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THE HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
SUPPLEMENTARY VOLUME I.
THEISM AND THE
CHRISTIAN FAITH
LECTURES DELIVERED IN THE
HARVARD DIVINITY SCHOOL
BY
CHARLES CARROLL EVERETT, D.D., LL.D.
LATE BUSSET PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY AND DEAN OF THE
FACULTY OF DrVTNTTY
EDITED BY
EDWARD HALE, A.B., S.T.B.
NEW YORK
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd.
1909
All Rights Reserved
5 -e<
Copyright, 1909
By the PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE
Set up and electrotyped. Published August, 1909
:;2 2
GEO. H. ELLIS CO., PRINTERS, 272 CONGRESS STREET, BOSTON
PREFACE.
As professor of systematic theology in the Divinity School of
Harvard University, Dr. Everett gave regularly, each year, three
courses of lectures which constituted together a unified body of
theological instruction. In the first of these courses, he dealt
with the psychological roots of religion which he found in the
feelings appropriate to the three ideas of the reason, — truth,
goodness and beauty. In the second course, on historical re-
ligions, his purpose was to present various systems as typical
manifestations, first, of the religion of the understanding, Con-
fucianism, and second, of religions in which one or another of
the three ideas was particularly emphasized : truth, in the religions
of India, especially in the Vedanta and Sankhya systems of phi-
losophy; goodness, in Mazdeism; beauty in the religion of Greece.
In the third course Dr. Everett first unfolded the philosophical
implications of the three ideas in a doctrine of God as Absolute
Spirit, in whom they have full realization, and then considered
in the light of them the fundamental problems of theology, and
presented Christianity as the Absolute Religion because compre-
hending in harmonious perfection all three ideas of the reason.
Of these courses, the first has already been published ( The Psycho-
logical Elements of Religious Faith, edited by Edward Hale,
Macmillan Co. 1902), and was so well received that the Com-
mittee of the Divinity Faculty having its publication in charge
felt warranted in proceeding to issue the third course, especially
as the Rev. Edward Hale, who had edited so admirably the pre-
vious volume, was willing to undertake the much severer task of
preparing this course also for publication. The difficulties of
the work were enormous: Dr. Everett left no manuscripts of his
lectures, and the editor's sole reliance had to be upon students'
IV PREFACE
notes taken in the class-room. Moreover, these lectures dealt
with profound and intricate problems, in the discussion of which
much depends upon a precision of statement rarely found in class-
room notes. In addition, the treatment varied from year to year,
far more than was the case with lectures in the first course, accord-
ing to the changing demands of theological interest and the cor-
responding shiftings of emphasis on the part of the lecturer.
The magnitude and delicacy of the task are mainly responsible
for the delay in the preparation and publication of the present
volume, but it is believed that the former students and many
friends of Dr. Everett, as well as all who are interested in the
subjects here discussed, will welcome this literary memorial of
a subtle and luminous thinker who, as his mural tablet in the
chapel of the School he loved and served justly says, "showed
by life and doctrine the unity of the Spirit in Truth, Goodness,
and Beauty."
W. W. Fenn,
For the Faculty of Divinity.
Harvard University,
June, 1909.
EDITOR'S PREFACE.
The thirty-five chapters into which this book is divided repre-
sent some ninety lectures, the number in the course varying a little
from year to year. In preparing them for publication I have been
indebted to the Rev. F. M. Bennett, the Rev. J. B. W. Day, the
Rev. W. F. Furman, Professor H. H. Home, the Rev. W. R.
Hunt, and Professor H. H. Williams for the use of their notes,
and to the Harvard Divinity Library for the use of notes taken by
the late Rev. Samuel Foster McCleary. All of these notes have
been helpful, but I am under especial obligation to Mr. Furman
whose careful transcription of his shorthand notes has enabled
me to reproduce many passages with a fulness which otherwise
would hardly have been possible.
Edward Hale.
Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts,
June, 1909.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
Agnosticism. — The Unknowable op Herbert Spencer ... 1
CHAPTER II.
The Vorstellxjng 9
The Analogy between the Supernatural Element in the
Universe and the Principle of Unity in Human Life, 15
The Three Ideas of the Reason as Guides in finding a
Philosophic Basis for the Term "Spiritual" as
applied to the Absolute 16
CHAPTER III.
The First Idea of the Reason manifested as Unity in Time,
or Eternity 18
CHAPTER IV.
The First Idea of the Reason manifested as Unity in Space,
or Omnipresence 26
CHAPTER V.
Objections to Conscious Spirit as a Vorstellung, based on
the Analogy of Finite Consciousness 35
CHAPTER VI.
The First Idea of the Reason manifested as Ideal Unity, or
Omniscience 48
The First Idea of the Reason manifested as Dynamic Unity,
or Omnipotence 53
The Fourth Definition of Religion 55
CHAPTER VII.
Absolute Being, as a Spiritual Presence, in relation to the
Second Idea of the Reason 56
Vlll CONTENTS
CHAPTER VIII.
PAGE
Absolute Being, as a Spiritual Presence, in relation to the
Third Idea of the Reason:
The Divine Glory 60
The Divine Aseity 62
The Divine Blessedness 62
The Terms "Infinite" and "Perfect" 68
CHAPTER IX.
The A Priori Argument 70
The Argument from Attributes: Samuel Clarke ... 71
The Argument from Definition: Anselm 72
The Definition of Perfection 73
The Argument from the Nature of the Divine Being:
Spinoza 75
The Argument from the Nature of Man's Apprehension
of the Divine Being: Descartes 80
CHAPTER X.
Positive Discussion of the A Priori Argument 83
The Argument from Universality of Belief 84
The A Priori Argument as involved in the Three Ideas
of the Reason 88
CHAPTER XL
The Positive Discussion of the A Priori Argument contin-
ued.— The Advantages of the Argument from the
Three Ideas of the Reason 98
The Postulates of the Intellect 99
CHAPTER XII.
The Second General Division of the Discussion: the Mo-
ment of Negation: Creation, Freedom, Sin and Evil 105
Theories of Creation 106
Theories of Creation as having a Beginning or as
without a Beginning. — The Difficulties of either
Theory 107
CONTENTS IX
CHAPTER XIII.
PAGE
Theories of Creation, continued. — Vorstellungen:
The Word; Body and Soul; Child and Parent .... 117
Creation in relation to the Created: Supremacy of
Spirit in the Universe the Mark of Creation . . 123
The Account of Creation 123
Scientific Theories as to the Beginning of the World 125
Scientific Theories as to the Nature of the World:
The Atomic Theory 126
Force and Will 128
CHAPTER XIV.
Scientific Theories as to the Nature of the World, con-
tinued: Idealistic Theories 132
Mind-Stuff 133
Creation the Objectification of the Divine Idea: Limit, Im-
penetrability, Divisibility 135
Theory of Organic Development: Natural Selection . . 136
The A Posteriori Argument 143
CHAPTER XV.
The A Posteriori Argument, continued. — The Need of the
Teleological Principle to account for the Results
of Atomic Organization 147
The Teleological Principle and Chance 148
The Teleological Principle as involving Natural Se-
lection 154
Difficulties 155
Are there any results that cannot be produced by
Atomic Organization ? — Life. — Mind with its Powers.
— the Unity of Consciousness 159
CHAPTER XVI.
The Mind and its Powers, continued. — The Will 165
The Idea of Perfection 169
The Principle of Teleology as involving the " World-Soul."
— Von Hartmann's Theory of the Unconscious . . 174
X CONTENTS
CHAPTER XVI.— continued page
The Movement of the World toward Consciousness . 176
The Movement of the World toward the Three Ideas
of the Reason as Ideals 178
CHAPTER XVII.
The A Posteriori Argument the Complement of the A Priori
Argument 185
Religion and the Theory of Natural Selection 189
CHAPTER XVIII.
The Beginnings of Creation 194
Man's Power to think in General Concepts 199
As illustrated in the Story of the Garden of Eden . . 200
Self-Consciousness and the Sense of the Supernatural, 201
The Sense of the Comic 204
The Sense of Beauty 205
Man the Ultimate Product in the Process of Development, 207
CHAPTER XIX.
The Second Stage in the Moment of Negation:
The Doctrine of Freedom 210
Automatism: Reflex Action 211
Formal Freedom, or Freedom of the Will 215
The A Priori Argument against Freedom of the Will . 217
The A Posteriori Argument against Freedom of the
Will 220
The So-Called Practical Argument against Freedom of
the Will 222
The Argument in Favor of Freedom of the Will based
on Direct Self-Consciousness 223
The Argument in Favor of Freedom of the Will based
on the Moral Consciousness 224
CHAPTER XX.
Freedom of the Will, continued. — Its Limits 227
Freedom of the Will as the Power to put more or less
of Earnestness into Life 229
CONTENTS XI
CHAPTER XX — continued page
Effect of this View upon the A Priori and A Posteriori
Arguments against Freedom of the Will 231
Absolute Freedom 233
The Meaning of the Terms "Nature" and "Natural" . . . 234
The Divine Freedom 237
CHAPTER XXI.
The Third Stage in the Moment of Negation:
Sin and Evil. — The Theory of Sin dependent upon the
Theory of Freedom of the Will 239
Conscious and Unconscious Sin 240
Attainment not a Measure of the Amount of Sin . . 243
Sin Primarily a State. — Sin negative 246
Sin for its own Sake 249
Sin from the Desire to cause Suffering 251
CHAPTER XXII.
Sin as Selfishness 254
Sin as Death 256
The Meanness of Sin. — Sin in Relation to the Doctrine of
Evolution 258
Theories of Sin which take away its Sinfulness 259
The Three Bases of the Doctrine of the Church in regard
to Sin 264
CHAPTER XXIII.
The Doctrine of Evil. — Evil as independent of Sin .... 273
Pessimism: Theories of Schopenhauer and Von Hart-
MANN 276
Evil as dependent upon Sin 281
CHAPTER XXD7.
The Breach caused by Sin and Evil: between Man and his
Environment: between Man and God 285
The Movement on the Part of Man to heal the Breach :
Sacrifice 289
Vicarious Sacrifice. Real and Formal 291
Xll CONTENTS
CHAPTER XXIV.— continued page
The Movement on the Part of God to heal the Breach :
Penalty. — Retribution and Reform 292
The Nature of the Penalties for Sin 296
The Final Healing of the Breach 300
CHAPTER XXV.
The Third General Division of the Discussion:
Reconciliation. — The Doctrine of the Atonement . . 301
The " Cur Deus Homo " of Anselm 303
Peter Lombard 308
Thomas Aquinas 309
The Reformation 309
The Socinians and Grotius 310
The Doctrine of the Atonement as involving the Prin-
ciple of Vicarious Suffering 314
The Change of Attitude toward Vicarious Suffering:
the Explanation of it suggested by Comte's Theory
of the Human Understanding 315
CHAPTER XXVI.
Modern Theories of the Atonement: McLeod Campbell and
Dorner 317
bushnell and newman smyth 318
The Pauline View 320
The Doctrine of the Trinity: Dorner and Shedd 323
The Argument from the New Testament 325
The Doctrine of the Incarnation : Dorner and Ritschl . . 326
The Nature of Jesus and of the Holy Spirit considered
as the Arrival of the Spiritual Principle in the
World at Complete Self-Consciousness 328
CHAPTER XXVII.
Christianity as the Absolute Religion 334
The Three Ideas of the Reason the Test of Absolute Re-
ligion.— Christianity and Unity 336
Christianity and Goodness 337
Christianity and Beauty 341
CONTENTS Xlll
CHAPTER XXVII.— continued page
Christianity and the Needs of the Understanding and the
Heart 342
The Teaching of the New Testament 345
Christianity and Modern Thought 349
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Christianity as the Absolute Religion: the Practical As-
pect.— The Precepts of Christianity General and
Intuitive 352
The Teaching of Christianity embodied in the Person-
ality of Jesus 353
The Life of Jesus an Ideal for all Lives 354
The Sinlessness of Jesus 354
The Character of his Life Universal 357
The Institution of the Church 361
CHAPTER XXIX.
The Divine Appointment of Jesus 365
His Divinity ' 368
Miracles: their A Priori Possibility or Impossibility . . . 371
The Value attributed to them in the New Testament, 379
Their Value in Themselves 381
The Question as to the Actual Occurrence of the New
Testament Miracles 387
CHAPTER XXX.
The Use of the Name "Christ" 391
The Question whether Jesus himself claimed the Title
of Messiah 395
The Use of the Names "Christian" and "Christianity" . . 395
The Acceptance of the Leadership of Jesus 397
Free Religion 401
The Relation of other Religions to Christianity 403
The "Quale" of Christianity 404
The Fifth Definition of Religion . 408
CHAPTER XXXI.
Revelation. — Revelation as Inspiration 409
Revelation in Nature 421
XIV CONTENTS
CHAPTER XXXII.
PAGE
Faith. — Faith a Form of Belief 428
Its Postulate of God and Immortality 430
Helps to Faith 431
Difficulties in the Way of Faith 434
The Summum Bonum 438
Providence as the Object of Faith 440
CHAPTER XXXIII.
The Individual in relation to Sin and Atonement .... 446
Repentance 446
Forgiveness 448
Regeneration 455
Prayer 460
CHAPTER XXXIV.
Immortality 465
The Argument from Reappearance 466
The Argument from Analogy 468
The Argument from Physico-Psychological Phenomena 469
The Argument from the Unity of Consciousness . . . 470
The Philosophico-Teleological Argument 473
The Ethical Argument 476
The Argument from the Sense of the Ideal 478
The Argument from the Consciousness of God .... 478
The Argument from Man's Instinctive Faith 480
Difficulties: Immortality of Animals: Pre-Existence: . . . 482
The Question of Selfishness 483
Nature of the Future Life 486
The Argument for Religion of Personal Experience . . . 488
The Sixth and Final Definition of Religion 489
CHAPTER XXXV.
The Authority of the Church 490
Baptism 490
Communion 491
SYLLABUS.
i
This syllabus, furnished to students in later years, covered the first
and third courses in Dr. Everett's theological instruction. The part
numbered from 1 to 23 corresponds to the first course, the substance of
which was published in 1902 under the title, The Psychological Elements
of Religious Faith. It has been thought best to print the syllabus here
entire, with page references to the two volumes.
FIEST GENERAL DIVISION.
ABSTRACT AND IDEAL.
The Psychological
Elements of Relig-
ious Faith.
1. Introduction
2. Methods in Theology
3. Essential Elements of Religion 13
4. Primacy of Feeling 20
5. First Definition of Religion 51
6. Historical and Critical , "]
7. The 'position of Schleiermacher ^52
8. Spencer's Reconciliation of Science and Religion J
9. Positive Statement 86
10. Second Definition of Religion 88
1 1 . Analysis of Definition 89
12. Two Aspects of Supernatural 93
13. 1. Negative 97
14. 2. Positive 108
15. Induction of Concrete Religious Feelings with Table * . . . .
16. Practical Development of Religion by the Objectification of
facts of consciousness
17. Relation of these to Ideas of Reason shown by analysis . . .
*This table is not reproduced in the published volume.
H09
XVI SYLLABUS
PAGE
18. Free Religious Feelings 132
19. Relation of these to Ideas of Reason 133
20. First Idea of Reason 150
21. Second Idea of Reason 170
22. Third Idea of Reason 196
23. Third Definition of Religion 208
Theism.
24. Are more positive and definite results possible ? 1
25. Historical and Critical ]
26. The "Unknowable" of Herbert Spencer J
27. Positive Statement 9
28. The use of Vorstellungen 10
29. Ideas of Reason as guides 17
30. First Idea of Reason.
31. In Time = Eternity 18
32. In Space = Immensity 26
33. Ideal Unity = Omniscience 48
34. Dynamic Unity = Omnipotence 53
35. Fourth Definition of Religion 55
36. Second Idea of Reason 56
37. Third Idea of Reason 60
38. [Relation of results reached to real Being. This examina-
tion takes form in:]
39. The First Argument:— A Priori 70
40. Historical and Critical 71
41. Positive Statement 83
42. SECOND GENERAL DIVISION.
THE MOMENT OF NEGATION.
43. I. In relation to the First Idea of the Reason.
44. a. Creation 105
45. The Second Argument: — A Posteriori 143
46. b. Freedom 210
47. II. In relation to the Second Idea of the Reason.
Sin 239
48. III. In relation to the Third Idea of the Reason.
Evil 273
SYLLABUS XV11
PAGE
49. Transition to Third General Division 285
50. a. Punishment
}
, 289
51. o. sacrifice
52. THIRD GENERAL DIVISION.
RECONCILIATION.
Historical and Critical |
53. The Trinity I
54. The Incarnation |
55. The Atonement j
56. Positive Statement: —
57. Christianity the absolute Religion 334
[Embodying the Three Ideas of the Reason, etc.]
58. The Person and Work of Christ 353
59. Fifth Definition of Religion 408
60. The Inner Life of Christianity.
61. A. General.
62. Inspiration and Revelation 1
63. Doctrine of the Holy Spirit j
64. B. In the life of the Individual.
65. Faith 428
66. Repentance 446
67. Forgiveness 448
68. Regeneration 455
69. Prayer 460
70. Immortality 465
71. The Third Argument: That from Personal Experience .... 489
72. Sixth Definition of Religion 489
73. Outer Form of Christianity "1
The Church and its rites j
THEISM AND THE CHRISTIAN FAITH.
CHAPTER I.
AGNOSTICISM. — THE UNKNOWABLE OF HERBERT SPENCER.
In the examination of the psychological elements of religious
faith which has already been made1 religion was first defined as
essentially feeling. To this was added in a second definition
that it is feeling toward the supernatural. Both of these definitions
were inclusive, covering all forms of religion. A third definition,
however, was then reached, no longer absolutely inclusive but
typical, that religion is a feeling toward a supernatural
presence manifesting itself in truth, goodness and beauty.
Although the term "supernatural" is in itself negative,2 it was
found that a positive content could be given to it in the three ideas
of the reason. The recognition of this content, the perception
that there is a presence which manifests itself in truth and good-
ness and beauty, makes possible a religion in which there is place
for both obedience and worship. This third definition, therefore,
offers the basis for a religion of a high order and one in which
certain natures can rest satisfied. There are other natures, how-
ever, which require something further. They ask for a more in-
timate relation with the object of worship and trust. Is it possible
1 The Psychological Elements of Religious Faith (The Macmillan Company,
New York, 1902), the substance of a course of lectures by Dr. Everett introductory
to the lectures on Theism.
2 The Psychological Elements of Religious Faith, p. 93.
2 AGNOSTICISM
to meet their demand and to substitute for the word " supernat-
ural " in this definition the word " spiritual " ?
It is evident that if we attempt to take this further step we must
face at once the position popularly known as agnosticism. We
meet it in two forms. Of these one is based on a posteriori, the
other on a priori considerations, or, from another point of view,
there is on the one hand the agnosticism resulting from the in-
adequacy of our means of knowledge, and on the other hand that
which results from the nature of the object as in itself unknow-
able. For example, we do not know whether the planet Mars is
inhabited because as yet we lack the proper instruments to enable
us to find out. Or again, the number of the grains of sand on
the seashore is unknowable because the process of counting is
too delicate and intricate to be carried through. In neither of
these two cases is the object unknowable in itself, but only because
the means at our command for attaining to knowledge are in-
sufficient. On the other hand the length of eternity, or the extent
of space, cannot be known, because of the very nature of the
thing itself. Agnosticism of this kind, it should be observed, is
a sign not of weakness or limitation in human reason but of
strength. To know that no one can tell what are the limits of eter-
nity or space because such limits do not exist, is not ignorance but
knowledge. Agnosticism in regard to the Absolute is of this
latter kind. It is based upon a priori considerations. The
Absolute, being what it is, cannot be known. But here is the
very contradiction which has just been suggested. To affirm
that the Absolute is unknowable is to show that strictly speaking
it is not unknowable; we know enough about it to know that it
is unknowable. The term "unknowable" may be true in a
rhetorical sense, but it cannot be used scientifically. The words
"agnostic" and "agnosticism," as used by Huxley, express simply
the attitude of one who lacks the evidence which would enable
him either to affirm or to deny.1 The Unknowable of Herbert
Spencer expresses the a priori impossibility of attaining to knowl-
i Thomas H. Huxley, Collected Essays, Vol. V, p. 192. Also Life and Letters,
Vol. I, p. 233, Vol. II, p. 235.
THE UNKNOWABLE OF SPENCER 3
edge of the Absolute. The use which Huxley makes of his terms
is scientific. Spencer's term can be used properly only in a
rhetorical sense. When we say that the Absolute is unknowable,
what we really mean, speaking accurately, is that in many of its
aspects it is unknowable.
Although Spencer assumes that the Absolute is unknowable, he
maintains, nevertheless, that we must believe in it.1 We cannot,
he says, "get rid of the consciousness of an actuality lying behind
appearances." But what is meant by the consciousness of a thing ?
I am conscious only of that of which I have had some experience.
I can believe only to the extent to which I am able to conceive.
Suppose, for instance, that I hear a noise in the next room. It
excites in me a belief that something, perhaps somebody, is moving
there, — what or who, I cannot say. At first thought it might seem
that in such a case my belief went beyond my knowledge. But
what is it that I believe ? That there is something there. What
is my concept ? That it is situated thus or so. The concept is
very vague, but so is the belief. The belief does not go beyond
the concept. Or take an example of a different kind. Suppose
you had never heard the word "boomerang," and some one uses it.
It is the name of something. Do you know anything about it ?
If not, what reason have you for believing in it ? You answer
that you do not know about it yourself, but So-and-so does. Then
you believe only this in regard to it, that it enters into the knowl-
edge of So-and-so. But perhaps you say that it is a man who has
travelled in Australia who knows about it. Then you conceive
of it as in Australia. You are told further that it is a weapon,
and your concept becomes clearer. Then you are told that it
changes its course and that it is shaped so that it shall change
its course. Here your concept will probably rest. Has your
belief at any point gone beyond your concept ? Belief does not
precede knowledge, because it does not extend beyond knowledge;
our belief can go no further than our understanding.
In saying this, however, we have to guard against the confusion
that arises if we take the term " understanding " as implying full
* First Principles, 4th ed., 1880, Chap. IV, § 26.
