of ordinary humanity derived from its own internal illumination that
spiritual light which they have communicated to the rest of mankind!"
"For themselves, perhaps, my friend," said Harrington, "and if they
had kept it to themselves in many instances, probably the world would
have been no loser. That they had it from within, is true,--if your
theory is true. But to others, to the bulk of mankind, they have
imparted this light; it has been to mankind an 'external revelation';
it is from without, not from within, that this light has been received,
and that the boasted 'progress' of the race has been secured. It
remains, therefore, only for your Christian opponent to ask, how it
should be impossible that mankind should be indebted to an external
revelation by God, when it is plain that they are indebted for the
like from man! And whether it is not conceivable that, if Moses and
Socrates and Paul could do so much for them, God could do a trifle
more? You will say, perhaps, on the old plea, that these profounder
spirits only made articulate that which already existed inarticulately
in the hearts of those whom they addressed; that they only chafed into
life the marble statue of Pygmalion,--the dormant principles and
sentiments which had a home in the human heart before, only they were
unluckily treated as strangers. Well; the same thing may the apologist
for the Bible say,--merely adding, that it does more effectually the
business of thus awakening 'dormant' powers, and giving a substantive
form to the shadowy conceptions of mankind. But it is still, in either
case, to the bulk of the world an external revelation, an outward aid
which gives them the actual conscious possession of spiritual light, and
secures the vaunted progress of humanity. Such are some of my
difficulties respecting your theory of the impossibility and inutility
of any and all external revelations. I must, in candor, say that our
discussion has left them where they were."
"There is one thing," he added, "about your system which I acknowledge
would be consolatory to me if it were but true. If man be really in
possession of an internal and universal revelation of moral and spiritual
truth, you neither can nor need take any trouble to enlighten and
convert him. It relieves one of all superfluous anxiety on that score."
"Pardon me," said Fellowes, "it is Mr. Newman's spiritual theory alone
which does allow the prospect of success to any such efforts. As he
truly says, when the spiritual champion has thrown off the burden of an
historical Christianity, he advances, as lightly equipped as Priestley
himself. I should say much more lightly. 'What,' says he, 'may we now
expect from the true theologian when he attacks sin, and vice, and
gross spirituality?' 'The weapon he uses,' to employ Mr. Newman's own
language, 'is as lightning from God, kindled from the spirit within
him, and piercing through the unbeliever's soul, convincing his
conscience of sin, and striking him to the ground before God; until
those who believe receive it not as the word of man but as what it
is, in truth, the word of God. Its action is directly upon the conscience
and upon the soul, and hence its wonderful results; not on the critical
faculties, upon which the spirit is powerless.'(Soul, p. 244) Again,
he says that such a preacher 'will have plenty to say, alike to the
vulgar and to the philosophers, appreciable by the soul.' Hear him
again: 'Then he may speak with confidence of what he knows and feels;
and call on his hearers of themselves to try and prove his words.
Then the conversion of men to the love of God may take place by hundreds
and thousands, as in some former instances. Then, at length, some hope
may dawn that Mohammedans and Hindoos may be joined in one fold with
us, under one Shepherd, who will only have regained his older name of
the Lord God.'" (Soul, p. 258)
"By all the gods and goddesses of all the nations," said Harrington,
"I cannot understand it. How mankind should need such teaching, if
your theory be true; how, if they need it, it is possible that you
should give it if all external revelation of moral and spiritual
truth be impossible; how, if it is impossible, it should be
impossible for a God, by a Bible, to give the like; how you can get
at the souls of people at all except through the intervention of the
senses and the intellect,--the latter of which you say has nothing to
do with the 'soul,' and surely the former can have as little; or how,
if you can get at them by this intervention, it is impossible that
a Bible should,--is all to me a mystery. But let that pass. If your
last account be true, one thing is clear; that a splendid career
is open to you and your friends. You can immediately employ this
irresistible 'weapon' for the verification of your views and the
conversion of the human race. You can renew, or rather realize, the
triumphs of early Christianity;--I say realize, for you and Mr.
