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mtill IBooU on ©reat g>ufuects*
EDITED BY A FEW WELL WISHERS
TO KNOWLEDGE.
?
N°. I.
PHILOSOPHICAL THEORIES
AND PHILOSOPHICAL
EXPERIENCE.
BY A PARIAH.
LONDON: C
WILLIAM PICKERING.
1841.
CHISWICK :
PRINTED BY C. WHITTINGHAM.
ERRATA.
f^tge 1, line 19, for ' pound' read ' pounds '
26, 12, for ' than ' read ' then '
28, 19, for ' setumque ' read ' caetumque'
34, 10, for ' nend ' read l friend *
58, 20, for ' unmitigable ' read * immitigable '
62, last line, for ' the ' read * this '
63, 16, for ' for' read * from '
69, 8, for * mud ' read ' insect '
90, note, for ' A.mobius ' read ' Arnobius '
and passim, read * phenomena 'for * phosnomena.'
country are seized with a periodical fit of humi-
lity about once in four or five years. He has
no pretensions to academical honors, lectures to
no institution, is no hereditary legislator, no limb
of representative wisdom: but he has known
poverty, sickness, and sorrow; he has bent
over the graves of those he loved, and turned
again to life to struggle for his own existence,
and in this rude school he has learned a lesson
which, perhaps, may be not unuseful to his
fellow creatures ; he has learned that happiness
may be attained under circumstances which
seem to forbid it ; wrongs borne patiently with-
out losing dignity ; privations endured with a
gay heart. The philosophy which has done
this has made its last and best step, — it has be-
come practical. It is no longer the barren
speculation of the metaphysician, or the idle
logic of the schools, but healthy intellectual
science, grounded on the great facts of human
nature, and available in all the circumstances of
our varied existence.
There was a time too, (how much of late has
sunk in the troubled ocean of human affairs
even in the space of one not very long life !)
there was a time when intellectual science under
the name of metaphysics, was the mark for
every witling to try his young jests on, sure of
a favorable reception from the great body of his
hearers. It is one of the singular facts of our
social state, that there are always some few
things which no one who pretends to enter good
society ought to know ; and if all these pet
ignorances had had their tombstones erected,
and epitaphs duly written by their admirers,
it would be hard to conceive a more amusing,
though in truth, melancholy record of human
folly. In the days of Addison, no well-bred
lady would venture to know how to spell, in
later times the prohibition only extended to any
cultivation of the intellectual powers, which for
a long time was most religiously attended to
by all the fair votaries of fashion. In the
days of Fielding, it would seem that a very
pretty gentleman indeed might gain a grace by
misquoting Latin sufficiently to shew that he
despised the dull routine of school education.
Later yet a mineralogist or a botanist walked a
few inches higher, if he would avow himself
ignorant of metaphysics, and make some clever
jest on the cobweb speculations of its admirers ;
and all, learned or ignorant, wise or foolish, still
unite in thinking it the properest thing in the
world to be totally ignorant of the properties of
drugs, or their effect on the human body. True
it is that a healthy mind in a healthy body is a
thing worth having, few deny that; and intel-
lectual and medical science may do somewhat
towards the preservation of both, this also is
allowed ; but to attempt to know any thing about
the matter is really too fatiguing for polished
people who can afford to pay tutors and physi-
cians. But the writer is a Pariah, and having
said thus much, he need hardly assure his
readers, if any of that so-named " gentle" race
ever take up these pages, that he never was
great, or fashionable, or scientific enough, to
have a pet of this kind : it would have been a
troublesome, sometimes an expensive, always a
disagreeable companion, a great hinderance to
all rational employment, and no help to one
who not unfrequently has found his wits his
best heritage.
If such an one cannot afford to keep a pet
ignorance, so neither can he afford to carry on
abstract speculations which lead to no practical
result : corporeal wants must be attended to ;
the difficulties of this life must be met and van-
quished ; and if in the midst of the struggles
requisite to avoid being trodden under foot in
the crowd, those great questions (which sooner
or later occur to every reasonable mind) pre-
sent themselves, it is not as curious contem-
plations, matters of philosophical research mere-
ly, which may occupy a portion of the time
which is gliding away in the lap of ease and
luxury, but as problems whose solution involves
every thing worth caring for in time or in eter-
nity ; problems whose due solution may gild a
life which has no other gilding, may set fortune
at defiance, direct our steps in difficulties, and,
like oil upon the waves, spread calm where all
was turmoil and danger before : it is then that
intellectual science loses its character of barren
speculation ; every step in advance raises us
farther above the mists of earth; and the heart
warms, and the limbs grow strong, at seeing
the prospect brightening in the distance, under
the unclouded beams of truth and love.
It seems, nevertheless, to be necessary that
science, as well as man, should pass through its .
different stages of growth; at first, theoretic
and fanciful, then abstruse, and finally, vigorous >~
and practical. Astronomy has so proceeded;
many a small wit jested at the idle " star-
gazing" of Flamstead and Halley as satisfac-
torily as the same genus has scoffed from age
to age at the " unintelligible" reveries of So-
crates, or any other seeker of the truth, from
Pythagoras down to Dugald Stewart and The-
odore Jouffroy ; but no small wit now tries to
ground his fame on a successful scoff at " star-
gazers ;" even Butler's " Elephant in the Moon"
has followed the fate of the jests of lesser men,
it is neither quoted, nor perhaps by the gene-
rality of the world remembered ; and the science
which guides the mariner over an untracked
ocean with all the assurance of a mapped coun-
try, sits enthroned in the affections no less than
the respect of the present generation. It is
time that metaphysical, or, as I would rather
term it, intellectual science,* should take a like
* u Taken in its largest comprehension, as the know-
ledge of abstract and separate substances, Aristotle
raises the philosophy of mind above all other parts of
learning. He assigns to it the investigation of the prin-
ciples and causes of things in general, and ranks it not
only as superior, but also as prior in the order of Nature,
to the whole of Arts and Sciences. But ' what is first
to Nature is not first to Man.* Nature begins with
causes which produce effects. Man begins with effects,
and by them ascends to causes. Thus all human study
and investigation proceed of necessity in the reverse of
the natural order of things; from sensible to intelligible,
from body, the effect, to mind, which is both the first and
final cause. Now physic being the name given by the
Peripatetic to the philosophy of body, from this neces-
sary course of human studies, some of his interpreters
place, for it has it in its power to do a greater work
than this : it can map the gulf between earth
and heaven, and teach man, amid the conflicting
opinions of the pilots who undertake to steer
his bark, to choose and follow the straight
course which will lead him over that untracked
ocean in safety. The great men, whose lives
were spent in the pursuit of abstract truth, have
left the results of their labours to us, and as
the fanciful dreams of proportion in numbers,
pushed at last to the exactness of mathematical
science, has given us practical astronomy, so it
is for us now to avail ourselves of the severe
truth to which they have reduced the more ima-
called that" of mind, Metaphysic, tiov fitra ra Qvaiica, im-
plying also by the term, that its subject being more sub-
lime and difficult than any other, as relating to universals,
the study of it would come most properly and success-
fully after that of physics. Taking it, however, in its
natural order, as furnishing the general principles of all
other parts of learning which descend from thence to
the cultivation of particular subjects, Aristotle himself
called this the First Philosophy; but as its subject is
universal being, particularly mind, which is the highest
and most universal, he gave it also the appellation of the
Universal Science, common to all the rest ; and lastly,
to finish his encomium of this First and Universal phi-
losophy, he honoured it with the exclusive name of
• Wisdom.' "—Tathams Chart and Scale of Truth ,Vol. I.
p. 17.
8
ginative Greek philosophy, and draw from it
practical metaphysic.
Had any one else appeared inclined to un-
dertake the task, the Writer would willingly
have left it in the hands of the learned and the
illustrious in science; but no such attempt
seems likely to be made, and as there are but
too many of the Pariah race who, like himself,
may find that something more than the trite in-
struction of the school-room, or even the pulpit,
is wanting to brace the mind to resist the rude
buffets of the world, he at length steps forward,
not as thinking himself wise, but as feeling
himself experienced : —
" Nee nos via fallit euntes :
Vidimus obscuris primam sub vallibus urbem
Venatu assiduo, et totum cognovimus amnem."
INTRODUCTORY ENQUIRIES.
THERE are some few important questions
which have been constantly agitated from
the earliest period that we have any record of
man's history. The answers attempted have
been various ; but none, as yet, have been so
generally satisfactory as to prevent them from
being agitated afresh by every new generation,
for to every new generation they present them-
selves with a never-fading interest.
Man goes forth at his entrance into life,
confident in powers which, to his youthful fancy,
seem to know no limit; he feels the happiness
that his nature is capable of, and that it sighs
for, and he rushes on to grasp and to enjoy it ;
but he soon perceives that a power, exterior to
himself, limits, and often thwarts his endea-
vours ; he finds himself at the mercy of circum-
stances which he can rarely guide, or at best
only in a very slight degree ; and amid the
anguish of disappointed hope he asks himself,
10 INTRODUCTORY ENQUIRIES.
" What is this power which I can neither con-
trol nor escape from ?"
But he is young; he has probably expected
to find his happiness in the pleasures of the
senses ; and a voice within him says that these
are gross, and unworthy of the god-like nature
which he is conscious of possessing. He
launches into the pursuits of the man ; forces
himself to acquire science and greatness at the
expense of exertions which exhaust his physical
strength ; and then, when almost sinking under
the fatigue of labors which, nevertheless, have
not given him all that he sought, he asks him-
self again, " What is this restless power within
which despises corporeal enjoyment, and tri-
umphs in compelling the sacrifice of bodily
comfort for an object which, after all, none at-
tain?"
Insurmountable obstacles limit his progress ;
the perverseness of men thwarts his views for
their benefit no less than his own ; he looks
round him in querulous displeasure, and again
exclaims, " Why is evil in the world?" But
old age now approaches, " his thoughts" must
" perish" ere he has accomplished half that he
has proposed to himself; he must " go hence
and be no more seen," before he has even at-
INTRODUCTORY ENQUIRIES. 11
tained the fruit of his labors ; he seems to have
" walked in a vain shadow, and disquieted him-
self in vain ;" and then, when all that has filled
his great aspirations seems shrinking from his
grasp, when all appears " vanity and vexation
of spirit," he once more asks in a sort of con-
centrated despair, " Why man proposes ends to
himself which he can never compass ? What is
the good which his nature demands, and how is
it to be attained? Is it sensual enjoyment?
No ! such pleasures pall on the senses, and end
in disgust. Is it intellectual? The limited
powers of man make the pursuit of science la-
borious, and death comes ere he has reached
what he sought. Is it in the innocent enjoy-
ments of social life ? These are soon buried in
the graves of those he loves.
These are the questions which every man
not wholly brutalized must sooner or later ask
himself. These are the questions, in fact, which
have agitated mankind in all ages, and whose
solution forms the basis of all systems of reli-
gion and philosophy. They all may be resolved
into three ; namely,
1. What is the nature of the power exterior
to ourselves ?
2. What is the nature of the power within
ourselves ?