4 THE UNKNOWABLE OF SPENCER
understanding. Our proposition is not what a man means when
he says, "I will believe nothing that I cannot understand." He
means that he will believe nothing which he cannot understand
completely. But this would imply no belief at all, for there is
nothing which you can completely understand. We have to
distinguish here between a vague thought and an incomplete or
abstract thought. All our concepts are more or less incomplete,
but to the extent to which they are complete they are clear and
real. When I look at a distant wood I see in one sense nothing
but the leaves. In another sense I do not see the leaves at all.
Yet my vision, in so far as it is vision, is real and clear.
As knowledge increases, however, the sense of mystery deepens.
All that we know of any object at a given moment is the intro-
duction of that object to a new set of relations not before asso-
ciated with it. Darkness comes with the glimmering of light.
So with knowledge comes the sense of ignorance. The two are
bound together inseparably so far as any object is concerned
which presents itself to us. If we let a represent what is known
and x what is unknown, then all objects are presented to us in
terms of ax. No a can exist by itself, but every a can be seen
only as ax. If we knew everything, x would disappear; but as
we move from knowledge to knowledge, the x increases more rap-
idly than the a, not necessarily in the form of absolute ignorance,
but in our sense of ignorance, our recognition of what is still un-
known. We need not feel mortification because our sense of
mystery grows in this way as our knowledge increases. When,
as appears to happen in the case of many persons, knowledge
takes away the sense of mystery, we find usually that the knowl-
edge in such cases has been only superficially grasped. Whenever
we think deeply and exhaustively, we come upon the field of the
mysterious, and as we try to communicate what we know, it is as
though our knowledge were some little island in the vast sea of
the unknown. Science is born of wonder, says Aristotle, and
Hegel replies that wonder is born of science. Yet while it is true
that there is no a without an x, we must also recognize as dis-
tinctly that there is no x without an a, no sense of mystery
THE UNKNOWABLE OF SPENCER 5
without some knowledge. Mystery is simply the other side of
knowledge.
What is it, however, more precisely, that Spencer means by the
Unknowable, and what is the process by which he reaches his
thought of it ? Spencer's Unknowable is Absolute Being, the
Substance of Spinoza, the Being of Hegel. He reaches the thought
of it through a process of repeated abstractions. Beginning with
that which is concrete, and then withdrawing the limits and con-
ditions from concept after concept, he arrives finally at "a con-
sciousness of something unconditioned," "not the abstract of any
one group of thoughts, ideas or conceptions," but "the abstract
of all thoughts, ideas or conceptions," "that which is common to
them all."1 Since any concept implies limitation, it follows that
the Absolute, if thus unconditioned, cannot be conceived but is
unknowable.
It is true, as Spencer assumes, that there is no thought without
limitation. But is he right when he says of the Absolute that it
is without limitation ? Is it, as he says, unclassified, unrelated,
and unconditioned ? It is unclassified, Spencer says, because it
stands alone. We might reply that one may constitute a class,
but this would be superficial and would not cover the case. Every
thought contains two elements, a positive and a negative, that
which is more specific or individual and that which is more
general or universal. Our knowledge of any object is obtained as
we contrast it with something else, or as we bring it into some class
larger than itself. Therefore if the Absolute cannot be thus
contrasted or differentiated, it is unknowable.
The Absolute, however, is absolute being. Spencer, to be sure,
speaks of it as "existence," but in so doing he uses the term care-
lessly. For existence implies that that of which it is used stands
out from something else. It is the finite which exists; the Abso-
lute is. Now absolute being is differentiated in two directions.
In the first place, being is a common term in absolute being and
finite being, and we have at once a classification which includes
both. Secondly, when I affirm being I exclude non-being, and
1 First Principles, p. 98.
b THE UNKNOWABLE OF SPENCER
both non-being and being, whether absolute being or finite being,
are thus differentiated, and the ultimate term must be, not abso-
lute being, as Spencer with Hamilton assumes, but a term which
shall include both what is and what is not, both being and non-
being. This highest universal has no name, and since it cannot
be carried up into a higher generalization it is beyond conception.
What Spencer has assumed in regard to absolute being is true,
not of absolute being, but of this highest universal. In the process
of abstraction Spencer and Hamilton simply reached the conclu-
sion, the ultimate term in the series, too soon. Absolute being
is not the final term, but can be taken up into a higher class.
Therefore the Absolute is not unclassified, and in so far is not
unknowable. It is indeed the most abstract term which we use,
but because it is abstract it is not therefore vague. Our thought
of absolute being is no more vague than any other thought, but
only more abstract.
Is the Absolute unrelated ? In discussing this question Spencer
falls into a verbal difficulty. He speaks of the relative and the
non-relative as terms of a correlation.1 But if the non-relative
is a term in a correlation, how can it be called a non-relative ?
Spencer speaks of the Absolute as manifesting itself in the universe
and conversely of the universe as a manifestation of the Absolute.
But the universe cannot be a manifestation of the Absolute except
as its forms are related to the Absolute, and if they are related to
it, then in turn it must be related to them. If there is a relation
of the finite to the infinite, there must be as well a relation of the
infinite to the finite. There cannot be relation without correlation.
Thus in point of fact the Absolute is related to everything that is.
Instead of being unrelated, nothing can be more related.
Finally, is Spencer's Absolute unconditioned, and for that
reason unknowable ? Anything may be conditioned or uncon-
ditioned either externally or internally. It is unconditioned ex-
ternally when there is no restraint or limitation from without.
In this sense the Absolute is unconditioned, for it is not dependent
upon anything outside itself. Internally, however, the absolutely
1 First Principles, p. 91.
THE UNKNOWABLE OF SPENCER 7
unconditioned is by the very nature of things impossible, for
every form of being is conditioned by what it is; it is what it is
and nothing else. The Absolute is thus conditioned internally,
if only as being. But, furthermore, nothing can be without being
something. A thing is only in and through its qualities and re-
lations. If you take these away there is nothing left; the Ding-
an-sich is an unreality. Here, for instance, is the substance which
we know under various forms as water or ice or vapor. We may
call it the absolute of water and ice and vapor; it is not any one of
them, although it manifests itself in one or another of them in-
differently according to varying conditions. Are we to say that
we cannot know it ? On the contrary, we do know it as that
substance whose nature it is thus to manifest itself. In the same
way the Absolute of Spencer is that which manifests itself in the
universe. Although it is neither matter nor spirit, it manifests
itself in both. The whole universe is its manifestation. Sepa-
rate it from the universe and it would cease to be. Spencer him-
self allows it no freedom in this respect. In proportion, therefore,
as we know the universe we know the Absolute, and, since the
Absolute exhausts itself in the universe, if we could arrive at com-
plete knowledge of the universe we should also have complete
knowledge of the Absolute. Spencer's Absolute is thus in itself
most knowable. If we fail to know it, the difficulty arises from
the limitation of our own powers and not from anything in the
nature of the Absolute itself.
In criticising Spencer's position we must not forget the great
service which he has rendered in popularizing the recognition of
the unknown in matter and force, and in showing that they are
not to be fully comprehended, as is so commonly assumed by
superficial thinkers. Spencer's difficulty lies in his failure to see
that, while it is true that no knowledge is complete, it is equally
true that there is nothing of which we have absolutely no knowl-
edge. He confounds the abstract with the vague and unknow-
able. Hegel also takes the position that pure being is indistin-
guishable from non-being and so absolutely unknowable, but with
Hegel this is only the first step in an argument by which he shows
8 THE UNKNOWABLE OF SPENCER
that the Absolute is the infinitely concrete, manifesting itself in
and through all things, and thus infinitely knowable. It is to
be observed also that when Spencer arrives at the thought of the
principle of unity in his Absolute, he leaps a chasm which he
has not bridged. The thought is true, but how has he reached it ?
The only process which he recognizes is that of repeated abstrac-
tion; but this would lead, not to the principle of unity, but either
to manifold being or to an abstract universal.
CHAPTER II.
THE VORSTELLUNG. — THE ANALOGY BETWEEN THE SUPERNAT-
URAL ELEMENT IN THE UNIVERSE AND THE PRINCIPLE
OF UNITY IN HUMAN LIFE. — THE THREE IDEAS OF THE
REASON AS GUIDES IN FINDING A PHILOSOPHIC BASIS FOR
THE TERM "SPIRITUAL" AS APPLIED TO THE ABSOLUTE.
We are in a position now to ask once more the question with
which we began : Can the supernatural be conceived as spiritual ?
Does the Absolute, the principle of unity in the universe, stand
in relation to itself as well as to the universe ? Does it merely
pass out and out through its manifestations infinitely, and so lose
itself wholly in the universe ? Or does it find itself in the uni-
verse ? In other words, is it conscious ?
We have recognized the incompleteness of all knowledge. It
is impossible to know perfectly the simplest aspect of nature. Not
only is there much of which we are entirely ignorant, but such
knowledge as we have is often coarse; we see things in wrong
relations. As we stand under the arches of a cathedral they
take their form according to the position from which we see them.
In a similar way, in every partial view of the universe, where we
have failed to get at the centre of things, the arcs of the circles
of our vision do not fit into the true circles. Any concept, there-
fore, which we may form will be inadequate. Is an inadequate
concept, then, worth anything ? It is easy to say No, and yet
common sense tells us that if we can form no perfect concept, an
imperfect concept is better than nothing. We cannot picture to
ourselves the whole ocean, but the concept of it which we have
is certainly worth something. Furthermore, such concepts, how-
ever imperfect, are the forms under which we represent to our-
selves the truth. A definite term for representation of this kind
10 THE VORSTELLUNG
has been found in the word " Vorstellung." 1 It has no exact
equivalent in English. The word "Idea" has been substituted,
and is good so long as it is used only in the popular sense in which
we say, "I have no idea of it." But common usage employs it
in so many senses besides, and among them as the translation of
Hegel's "Idee," that it is difficult to avoid confusion. The word
"Representation" is also used, but this again is inadequate, for
it implies a more objective background than "Vorstellung" and
has not the more limited and technical significance which attaches
to the German word. "Symbol" has been suggested, but al-
though we do use the symbol as a means of representation, it
is only as the representation is contrasted with the object
represented and consciously compared with it. The Vorstellung,
on the other hand, does not imply a comparison; although
it is a representation, it may be, and sometimes is admitted
to be, finally true. The two words, therefore, are not syn-
onymous.
As regards the place and value of the vorstellung theologians
have differed. According to Hegel all religious truth presents
itself first in the form of a vorstellung ; but whereas the vorstellung
itself is finite, its content, the truth for which it stands, is infinite,
and this infinite content is constantly breaking through the finite
form of the vorstellung, as new conceptions of the content lead
to readjustments of the form in which it is presented. Thus
the history of religion is that of the formation and shattering of
vorstellung after vorstellung, all finite, but each in turn more in-
clusive and adequate than that which has preceded it. The
Christian religion, according to Hegel, is still only a vorstellung,
although the grandest and most beautiful of all. Schleiermacher
recognizes with Hegel the importance of the vorstellung as a half-
way house. To Hegel, however, nothing is beyond the possible
range of thought, and each vorstellung simply marks one stage in
the advance toward truth, whereas to Schleiermacher the Absolute
i Hegel, Werke, Berlin, 1832, Vol. XI, pp. 79, 215. Biedermann, Chrvstliche
Dogmatik, Vol. I, p. 121. Lipsius, Evangelische Protestantische Dogmatik, p. 68.
Park, Theology of Head and Heart, Bibliolheca Sacra, Vol. Vn, p. 533.
THE VORSTELLUNG 11
is unknowable, and the vorstellung is all that we can have. Bie-
dermann makes the vorstellung the mean between abstract thought
and conception. According to Pfleiderer it hovers between the
spiritual content of religion and the corporeality of its form. Ac-
cording to Lipsius all religious thought moves in sensuous figures,
the language of religious dogma never ceasing to express itself
under the form of the vorstellung. Professor Park made a dis-
tinction between the theology of the intellect and the theology of
the heart which aroused much discussion at the time. He himself
did not give to the theory which he advanced its full sweep, but
it was a theory the application of which might vary according to
the person who made use of it, and many felt that it imperilled
everything that had been considered fixed in religious thought and
opened the door to all sorts of skepticism.
When we come to the practical application of the theory of the
vorstellung, we find that four results are possible. First, the
recognition that all expressions of religious truth are inadequate
may lead to catholicity of feeling toward the various forms of
religious belief and worship; an element of truth is seen in all
these forms, and a certain relation and sympathy between them;
all are imperfect and yet all are attempts at the expression of
truth. This view is more and more commonly taken, and to a
certain extent it indicates a healthful spiritual attitude. But it
may be carried to an extreme if one assumes that because all
forms of expression are imperfect all are therefore of equal value.
It is with religious forms and beliefs as with names. We may
say that abstractly all names are artificial and that therefore one
name is as good as another. Yet when names connote as well
as denote, we cannot use them indifferently. We may say with
Pope "Jehovah, Jove, or Lord," * but we have to recognize that
the name " Jove," for instance, is entangled with superstitions and
the forms of a comparatively low mythology, and that such a
name for God is not so good as one that has higher associations.
Catholicity is rightly interpreted when we mean by it an attitude
of sympathy toward all forms of belief and worship, but the
1 The Universal Prayer.
12 THE VORSTELLUNG
so-called catholicity which merges all forms and reduces all to
the same level is untrue.
In the second use of the vorstellung a change of emphasis leads
from the same premises as before to precisely the opposite con-
clusion, and instead of catholicity there is skepticism. In the
first use the emphasis was upon the content, and since all forms
contained some element of truth all were therefore to be accepted.
In this second, negative, use it is the form that is emphasized,
and since all forms are found to be similarly remote from absolute
truth, all are rejected as equally false, and with the rejection of
the form the content also is lost. A good illustration of the re-
sult that follows when a form is thus broken up, before its con-
tent has been thoroughly apprehended, is seen in the passage
from Catholicism to unbelief which many people in Italy have
experienced during recent years. All the religious thought and
feeling of these people had been associated with a single form
of religious observance, and the loss of faith in this particular
form carried with it all belief in any religion at all. There is this
advantage, perhaps, in the variety of creeds in our own country,
that when one form of observance no longer satisfies the wor-
shipper some other form is at hand which may meet his need,
and he is less likely to identify all religious belief with any one
of the forms in which it finds expression. Under any circumstances,
however, it is dangerous to approach too violently forms which
are seen to be incomplete or even untrue. The wisdom of Jesus
appears nowhere more clearly than in his teaching in this regard.1
In the third use of the vorstellung a distinction is made between
the demands of the intellect and those of the heart. The intellect
pronounces the vorstellung false, but the heart requires it and
therefore is bidden to use it. This use of the vorstellung is com-
mon with some of the German theologians. Thus the expression,
"infinite personality," is held to be a contradiction in terms so
far as definite truth is concerned, and yet liberty is given to speak
of God as personal.2 This position, however, is most perilous.
i Matthew, xiii, 24-30.
2 Biedermann, Christliche Dogmatik, Vol. II, pp. 538-544.
THE VORSTELLUNG 13
It introduces into religion an element of dishonesty, and those who
uphold it forget that the heart is above all sincere and cannot
be trifled with. The passion for truth is in itself an emotion, and
of the heart; it is the method of seeking truth which is of the
intellect. Furthermore, the head and the heart cannot rest in
such divergence; either the vorstellung will become less vivid
as the intellect asserts itself, or the heart will be victorious and
declare its intuitions more trustworthy than the reasoning of the
intellect.
What forms, then, and what uses of the vorstellung are justi-
fiable and helpful ? All, we may answer, in which the vorstellung
is recognized as partially true and as representing truth which
may be more and more nearly approached. This will include
both those forms and uses to which we are driven by the intellect
itself, and also all those which spring from the needs of the heart
as adding force and warmth to the intellectual statement or in
which the intellect accepts the longings of the heart as suggestions
of truth. Limited as we are, we recognize that our knowledge
is incomplete as regards even the common objects and relations
of life, and that much less can we expect to attain to complete
truth in regard to supersensuous objects of thought. It is as Jesus
said to Nicodemus, "If I have told you earthly things and ye
believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things P"1
Yet the use of such terms as we have is necessary and helpful.
However imperfect they may be as compared with ultimate terms,
we know that we approach nearer to the truth by using them.
In the Autocrat of the Breakfast Table Dr. Holmes suggests
how when two persons are talking together, John and Thomas,
at least six personalities may be recognized as taking part in the
conversation; there is the real John, he says, who is known only
to his Maker, and there is John's ideal John, and there is Thomas's
ideal John, and then there are similarly the real Thomas and
Thomas's ideal Thomas and John's ideal Thomas. We might
go farther than this and say that there are as many Johns and
Thomases as there are persons with whom John and Thomas
1 John, iii, 12.
14 THE VORSTELLTJNG
come into relation, and although all the ideas of John and Thomas,
except the view of Omniscience, are imperfect, yet all contain
some truth. The love of the child toward its father is different
from that of the father toward the child. The child says,
"Father," without at all realizing the full content of the name.
Yet the child's love is nearer the truth than indifference would
be on the ground that the child could have no adequate knowl-
edge of the father's nature. As we go out of some cavern into
the daylight the first twilight is not yet the full light of day, but
it is better than the darkness of the cavern.
Take, for instance, that expression "infinite personality" to
which I have just referred. It is said to be a contradiction in
terms.1 Suppose, however, that we should discover that we can-
not conceive of the Absolute apart from personality, and cannot
think of personality adequately unless we think of it as infinite.2
Then the relation between intellect and heart would be no longer
one of opposition but one of entire harmony, the intellect arriving
at the result which is demanded by the heart. If the expression
"infinite personality" should then fail to represent the truth, it
would fail only in so far as it was inadequate, and not because
it involved contradiction. It would be at least a step in the
direction of the truth. Have you ever seen the ocean? Can
you tell how it differs from a lake ? You say that its vastness
differentiates it. But you have not seen its vastness, and yet you
know that you have seen the ocean; you have seen it imperfectly,
and your knowledge of it is imperfect, but your concept although
incomplete is not untrue. So it is with the thought of God.
This position is quite different from the extreme catholicity
which assumes that one form of representation is as good as an-
other. The position here taken assumes that one form of repre-
sentation comes nearer to the truth than another, and we have
to ask by what process we are to arrive at the form that shall
be most nearly adequate. We can proceed only from analogy.
It was by analogy, however, that men came to experience religious
i John Fiske, Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, Vol. II, p. 408.
2 Pages 41H17.
THE ANALOGY IN HUMAN LIFE 15
feeling in the first place, the savage assuming that the nature
which he found manifested in the universe was a nature more or
less similar to his own, and in making analogy our starting point
we are on the beaten track of all religious thought. Philosophy,
too, has trusted much to analogy. Thus Schopenhauer, early
in his treatise on The World As Will and Idea, uses the double
knowledge that each of us has of the nature and activitv of his
own body as a key to the nature of all phenomena, and assumes
that as in one aspect these phenomena are idea like our bodies,
and in this respect are analogous to them, so in another aspect
that which remains of objects apart from their existence as
phenomena must in its inner nature be the same as that in our-
selves which we call will.1 This is not induction but analogy.
The reasoning is from one case to innumerable cases. We are
given not proof but suggestion. It is as though our mind were
a mirror upon which the world about us is reflected.
What help, then, will analogy furnish here ? According to the
third definition which we have reached, religion is a feeling toward
a supernatural presence manifesting itself in truth, goodness and
beauty. By " nature " we mean the universe as a composite
whole, and by "supernatural" the non-composite unity in and
through which this composite whole exists; the supernatural is
not a disturbing influence apart from and over against the natural,
but the absolute unity which manifests itself in and through the
diversity of nature.2 Is any analogy to be found for this super-
natural element in the universe as contrasted with the natural ?
We find in man something that is similar. There is in man a
non-composite somewhat just as there is a non-composite some-
what in the universe, a unity in his life upon which all the various
manifestations of that life depend. This principle of unity,
this supernatural element, so to speak, in the life of the individual
man, we call his "spirit." Can the same term be applied to the
supernatural element in the universe ? Both in the universe
1 Translation of Haldane and Kemp, Vol. I, pp. 128-137.
2 C. C. Everett, The Psychological Elements of Religious Faith, pp. 89-92.
16 THE ANALOGY IN HUMAN LIFE
and in the individual man there is a non-composite unity, in each
preserving itself similarly through all the changes of the com-
posite nature through which it is manifested. If the term " spirit "
is applied to the non-composite unity in the life of the individual
man, can it not be applied to the non-composite unity in nature ?
Before we answer we must ask whether the result of this
analogy could be accepted critically. What effect, for instance,
would it have upon our second definition of religion, that religion
is a feeling toward the supernatural ? ' If there is a supernatural
presence in the individual man, why is not our feeling toward
others and toward ourselves religion ? The difficulty thus sug-
gested, however, is not serious. In the first place, the super-
natural element in men is not often recognized either by them-
selves or by others. We live outside ourselves, seeing what is
composite in life, measuring life by the abundance of the things
which we possess. Furthermore, when we do recognize the unity
in ourselves and in others, the feeling which is aroused is akin
to religion. The admiration of the hero passes easily into hero
worship, exalted friendship mingles reverence with love, and
whenever the possible sacredness of our own lives is felt, when
the conscience utters protest, when some lofty soul in a depraved
age gives voice to the spirit of righteousness, the recognition
afforded to such manifestations of the spiritual life is closely allied
with religious feeling. Thirdly, we perceive the vast difference
between the conception of the infinite presence which manifests
itself in the universe and the spirit which gives unity to the life
of the individual. We see how infinitely more dependent we are
upon the unity of the universe, and that considered absolutely
there is only one supernatural presence of which all lesser unities
are manifestations. This analogy, therefore, does not stand in
the way of our definition of religion but rather helps to confirm it.