Newman believe them to be, for the most part, fabulous, and that it
was the army of Constantine that conquered the Empire for
Christianity; but you can turn such fables into truths. Surely the
least you can do is to be off as a missionary to China or India. Go
to Constantinople, my dear fellow, and take the Great Turk by the
beard. Nor can Mr. Newman do less than repair to Bagdad, upon a
second and more hopeful mission. You will know when you have demolished
Mohammedanism, and got fairly into Thibet. Alexander's career will
be nothing to it. But alas! I fear it will be only another variety
of that impossible thing,--a book-revelation!"
"Nay," said Fellowes, "we must first finish our mission at home, and
try our weapons upon you and such as you. We must subdue such as
you first."
"Then you will never go," said Harrington.
"Never mind," I said, "Mr. Fellowes; Harrington is very mischievous
to-day. But, as he said he would not contest the ground of your
dictum, that a book-revelation of moral and spiritual truth is
impossible, so he has not entered into it. Will you let me, on a
future day, read to you a brief paper upon it? I have no skill--or
but little--in that erotetic method of which Harrington is so fond." He
assented, and here this long conversation ended.
____
July 7. Harrington and I spent a portion of this morning alone
(Fellowes was gone out for a day or two), conversing on various
subjects. I hardly know how it was, but I felt a strong reluctance
to enter with formality on that one which yet lay nearest my heart,
--whether from the fear lest I should do more harm than good; lest
controversy should, as so often happens, indurate rather than soften
the heart: or perhaps I had some secret distrust of my own temper or
his. Yet, if I felt any thing of the last, I am sure I did him
injustice; and (I hope) myself. Be it as it may, I thought it better
just to exchange a shot now and then,--sometimes it was a red-hot
shot too on both sides,--as we passed and repassed, in the current
of conversation, than come to a regular set-to, yard-arm to yard-arm.
From whatever cause, he gave me abundant opportunity of recurring to
the subject, for he was perpetually, and I believe unconsciously,
leading the conversation towards it; not, I think, from confidence in
his logical prowess, but from the restlessness in which (he did not
pretend to disguise it) his state of scepticism had plunged him.
It was curious, indeed, to see how every thing, sooner or later,
fell into one channel. For example, I happened to remark, that a
cottage in the valley which we saw from his library window would
make a pretty object in a picture,--it was the only sign of life in
the little valley. "I should like the view itself all the better
without it," said he. I observed that a painter would feel very
differently; and if there were no such object, he would be sure to
put one in. "O, certainly," he replied, "a painter would, and justly;
there is no doubt that the shadow of animated existence is very
admirable; a picture, I admit, is wonderfully more picturesque
with such a picture of life; especially as the painter can and
does remove every thing offensive to his fastidious art. He is
very apt to regard the objects in his landscapes much as a poet
does a cottage, according to Cowper's confession. 'By a cottage,'
says he to Lady Hesketh, 'you must always understand, my dear, that
a poet means a house with six sashes in front, comfortable parlors,
a smart staircase, and three rooms of convenient dimensions.' As I
have looked sometimes down a mountain glen, and seen the most
picturesque huts upon its sides, I have thought how little the
painter could dispense with them. But, then, how easily the
philosopher can: for, alas! I have taken wing from my station, and
looked in through the miserable easement, and seen, not only what
is disgusting to the senses,--which is a small matter,--but ignorance
and disease, and fear, and guilt, and racking pain, and doubt, and
death; and I have not been able to help saying, in pity, 'O for
absolute solitude!--how much nature would be improved if the human
race were annihilated!'"
"The human race," said I, laughing, "is very much obliged to the
pity which would thus exterminate them; but as one of them, I should
decidedly object to so sweeping a mode of improving the picturesque.
Besides, I suppose you make an exception in favor, yourself, otherwise
the picturesque would vanish just when it was brought to perfection.
