know at all events that they are. And this applies to our perception
of the Infinite also. We do not know through our senses what it
is, but we know through our very senses that it is. We feel the
pressure of the Infinite in the Finite, and unless we had that
feeling, we should have no true and safe foundation for whatever
we may afterwards believe of the Infinite. Some critics have urged
that what I call the Infinite ... is the Indefinite only. Of course
it is.... We can know the Infinite as the Indefinite only, or as
the partially defined. We try to define it, and to know it more
and more, but we never finish it. The whole history of religion
represents the continuous progress of the human definition of the
Infinite, but however far that definition may advance, it will never
exhaust the Infinite. Could we define it all, it would cease to be
the Infinite, it would cease to be the Unknown, it would cease to be
the Inconceivable or the Divine.
_Chips._
What we feel through the pressure on all our senses is the pressure
of the Infinite. Our senses, if I may say so, feel nothing but the
Infinite, and out of that plenitude they apprehend the Finite. To
apprehend the Finite is the same as to define the Infinite.
_Chips._
We accept the primitive savage with nothing but his five senses.
These five senses supply him with a knowledge of finite things; the
problem is how such a being ever comes to think or speak of anything
not finite, but infinite. It is his senses which give him the first
impression of infinite things, and force him to the admission of
the infinite. Everything of which his senses cannot perceive a
limit is to a primitive savage, or to any man in an early stage of
intellectual activity, unlimited or infinite. Man sees to a certain
point, and there his eyesight breaks down. But exactly where his
eyesight breaks down, there presses upon him, whether he likes it
or not, the perception of the unlimited or infinite. It may be
said this is not perception in the ordinary sense of the word. No
more it is, but still less is it mere reasoning. In perceiving the
infinite, we neither count, nor measure, nor compare, nor name. We
know not what it is, but we know that it is, and we know it because
we actually feel it and are brought in contact with it. If it seems
too bold to say that man actually sees the invisible, let us say
that he suffers from the invisible, and this invisible is only a
special name for the infinite. The infinite, therefore, instead of
being merely a late abstraction, is really implied in the earliest
manifestations of our sensuous knowledge. It was true from the very
first, but it was not yet defined or named. If the infinite had not
from the very first been present in our sensuous perceptions, such
a word as infinite would be a sound and nothing else. With every
finite perception there is a concomitant perception or a concomitant
sentiment or presentiment of the infinite; from the very first act
of touch, or hearing, or sight, we are brought in contact, not
only with the visible, but also at the same time with an invisible
universe. We have in this that without which no religion would have
been possible, we have in that perception of the infinite the root
of the whole historical development of religion.
_Hibbert Lectures._
No thought, no name is ever entirely lost. When we here in this
ancient Abbey,[2] which was built on the ruins of a still more
ancient Roman temple, seek for a name for the invisible, the
infinite that surrounds us on every side, the unknown, the true
Self of the world, and the true Self of ourselves--we too, feeling
once more like children kneeling in a small dark room, can hardly
find a better name than 'Our Father, which art in Heaven.'
_Hibbert Lectures._
[Footnote 2: Westminster.]
The idea of the infinite, which is at the root of all religious
thought, is not simply evolved by reason out of nothing, but
supplied to us, in its original form, by our senses. Beyond, behind,
beneath, and within the finite, the infinite is always present
to our senses. It presses upon us, it grows upon us from every
side. What we call finite in space and time, in form and word, is
nothing but a veil or a net which we ourselves have thrown over the
infinite. The finite by itself, without the infinite, is simply
inconceivable; as inconceivable as the infinite without the finite.
As reason deals with the finite materials supplied to us by our
senses, faith, or whatever else we like to call it, deals with the
infinite that underlies the finite. What we call sense, reason, and
faith are three functions of one and the same perceptive self; but
without sense both reason and faith are impossible, at least to
human beings like ourselves.
_Hibbert Lectures._
The ancestors of our race did not only believe in divine powers
more or less manifest to their senses, in rivers and mountains,
in the sky and the sun, in the thunder and rain, but their senses
likewise suggested to them two of the most essential elements of all
religion: the concept of the infinite, and the concept of law and
order, as revealed before them, the one in the golden sea behind the
dawn, the other in the daily path of the sun.... These two concepts,
which sooner or later must be taken in and minded by every human
being, were at first no more than an impulse, but their impulsive
force would not rest till it had beaten into the minds of the
fathers of our race the deep and indelible impression that 'all is
right,' and filled them with a hope, and more than a hope, that 'all
will be right.'
_Hibbert Lectures._
The real religious instinct or impulse is the perception of the
infinite.