Analogy, however, serves only as a starting-point. Can we go
further ? Is there any philosophic basis for the use of the term
" spiritual " as applied to the Absolute ? Our third definition of
religion suggests an answer. According to this definition the super-
1 The Psychological Elements of Religious Faith, Chap. VII.
THE IDEAS OF THE REASON AS GUIDES 17
natural presence manifests itself in the three ideas of the reason,
truth, goodness and beauty,1 and in our attempt to reach a more
positive result we may use these as guides. It is a method which
has not been followed generally by students of philosophy. They
have oftener been content to begin as it were at second hand and
to take much for granted in their premises. With the philoso-
phers, however, this method has been a favorite one, and almost
all of them have begun by taking as a foundation one or another
of the three ideas. Thus Plato found in the idea of beauty the
animating principle of his philosophy, Spinoza built up his
entire system upon the absolute unity, and Kant swept aside the
system of Spinoza and based religious belief upon goodness alone,
the postulate of the moral law. Spinoza and Kant try each to ex-
clude from their systems everything but the single principle which
they have adopted, but with both of them other elements creep
in unobserved. Spinoza cannot escape the harmony that results
from the moral sense, and Kant implicitly assumes results that
are not allowed by his negations. We shall profit by the authority
of all these profound thinkers in so far as their contributions are
positive, but we shall use as our guides, not one or another of the
ideas of the reason, but all three, as all fundamental and essen-
tial to religion.
1 The Psychological Elements of Religious Faith, Chap. IX.
CHAPTER III.
THE FIRST IDEA OF THE REASON MANIFESTED AS UNITY IN
TIME, OR ETERNITY.
Beginning, then, with the first idea of the reason, truth or unity,1
we find that there are four forms in which it manifests itself. It
appears as unity in time, eternity; as unity in space, omnipresence
or immensity; as unity in essence or being, ideal unity or om-
niscience; and as dynamic unity or unity in force, omnipotence.
Before we go further, it is well to distinguish between two kinds
of theological thought which differ from each other not as methods
but as habits of mind, the so-called theology of common sense
and the theology called mystical. The distinction between them
is not complete ; there is no profound religion without the mystical
sense, and the more mystical faith must find limits within the un-
derstanding; but in general common-sense theology emphasizes
what is known, the a in the ax of religious faith,2 and mystical
theology emphasizes x, the unknown. We see examples of com-
mon-sense theology in Socinianism and the kindred schools of
religious thought, while mystical theology has been more promi-
nent in the so-called orthodox belief of Christianity, meaning by
orthodox that which on the whole has been accepted by the Church
in the course of its history.
The distinction between these two habits of thought appears
at once when we begin to examine the different views that are
held in regard to unity in time, eternity. According to common-
sense theology eternity is endless time, and the Eternal Being is
one who has existed without beginning or end. This view assumes
the reality of time. There is here an element of sublimity, for
that struggle between the imagination and the reason is involved
1 TJie Psychological Elements of Religious Faith, Chap. X.
2 Page 4.
UNITY IN TIME, OR ETERNITY 19
which Kant holds to be the essence of the sublime. Yet Hegel,
to whom nothing physical suggests sublimity, regards such an
eternity as one of the lowest forms of infinitude, "die schlechte
Unendlichkeit," and finds it wearisome, "langweilig."1 Mystical
theology regards eternity not as the prolongation of time but
as its absolute antithesis. According to this view time has in
itself no reality but belongs to the world of phenomena, and
eternity is a timeless condition without change. Between these
two views there is an intermediate popular view which regards
both time and eternity as real, eternity beginning as time comes
to an end, and the life of the individual passing from time into
eternity at death. Here, as elsewhere, misinterpretations of
passages in the Bible have given rise to much that is most pict-
uresque in theology. The misinterpretations have been cor-
rected, but the results still remain. This popular view of time
and eternity has found special confirmation in the passage from
The Revelation where the angel who stands "upon the sea and
upon the earth " is made to declare, according to the King James
version, "that there should be time no longer."2 These words
have been understood popularly as meaning that there should be
an end of time and that eternity should begin, whereas their true
interpretation is that there should be no more time, that is, no
more delay.
Objectively considered, time is the most mysterious thing with
which we have to do. Hegel brings out this element of mystery
in the striking definition that he gives in his Natur-Philosophie.3
"Time," he says, "is that form of being which, in so far as it is,
is not, and in so far as it is not, is." That is, time in its very essence
consists in flux, and any form of being that is permanent is not
time. We assume that a circle is composed of an infinite number
of infinitesimal straight lines, but we may not in a similar way
assume that time is made up of minute points of duration, for
time is simply succession, or rather the abstract of succession.
i Werke, Berlin, 1840, Vol. VI, p. 184. The Logic of Hegel, trans, by W.
Wallace, pp. 149, 168.
2 Revelation, x, 5-6. 3 Werke, Berlin, 1842, Vol. Vila, § 258.
20 UNITY IN TIME, OR ETERNITY
Some writers have thought of eternity as excluding succession.
If they exclude succession, they exclude that which makes time
what it is. Eternity, then, must be a positive something which is
the antithesis of time. Kant sets this forth in the Critique of Pure
Reason.1 To him time has no reality, but is simply phenomenal.
Reality is timeless. Just as space is the form of our external per-
ception, Kant argues, so time is the form of our internal percep-
tion. Therefore time is a form of thought. But we cannot think
without thought, and therefore we cannot reach the conception
of timelessness any more than a bird can fly out of the atmosphere.
To reach the conception of timelessness we should have to enter
into a world as distinct from thought as the world of internal per-
ception is distinct from the world of outward perception. Thus
the difficulty in conceiving of eternity, if we assume that it excludes
succession, is fundamental. We may make the positive statement
that eternity is the antithesis of time, and we may believe it, but
that is as far as we can go in this direction.
Nor do we make further progress by the aid of definitions such
as that which Hodge gives when he states that " eternity is infinite
duration" and "time is limited duration" and quotes the school-
men's punctum stans, "an ever abiding present."2 For the term
"duration" is meaningless apart from the thought of time, and
there can be no present which does not imply a past and a future.
When Hodge says that eternity is infinite duration and that time is
limited duration, he evidently uses duration in the sense of time,
and his definition, therefore, is confused. It is no more helpful
than that definition of Quenstedt's in which eternity is stated to
be, not duration without beginning or end, but "simple inter-
minableness."3 Spinoza avoids this difficulty of defining eternity
without the use of temporal terms by describing eternal being as
that which exists from the necessity of its own being.4 This
definition, however, is quite out of the line of our present examina-
i Trans, by F. Max Miiller, Vol. H, pp. 27-36.
2 Outlines of Theology, p. 109. 3 Theologica, p. 311.
* Opera, ed. Bruder, Vol. I, p. 111.
UNITY IN TIME, OR ETERNITY 21
tion. Schleiermacher comes nearer to what we have in mind
when he defines eternity as " that timeless causality of God which
conditions all that is in time and time itself."1 This definition
of Schleiermacher's is better than Spinoza's in that it recognizes
a relation for absolute being, whereas Spinoza considers the
nature of absolute being rather than any relation in which it
stands. But Schleiermacher's definition does not conform to the
conditions of our problem; it gives us no conception of eternity.
In any discussion as to whether time is real or phenomenal
we must of course recognize the relativity of time. We can
measure time only by the difference in rapidity between one move-
ment or succession and another, as for instance the difference
between the movement of the hands of a clock and the move-
ment of the sun. If all the successions in the universe were to
increase or decrease in rapidity simultaneously, it is easily con-
ceivable that we should not perceive the change. Everyone has
noticed, also, in the common experience of every-day life, what
a difference there is between what may be called real time, that is
time as measured by some standard, and apparent time. Ap-
parent time lengthens or shortens according to one's mood. Thus
expectancy lengthens time, and "the watched kettle never boils."
Grief or pain tends also to lengthen time, and joy to shorten it.
If heaven is absolute blessedness, then we may conceive of heaven
as eternity in a moment, and hell would be a condition of absolute
suffering in which every moment would equal an eternity. Con-
templation is to large extent a lost art in these days. When we
think, we think about something, and we pass from one object
of thought to another. But the Hindu practised a contemplation
in which the succession of thought ceased and all sense of time
was lost. You may recall the legend of the monk who had not
believed in eternity but who saw one night in prayer the beatific
vision and when it passed found that years had gone by in what
had seemed a moment. The ability to forecast the future, also,
in so far as we admit that such ability exists, offers another illus-
tration of the relativity of time. I do not mean, of course, the
i Werke, Abth. I., Vol. HI, § 52.
22 UNITY IN TIME, OR ETERNITY
reflective prophecy which declares what outcome is reasonably to
be expected from present conditions and tendencies, but that
clairvoyance in which future events are seen as though they were
already taking place. Here, however, the facts that are presented
to us are open to question.
Recognizing, then, the relativity of time, shall we say that time
is phenomenal and eternity the antithesis of time, or shall we say
that time is real and eternity the endless duration of time ? The
more profound philosophers have considered time phenomenal
and eternity the antithesis of time, but the question is one that
cannot be definitely settled; it does not admit of either proof or
disproof. Furthermore, it is a question which, as students of re-
ligion, we are not obliged to try to decide. For it is a metaphysical
problem, interesting to philosophical thought, but without any
important bearing upon religious questions. There is involved,
however, a truth which is often overlooked, — that phenomena
are as real as anything else. Only when the phenomenon is re-
garded as representing something other than itself does contra-
diction arise. Phenomena as phenomena are real. In Buddhistic
nihilism everything is resolved into a dream, and dream and
dreamer are held to be alike unreal. But a dream as dream is
real. Granted that we dream, there must be at last the ultimate
dream of that which we have dreamed. In a similar way, if we
agree with Kant and others that time is phenomenal, we have still
to do with time as a reality. Besides, if there is a unity in the
world, this unity must embrace phenomena as well as all that
we commonly regard as more real than phenomena. To a pas-
senger on a swiftly moving train the various objects in the land-
scape appear to pass in quick succession. Another person on a
hilltop sees the same landscape stationary. Now, if the conscious-
ness of the person on the hilltop is to be complete, he must also
have experience of the landscape as it appears to the passenger
on the train. So absolute being must be related to time as well
as to space, and must preserve itself through the phenomena of
time.
How are we to conceive of such a unity in and through time?
UNITY IN TIME, OR ETERNITY 23
If we say that only the changeless endures, what do we mean by
" changeless " ? What is identity ? When are we to say that one
thing is like another, and when are we to say that it is the same
as another? Identity of function we recognize easily. The legs
of a table have each the same function in supporting the table.
But here the element of time does not enter. In certain cases of
functional identity we may indeed try to add the element of time.
We may say, for instance, that the meal which we eat today has
the same function in supporting the body as the meal that was
eaten yesterday. However, this question of functional identity
need not detain us. It has been said that two things are identical
which are indistinguishable. But this is unsatisfactory. We
cannot distinguish one point in space from another, but if points
in space because they are indistinguishable were therefore identi-
cal, all space would shrink to a single point. We speak of having
the same thought today that we had yesterday, or the same head-
ache, but in reality it is only a similar headache or a similar thought.
Again, it may be said that anything retains identity which has
had a history between the different moments at which it has been
presented to our consciousness. This, however, is merely formal.
A river from moment to moment has a history, but the river is
always changing, and any change whatever in an object destroys
its identity. A boy speaks of his jack-knife as the same knife al-
though blades and handle may all have been renewed. But sup-
pose that the boy lends his knife and that it is returned to him
nicked or tarnished. "This is not the knife I lent you," he de-
clares, and strictly speaking it is not.
Practically, however, we may say that a thing is the same if
whatever is essential to it remains unchanged. An extreme
application of this practical view is found in the case at law in
which the title to certain property is in question. So long as the
house remains a certain person is to own the land. "Let the
chimney stand," argues the lawyer, " and the house stands." Sup-
pose, however, a series, a,b, c, d, z, to represent all the qual-
ities that make an object what it is. Then if we omit a single
letter there is a change in the series, and the object is no longer
24 UNITY IN TIME, OR ETERNITY
the same. The change in it is real, and the amount of the change
does not matter. It may be said that if the bulk of anything re-
mains the same, the object is the same. But a broken watch,
even though all the pieces are there, is by no means the same as
when it was whole; the materials of a building are not the same
as the finished structure. In a word, whatever is composed is
subject to change. How is it, then, with the atoms ? Do they,
perhaps, remain the same, and are the changes that we see only
the varying combinations of the atoms ? But, on the other hand,
is an atom in rapid motion the same as when it was moving slowly ?
Are the atoms in one form of chemical compound the same as in
another ? If we raise a to various powers, a2, a3, a4, it is not the
same a that enters into these various combinations. For a as such
is left behind at the beginning; a becomes a2, and it is a2 and not
a that becomes a3, and so on, and if we are to find a once more we
have to reverse the process.1
Then are we to accept the theory of absolute flux? Shall we
say with Heraclitus that no one has ever bathed twice in the same
river, or with Buddha that no man lives two moments in the
same universe ? Absolute identity requires that both form and
material shall remain the same, but in everything both form and
material are all the time changing. We seem therefore to lose the
possibility of identity.
But how is it that we reach this consciousness of change ? Flux
cannot be recognized except as there is something permanent by
which the flux may be measured, some power by which past and
present may be brought together so that they can be compared.
We find this only in conscious spirit. Therefore only a conscious
being can preserve identity. It is true that like everything else
conscious spirit changes. But it endures through change. It
does not leave the past behind, but through memory takes it up
into itself, it carries a forward into a2. Through remembrance
and through personal recognition the conscious being knows him-
self in the past and in the present, and thus we find the enduring
1 Lotze's Metaphysic, translation edited by Bosanquet, p. 51. B. P. Bowne,
Metaphysics, Part I, Chap. III.
UNITY IN TIME, OR ETERNITY 25
not in that which denies change or is opposed to change, but in
that which has the power to preserve itself in and through change.
Locke recognizes the truth of this,1 holding that even if the sub-
stance changes every moment, memory would constitute identity.
Lotze also presents2 with great clearness this conclusion drawn
from the recognition of the past in the present. So also Professor
Bowne.3
No doubt there are certain difficulties that must be recognized.
Shall we say that the continuance of personal identity is to be
measured by the power of memory and personal recognition ?
What gaps sleep and unconsciousness would leave! How imper-
fect is our endurance through the changes which we experience!
How much of our thought of yesterday has gone from us ! How
we meet men whom we once knew and fail to recognize them !
How we look back upon our childhood and ask ourselves whether
we did certain things or whether it was some one else who did them !
Do we remember what we did, or has some one else remembered,
and told us of them ? When, however, we conceive of infinite
spirit, these difficulties no longer exist. In the identity of absolute
consciousness there can be no gaps or breaks. The imperfect
endurance of the individual through change is due to the incom-
pleteness of his knowledge. As the knowledge is increased there
is a corresponding gain in the endurance. The skilful chess-
player feels no surprise in the moves made by his opponent, for
in his knowledge of the game he has anticipated them from the
beginning. So Grant, it is said, at the battle of the Wilderness,
when told that a wing of his army had given way, replied, "I
don't believe it," and the event proved that he was right. Now in
the case of infinite spirit we conceive of a consciousness to which
all knowledge is open, and in whose unity past and future alike
are taken up absolutely into the present.
1 Essay concerning Human Understanding, Book II, Chap. XXVTI.
2 Microcosrnos, trans, by Hamilton and Jones, Book II, Chap. I.
3 Metaphysics, Part I, Chap. Ill, and Part III, Chap. I.
CHAPTER IV.
THE FIRST IDEA OF THE REASON MANIFESTED AS UNITY IN
SPACE, OR OMNIPRESENCE.
We have considered up to this point the first of the four forms
in which the first idea of the reason is manifested, and we have
found that in so far as the supernatural presence toward which
our feeling is directed is regarded as manifesting itself in unity
in time, it must be regarded as a conscious, spiritual presence.
We pass now to the consideration of the second of the four forms
in which truth or unity is manifested, namely, unity in space, or
omnipresence. Here there is a difficulty at the outset, in that we
have no word to express our meaning which does not imply rela-
tion to space. Eternity, as we have seen, does not necessarily
mean endless time; it may be conceived of as polar to time. But
omnipresence is not polar to space but has a distinct relation to
space; it is presence in space. The term "immensity" has been
used; but this also is a term which we commonly apply in space
relations, as when we speak of something which is very large, in
space and not outside of space; when we use the term apart from
space relations it is of something which does not come within the
category of measurement, as when we say that the soul is immense
or immeasurable.
The idea of omnipresence like that of eternity comes somewhat
late in the history of theological thought. In the earlier forms of
religion the need of the attribute of omnipresence was not felt,
for though no one god was omnipresent divinity was everywhere;
fetichism conceived of divinity as in or behind everything, poly-
theism provided in every place some divinity or genius loci; the
only hint of a need appears in some complaint that the gods are
absent. With the development toward monotheism, however,
the need of omnipresence as an attribute of divinity is felt increas-
UNITY IN SPACE, OR OMNIPRESENCE 27
ingly. The deistic conception of a universe in which all divinity
is gathered up in one being, separate and remote from the world,
is to many minds repellent, and rather than accept such a world
out of which the thought of a present divinity has been taken,
they cry out with Wordsworth to
"Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn."1
At first an attempt is made to meet the difficulty by assuming an
omnipresence through knowledge. The divinity is not every-
where but knows everything. Sometimes he sits upon a throne
in the centre of the universe from which he can look out over all,
sometimes he is given countless messengers, sometimes, like
Varuna in the Vedic hymn, he has a thousand eyes. Even Chris-
tian monotheism has held this conception of a constructive, prac-
tical omnipresence, using the term in regard to the godhead in
much the same sense as that in which we speak of the omnipres-
ence of an earthly king. It is the view of the so-called common-
sense theology. Thus, according to Socinus, deity has its place
from which it rules the universe. So also in the case of the four
kinds of omnipresence which Hodge and others of the older
theologians recognize, — omnipresence in essence, in knowledge, in
manifestation, in power, — only the first is really omnipresence;
the other three naturally result from the first, and, apart from
it, are all merely so many forms of constructive omnipresence.
The moment we try to reach the thought of real omnipresence
we pass into the region of mystical theology. To any common-
sense view nothing can be more apparent than that the same
person cannot occupy two places at the same time. Yet the
most profound truths often set at naught the dictates of common
sense.
Is there any symbol by which we can represent omnipresence ?
Attempts have been made to meet the difficulty by physical com-
parisons; but the warning given by Augustine of the danger of
trusting to such comparisons is justified. No physical illustration
1 Wordsworth, Miscellaneous Sonnets. "The world is too much with us."
28 UNITY IN SPACE, OR OMNIPRESENCE
of this sort can be used with safety except as we recognize its in-
adequacy. Suppose, for example, we say that air is everywhere.
But what is air ? Air is not a unity, some one thing, present every-
where, but only an aggregation of certain particles, a multiplicity.
Similarly there is no such thing as water except as collective matter.
Light is a succession of undulations, each distinct from all the
rest, and one not even propagated by another. Of ether we do
not know anything except that it is manifested in light.
Spencer suggests power as a symbol.1 But power involves force,
and, however subtle the suggestion of omnipresence in the thought
of force, it is a suggestion which carries with it its own limitation.
Gravitation, for instance, is a force not only unexhausted but
inexhaustible. Considered, however, as a unity, there is no
such thing as a force of gravitation any more than there is such a
unity as air or water. What we call the force of gravitation is
really the collection of numberless forces, every atom its own
center of force, attracting every other atom and in turn attracted
by every other. The word "gravitation" is a collective term
in which each individual tug, as it were, of all the atoms is repre-
sented. Thus gravitation is not a unity but a multiplicity, and
similarly any physical symbol of unity in the universe is necessarily
inadequate. Schleiermacher avoids the difficulty here as he
does in the case of eternity, defining omnipresence as the non-
spatial activity of God by which space and all spatial relations
are conditioned. But here again as before he fails to conform to
the conditions of our problem.2
Up to this point the difficulty has followed us which we recog-
nized at the outset, that there is no serviceable term which we can
use to express unity in space corresponding with the term eternity
as an expression for unity in time. The fact, however, of unity
in space is more easily reached than the fact of unity in time. For
when we were considering unity in time we found no world to
which we could retreat from time in order to view time. There-
i First Principles, 4th ed., 1880, §§ 18, 50, and Appendix.
2 Werke, Abth. I, Band HI, § 53.
UNITY IN SPACE, OR OMNIPRESENCE 29
fore the phenomenality of time had no meaning which could be
made real to us. We could make definitions, but the definitions
themselves were paralyzed. In our consideration of unity in
space, on the other hand, a world is open to us which is not spatial,
the inner world of mental, spiritual life, and in answer to the ques-
tion whether space is phenomenal or real, psychology teaches
that space as such is phenomenal, that it has no existence outside
the mind.
There are two views in regard to space considered as phe-
nomenal. The first is that of Kant, that space is a form of per-
ception bound up with mind or spirit as such, a part of that which
is fundamental in human nature; antedating all experience, it
is that which makes experience possible.1 There are some writers
who recognize the essential principle in Kant's theory, but deny
his conclusion and affirm that space is at the same time a form
of perception and also something external to the mind which
corresponds to the perception.2 This position, however, is not
tenable. For whatever is mental belongs to the mind alone and
cannot be associated with an objective fact. The heat which
I feel as I touch a kettle of boiling water is my sensation. The
kettle itself is not hot in the sense in which it feels hot to my
finger, unless indeed the kettle also has sensation. Similarly in
any theory of space relation there cannot be something outside
the mind corresponding to the mental perception.
According to the second view, held more commonly by later
writers, the idea of space is derived through a process of abstraction
from our various experiences of extension. We unite a great
number of sensations and project the result. There is, of course,
the difficulty which Kant presents, that it is the idea of space
which makes possible the recognition of extension. How, then,
are we to derive the idea of space from the experience of extension ?
Kant, however, is dealing with consciousness as it is found when
fully developed. It may be true that to the fully developed con-
i Critique of Pure Reason, Trans, by F. Max Miiller, Vol. II, pp. 20-26.