I am often inclined to say with Paley, though I remember well having
sometimes felt as you do, 'It is a happy world after all.' I admit,
however, that a buoyant, cheerful, habitual conviction of this will
depend on the constitution of the mind, and even vary with the same
in its different moods. But I am sure it may be a really happy world,
whatever its sorrows, to any one who will view it as he ought."
"I wish you could teach me the art."
"It is," said I, "to exercise the faith and the hope of a Christian,
humbly to regard this life as what it is,--a scene of discipline and
schooling, a pilgrimage to a better. It is an old remedy, but it has
been often tried; and to millions of our race has made this world
more than tolerable, and death tranquil, nay, triumphant. Do you
remember Schiller's 'Walk among the Linden-Trees'?"
"Perfectly well."
"Do you not remember how the two youths differ in their estimate of
the beautiful in nature? 'Is it possible,' says Edwin, 'you can thus
turn from the cup of joy, sparkling and overflowing as it is?'--'Yes,'
said Wollmar, 'when one finds a spider in it; and why not? In your
eyes, to be sure, Nature decks herself out like a rosy-checked maiden
on her bridal day. To me she appears an old, withered beldame, with
sunken eyes, furrowed cheeks, and artificial ornaments in her
hair. How she seems to admire herself in this her Sunday finery! But
it is the same worn and ancient garment, put off and on some hundreds
of thousands of times.' But how natural is the explanation of all
given at the beautiful close of the dialogue! 'Here,' said the jocund
Edwin, 'I first met my Juliet.'--'And it was under these linden-trees,'
says Wollmar, 'that I lost my Laura' It was their mood of mind, and
not the outward world, that made all the difference. All nature,
innocent thing! must consent to take her hue from it. You have, I
fear, lost your Laura,"--simply alluding to his early faith; "or
shall I suppose, from your present mood, that you have just met with
your Juliet?" I spoke, of course, of his philosophy.
He was looking out of the window; but on my turning my gaze towards him,
I saw such a look of peculiar anguish, that I felt I had inadvertently
touched a terrible chord indeed. I turned the conversation hastily,
by remarking (almost without thinking of what I said) on the
beautiful contrast between the light blue of the sky and the green
of the lawn and trees; and proceeded to remark on the degree in
which the mere organic or sensational pleasures of vision formed an
ingredient in the pleasurable associations of the complex "beautiful."
He gradually resumed conversation; and we discussed the subject of
the "beautiful" for some time. Yet I know not how it was, nor can
I trace the steps by which we deviated,--only that Rousseau's summer
-day dreams on the Lake of Bienne was a link in the chain,--we
somehow soon found ourselves on the brink of the great controversy
respecting the "origin of Evil." "I have read many books on that
subject," said I; "but I intend to read no more; and I should think
you have had enough of them."
"Why, yes," said he, laughing; "whatever philosophers may have thought
of the origin of evil, it is a great aggravation of it to read their
speculations. The best thing I know on the subject--and it exhausts
it--is half a dozen lines in 'Robinson Crusoe.'"
"Robinson Crusoe!" said I.
"Certainly," he replied; "do you not remember that when he caught
his man Friday, the 'intuitional consciousness'--the 'insight'--the
'inward revelation' of that worthy savage not being found quite so
perfect as Mr. Parker would fancy, Robinson proceeds to indoctrinate
him in the mysteries of theology? Friday is much puzzled, as many
more learned savages have been before him, to find that the infinite
power, wisdom, and goodness of God had made every thing good, and
that good it would have continued had not been for the opposition
of the Devil. 'Why God not kill Debbil?' asks poor Friday. On which
says Robinson, 'Though I was a very old man, I found that I was but
a young doctor in divinity.' Ah! if all doctors in divinity had
been equally candid, the treatises on that dread subject would not
have been quite so voluminous; for we close them all alike with the
unavailing question, 'Why God not kill Debbil?'"