_Hibbert Lectures._
All objects which we perceive and afterwards conceive and name must
be circumscribed, must have been separated from their surroundings,
must be measurable, and can thus only become perceivable and
knowable and namable.... They are therefore finite in their very
nature.... If finiteness is a necessary characteristic of our
ordinary knowledge, it requires but little reflection to perceive
that limitation or finiteness, in whatever sense we use it, always
implies a something beyond. We are told that our mind is so
constituted, whether it is our fault or not, that we cannot conceive
an absolute limit. Beyond every limit we must always take it for
granted that there is something else. But what is the reason of
this? The reason why we cannot conceive an absolute limit is because
we never perceive an absolute limit; or in other words, because in
perceiving the finite we always perceive the infinite also.... There
is no limit which has not two sides, the one turned towards us, the
other turned towards what is beyond; and it is that Beyond which
from the earliest days has formed the only real foundation of all
that we call transcendental in our perceptual, as well as in our
conceptual, Knowledge.
_Gifford Lectures, I._
The infinite was not discovered behind the veil of nature only,
though its manifestation in physical phenomena was no doubt the
most primitive and the most fertile source of mythological and
religious ideas. There were two more manifestations of the infinite
and the unknown, which must not be neglected, if we wish to gain a
complete insight into the theogonic process through which the human
mind had to pass from its earliest days. The infinite disclosed
itself not only in nature but likewise in man, looked upon as an
object, and lastly in man looked upon as a subject. Man looked upon
as an object, as a living thing, was felt to be more than a mere
part of nature. There was something in man, whether it was called
breath or spirit or soul or mind, which was perceived and yet not
perceived, which was behind the veil of the body, and from a very
early time was believed to remain free from decay, even when illness
and death had destroyed the body in which it seemed to dwell. There
was nothing to force even the simplest peasant to believe that
because he saw his father dead, and his body decaying, therefore
what was known as the man himself, call it his soul or his mind or
his person, had vanished altogether out of existence. A philosopher
may arrive at such an idea, but a man of ordinary understanding,
though terrified by the aspect of death, would rather be inclined
to believe that what he had known and loved and called his father
or mother must be somewhere, though no longer in the body....
It is perhaps too much to say that such a belief was universal;
but it certainly was and is still very widely spread. In fact it
constitutes a very large portion of religion and religious worship.
_Gifford Lectures, I._
Nature, Man, and Self are the three great manifestations in which
the infinite in some shape or other has been perceived, and
every one of these perceptions has in its historical development
contributed to what may be called religion.
_Gifford Lectures, I._
Like all other experiences, our religious experience begins with the
senses. Though the senses seem to deliver to us finite experiences
only, many, if not all, of them can be shown to involve something
beyond the Known, something unknown, something which I claim the
liberty to call infinite. In this way the human mind was led to
the recognition of undefined, infinite agents or agencies beyond,
behind, and within our finite experience. The feelings of fear, awe,
reverence, and love excited by the manifestations of some of these
agents or powers began to react on the human mind, and thus produced
what we call Natural Religion in its lowest and simplest form--fear,
awe, reverence, and love of the gods.
_Gifford Lectures, I._
The perception of the Infinite can be shown by historical evidence
to be the one element shared in common by all religions. Only
we must not forget that, like every other concept, that of the
Infinite also had to pass through many phases in its historical
evolution, beginning with the simple negation of what is finite, and
the assertion of an invisible Beyond, and leading up to a perceptive
belief in that most real Infinite in which we live and move and have
our being.
_Gifford Lectures, IV._
KNOWLEDGE
The lesson that there are limits to our knowledge is an old lesson,
but it has to be taught again and again. It was taught by Buddha,
it was taught by Socrates, and it was taught for the last time
in the most powerful manner by Kant. Philosophy has been called
the knowledge of our knowledge; it might be called more truly the
knowledge of our ignorance, or, to adopt the more moderate language
of Kant, the knowledge of the limits of our knowledge.
_Last Essays._
Metaphysical truth is wider than physical truth, and the new
discoveries of physical observers, if they are to be more than
merely contingent truths, must find their appointed place
and natural refuge within the immovable limits traced by the
metaphysician.... It is only after having mastered the principles
of metaphysics that the student of nature can begin his work in the
right spirit, knowing the horizon of human knowledge, and guided by
principles as unchangeable as the pole star.
_Last Essays._
There is no subject in the whole realm of human knowledge that
cannot be rendered clear and intelligible, if we ourselves have
perfectly mastered it.
_Chips._
The bridge of thoughts and sighs that spans the whole history of
the Aryan world has its first arch in the _Veda_, its last in
Kant's _Critique of Pure Reason_. In the _Veda_ we watch the first
unfolding of the human mind as we can watch it nowhere else. Life
seems simple, natural, childlike.... What is beneath, and above, and
beyond this life is dimly perceived, and expressed in a thousand
words and ways, all mere stammerings, all aiming to express what
cannot be expressed, yet all full of a belief in the real presence
of the Divine in Nature, of the Infinite in the Finite.... While
in the _Veda_ we may study the childhood, we may study in Kant's
_Critique_ the perfect manhood of the Aryan mind. It has passed
through many phases, and every one of them ... has left its mark.