12 INTRODUCTORY ENQUIRIES.
3. What, with reference to these two, is the
nature of the good which man ought to propose
to himself as his aim and object ?
The solution of the first two questions forms
the subject of all metaphysical, or in other
words, intellectual science. That of the third
gives the practical result. Systems of religion
decide these questions authoritatively, systems
of philosophy solve them by rational argument,
and as, however numerous these systems may
be, there can be but one Truth, so we are
justified in assuming that the religious and the
philosophical system must tally, or that one or
the other is in error. There is, however, this
difference between the two, viz. that the autho-
ritative system is necessarily delivered in the
form of dogmata to be received, not of argu-
ments to be tried and weighed ; and these dog-
mata are couched in words which, as no pre-
vious course of reasoning is recorded, are liable
to be misinterpreted by the prejudices of man-
kind. The philosophical system, on the con-,
trary, is obliged to prove its assertions step by
step ; and if an undue leaning to any precon-
ceived notion should lead to the adoption of a
weak argument, the first dispassionate man who
goes over the same ground will perceive and
INTRODUCTORY ENQUIRIES. 13
overthrow it : thus, though in the case of suffi-
ciency of external evidence to prove the preten-
sions of the first to be well grounded, it is the
shorter process, and therefore most acceptable
to manV indolence ; yet the second is the more
certain one. To be completely satisfactory, the
two should be joined together ; but though oc-
casionally a voice has been raised to call for
this auspicious union, unfortunately for the
world, the guardians of the former have gene"
rally held her to be too rich a bride to be be-
stowed on a mate who had no better inheritance
than Socrates' old cloak and worn sandals, and
have " forbidden the banns." The conse-
quences have been disastrous : philosophy, like
a wild youth, has run through a course of licen-
tiousness ; and religion, like a wealthy heiress,
has become the prey of designing men. It is,
perhaps, not too late to rescue both. Let us
then begin with philosophy, whose morals
(whatever they might have been while he was
Socrates' pupil) have in later times been
thought by no means faultless.
It would be a long and (to a reader) a weari-
some task to go over all the disputes which
have agitated the learned through so many
centuries, as to moral perceptions, innate ideas,
14 INTRODUCTORY ENQUIRIES.
&c. He who would map a country must ex-
plore the by-roads ; but he who uses the map,
if he finds the road laid down lead to the place
he wishes to arrive at, will not think it needful
to traverse every lane on his way. It will
suffice, therefore, to assume as an axiom, (what
nobody probably will deny,) that truth is real-
ity, namely, what really is ; error, an unfounded
persuasion of something that is not. Now what
is, must be either within or exterior to our-
selves; and to know what is exterior to our-
selves truly, that is, in its reality, we must ex-
amine it by the evidence of our senses, or by
that of our reasoning faculties, or by both con-
jointly. There is no other process by which
we can arrive at a certainty of knowledge.
Thus then, as an innate idea is one which must
be received in the mind as truth without pre-
vious evidence, an innate idea of what is exte-
rior to ourselves is a contradiction, and the
common voice of mankind has decided on the
point, by characterizing those who receive the
persuasions of the imagination in the room of
evidence as insane. Nor is the impressing
itself on the mind without previous evidence the
only necessary character of an innate idea ; it
must also be found in the minds of all mankind
INTRODUCTORY ENQUIRIES. 15
as a constituent part of their nature, otherwise
it cannot be innate. It will soon be seen that
there is only one idea which can answer to this
description, namely, that of individuality, whose
demonstration rests on that very individual con-
sciousness, an evidence so unhesitatingly al-
lowed by all mankind, that were any one to
attempt to overthrow it by arguing that asser-
tion is no proof, he might make good his posi-
tion, and yet convince no one : for all feel that
in order to assert individual existence it is re-
quisite that a man should exist. But all im-
pressions received by this individual conscious-
ness are exterior to it, and consequently require
to be examined ; and thus intellectual science,
like all others, becomes the subject of experi-
ment and inquiry, and can only make progress
by being classified and arranged so as to enable
different individuals and succeeding generations
to pursue and record their observations upon
different portions of it. Even that part which
Bacon himself hesitated to subject to the rules of
his experimental philosophy, namely, religious
knowledge, must submit to the same sort of
examination : for from whatever quarter the au-
thoritative dogma comes, it is presented to the
senses from without, and cannot be received as
16 INTRODUCTORY ENQUIRIES.
authority, without sufficient evidence, both ex-
ternal and internal, to satisfy the mind of its
truth ; and as in classifying, the most natural
arrangement is always the most intelligible, so
the great questions which man's experience in
life never fails to suggest to him, afford at once
the simplest and the best division of the subject.
I. What is the nature of the power exterior
to ourselves ?
Man's first step, when this enquiry has sug-
gested itself to his mind, is to look round on the
objects amid which he moves, and which often
appear to be the active agents in causing him
either enjoyment or suffering. Does the power
which controls him exist there ? The untaught
savage perhaps answers yes, and selects his
fetiche from the first thing that strikes his fancy.
A little more cultivation sends him from the
fetiche to something less tangible, and of greater
apparent energy, and the heavenly bodies are
adored: but when the question occurs in an
age of more advancement, a very different pro-
cess must be resorted to, in order to satisfy a
mind accustomed to the severity of demonstra-
tion required by real science. We perceive an
universe whose slightest movement we are un-
able to regulate ; after ages of thought and ob-
INTRODUCTORY ENQUIRIES. 17
servation, we think it our glory that we have
arrived at the discovery of the laws by which it
coheres ; but they are so totally beyond our
power to alter, that we can only hope to effect
our purpose by shaping it in conformity to
them. We have subjected these laws to the
strictest examination ; we cannot doubt that we
have arrived at the truth, but these immutable
laws provide only for the regular movement of
inert matter. We look round again ; we are
surrounded by organized bodies, and we have
not yet discovered the law by which they exist.
We converse with our fellows, and find some-
thing beyond organized life merely; we find
intellect, that subtle agent by which our en-
quiries are carried on, itself offering a problem
of no small difficulty. The conclusion from all
this, ascending by a legitimate process of in-
duction, from what we see and hear to what we
cannot discern by any of our external senses,
and can only apprehend by means of our rea-
soning faculties is, that some power must exist
capable of giving birth to all this ; and as " ex
nihilo nihil fit," had there ever been a time
when there was nothing, there never could have
been a beginning of existence, therefore that
power must be eternal ; and as there is nothing
c
lx8 INTRODUCTORY ENQUIRIES.
but inorganized matter that bears a character of
permanency, and the notion of an eternal series
is an absurdity ; so to produce organized and
intelligent beings, that eternal power must be
intelligent. How much superior the creating
intelligence must be to that created, the man
who has constructed a steam-engine may guess ;
for he knows at what an inconceivable distance
in the scale of being he stands from the ma-
chine he has put together.
The power exterior to ourselves, then, is
eternal and intelligent, and what is eternal, is
of necessity self-existent. Now it is a necessary
consequence of self-existence that such a being
must be unlimited both in power and know-
ledge ; for as he himself exists by his own will,
therefore his own nature, no less than all other
natures existing by his will, must be perfectly
known to him, and entirely under his control,
and what is unlimited must be One; for to
suppose a second eternal principle would be to
suppose a second individual will and purpose,
which must produce a constant warfare, and
would derange all the operations of nature,
whose laws, on the contrary, we find to be im-
mutable. For an incorporeal being can have
no individuality but in will and purpose, and if
INTRODUCTORY ENQUIRIES. 19
the will be one, then there is an amalgamation
of nature. Thus by a legitimate course of rea-
soning, we arrive at the certainty of one eter-
nal, self-existent, all-wise, and all-powerful Be-
ing, whom our simple ancestors, with a degree
of philosophical accuracy which no other nation
seems to have reached, named 30^, i. e. good,
for to such a being alone could the perfection
belong which justly deserves that appellation.
But we have not even yet exhausted the con-
• sequences of this chain of reasoning : for the
all-wise and all-powerful Being must be able to
effect his will, whatever it may be. We may
again look round us, and judge from what we
see, what that will is. We see a profusion of
means to convey pleasure ; a profusion of crea-
tures seemingly made to enjoy it, especially
among the lower grades of organized beings.
We have already proved that the eternal Intel-
ligence can effect his will, whatever it be ; then
if that will were malevolent, we should see and
feel nothing but destruction and misery ; but we
do not see it ; then that will is not malevolent.
But the sad questioner who began the en-
quiry as to the nature of this eternal power,
may perhaps again enquire, " If the will of the
Creator be benevolent, why am I controlled in
20 INTRODUCTORY ENQUIRIES.
my wishes, limited to a life which is too short
for my projects, and often made miserable
during that short life by sickness or by the loss
of what I had centred my whole joy in?" But
who has assured you that these few years
elapsing" between the cradle and the tomb are
all ? The will of the eternal Being is not male-
volent, beings of a far lower grade fulfil the
end of their being and are happy ; you aspire to
something which the short span of life never
gives. Is it not a proof that your nature is not
bounded by that span ? Turn then to the next
question, for it is now time to do so.
II. What is the nature of the power within
ourselves ?
Our only way of investigating an intangible
and invisible power is by its effects ; we can,
therefore, only judge of what the power within
ourselves is, by noting the phenomena of human
nature ; these, on a little consideration, will be
found to resolve themselves into three classes.
1. The instinctive emotions and appetites, all
arising involuntarily, attended with a sensible
bodily effect, and causing. derangement of bodily
health when in excess ; anger, fear, &c. all take
their place among these.
INTRODUCTORY ENQUIRIES. 21
2. The faculties; which are exercised by
choice, but suffer fatigue in the exercise, require
rest, and exhibit other symptoms of their animal
origin, but nevertheless slumber, if not called
into activity by a voluntary act.
3. The acts of a restless undivided will,
which requires no repose, suffers no fatigue ; is
as strong in the child or the dotard, as in the
mature man ; which claims for itself the whole
individuality of existence, and speaks of my
body, my faculties, but never seems to have the
most distant conception that this body or these
faculties are identical with itself.
It is quite clear that neither of the two first
classes of phenomena can be referred to that
power within whose nature we are seeking to
ascertain, for this often curbs and contradicts
the instinctive emotions, and impels the faculties
to continued exertion, when weariness, and pain
even, shew how much they need repose. Ani-
mal nature does not seek to destroy itself know-
ingly, but man knows that his life is the forfeit
of a particular course of action, and yet he
pursues it: then the impelling power is of a
different nature from the powers which it impels.
It is this impelling individual will then, or " per-
22
INTRODUCTORY ENQUIRIES.
sonal power/' (as it has been aptly termed by a
philosopher* whose works deserve to be more
known than they are) that must form the sub-
ject of our enquiry ; for on its real nature de-
pends the answer to the last question, as to
what the good is which man has to seek, and
what are the means to obtain that good.
The first indication of this power is seen in
the infant angry at its own helplessness, and
evincing its discontent by passionate struggles
and cries. The individual will has come into a
scene which it does not understand, has organs
which are insufficient for its desires, and in
mere wayward spite, beats the nurse for not
comprehending what is the matter. Watch the
growing child ; questions, curious observations,
obstinate persistence in its own views shew a
power which is rather seeking information for
its own guidance, than by any means partaking
in the immaturity of the childish bodily form.