2 William James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. II, Chap. XX.
30 UNITY IN SPACE, OR OMNIPRESENCE
sciousness the relation between the idea of space and the recog-
nition of extension is that which Kant discovers. But psycholo-
gists do not begin their study with the conditions presented by
fully developed consciousness. What they find in the mature mind
is the culmination of processes which have had their growth not
merely from the infancy of the individual but from generations
back. Thus the phenomena of extension must have presented
themselves to the nascent mind practically long before they made
their appeal to the full consciousness, and in the case of any indi-
vidual an inherited tendency assists from the first the conscious
efforts at perception. It is thus that the chicken as it first pecks
at the grain of corn hits it accurately.1
Just how the process of abstraction, the coalescence of the
various sensations, takes place, we cannot say. We can only
recognize the fact that it does take place. It may be that the
first measurement of distance is through the sense of expenditure
of force. The great step, however, appears to be in the develop-
ment of sight. A person formerly blind whose sight has been
restored does not distinguish distances at first, but does come to
distinguish them after a little experience. With all of us the per-
ception of distance is acquired; various experiences blend with
vision until we no longer separate them, and we learn to see the
distance of an object just as we see the relation to each other of
objects in the same plane. We can represent distance also where
it does not really exist. We look at a painting of some landscape ;
it is in one plane and without real distance; but the appearance
is of distance and we seem to see this distance as though it were
real. In the case of a blind man the idea of space may be con-
veyed by sound, or by the varying pressure of the atmosphere
as objects are nearer or more remote; absolute space would then
be for him an echoless void without interruptions. But this is
of course only conjecture, for in the absence of a common ter-
minology the blind man cannot tell us how he arrives at space
perception.
The infinity of space is something which every one recognizes.
1 C. Lloyd Morgan, Habit and Instinct.
UNITY IN SPACE, OR OMNIPRESENCE 31
No object is so distant that we cannot conceive of something
beyond it. We illustrate the infinitude of space by the infinite
possibilities of the enumeration table. There is, of course, this
difference between the infinitude of space and the infinitude of
the enumeration table, that the enumeration table is not in any
way associated with sensation. But just as there is no number
so large that it might not be larger, so in the thought of space
the final point of extension cannot be reached. We have thus a
definition of space as the negative possibility of indefinite ex-
tension.
Kant insists on the necessity of the a priori perception of space
as a basis for the apodictic certainty of all geometrical principles
and the possibility of their construction a priori; if space per-
ceptions were gained from experience, he argues, the first princi-
ples of mathematical definition would be nothing but perceptions;
the certainty of geometrical principles is the result of their abstract-
ness.1 In ordinary life conditions are all the time changing, so
that the cause which in one instance produces a given result can-
not be depended upon to produce the same results in a second
instance. A remedy may cure one man of his disease, but because
another man has the same disease it does not follow necessarily
that the same remedy is to be recommended. Under such cir-
cumstances we can reach conclusions only through observation,
overcoming by the great number of examples of a given class any
doubt which may underlie our generalizations. In mathematics,
on the other hand, all the concrete, variable elements which in
ordinary life confuse or modify our conclusions are abstracted,
and there is nothing to interfere with the relation between causes
and results.
We have already seen2 that space is purely subjective, and
that any theory by which it is considered to be both a form of
perception and also something which corresponds to the percep-
tion is untenable. Yet to say that space is subjective is not at
all to say that there is nothing in the external world which causes
the idea of space. Just as there is the hot body, the kettle of
1 Critique of Pure Reason, Vol. II, pp. 21, 22. 2 Page 29.
.-*. V -- * -'-A... ._„
32 UNITY IN SPACE, OR OMNIPRESENCE
boiling water, which causes the sensation of heat in my finger, so
there may be a reality in the external world which causes our
perception of space. But space as it is to our mind cannot be the
same in the external world any more than heat as I feel it in my
finger can exist in the kettle of boiling water. Objectively con-
sidered, space is pure objective externality.1 It is externality,
not simply in relation to ourselves, but absolutely, in the exclusive
sense, as non-Being is external to Being. It is objective, because
the externality is that of the objective world outside the world of
thought. It is pure because it is without content. We speak
of points of space, but points do not constitute space. Space is
always filled, because for convenience or by necessity we break
it up into points, but in itself it must be thought of as absolutely
unbroken and uninterrupted.
If we turn now to the thought of omnipresence we find that
our question in regard to it assumes a new form. We have ex-
cluded the crude forms under which it first appeared to us, and
do not need to conceive it in terms of space. Only that form
of being can be omnipresent which can pass beyond itself and
either take its opposite into itself or find itself in its opposite.
No point in space can do this, for every point excludes all other
points. Spirit is the only form of being which can meet the
condition. For the very quale, the essential attribute, of spirit
is unity in and through diversity. This unity we do not easily
comprehend at first thought. We live so habitually in the ex-
ternal world that all our formulas are taken from it, and we have
no language in which spirit can be described at first hand. Yet
there is nothing which enters into our experience so deeply and
universally. What is it, for instance, which constitutes self-
consciousness ? There is an I and a me, the / conscious of the me,
the two distinct from each other and yet manifestations of the
same unity. The I may indeed be conceived as greater or less
than the me; we may say that it is less than the me in so far as
the me has content while the J is without content, or on the other
hand we may say that the I is greater because it is the entire per-
i Hegel, Werke, Vol. Vila (Berlin, 1842), Natur-Philosophie, § 254.
UNITY IN SPACE, OR OMNIPRESENCE 33
sonality, involving all the possibilities of which the me can repre-
sent at any moment only one. Yet fundamentally the two are
one, the / recognizing the me as itself.1
It has been said that self-consciousness is a mere matter of
memory, that we are conscious at any moment not of what we are
but of what we were, the subjective and objective consciousness
succeeding each other so rapidly that the process presents a seem-
ing unity. This, however, is no new theory of consciousness.
It is as old as Hindu philosophy, and in the Sankhyas the fallacy
of such a view is recognized as involving an infinite regressus.
For if at any moment I am conscious only of the moment before,
no basis remains for consciousness, and I should never get hold
of self at all. But in reality the identity which I recognize is
that of the present and the past together; when I am conscious
of a pain, it may have been the pain of a previous moment, but
it is my pain and I associate it with a present me.
A second illustration of the unity of spirit in and through di-
versity, though less complete and satisfactory than the illustra-
tion which self-consciousness affords, is found in the idea, the
union of manifold manifestations in a single concept of the reason.
Neither the idea nor the consciousness is a composite whole.
Each is a perfect unity. The unity may be suggested by the
various manifestations of the different elements in and through
which it expresses itself, but it is nevertheless unbroken and per-
fect in itself. Thus the circle is a unity in which the arcs can
have no existence except as they are dominated by the idea of the
circle. The idea of the watch is a unity perfect in itself as com-
pared with the composite whole, the mere assemblage of all the
parts of the watch. Suppose that a man is playing billiards.
He strikes a ball with his cue, that ball hits another, and so on.
The first ball gives up the force which has propelled it to the second,
the second may transfer the force in like manner; each moment
force is lost and gained and broken up in constant play and variety.
Is there any unity here ? Yes, in the mind of the player. Before
the stroke is made, he knows what he is going to do, and he recog-
1 C. C. Everett, Fichle's Science of Knowledge, Chap. IV.
34 UNITY IN SPACE, OR OMNIPRESENCE
nizes his thought in all the process which he starts. The unity
is thus the unity of the idea, the player's purpose, controlling the
whole movement and embodying itself in it.
Still a third illustration appears in the relation between the
life within and the life without, the life within perceiving in the
life without that of which it is itself a manifestation, recognizing a
community, whether in goodness or in beauty, between its own
nature and the nature outside of it.1 This recognition is found
in one form or another in all the more profound philosophies
and in all deeply religious natures. There are natures, it is
true, which although deeply religious are without conscious rec-
ognition of the spiritual unity in the universe. Yet such natures
do recognize under some form the doctrine of the holy spirit, the
presence of a life within leading us to the discovery of the life
that is higher than ours, the indwelling of the God in whom " we
live, and move, and have our being." It is to be noticed that this
mystic consciousness of unity may pass over into pantheism. The
absolute is then conceived as merged in its manifestation or vice
versa. We find still a spiritual unity, but the I has been absorbed
in the me or the me in the /, and personality and consciousness
have disappeared.
1 C. C. Everett, The Science of Thought, pp. 144, 153, seq.
CHAPTER V.
OBJECTIONS TO CONSCIOUS SPIRIT AS A VORSTELLUNG, BASED
ON THE ANALOGY OF FINITE CONSCIOUSNESS.
The importance of the position which we have reached is very
great. We have found that the only adequate form or vorstellung
under which we can represent unity in the universe is conscious
spirit. This is a result so great in itself and in all that is implied
that we might easily fear to accept it if it were not already familiar
to us, and if the heart had not already assumed it. As it is, many
thinkers do not accept it, and we have to consider their objections.
These objections are based on the analogy of finite conscious-
ness. To speak of " infinite personality " or " infinite conscious-
ness," it is said, is a contradiction in terms. We must remember,
however, that the argument from analogy is to be used with
caution. Analogy may be empirical or it may be rational. I may
say merely that I have never found a without the presence of x,
or I may say that I have found a reason why a should never be
found without x. Only those analogies which upon analysis
are found to be rational are of any real worth.1 Therefore before
we can accept an argument from the analogy of finite conscious-
ness, we must examine the analogy to see whether it is rational or
merely empirical.
The general analogy of finite consciousness presents itself under
three different aspects, physical, philosophical, and psychological.
Of these the physical is least important but is often urged. The
argument is based on the physical conditions of human conscious-
ness or thought. " No thought without phosphorus," is its motto.
Now it is true that thought is found in human beings only in con-
nection with phosphorus or some tissue into which phosphorus
enters. But to assume that therefore this relation between thought
i C. C. Everett, The Science of Thought, p. 274.
36 OBJECTIONS TO SPIRIT AS A VORSTELLTJNG
and material organism must always exist and that there can be no
consciousness apart from organic structure, is to fall into the fallacy,
post hoc, ergo propter hoc. The analogy is merely empirical, and
if it is pressed at all it becomes absurd. Thus it has been said
that the brain secretes thought as the liver secretes bile, and that
to speak of a conscious Infinite is therefore as impossible as to
speak of a bilious Infinite. But in the secretion of bile blood has
entered the liver and passed out, and bile remains behind in the
form of a liquid, its molecules separated from the molecules of the
blood. Is there any similarity between this process and the process
by which thought is produced ? On the contrary, every molecule
or atom that enters the brain passes out, unless some loss takes
place in the cells of the brain, and no molecular secretion remains.
Thought is not a molecular result, and the brain as a thinking
organ is not the same with the brain as a secreting organ.1 The
use of the analogy in this aspect merely illustrates the superficial
character of a certain kind of popular scientific thought.
In its second aspect, the philosophical, the analogy is more real.
Consciousness involves intelligence, and all human intelligence,
all human thought, implies limitation. Therefore, it is urged,
no thought is possible without limitation, and since the Absolute
must be conceived as unconditioned, to attribute to it thought
or consciousness is impossible. In the first place, however, we
have already seen2 that the theory that the Absolute must be
unconditioned is mistaken, and that an unconditioned Absolute
is not only inconceivable but impossible. And secondly, all
human intelligence is finite intelligence and involves two factors,
consciousness itself and the finite, human mind in which it appears.
Does the limitation that appears in human consciousness belong
to consciousness itself, or only to the human mind ?
This question obliges us to examine human intelligence more
closely. Three facts appear in regard to it. First, we can think
of nothing by itself. No absolutely single element can be the
object of thought. Thought implies contrast. In a world of un-
broken light we could have no idea of light. Secondly, no two
i William James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. I, p. 101. 2 Page 6.
OBJECTIONS TO SPIRIT AS A VORSTELLUNG 37
elements can be thought of at the same time. Suppose that a
pendulum swings to and fro between two points and that as it
reaches either point a bell strikes. No person ever sees the pendu-
lum at the point in the same moment in which he hears the bell
strike; if he listens intently he hears the bell before he sees the
impact, and if he looks intently he sees the impact first. One
element crowds out the other from the mind. Now if we were
to stop here with the recognition of only these two facts, thought
would appear to be impossible. But there is a third fact which
must be taken into the account. Thought is organic and consists
of various elements which enter into it organically. With all that
pertains to spirit, it is a unity which exists only in and through
diversity. Our human thoughts mutually exclude each other,
because each thought comprises elements that exclude other ele-
ments. Our mental grasp is not large enough to include many
elements. But the larger the mental grasp becomes, the more
nearly thought approaches perfection, the greater is its power to
possess facts simultaneously, and great thinkers bring into given
relation a number and variety of elements which ordinary minds
would think distinct. As Jevons points out, "knowledge in the
highest perfection would consist in the simultaneous possession of
a multitude of facts. . . . There is no logical foundation for the
successive character of thought and reasoning unavoidable under
our present mental conditions. . . . We must describe metal as
'hard and opaque' or 'opaque and hard,' but in the metal itself
there is no such difference of order; the properties are simul-
taneous and coextensive in existence."1 When we conceive of
infinite spirit the difficulties which arise from the imperfection of
finite thought disappear altogether. In the thought of God the
universe must be one, that "idea of God, from which infinites
follow in infinite modes."2
The philosophical form of the analogy, however, easily passes
over into the third or psychological aspect, and here the objections
which are offered are more important and must be considered
1 W. S. Jevons, The Principles oj Science, Book I, Chap. II.
2 Spinoza, Ethica, Pars II, Prop. IV.
38 OBJECTIONS TO SPIRIT AS A VORSTELLTTNG
more at length. The first of these objections is based upon Spen-
cer's definition of life as the correspondence between external
and internal changes.1 Thought as a form of life is thus con-
ceived as by nature progressive, an adjustment to external rela-
tions. The lower forms of animal and vegetable life make in-
stantaneous, response, but as relations become more complicated
response becomes slower, and the delay results in consciousness.
It is this definition of thought which Physicus uses in the chapter
on "the argument from metaphysical teleology " in his Candid
Investigation of Theism? Spencer admits that according to such
a definition we cannot know the world as it really is, and that our
knowledge of it can be only like the reflections seen in a distorted
mirror; the reflections change with the changes in the object re-
flected, but are no more true to them in other respects than was
the original reflection to the object itself. "But what of that?"
asks Spencer. The mirror may indeed give us x and y and z in-
stead of a and b and c, but y follows x as b follows a, the changes
in the reflection follow the law of the changes in the object, and
that is enough ; for the essential function of thought is that it shall
guide us through life. Thus consciousness, if it is as Spencer
describes it, is simply an instrument by which annoyance is to be
avoided, and if we could only work automatically in the higher
relations of life as we already do in lower relations, we should get
along perfectly well without it. Furthermore, consciousness,
since it results from friction in the working of the mental
machinery, implies difficulty and loss; it is not only an accident
but an accident to be deplored.
We may in passing contrast with this theory the theory of Hegel
according to which the end of existence is reached only as life
becomes thought. We may not accept Hegel's theory, but as
compared with the theory involved in Spencer's definition it is
more in accordance with our conception of what is highest. We
may hold that there is something higher than thought, but thought
i The Principles of Biology, Vol. I, Chap. V. Essays, Vol. Ill, pp. 246-249.
2 George J. Romanes, A Candid Investigation of Theism, Chap. VI.
OBJECTIONS TO SPIRIT AS A VORSTELLUNG 39
is certainly higher than automatism. However, without entering
upon debatable ground, we have to recognize that although
Spencer's definition covers certain aspects of consciousness there
are others which it excludes. First of all it provides no room
for contemplation. For in contemplation there is no adjustment
of inner relations to outer relations. We do not try to adjust
ourselves to our environment, we try, on the contrary, to keep our
thoughts from wandering. Thus in an ocean voyage we enjoy
the fullest benefit when we can forget even time in our contempla-
tion of sky and sea; the rest and satisfaction which come to us
are found not in any action which is to follow contemplation but
in contemplation itself. Again, the esthetic sense is to a large
extent excluded. According to Schopenhauer, when we contem-
plate a beautiful object that which gives pleasure is not the object
but the idea which the object represents.1 Here there is neither
adjustment nor the result of adjustment. It is the same with
the whole realm of the imagination, the world of artistic creation.
Spencer's definition provides no place for them, and yet there is
no form of thought that we prize more highly; the thought of the
artisan who adapts we place instinctively below that of the artist
who creates. In conversation, too, thought is not for the sake of
any organism but is an end in itself. Conversation, therefore,
would find no place under a definition by which thought is made
to consist in a series of adjustments.
A second class of objections based upon the analogy of finite
consciousness in its psychological aspect assumes that self-con-
sciousness or consciousness of any sort cannot be attributed to
Absolute Being without a contradiction in terms. For in the
first place, it is said, the me depends upon the not-me; conscious-
ness implies something other than itself of which it is conscious.
Therefore if Absolute Being is conceived of as conscious it ceases
to be absolute. It is true that differentiation is necessary to con-
sciousness and that if consciousness were emptied of all content,
or of all but a single form of content, there would be no conscious-
ness. But the process of differentiation is not dependent upon
i The World As Will and Idea, Book III.
. L .
40 OBJECTIONS TO SPIRIT AS A VORSTELLUNG
that which is outside consciousness. All consciousness is in reality
self-consciousness, and what is commonly called self-consciousness
is merely consciousness raised to a high power. We are directly
conscious only of that which is going on in our own minds. We
do indeed speak of the consciousness of "realities" outside our-
selves, but we mean only that we cannot help believing that there
are such realities; our consciousness is not of the outer universe
but of the way in which we ourselves are affected by that universe.
Thus all that is needed is that the consciousness should be to a
certain extent complex. It is significant, as Fichte points out,1
that we have only the negative term, the not-me, for that which is
outside ourselves. The positive aspect is the me, and, as the ter-
minology itself suggests, we do not start from the not-me to reach
the me, but differentiate the not-me from the me. If the outer, for-
eign element be taken away, as actually happens in dreams, the
consciousness of individuality is as strong as when one is awake.
It is this truth that underlies the doctrine of solipsism which
reaches its full expression only in the Vedanta. It is a doctrine
that no one can dispute logically, and the only answer which can
be given to any one who professes to hold it is to insist that in
reality he does believe what he says that he does not believe. In
a similar way it is impossible to confute logically an idealism
like that of Fichte which asserts that external objects have no
reality.
But the objection is made, secondly, that to produce conscious-
ness some stimulus from without is needed, an anstoss, a collision
with the not-me of the outer world by which the I shall be reflected
back upon itself. Or if, with Fichte, reality is denied to the outer
world, then the collision must arise from limitations in conscious-
ness itself. To conceive of Absolute Being as receiving such a
stimulus in either way is again, it is said, a contradiction in terms.
This same objection, however, is made by the spiritualist to the
position of the materialist. Just as the materialist insists that
spirit cannot reach consciousness except as some impact from
external matter sets it in motion, so the spiritualist insists that
1 C. C. Everett, Fichte's Science of Knowledge, Chap. V.
OBJECTIONS TO SPIRIT AS A VORSTELLTTNG 41
matter is in itself dead, and that only the touch of spiritual power
can stir it to life. If the materialist answers that motion is nothing
new in matter or foreign to it, and that the activity of matter is
without beginning or end, why may not the spiritualist make a
like answer and assume that the processes of consciousness are
equally without beginning or end ? The argument has as much
validity on the one side as on the other, and we may equally well
assume that spirit and matter have been eternally active together,
or that either could exist eternally independently of the other.
We have, then, as the result of all this examination, two propo-
sitions. First, we cannot represent Absolute Being to ourselves
except under the form of spirit. Second, we cannot represent to
ourselves ideal spirit, perfect consciousness, except as Absolute
Being. In considering the first of these propositions we have to
recognize the mistake which many philosophers have made in con-
ceiving the infinite statically as over against the finite. If this
conception were true, there would be, as Hegel points out,1 not the
infinite and the finite, but two finites antithetical to each other
and excluding each other. The finite must be conceived not as
excluded by the infinite but as taken up into the infinite, not as
over against the infinite but as the manifestation of the infinite.
Any conception of infinity, furthermore, which implies mere ex-
tension, mere endlessness, is inadequate, and the true symbol of
infinity is not the straight line reaching on and on, but the line
which returns to itself, the circle, the serpent with its tail in its
mouth. The process which is symbolized by the circle is found
only in spirit. It is spirit alone which returns from that into which
it has gone forth. The player strikes the ball with his cue, and the
force that goes out is broken up and lost,2 but the player's thought
is returned in the accomplishment of his plan. The sculptor
chisels the block of marble and the stone gives back his thought
as it takes shape according to his ideal. The absolute spirit
returns to itself out of all its various manifestations in the universe,
preserving itself through all changes.
The use of the circle as the symbol of the infinite may suggest
i The Logic of Hegel, trans, by W. Wallace, § 95. 2 page 33.
42 OBJECTIONS TO SPIRIT AS A VORSTELLUNG
the objection that as there are many circles, so there may be many
infinites. But it is not necessary to press the symbol so far. There
can be only one infinite consciousness. The circle of the spiritual
life can be conceived as perfect only in that Absolute Being to
which nothing is foreign or external.
The theory of the infinite as not static but a process, and a process
not of extension but of return to self, is Hegel's great contribution
to philosophic thought. He complements Heraclitus on the one
hand and Spinoza on the other. With Heraclitus, as with Buddha
also, there is process, but the flux is on and on without return.
The system of Spinoza is sometimes misunderstood through a mis-
conception of his meaning when he states that all determination
is limitation.1 If this were taken literally it would overthrow
Spinoza's own theories, but what he must mean by "determina-
tion" is rather "exclusion." His theory of the absolute finds
illustration in the relation between light and color. There can
be no single color without limitation. But in the solar spectrum,
although the light is broken up, it is no more limited than when
it appeared as white light. Rather it may be said that it was
more limited as white light, in that what was implicit had not
become explicit. In a similar way the Absolute of Spinoza is
a substance manifesting itself in infinite attributes and modes,
the infinitely concrete. There is here, however, no process, but
only constant equality, the infinite equal to the sum of all the
attributes in which it manifests itself. With Hegel the Absolute
is spirit, and the return to self is essential. How far he uses the
term " infinite spirit " in the religious sense is doubtful. It will
not do to push his authority too far in this respect. He certainly
does not fill the theistic position which Neo-Hegelians in England
have claimed for him.
It may be asked whether the terms "personality," "conscious-
ness," "spirit," are not narrowing as applied to Absolute Being.2
i Ethica, Pars I, Def. II.