It is no longer dogmatical, no longer sceptical, least of all is
it positive.... It stands before us conscious of its weakness and
its strength, modest yet brave. It knows what the old idols of
its childhood and youth were made of. It does not break them, it
only tries to understand them, but it places above them the Ideals
of Reason--no longer tangible--not even within the reach of the
understanding--but real--bright and heavenly stars to guide us even
in the darkest night.
_Last Essays._
All knowledge, in order to be knowledge, must pass through two
gates, and two gates only: the gate of the senses and the gate of
reason. Religious knowledge also, whether true or false, must have
passed through these two gates. At these two gates, therefore, we
take our stand. Whatever claims to have entered in by any other
gate, whether that gate is called primeval revelation or religious
instinct, must be rejected as contraband of thought; and whatever
claims to have entered by the gate of reason, without having first
passed through the gate of the senses, must equally be rejected, as
without sufficient warrant, or ordered at least to go back to the
first gate, in order to produce there its full credentials.
_Hibbert Lectures._
LANGUAGE
The history of language opens a vista which makes one feel almost
giddy if one tries to see the end of it, but the measuring-rod of
the chronologist seems to me entirely out of place. Those who have
eyes to see will see the immeasurable distance between the first
historical appearance of language and the real beginnings of human
speech: those who cannot see will oscillate between the wildly
large figures of the Buddhists, or the wildly small figures of the
Rabbis, but they will never lay hold of what by its very nature is
indefinite.
_Life._
By no effort of the understanding, by no stretch of imagination, can
I explain to myself how language could have grown out of anything
which animals possess, even if we granted them millions of years
for that purpose. If anything has a right to the name of specific
difference, it is language, as we find it in man, and in man only.
Even if we removed the name of specific difference from our
philosophic dictionaries, I should still hold that nothing deserves
the name of man except what is able to speak.
_Science of Thought._
Every language has to be learnt, but who made the language that
was to be learnt? It matters little whether we call language an
instinct, a gift, a talent, a faculty, or the _proprium_ of man;
certain it is that neither language, nor the power of language,
nor the conditions under which alone language can exist, are to be
discovered anywhere in the whole animal kingdom, except in man.
_Science of Thought._
It was Christianity which first broke down the barrier between Jew
and Gentile, between Greek and Barbarian, between the white and the
black. _Humanity_ is a word which you look for in vain in Plato and
Aristotle; the idea of mankind as one family, as the children of one
God, is an idea of Christian growth; and the science of mankind,
and of the languages of mankind, is a science which, without
Christianity, would never have sprung into life. When people had
been taught to look upon all men as brethren, then, and then only,
did the variety of human speech present itself as a problem that
called for a solution in the eyes of thoughtful observers; and from
an historical point of view it is not too much to say that the first
day of Pentecost marks the real beginning of the science of language.
_Science of Language._
And now, if we gaze from our native shores over the vast ocean of
human speech, with its waves rolling on from continent to continent,
rising under the fresh breezes of the morning of history, and slowly
heaving in our own more sultry atmosphere, with sails gliding over
its surface, and many an oar ploughing through its surf, and the
flags of all nations waving joyously together, with its rocks and
wrecks, its storms and battles, yet reflecting serenely all that
is beneath and above and around it; if we gaze and hearken to the
strange sounds rushing past our ears in unbroken strains, it seems
no longer a wild tumult, but we feel as if placed within some
ancient cathedral, listening to a chorus of innumerable voices: and
the more intensely we listen, the more all discords melt away into
higher harmonies, till at last we hear but one majestic trichord, or
a mighty unison, as at the end of a sacred symphony. Such visions
will float through the study of the grammarian, and in the midst of
toilsome researches his heart will suddenly beat, as he feels the
conviction growing upon him that men are brethren in the simplest
sense of the word--the children of the same father--whatever their
country, their language, and their faith.
_Turanian Languages._
LIFE
All really great and honest men may be said to live three lives:
there is one life which is seen and accepted by the world at large,
a man's outward life; there is a second life which is seen by a
man's most intimate friends, his household life; and there is a
third life, seen only by the man himself, and by Him who searcheth
the heart, which may be called the inner or heavenly--a life led in
communion with God, a life of aspiration rather than of fulfilment.
_Chips._
Where Plato could only see imperfections, the failures of the
founders of human speech, we see, as everywhere else in human
life, a natural progress from the imperfect towards the perfect,
unceasing attempts at realising the ideal, and the frequent triumphs
of the human mind over the inevitable difficulties of this earthly
condition--difficulties not of man's own making, but, as I firmly
believe, prepared for him, and not without a purpose, as toils and
tasks, by a higher Power, and by the highest wisdom.