Stronger beings have a will also, which they
enforce by the infliction of punishment; the
child resists till pain teaches him to choose the
lesser evil, and the point is yielded just when
* Theodore Jouffroy. " Melanges Philosophiques —
Des facultes de Tame humaine."
INTRODUCTORY ENQUIRIES. 23
pain or privation has reached the point of being
more irksome than the concession demanded ;*
this concession very generally being not the
sacrifice of any instinctive desire, but some en-
deavour at independence in a thing which is itself
* It may be objected by some, that the higher ani-
mals exhibit some traces of this independent will ', but
before this objection be allowed weight, it ought to be
considered that there is an animal will, the result of
mere organization; the impulse of sensation mechani-
cally propagated through the nerves and brain, until the
nerves of voluntary motion in their turn receive and pro-
pagate the excitement to the muscles ; which is, in fact,
the whole mystery of instinct. It will be difficult to
shew that in animals any thing more than this instinctive,
will is ever discovered, but even supposing there were,
let the argument have its weight : it might go to prove,
perhaps, that the occasional sufferings of the animal
creation are parts of a system not yet fully developed;
but it alters not the case as regards man, for we cannot
argue from unknown premises ; and before we can draw
any deduction from animal nature to apply to our own,
we must know much more about it than we do. The
pride of man has disclaimed the fellowship of the animal
creation, but we should be puzzled to find any sufficient
proof one way or the other ; let us then be contented
to leave this matter where we found it, and argue only
from what we know, satisfied that man will suffer no de_
terioration, even if
" in that distant sky
His faithful dog should bear him company."
24 INTRODUCTORY ENQUIRIES.
of little consequence. The child arrives at ma-
turity, and a fresh struggle for freedom com-
mences. Life is thrown away as mere dust, to
cast off slavery or preserve free institutions, for
man has discovered practically that his nature
only arrives at its highest point in a state of
rational independence. Old age and sickness
supervene ; does this restless power, then, yield
to circumstances ? No. Impatience at the failure
of the organs which have been wont to do its
bidding, is the usual concomitant of these, and
if we do not find impatience, it is only because
it is curbed by the knowledge which the impe-
rious spirit has at last gained, that this worn
and enfeebled body is not its home, and that
brighter days are approaching. When Maske-
lyne, amid the wreck caused by old age and
palsy, blessed the child that sought him with
affection, and could only utter " great man
once," was the personal power less strong?
Those few words shewed what he would again
have done, had he but had the organs requisite
for the work. In sleep even this voluntary
power slumbers not; it resigns the reins, in-
deed, for a time, on the repeated petition of
eyes, limbs, and brain, all declaring that they
can do no more ; but it remains on the watch to
INTRODUCTORY ENQUIRIES. 25
use whip and spur again the moment it finds its
servants capable of action. If any one doubt
this, let him only strongly resolve at going to
sleep to wake at a particular hour or a particular
sound, and without any other known cause than
the will, behold the man wakes, though, in any
other case, he would have slept to a much later
hour, or continued asleep through much louder
sounds. This is a thing of too common occur-
rence to require particular instances to be given.
Finally in death itself, the last symptom of life
that we see is usually an ineffectual eifort to
do or say something which the dying person
evidently thinks of importance, disappointment
at being unable to do it is visible, and the man
dies.
We have traced the body from helplessness
to death ; it varies in its powers : first some
instincts prevail, then others ; then the faculties
are developed, and then they fail. We can easily
conceive that this waxing and waning power
may return to its elements and be reeompounded
in a fresh form ; but the unchanged individuality,
which neither grows nor decays, how is this to
perish ? What seeds of mortality can we find
in that ? The anatomist traces nerves of sen-
sation, influencing in their turn the nerves of
26 INTRODUCTORY ENQUIRIES.
voluntary action, and shows a beautiful arrange-
ment thus made for the preservation of the
animal, but the individual power steps in, says
to sensation, " You may stimulate the nerves of
voluntary action, but I forbid it ;" and to the
nerves of voluntary action, " You shall not wait
for the stimulus of sensation ; I command, and
you shall do my bidding." In what part of bo-
dily organization then is this power seated ? The
philosophical seeker of the truth must answer,
It is not a part of bodily organization ; it shares
not in the growth or decay of the body th^Ln by
analogy, neither does it share in its death; it
sighs for other joys, despises what the body
offers, spurns at the limited span of life. What
is this but an indication of its destiny ? Hap-
piness consists in the full developement of all
the powers of Nature : no animal seeks that
which it is unable to enjoy — the fish remains
quiet in the water without seeking to quit it to
share the pleasures of the quadruped or the fowl.
Man sighs for the felicity of the Deity : then
man is of a kindred nature. We proceed there-
fore to the final question.
III. What, with reference to the two powers
already treated of, is the nature of the good
INTRODUCTORY ENQUIRIES. 27
which man ought to propose to himself as his
aim and object ?
Our enquiry here will not be long. What-
ever other orders of intelligent beings there
may be, there are only two that we can form
any judgment of: — The one, the subject of our
first, the other that of our second question.
We assume it as an axiom in philosophy, that
the felicity of the being must consist in the
full developement of its natural powers, and we
see this to be the case with all the inferior
grades of animals : we turn to man, and we see
that the developement of his animal powers
does not satisfy him, he asks for more, he asks
for knowledge, greatness, immortality, and these
are the felicities of the Deity ; then, the good
which he has to seek can be none other than
the developement of an intelligent, and not an
animal nature. We have already seen that
the individuality is concentred in that interior
power whose nature we have been examining;
that interior power is akin to the Deity : then,
the felicity of the Deity in kind, though not in
degree, may be his, and no rational man will
propose to himself any other.
Such are the conclusions of philosophy, such
28 INTRODUCTORY ENQUIRIES.
were its conclusions from the time when these
questions were first agitated, and wise and good
men long before our sera had suffered exile,
imprisonment, and death, rather than abstain
from promulgating these great truths. Who
now will dare to stand forward and say that
there is " any just cause or impediment" why
philosophy and Christianity should not plight
their troth to each other, and bless the world
henceforward by their holy union ? Once more,
" I publish the banns," and defy man to put
asunder those whom God has willed should be
joined together. " Fecisti nos tibi et manet
cor irrequietum donee restat in te," was the sen-
timent of Augustine, " Ex vita ita discedo
tanquam ex hospitio non tanquam ex domo,"
says Cicero in the character of Cato, " O prae-
clarum diem cum ad ilium divinum animorum
n concilium^aetumque proficiscar ; cumque ex hac
turba et colluvione discedam !" Where is the
difference between the philosopher and the
Christian ?
I have now gone over the general outline of
the classification which I propose to make of
intellectual science. I have, I think, proved in
answer to the first question that there exists an
INTRODUCTORY ENQUIRIES. 29
eternal, self-existent, creating Intelligence ; all-
wise, all-powerful, and benevolent ; and the
portion of intellectual science which treats of
this Being I propose to call Theology.
I have, I think, proved in answer to the
second question, that the individuality of man
consists in a restless, undying intelligence, akin
in its nature to that of the Deity ; and I propose
to call the portion of intellectual science which
relates to the functions of this intelligent, in-
dividual power, Psychology.
I have drawn as a conclusion in answer to
the third question, That such being the nature
of that individual power, the good it has to seek
is, assimilation to the Deity in will and kind of
felicity. The titles given to this part of the
science have been various. Some have called it
Morality, some Religion ; but as unfortunately
these two terms have been set up as rivals to
each other, neither conveys the exact meaning
to men's minds which I would wish. It would
be easy to coin another Greek compound, and
Agathology would not ill-express that part of
the science which relates to the nature of this
6 summum bonum' and the means of attaining
30 INTRODUCTORY ENQUIRIES.
it ; but for a plain man a plain word is better,
and I would rather head the last division as the
practical result of the two former. In what I
have to say further, I shall consider these
divisions as applicable no less to the authorita-
tive, than the philosophic system. The external
evidence of the former I take for granted ;
Christianity must have had an origin, and it is
far less outrage to common sense to suppose its
outset was such as its first promulgators assert,
than to allegorize Christ and his apostles into
the sun and the signs of the zodiac, or any
thing else as strange and as improbable. The
existence of Christianity is too notorious to be
denied; and if, as a system, it offers all that
man's best reason has been able to discover,
if it offer as a perfect whole, comprehensible to
the meanest capacity, what no single man, how-
ever great, quite accomplished, then it is no
imposture, it is the Truth; that truth which
Socrates died for, and which armed Cicero's
timid nature to meet his assassins with the
courage of a hero. It is in vain that we attempt
to reject it; the man who professes to cast aside
Revelation altogether, still if he be not a vicious
man, lives as a Christian, has a Christian
INTRODUCTORY ENQUIRIES. 31
benevolence ; a Christian's hopes ; it is in his
nature, his instincts oblige him to love his
fellows ; his faculties compel him to acknow-
ledge a First Cause, his dearest wish is immor-
tality: Christianity comes but to second the
dictates of his better self, and to give a sanction
to his hopes ; but with this advantage, that he
whose mind has not been enough cultivated to.
reason out a foundation for these hopes, or to
argue man's duties from his nature, finds plain
precepts for his guidance which embody all and
somewhat more than philosophy could have
taught him ; if this system be not divine, at
any rate had the Deity given a revelation to
man, he could have given no other.
It will be my endeavour now to show how
the one truth which forms the centre of both
the authoritative and philosophical systems will
be reflected back from each in turn, so as to
throw light upon the other ; and if, in so doing,
I may set at rest some few of the angry feelings
which are too apt to prevail on subjects where
they are the most misplaced, if but one heart
should learn to feel with me that where all are
eagerly looking for the truth, that circumstance
ought to make us rather friends than enemies,
32 INTRODUCTORY ENQUIRIES.
and that the path we take matters far less than
the place we are going to ; — I shall have at
least one cheering thought to go with me to my
grave, brightening my path as all else grows
darker.
4
THEOLOGY.
ONE of the most fruitful sources of angry
discussions on this subject on the one
hand, and idle scoffs on the other, has been the
disposition so prevalent among men, to a species
of Anthropomorphism in their notions of the
Deity ; for though all will not go the length of
the Egyptian monks who nearly murdered their
bishop for endeavouring to persuade them that
God had not actual hands and feet (as they
alleged they found written in the Scripture),
yet many would go nearly that length with him
who should dare to assert that God has no more
of the vindictive passions than of the bodily
form of a man. Yet we must see clearly that
one is nearly as absurd a fancy as the other,
if we consider that a pure spiritual existence
has no individuality but in will, and purpose,
and feeling; and that therefore any of those
changes in mood which are in truth a part of
the animal nature of man, would be equivalent
D
34 THEOLOGY.
to a change of individuality in the Deity ; for a
change of purpose is a change of person where
there is no animal nature to create or suffer
that change. Philosophy asserts this, so does
Christianity ; in God " is no variableness,
neither shadow of turning," yet men in all ages
have misapprehended a few eastern hyperboles
in the language of the Scripture, till they have
made a Deity for themselves such as we should
/^^.^ not select even for a human fiend. " I defy you
to say so hard a thing of the devil," said John
Wesley when speaking of Whitfield's doctrine
of Reprobation ; yet Wesley was not free from
the prevailing anthropomorphism himself.
