you are quite mistaken if you suppose it possible that even God can
employ any moral methods which man cannot evade; how much less the
fools who think they can improve upon his! The wisdom of God," said he,
with a melancholy smile, "is no match for the ingenuity of man. As to
your present question, you know there have been persons who have
continually complained in your world that prophecy is so obscure that
the event cannot be certainly known to have been referred to by it, or
else so plain that, ipso facto, it proves that the prediction must have
been composed after the event. Now it was precisely in attempting the
juste milieu between these extremes that our prophetical speculators
wrecked themselves. Men always had it to say that their prophecies had
been either too plain or too obscure; or, if very plain, and yet as
plainly written before the event, that their very plainness had insured
their own accomplishment by prompting to the very actions and conduct
they so clearly indicated!"
"I can easily conceive that," I answered. "But now for another problem.
Not a few of our older infidels complained of the revelation in the Bible
on the score that the maxims of conduct which it delivers are too general
to be of any use, because the application of them is still left to be
adjusted by a reference to particular circumstances; and that, if a
revelation were framed, it ought to take in all the limitations of action,
and furnish, in fact, a complete system of casuistry; otherwise it would
be of no avail. Were there none who attempted this task?"
"Five-and-twenty men," he answered, "who were destined to be a torment
to one another, were instructed to compile such a system of rules, and
publish them for the benefit of a certain community as an infallible
rule of life."
"And have they completed it?"
"Completed it! They have been sitting now for two hundred years, and
have not yet exhausted the infinitude of cases to be digested under
their very first capitulary." He said that being all of them ingenious
men, all anxious to show their ingenuity, and knowing that their credit
was staked upon the completeness of their system, it was incredible
what strange and ridiculous contingencies and combinations of
circumstance they had suggested as modifying the application of
their general rules. The books of law, voluminous as they are in
most civilized countries, were conciseness itself compared with this
new code of morals. It was thought by many, that the labors of the
commissioners would not come to an end till long after the race for
whose benefit it was designed had ceased to exist. Afraid, apparently,
of such a direful contingency, they had published, about three years
before, the first part, in seventy-five folio volumes, containing
limitations, illustrative cases, exceptions, and modifications, in
relation to that very obscure general maxim, 'Do unto others as ye
would that others should do unto you.' All questions appertaining to
this point were from that time to be decided by the precise statements
contained in these statutes at large. But their mere publication
sufficed to make an incredible number of infidels in the authority
of the commission. Such a voluminous rule, they truly said, could be
no rule at all, and could be fruitful of nothing but everlasting
litigation. If (they admitted) general maxims had been as briefly as
possible laid down, and men's common sense had been left to interpret
and apply them with the requisite restrictions, there would be much
more to be said for their divine origin. But on such a system, no man,
if he lived for a thousand years, could tell what his duty was. Many
complained that, before they found the rule for which they were in
search, the time for its application had passed away. Many excused
themselves from complying with the dictates of justice and charity,
because they could not discover the cases that related to their special
circumstances; some even denied that the rules could have been devised
by heavenly wisdom, because, having carefully studied the whole of the
seventy-five volumes, they did not hesitate to say, that there were
many cases which had not been provided for at all!
I was so amused with this last disastrous attempt to construct a
revelation, that I laughed outright, and in so doing awoke. I found
that my lamp was fast going out; so, dismissing the innocent volume
of Leibnitz which had suggested all these incongruities, I went to
bed; firmly convinced that the shadows of men in the "Paradise of
Fools" are about as wise and ingenious as are men themselves.
____
July 28. I had this morning some curious, and, if it had not been
for the grave importance of the subject, amusing conversation with
Mr. Fellowes on his views, or rather his no views, respecting a
"future life." He said he wished he could make up his mind whether
the doctrine was true; also whether, as some of his favorite writers
supposed, it was of no "spiritual" importance to decide it. I said it
certainly did seem of some importance. I reminded him of Pascal's
saying, that he could excuse men's contented ignorance with any thing
rather than that. "They are not obliged," says he, "to examine the
Copernican system; but it is vital to the whole of existence to
ascertain whether the soul is mortal or not."