2 The best negative criticism of the personality of Absolute Being is to be
found in the Christliche Glaubenslehre of Strauss (Ed. 1840, Vol. I, § 33, p. 502),
where the practical difficulties that arise when one attempts to conceive of infinite
OBJECTIONS TO SPIRIT AS A VORSTELLUNG 43
The terms are of course imperfect, in that they are also used so
commonly with some lower, more limited meaning, which we
cannot easily shake off. Thus "personality" suggests, although
it does not necessarily imply, one among others, and is used of the
lowest as well as of the highest in human nature. " Conscious-
ness" also has its lower associations, and the term "self -con-
sciousness" especially, as commonly used, expresses limitation
and defect. There is a certain delight, a sense of freedom, in
escaping from the trammels of self-consciousness. Self-conscious-
ness mars the beauty and dignity of an heroic act. It interferes
with the full enjoyment of beauty. I sit with a friend at a concert,
and we both enjoy the music ; but whereas I am conscious that I
enjoy it, my friend has forgotten himself in the fulness of his
pleasure and appreciation. I say to him, " How beautiful it is!"
He answers, " Why, then, do you not listen to it ? "
Yet self-consciousness cannot be wholly done away with, even
in pure contemplation. If in listening to the music we should
reach a point where there was no self-consciousness, we should
cease to enjoy it, for we should not hear it. In all consciousness
two elements are implied, the subjective and the objective, of
which the objective is not necessarily external or foreign. Self-
consciousness in the lower sense appears when the subjective is
over-emphasized, when the subject gets behind the object and
consciousness are clearly stated. It is surprising, however, considering his Hegelian
training, that Strauss should consider so contradictory the thought of the unity
of God and the necessity of representing him under manifold aspects. For in the
first place, as we have already seen (Chap. IV, pp. 32-34, and Chap. V, p. 41), ideal
unity is not to be conceived as over against diversity, but as manifesting itself in
and through diversity. Furthermore, an object under consideration is often divided
without violence to it when the division helps toward a better understanding of the
object. Thus when we are studying some force which acts in a single direction
we represent it as acting in two directions of which the direction in which the force
really works is the resultant. Theoretically, for the sake of analysis and compre-
hension, we have divided the force, and there is no falsity in this division. Yet the
unity of the actual force remains unbroken. Again, a similar process is followed
in the analysis of certain forms of mental experience. Thus we are told that hope
involves two emotions, the feeling that an object is desirable, and the feeling that
the desired object is possible of attainment. Here is a compound. Yet hope itself
is not compound but single.
44 OBJECTIONS TO SPIRIT AS A VORSTELLUNG
finds itself there. In the higher or true self-consciousness the
objective is at its maximum consistently with any consciousness
at all.
From certain points of view any form of presentation tends to
narrow and belittle. The concept passes into an image, a picture,
which appeals at once to the imagination and which cannot be
larger than the field of vision of the imagination, and then we tend
to confuse the original concept with the product of the imagina-
tion. Thus it is almost impossible to conceive of the form of the
earth and of its vastness at the same time. We have two ideas
of the world, one as a ball in space, and the other as composed of
seas and lands, and plains and mountains. As compared with
the grandeur of the mountains or the vastness of the ocean the
thought of the spherical form belittles our conception. Yet not-
withstanding this difficulty we do use both ideas ; scientifically we
conceive the form of the earth, and practically we conceive its
vastness. It is a similar sort of difficulty which meets us when
we try to represent to ourselves the infinite spirit. Any form of
presentation which is taken from finite personality tends to intro-
duce into our conception the little associations which belong to
the limited spirit and consciousness with which we are familiar,
and we cannot fill out our conception of the form of the Absolute
with the infinitude of the content. Yet practically we live with-
out sense of limitation in the relation implied by the form of pres-
entation that we have chosen. This relation is not lost through
any change of place; wherever we go, we recognize it; the imagina-
tion cannot picture any world without it. "Though I take the
wings of the morning, or dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there shall thy hand lead me and thy right hand shall hold
me."
So far, then, from narrowing or belittling our conception of
the Absolute, spirit is the only enlarging form under which we
can represent it. If we do not conceive it thus, then we must
conceive it as non-spirit. It is idle to ask why we should repre-
sent it to ourselves at all. The unity of the universe forces itself
upon us, and we must conceive it under the one form or the other,
OBJECTIONS TO SPIRIT AS A VORSTELLUNG 45
either as spirit, that which is self-conscious, or as that which is
opposed to spirit and without self-consciousness. Practically
there can be no teriium quid. The "Force" of Herbert Spencer,
for instance, either belongs to the material world equally with
any other force like gravitation, or, if not, swings over into the
spiritual world. If we refuse to think of unity as spiritual we must
think of it as material. But spirit is the only adequate form of
presentation. Only as spirit can the finite go beyond itself. I
take this desk into my consciousness; the desk does not thus
make me a part of itself. The mind of Newton comprehends
the movements of the earth and the stars; they have not com-
prehended him. Only as spirit does being escape from all con-
finement and find itself at large in the universe.
No less true is the converse of all this. As we cannot represent
Absolute Being except under the form of spirit, so we cannot con-
ceive ideal spirit, perfect consciousness, except as Absolute Being.
For spirit, to be perfect, must be wholly transparent to itself, that
is, its opposite must be wholly open to its consciousness; and
although finite spirits may be to a certain degree thus transparent,
they must from their very nature remain to a great extent closed
and opaque in relation to the external world.1 For in the first
place the finite spirit has to do with forces which it did not origi-
nate. Later it may find kinship with these forces, but they remain
foreign to it, and its life is always open to irruption and invasion
by them. The perfect drama is transparent, containing within
itself all the elements by which the plot is worked out. But no
finite life is such a drama ; elements from without divide its plans
and contradict its foresight. We are like ships at sea; we lay
our course and then a tempest drives us from it. Secondly, it
is out of these very elements, external and foreign to it, that finite
life has been derived. Its roots are not in itself, and our lives
are not really ours until we can recall them as such. But the
earliest period in them is lost to us, and of the later years we re-
member as a rule only certain points of experience; what was
going on around those points, the circumstances and thoughts
1 H. Lotze, Miarocosmos, Book IX, Chap. IV, § 4.
46 OBJECTIONS TO SPIRIT AS A VORSTELLUNG
which made up our lives as a whole, we have forgotten. Thirdly,
only a small part of our experience is available at any one moment.
The field in which our minds work is so limited that one thing
crowds out another, and life, in so far as it is transparent at all, is
transparent only in a single point of time. It is like some picture
in glass with a point of light behind it, the colors revealed or
obscured as the light behind is shifted from one part of the
picture to another. Finally, much of the inner, subjective life
never reaches the threshold of consciousness. How little, for
instance, do we know of the bodily functions! I will to take
up a book, and do take it up ; but how do I do it ? The anatomist
gives us a little knowledge, but it does not carry us far. We are
like guests in a house where we know nothing of the machinery
by which the work of the house is carried on. Or again, I forget
what it is that I was about to say or do ; I make an effort to recall
it, but without success; I think of something else, and presently
the memory of what it was that I intended comes unbidden.1
Or some association of ideas presents itself which cannot be ex-
plained except as we may sometimes through subsequent recog-
nition trace the connection in our thought; thus I visit some
house which I have never seen before, and presently find myself
thinking of my early childhood ; it may occur to me later that the
paper on the wall was similar to the paper in some room with which
I was familiar when a child, or again I may never know what
caused the connection in my mind. As one considers how largely
thought consists in the association of ideas, he realizes how much
of finite life is unconscious.
These difficulties and others like them which meet us in the
sphere of finite consciousness disappear when we turn to the
thought of Absolute Being. The elements of our own spiritual
life do not cover one another, but in the thought of Absolute Being
all elements are conceived as covering one another, with no re-
bellion or vacillation among them, no drawing hither and thither.
1 W. B. Carpenter, Principles of Mental Physiology, Chap. XIII. Eduard
von Hartmann, Philosophie des TJnbewussten. Lotze, Microcosmos, Book III,
Chap. in.
OBJECTIONS TO SPIRIT AS A VORSTELLUNG 47
Furthermore, the abstract or the ideal is always more readily com-
prehended than the concrete and actual. Thus any one can com-
prehend the idea of a perfect circle ; but let the most accomplished
draughtsman try to draw an actual circle as nearly perfect as he
can make it, and it will present irregularities that would be the
despair of any mathematician who should attempt to find a formula
to cover them. In a similar way the definition of spirit as some-
thing that is wholly transparent to itself is justified with difficulty
so long as the analysis is confined to finite being. It is fulfilled
only in Absolute Being, that ideal of consciousness in which the
return to self is complete. This does not mean the perfect com-
prehension of the divine. Rather does mystery begin with knowl-
edge and deepen as knowledge increases.1 It is true that " God
is light and in him is no darkness at all," but it is also true that
"clouds and darkness are round about him." What we have
found is that the term " infinite consciousness " is not self -contra-
dictory, that " infinity " and " consciousness " not only do not
exclude each other but are necessary each to the other.
1 Page 4.
CHAPTER VI.
THE FIRST IDEA OF THE REASON MANIFESTED AS IDEAL UNITY,
OR OMNISCIENCE, AND AS DYNAMIC UNITY, OR OMNIPO-
TENCE.— THE FOURTH DEFINITION OF RELIGION.
Does omnipresence imply omniscience ? This question at once
resolves itself into two questions. First, can Absolute Being have
knowledge of that which is foreign to itself? Knowledge implies
the distinction between subject and object. Is not such a dis-
tinction inconsistent with the conception of absolute conscious-
ness ? Thomas Aquinas meets this objection with the statement
that since God is all in all, since it is in and through him that all
things exist, there can be nothing which is foreign to him, and thus
in knowing all things he simply knows himself.1 This, however,
only leads to the second of the two questions, and we must ask
whether Absolute Being can have knowledge of itself. Knowledge
implies comprehension. Can there be comprehension of that
which is not finite ? Aquinas replies that since we know that
which we grasp and hold and have, it is not necessary to stand
outside of an object and compare it with other things in order to
have knowledge of it; therefore infinite knowledge may compre-
hend infinite being.
Spinoza, in using the term "knowledge" makes a distinction
between absolute knowledge and finite knowledge; the knowl-
edge which God possesses is not to be compared with man's knowl-
edge.2 To emphasize the difference he uses a picturesque though
extravagant figure. The divine understanding and will, he says,
have no more in common with human understanding and will
than the Dog, a sign in the heavens, has with the barking animal
on earth that we call a dog. The understanding of God, he pro-
1 Summa Theologica, Pars I, Quaest. XIV.
2 Ethica, Pars I, Prop. XVII.
IDEAL UNITY, OR OMNISCIENCE 49
ceeds, since it is the sole cause of things, must necessarily differ
from things themselves; for whatever is caused must differ from
that which causes it precisely in that which it has for its cause.
It is difficult to reconcile the idea of such a chasm between absolute
and finite understanding and will with the position usually taken
by Spinoza, for nothing is farther from his usual thought than a
creator of the universe from without and apart from it. He must
have in mind a distinction between the natura naturans and the
natura naturata.1
There are three ways in which the divine thought differs from
human thought: first, divine thought is a priori, human thought
a posteriori; second, divine thought embraces its object simul-
taneously, human thought in succession; third, to divine thought
things present themselves as a comprehensive unity, to human
thought only in detail. But these differences are only the differ-
ences between perfect thought and imperfect thought. Take,
for example, the difference as regards the a priori or the a pos-
teriori method. It is true that in general we think a thing because
it exists, whereas we conceive that with God a thing exists because
he thinks it. Yet to some extent human thought at times follows
the method of divine thought. Thus the artist usually under-
stands his own work better than any one else can. Of course he
is finite, a product of his time, an expression of the spirit of his
age, and to a large extent his genius may work unconsciously,
building "better than he knew." Yet to some extent also he is
conscious of his own creative power, and in so far as he is thus
conscious he follows the method of divine thought and recognizes
its higher nature. Similarly, as we have already seen,2 although
in general he may think in succession and in detail, he does make
approaches toward thought which is unitary and all-embracing.
The chasm, therefore, between divine and human thought is not
absolute. Men think imperfectly but they think truly.
Does the conception of divine omniscience carry with it a divine
foreknowledge of contingent events, the events which result from
1 C. C. Everett, Psychological Elements of Religious Faith, p. 91.
2 Chap. V, p. 37.
50 IDEAL UNITY, OR OMNISCIENCE
the freedom of the human will ? The difficulty which this question
raises has been met in three ways. Three elements enter into the
problem, — the absoluteness of the divine knowledge, the contin-
gency of events, and futurity, — and each of the three methods of
solving the problem does away with one or another of these three
elements. The first solution gives up the first of the three ele-
ments and affirms that God does not and cannot have foreknowl-
edge of contingent events. This solution offers a striking instance
of the method of "common-sense" theology.1 The apparent
limitation of divine knowledge which it implies is met by the
argument that God has open before him all possible choices, so
that when the individual in the exercise of his free will comes to
make his choice, God is ready to adapt that choice to the plan of
the universe. The skilful chess player, who does not know what
move the other player will make next, but is ready for every move,
the great ruler who meets with wise statesmanship the different sit-
uations presented to him as they arise, — it is with such knowledge
as theirs, conceived as absolute, that God controls all events. So
far from detracting at all from the glory of God, such a conception,
it is held, adds to his dignity and grandeur.2 The second solution
ignores the contingency of events. Freedom of the will in man
is denied, and all events are foreordained. God has absolute
knowledge of all, because all has been determined by him from
the beginning. This is the solution that is offered by Calvinism.
The third solution does away with futurity in affirming the phe-
nomenality of time.3 According to this view, the view of "mys-
tical" or "orthodox" theology,4 there is no foreknowledge; but
only knowledge. God does not know beforehand; he knows.
He does not foresee; he sees. A certain amount of freedom is
conceived working within a timeless eternity. Thomas Aquinas,
in the Surnma Theological gives as an illustration of this view
i Page 18.
2 Martineau, A Study of Religion, Vol. II, pp. 278-280. Rothe, Dogmatik,
Vol. I, §§ 27, 49.
s Pages 20-22. * Page 18.
s Pars I, Quaest. XIV, Art. XIII.
IDEAL UNITY, OR OMNISCIENCE 51
the travellers on a road who can only see each the one immediately
in front of him, or who can be seen by an observer on the same
level with them only as they pass one by one, whereas the observer
on a hill that overlooks the whole extent of the road sees all the
travellers at once.1
But why should we try to settle this question, when the answer
to it is not necessary to religion ? All that we hope to do is to
remove the difficulties in the way of religion, and such questions
as this which lie beyond our reach and are not essential may well
be left unanswered. Spirit is the only form under which we can
represent to ourselves Absolute Being, and when we enter too
much into detail we only blur the symbol.
A question arises here which will occur more than once, as to
the use of the word infinite. Are we to speak of the divine knowl-
edge as infinite ? Considered extensively, if the content of divine
knowledge is infinite, then the knowledge itself will be infinite.
Even if the universe is not infinite, its elements may be infinite,
and thus the knowledge of the universe would still be infinite.
Intensively, however, such knowledge may better be called per-
fect, in that it conforms accurately to the object which it embraces.
It is in this way that the Socinians avoid the difficulty of possible
limitation in the thought of divine knowledge when they say that
omniscience is the knowledge of all that is knowable. The uni-
verse as the great object of all knowledge has many aspects.
Finite knowledge must cover these various aspects separately;
we know only in part. Divine knowledge embraces all as a whole.
Strauss objects that if the universe is thus one to the divine
knowledge all differences must be done away with and every-
thing become a mush. But, as I have already pointed out,2 this
is because he forgets his Hegelian training and has in mind an
abstract unity instead of that concrete unity in which the parts
are not done away with but taken up into the whole.
In passing from the consideration of omniscience, or ideal unity,
to that of dynamic unity, omnipotence, still another question is
suggested. In the conception of Absolute Being has free will
i Page 22. 2 Note, page 42.
52 IDEAL UNITY, OR OMNISCIENCE
any place ? Does the divine knowledge extend beyond the divine
will ? Has God the power to choose ? Many theologians have
answered the question by attributing to divine being absolute
freedom of will. Leibnitz, for instance, pictures God as seeing
before himself the ideals of all sorts of worlds and looking over
the whole and selecting the world as it exists at present because
it contained the maximum of good and the minimum of evil.1
Similarly in the creed of Peter Mogilas it is stated that God might
have made six hundred thousand worlds as good as ours.2 Spinoza,
however, denies free will to God;3 in the sense in which freedom
consists in the ability to manifest one's self without interference
either from without or from within, God is free, but freedom of
choice in activity God does not possess any more than man. In
thus denying free will to God, Spinoza does not intend to limit
God but rather to enlarge and dignify the conception of his ac-
tivity. For freedom of choice on the part of Absolute Being
would involve one or the other of two alternatives. Either it must
be assumed that God has thought of something which was not
worthy of execution, or else he has been obliged to choose between
this or that possible course because he could not accomplish both.
In either case there would be a confession of weakness. It is the
second of these alternatives which Spinoza especially emphasizes.
Men choose, he says, because they are finite; their freedom of
choice is the result of their limitation; they have to decide whether
they will do A or B because they cannot do both A and B. When
a difficult ravine is to be bridged, the engineer or architect of
limited knowledge and experience, or of lesser genius, studies
different plans, hesitating as to which is better; but the great
engineer, the perfect architect, at once sees in his mind's eye the
one bridge that is suited to the spot. Yet it may be that the in-
finite mind may still see all other possible bridges together with
the one perfect bridge.
1 Theodicee, Essais sur la Bonte de Dieu, etc., Partie II, 225.
2 Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, Vol. II, p. 290. \
3 Ethim, Pars I, Prop. XVTL
DYNAMIC UNITY, OR OMNIPOTENCE 53
Here again, however, religion has little concern with the answer
to the question and may accept or reject it as it will. If it find
the thought of free will in Absolute Being essential to the religious
spirit, let it assume free will, and vice versa. The case is not one
of those which involve a contradiction between the reason and the
heart, the reason denying what the heart demands.1 Here, what-
ever the answer to the question may be, no contradiction of the
infinite unity is involved. But we have to recognize the limitations
of finite thought, and such questions are beyond the reach of
human understanding to determine absolutely.
Finally, of the four forms in which the first idea of the reason
manifests itself, there remains to be considered dynamic unity,
or unity in force, omnipotence. What, then, is meant by omnip-
otence? Is it the ability to do everything? Or is it the ability
to do everything that is possible ? For example, is it a limitation
of omnipotence to hold that Absolute Being cannot transcend the
law of contradiction, that God cannot make himself other than
he is ? Or, again, if omnipotence can make arbitrary all distinc-
tion between truth and falsity, what becomes of omniscience ?
If there is a power that can make evil good, what becomes of
goodness ? What becomes of all attributes if omnipotence is
conceived as absolute ? Would omnipotence itself remain ? For
power means not merely accomplishment, but the might which
accomplishes, and if there is no obstacle to overcome there is no
power. We say how easily the water boils in vacuo, not how
powerful is the fire; how easily the balanced rock is tilted, and
not how mighty is the hand of the child that moves it. It may
be said that omnipotence is perfect power, the ability to overcome
the maximum of obstacle which is consistent with overcoming
the obstacle at all. But we are dealing with Absolute Being.
Where are any obstacles to it to be found ? and what difficulty
could it have in overcoming them ?
Some have found a way of escape from this problem by assum-
ing that there is some form of matter, the v\v of Aristotle, upon
which the divine power acts. Thus Martineau assumes the
i Page 12.
54 DYNAMIC UNITY, OR OMNIPOTENCE
necessity of a datum upon which the creative power of God may
be asserted.1 We cannot, however, conceive of the two as distinct.
Back of the creative power and the objective datum there would
have to be some higher unity, an absolute behind the divine and
the material, the undifferentiated somewhat that is assumed by
Spencer.2 Others have offered the conjecture that there may be
ideal irreconcilables, elements which contradict one another,
universal necessities to which the divine being like all else is sub-
ject.3 So Leibnitz, with his theory of the best possible world,
recognizes difficulties as existing in certain relations from the
first ; evil is not to be wholly eliminated, but good is to be attained
at a cost.
The question is simply one that cannot be solved. But it is
helpful to find that the difficulty extends to all relations. Where
do relations abide ? I draw a line, A, by itself. Then I draw
another line, B, and instantly there is a relation, for one line is
shorter than the other, or one is previous to the other. But where
is the relation ? It is not in the first line, for so long as the first
line remained alone the relation did not exist, but neither is it in
the second line. We may say that it is in our thought, but even so
the elements must exist to which the differences relate. The mis-
take which is commonly made is in attempting to reason from the
infinite. The only course that is possible for thought is, as Dr.
Hill has said,4 to reason to the infinite, to start from the realities
which are given and make such progress from them toward the
infinite as one may. Thus, instead of assuming that the thought
of the infinite is the basis of religion, we begin by finding that
there is something which is at first feared and worshipped and
then loved and obeyed. Then we ask that this something shall
be infinite. Starting from a definite content, the infinite which is
1 Essays, Vol. Ill, p. 17. This theory, however, is modified later in the Study
of Religion (Vol. I, pp. 405^108), where Martineau inclines to the view that if cer-
tain difficulties could be removed, space would provide the condition necessary to
Absolute Being for its activity.
2 Chap. I. 3 Lotze, Microcosmos, Book IX, Chap. V.
* Thomas Hill, Postulates of Revelation and of Ethics, p. 46.
THE FOURTH DEFINITION OF RELIGION 55
reached in this way will be infinite something and not an abstraction
without content. It is thus that we find the presence of God in
the universe. We find there certain ideal elements in control,
the three ideas of the reason, truth, goodness and beauty, and
these lift us into the realm of the divine. These ideas are mani-
fested under concrete forms, they are related and conditioned,
they manifest themselves only under conditions. Yet they compel
us to believe that they are supreme, and that in their triumph the
divine omnipotence declares itself. Through them we do not
prove the Absolute, we find it.
