further advantage. The faculties from which we

are capable of these pleasures, and the pleasures themselves, are as

natural, and as much to be accounted for, as any sensual appetite

whatever, and the pleasure from its gratification. Words to be sure

are wanting upon this subject: to say, that everything of grace and

beauty throughout the whole of nature, everything excellent and

amiable shared in differently lower degrees by the whole creation,

meet in the Author and Cause of all things; this is an inadequate

and perhaps improper way of speaking of the divine nature; but it is

manifest that absolute rectitude, the perfection of being, must be in

all senses, and in every respect, the highest object to the mind....

".... Now, as our capacities of perception improve, we shall have,

perhaps by some faculty entirely new, a perception of God's presence

with us in a nearer and stricter way; since it is certain he is

more intimately present with us than anything else can be. Proof of

the existence and presence of any being is quite different from the

immediate perception, the consciousness of it. What then will be the

joy of heart, which his presence, and _the light of his countenance_,

who is the life of the universe, will inspire good men with, when they

shall have a sensation, that he is the sustainer of their being, that

they exist in him; when they shall feel his influence to cheer and

enliven and support their frame, in a manner of which we have now no

conception? He will be in a literal sense _their strength and their

portion for ever_."[178]

Of the last writer here adduced, it is needless to say more than that

amongst living authors, he is rarely equalled in his subtle analysis of

the _tender and emotional side of humanity_.

"The personal relation sought, is discerned and felt. The Soul

understands and knows that God is _her_ God; dwelling with her more

closely than any creature can; yea, neither Stars, nor Sea, nor

smiling Nature hold God so intimately as the bosom of the Soul. What

is He to it? what, but the Soul of the soul? It no longer seems

profane to say, 'God is my bosom friend: God is for me, and I am for

Him.' So Joy bursts out into Praise, and all things look brilliant;

and hardship seems easy, and duty becomes delight, and contempt is not

felt, and every morsel of bread is sweet....

".... But Oh philosopher, is all this a contemptible dream? thou canst

explain it all? or thou scornest it all? Whatever _theory_ thou may'st

form concerning it, it is not the less a fact of human nature: one of

some age too: for David thirsted after God and exceedingly rejoiced

in Him, and so did Paul; and the feelings which they describe are

reproduced in the present day. To despise wide-spread enduring facts

is _not_ philosophic; and when they conduce to power of goodness and

inward happiness, it might be wise to learn the phenomena by personal

experience, _before_ theorizing about them. It was not a proud thing

of Paul to say, but a simple truth, that the spiritual cannot be

judged by the unspiritual.

"The single thought, 'God is for my soul, and my soul is for Him,'

suffices to fill a universe of feeling, and gives rise to a hundred

metaphors. Spiritual persons have exhausted human relationships in the

vain attempt to express their full feeling of what God (or Christ)

is to them. Father, Brother, Friend, King, Master, Shepherd, Guide,

are common titles. In other figures, God is their Tower, their Glory,

their Rock, their Shield, their Sun, their Star, their Joy, their

Portion, their Hope, their Trust, their Life."[179]

Such is Theism, penetrating the head and heart of Man; appealing to his

intellect, his conscience, and his affections. Such is Theism; sending

upwards, out of Man's spirit, aspirations which "dumb driven cattle"

cannot breathe--often the sole sweet incense from Earth to Heaven. It

is possible that, to some readers, the passages extracted will sound

like the accents of a foreign tongue. Of such it may properly be asked,

whether any man has a right _so_ to call in question another sane man's

honest consciousness, _as_ to deny its reality, worth, and excellence?

There are ears on which the music of Shakespeare's words, or Mozart's

notes, fall tuneless and unmeaning. Yet, who on that account would

deny the true sense and delight of poetry, rhythm, and melody? We

cannot, in reason, forget that even from ordinary men a small amount

of affirmation, if conscientious, unselfish, and collected, outweighs

and annihilates a host of perplexing doubts. But, every great Man's

thought is at least a grand fact; every expression of it a benefaction

to his fellow-men. And, as respects the mighty power with which Theism

stirs and impels the soul, we may rest absolutely assured that, where

one human being is found to give it utterance, thousands have felt the

movement, and have silently governed their life's work by it. Happily,

the brightest gifts of our existence are also the commonest;--the

sunshine of the world, and the sunshine of the Soul.