"Mr. Newman," said Fellowes, "thinks very differently: but then his
whole mind is differently constituted from Pascal's."
I admitted it, of course.
"Mr. Newman's views," he continued, "on the subject, certainly do not
quite satisfy me; and yet they are very sublime. If he has any hope in
this matter, (of which he appears not absolutely destitute,) it is from
the sheer strength of a 'faith' which triumphs over all obstacles, or
rather hangs upon nothing. He ridicules all intellectual proofs, and
at the same time declares that his 'spiritual insight' deserts him.
It is a faith pure from all reason, and from all 'insight' too. As to
insight in this matter, I must agree with him, that, to ascertain the
fact of a future life by 'direct vision,' is 'to me hitherto impossible.'"
Harrington, who was sitting by, smiled: "You speak of your 'insight' and
'direct vision' much as a Highlander might talk of his 'second sight.'
As to your present difficulty, do you remember the advice of Ranald of
the Mist to Allan M'Aulay, when the 'vision' obstinately averted its face
from him? 'Have you reversed your own plaid,' said Ranald, 'according to
the rule of the experienced seers in such cases?' You do not wear a plaid,
George, but suppose you try the experiment of turning your coat
inside out."
"Really, Harrington," said Fellowes, with becoming solemnity, "'insight'
is far too serious a subject to joke upon."
"Why, my dear fellow," said the other, "you do not think I am going to
treat your 'insight' with more respect than we treat the Bible."
"Odi profanum," said Fellowes, almost angrily.
"No man hateth his own flesh," said Harrington, with provoking quiet;
"and that, I am sure, is from no profane writer. As to the 'odi profanum,'
why, I shall simply say, that
'You can quote it,
With as much truth as he who wrote it.'"
So saying, he left the room. I was not sorry that he was gone, as I
thought perhaps Fellowes might be more communicative. I asked him why
he felt Mr. Newman's arguments on this subject unsatisfactory; why
he could not acquiesce in them.
"In the first place, then," said he, "I was struck with the fact, that,
while admitting that he had no 'spiritual insight' on the subject of a
future life, he yet admits that others may have enjoyed what is impossible
to him; that there may be souls favored with this 'vision,' though clouds
obscure his own. It is true he has admitted (and indeed who can deny it?)
that the spiritual faculty is not equally developed in all men;--though,
as it is not, I feel some difficulty in rejecting the arguments hence
arising for the possibility and utility of an external revelation;--yet
at the best, if the faculty may be so uncertain in reference to so
important a question, when consulted by so diligent and deep a student
of its oracles as Mr. Newman, if even his soul may be dubious on such
a point,--why, upon my soul, I sometimes hardly know what to think.
Again, Mr. Newman says, that some may have, as by special privilege
from God, what is denied to him. Now really this looks a little too
much like favoring the vulgar view of inspiration, nay, a sort of
Calvinistic 'election' in this matter; it seems to me to cast doubts
both on the competency and the uniformity of the sublime 'spiritual
faculty,' even when most sedulously consulted."
"It does look a little like it," said I; "and what next?"
"In the next place, I am free to confess, that, if I may be allowed
to argue against such an authority--"
"O, remember, I pray, that you are of the school of free thought: do
not Bibliolatrize."
"To state my views freely then: I must say, that, if this suspected
doctrine be not one of the unsophisticated utterances of the spiritual
nature of man, I am almost led to doubt whether the clearness with
which the spiritualist 'gazes' on the rest may not possibly be an
illusion. For if any truth would seem to be a dictate of nature, it is
a sort of dim conviction or impression of a future state. We see it,
in some shape or other, extensively believed by all nations, and forming
a feature of all systems of religion, however degraded they may be.
Mr. W. J. Fox mentions it as one of those things which are certainly
characteristic of the absolute religion; so does Mr. Parker. Mr. Fox
expressly affirms that the approximate universality of the belief
justifies the application of his criterion for detecting the eternally
'true' under the Protean shapes of the 'false' in religion; it is one
of the points, he says, in which they are all agreed."