The very first step then, if we would wish
either to understand what is predicated of the
Deity in our Scriptures, or know how we our-
selves stand with regard to this exterior power
whose will evidently must control us something
in the same way that the parent controls the
child, is, to ascertain what are the necessary
conditions of eternity and self-existence, for it
is in vain to say that the Deity is utterly beyond
the reach of our reasoning faculties. We can
conceive eternity, we can conceive self-existence ;
every strong and cultivated mind that has turned
its attention to these subjects knows this ;
THEOLOGY. 35
though it is one of those parts of individual
consciousness which admits no other proof than
the feeling that we can. We can conceive, that
is, though unable to comprehend, (using the
word in its sense of the entire grasping of a
subject,) we can apprehend or reach to and lay-
hold on the great features of the case : we can
arrive in thought at an approximation to the
nature of an immaterial existence, though we
cannot fathom all its depths ; and that we can
do so is perhaps one of the strongest though
least conspicuous proofs, that we have a sort of
imperfect specimen within us of what immaterial
existence is ; for experience shews that man is
unable to conceive what he has no exemplar of.
The wildest imagination, while endeavouring to
form a monster, has never done more than take
disjointed parts of known things and put them
together. The essence of eternity and of self-
existence is, that it is boundless, for (as I have
already observed) if we supposed any other like
power, we must either suppose a difference, or
an agreement of individual will and purpose ; if
a difference, then there must be discord and
destruction : if agreement, then, as there are no
bodily parts to prevent entire union, there is an
amalgamation and the power is one, one, in its
36 THEOLOGY.
individuality that is, — but, (as some antient
Christian philosophers have well observed), not
necessarily one in its parts or functions, since
the individuality, the wisdom,* and the actively
exerted will, are distinct principles appertaining
to the same essence ; for it is clear that the
individuality might exist for ever without any
active exertion, yet the power of exertion is in it,
and capable of being manifested at any time, and
though the individuality, the wisdom, and the
exerted will are distinct parts or functions of the
one self-existent Being, they are necessary con-
sequences of each other, and being each perfect,
can be susceptible of no change : for the know-
ledge which directs the will being entire, the
choice consequent upon it must be always the
same ; nor can there be any other essential part
or function affirmed of the eternal self-existent
Being than these three : all the rest must be
mere negatives consequent on them. Thus God
cannot be mistaken in the means to an end, or
find his purpose changed by unexpected cir-
* The mere English reader is not aware, and even
some scholars scarcely consider that the term Xoyog,
which in the Gospel of St. John is translated " Word,"
has the meaning in the Greek of the " Reasoning Power,"
or " Wisdom in active operation."
THEOLOGY. 37
cumstances ; because perfect knowledge forbids
both. Nor can God suffer pain or grief, because
either the one or the other results from the
action of some force, exterior and superior to
the being so suffering: a thing which perfect
power equally forbids.
Again, there can be no distinction of past
or future with the Deity* Man measures
time by the revolutions of the earth, and by his
own waxing and waning powers. Give him an
eternal day and an unaltered body, what then
will be his past and future ? The past is what
he has done and knows, the future what he has
not yet done, and therefore does not know : but
the Deity knows all, where then is his dis-
tinction of time ? To Him it is one unbounded
present, and all the events of the world no less
than its component parts lie spread before him
as in a map, save that our map only represents
material objects, whereas it is the mind of man
which the Deity looks through, sees the motives
which operate there, and bends the events of
nature so far to control the actions resulting
from them, as to make even evil intentions
conducive to some good end. It is an earthly
and a human notion which figures to itself the
Deity arranging the affairs of the world by
88 THEOLOGY.
patching here and mending there, as if any
event could take the Creator by surprise : and
here arises the question which has been repeated
through all ages, " Why then is there evil ?
Why is there suffering in the world ? " for if
an all-powerful Deity sees and permits, it is
equivalent to the causing it. Even in human
law, the man who stands by and sees a murder
committed without endeavouring to prevent it
is held a party to the crime.
The answer to this is to be found in the
nature of the beings in question. There is one
thing which even to the Deity is impossible.
The self-existent cannot make another self-
existent, and what is not self-existent is bounded ;
for there is an antecedent and a greater power :
and what is bounded is imperfect ; for there is
something which it does not know, and there-
fore it can commit errors. Now experience
shews us that there is no happiness but in
voluntary action ; minerals have chemical affi-
nities and combine necessarily, but there is no
sensation of pleasure. The heart performs its
functions involuntarily, and there is no sen-
sation of pleasure in their performance. The
goods of life as they are called, such as health,
riches, &c, when in quiet possession give no
I
THEOLOGY. 39
pleasure further than they afford the means of
seeking it, which is voluntary action. To make
a being capable of a high degree of happiness
then, he must have a free and intelligent will ;
and thus he is akin to the Deity, and capable
of tasting the same felicity. This necessarily
imperfect being therefore has a complete free-
dom of choice, consequently the power of erring
is his choice ; what then would be the course
pursued by unbounded benevolence to preserve
him from error? Would it not hedge him
round with difficulties at every step towards
that wrong path ; with inward discomfort, pain,
and a long train of evil consequences to prevent
him from pursuing it ? Would it not school
him as a parent does his child by allowing him
to suffer from his thoughtlessness to make
him wiser in future? An imperfect being
might not know how to prize or to enjoy the
Divine felicity, till taught its worth by having
tried in other directions and found himself
wrong. Is there then actual evil in the world
if we except that of the perverse will of man ?
I think a short consideration will shew that
there is not. I think that there is no man who
has attained middle age, who will not acknow-
ledge that in the irremediable events of his life
40 THEOLOGY.
there has always been either a grief avoided or a
good to be gained, if he chose to lay hold on it.
A friend, the beloved above all others, dies, —
perhaps it is long before we can see cause to
thank heaven that he is safe from the evil which
he would otherwise have had to endure from
evil men. His death has changed all our views
and aims ; do we not find that in this change of
views and aims we have gained more than an
equivalent for what we have after all lost but
for a time ? We have gained probably a farther
power of doing good, have formed fresh con-
nexions over whom we may exercise a beneficial
influence, are becoming more capable of intel-
lectual happiness ourselves, and of leading
others to enjoy it; more assimilated to God,
and more fitted for a joyful reunion with those
whom He has taken to Himself. If our con-
clusion as to the real nature of man be just
(and I know not how we are to avoid acknow-
ledging it to be so), then what passes in the
short span of bodily existence is but one part of
a great whole ; and in passing through that
state which is the school of our intellectual
nature, enjoying pleasure while pursuing the
right course, and suffering pain when following
the wrong one, we are only undergoing a
THEOLOGY. 41
necessary preparation for a higher degree of
happiness ; after which, having gained the
experience necessary to enable us to choose
aright, we may find in the bosom of the Divinity
and in the society of others perfected like our-
selves, the entire felicity which we have sighed
for.
Thus far philosophy speaks. Christianity
goes further, though in the same tone. Chris-
tianity says, " Man's path, even though thus
fenced, may be mistaken," and it proceeds to
offer a set of precepts which make that path still
plainer ; it offers more yet, it sets before him an
exemplar of human virtue, made perfect by the
indwelling of the Deity, and by shewing how
lovely such a life might be, even with no
circumstance of worldly grandeur or pleasure to
recommend it, has brought every feeling of
man's heart into accordance with his true
interests. " Never man spake like this man,"
" All were astonished at the gracious words
which proceeded out of his mouth," &c. &c.
sufficiently shews how that bright pattern of
excellence laid hold on the minds of the most
indifferent.
Nor is this all : we have already seen that the
qualities of the Divine nature may be argued
42
THEOLOGY.
out by a sound philosophy, Man finds himself
in a certain degree a partaker of that nature,
therefore, by the necessary law of all existence,
his happiness must be of the same kind ; and to
seek any other would be but the insanity of a
man who should plunge into the arctic seas to
follow the whale. If then convinced of this
truth he school his mind to wish what the
Deity wills ; to seek, in short, the same felicity,
he will no longer have to complain of his finite
nature ; for Infinite Power is already accom-
plishing his wish, almost before he has known
how to shape it. He has no dread that the
attainment of his object will be defeated ; for he
knows that if the scheme he has devised prove
vain, it is only because it was not in reality
calculated to promote the end he had in view,
and his inmost heart thus becomes a spring of
never-failing content and satisfaction, a well of
living water, freshening and beautifying all
around as well as all within.
None who have not tried are aware of the
large influence which a soul thus constituted
has even upon the bodily health, though phy-
sicians have not unfrequently observed that a
quiet and happy mind is the best medicine in
illness. Sickness is one of those evils which
THEOLOGY. 43
are thought the immediate infliction of the
Deity, though were the matter better considered,
it would appear that it is most generally of
man's making; but even when thus produced
it may become a blessing instead of a misfortune
by steadily pursuing the same course. If in
health, we can imitate the perfections and seek
the felicity of the Deity, by diffusing happiness
around us and enjoying the contemplation of it ;
in sickness we may seek the knowledge which
forms another part of His attributes. It is a
false notion that application of the mind to
science is impossible or hurtful in such a state,
on the contrary it takes off the tedium of con-
finement, withdraws the attention from pain,
and makes what would otherwise be wearisome
a source of enjoyment ; for those who have
active duties to fulfil, often have scanty leisure
for acquiring what nevertheless they sigh for.
In the quiet of a sick chamber knowledge may
be sought and yet no duty neglected ; and with
convalescence comes the additional pleasure of
feeling that we go forth to our duties with a
mind strengthened by its high contemplations,
and with increased powers of usefulness from
the acquisition of knowledge. This is no
imaginary picture ; if the philosophy (which the
44 THEOLOGY.
writer now presents to those who, like him,
need it for practical use) be worth any thing,
let him who profits by it remember that it was
so acquired. It was during months of illness
that he stole time to hold intercourse with the
master-minds of antiquity; and often has he
hailed, almost with delight, the respite thus
afforded him from worldly toil. If then, to an
individual deeply involved in all the perplexities
caused by man's perverse will, the mere
schooling his wishes to the Divine similitude
be productive of so much peace and happiness,
what would be the consequence if a whole com-
munity were under the same influence ? The
question of " why evil is in the world ? " would
not then be asked; for there would be none.
Health would not be worn out by extreme
labour ; for who that loved his neighbour would
require or allow it? Hearts would not be
broken by unkindness ; for the follower of such
a system " loves his brother." Disease would
not be brought on by excess or transmitted in
the blood to an unfortunate progeny ; for men
would no longer debase themselves by sensuality.
Science would meet and control the dangers
arising from natural causes ; and death itself
would be but a pleasant journey to a happier land,
THEOLOGY. 45
where friends and kindred were awaiting us.