Our examination of the first idea of the reason ends here. We
have considered it in the four forms in which it is manifested:
as unity in time, as unity in space, as ideal unity or omniscience,
as dynamic unity or omnipotence. Each of these forms of the
first idea of the reason has been found to require that the absolute
principle of which it is a manifestation shall be a conscious or
spiritual presence. Whatever the direction in which unity is
manifested, it appears always as a form of spiritual being. We
have reached the position, therefore, where the word spiritual
can be substituted for the word supernatural in the third definition
of religion,1 and we have, as the fourth definition, Religion is
A FEELING TOWARD A SPIRITUAL PRESENCE, MANIFESTING ITSELF
IN TRUTH, GOODNESS AND BEAUTY.
i Pages 1, 9, 15.
CHAPTER VII.
ABSOLUTE BEING, AS A SPIRITUAL PKESENCE, IN RELATION TO
THE SECOND IDEA OF THE REASON.
We have now to consider this spiritual presence in relation to
the second idea of the reason, goodness. We have not yet to do
with the problem of evil, the difficulty of reconciling the existence
of evil in the world with the conception of absolute goodness.
That is something which must be considered later.1 The question
here is as to the form under which absolute goodness is to be rep-
resented.
Goodness, we say, is a manifestation of Absolute Being. We
may say with Schleiermacher that God is good because he is the
author of goodness, the source of the moral law. But this is not
enough. The religious feeling requires not only that there shall
be a power behind goodness as its author, but that this power
shall itself be good, and worthy to be worshipped because of its
goodness. Is it possible, however, to conceive of Absolute Being
as itself good ? If we think of God as the author of goodness, and
of goodness as dependent upon the will of God, then God himself
is behind and above goodness, and the term "good" as applied
to him has no meaning. If on the other hand we begin by applying
to God the term "good," do we not imply the measurement of
God by some standard of righteousness that is external and su-
perior to him ? The argument that this standard is not external
but is involved in the nature of God, that his being embodies the
moral law, offers only a verbal escape. The real difficulty remains.
It is an antinomy similar to that which is found in the nature of the
moral law itself.2 Is goodness right because it is right, or is there
a reason why it is right ? If there is a reason, then there must be
i Page 239. 2 C. C. Everett, The Science of Thought, pp. 209-221.
ABSOLUTE BEING AND GOODNESS 51
something higher and better than righteousness. If there is no
reason, then righteousness is something arbitrary and unreason-
able. According to Kant, nothing is higher than goodness. It
is absolute and categorical. But, if this is so, goodness claims an
authority for which it can show no reason. According to the
Utilitarians, on the other hand, goodness exists for the sake of
happiness. Then there is something more authoritative than
goodness.
The real solution of the difficulty is found only as morality is
seen to be not the highest form of goodness. It is true that good-
ness is used in the sense of conformity to the moral law. But
goodness in this sense is only a step in the transition to something
higher. Beneath the moral law is a principle of which the moral
law is only an imperfect manifestation, the principle of love.
The man who does right simply because it is right is not yet the
perfect man. The perfect man will do all the things which ought
to be done because these are just the things which he desires to do.
As husband and father, for instance, he works to support his wife
and children, not because it is his duty but because he finds in
caring for them his greatest happiness. Duty has its own peculiar
majesty in the enlargement which it brings to a man's life. But
in love the man himself is manifested. The moral law can only
attempt to do imperfectly what love without the law does per-
fectly. The moral law impels toward love those who have not
yet risen to the higher form of goodness, and it stands ready to
meet and restrain any who may have fallen from that higher
plane; in Paul's phrase, it is the schoolmaster, the tutor, by whom
men are led to love.1 But love is the fulfilment of the law.2 The
person who simply obeys the moral law is conscious of duty. He
is conscious either that there is something which he ought to do, or
that he has done something which ought to have been done.
But love is unconscious of duty. Furthermore, when we see a
thing done in love we do not merely approve as when some duty
has been performed. We rejoice in it.3 A child does not measure
1 Galatians, iii, 24-25. 2 Romans, xiii, 10.
3 Horace Bushnell, Work and Play.
58 ABSOLUTE BEING AND GOODNESS
his father by some standard of goodness and approve of him.
He simply loves his father and rejoices in him, and similarly the
father does not approve of the child who is living the normal life
of childhood, but loves him and delights in him. Now, if we
say that " God is love,"1 we pass beyond the difficulties which are
involved in the question as to the goodness of God. In one of
the phrases of the creed of Mogilas God is said to be "good and
more than good."2 Whatever may have been in the mind of
Mogilas, we have certainly found a sense in which God is more
than good. It is a philosophical definition, also, that is given in
these words of the New Testament. For when we say that God
is love, we are only saying in another form that God is that spirit-
ual unity of the universe in and through whom all things consist.
For this unity implies that all the elements of the universe are in
some way bound together, and the recognition of this relation
takes form in the feeling of love. In love it is as though the bond
by which all things are united became luminous, and presented
itself to our consciousness not as a mechanical tie but as a life-
giving relation.
Are we to conceive of the divine love as infinite ? Yes and no.
As I have already pointed out,3 it is a question of terms. If the
term is regarded quantitatively, we may speak of the divine love
as infinite, meaning by this that all being is included in it. But
if the term is regarded qualitatively, intensively, we must use the
term "perfect" rather than "infinite." For something besides
absolute surrender is essential to the true balance of love. There
must be self-relation as well as sacrifice. The person who loves
may not give himself up wholly to the person loved. When a
mother effaces herself in her love for her child, the child may take
the mother's love as a matter of course and become selfish; his
nature may become less fully rounded and complete. If the child
is to love the mother in return, it is not enough that the mother
shall be lovable, but she must also maintain in its strength
her own personality. Lovableness and strength of personality,
i John, iv, 8. 2 Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, Vol. II, p. 281.
3 Page 51.
ABSOLUTE BEING AND GOODNESS 59
both of these must be present to make the relations of love as
nearly perfect as possible. Where either element is in some
degree wanting, love is given more often where strength of per-
sonality is present with less of lovableness than where lovable-
ness is found without strength of personality. It is this which
explains the hero worship frequently given to men whose lives
are essentially selfish. In perfect love, however, the' life preserves
its own centre at the same time that it finds this centre in the
life of another, and it is this perfect love which we attribute to
God. If we were to conceive of the divine love as infinite, meaning
by infinite that the divine self-surrender was absolute, we should
have simply pantheism, the loss of God in the universe.
The term " infinite," however, may be applied to the divine love,
when it is considered in relation to other attributes of Absolute
Being, in the sense that it is not limited by other attributes. Love
and justice, for instance, have sometimes been represented dra-
matically as opposed to each other, love pleading against justice.
It is thus that Calvinism has asserted the absolute justice of God,
and Universalism has emphasized the supremacy of love. But
love and justice, far from limiting each other, complete and imply
each the other. Justice is essential to perfect love, as love is
essential to perfect justice. The justice of a mother in dealing
with her children is not in contradiction to her love for them.
CHAPTER VIII.
ABSOLUTE BEING, AS A SPIRITUAL PRESENCE, IN RELATION TO
THE THIRD IDEA OF THE REASON: THE DIVINE GLORT,
THE DIVINE ASEITY, THE DIVINE BLESSEDNESS. — THE
TERMS " INFINITE " AND " PERFECT."
The last of the three forms in which, if our definition is correct,
the spiritual presence in the universe manifests itself, is the third
idea of the reason, beauty. It is an element which has been too
much left out of account by many theologians. They have been
inclined to approach religion either philosophically, basing their
study on the thought of unity, or ethically, with goodness as their
starting-point. Yet pure devotion, the joy of religion in the con-
templation of the object of its worship, manifests itself especially
in beauty, and to disregard beauty is to neglect one of the most
important elements in religion.
We have to ask, therefore, what assistance will the consideration
of beauty afford toward further knowledge of the spiritual presence
which is the object of religious feeling ? Schleiermacher did not
raise this question, but just as he says of God that he is good
because he is the source of goodness, so he would probably have
said that God is beautiful in that all beauty proceeds from him.
But we must go further than this. And first of all we may say
that beauty is obviously the manifestation of the glory of God.
This term " glory of God " has often been misunderstood and to
many is repellent. It suggests to them the splendor of an earthly
sovereign, and as we should condemn such a sovereign if he were
to make the magnificence of his reign his first aim, so to say that
" the chief end of man is to glorify God," or to represent God as
seeking to be glorified, seems to imply a self -absorption in the
divine nature. This objection, however, is no longer felt when
we think of the definition of beauty. For beauty is the idealiza-
THE DIVINE GLORY 61
tion of the actual, the manifestation of the ideal in the real.1
The glory of God, therefore, is the self-manifestation of the
divine nature regarded as the sum of all ideals. It is not some-
thing added to the divine nature from without, a halo, as it were,
given to God as to a saint. It is the outpouring from within of
the divine nature itself, God's very being. Here is seen the rela-
tion to one another of truth and goodness and beauty under a
more concrete form. For if the ideal which is embodied in
nature is the unity of the world, then beauty as the manifestation
of that ideal is the manifestation of truth and goodness.
Where the divine nature is conceived merely as abstract unity
there can be, of course, no self-manifestation, no outpouring of
the divine nature, no glory of God. Thus there was no glory of
Brahma, there was only Brahma. Brahma did not manifest him-
self in outward things, for outward things were an illusion to be
escaped. There was therefore no irradiation from him. He
was like a sun shorn of its beams. When, however, as in
Christian thought, the divine nature is conceived as self-mani-
festing, we see how it may be said that the chief end of man is
to glorify God. For man glorifies God by filling the place in
the universe which he is set to fill. As the heavens declare
the glory of God by filling their place, manifesting the vast-
ness and majesty of their ordered movement, so man glorifies
God in proportion as he manifests most clearly and com-
pletely his own true nature. In this manifestation of self
there is self-surrender, not, as in Brahmanism, the effacement of
self in which the worshipper gives himself up to abstract being,
but the surrender to all that is best in life in the concrete, the sur-
render to high aims and noble activities, that surrender of self
which is the fulfilment of self. This thought that man glorifies
God by filling his place in the universe involves a further step.
For we must ask, what is man's place ? It is different from that
of any other created thing in that man alone can recognize the
source from which he comes. In this consciousness of his own
spiritual nature man's place is to recognize and reflect the divine
i The Science of Thought, pp. 153-164.
62 THE DIVINE ASEITY
life which is embodied in him, and as he fills this place his life
becomes the highest manifestation on earth of the divine life. For
in the recognition of the relation between his own nature and the
divine nature man rounds out the circle of being with the return
of life to that which is its source.
Again, beauty helps us to apprehend the spiritual presence in
the universe, in that it suggests the divine aseity, the self-depend-
ence and self-completeness of Absolute Being. For this self-
completeness and self-dependence are found in beauty. Beauty
exists, not like duty, for some service, but simply for itself. It
is "its own excuse for being."1 Further, in the enjoyment of
beauty the mind is lifted out of anxieties and conflicts, and there
comes a sense of peace. This is especially true of the contempla-
tion of nature, for, to use Emerson's words again, " nature will
not have us fret and fume. . . . When we come out of the caucus,
or the bank, or the Abolition-convention, or the Temperance-
meeting, or the Transcendental club into the fields and woods,
she says to us, 'So hot, my little Sir?'"2 Nor is this peace found
in the contemplation of nature merely in her gentler aspects. For
there is beauty in everything in nature in its place, and even the
wildness of the tempest not only is beautiful, but, if once we can
escape the terror of it, is seen by us to be beautiful, and thus its
very tumult brings inward calm.
Furthermore, the divine self-completeness and peace imply a
divine blessedness. In almost all religions happiness, in one form
or another, has been associated with the thought of the divine life.
Sometimes, as in the philosophy of Epicurus, it is the distinguish-
ing attribute of the gods. They are conceived as existing chiefly
because the craving of human hearts must be satisfied which
demands that somewhere there shall be perfect happiness. They
are happy because they are remote from earth and untouched by
any responsibility or care for human interests. Akin to this is
the happiness suggested by Homer's " inextinguishable laughter "
of the gods.3 For the sense of the comic implies remoteness from
1 Emerson, The Rhodora. 2 Spiritual Laws.
3 The Iliad, I, 599, 600.
THE DIVINE BLESSEDNESS 63
the reality of the relations of life.1 Nothing is so tragic that it
mar not appear comic to those who look only at the outward
form of some relation and disregard its substance. The concep-
tion of the gods as remote from human interests is of course in-
complete and low. But the happiness which is ascribed to divine
life in these lower forms of religion is conceived on a higher plane
in the higher forms of religion. The blessedness of God in Chris-
tian thought does not imply remoteness from human relations
or indifference to their reality, but only the freedom arising from
the self-completeness of the divine nature.
It may be asked whether there is not a certain irony in this
thought of celestial joy and peace brooding over and above the
suffering and misery of the world. Does it not make a breach
between the divine and the human ? But such a thought dishonors
human nature. It may be that in some great affliction the peace
of nature seems a mockery, and that at such times men have the
"contempt of the landscape" of which Emerson speaks,2 or ask
with him why some angel from
"the host
That loiters round the crystal coast"
might not have stooped to prevent the loss.3 But feeling of this
sort is usually transient, coming in seasons of weakness, before
the mind has recovered from the shock of grief or pain. It passes
away as strength returns, and is not found as a universal and
permanent element in human nature. Nature herself tends to
conquer it, and to draw the soul into new sympathy with her
deeper and more significant aspects.
There is nowadays a certain discontent which leads men to
cry out against any happiness in which they do not share. It
springs from various sources. There is demagogism, which
flourishes in discontent and naturally works to create it. There
is philanthropy, which, in aiming at the relief of suffering, at the
same time causes men to become more keenly conscious of the
i C. C. Everett, Poetry, Comedy and Duty, pp. 187-190.
2 Nature. 3 Threnody.
64 THE DIVINE BLESSEDNESS
existence of suffering. There are the newspapers and the various
other agencies by which men are brought into closer touch with
one another, so that the poorer see just what are the enjoyments
and the character and disposition of the richer. Finally, there
is the general movement of democracy by which everything, so
to speak, is brought within the possible reach of everybody; we
do not envy men powers or benefits which are beyond our reach ;
it is in the thought of benefits which might be ours but are not
that we become dissatisfied. Still, although the existence of dis-
content must be recognized, to hold that discontent is general
would be to travesty human nature. The tendency always has
been to enjoy whatever is higher or more beautiful than one's own
immediate possessions or surroundings. The happiness of the
crowds of people who go out from Boston on a fine Sunday after-
noon in winter to see the driving on the Brighton road, is only
one of the many illustrations that might be given of the inherent
unselfishness of human nature. As we look about us in the world
we wonder not that there is so much discontent but that there is
so little.
Furthermore, the thought of any breach between the divine and
the human because of divine blessedness not only is unjust to
human nature as it is, but fails wholly to recognize human nature
as it ought to be. It is quite true that to "rejoice with them that
rejoice" is hard, — -far harder than to "weep with them that weep."1
One can bear his own burden or his own loss or disappointment
until he sees another rejoicing in the freedom from such losses
or burdens. Then he realizes the full meaning of the command
and the difficulty in obeying it. Yet joy in the joy of others is
recognized as the culmination of the ideal life. Perhaps you
may recall the story of the lost soul that waited outside the gates
of heaven and watched the blessed as they entered. "Thank
God," she cried out at last, "thank God that there is a heaven,
though I may not enter it," and immediately, so the story goes,
she found herself within the gates. Human nature would feel
itself poorer if it could not picture to itself such unselfishness of
1 Romans, xii, 15.
THE DIVINE BLESSEDNESS 65
joy, and as the village would mourn if the great mansion which is
its pride were to burn or fall into decay, so life would lose for men
in beauty and dignity if the conception of divine blessedness in all
its completeness were to be taken from them. No doubt it is
difficult at first thought to give this conception definite form.
No one comprehends easily a satisfaction or joy which he has not
himself experienced. Men live in different worlds so far as
pleasures are concerned, and have little conception of the worlds
in which they do not live. They wonder that others can find
happiness in pursuits which are to them unattractive or wearisome.
The student absorbed in his work and the pleasure seeker think
each that the life of the other must be barren and joyless; Spencer
finds society a bore, and society finds Spencer tedious. So one
man goes to church and another to the theatre, and neither under-
stands the satisfaction of the other. The happiness of the child
is in receiving, and he does not yet know the joy of the father or
the mother in giving. In a similar way the divine blessedness
appears to be beyond our power to conceive or represent.
At this point, however, we need to ask what the difference is
between blessedness and happiness. We may not say with Spencer
that blessedness must be either happiness or unhappiness, for
another alternative might be open. Because hope is not fear,
it is not therefore courage. Yet although the form of his argu-
ment is faulty, Spencer is right in his conclusion that blessedness
is one kind of happiness. The question, therefore, takes another
form, and we ask, what is there in blessedness that distinguishes
it from the sort of happiness which is not blessedness ? For an
animal may be happy but not blessed; the people at a festival
may be very happy and yet not blessed; we may even speak of a
drunkard as happy, but we hardly call him blessed.
A certain element of pathos is sometimes associated with blessed-
ness as compared with happiness. Men speak of the dead as
"blessed," and the saints in glory are conceived as rejoicing in a
blessedness which they have attained through a double death,
the death of the body and the death to self. It is this death to
self which suggests, as we look more closely, the real distinction
66 THE DIVINE BLESSEDNESS
between blessedness and happiness. Happiness may be either
self-centred or self-surrendering, but only that happiness in which
there is some form of self-surrender can be called blessedness.
In other words, blessedness is found in and through love. For
the self-surrender that springs only from the sense of duty involves
no blessedness. It is true that in human relations love brings
with it sorrows, some of them among the greatest that men have
to bear. Our suffering in the sorrows and disappointments of
those whom we love; the anguish that follows upon the shattering
of an ideal, as when a son finds that his father is a swindler or
worse ; the pain of a love that calls forth no return of affection : —
it is such griefs as these that come frequently to those who love.
That is whv the highest blessedness has been more often found
in religion. For in the relation of the soul toward God these hin-
drances do not occur. The object of its love is permanent, and
the ideal to which it turns is one that cannot fail. Yet even in
human relations the very things which seem to stand in the way of
love only testify to its power and to the satisfaction that it brings.
" Pains of love be sweeter far
Than all other pleasures are"
we cry with Dryden, or, with Tennyson,
'"Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all."
Another element, however, besides love, enters into the highest
forms of happiness, — the element of activity. For there is always
happiness in any action in so far as it is action, and the higher the
form of the activity the higher the happiness that it brings. By
the higher forms of activity I mean those forms which are the
fullest and most intense, and which occupy the greatest portion of
our being, the intellectual activities rather than the animal, the
spiritual rather than the physical. Activity, then, and love, these
two elements, are essential to the highest happiness. In so far as
happiness has its source in love we may call it static ; in so far as
it springs from activity it may be called dynamic. It is true that
THE DIVINE BLESSEDNESS 67
in a certain sense love may be regarded as activity. Yet it is
rather a feeling that accompanies activity.
If now we turn to the thought of God, we find that these two
conditions of blessedness, as applied to the conception of the
divine nature, suggest at least no a priori difficulties. The school-
men were in the habit of speaking of God as actus purus, pure
activity. So far as we can attach a meaning to the phrase, and so
far as we can accept it as representing the truth, we must attribute
to such a being the highest blessedness. At least we can conceive
to some extent the fulness of satisfaction in a divine activity which
creates its own environment absolutely, controlling not only the
form but the reality of things, as compared with the human
creative activity which can make for itself only the form of its
environment. On the static side, also, the divine blessedness
may be conceived as free from the limitations which hinder com-
plete human happiness. For the divine love would be one with
the divine knowledge, and in the absolute survey of present and
future all temporary discords would be taken up into the final
harmony. If we take this view of divine blessedness as arising
from perfect activity and perfect love, the objection which we
have been considering may be regarded as done away with, at
least in theory. The thought of divine blessedness, so far from
being an element of separation between the divine and the hu-
man, is found to bring them more closely together.
Of course there are a host of practical difficulties. Thus the
presence of evil in the world at once raises the question whether
even temporary suffering may not disturb the divine blessedness,
and if the suffering is regarded not as temporary but as continuous,
the difficulty becomes more intense. It is true that the father who
has to hold his child during some painful operation may be full
of joy in the knowledge that the operation is to free the child from
deformity or disease. Yet for the time being he must feel for
the child in his pain and must suffer with him. Such difficulties,
however, belong to the practical sphere which as yet we have not
entered. We may find that they cannot be removed, or that we
can come no nearer to their removal than the suggestion which is
68 THE TERMS INFINITE AND PERFECT
conveyed in illustrations like the one that I have just used. But
we are considering now not the practical but the ideal difficulties,
the objections which are raised by those who assert that Absolute
Being is unthinkable, and that any attempt to conceive it involves
contradiction, especially the attempt to associate with it any
spiritual qualities or attributes. We are trying to show not only
that Absolute Being is thinkable, but that the conception of God
as a spiritual presence is one to which reason itself would lead us.
In meeting thus upon their own ground those who object to the
possibility of such a conception of God, we may at least clear the
way and leave the religious feeling free to follow its own instincts.
In concluding this examination I wish to speak once more of
the distinction between the terms "infinite" and "perfect." We
have already had to ask once or twice which term should be used.1
The question would be of little importance if it were not for the
difficulties which arise from the use of the term "infinite." Thus
a definition of God that has been commonly given describes him
as a perfect being with infinite attributes. My own definition
would be precisely the opposite of this. I should describe God as
an infinite being with perfect attributes. The infinite nature of
Absolute Being I have already discussed at length in these lectures.
The question as to the use of the terms " infinite " and " perfect "
as applied to the attributes of God I have considered in the Science
of Thought in what I have there had to say in regard to "Limit."2
The principle which I wish to emphasize is that all qualities are
limited, and that if any quality is too much extended it tends
to change its nature, and often, if not always, to pass over into its
opposite. At least it loses itself as soon as it passes beyond a
certain point which forms its limit. In saying this, I refer, of
course, to the quality as considered generically and not as taken
by itself. For the very fact that we speak of the quality as ex-
tended beyond a certain point, implies that the quality has not
changed its real, that is its primary, nature. I may illustrate
this from Aristotle's theory of virtue as a mean. According to
this theory, generosity if pushed too far becomes extravagance
i Pages 51, 58. 2 The Science of Thought, pp. 37-41.