"Which," said I, "if true, is perhaps the only point in which all
religions are agreed, unless we affirm that they have all recognized a
Deity, because most of them have recognized thousands. Yet as men's
Gods have varied between the Infinite Creator and a monkey, so in
relation to this article of a 'future life,' it must be confessed that
there is a little difference between the Heaven of a Christian, the
Paradise of a Mahometan, and the Valhalla of an ancient Goth. Still,
as you say, it is true that, in some shape or other, nations have
more distinctly recognized the idea of an after existence, than any
other assignable religious tenet."
"You know," resumed Fellowes, "that in the draught of 'natural religion'
given us by Lord Herbert, that writer particularly insists on this as
one of the articles which nature itself teaches us, as amongst the
'common notions,' a sentiment innate to the human mind. Now if such
masters as Mr. Newman may be in doubt about our innate sentiments, truly
I scarcely know what to think."
"You can easily decide," said I, gravely, "and decide infallibly."
"How so?"
"Consult that spiritual faculty which Mr. Newman says you have as
well as he or Lord Herbert. If your theory be true, how can there be
any doubt as to your 'innate' sentiments? If you say they are
written in very small characters, and require to be magnified by
somebody's microscope, that, recollect, is tantamount to
acknowledging the possible utility of an external revelation. But
what next?"
"Well, then, if I must confess all the truth, I thought Mr. Newman
hardly fair in his exhibition of Paul's reasoning on this matter. He,
if you recollect, says that Paul seems to have rested the belief of
Christ's resurrection very little upon evidence, which he received
very credulously, upon very insufficient proof, and in a manner which
would have moved the laughter of Paley; that, in short, he cared very
little about the evidence, and arrived mainly at his convictions in
virtue of his 'spiritual aspirations'; that it was rather his strong
aspirations after immortality which made Paul believe the supposed
fact, than the supposed fact which gave strength to his aspirations
after immortality. Now it is very clear (from texts which, for
whatsoever reasons, are not quoted by Mr. Newman), that the Apostle
Paul made his whole argument depend on the alleged fact of Christ's
resurrection, whether carelessly received or not: 'If Christ be not
risen, then is your faith vain, and our preaching is also vain ....
Then are we of all men most miserable.'"
"But you recollect that Mr. Newman alleges that Paul deals very
superficially with the evidence,--with that of the 'five hundred,' for
example. He observes that Paley would have made a widely different
matter of it."
"See how variously men may argue," replied Fellowes, candidly. "I was
talking on that very point with one of the orthodox the other day, and
he reasoned in some such way as this:--
"On the supposition, he said, that the possession of miraculous powers
was notorious in the Church,--that many of those whom Paul addressed
had actually witnessed them,--that the Gospel, when preached by him
and by the other Apostles, was confirmed by 'signs and wonders,'--nothing
could be more natural than the very tone which the Apostles employed:
that, so far from its being suspicious, it was one of the truest touches
of nature and verisimilitude in their compositions; so much so, that,
supposing there were no miracles, that very tone required itself to be
accounted for as unnatural; he said that it is, in fact, just the way
in which men talk and write of any other extraordinary events which
notoriously happened in their time. They never think of posterity, and
what it may think; of anticipating either future doubts or charges of
fraud. It is natural that men should speak in this, as we should call it,
loose way, of what is transpiring under their very noses. If, on the
other hand, there had been no miracles to appeal to, so as to render
this style as natural as, on the contrary supposition, it was the reverse,
he could not, he said, imagine, that, in that or any other age, any men,
especially men opposed to such pretensions, would so easily have been
satisfied, even had the Apostles confined themselves to rumors of
alleged distant miracles; but much less where similar wonders were said
to have been brought under the eyes of the very parties to whom the
appeal was made! He said he would even go a step further, and affirm that,
under the circumstances of the professed notoriety of the miraculous
occurrences to which Paul and the other Apostles appealed, any
declaration that they had instituted that careful scrutiny of evidence,
that minute circumstantial cross-examination of the witnesses,--which
would be a course all very well in the days of Paley, eighteen hundred
years after, but absolutely preposterous then,--would have appeared to
our age a much more suspicious thing than the tone actually adopted;
that the scrupulous deposition of technical proof would have been
finessing too much, and would have been the strongest proof of collusion.