Again I repeat that the mass of suffering which
man sternly mounts upon to arraign the Deity
is heaped up by himself only, and might be
swept away again by the same hands that placed
it there. Three generations of a wise and
virtuous race would nearly efface the mischiefs
of all the ages of sin and sorrow which had
preceded them. There is nothing in all this,
probably, that has not been said before, and
perhaps better said ; but unfortunately, the
necessity of using words as the medium of thought
frequently leads us to forget that they are only
the medium and not the idea themselves.
Thus we find it daily repeated, that God is
eternal, self-existent, almighty ; and when these
words are uttered it is thought sufficient.
Among those who utter them, who is there
who has accurately weighed the necessary con-
ditions of such an existence ? The most con-
tradictory propositions are brought forward and
insisted on, and none perceive the contradiction
unless the very word should bear it upon its
face. Thus, he who should assert that God is
wise and ignorant, powerful and weak, at the
same time, might be doubted ; but he who
asserts such changes of purpose in the Deity as
46 THEOLOGY.
we find resulting from the want of power or of
knowledge in man, gains credit, because it is
not perceived that omnipotence and omniscience
leave no room for any such change, and that
eternity and self-existence entirely forbid the
possibility of it: this is but one of the many
propositions of this kind which daily pass current
in the wTorld. If, therefore, an accurate notion
of the nature of the ruling power on whom we
depend be requisite to the understanding our
position, and regulating our actions, it is of no
small importance to awaken men's minds to the
logical consequences of their admitted creed.
Indeed, were this course generally followed,
there would be an end of the dissensions which
now disgrace the Christian world ; for a really
false opinion would soon manifest itself to the
mind of the enquirer by the absurdity of its
consequences, and all other differences (which
arise merely from taking words for ideas and
then imagining that our neighbour means dif-
ferently, because he uses a different word),
would merge in the one truth which all love,
and either seek, or think they have attained. I
believe that if each of the words which have
in turn been made the ' Shibboleth' of a party
had been subjected to such a process, we might
THEOLOGY. 47
now be living in peace, " one fold, under one
shepherd." Sure I am, that as the Truth
can be but one, there must be a fault in the
course pursued, or those who have honestly
sought it could not have remained, as (alas !
for Christian charity,) many wise and otherwise
good men have remained, in bitter opposition to
each other.
" The man is other and better than his belief,"
says Coleridge ; so great a thinker ought to have
gone further, and told us why it is so ; for the
maxim is a true one. Is it not that the con-
viction of the heart, from which his actions flow,
finds imperfect expression in words,, and that
even those words fail to convey to others the
meaning he has intended to give them? His
words are attacked, and he defends them as the
visible signs of what he thinks and feels; but
are they so ? Let any man try to express his
own interior conviction in accurate terms, and
see how many deep feelings of unseen realities,
how many humble prostrations of human weak-
ness before Divine perfection, are unsusceptible
of any expression at all ; and when he begins
to attempt a definition, how his very soul groans
over the un suited tools he has to use ; and when
he has felt all this, let him, if he can, condemn
48 THEOLOGY.
his neighbour s creed, when he sees his neigh-
bours' life, and reads in that what he must
V, have intended to express.
We have now seen what are the necessary
conditions of self-existence. Will either Unita-
rians or Trinitarians dissent from this ? Atha-
nasius the most decided of Trinitarians expressed
himself in nearly the same terms that I have
used. Priestly could hardly have wished for
any other definition. "Why then have they been
considered of different sects? Because each
has attacked or defended words ; and the things
which those words were intended to convey a
notion of, have not been duly considered; and
then, when controversy once begins, and passion
enters where placid reasoning alone should find
place, adieu to the hope of brotherly fellowship !
Evil feelings are engendered; the church of
Christ is split ; and he who endeavours to make
peace by shewing each party that in the heat of
dispute both have gone too far, is looked upon
as lukewarm in the cause, or perhaps as a traitor
to that very faith which he is endeavouring to
preserve " in the bond of unity."
The tradition of the church tells us that when
the apostle John, sinking under the pressure of
years and infirmity, could no longer preach to
THEOLOGY. 49
his converts, he was wont to be carried in a
chair into the midst of them, where he pro-
nounced simply these words, " Children, love
one another." If this was the last lesson of the
disciple " whom Jesus loved," of one who had
heard the gracious words of Him who " spake
as never man spake," surely we shall do well to
remember that "brotherly love" is orthodoxy,
and that charitable indulgence, not unmeasured
zeal, is " the fulfilling of the law."
PSYCHOLOGY.
IF Theology has been embarrassed by inade-
quate conceptions of the nature of the Self-
Existent, Psychology has suffered no less from \
confined notions of the nature of man. Though
it has been very generally believed that this
nature is compound, and though the words
' soul' and ' body' are in every one's mouth, yet
we find no distinct ideas respecting the functions
of each, even among those who are the most
decided in their assertion that such are the
component parts of man. We find no great
laws established by experimental proof, as in
other sciences; no accurate classification; and
he who, without a previously formed theory of
his own to guide him through the labyrinth,
should take up any of the works professedly
written to explain the subject, would very
probably find himself more bewildered when he
had finished than when he began.
When a science is in this state of chaotic
52 PSYCHOLOGY.
disorder, there is no chance of progress ; the
very first step towards its advancement, there-
fore, must be a classification which may at least
reduce the subjects it embraces to something
like arrangement. It may be imperfect, it may
even be erroneous ; but at any rate, the objects
requiring attention will have been disentangled
from each other, and so placed that they may
be viewed separately, and examined on all sides ;
it is easy then to shift their position if, after
such examination, it should appear necessary. •
But the very thing which makes classification
needful makes it also difficult. Whoever may
attempt it will be met by his contemporaries
with the taunt, " What new sense has been
given to you, that you imagine yourself able to
do what abler minds have not accomplished ? "
Those who think that the adytum of the temple
ought to be dark, or lighted only by the torch
of the mystagogue for the entrance of the
initiated, will denounce the endeavour to admit
daylight as a sacrilege. What have the people
to do in such matters ? and what can a Pariah
know of them ? All this and more must be
expected, but it alters not the case ; a first step
must be made, or a second never can be : and
if the people, the multitude, the ot 7ro\koi, (I
PSYCHOLOGY. 53
care not by what term of contempt I and my
compeers may be denominated), if the masses, I
say, are to be what God made them to be, some-
thing more must be done than to tell them that
they have instinctive feelings given them by a
benevolent Deity, which it is a sin to indulge ;
for which reason severe laws abridge their
gratification as far as possible : and that they
have a soul destined for an immortality of
spiritual enjoyment which they have no means
* given them of preparing for ; something more
than this, I repeat, is needful to make us fit
denizens of heaven : we must know how much
of what we now feel is to go with us beyond the
grave, how far it is to be controlled ; how far
indulged. We must in short ascertain the
boundary line between the animal and the im-
mortal nature, and this must be done, not for
the few who have grown pale over their mid-
night studies, but for the many, for those who
can only snatch a moment from the labours of
the day for a short book, and whose toil has
made them sleep too soundly at night to allow
of long speculations. The philosophy of the
multitude must be as brief as it is practical.
We begin with a slight classification of the
phoenomena of man's nature into
54 PSYCHOLOGY.
1. The instinctive emotions and appetites.
2. The faculties.
3. The will.
And I assumed that as the two first partook of
the changes which the body undergoes, they
were bodily; but that as the individual and
intelligent will partakes of none of these changes,
it was of a different nature. Had we never
heard of soul and body, so marked a distinction
in phoenomena would have led us to look for a
double principle to cause it; and I therefore
propose to reduce man's nature to its ultimate
elements, by arranging the whole under two
simple divisions.
I. Material and animal functions subjected to
bodily change and subdivided into
1. Appetites.
2. Instinctive emotions.
3. Faculties.
II. Spiritual and unchanging functions.
The latter division only is, strictly speaking,
the province of Psychology : but in a nature so
intimately blended, the one part so influences
the other, that a system which should leave out
either would be very imperfect. I therefore
proceed to consider,
PSYCHOLOGY, 55
I. Material and animal functions subjected to
bodily change.
1. I need not waste time in proving that
appetites, such as hunger and the like, are a
part of our bodily and animal nature. No one
denies it ; and whoever should doubt it might
soon be convinced by trying the experiment
of preventing their gratification. Man would
perish from the earth under such a regimen.
2. There has been more doubt as to what I
here call the instinctive emotions : anger, fear,
-and many other emotions of this kind have
generally been termed passions, and referred to
the soul for their origin ; but when it is con-
sidered that they arise involuntarily in the first
instance, and are attended with such a change in
the circulation and other bodily functions as to
disorder the health, and even in some instances
to cause instant death, and when moreover it is
considered that these so-called passions are
requisite to the preservation and well-being of
the species (for anger impels us to self-defence,
fear to the avoidance of danger, &c), we shall
be justified, I think, in giving them the appel-
lation I have done ; since though passion, if we
take it in the strict sense, means only a thing
56 PSYCHOLOGY.
suffered passively ; yet in common parlance it
has been strangely confounded in its meaning,
and is not unfrequently so used as to signify a
thing done actively. Of course from this class
of instinctive emotions must be rejected some of
the feelings hitherto classed among passions, such
as Hope, which is attended with no bodily dis-
order, and has therefore no claim to the title of
passion, or a thing suffered. It will not be
necessary to specify every one of the emotions
thus to be classed; it is so easy to examine
whether any bodily disorder is ever occasioned
by it or not, that none can be at a loss in
determining the question.
3. The faculties have been variously con-
sidered by different writers : but as a recapitu-
lation of their opinions would take much space,
those who wish to know what they are must
consult their works. Pursuing the enquiry on
the same ground that I have taken with respect
to the instinctive emotions, I find clear indica-
tions of bodily origin in the fatigue occasioned
to the brain by their exercise, the necessity for
repose ere they can again be set to work, their
complete derangement by bodily disease, their
debility in the last decrepitude of age. We
need hardly ask the physiologist for his assistance
PSYCHOLOGY. 57
here ; common observation suffices for this
conclusion. And here we may notice, that as
the instinctive emotions are requisite for the
preservation of the animal, so also are the
faculties in a certain degree ; for though the
combinations effected in the brain may be
applied to other purposes, which I shall presently
speak of, yet the first and most obvious use is in
the ministering to bodily needs ; contrivances
for defence, for shelter, for procuring food, and
the result of such combinations, and unarmed as
man is, with natural covering or natural weapons,
it is evident that without these contrivances
the species would soon perish. Thus far there-
fore we have a mere animal with the properties
*and capacities requisite for his preservation.
II. Spiritual or unchanging functions.
These appear to be two : i. e. the intelligent
will and that species of memory which forms
the consciousness of identity, and which (how-
ever ordinary recollections may be impaired by
the injury or disease of the brain) never suffers
any change from infancy to death, and even in
sleep remains unaltered.
We have as yet considered man as an animal
only, and have seen all parts of his frame act-
ing harmoniously together ; the appetites, and
t^y^y^
58 PSYCHOLOGY.
the involuntary or instinctive emotions by turns
stimulating the faculties to provide for the
needs of the body, these faculties being opera-
tions of the brain, and therefore coming within
reach of the mechanical action of the system.