Countless numbers have, indeed, professed to discern by an inward sense

the reflected reality of a Supreme Being. They who feel it most deeply,

do not attempt to explain the Substance of which an imperfect copy

exists within themselves, acknowledged, yet inexplicable; at once the

greatest enigma, and the noblest fact of their essential being. They

are content to look upwards to the Supreme Mind they have found;--to

treasure such knowledge as they have; and adore its object. Many of

those who have thus believed and acted are amongst the most excellent

and perfect of our race.

Has any theory of the Universe which ignores the original of an image

discovered within ourselves, accounted for what we perceive through our

senses, our consciousness, and our moral insight,--so well as _that_

theory which acknowledges and reverences a God?

FOOTNOTES:

[ac] "In vain," says Hume's Cleanthes, "In vain would the sceptic make

a distinction between science and common life, or between one science

and another. The arguments, employed in all, if just, are of a similar

nature, and contain the same force and evidence. Or if there be any

difference among them, the advantage lies entirely on the side of

theology and natural religion."--_Dialogues, etc._, Part I. sub. fin.

And our ultimate appeal--as for example concerning the subject next

discussed in this chapter--is, he observes, to an instinctive operation

of the mind which obliges us to accept and act upon what we cannot

explain. Writing in his own person, Mr. Hume observes, "As nature has

taught us the use of our limbs, without giving us the knowledge of the

muscles and nerves by which they are actuated, so has she implanted in

us an instinct, which carries forward the thought in a correspondent

course to that which she has established among external objects; though

we are ignorant of those powers and forces on which this regular course

and succession of objects totally depends."--_Inquiry concerning the

Human Understanding._ Section V., end. Compare footnote [d]. to this

chapter, p. 269 _post_.

[ad] The word Belief has been used in a variety of senses by modern

writers of differing views from Jacobi to Sir. W. Hamilton, from Dr.

Newman to Mr. Herbert Spencer.

"This word," Mr. Spencer says, "is habitually applied to dicta of

consciousness for which no proof can be assigned: both those which

are unprovable because they underlie all proof, and those which

are unprovable because of the absence of evidence." And again; "we

commonly say we 'believe' a thing for which we can assign some

preponderating evidence, or concerning which we have received some

indefinable impression.... And it is the peculiarity of these beliefs,

as contrasted with cognitions, that their connexions with antecedent

states of consciousness may be easily severed, instead of being

difficult to sever. But unhappily, the word 'belief' is also applied

to each of those temporarily or permanently indissoluble connexions in

consciousness, for the acceptance of which the only warrant is that it

cannot be got rid of.... Thus the two opposite poles of knowledge go

under the same name; and by the reverse connotations of this name, as

used for the most coherent and least coherent relations of thought,

profound misconceptions have been generated."

Mr. Spencer made these remarks at separate intervals of time, and has

repeated them in 1874 (_Essays_, III. 259-60). It would therefore

appear that he thinks little has recently been done to discriminate the

significations of so ambiguous a term.

This chapter endeavours to investigate a small number of the genus

"Beliefs" to which the _differentia_ "Of Reason" has been added by way

of distinction. It also attempts to offer a contribution towards the

useful work of explaining their specific validity, and if its argument

be correct, they constitute a very important definable species of the

Genus, carrying with them a persuasion pre-eminently their own.

On his page 260, last referred to, Mr. Spencer remarks,--"that the

belief which the moral and religious feelings are said to yield of a

personal God, is not one of the beliefs which are unprovable because

they underlie all proof"--and adds that works on Natural Theology treat

that Belief as _inferential_.

The view taken of this moral and religious belief in the present Essay,

is that it is in its own nature _both_ primary and inferential. The

former of these aspects is the one now under discussion.

[154] Compare Fowler's Inductive Logic, p. 29. [Since the reference was

made, Mr. Fowler has become Professor of Logic in the University of

Oxford.]