The very tone objected to, he said, supposing there were no miracles, is
one of the most striking proofs of the astonishing sagacity of these
men; for it is just the tone they would have used if there had been. So
differently may men reason from the same data! Whether (he concluded)
Mr. Newman's view of the facts, or his, was founded on a deeper and more
comprehensive knowledge of human nature, he must leave to my judgment."
"I protest," said I, "I think the orthodox had the best of it. But what
struck you next as unaccountable in Mr. Newman's view of this subject
of a future life?"
"I confess, then, that the reasoning by which he endeavors to show
that, even admitting the fact of Christ's resurrection, there could
be nothing in it to warrant the expectation of the resurrection of
any other human beings, simply because he must have differed so
stupendously from all the rest of mankind, appears to me very damaging
to us. Of what use is it, to argue upon such an hypothesis?"
"Of none in the world, certainly," said I, laughing.
"Surely not," he replied; "for if Christ's resurrection be admitted, we
know very well it will carry with it, in the estimation of the bulk of
mankind, all the other great facts implicated with the Christian system.
They will concede, at once, the supernatural character, the divine
origin, of the New Testament. I suppose them scarcely ever was a man
who admitted these premises who would trouble himself to contest the
conclusion."
"But seriously," continued this half-repentant admirer, almost
frightened at the extent of his own freedom of thought, "though I
cannot say I am satisfied with Mr. Newman's notions on this subject,
--and, in fact, cannot make up my mind upon it,--can there be any
thing morally more sublime than the view, that the doctrine of
immortality, which has been superficially supposed, if not necessary,
yet so conducive to sincere and elevated piety, may be readily
dispensed with, as no way necessary (as Mr. Newman feels) for the
spiritual nourishment of the soul? 'Confidence,' he says, 'there is
none; and hopeful aspiration is the soul's highest state. But, then,
there is herein nothing what ever to distress her; no cloud of grief
crosses the area of her vision, as she gazes upwards.' He even
intimates that, from the stress laid upon immortality by 'modern
divines,' they might seem to be 'incarnations of selfishness.' He says
it tends to 'degrade religion into a prudential regard for our interests
after death'; that 'conscience, the love of virtue, for its own sake,
and much more the love of God, are ignored.' Many of the 'spiritual'
school agree with him in this; and some even affirm that the hope of
immortal felicity is but a bribe to selfishness. Can any thing be
more elevated or original than this view?"
"As to the elevation," said I, "I confess I prefer the spectacle of
Socrates, relying even on feeble arguments rather than sink to this
tame acquiescence in a notion so degrading to the Deity, as that
man was created for a dog's life with the tormenting aspiration for
something better. The spectacle of the heathen sage, who, amidst the
thick gloom, the 'palpable obscure,' which involved this subject,
gazed intently into the darkness, and 'longed for the day,'--who
strained every nerve of an insufficient logic, and was willing to
take even the whispers of hope for the oracles of truth, rather than
part with the prospect of immortality,--is, to my mind, much more
attractive. As to the originality of the view you just expressed, why,
it is merely a resurrection of one of the theories of some of our
very 'spiritual deists' a century ago. Collins and Shaftesbury were,
in like manner, apprehensive lest an elevated 'virtue' should suffer
at all from this bribery of a hope of a 'blessed immortality'; as you
may see in the Characteristics. For my own part, I certainly have my
doubts whether virtue will be the less virtuous, or spirituality the
less spiritual, for such a doctrine; and I must believe it even on
the hypothesis of you spiritual folks; for you generally affirm that
the Belief of a Future Life does not really exercise any thing more
than an insignificant influence on human nature; the hopes and the
fears of that so distant a morrow are too vague to be operative. Now,
if it be so, immortality can be no more a bribe than a menace."
"Yet," said Fellowes, "in justice to Mr. Newman, it must not be
forgotten, that he thinks that 'a firm belief of immortality must
have very energetic force,' provided it 'rises out of insight'; it
is as 'an external dogma' that he thinks it of little efficacy. He
says, you know, that, supposing Paul to have had this insight, 'his
light can do us no good, while it is a light outside of us. If
he in any way confused the conclusions of his logic (which is often
extremely inconsequent and mistaken) with the perceptions of his
divinely illuminated soul, our belief might prove baseless.'