THE TERMS INFINITE AND PERFECT 69
or prodigality, economy becomes meanness. In each case the
virtue, when extended beyond a certain point, tends to pass over
into its opposite and become a vice. Yet the qualities retain their
primary nature; both generosity and prodigality are giving, and
both economy and meanness are saving.
By its very nature quality is a partial manifestation. So long as
Being is conceived as unbroken and without manifestation it has
no qualities. Qualities appear only as Being is manifested under
various forms. Thus in the physical realm, a world of unbroken
light would be undistinguishable from a world of darkness. I do
not wish to push this sort of illustration too far, but can we conceive
of anything as absolutely hard ? And how is it in regard to the
terms " high " and " low " ? We may start with the thought of
height, but as we ascend do we not reach a point at which the
term becomes meaningless ? It appears to me to be one of the
fundamental principles of thought that quality implies limit, and
if this is so, then the attributes of God, as in a certain sense quali-
ties, involve severally the idea of perfection rather than the idea
of infinitude. Of course we have to bear in mind always that
we are obliged to look at the subject from our own standpoint.
We break up the divine nature in our analysis and separate quality
from quality, just as in analyzing our own natures we have to
break them up and separate their qualities. In human life one
part of the environment calls forth one feeling and another part
another feeling, or the same part of the environment may call forth
two or more different feelings. But there is no a 'priori reason why
qualities should thus exclude one another, and in our thought of
God we may conceive of all these elements which we have sep-
arated and set over against one another as in reality one.
CHAPTER IX.
THE A PRIORI ARGUMENT. — THE ARGUMENT FROM ATTRIBUTES:
SAMUEL CLARKE. THE ARGUMENT FROM DEFINITION: ANSELM :
THE DEFINITION OF PERFECTION. — THE ARGUMENT FROM
THE NATURE OF THE DIVINE BEING: SPINOZA. — THE ARGU-
MENT FROM THE NATURE OF MAN'S APPREHENSION OF THE
DIVINE BEING: DESCARTES.
Thus far we have considered the objects of our study wholly
from the theoretical or ideal point of view. We have asked, not
what is true, but what may be true, not what can we know, but
what can we conceive. Before we leave this part of the discussion
we have still to examine the so-called a priori argument for the
existence and nature of God.
What, then, is the nature of this argument ? It involves some-
thing absolutely given in thought. It reasons, not from some re-
sult that has been reached through previous processes, but from
something which is bound up with the mind itself. For example,
the law of contradiction is accepted by the mind without question;
the mind does not attempt to prove it, but simply rejects whatever
is contrary to it. Now to some the idea of God has appeared to
be one of these fundamental principles of thought. They have
held that man is so constituted that he necessarily believes in God.
As we examine this position, however, we find that the idea of
God is very concrete, the most concrete, indeed, that we have.
For the concreteness of anything depends upon the extent to which
it is related, and our idea of God is that of a being that is related
to everything in the universe. Yet if this concrete idea of God
can be separated into its elements, then there is room for the
a priori argument. For we find that these elements are the funda-
mental principles of man's spiritual nature and that from them
THE ARGUMENT FROM ATTRIBUTES 71
we can proceed to the one great idea in which they all have their
place. Furthermore, even if the idea of God is regarded as given
outright, it may still be considered in relation to other matters of
belief in such a way as to bring the belief in the existence of God
into prominence and reality. In making this examination I shall
follow the method which I have used before and shall consider first
of all some of the views that have been held, with such criticism
upon them as they may suggest. I shall not undertake, however,
to give a complete history of the matter, but only to present those
forms of thought which are likely to prove most helpful.
Four methods of the a priori argument, as applied to the divine
nature, are historically important, — the argument from attributes,
the argument from definition, the argument from the nature of
the divine being, and the argument from the nature of our appre-
hension of the divine being. At first thought, the second and
third forms may seem to cover each other, but as we come to dis-
cuss them we shall see the difference between them, and the
necessity for making the distinction. The first of the four methods,
the argument from atti-ibutes, is of little importance except for
its historical interest. As used by Dr. Samuel Clarke in his
Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God, it was one of the
earliest attempts in English theology to introduce the higher meth-
ods of pure reason already current in German thought. It consti-
tuted only a small part of Dr. Clarke's discussion as a whole, but
it is the part which has been regarded as distinguishing his entire
treatment. The argument is of this kind : Eternity and infinite
space are not entities. Yet we recognize them as existing; they
are ideas from which we cannot free our minds. If they are not
entities, then they must be attributes. But as attributes they
cannot have an independent existence; they force upon our
belief the existence of a being who is eternal and omnipresent, and
who must be independent, immutable and self-existent. In in-
sisting upon these qualities of independence and immutability
and self-existence Dr. Clarke occupies common ground with other
philosophical writers. When, however, he proceeds to affirm
that this infinite subject must also be intelligent and good and so
72 THE ARGUMENT FROM DEFINITION
on, he abandons the a 'priori argument and enters the field of a
posteriori argument. Thus he reasons from the nature of the
world which is dependent upon the infinite cause that this cause
must be intelligent. Dr. Clarke's argument had a certain plausi-
bility. But he confounded eternity with duration, and infinitude
in space with extension. Strictly speaking, infinitude in time or
in space is rather an a priori possibility than an actuality. It is
neither an entity nor an attribute. All must recognize the necessity
of the idea of eternal existence, but this ought not to be confounded
with the idea of something which has existed eternally. We have
no doubt that there is something which has existed thus eternally.
But our assumption rests, not upon the idea of an attribute which
implies some entity, the thought of an eternity which must be
filled, but upon our recognition of the law of causation.
The second form of the a priori argument, that from definition,
is the famous argument of Anselm. It is given in his Proslogion1
and is also stated by Descartes in his fifth Meditation. In an earlier
treatise Anselm had shown the necessity of assuming the existence
of a greatest or most perfect being, but he had come to feel the
need of some shorter argument, sharp and decisive, which should
carry conviction to all thought. After long meditation he arrived
at this statement: We have the idea of a greatest being; but this
idea involves the idea of existence, because if this being did not
exist, and another being that possessed the same attributes did
exist, this second being would be greater than the first; therefore
our idea of the greatest being involves the idea of the existence of
that being; therefore the greatest being exists. To put the argu-
ment in another form, just as the idea of a circle involves the idea
of arcs, so the idea of the greatest being involves the existence of
that being. In the argument as stated by Descartes, Anselm's
phrase, " greatest being, " is replaced by the phrase, " most perfect
being."
The argument was conceived and accepted in good faith. In
Anselm's own day it was opposed by a monk, Gaunilo, whose
argument is given in Anselm's works together with the reply of
1 Sancti Anselmi Opera, 2d ed. Gerberon, p. 29.
THE DEFINITION OF PERFECTION 73
Anselm.1 But it held its own until Kant made clear the fallacy
which it contained.2 Since then it has not been used except as
the Hegelian school have attempted to rehabilitate it in a modified
form in line with Hegel's position as to the close relation between
thought and being. The flaw in the argument is so obvious that
I hardly know how to point it out. It consists in the use of the
term " existence " in two senses, ideal existence and real existence.
The idea of the most perfect being of course involves the idea of
the existence of that being, but it does not follow that the being
really exists. If a circle exists, its parts must have certain rela-
tions to one another. But because in the idea of a circle all points
in the circumference must be conceived as equidistant from the
centre, it does not follow that the circle itself exists.
The question may arise here whether the idea of perfection does
not imply a reference to some external standard. Some have held
that it does, and that therefore the term "perfect" cannot be
applied either to God or to the attributes of God. This term,
however, is used in three senses. It is true that the difference
between them is one of degree rather than of kind. Still it is so
great that practically the three uses may be regarded as distinct.
First, the term is used of that which conforms to some recognized
outward standard. The idea of perfection in this sense is more
or less conventional. Thus we speak of perfect manners or per-
fect gentlemen, but there is one standard of perfect manners in
China and another in France. Again, the florist calls a flower
perfect because it has the form and color which have come to be
regarded as the standard. It is evident that this conventional
idea of perfection cannot in any way relate to God.
In the second sense of the term a thing is regarded as perfect
of its kind. This use may in part run into the first use. Yet
the two are distinct, in that the standard in the first use is deter-
mined by convention, whereas in the second use the standard has
been reached through observation. Thus a spider is said to be
1 Opera, p. 35.
2 Critique of Pure Reason, Trans, of F. Max Miiller, Vol. I, p. 131.
74 THE DEFINITION OF PERFECTION
perfect because it is a complete exemplification of its species.
According to this use a flower is considered perfect, not, as before,
when it conforms to some outward standard of form or color,
but when it contains all the parts of the class which it represents.
If one passes beyond such concrete examples into a more abstract
realm, further instances appear of this sort of perfection. Thus
a perfect color is one in which there is no admixture of anything
else. In this second use of the term, although nothing that is
conventional is involved, there is much that is accidental. For
instance, if processes of development are going on, the types may
change ; the perfect horse of one generation may be a little different
from the perfect horse of another, as1 this or that quality is devel-
oped.
Finally there is the ideal perfection. Here again, this third use
of the term may seem to overlap the second use, as the second
appeared at first sight to overlap the first. But as the second was
found to be distinct from the first, so the third use is similarly
distinct. For different forms of being are the expressions or mani-
festations of certain conceptions of ideal relations. Thus all
animals represent the idea of life. Now we may observe what
is essential to perfection in a certain class of animals through the
study of a number of specimens of that class, reaching our con-
clusions wholly through a posteriori processes. But the idea of
perfection that we have arrived at in this way may also be gained
to a large extent through an a priori method. For we know what
is essential to the manifestation of life, and we know under what
forms life is most perfectly manifested. Thus the idea of life
involves activity, and therefore in proportion as activity is free or
impeded, in so far life is manifested in greater or in less degree.
The idea of life carries with it its own standard, and as the idea
of life rises the standard of the perfection of life also rises. As
higher and higher standards are conceived, as higher and higher
regions of abstraction are entered, we reach at last the conception
of perfect being in which all the conditions that are involved in
the complete manifestation of ideal life are fulfilled most absolutely.
Thus the idea of perfect being implies independence, self -existence
THE IDEA OF NECESSARY BEING 75
and other similar attributes. For any form of existence which
depends in part upon some other form is necessarily less full and
real than that form which has its being solely in and through itself.
We rarely find a perfect crystal, because the crystal is so far de-
pendent upon the rock behind it that when it is broken off one end
of the crystal is left rough and undeveloped. All dependent being
is like this broken crystal. When we try to take it by itself, we
come upon the ragged edge which marks its dependence upon
something else. We cannot find perfect being until we reach a
perfect being, that is, a being which we can consider from any
point of view and find always wholly complete. Therefore the
idea of perfect being is not conventional, and the standard which
is applied is not external and artificial but is involved in the very
idea of being.
The third form of the a priori argument is based upon the
idea of necessary being. It differs from the second form, the ar-
gument from definition, in this respect, that whereas in the
argument from definition existence was a deduction from the
definition of the most perfect being, this third form of the argu-
ment recognizes the necessity of existence not in any attribute of
being but in being itself. In his treatment of this argument x
Spinoza is guilty of a curious fallacy. At first he reasons that,
since the "substance" of which he speaks exists and always has
existed it must exist by some necessity within itself, but later
he changes his point of view and states that it exists because it
must necessarily exist. According to Spinoza, the idea of neces-
sary existence involves the idea that the being which necessarily
exists is its own cause, "causa sui." This expression has been
much criticised, but somewhat fallaciously and from a point of
view quite foreign to the thought which Spinoza intended to
convey. For if we inquire as to the existence of any finite thing,
we are at once referred to something which was the cause of its
existence, and as we continue to inquire we recognize either that
there is an endless chain of causation, and therefore no real cause,
or else that there is something which has no cause. If it has no
1 Ethica, Pars I.
76 THE IDEA OF NECESSARY BEING
cause, says Spinoza, it must be its own cause. Of course the op-
portunity offers here for a more subtle form of criticism. If a
thing has always existed, why speak of it as caused at all ? Why
not say of it simply that it exists ? There is a certain justice in
such criticism. Yet if we look at the question from a different
point of view, we may regard existence at any one moment as the
outcome of that existence in a previous moment. Thus the uni-
verse as it is at the present moment may be said to have for its
cause the form in which it existed the moment before, and sim-
ilarly, if we say that being exists now because it always has ex-
isted, and that its existence at any moment is dependent upon its
preceding existence, then in this sense we may speak of being as
perpetually the cause of itself, and thus a very real significance
attaches to the phrase "causa sui."
In this discussion in regard to necessary being we must dis-
criminate between the two aspects in which necessary being may
be considered. In the first aspect the idea of necessary being is
approached from the idea of dependent being. Everything as we
see it seems to be dependent upon something else, and therefore
if there is any absolute being it must be something which is not
thus dependent, but which is, in Spinoza's phrase, its own cause.
In the second aspect necessary being is conceived as that form
of being which carries the necessity of its own existence within
itself. Although these two forms of thought are distinct from
each other, they are often confounded. Furthermore, the second
form has been pushed too far. It is urged that nothing has neces-
sary existence which we can imagine not to exist, but of all the
finite things about us there is nothing which we cannot imagine
not to exist. It is doubtful, however, whether this is so. For
when we think of ourselves or of trees or houses as not existing, we
do not think of the elements of which we or the objects around us
are constituted as not existing; we think of them only as entering
into other combinations. Indeed, Spencer insists that he proves
the permanence of matter and force by a priori reasoning, and that
it grows out of the necessity of thought.1 We cannot think of
i First Principles, Part II, Chaps. I V-VI.
nwi d~M <!■■ <i »' ~ ninn iijh imMi m ■■■— m— m^i mi n i i ■ war i < tiiifrfili
THE IDEA OF NECESSARY BEING 77
the universe without thinking of those elements of which the
universe is composed as existing permanently through all changes.
It may sound the opposite of paradoxical to say that we cannot
think of anything without thinking of something. But there must
be a basis for our thought which we cannot think away, and the
elements of thought which cannot be thought away are the elements
which we have just recognized as those of which the universe is
constituted.
In all this, however, we have not reached the idea of a being
that must exist because of its very nature. We have reached
only the ground that, given the universe, there must be something
that underlies the universe, that given dependence there must
be independence. Further than this we cannot go. Any con-
ception of a form of being which shall be seen to carry within
itself the necessity of its existence we cannot reach. We may with
Spinoza reach the thought that independent being must have
the necessity of existence within itself, but we cannot say with
him that therefore independent being exists.
Of the two aspects of necessary being, the first is reached by a
method allied to the a posteriori argument, whereas the approach
to the second professes to be more purely a priori. In the one case
we start with the fact that the existence of all beings which we
can observe is a dependent existence. We cannot help feeling
that if there is any real being behind the mere appearance of being,
this real being must be independent, existing in and through it-
self alone. This is a form of a posteriori argument, for we ap-
proach the idea which we are seeking from facts which we have
observed. Kant, it is true, considers this appearance of the
a posteriori element in the argument wholly fallacious, and holds
that the only thing which really has weight with us is the neces-
sity that we feel in our own minds of recognizing some indepen-
dent or absolute being.1 The fact remains, however, that this
approach to the conception of absolute or necessary being under
the first aspect is from the a posteriori side, and that we fol-
low the a priori method only when from the very nature of
1 Critique of Pure Reason, Vol. I, p. 364.
78 THE IDEA OF NECESSARY BEING
the being that we conceive we conclude that it must be necessary
being.
Let me state the two affirmations in still another form. Under
the first aspect, given the universe of dependent things, we cannot
help believing in the existence of being that is absolutely inde-
pendent; recognizing that the things which we see are caused, we
cannot help believing in that which is "causa sui." Under the
second aspect, if we leave out of account the universe of depend-
ent things, we cannot help believing that there is a being which
is seen to involve the necessity of its own existence within itself.
In the one case this absolute being is seen to be necessary because
of its relation to dependent being. In the other case it is held
to be necessary considered in itself. The nature of the necessity
in the second case I cannot in any way attempt to explain, for the
position is one the reasonableness of which I do not understand.
I cannot conceive of any being which can be regarded as neces-
sary except under the first aspect, that is, except as the approach
to it is made from the world of dependent being.
In summing up this discussion we may assume that there are
two points in regard to which all would agree. First, something
must have existed eternally, and, second, that which has existed
eternally cannot be merely a series of existences but must be some-
thing permanent. In other words, not merely must something
have existed eternally but the same thing must have existed. For
if that which is produced is dependent, it must be dependent upon
something, and this something must be that which eternally exists.
If, on the other hand, we regard that which is produced as inde-
pendent, we cannot conceive of it except as another form of that
which existed previously and produced it. That is, independence
can be produced only from independence, and through the com-
munication of its substance. To produce independence in any
other way would be to create something out of nothing, and this
again would contradict the law of causation. For the law of causa-
tion must be respected in both of its aspects, not only as regards
the efficient cause but also as regards the material cause.
I have said that on these two points all would agree. But
THE IDEA OF NECESSARY BEING 79
difference arises when we ask what it is that has existed thus
eternally. The materialists would say that it is the atoms, and
so far as any a priori necessity is concerned, this answer is satis-
factory. For here is a persistent substance or collection of sub-
stances which remains the same, and of which all the changes
which appear, all the variations in the forms of things, are only
modifications. In other words, here is independent eternal being,
with all things depending upon it. This satisfies the a priori
need of eternal being. According to this view, the changes, the
variations, which take place, are produced through unstable equi-
librium. There would be the question here as to what would
happen in case perfect equilibrium should be reached. But the
real difficulty in regard to this position arises when we come to
ask whether all that we find in the universe could be produced in
this way,— whether, for instance, spirit can be accounted for, and
all that pertains to spirit. This, however, is an a posteriori diffi-
culty, and does not greatly concern us here. The materialist
would say that the atoms are all that have existed eternally, the
spiritualist would say that spirit must have existed eternally. If
only one or the other can have existed eternally, must matter be
considered as dependent upon spirit, or is spirit to be considered
as dependent upon matter? If the reply is made that both may
have existed eternally, then may not one still be dependent upon
the other, and if so, must it not be assumed that the one upon
which the other is dependent is Absolute Being ? If, on the other
hand, it should be found that neither is dependent upon the other,
then there would be two principles existing eternally side by side.
But as I have just said, the a priori idea of necessary being cannot
take us further. For it is purely abstract; it is simply the idea of
being that is necessarily conceived or necessarily assumed. After
all, the necessity is one not of being but of thought. As Hume
says of causation in general,1 it is a subjective rather than an ob-
jective necessity. That is to say, the laws of thought are such
that we must necessarily assume the existence of a cause.
This brings us to the consideration of the fourth form of the
1 A Treatise of Human Nature, Book I, Part III, § III.
80 man's apprehension of the divine being
a priori argument in regard to the divine nature, namely, the
argument from the nature of our apprehension of the divine being.
It is here that Descartes enters with the famous formula, " Cogito,
ergo sum." There are three steps in the argument of Descartes,
two of which are a priori and the other a posteriori. First he
borrows from Anselm the argument from definition, substituting,
however, for Anselm's "greatest being" the term "most perfect
being." Next he tries to throw away all beliefs and to start afresh,
asking himself whether there is anything which he absolutely
believes, and, if so, in what respect this differs from the things
which are not absolutely believed. He finds that thought is
something which he cannot escape, something which he cannot
imagine not to exist. But thought implies a thinker, and so he
reaches the formula, " Cogito, ergo sum." When he proceeds
to ask what the mark is by which he recognizes this as absolutely
believed, he finds that it consists in the method of his apprehension.
That which he so absolutely believes is distinguished from that
which is not absolutely believed because he sees it so clearly and
distinctly. Clearness and distinctness of perception, therefore,
constitute the mark or test of that which must be believed. Then,
taking the third step in his argument, he looks about him to see
what else there is to which this mark can be applied. He arrives
at the thought of God. This again presents itself to him so clearly
and distinctly that he recognizes it as belonging in the same class
with the thought of his own existence.
It is a peculiarity of the a priori argument that it sees from the
beginning the point at which it is aiming. This peculiarity does
not necessarily affect the force of the argument. When, for in-
stance, the mathematician reaches a point in some long process
where the lines of inquiry divide, and selects that line which prom-
ises to lead him nearest to the point at which he is aiming, his
method is wholly legitimate. But if the nature of the argument is
affected by this consciousness of the desired end, the method is
not so legitimate. We cannot help thinking that when Descartes
stripped his mind of all belief and prepared to plunge into the
sea of absolute doubt, he knew in advance where he was to come
man's apprehension of the divine being 81
out. However, setting aside such surmises, what strikes us as
verv obvious is that the two things which he clearly and distinctly
sees do not stand upon precisely the same level. That is to say,
his belief in his own existence and his belief in the existence of
God seem not to have offered themselves to his mind through the
same method of apprehension. We infer this from the fact that
when he made the search for something that was indisputably
believed, it was his own existence which first offered itself, and it
was after he had planted himself on this belief and looked about
him to see if there were anything else which was equally indis-
putable that he found the belief in God. If the belief in his
own existence and his belief in God had stood in exactly the same
relation to his thought in this respect, one would suppose that
they would have offered themselves to his mind together, or even
that the belief in God might have offered itself first. But we can-
not conceive that Descartes might first have reached his belief
in God and then the belief in his own existence. Even if we
grant that both beliefs may have stood in the same relation to his
thought, and that the belief in his own existence offered itself
first, not because it was more clearly seen, but only because it was
nearer to him, still the impression remains that it was the belief in
his own existence which offered itself as most certainly indisputable.
The phrase of Descartes, "clearly and distinctly seen," finds
illustration in the "adequate conception" of Spinoza. By an
adequate conception Spinoza means, not a conception that is com-
plete and does full justice to its object, but one which sees a thing
in its necessity. For example, we know that an eclipse is to take
place because the astronomer tells us so, but we do not have an
adequate conception of it. The astronomer has a more adequate
conception, although his conception is not complete. It is doubt-
ful, however, whether Descartes had elaborated his thought to
the degree of distinctness conveyed in Spinoza's phrase, and Hume
perhaps represents him more nearly, although in a ruder way,
when he defines belief as the lively, forcible, firm and steady
conception of a thing.1 It is easy to see that this definition of
i A Treatise of Human Nature, Book I, Part III, § VII.