[155] Mr. Fowler, in the little volume just referred to, describes

another "Theory of the Origin of Universal Beliefs," as follows:--"It

would admit that all beliefs alike are ultimately derived from

experience, and still it would freely adopt the language that there

are some beliefs which are 'native to the human mind.' The word

'experience' as ordinarily employed by psychologists, includes not

only the experience of the individual, but the recorded experience of

mankind. On the theory, however, of which we are now speaking, it has

a still more extended meaning; it includes experience, or to speak

more strictly, a peculiar facility for forming certain experiences,

_transmitted_ by hereditary descent from generation to generation.

While some ideas occur only to particular individuals, at particular

times, there are others which, from the frequency and constancy with

which they are obtruded upon men's minds at all times and under

all circumstances, become, after an accumulated experience of many

generations, _connatural_, as it were, to the human mind. We assume

them, often unconsciously, in our special perceptions, and when the

propositions, which embody them, are propounded to us, we find it

impossible, on reflection, to doubt their truth. It is by personal

experience of external objects and their relations that each man

recognises them, but the _tendency_ to recognise them is transmitted,

like the physical or mental peculiarities of race, from preceding

generations, and is anterior to any special experience whatever on

the part of the individual. This theory, to which much of modern

speculation appears to be converging, is advocated with great ability

in the works of Mr. Herbert Spencer." _Inductive Logic_, p. 31.

This account of our Belief in the Inductive Principle agrees, in

effect, with the opinion of those who hold that our acceptance of its

truth resembles our acceptance of Mathematical Truths in _two_ very

important respects: (1) Its _Certitude_. To use Dr. Whewell's words;

"We are as certain of it as of the truths of arithmetic and geometry.

We cannot doubt that it must apply to all events past and future, in

every part of the universe, just as truly as to those occurrences which

we have ourselves observed. _What_ causes produce what effects;--what

is the cause of any particular event;--what will be the effect of any

peculiar process;--these are points on which experience may enlighten

us. Observation and experience may be requisite, to enable us to

judge respecting such matters. But that every event has _some_ cause,

Experience cannot prove any more than she can disprove. She can add

nothing to the evidence of the truth, however often she may exemplify

it. This doctrine, then, cannot have been acquired by her teaching,"

Whewell's _Hist. of Scientific Ideas_, B. III. Cap. ii.

(2) In the fact of its being _intuitive_; that is, as Mr. Fowler says,

"connatural," or "native to the human mind."

Whether we can trace the process through which it became one of the

mental possessions characteristic of Mankind is a further question, and

a very curious one. The subjects of improvement by education, and of

the transmission of improvements thus acquired among men and the lower

animals, belong in part to our next Chapter;--they are, of course,

deeply interesting to every philanthropist, every promoter of true

progress and wholesome civilization.

[156] Galen remarks upon the immediate activity of animal instinct

prior to example or habituation. Most Naturalists know his experiment

of hatching three different sorts of eggs together. He was much struck

to see the young aquatic bird, reptile, and eaglet, betake themselves

at once, each to his vocation. Some persons referred these instincts

to the influence of organs fitted for definite uses, yet, observes

Galen, the young calf will butt before he has got horns. A good deal

might be added to Galen's rejoinder. Animals seem often to work without

fitness of organization,--or one might almost say in defiance of their

organs. "There is nothing," says Sir C. Bell, "in the configuration

of the black bear, particularly adapted for his catching fish; yet he

will sit, on his hinder extremities, by the side of a stream, morning

or evening, on the watch, like a practised fisher, and so perfectly

motionless as to deceive the eye of the Indian, who mistakes him for

the burnt trunk of a tree; when he sees his opportunity favourable,

he will thrust out his fore-paw, and seize a fish with incredible

celerity. The exterior organ is not, in this instance, the cause of the

habit or of the propensity; and if we thus see the instinct bestowed

without the appropriate organ, may we not the more readily believe,

in other examples, when the two are conjoined, that the habit exists

with the instrument, although not through it?" (_Bridgewater Treatise_,

Chap. x. p. 250.)--In Captain Cook's third voyage there is another

anecdote of bears equally curious. "The wild deer (barein) are far

too swift for those lumbering sportsmen; so the bear perceives them

at a distance by the scent; and, as they herd in low grounds, when he

approaches them, he gets upon the adjoining eminence, from whence he

rolls down pieces of rock; nor does he quit his ambush, and pursue,

until he finds that some have been maimed." (Vol. 3, p. 306.)