Observing this tendency to gravitate towards the abyss, I at last
said to him, 'I think, if I were you, having decided that there is
no religious truth to be found, I should dismiss the subject from
my thoughts altogether. Do as the Indian did, who struggled as
long as he could to right his canoe when he found he was in the
stream of Niagara; but, finding his efforts unavailing, sat himself
down with his arms folded, and went down the falls without stirring
a muscle. Let us talk no more on the subject. Why should you perplex
yourself, as you apparently do, about a thing so hopeless to be
found out as truth? 'What is truth?' said Pilate; and, as Bacon says,
'he would not wait for an answer.' It was a question to which, most
probably, he, like you, thought no answer could be given. If I were
you, I should do the same. Why perplex yourself to no purpose?"
"I should answer," said he, "as Solon did when asked why he grieved
for his son, seeing all grief was unavailing.' It is for that very
reason that I grieve,' was the reply. And in like manner I dwell on
the impossibility of discovering truth because it is impossible."
I acknowledged that it was a sufficient reason, and that it went to
account in some degree for a fact I had remarked in the few sceptics
I had come across,--genuine or otherwise,--that they seemed less
capable of reposing in their professed convictions than any one
else: it is of no avail, they say, to reason on such subjects; and
yet they are perpetually reasoning! They will neither rest themselves
nor let any one else rest. He confessed it, and said, "The state of
mind is very much as you have described it; and you have described
it so exactly, that I almost think you, my dear uncle, must know the
heart of a sceptic, and have been one yourself some time or other!"
We wound up the morning, which was beautiful, by taking a ride, in the
course of which I was amused with an instance of the sensitiveness with
which Harrington's cultivated mind recoiled from the grossness of vulgar
and ignorant infidelity. We called at the cottage of a little farmer, a
tenant of his, somewhat notorious both for profanity and sensuality.
Presuming, I suppose, on his young landlord's suspected heterodoxy, and
thinking, perhaps, to curry favor with him, he ventured (I know not what
led to it) to indulge in some stupid joke about the legion and the herd
of swine. "Sir," said he, scratching his head, "the Devil, I reckon,
must have been a more clever fellow than I thought, to make two thousand
hogs go down a steep place into the sea; it is hard enough even to make
them go where they will, and almost impossible make them go where they
won't."
"The Devil, my good friend," said Harrington, very gravely, "is a very
clever fellow; and I hope you do not for a moment intend to compare
yourself with him. As to the supposed miracle, it would, no doubt,
be hard to say which were most to be pitied, the devils in the swine,
or the swine with the devils in them; but has it never struck you that
the whole may be an allegorical representation of the miserable and
destructive effects of the union of the two vices of sensuality and
profanity? They also (if all tales be true) lead to a steep place, but
I have never heard that it ends in the water. Now," he continued, "I
dare say you would laugh at that story which the Roman Catholics
tell of St. Antony; namely, that he preached to the pigs'!
--yet it has had a very sound allegorical interpretation; we are
told that it meant merely that he preached to country farmers; which,
you see, is more than I have been doing."
It was one of the many things which made me a sceptic as to whether
he was one. "Harrington," said I, "at times I find it impossible to
believe that you doubt the truth of Christianity."
"Suppose I were to answer, that at times I doubt whether I doubt it
or not, would not that be a thorough sceptic's answer?" I admitted
that it would be indeed.
____
July 8. I was already in the library, writing, when Harrington came
in to breakfast. "You seem busy early," said he. I told him I was
merely endeavoring to manifest my love for his future children.
"You know," said I, "what Isocrates says, that it is right that
children, as they inherit the other possessions, should also inherit
the friendships of their fathers."
"My children!" said he, very gravely; "I shall never have any."
"O, yes, you will, and then these sullen vapors of doubt will roll
off before the sunlight of domestic happiness. It will allure you to
love Him who has given you so much to love. Yes," said I, gayly,
"I shall visit you one day in happier moods; when you will wonder
how you could have indulged all your present thoughts of God and
the universe. As you gaze into the face of innocent childhood, which
shows you what faith in God is by trust in you, you will say,
'Heaven shield the boy from being what his father has been?'--you
will feel that such thoughts as yours will not do, as the world
says; and we shall all go together, you with your wife on your arm,
to church there in the in the bright sun and deep quiet of a Sabbath
morning, and amidst the music of the Sabbath bells; and as the
tranquil scene steals into your very soul, you will say, 'No,
scepticism was not made for man.'"