But another power now enters upon the scene,
and, for good or for evil, not unfrequently
thwarts and disorders the whole. The instinctive
emotions, which in themselves are evanescent,
are wrought up by this untiring energy into
permanent affections. The faculties which
naturally only act under the stimulus of bodily
wrants, that is to say under the impulses
mechanically conveyed to the brain, are now
seized upon by this restless inquisitive power,
and compelled, in spite of fatigue, and even
utter derangement of health in consequence, to
minister to its requisitions, and supply it with
the information it wants ; untired, unchanging,
it drags on its weary slave with A^mitigable
determination, till at last it scornfully casts it
into the grave as no longer fit for its purpose,
and asks for other worlds and ages yet to come
to satisfy its impatient longings for wisdom or
for enjoyment. But though when speaking of
functions I have divided them into two, as
manifesting themselves differently, it is clear
PSYCHOLOGY. 59
that they proceed from one principle ; it is the
conscious individual essence which pours itself
forth in this energetic and unwearied activity,
and is able, when it knows its powers, to ap-
propriate to its own purposes the whole of the
unrivalled machinery placed within its reach.
But though this nice mechanism is capable of
responding to the touch of that power within,
which makes man so godlike when his nature
has its full play, it is too frequently left at the
mercy of outward impressions, and remains the
mere animal to the last ; for we have already
seen that the exertion of the intelligent will
over the bodily functions is not requisite to
their performance so as to preserve life. Man
may exist as an animal or at least very little
removed from that state, and when the brain
has never been exercised in those nicer opera-
tions which the individual essence can at its
choice require from it, it becomes as unfit for
use as the hands of a Hindoo devotee when he has
resolutely kept them shut for ten years together.
Active use is the necessary condition for keeping
any bodily fibre in a healthy and serviceable
state ; and we see that this active use is stimu-
lated by the sensations from without, which at our
first entrance into the world are so abundant in
60 PSYCHOLOGY.
all directions. The first impulse of the child
is a restless curiosity, and at the same time an
endeavour to combine and arrange ideas from
what he sees and hears. Sensation has done
its work ; the brain has perceived ; the individual
is beginning to discover the organ it has at its
command, and it is already directing it to the
enquiries needful for its information, but too
frequently the child has no one who can reply
to his enquiries : he gets weary of useless
question, or is reproved for it; the brain
consequently becomes inactive as to all its
higher functions, and no farther progress is
made. The will is either not exerted at all (for
the mere action of nerves of voluntary motion
stimulated by sensation must not be confounded
with the ruling individual will), or if it be
exerted, having no longer power over the
faculties so as to acquire useful information, its
whole energy is devoted to the giving force and
percnanence to the instinctive emotions, which
being involuntary never can slumber, as the
faculties are wont to do. The man becomes
thus the creature of passion, and that immaterial
essence which, should have been the guide to
all that is excellent and noble in knowledge and
in feeling, panders only to the impulses of the
PSYCHOLOGY. 61
body, and degrades itself from its high dignity
merely to sink both below the level of the
brute, for the brute when the appetite is satisfied
goes no farther ; but bring the intelligent will
once to aid, and the jaded appetite is pampered
and stimulated, fresh excitement is sought, and
the body is at last worn out by the endeavours
of its unwearied ally to minister to its gratifi-
cation.
In cases of idiocy it is evident that the brain
never has attained a sufficient power for sup-
plying the individual will with the information
it needs ; but the proverbial obstinacy of idiotic
persons shews that this power is as strong in
them as in others ; and were a careful training
given to such children, it would be found that
they are capable of much more than is supposed.
I knew a family in humble life, some years ago,
where three of the children were thus afflicted ;
two of them were trained as persons in that
rank usually are, to labour, and attend the
church on Sunday. The third, and youngest,
was the mother's darling, and nothing was re-
quired of him. The first two remained weak
in intellect, but capable of performing many
manual labours ; were honest and industrious
in their way, and were conscientious in the
62 PSYCHOLOGY.
discharge of these humble duties. The third
was the reckless, spiteful idiot too often seen.
Again, in insanity we find a no less resolute
will, but misled by the false report of the brain,
it is devoted to useless or mischievous purposes ;
and here too it is probable, that were the office
of the brain, of the instinctive emotions, and
the ruling will duly distinguished, this most
miserable of all calamities might be either
wholly averted or greatly mitigated. Its origin
is either in a diseased state of the brain, from
injury, or the violent action of some instinctive
emotion, or a devotion of the cerebral power to
one subject exclusively of all others, till it has
no longer the power to apply to any but that.
* Now were the ruling will in the habit of claiming
that supremacy which it can claim, it seems
probable that in every one of these instances it
might, if not prevent the evil wholly (as it
probably would in the two latter), yet greatly
mitigate it. Else how is it that we find in cases
of confirmed insanity the fear of pain will curb
the fit ; here the will is excited to use its power
to avoid an evil, and for the time it uses it
successfully.
Few know or believe the immense power
cb which tht undying energy is capable of exercising
PSYCHOLOGY. 63
over the body, for it is only now and then that
it is seen in full action; but that it is both
master of, and evidently different from the
animal nature, may be sufficiently shewn from
those instances. For example, when a man
resolves on putting an end to his existence by
abstaining from food (and this has been done),
the tyrannical sway exercised over every sensa-
tion and craving of the body is complete and
durable as well as in entire contradiction to
every impulse of the animal nature. Or if it be
said that this has been merely the last resort of
a man wearied out with suffering, let us take
the case of one hazarding or throwing away his
own life to save another from perishing. A
stranger it may be, one f$ whom he has nothing hj^^1-
to expect, and where he has no incitement but
the intimate conviction that a higher and a
nobler nature claims the sacrifice of the mere
animal. He knows that he is rushing upon
death, he feels probably some natural shudder
in doing so ; yet this is overruled, and he goes
on with his resolute purpose. Take away the
influence of such a principle within, and half the
actions of men are utterly unaccountable; for
it is the natural tendency of all things to accom-
plish the end of their being; and if it be sentient,
64 PSYCHOLOGY.
to be happy in doing so. The plant blossoms
and bears fruit before it decays, and its life may
be prolonged by preventing it from blossoming.
The mere animal eats, drinks, propagates its
species, and is satisfied; but man is always
aiming at objects to which his life is frequently
sacrificed, and no one calls him insane. On
the contrary in the proportion that he is ready
with this sacrifice he is honoured and esteemed,
because every one has an interior consciousness
that it is what his own nature aspires to. He
feels that he is now but the larva of himself, and
that he has a higher career opening before him,
where all that was beginning to develope itself
will acquire perfection, where all the gentler
sympathies of our nature may still find place
and scope, and from whence the grosser animal
gratifications alone will be banished along with
the earthly frame which required them.
*
■&■&■$■
*
i^.^^.i^^^^J^J^^^^^^^
PRACTICAL RESULTS.
« TITHAT is a Religion ? " and "what is a
▼ ▼ system of Philosophy ? " They are
two different answers to the questions most
interesting to man. Examine all the religions
which have long held sway over the minds of
men, all the philosophical systems which have
united under their banner a large portion of
the enlightened part of mankind, and you will
find that these religions and their systems have
one distinction common to both; that they
have boldly proposed and solved the whole of
those problems. It is by this character that we
recognize a really great system, and we may
truly say that if one of these questions has
been pretermitted, it is but half a religion or
half a system of philosophy. Would you have
an example of the stretch and extent of a great
religion, look at Christianity ! Ask a Christian
" whence the human race is derived ?" He can
tell you. — " What is man's object, and what his
66 PRACTICAL RESULTS.
destiny ? " He can tell you. Ask a poor child
from school " why he is here, and what will
become of him after death ?" He will make you
an answer full of sublime truths which probably
he may not half understand, but which are not
therefore the less admirable. Ask him, " How
the world was created, and why ? " " How the
earth has been peopled? why men suffer, and
how all this will end ?" He can tell. He knows
the duties of man towards God and towards his
fellow-men, and when he is older and has learned
the system more completely, he will not hesitate
at all more respecting natural, political, and
national rights; for each of these parts of know-
ledge flows as naturally from Christianity as
light from the sun. Such is what I call a great
system."
These are the words of a French philosopher
who himself was not a Christian,* but I can
* Perhaps I ought rather to say, that disgusted with
the narrow views of contending sects, he was unable to
find any one to which he could associate himself, and
thus, unphilosophic only in this, overlooked his own
proposition, that great systems, whether of philosophy
or religion, are only two modes of solving the same
question, not two solutions ; and that, therefore, he who
professes a pure and true philosophy is a Christian,
whether he knows it or not.
PRACTICAL RESULTS. 67
find no words which would more aptly trace the
way in which a " great system" must influence
all the relations of life ; and most truly does he
pronounce that to be but a half doctrine which
is incapable of this extended rule over men's
minds and actions. When, therefore, I come
to the practical result of a scheme of philosophy
which walks hand in hand with the "great
system" which M. JoufFroy has so well described,
it will not be astonishing if I find myself obliged
to touch on many points where great differences
of opinion have existed. To those who mav
not take the same view of the subject, I can
only say with Themistocles, " Strike, if you
please, but hear me." Weigh at least, whether
there be not some truth that deserves your far-
ther attention in the propositions which at first
may seem strange, and perhaps displeasing.
We have already considered the exterior and
interior power in their separate nature and func-
tions : we now come to the mutual relations which
must subsist between them, and the influence
these have on man's position, prospects, and
final destiny. We have seen man endued with
instincts and faculties purely corporeal in their
origin and mode of exercise ; and yet, in the
midst of these corporeal instincts and faculties,
68 PRACTICAL RESULTS.
we find another power introduced of a different
nature, capable of diverting them from their
natural course, and exercising an almost illimit-
able sway over them ; like the musical instru-
ments which by their regular machinery can
produce a set number of tunes, but yet have
keys annexed by which a skilful player can
produce harmony at his will : and this complex
nature of man is the work of a Being who,
having all-power and all-knowledge, must do
what is best for the proposed end.
If we look through creation in every instance
where we have an opportunity of watching the
operations of nature^ as writers on such subjects
are wont to say, or as I should say, of the
Framer of nature, we find no substance formed
with particular properties for an especial occa-
sion, which properties never come into use
afterwards. Every chemist knows that each
substance has its peculiar qualities and laws
which avail equally be it free or in combination,
be it part of an organized or an unorganized
body; and that amid all the mutations which
are continually going on, nothing is wasted,
nothing so far changed in nature that it cannot
be resolved again into its component parts, which
by the same unchanging laws form fresh com-
PRACTICAL RESULTS. 69
binations, each nevertheless still retaining the
fundamental character impressed upon it. We
see too that all organized beings (I am not
speaking now of man) have exactly those
qualities, organs, and impulses given them,
which conduce to the end of their being; which
end they scarcely ever fail to accomplish : the
plant, the •&&£, the animal have their different L/nA tc r
modes of life and production; but they live
and produce ; no property inherent in them -
interferes to prevent this. We further see that
when we have established any great law of
creation by reasonable induction, we can explain
hitherto puzzling phenomena by a reference to
these laws.