In such cases as these, there is a manifest want of correspondence

between animal organisms and animal instincts, which many naturalists

consider essentially interdependent. Yet on their mutual action and

reaction some have founded a theory of evolution.

[157] "We have in the Veda the invocation _Dya[=u]s pítar_, the Greek

[Greek: Zeu pater], the Latin _Jupiter_; and that means in all the

three languages what it meant before these three languages were torn

asunder--it means Heaven-Father. These two words are not mere words;

they are to my mind the oldest poem, the oldest prayer of mankind,

or at least of that pure branch of it to which we belong--and I am

as firmly convinced that this prayer was uttered, that this name was

given to the unknown God before Sanskrit was Sanskrit, and Greek was

Greek, as when I see the Lord's Prayer in the languages of Polynesia

and Melanesia, I feel certain that it was first uttered in the language

of Jerusalem." Professor Max Müller's _Science of Religion_. New Ed. p.

172.

[158] This then would seem to be an instance of wide spread "moral

regression."

[ae] Our deep-rooted tendency to trust human testimony may yield a

very curious example of the difficulties presented by the whole class

of pre-rational beliefs. Mr. J. Mill in accordance with his system of

foregone Associations "resolves" this case as follows (_Analysis_ I.

p. 385-6): "Belief in testimony is but a case of the anticipation of

the future from the past; and belief in the uniformity of the laws

of nature is but another name for the same thing.... The testimony

uniformly calls up the idea of the reality of the event, so closely,

that I cannot disjoin them. But the idea, irresistibly forced upon me,

of a real event, is Belief."

On this explanation Mr. Bain remarks, "The belief in Testimony is

derived from the primary credulity of the mind, in certain instances

left intact under the wear and tear of adverse experience. Hardly

any fact of the human mind is better attested than the primitive

disposition to receive all testimony with unflinching credence. It

never occurs to the child to question any statement made to it, until

some positive force on the side of scepticism has been developed.

Gradually we find that certain testimonies are inconsistent with fact;

we have, therefore, to go through a long education in discriminating

the good testimonies from the bad. To the one class, we adhere with the

primitive force of conviction that in the other class has been shaken

and worn away by the shocks of repeated contradictions."

It seems quite possible that our "primary credulity" may be one example

of a wider spread feeling of reliance engendered in part by affection

and dependence. Its force varies considerably in various minds. Women

whose lives have been happy and free from disappointment retain much

of this primary intuitive belief to the end of their days. Among men,

the trust in Testimony becomes controlled by their power of balancing

probabilities; a faculty in which the very credulous and also the very

sceptical are often observed to be deficient. The disappointed of both

sexes proverbially incline to Scepticism.

[159] _Metaph._ I. 44.

[160] Acts xvii. 27, 28. Romans i. 32; ii. 14 seq.

[161] Most persons have read with delight the observations on Insect

Architecture from Huber downwards. Birds are generally well watched

and well reported. Many Naturalists have written on these subjects,

from a hope of creating in the minds of men some softer interest for

their humble companions. Mr. Jesse naïvely prefaces a collection of

anecdotes, by saying that, of all the nations in Europe, our own

countrymen are perhaps the least inclined to treat the brute creation

with tenderness.

Wilson long ago observed that the nest building of birds was not always

the same in the same species. The older birds built the better nests.

M. Pouchet of Rouen proved that when the new streets of that city were

erected, the window-swallows altered their nests and substantially

improved them. A short account of his observations will be found in

Wallace's _Contributions_, 228 A. Mr. Wallace adds several instances of

bad nest building, especially by pigeons, rooks, and window-swallows, a

circumstance also noticed by White of Selborne.