"It is a pleasant romance," he replied, gloomily, "and nothing more.
I shall never love, and shall therefore never wed; though, I suppose,
that does not logically follow. However, it does with me; and,
consequently, I presume the children are also only in posse. However,
what is this instance of your kindness to my possible children?"
he added, more cheerfully.
"I was endeavoring," said I, "on the bare possibility of your retaining
as a father all the feelings you seem to entertain at present, to
compile for your children (as they must be taught something, and you
would wish them, as you say, to know the truth) a short catechism. I
think the questions in Watts's First Catechism might do for the poor
little souls. The answers (as usual) might not be wholly intelligible
till they got older, but still might awaken some notion which in time
might ripen into confirmed scepticism."
"Well," said he, laughing, "let me hear what sort of 'religious'
instruction you have provided."
"I had only finished one question," I replied, "when you came in:
but I almost think it may be considered a 'Summa Theologiae' of itself.
It is this:--
"'Can you tell me, child, who made you?'
"'I cannot, certainly, tell who made me; neither can my father; but
from the continual misery, confusion, and doubt which I feel in myself
and see around me'--here the little pupil is to be cautioned not to
laugh; the mirth in the eye, perhaps, cannot be extinguished,--I am
led to doubt whether I was made by one who cares for me or takes any
interest in me.'(Good child.)"
"As I looked up, after reading this first truth of sceptical theology,
I observed in Harrington's face something of the same look of sorrow
which I had noted the day before. Suddenly be said, as if to prevent
any chance recurrence to painful topics:--
"I very gradually became a doubter. I was perhaps becoming so when, two
years ago, I became an idolater, and my idol crumbled to pieces at my
feet. That transient vision of the beautiful half reclaimed me from my
doubts; the darkness of the succeeding night taught me juster views
of the miseries of man and the incomprehensible riddle of his existence;
and I half blushed at my glimpse of selfish happiness."
So saying, he suddenly left the room. Some part of the mystery I felt
was unravelled. Alas! the logic of the head,--how fatally fortified by
the logic of the heart! And so, thought I to myself, even Harrington
too is in part the dupe of that cunning spirit of delusion which in
various forms is resolved to cast God and a Redeemer and Immortality
out of the universe, in compliment to man's wonderful elevation,
purity, unselfishness, and philanthropy! One man tells me, with
Shaftesbury, that he does not want any "immortal hopes," or any such
"bribes" of "prudence" to make him virtuous or religious,--delicate,
noble-minded creature!--that he can serve and love God equally well,
though he were sure of being annihilated to-morrow morning! Another
declares that he would not accept heaven itself if purchased by a
single pang, voluntary or involuntary, endured by any other being in
God's universe? Another swears that such is his sympathetic benevolence,
that he "would not accept that same heaven if he thought any other
being was to be shut out of it"; I wonder whether he condescends to
accept any blessing now, while a single fallow-creature remains
destitute of it? A fourth (a lady too) declares "there is no theory
God, of an author of nature, of an origin of the universe which is
not utterly repugnant to her faculties, which is not (to her feelings)
so irreverent as to make her blush, so misleading as to make her
mourn"; and now Harrington, instead of being thankful for his glimpse
of happiness, and yielding to the better instincts and convictions
it partly awakened, and learning patience, submission, and faith
under his shattered hopes, is taken captive on the same weak side;
and (all unconscious that he shares in the prophet's feeling, "I
do well to be angry") fancies that his present gloom is more truly
in unison with the condition of the universe, and that he is bound
to be most philanthropically misanthropical. O, well does the Book
say of this heart of ours, "DECEITFUL ABOVE ALL THINGS"! Such are
our mingled follies and wickedness, so ludicrous, so sorrowful, are
the features presented in this great tragi-comedy,--THE LIFE OF MAN,
--that it is impossible to play consistently either Democritus
or Heraclitus.
____