(Soul, pp. 226. 227.) These are his very words."
"Very well, then; say that Mr. Newman thinks the notions of a future
hell of little efficacy; and of a future heaven of as little, except
when it rises from 'insight';--he confessing that he has not that
'insight,' and; from the necessity of the case, not knowing whether
any body else has, it being a 'light outside him.' If so, I think
he is much like the rest of you, and cannot in fact suppose the
thought of a future life to operate strongly either as a bribe
or a menace."
"But, surely, whatever his views, or those of any individual, you
must admit that a piety which is sustained without any hopes of
immortality is less selfish than that which is."
"Why," replied I, laughing; "I cannot conceive how the hope of a
virtuous immortality can produce a vicious self-love. But if the
hope and the consciousness of happiness now exercise any influence
at all, your argument proves too much; and there is a simple
impossibility of being unselfishly religious at all."
"How so?"
"Do you think that, admitting not only the uncertainty of any future
life, but the certainty that there is none, and that nevertheless
(as you affirm) man, under that conviction, is just as capable of
manifesting a true devotion and piety towards God, any felicity flows
from his so doing?"
"The highest, of course," said he.
"Do you think that the happiness so derived and expected from day to
day has any sinister influence on the spiritual life of him who
feels it?"
"Of course, none."
"The contrary, perhaps?"
"I think so."
"Then neither need the expectation of an eternity of such blessedness
be any impediment. Again; let us come to facts; are not the declarations
of those whom Mr. Newman, however oddly, is willing to admit have been
the best specimens yet afforded of his true 'spiritual' man,--the
Doddridges, the Fletchers, the Baxters, and Paul especially,--full of
this sentiment? 'I desire to depart,' says Paul, 'and to be with Christ,
which is far better'; and similar selfish hopes inspired those excellent
men whose names still rise spontaneously to Mr. Newman's memory when
he would remind us of examples of his 'spiritual religion! Tell me, do
you not think Paul a 'spiritual' man?"
"Yes; with all his blunders," said Fellowes, "I do; and Mr. Newman's
writings are full of that admission."
"Very true. But then Paul is so selfish, you know, as to say, not merely
that the immortality of man is true, and that the 'light afflictions
which are but for a moment' are to be despised, because unworthy 'to be
compared with the glory to be revealed'; but that, if immortality be not
true, Christians, as deluded in such hopes, are of all men most miserable.
All this shows how powerfully the 'spiritual' Paul thought that the
doctrine of a future state operated and ought to operate on the mind of
a Christian; he never supposed that it could possibly have a negative,
still less a sinister influence.'
"But then, surely, what Mr. Newman says is true, that many of the saints
of the Old Testament exemplified all the heroism of a true faith, and
kindled with the ardors of a true devotion, in an ignorance of any such
state, and the absence of all such expectations."
"I answer, that Mr. Newman too often speaks as if his individual
impressions were to be taken for demonstration. That the Old Testament
is unpervaded by any distinct traces of expectations of a future life is,
at all events, not the opinion of the majority of men, many of them at
least as capable of judging as Mr. Newman. It is not the opinion of
the writers of the New Testament, that the Old Testament worthies were
in this deplorable darkness; nor of the majority of the Jewish
interpreters of their ancestors' writings; nor is it the impression of
the great majority of those who now read them. How it can be the opinion
of any one who has not some hypothesis to serve, is to me a mystery.
Meanwhile Mr. Newman himself at least gives some notable passages to
the contrary, though he chooses to call them only personal aspirations.
Think of the absurdity, my good friend, of supposing that Job, David,
Isaiah, failed to realize a doctrine (imperfectly it may be) which, as
you truly affirm, has, in some shape or other, animated all forms of
religion! that these brightest specimens of 'spiritual religion' in
the ancient world somehow missed what many of the lowest savages have
managed to stumble upon!"
"Well," he replied, "but, after all, he who loves God without any
thought of heaven must surely be more unselfish than he who hopes
for it."
I laughed,--for I could not help it.