Amongst the most remarkable bird-families with special ideas of

construction, are the mound-builders, and bower birds of Australia,

described by Mr. Gould. The former hatch their eggs in hillocks

contrived to retain during the night, amid their warm vegetable

linings, the solar heat of each successive day. The nests of one family

are about a yard high and three wide. In another family, mounds of

five yards in height and twelve in girth seem not uncommon; and the

circumference of one mound in particular measured full fifty yards.

These larger mounds are the work of many birds, through many years, and

their firm sides are covered by ancient forest growth.

The bower birds construct over-arching alleys of curved branches,

decorated with pretty grasses, gay feathers, shells and bones,

particularly near the entrances. These bowers seem to be used as

meeting and recreation places for both sexes. They vary to some extent

amongst the different species of this singular tribe.

There can be no doubt of the power of adaptation among animals;--and

those who study them most are least surprised at its extent. Horses

will learn to go up and down stairs, cats to undo door latches; and

one pony mentioned by Jesse used to unfasten the stable door, open and

rob the corn chest. Still more curious, is the American bird called

_neuntödter_, which catches grasshoppers and spears them upon twigs,

not for the shamble-purposes of the butcher bird, but simply as baits

to catch and eat the smaller birds attracted by the spoil.

Schleiden (_Plant_ 232), tells a most singular story of a Kangaroo who

tried to drown his pursuer, and shewed considerable craft in the way

he set about the drowning. After knocking the hunter backwards into a

pond, the "old man" (Australian for Kangaroo) kept pushing the poor

fellow's head under water every time he raised it up. If Kangaroo had

never drowned a human being before, he must have proceeded by analogy,

and argued, as some Naturalists do, from the brute to the man. A dog,

mentioned by Jesse, endeavoured to save his drowning master's life

by the reverse process to Kangaroo's, and would not let the beloved

head disappear under water for many a wintry hour after life had been

extinguished. (_Country Life_, p. 119.)

A person reflecting on these and similar facts, does not feel much

surprised at Aristotle's appreciation of animal intelligence, (_e.

g._, _Historiæ_ viii. 1, 2,) "[Greek: hôs gar en anthrôpô technê kai

sophia kai synesis, houtôs eniois tôn zôôn esti tis hetera toiautê

physikê dynamis.]" The animal power of adaptation, travelling beyond

the routine of instinctive action, probably struck the philosopher very

strongly.

[162] These barricades are curiously galleried and casemated, like

the defences of a fortress. The best account of them is given by the

accurate and interesting Huber.

[163] In Aristotle's Introduction to Physical Science, he remarks that

Sense grasps at Wholes, so that in a certain way, the general may seem

to take precedence with us of the particular. Language is a proof of

this--Children's talk is apt to run in concretes;--every man or woman

is a father or mother to them. See _Phys. Ausc._ I. 1, with Pacius'

note. The old commentator unties a knot which some moderns appear to

have tied fast again.

_Addition._ Aristotle's illustration, it is alleged (_e. g._ by Dr.

Whewell), goes in the wrong direction; fathers and mothers are less

comprehensive terms than men and women; the truth seems to be that

children fail to perceive the differences between parents and other

human beings;--therefore they call men and women, parents. Pacius

says:--"Nunc igitur totum esse nobis notius, probat à signo, id est,

argumento sumto ab infantibus, qui initiò non distinguunt patrem ab

aliis viris, nec matrem ab aliis mulieribus: postea verò distinguunt:

nempe, quia ab initio habuerunt cognitionem magis confusam, neque

cognoverunt proprietates parentis, sed tantum eum noverunt sub ratione

universali, quatenus est homo, ideoque non potuerunt eum ab aliis

hominibus sejungere. Postea verò progredientes ad cognitionem magis

particularem, possunt patrem ab aliis discernere." Ed. 1608, p. 346.

[af] It is quite conceivable that the presence of Reason may from its

first dawn, give rise to a very wide difference between the highest

animal instincts, and the lowest instinctive impulses of Man. The

discussion would be far too extensive for these pages; but it is

obvious that such a difference might clearly account for much that is

obscure in the twilight territory of Mind.