Upon these last grounds, then, I assume that
man's instincts and faculties are given him for
purposes of permanent utility extending beyond
this life: because it is evident that he has a
property inherent in him, which interferes with,
and very frequently wholly prevents, the full
developement of his animal nature ; and therefore
that animal nature and the period of its duration
is not all of man. And if any one objects that
man is in a fallen state, and therefore that these
instincts and faculties are corrupt, and that we
are not to look for good but for evil from them,
A
70 PRACTICAL RESULTS.
I reply, that those who make this objection
doubtless will allow that when man came from
the hands of his Maker, his nature, as well as
all the rest of the new world, was " very good."
Now we have already seen that these instincts
and faculties are corporeal; provided for by a
very simple and complete mechanism, but still
by mechanism, as much as the bending of the
joints or the growth of the body ; then these
instincts and faculties were in man originally
such as they now are, excepting in instances
where they are impaired by disease, and are no
more corrupt than his bones or his muscles ;
and it is only when the individual power inter-
feres to give intensity and duration to these
animal functions that they run into excess, and
thus become an evil from the due balance
between them being overthrown. It is no small
happiness to the world that these kindly feelings
which bind man to man are all found among
the instinctive emotions, which being consequent
on the very frame of man, and altogether in-
voluntary in the first instance, are therefore in
no danger of being ever wholly stifled ; while
the sterner part of his nature which we have
called the faculties, result from cerebral com-
binations produced by a voluntary act, and
PRACTICAL RESULTS. 71
therefore subsequent to the first impulse of
sensation.
Let us now see how the individual is likely
to be affected by this corporeal mechanism. He
enters the world inexperienced and full of wonder
at the scenes around him, and the first sensation
that is awakened after that of mere appetite,
is, love to the parent who cherishes him ; the
next, grief at the sight of an angry or a sad
countenance. It is only gradually that the
brain acquires power for its higher exercises,
and long ere this has taken place the feelings
have taught the individual better than the most
luminous argument could have done, that it is
good to love those who are kind to us, and to
avoid exciting their anger or their grief; and
this is become so habitual, that a deviation
from the usual course of feeling is painful in
the first instance. Here then, the very first of
instinctive emotions, provide a never-failing
source of happy intercourse ; and there is so
much pleasure in yielding to them, that nothing
further is requisite than a curbing power. The
individual readily abandons himself to the gentle
influence ; but he may follow it too far, A
parent or a companion may ask a wrong com-
pliance : it is then that the intelligent will may
72 PRACTICAL RESULTS.
call in the aid of the faculties to combine argu-
ments, and weigh consequences ; and, sitting
like a sovereign at his council board, finally
resolve, that the petitioning feeling ought not
to be attended to. How soon the brain shall
be capable of thus giving counsel, depends on
the wholesome exercise it has had; for where
no stores of knowledge have been laid up,
arguments cannot be found; and where the
habit has not been acquired by daily use, com-
binations of ideas are formed with difficulty.
It would seem that mere sensation had found
itself the straightest road, and that the more com-
plex convolutions in which (according to some)
memory and the higher reasoning faculties are
exercised, were so unaccustomed to be called
into use, that the parts were grown stiff and
inactive ; nay, as we see that size and strength
of limb is only gained by exercise, it is not
impossible that a brain never called into use
may not even have its full proportions ; and
thus, from neglect in childhood, a physical
incapacity may be engendered. Suppose this
the case, and that either from want of exer-
cise or of power, the faculties in their higher,
uses are not duly developed, it follows that
the individual will (having no guide but the
PRACTICAL RESULTS. 73
emotions), will follow them blindly, they them-
selves being but a blind impulse, and when
<; the blind lead the blind, both fall into the
ditch." But this is no corruption of nature,* all
these functions are useful and good in them-
selves, it is merely a neglect of one part which
throws the rest off their balance.
Let us now suppose that the faculties having
been cultivated to the utmost, the will has
listened to them almost exclusively : a harsh
character will be engendered; for no human
being is perfect, and if we bestow our regard
only in the ratio of specific merit, we shall
seldom find enough excellence to meet our
notice to justify any large share of it. It is
then that a yet more powerful instinct steps in :
love between the sexes teaches at once the
generous self-devotion which the combinations of
rational argument might have been long in
inculcating, and perhaps have attempted ineffec-
tually ; and all the gentler social relations arise
out of it to sweeten life, and give a yet higher
scope to our wishes ; for who that truly loves
will be satisfied that the union shall be broken at
the gates of the grave, which has been so sweet
a one through life ? And how often do we see
that he who cared not if his loose companions
74 PRACTICAL RESULTS,
looked upon his vices, has shrunk from, and
perhaps quitted them, when he thought of the
innocent child whom he could not bear to con-
taminate ! And thus we see two kinds of animal
functions mutually balancing each other, uniting
to school the individual will to all that is amiable
and exalted. The instinctive emotions softening
the sternness of the faculties, the faculties curbing
the animal force of the emotions, and the will,
impelled by the solicitations of the one, and guided
by the information and caution of the other,
acquiring by degrees those habits of judging
and feeling rightly, which qualify man for the
spiritual felicity of his Creator. He has learned
the enjoyment of benevolence and the excellence
of knowledge, and his heaven is already begun
on this side the tomb ; and thus, though these
emotions and these faculties may cease with the
bodily mechanism which causes them, they have
stamped their impress on the individual, like
metal poured from the furnace into a mould,
which retains for ever the form so acquired,
though the mould be but of earth : the will has
acquired the character it will carry with it into
eternity though the mould in which it was cast
be returned to its dust.
Can the Christian who holds Philosophy to
PRACTICAL RESULTS. 75
be " foolishness/' deny that these warm though
instinctive emotions, these aspiring faculties,
are in exact conformity with the rule he
acknowledges ? The God who made man was
not so limited in power or knowledge, or so
wanting in benevolence, as to have given him
properties unfitted for the fulfilment of his high
destiny. The Saviour himself has pronounced
that a man shall leave all else to " cleave to
his wife." He has given as the badge of his
followers, that they should " love one another."
As the rule of our life, that we should strive
to be " perfect, as our Father in heaven is
perfect." We look into our hearts and we find
that we are naturally led to love the woman of
our choice, beyond all other things; that we
cannot be happy or even retain a sane mind
and healthy body without social intercourse,
and that we aspire to knowledge, to greatness,
to immortality, to perfection, in short with a
longing that is never satisfied in this life,
yet never wholly subdued. Is that philosophy
foolishness, which by rational argument de-
duces the truths of the gospel from the very
nature of things, and thus leaves no room for
hesitation or disbelief ?
76 PRACTICAL RESULTS.
But if this be the case — if a due balance of
instincts and faculties be needful to school the
Will, so as to fit it for the only felicity suited to
its nature — what sort of training ought man
to have, and what must be the sensations of one
who feels this truth deeply, when he looks round
on the habits and maxims of society, and the
principles on which legislation is too generally
founded ? " The poor man must learn to
restrain his passions," say political economists ;
let them first define what passion means. It is
convenient when an ambiguous term hides,
instead of explaining the intention ; and this
well-sounding term means, that, because it suits
those who have the power, to retain the soil as
their own property, therefore the man who is
debarred from any share of it, is to be de-
barred also from the due perfection of his
nature. Those very instincts given to mould
it to benevolence and kindness are to be rooted
out, or if God be stronger than man and this
endeavour fail, they are to be made instruments
of evil instead of good, and what would have
been the parent of all the lovely social affections
is to become the mere appetite of the brute,
indulged when the animal nature is importunate,
PRACTICAL RESULTS. 77
but so indulged as to degrade and deteriorate,
instead of improving the individual.
" We must have servants and labourers,
hewers of wood and drawers of water," say the
rich and the luxurious ; " it is therefore idle to
teach the poor what will only set them above
their work." I only ask, does it so really?
Where are the instances of the real lover of
intellectual improvement, who has been in-
efficient in what he has undertaken ? But
suppose it were as is objected, suppose a few
hours were lost, or a few shillings spent on
intellectual pleasures — do we never see either
one or the other wasted at the beer house ? And
which is the better way of spending them?
But setting aside all this, setting aside (what
I have always found) that mental cultivation
strengthens our power for whatever we under-
take, I ask again, what right have you to cramp
and stifle the intellectual faculties of a large
portion of your fellow creatures, in order that
you may purchase their bodily labour, even
supposing that you could no otherwise secure
it ? To rob men of the best gift God has given
them, in order that you may " fare sumptuously
every day," and " be clothed in purple and fine
70 PRACTICAL RESULTS.
linen." The mutes of the seraglio were deprived
of the power of speech, that they might not tell
the secrets of their master. Would you con-
demn as cruelty the depriving a child of one
bodily organ, and yet justify the cramping the
whole system of mental powers, merely that
there may be a Pariah caste ? A Helot race
who shall never rise above the soil they tread
on, and look up to their masters as to beings of
another species? If such were to be the en-
during state of society, there would be some
justification for those who might strive to over-
turn all existing institutions, in the hope that
human nature would find means to assert its
rights in the confusion. Such are not the
lessons of the gospel, for " there is no respect
of persons" before God, and probably never till
now, and in this so called free-land of England,
was the distinction of rank made to press so
heavily on the poor man. The slave in Greece
and Rome was in some things better off. He
was instructed, that he might be serviceable ;
and finished not unfrequently by being the
friend and companion of his master as his freed
man. The mistress and her female slave sate
and spun together. In the modern states of
continental Europe even, the servant or the
PRACTICAL RESULTS. . 79
labourer enjoys a certain degree of familiarity ;
and is in consequence more contented though
poorer. The increase of riches and refinement
in England has given the upper classes a cha-
racter of their own, and with a selfish exclusive-
ness they wish to retain this distinction ; and
with an instinctive feeling that intellectual
strength is power, however the maxim may
have been hackneyed and ridiculed, they hide
from their own hearts even the uneasy dread
of being encroached on, under the specious
argument that for the poor man his bible suffices.
A blessed and cheering book it is, doubtless ;
but how much richer a harvest of useful precept
does it afford to those whose minds have been
enlarged by further culture ; how many mistakes
wTould be avoided if the great principles of Phi-
losophy were better studied ; how much light
would be thrown on it if something were known
of the times, the places where, and the people
to whom its words were spoken ! The bible
alone is not enough ; the mind requires relax -
ation: the commonest events of England raise
curiosity respecting other lands and habits of
life ; and the young who hear a sailor narrating
the wonders of his voyages, or the soldier of his
campaigns, naturally wish to know something
80 PRACTICAL RESULTS.
about the things they hear of. Why is innocent
pleasure to be denied them ? We should have
a more moral population if amusements of a
higher and more intellectual character were
placed within their reach. It is not enough to
give them food and raiment merely, they feel
the wish to be respected as men.