_Chips._
Our life is not completely in our hands--we must submit to many
things which we may smile at in our inmost heart, but which
nevertheless are essential, not only to our happiness, but to our
fulfilling the duties which we are called to fulfil. We ought to
look upon the circumstances in which we are born and brought up as
ordained by a Higher Power, and we must learn to walk the path which
is pointed out to us!
_Life._
It is difficult to be always true to ourselves, to be always what we
wish to be, what we feel we ought to be. As long as we feel that,
as long as we do not surrender the ideal of our life, all is right.
Our aspirations represent the true nature of our soul much more than
our everyday life. I feel as much as you, how far I have been left
behind in the race which I meant to run, but I honestly try to rouse
myself, and to live up to what I feel I ought to be. Let us keep up
our constant fight against all that is small and common and selfish,
let us never lose our faith in the ideal life, in what we ought to
be, and in what with constant prayer to God we shall be, and let
us never forget how unworthy we are of all the blessings God has
showered down upon us.
_Life._
I feel quite thankful for any little misfortune; it is like paying
something of the large debt of happiness we owe, though it is but a
very trifling interest, and the capital we must owe for ever.
_MS._
I thought a long time about my happiness, and my unworthiness, and
God's unbounded mercy. And then I heard the words within me: 'Be not
afraid.' Yes, there must be no fear. Where there is fear there is no
perfect love. Our happiness here is but a foretaste of our blessed
life hereafter. We must never forget that. We shall be called away,
but we shall meet again.
_MS._
I begin to be quite thankful for my disappointment--we all want
winding up, and nothing does it so well as a great disappointment,
if we only see clearly Who sent it and then forget everything else.
_MS._
One sometimes forgets that all this is only the preparation for what
is to come hereafter. Yet we should never forget this, otherwise
this life loses its true meaning and purpose. If we only know what
we live for here, we can easily find out what is worth having in
this life, and what is not; we can easily go on without many things
which others, whose eyes are fixed on this world only, consider
essential to their happiness.
_MS._
The spirit of love, and the spirit of truth, are the two
life-springs of our whole being--or, what is the same, of our whole
religion. If we lose that bond, which holds us and binds us to a
higher world, our life becomes purposeless, joyless; if it holds us
and supports, life becomes perfect, all little cares vanish, and we
feel we are working out a great purpose as well as we can, a purpose
not our own, not selfish, not self-seeking, but, in the truest sense
of the word, God-serving and God-seeking.... Gentleness is a kind
of mixture of love and truthfulness, and it should be the highest
object of our life to attain more and more to that true gentleness
which throws such a charm over all our life. There is a gentleness
of voice, of look, of movement, of speech, all of which are but the
expressions of true gentleness of heart.
_MS._
It is impossible to take too high a view of life; the very highest
we take is still too low. One feels that more and more as our life
draws to its close, and many things that seemed important once are
seen to be of no consequence, while only a few things remain which
will tell for ever.
_MS._
I don't believe in what is called worldly wisdom. I do not think the
world was made for it--with real faith in a higher life I believe
one can pass through this life without let or hindrance. What I
dread are compromises. There are false notes in them always, and a
false note goes on for ever.
_MS._
How thankful we ought to be every minute of our existence to Him who
gives us all richly to enjoy. How little one has deserved this happy
life, much less than many poor sufferers to whom life is a burden
and a hard and bitter trial. But then, how much greater the claims
on us; how much more sacred the duty never to trifle, never to waste
time and power, never to compromise, but to live in all things,
small and great, to the praise and glory of God, to have God always
present with us, and to be ready to follow His voice, and His voice
only. Has our prosperity taught us to meet adversity when it comes?
I often tremble, but then I commit all to God, and I say, 'Have
mercy upon me, miserable sinner.'
_Life._
There is something very awful in this life, and it is not right to
try to forget it. It is well to be reminded by the trials of others
of what may befall us, and what is kept from us only by the love of
our Father in heaven, not by any merit of our own.
_MS._
How different life is to what one thought it when young, how all
around us falls together, till we ourselves fall together. How
meaningless and vain everything seems on earth, and how closely the
reality of the life beyond approaches us. Many days were beautiful
here, but the greater the happiness the more bitter the thought that
it all passes away, that nothing remains of earthly happiness, but a
grateful heart and faith in God who knows best what is best for us.
_MS._
Oh! if we could even in this life forget all that is unessential,
all that makes it so hard for us to recognise true greatness and
goodness in the character of those with whom this life brings us in
contact for a little while! How much we lose by making little things
so important, and how rarely do we think highly enough of what is
essential and lasting!
_MS._