Hume, however, appears to have thought otherwise, as may be perceived

in the Conclusion of his _Reason of Animals_. From his mention of

"experimental reasoning" and the instances adduced, he would seem to

attribute our Inductive process to a _simple_ instinct. He writes

thus:--"Though animals learn many parts of their knowledge from

observation, there are also many parts of it which they derive from

the original hand of Nature, which much exceed the share of capacity

they possess on ordinary occasions, and in which they improve

little or nothing, by the longest practice and experience. These we

denominate INSTINCTS, and are so apt to admire as something

very extraordinary and inexplicable by all the disquisitions of human

understanding. But our wonder will perhaps cease or diminish when we

consider that the experimental reasoning itself, which we possess in

common with beasts, and on which the whole conduct of life depends, is

nothing but a species of instinct or mechanical power, that acts in us

unknown to ourselves, and in its chief operations is not directed by

any such relations or comparison of ideas as are the proper objects of

our intellectual faculties. Though the instinct be different, yet still

it is an instinct, which teaches a man to avoid the fire, as much as

that which teaches a bird, with such exactness, the art of incubation,

and the whole economy and order of its nursery." Compare foot-note (a)

to this chapter, p. 255 _ante_.

[ag] "Wisdom is Alchemy. Else it could not be Wisdom. This is its

unfailing characteristic, that it 'finds good in everything,' that it

renders all things more precious. In this respect also does it renew

the spirit of childhood within us: while foolishness hardens our hearts

and narrows our thoughts, it makes us feel a childlike curiosity and

a childlike interest about all things. When our view is confined to

ourselves, nothing is of value, except what ministers in one way or

other to our own personal gratification: but in proportion as it

widens, our sympathies increase and multiply: and when we have learnt

to look on all things as God's works, then, as His works, they are all

endeared to us.

"Hence nothing can be further from true wisdom, than the mask of it

assumed by men of the world, who affect a cold indifference about

whatever does not belong to their own immediate circle of interests or

pleasures." _Guesses at Truth_, 2nd Ed. 2nd Series, p. 200.

[164] "Try to conceive a man without the ideas of God, eternity,

freedom, will, absolute truth, of the good, the true, the beautiful,

the infinite. An animal endowed with a memory of appearances and of

facts might remain. But the man will have vanished, and you have

instead a creature, _more subtle than any beast of the field_, but

likewise _cursed above every beast of the field; upon the belly must it

go, and dust must it eat all the days of its life_. But I recal myself

from a train of thoughts little likely to find favour in this age of

sense and selfishness." Coleridge, _Church and State_. Note p. 50, Ed.

1839.

[165] Some people we may remark are unable to see any difference

between sentiments and sentimentalities.

[166] It was by a reverse procedure that Kant shewed his greatness. He

kept the two fields of thought apart, and applied to each a criticism

unsparing, but appropriate. Nothing could be more decisive than the

result, though darkened in some degree by the critic's peculiar

technicalities. Moral truth was placed upon the most sublime of

elevations. Speculative reason could never rise beyond the limits of

conditioned truth; any attempt to extend its sphere issued in antinomy

or blank negation. It left the human mind apparently oscillating

between Idealism and limited Insight. But to this must be added a most

important point too commonly forgotten. Though Speculative reason does

not demonstrably prove, it renders _conceivable_ by us those highest

of all Ideas which our Practical reason shews to be necessarily and

unquestionably _certain_ for every one of us. Moral Truth thus opens

to Man's eye a clear vista into the Timeless and the Absolute, to an

immortal life beyond the grave, and to God the Sovereign both of Nature

and of Man. It tells us the secret of true Causation, and with it of

all that is most worth living for, the intrinsically greatest and Best

of Humanity. And it binds every human being, as by golden links, to

that ever present Divine throne, the shrine and oracle set up within

his own breast. We ought always to remember that upon those grand

truths which if practically certain cannot be ultimately false, Kant

staked his all. They were the crown alike of his labours and his life.