Let me not be misunderstood. I call for no
agrarian law, no equality, which if established
to-day, must cease to-morrow, from the very
difference of individual strength and inclination ;
but I call for justice, I call upon legislators to
remember what God remembers, i. e. " whereof
we are made." I call upon them not to damn
their immortal fellow- men, by curbing with all
the force of stringent laws on the one hand,
and cold neglect on the other, the developement
of a nature which God looked upon when he
had made it, and lo, " it was very good." In-
terested men have parted what ought to have
been joined. Philosophy and Christianity have
been severed, and both have been made to speak
a language foreign from their purpose; but
though man for a time may obscure those
eternal verities, it is but like the smoke which
hides the sun ; the light must break forth again ;
and let us thank God that it must.
PRACTICAL RESULTS. 81
It may be asked what I would substitute for
the order of things I complain of? This is the
ready way of getting rid of disagreeable repre-
sentations, yet I will not shrink from this either ;
but the subject is large enough to require to be
treated separately, and my business here is with
the establishment of great principles ; these once
established, details spring naturally from them.
I return therefore for the present to man and
his nature, position, prospects, and final destiny.
I have assumed (upon what I think sufficient
ground), that all the phoenomena of our nature
are to be referred to animal appetite, instinctive
emotions, faculties, and intelligent will, coupled
with that memory which constitutes the percep-
tion of identity; and I have assumed farther,
that the last class of phoenomena only, can be
considered as properly belonging to the opera-
tions of the soul. I have also stated that an
essential part of the great Self- Existent Cause
of all things, is a free and governing Will. Man
therefore in this bears the image of his Maker ;
and inasmuch as he partakes in a certain degree
of the nature of his Creator, his happiness and
his destiny must be of a kind somewhat anal-
ogous. The felicity of the Creator (as far as
we can judge) must consist in the constant
G
82 PRACTICAL RESULTS.
harmony of his nature with his acts. The will
to do what is best, and the power to effect it ; or,
in other words, unbounded knowledge, power,
and benevolence. Now, though man's finite
nature can follow but at humble distance, it can
follow. He may act in conformity to his nature ;
he may delight in conferring happiness, and in
seeking knowledge : and I believe all who have
tried the experiment will bear testimony that
this course confers even in this life a peace of
mind, a joy, even in the midst of the turmoils
of the world, which is more akin to heaven than
earth.
Christianity teaches this, but in a simpler
manner, by precept without argument ; and it
might therefore seem at first sight that the ar-
gument was superfluous : but it is not ; for those
who attend only to the precept are apt to con-
sider the command to " love our neighbour," to
" be conformed to Christ," to " be perfect as
our Father which is in heaven is perfect," and
the announcement of the misery that would
attend the neglect of these commands, as
merely arbitrary laws, established by the Cre-
ator for reasons known only to himself; and
He is thus made to appear as a despotic sove-
PRACTICAL RESULTS. 88
reign, to be feared because he has power to
punish the infraction of his laws, rather than
as an object of grateful and affectionate adora-
tion, no less for the good he has given, than for
what he has promised. Take the argument
with the precept — shew that it is in the nature
of things that whatever felicity an intellectual
being is capable of, must be akin to that enjoyed
by the Deity; and that therefore if we seek
happiness in any other direction, we shall neces-
sarily fail of our object — and we immediately
see the fatherly kindness of the command; and
the very announcement that any other course
would be attended with perdurable misery,
instead of appearing in the light of a vindictive
denunciation of punishment, shews itself to be
what it really is — the caution of an affectionate
and anxious parent, who
" metuensque moneret
Acres esse viros, cum dura praelia gente ;"
and does not send forth his child to the combat
till he has given him every counsel and provided
him with every defence which the fondest con-
cern could dictate.
This is not, I am aware, the most usual mode
84 PRACTICAL RESULTS.
of viewing the subject, and it is perhaps because
it is not, that our religion is frequently cold and
unprofitable. If the conforming our will to the
will of the Deity, or, in other words, the finding
our pleasure in the same objects, be requisite to
our happiness, it is clear that/ear will be a very
ineffectual agent in the business. We may
choose a certain course of action because we
dread the punishment consequent on the con-
trary course, but we shall not do so because it
is a pleasure to us. The mere Theologian will
allow that this is not the state of mind which
the true Christian should aim at, for says St.
John, " Perfect love casteth out fear;" and
nothing can be juster than the distinction made
by the late Alexander Knox, between the im-
perfect Christian who fears, and the perfect one
who loves ; for as the doing an act under the
dread of punishment is but a yielding of the
will to one of the least exalted of the animal
emotions, so it tends very little, if at all, to the
amelioration of the character. The evil actions
which might engender evil habits have been
avoided, but we have accustomed ourselves to
be actuated by a cowardly motive which a great
mind ought to despise, and a Christian to
PRACTICAL RESULTS. 85
eschew. Added to all this, the emotion which
is the foundation of this kind of virtue is of
a painful nature, and therefore another instinctive
emotion, that of shrinking from present suffering
very quickly counteracts it ; for in proportion
as the fear is great, will be the effort of nature
to allay or stifle it ; thus the small influence it
exercises over the will is transitory also.
It is no new discovery of mine that we must
do what we like, or, in other words, like what
we do, in order to be happy. All men know
and act upon this principle ; can we suppose it
unknown to Him who made us ? and can we
suppose also, that knowing the conformity of our
will to His to be our happiness, He would take
by preference so inadequate an agent as fear,
to lead us to identify ourselves with Him ? for
this identity of will with the Deity (it cannot be
too often repeated) is the sum and substance of
religion as well as of philosophy. We are to
become, as it were, a part of the Divine essence ;
his children ; one in our interests, our affec-
tions, our designs : and thus identified with
the Father of our love, we have his wisdom for
our guide, his power to effect our utmost desires.
A religion made up of terrors offers no attraction ;
86 PRACTICAL RESULTS.
we only half believe it ; for it is repugnant to all
our rational and instinctive feelings, it is un-
lovely; we cannot cherish it in our hearts as
the source of happiness, or keep it beside us in
our lighter hours as our companion and guide.
On the contrary, the philosophic view being in
itself pleasant, never seems importunate or mis-
placed : it lays hold on our feelings, and dwells
with them till it becomes a constant principle of
action. It is rational, and satisfies the intellect ;
and the will thus learning to love what is both
agreeable and wise, all inclination to any other
course disappears. We feel that by pursuing
a different one we should be unhappy; for it is
not till we have depraved our nature that we
make even a step in the wrong path without
pain, and what at first was weighed and judged
fitting, becomes at last so habitual that we may
act almost without reflection, and act right.
There is always one great obstacle to the
reception of the simple religion or philosophy
(for I know no difference between them), taught
by Christ during his ministry on earth ; it is its
very simplicity. It is hard to persuade men
that it is not some " great thing" that is re-
quired of them, like Naaman, who despised the
PRACTICAL RESULTS. 87
order to " wash and be clean" of his leprosy.
Yet it is this simplicity, this conformity to com-
mon sense and common feeling, which proves
its divinity the most decidedly ; for the law, and
the nature to be governed by that law, have
evidently been the work of the same hand.
" Est enim virtus nihil aliud quam in se perfecta
et ad summum perducta natura," said the Roman
philosopher long ago, and it is a truth well worth
remembering. The same objection that is now
made to the rational views of Christianity, viz.,
that it makes its professors men of this world,
was made to its first great teacher ; " Behold, a
glutton and a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans
and sinners." Yet when the Saviour thought
it not beneath him to sit at the table of Zaccheus
at what we should now call a large dinner
party, it is evident that no sour restraints are
imposed on the Christian, even if he have never
heard of any rule of life but the following His
steps who was sent to be an example for us.
The Saviour did not sit at that table in vain;
we hear of no severe reproofs ; no stern lecture ;
but he who knew well what man's affections
could do, won the heart of Zaccheus. " The
half of my goods I give to the poor, and if I
88 PRACTICAL RESULTS.
have done any wrong to any man, I restore him
fourfold," was the resolution taken by the giver
of the feast at that dinner ; and it is thus that
the servant of Christ, the philosopher in the
true sense of the word — for what is love of
wisdom but love of the wisdom or \oyog of
God? — it is thus, I say, that the servant of
Christ may move in the world blessing and
blessed. Polished, eloquent, dignified, Christ
exhibited, amid the world which he did not
fly from, a pattern of every thing that was
attractive in man. So may and so should the
Christian, and thus sanctify and purify society
by his presence and example, till the precepts
of our great Master become its precepts also ;
till forgiveness of injuries and purity of life
be thought as necessary to the character of a
gentleman, as truth is even now ; till amuse-
ments and business, trade and politics, shall
alike own the healing influence, and " the king-
doms of the world" become what (notwithstanding
the boastful title of Christendom *), they never
have been yet, " the kingdoms of God and of his
Christ."
* The domain of Christ.
PRACTICAL RESULTS. 89
It was the pure philosophy of Christianity,
its exact accordance with every want and wish
of our nature, that spread the doctrine of the
poor fishermen of Galilee through the palaces
and the schools, no less than the shops and the
farms, of Greece and Rome. It has now ceased
to spread, and why? Is it not because its
Philosophy is forgotten? Is it not that by
being made to consist in a certain set of mys-
terious dogmata which it is almost forbidden to
examine, it is put on a level with those false
systems which shrink from the light because
they know they will suffer from being seen
when exposed to it? It was not thus that
Christianity was first preached to the world.
Its teachers and its martyrs appealed to its
rationality, to its accordance with the highest
conceptions of the wisest and the best of the
Grecian sages. They contrasted its purity with
the abominations of Paganism ; the brotherly
love of its followers, with the ferocity, treachery
and hatred of the rest of the world; they
shewed that there must be a God, and that He
could be no other than they described. The
Eternal God, said they, must be essentially
rational. Exerted or not, the wisdom to know,
90 PRACTICAL RESULTS.
and the power to act must be co-eternal in him.
We do not worship two Gods, as you object to
us ; the \oyog (rational faculty) of God, ani-
mated a human form, and spoke to us through
human lips, " God w7as in Christ reconciling the
world to himself," and him we worship. We do
not say that our God suffered or died. The
body which he wore as a raiment was sacrificed,
bat God is impassible, one Self-existent
Eternal mind.* It was thus that the early
apologists for Christianity explained its tenets
to the Pagan world; and the Pagan world
received them. What have we gained by
abandoning the philosophy of these Martyrs of
the truth ? We have abundance of technical
terms ; but have we the Spirit of the Gospel ?
Do we bear the badge of Christ, " hereby shall
men know that ye are my disciples, that ye love
one another ?" If we do not, if rich and poor,
Dissenter and Churchman, Romanist and So-
cinian, are as it were separate classes that hold
no fellowship together — then is our Christianity
as faulty as our philosophy — we have " the form
of Godliness," but not " the power thereof,"
1"H
* Vide Tertullian, Athenagoras, Amobius, &c. &c.
PRACTICAL RESULTS. 91
and however we may boast " the temple of the
Lord" (and, blessed be God, it does yet afford
shelter to some whom their Lord at his coming
will own as his true disciples), we may find at
last that phrases are of less importance than
motives ; and see (Heaven grant that it may
not be too late !) that " God is no respecter of
persons," but that " in every nation he that
feareth him and worketh righteousness is ac-
cepted with him."
FINIS.
C. WHITTINGHAM, CHISWICK.
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