_Addition._--By these remarks the present writer does not intend

subscribing to all the Kantian conclusions respecting pure Speculative

Reason, much less to those that have been asserted by many of Kant's

disciples. Difference of opinion on such conclusions cannot, however,

effect an honest appreciation of the clear and elevated principles

maintained by Kant on the subject of independent Morality, as

contradistinguished from the scheme which used to be termed Selfish,

but is now commonly called Utilitarian.--See pp. 93-6 _ante_.

[ah] "Thousands of years it may be before Homer and the Veda ... Dyaus

did not mean the blue sky, nor was it simply the sky personified; it

was meant for something else.... We shall have to learn the same lesson

again and again in the Science of Religion, viz. that the place whereon

we stand is holy ground. Thousands of years have passed since the Aryan

nations separated to travel to the North and the South, the West and

the East: they have each formed their languages, they have each founded

empires and philosophies, they have each built temples and razed them

to the ground; they have all grown older, and it may be wiser and

better; but when they search for a name for what is most exalted and

yet most dear to every one of us, when they wish to express both awe

and love, the infinite and the finite, they can but do what their old

fathers did when gazing up to the eternal sky, and feeling the presence

of a Being as far as far and as near as near can be: they can but

combine the self-same words, and utter once more the primeval Aryan

prayer, Heaven-Father, in that form which will endure for ever, 'Our

Father which art in Heaven.'"--Max Müller, _Lectures on the Science of

Religion_, pp. 171-2, 3.

[167] Compare the Indian phrase "the magical illusions of reality, the

so-called Mâyâ of creation." Max Müller's _Sanskrit Literature_, p. 19.

Also Ritter's _Gesch. der Philosophie_, I. 101 seq., and the account in

both of the philosophy of Quietism. The attractive side of it is given

by Max Müller, pp. 18, 19, and 29. The National results are elegantly

painted, pp. 30, 31. He concludes: "It might therefore be justly said

that India has no place in the political history of the world.... India

has moved in such a small and degraded circle of political existence

that it remained almost invisible to the eyes of other nations."

Few feelings are more deeply rooted, as in our individual, so in our

collective human nature, than this same conclusion. Quietism culminates

when Action appears useless because of a conceived Necessity or

Unreality of Nature:--"Life is but a Dream--Let all sit still and fold

their hands to slumber."

[168] Speculatively considered, what can the weapon commonly called

argument do against Idealism? Both sides allow that man can neither

cause nor annihilate sensible impressions. But they are supposably

ideal phrases of susceptibility, which may be explained in more ways

than one. On the inability of most men--(particularly Scotchmen,)

to comprehend Berkeley's position, see _Fraser's Ed._, IV. 366, 7,

8, note. It gave rise to notably absurd rejoinders: "With the witty

Voltaire ten thousand cannon balls, and ten thousand dead men, were

ten thousand ideas, according to Berkeley. There is as much subtlety

of thought, and more humour, in the Irish story of Berkeley's visit to

Swift on a rainy day, when, by the Dean's orders, he was left to stand

before the unopened door, because, if his philosophy was true, he could

as easily enter with the door shut as open."

[169] "We cannot possibly identify the perception of _expanded colour_,

which is all that originally constitutes seeing, with the perception of

_felt resistance_, which is all that originally constitutes touching.

Coloured extension is antithetical to felt extension. In fact, we do

not see, we never saw, and we never can see the orange of mere touch;

we do not touch, we never touched, and we never can touch the orange of

mere sight." _Ibid._ p. 394.

[170]

"From floating elements in chaos hurl'd,

Self-form'd of atoms, sprang the infant world:

No great _First Cause_ inspired the happy plot,

But all was matter--and no matter what.

Atoms, attracted by some law occult,

Settling in spheres, the globe was the result:

Pure child of _Chance_, which still directs the ball,

As rotatory atoms rise or fall.

In ether launch'd, the peopled bubble floats,

A mass of particles, and confluent motes,

"So nicely poised, that if one atom flings

Its weight away, aloft the planet springs,

And wings its course through realms of boundless space,

Outstripping comets in eccentric race.

Add but one atom more, it sinks outright

Down to the realms of Tartarus and night."

"_Rejected Addresses_," pp. 115, 116.

[171] "What are the core and essence of this hypothesis? Strip it naked

and you stand face to face with the notion that not alone the more

ignoble forms of animalcular or animal life, not alone the nobler forms

of the horse and lion, not alone the exquisite and wonderful mechanism

of the human body, but that the human mind itself--emotion, intellect,

will, and all their phenomena--were once latent in a fiery cloud.

Surely the mere statement of such a notion is more than a refutation."

Tyndall, _Fragments of Science_, p. 163.

[172] Mr. Mill speaks thus of the Design argument. "It is the best; and

besides, it is by far the most persuasive. It would be difficult to

find a stronger argument in favour of Theism, than that the eye must

have been made by one who sees, and the ear by one who hears." Mill _On

Hamilton_, p. 551.

[173] So in Thomson's Hymn:--

"Thy beauty walks, Thy tenderness and love.

Wide flush the fields; the softening air is balm;

Echo the mountains round; the forest smiles;

And every sense, and every heart, is joy."

[ai] "The idea of God, beyond all question or comparison, is the one

great seminal principle; inasmuch as it combines and comprehends all

the faculties of our nature, converging in it as their common centre;

brings the reason to sanction the aspirations of the imagination;

impregnates law with the vitality and attractiveness of the affections;

and establishes the natural legitimate subordination of the body to

the will, and of both to the _vis logica_ or reason, by involving

the necessary and entire dependence of the created on the creator."

_Guesses at Truth._ 1st Ed., pp. 122, 3.

[aj] Perhaps every cynic delighting in those records should be asked to

define what he means by Savagery. Of savages there are evidently many

sorts, _e. g._:--

(1) The children of our race;--a condition not beautiful, yet not

without hope.

(2) Semi-civilized tribes, generally addicted to "fire-water" and other

vices of civilization, without possession of its better things.

(3) Barbarian princedoms, grown decrepit by reason of wars, caste

domination, or a sensual and effete culture.

(4) There are also a few wholly uncultured folk, who are more of

gentlemen and ladies than our highly civilized peoples;--more truthful,

honourable, and courteous;--while,

(5) Not a few are savages indeed!

These strictures serve as a reminder to add that by Theism is here

intended the belief in a Supreme Being, the Father of Spirits, to Whom

we shall give solemn account. But it is _not_ meant to include some

civilized superstitions, by means of which many men degrade and torment

their fellows. Of such men we say, They too are savages indeed!

[174] _Reid's Works_, p. 751.

[175] _Reid's Works_, p. 743.

[176] _Metaph._ II. p. 530.

[177] _The Friend_, vol iii. p. 214. Ed. 1844.

[ak] The portrait of a lonely thinker searching out God has been

painted in lively colours, as follows:--"O my friend, you would do me

most grievous wrong, if you thought my heart empty of those feelings

which make man the standing miracle of Nature. If your child fell into

the river, would you stop to tell or think how you loved it, how dear

and winsome and precious it was to you, how blank your home and bruised

your heart would be without it? Or would you plunge into the stream in

utter recklessness of your life, bear it swiftly out of the devouring

flood, and then in silence strain the rescued little one to your bosom?

Characters differ. It is mine to act, as well as to feel. What, do you

imagine, prompts a thinker to give his days and nights to the rescue of

man's faith in God, his heart-trust and moral inspiration and spiritual

joy, when all these are put in jeopardy by the increase of a knowledge

that is but half comprehended, even by those who in their own special

lines are nobly increasing it? What lies back of the intense activity

of his brain, as he toils over problems that wring the beads from his

brow, gives up to the lonely pursuit of truth the hours that might be

fertile of the prizes clutched after by the crowd, and turns his back

on prizes that even he holds dear? What but a mighty hunger for God

can explain this weary, unending search for Him? What else can explain

the unthanked effort to make plain a path to Him that no man wants to

travel?" American _Index_, Jan. 15, 1874.

[178] Butler's Sermons, p. 184 seq.

[179] _The Soul, her Sorrows and her Aspirations_, pp. 103, 104.