82 man's appkehension of the divine being
Hume's cannot be completely accepted. For we may often have
a lively conception of a thing without believing in it. Thus a
man may have met with an accident in driving, and when he
plans to drive again it is quite possible that he may have a " lively,
forcible, firm and steady" idea of an accident, — so lively and
steady, indeed, that whether he drives again or not, he cannot get
rid of it.
If you ask what tests of belief I have to offer if these are set
aside, I must reply frankly that I have none. Belief is something
by itself. It cannot be explained, or expressed in other terms.
We believe what we believe, and the only test of belief that can
be applied to that which claims to be an object of absolute belief
is whether or no we can help believing it. Probably nothing more
than this was involved in the formula of Descartes, and we may
imagine him as thinking, "I cannot help believing that existence
and thought must go together; if there is thought, there must be
existence; cogito, ergo sum." We may criticise the argument of
Descartes, but his thought marks an era in a priori argument
For he transfers the ground of argument from the external to the
internal world, from the objective to the subjective. The definite
results that he obtained amount to little at the present time, but
he opened the way of modern thought.
CHAPTER X.
POSITIVE DISCUSSION OF THE A PRIORI ARGUMENT. — THE ARGU-
MENT FROM UNIVERSALITY OF BELIEF. — THE A PRIORI ARGU-
MENT AS INVOLVED IN THE THREE IDEAS OF THE REASON.
In entering on the positive discussion of the c priori argument
we have to consider not necessity of being but necessity of thought.
What is it, then, which constitutes necessity of thought ? What
is there that we cannot help believing ?
There are two forms under which necessary thought may exist.
It may be simple and absolute, primary, or it may be something
which is seen to be involved in a primary belief and therefore is
secondary and dependent. According to the first form I say that
I cannot help believing this or that. Under the second form I
say that if I believe A then I must believe B and C. The second
form, furthermore, appears in two minor forms, — first, where the
dependent belief is a resultant from the primary belief, and second,
where the dependent belief is a postulate of the primary belief.
According to the first of these minor forms, if we assume that A
exists, then B must exist as a result of A. Under the second of
the minor forms, if we assume A, then we must assume B also;
for, in order that A may exist, B must also exist. In the one case
B exists because it is dependent upon A, while in the other case
B must exist because the existence of A is in some sense dependent
upon the existence of B.
The term "postulate" is sometimes used rather vaguely, and
therefore it is well to have in mind the distinct meaning which it
carries in this connection. All belief rests at bottom upon some
primary assumption. Strictly speaking, nothing can be proved.
All arguments imply something which must be taken for granted
without proof. No links in the chain may be wanting, but with-
84 THE UNIVERSALITY OF BELIEF
out the staple to which the chain itself is attached the chain is
powerless. Therefore argument is effective in proportion as it
brings a proposition into relation with some necessary belief.
This does not mean that the assumption of a belief as necessary
and fundamental is an argument with which to convince a doubter.
We may assert that the belief in the existence of God is innate
and universal, but this will not convince a man who does not
himself believe in God. We may use our assumption as an ex-
planation of the wide-spread belief in God, but not as an argument.
For if we were to say that just as we believe in the existence of
the outer world, although we cannot prove it, so by the same
necessity we believe in God, the man who doubts might reply
that all men believe in the existence of the outer world in some
form or other, but all do not believe in the existence of God.
What would then become of our assumption of the universality of
a belief in God ?
It is sometimes said that there is no real atheism. But unless
we adopt a very low theory as to what constitutes belief in God,
we must admit the existence of a practical atheism, the atheism
of those who may or may not accept intellectually the proofs which
are offered, but who show by their lives that they have no profound
belief in the existence of a divine being. We may say of such men
that they really do believe in a divine power, and that under certain
circumstances this belief will manifest itself, but although this
may explain certain facts, it does not prove the existence of
belief.
This argument from the universality of belief meets us in its
broadest form in the so-called consensus gentium, the fact that
everywhere in all times men have believed in God. First of all,
however, we have to confirm the fact, and the doubter might well
ask whether it were not rather a poor business to rest religious faith
upon the answer to the question whether or no some tribe of
savages had an idea of God. The recognition of God cannot be
made a question for universal suffrage, in which the vote of one
person has as much weight as the vote of another. The vote of a
Plato must far outweigh the votes of hundreds and thousands of
THE UNIVERSALITY OP BELIEF 85
degraded or undeveloped minds. Furthermore, if we succeed in
proving that all primitive peoples have believed in the existence of
a divine power, we have to meet the objection of Comte that such
belief belongs to the stage of undeveloped spirit. According to
Comte the theological view of the world is first and lowest in the
process of human development. As the development continues,
the theological view gives place to the metaphysical, and the meta-
physical in turn to the positive. We may say to the doubter that
certain beliefs accompany certain stages of development, and
he may accept our theory but reply that he has passed beyond the
stage at which belief in God is possible.
Again, if we assume that in some form the belief in God is uni-
versal, what are we to do with the increasing number of those
educated men of trained habits of thought who find no basis for
the belief ? Here, to be sure, our explanation is ready. These
men, we say, cannot believe because certain elements of their
nature have been developed disproportionately so that the voices
of other elements are overpowered. If a man says that he finds
in the universe nothing but matter and force, it is because he
has trained himself to see these and nothing else. This may be,
and in my judgment is, a fair explanation. But it is not an argu-
ment, and it cannot be used as an argument. Granted that the
development of the senses or of the understanding has been dis-
proportionate, the man occupies the position which he has reached
completely, and he cannot be made to look at the universe in any
other way than that to which he has become accustomed. Thus
under whatever form we present the assumption of the universality
of belief, we are brought back to the same point, that it is not an
argument.
There is one aspect, however, in which the test of universality
has weight. Thus far we have considered only assertion and
counter-assertion, and no argument has been suggested which
has objective value and is independent of the position held on
either side. But suppose we begin by assuming that no man can
have a belief or a standard that is not natural, that no matter
whether it is high or low the mere fact that he holds it shows that
86 THE UNIVERSALITY OF BELIEF
it is natural. We have then to ask whose system includes that
of the other. The glutton, for instance, says that his pleasures
are natural. " God gave the vine and all the good things of life,
and He gave me the taste for them." "Yes," we answer, "that
is true, and we also enjoy the good things of life and the pleasures
of taste. But we enjoy other things, besides, of a different and
higher kind. These higher pleasures are as natural as yours, and
the fact that we have both kinds of pleasure while you have only
one shows that our development is fuller and more nearly complete
than yours." Or take the profound, exalted pleasure which the
person who is thoroughly musical derives from music. Any one
who has this intensely developed enjoyment is as truly more com-
plete than those who cannot share in it as the man who sees and
hears is more complete than one who is blind and deaf. I say,
as truly complete. I do not say that the difference is as great.
In a similar way all the pleasure which the materialist has in the
working of material laws and forces is open to the spiritual nature
as well, but the spiritual nature enjoys in addition emotions for
which the materialist has no place and of which he has no knowl-
edge. Of course such a test as this can be used only in the most
abstract and universal manner. It applies only to principles and
not to matters of detail. A materialist, if he is a scientist, may
have knowledge in some directions beyond that of a man of
spiritual experience and so may enjoy certain specific emotions and
pleasures into which the man of spiritual experience does not
enter. Yet even so, such pleasures and emotions are open in
kind to the spiritual nature.
The test holds good in the comparison between different forms
of religion. Thus if Christianity has place for all that is positive
in Brahmanism, while Brahmanism has no place for all that is
positive in Christianity, then Christianity is to that extent higher
than Brahmanism. Or take different forms of Christianity as
found in the Catholic and Protestant churches. Each has place
for some things which are not found in the other. The first in-
ference, then, is that neither of the two forms is perfect, that neither
provides fully for all the needs of the completely rounded nature.
THE UNIVERSALITY OF BELIEF 87
But one may go further. The essential principle with the Catholic
church is faith, with the Protestant church, reason. Has the
Catholic church, then, the place for reason which the Protestant
church has for faith ? If not, if the Protestant church more fully
recognizes both faith and reason than the Catholic, then the test
is in favor of the Protestant church. On the other hand, one may
ask whether the Protestant church has such a place for the esthetic
sense as is found in the Catholic church for the moral consciousness.
If not, then in this respect the test would favor the Catholic
church.
When all is said, however, although we may prove to a man
that the religious sense is normal to the soul, we do not thereby
make him religious, any more than we make him musical by
proving to him that the sense of music is normal and that he is
deficient if he does not possess it. The argument is more power-
ful to convince than to convert. The assumption that religion
is natural to men has its great value in renewing and strengthening
the faith of those who already believe. If one has any religious
faith at all, the thought not only of the multitudes who share this
faith with him but also of the many among the number who rep-
resent all that is noblest in human nature, must give him fresh
confidence, both for himself and in any appeal which he may make
to others. For just as the man who believes in the universality of
the sense of justice has greater confidence in appealing to that
sense in others, however undeveloped it may be in them, so the
man who believes that the religious sense is normal in the human
spirit is more confident in any effort to awaken faith in those about
him. The preacher knows that in public religious services the
presence of the mere fact of worship may give to lives hitherto
unmoved a lasting consciousness of the reality and worth of re-
ligious faith, and that a prayer sometimes converts where argu-
ment has failed.
From what has been said thus far it is plain that only the second
form of the a priori argument can have real weight with any one
who does not already believe, that form which presents the reality
of the existence of God not as in itself a necessity of thought but
88 THE IDEAS OF THE REASON AS ABSOLUTE
as involved in something which the mind has already accepted as
necessary. Here our general psychological analysis again serves
us. The three ideas of the reason, which we have found form
the content of religious faith,1 suggest a method of argument.
From this point of view the most universal form of the a -priori
argument begins with the recognition of each of the three ideas
of the reason as absolute. But there cannot be three absolutes.
Therefore these three, truth, goodness and beauty, must be in
essence one, and wherever truth and goodness and beauty are
found there is the thought of God. I have made this statement
elsewhere2 in the form of a syllogism, but perhaps it should rather
be given as an intuition.
This principle is one which we may hesitate to announce, but
practically we accept it. Our minds do not rest until they have
reached the highest unity. Truth and goodness and beauty
belong together, and although we may find them apparently
manifesting themselves as differing one from another, we are
compelled to regard them as really blending in one. It is to be
noticed, however, that while the three ideas of the reason cover
one another, their unity must be considered as a whole and not in
detail. In the discussion of the subject in The Science of Thought
I have considered at some length the fallacies which arise when
instead of taking the ideas of the reason in their broadest sweep
we take them partially, and attempt to prove their identity in their
minute elements.3 It is as though we were to assert the identity
of isothermal lines and parallels of latitude. There is but one
world. The isothermal lines represent this world, and so do the
parallels of latitude, and in their completeness the lines and the
parallels must cover one another. Yet the parallels and the
isothermal lines themselves are different, and the world is differ-
ently divided according as it is considered from the one point of
view or from the other. So a picture may be perfectly beautiful
as a whole although one part or another taken by itself may not
be beautiful. In Raphael's "Transfiguration" the demoniac
1 The Psychological Elements of Religious Faith, Chap. IX.
2, 3 The Science of Thought, pp. 176-186.
UNITY AND THE A PRIORI ARGUMENT 89
boy is not beautiful, but he is a part, and an essential part, in the
complete beauty of the masterpiece.
We must pass on, however, from this universal form of the
argument, and consider how far the a priori argument is involved
in the ideas of the reason taken separately. As I said at the
outset,1 in speaking of the two forms of the a priori argument, the
second form may appear in one or the other of two minor forms,
according to the relation which the dependent belief bears to the
primary belief, whether as resultant or as postulate. But we
shall find that of these two forms the postulate will naturally play
the greater part, since our reasoning is in regard to the Absolute.
To begin, then, with the first idea of the reason, how far is the a
priori argument involved in the idea of truth or unity ? Spinoza
attempts to base his philosophical system upon this idea alone,
for his "substance" is simply another name for the absolute unity.
He carries this one principle so far that in theory he excludes the
element of freedom and leaves no place for goodness, — for good-
ness, that is, in the ordinary sense. But we notice that as he
proceeds with his discussion and we enter with him into his
higher thought, we have a sense of exaltation which cannot be
understood or justified unless we recognize in the absolute unity
a moral perfection. By this I do not mean to imply that there is
any contradiction between the denial of freedom and the attempt
to lead others to a higher life. Every necessitarian admits the in-
fluence of motives, and even insists that we are always governed
by the strongest motives, and Spinoza is merely applying this
principle. His fundamental assumption is that if men do not
rise to the higher life it is on account of ignorance. But it seems
to me that this higher life to which he summons men implies a
certain moral perfection, or at least that beauty of character which
rests upon moral perfection. The greatest height which he reaches
is love. But love must mean that there is something which is
lovable, something which is not mechanical but which involves
spiritual attraction and therefore spiritual power.
The ideas of the reason are not found apart from one another.
i Page 83.
90 UNITY AND THE A PRIORI ARGUMENT
If an attempt is made to build a system of thought upon any one
of them exclusively, the aid of the others becomes necessary if
we are to reach the results at which we aim. It is as though an
organist were trying to produce the noblest music by the use of a
single stop. As we listen we wonder at the fulness of the har-
mony, and then we find that other stops have not been fully closed
and cannot be closed. In a similar way, in those philosophies
of the understanding which attempt to deny the higher ideas
and to account for everything as the result of external influences,
we often meet a fulness of life, moral and spiritual, which at first
seems to justify their assumptions. But when we look more
closely, we see that other elements have crept in unawares.
There is another way, however, in which the first idea of the
reason involves the a priori argument. We have already seen1 that
it is impossible to conceive of absolute unity under any other form
than that of infinite spirit. But we have also seen2 that the idea
of absolute unity is a necessity of belief. Then, just so far as we
cannot help believing in absolute unity, just so far must we also
believe in that infinite spirit which is the only form under which
absolute unity can be conceived. How is this argument to be
classed ? Is the conception of unity a resultant of the belief in in-
finite spirit, or does it postulate infinite spirit ? To speak of the
idea of unity as postulating the idea of infinite spirit is hardly per-
missible. For a postulate is more naturally something which is
distinct from that which forms the basis of the postulate, and here
the two are one, the unity must be a spiritual unity. On the other
hand there is a similar difficulty if we say that the one is a result-
ant of the other. We can only repeat that the two ideas are one.
We cannot conceive of absolute unity without conceiving of in-
finite spirit, and to the extent to which we are compelled to believe
in absolute unity we must also believe in infinite spirit.
How is it as regards the moral character of this absolute spirit-
ual unity ? Can the idea of absolute goodness be reached in this
way ? It may be said that if there is an absolute unity in and
i Chapters HI-V.
2 The Psychological Elements of Religious Faith, Chap. IX.
GOODNESS AND THE A PRIORI ARGUMENT 91
through which all things exist, then anything that is foreign
to this unity would be excluded, and there would be a harmonious
universe in which the discords of sin and evil must be regarded
as only subordinate and transient. Seydel has developed this
aspect of the argument more thoroughly than any one else.1 He
begins with the thought that the manifestation of absolute being
cannot ultimately be other than positive. For the problem of
sin and evil, therefore, no solution can be found except as they
are recognized as transient; they serve as means to an end, aris-
ing from some absolute necessity, but they have no permanent
place in the universe.
If we ask whether the idea of beauty also is to be approached
through the thought of absolute unity, we come upon a funda-
mental affirmation which needs no argument. If the universe
is the manifestation of absolute unity, it is a harmony, and ulti-
mately, as transient discords appear, the most magnificent har-
mony that can be conceived. All that we know as beauty is a
portion of the one beauty, some strain of the great symphony
heard imperfectly and at a distance.
We have next to ask whether the second idea of the reason,
goodness, also carries with it the conception of divine existence.
Here we meet the Postulates of Kant.2 As Spinoza is the classic
example of the attempts to construct a system of thought upon
the first idea of the reason alone, so Kant is foremost among
those who have made goodness the foundation of their systems.
Kant denies all power in the intellect taken by itself to reach
any result which can be accepted as having a reality independent
of the mind itself. He shows that the ideas upon which religion
rests cannot be proved by any logical process, nor can they be
disproved. They lie outside the world of human reasoning.
If, therefore, there is any extralogical ground for accepting them,
they may be held without fear of attack from the side of intellect.
He finds this extralogical ground for their acceptance in the moral
1 Religionsphilosophie, Part II.
2 C. C. Everett, Essays Theological and Literary, "Kant's Influence in The-
ology."
92 GOODNESS AND THE A PRIORI ARGUMENT
law. He does not, like Martineau1 and many others, reason
back to the thought of God as implied in the very existence of
the moral law. The thought of God and of immortality are to
him the elements without which the fulfilment of the moral law
is impossible. The moral law is absolute. It must be fulfilled.
Therefore we have the right to postulate God and immortality,
since these furnish the only conditions under which obedience is
possible.
Kant presented his postulates under two different forms. In
the Critique of Pure Reason2 he urges that the moral law is a
mere phantom of the brain unless it be regarded as the expres-
sion of the will of a lawgiver, and unless its authority be enforced
by the sanction of rewards and punishments. The first of these
requirements involves the existence of a divine Lawgiver, the
second involves a future life in which the sanctions of the law
can be fulfilled.
The second form of the postulates appears in the Critique of
Practical Reason, published seven years later. Here Kant has
come to feel the inconsistency in the more personal aspect of the
postulates in their earlier form, and so far as is possible strips
his reasoning of all personal feeling. According to the principles
which he now lays down, an act, to have moral value, must be
performed purely from moral motives. The fear of punishment
or the hope of reward introduces an unmoral element and cannot
be recognized as an impulse to moral action. The only source
from which the stimulus to obedience can be sought is reverence
for the moral law itself. The end of the moral law is the attain-
ment of the highest good. This highest good consists in the
adjustment between happiness and desert. If the moral idea is
to be fulfilled, a Being must be assumed who has power to make
this adjustment. Furthermore, the personal element cannot be
wholly left out of the account, and since the individual cannot
at any moment of time become perfectly moral, the moral law
1 James Martineau, A Study of Religum, Vol. I, p. 21, Vol. II, p. 28.
2 Trans, by F. Max Miiller, p. 491.
GOODNESS AND THE A PRIORI ARGUMENT 93
demands eternity for its fulfilment. Thus we have the postulate
of immortality. This infinite character of the moral law is given
more definite form by Fichte. Individuals are points of con-
sciousness into which the infinite consciousness has differentiated
itself. Each individual point feels the impulse of its infinitude
and strives continually toward the perfect fulfilment of the moral
law. But the finite point, although it is always approaching
the infinite manifestation, never reaches it. This thought of an
infinite progress is the basis of Fichte's optimism. In its negative
aspect the same thought becomes the basis of Schopenhauer's
pessimism. Fichte emphasizes the idea of continued advance,
Schopenhauer that of a continual demand which is never
satisfied.1
The two forms of the postulates are wholly different from each
other. In the first form the personal element is emphasized, in
the second the impersonal and universal. In the first the question
is, how shall weak human nature find strength to fulfil the moral
law. In the second the moral law demands that certain conditions
shall be fulfilled without regard to human strength or weakness.
Instead of human need, the necessity of the moral law itself
becomes the basis of the postulate, and the moral law is no longer
applied to the individual, but only to the universe. The later
postulates contain elements foreign to the moral law, so far as
the individual is concerned, and they lay upon the individual a
duty which is not included in the moral law. Evidently Kant
based his postulates upon his belief rather than his belief upon
the postulates. He felt that there was a most intimate relation
between morality and religion, that morality was the basis of
religious belief. When he found that the first method by which
he had attempted to establish this relation had involved him
in inconsistency, he did not say, "Why, then, my results are
false, and there is not this necessity for a belief in God and in
immortality." Instead, he simply went to work in another way
to reach the same results. What right had he, however, by either
method, to make such postulates ? The moral law is simply a
1 C. C. Everett, Fichte's Science of Knowledge, Chap. XII.
94 GOODNESS AND THE A PRIORI ARGUMENT
demand, a "categorical necessity," to use his own expression.
What right has he to assume that this demand must be fulfilled ?
He himself is the first to see that he has no such right. He says
simply that it is a moral necessity. We cannot prove that there
is a God, we can only feel that there must be one.
Yet there must be a logical basis for any postulate. Suppose,
for instance, that a man is starving, and that there is a loaf of
bread or some money which is within reach but which belongs
to another. His only hope for life is to take it. Here is a post-
ulate based upon the absolute necessity of life to this individual.
That is, the impulse of self-preservation justifies to him his act
in taking the loaf. But just because the loaf is necessary to his
existence, can he therefore assume that there is a loaf ? Because
a man is drowning and has that intense longing for existence
which demands something to which it may cling, has he a right
to assume that a raft or a log shall be present ? Or again, to
return to the starving man with the loaf before him which belongs
to another, has he the right to appropriate it ? Some men have
died rather than violate their conscience; the first cry of the indi-
vidual necessity has been, "I must live," but the moral sense
has answered, "Why?" Kant was certainly right in so far as
he placed the demand of the moral law above the demand for
life.
But let us take another illustration. In our Civil War the
Government of the United States performed a number of extra-
constitutional acts. These acts were justified on the ground
that the necessity for national existence had given rise to the
Constitution and was therefore superior to the Constitution, so
that to sacrifice the national existence to the Constitution would
be to sacrifice the end to the means. May not a similar argu-
ment hold in the case of the individual ? In all cases, we answer,
in which a postulate of this kind is to be accepted, there must be
some underlying philosophy. If the starving man thinks himself
justified in taking the loaf or the money, it must be through some
principle of socialism, more or less consciously recognized, by
which he holds that society owes a life to every individual. If
GOODNESS AND THE A PRIORI ARGUMENT 95
the nation assumes the right to violate its own constitution, it
can be only on the ground that the nation is more universal than
the individual, that individual lives and individual property
depend upon the national existence, and that therefore the life
of the nation must be preserved at all hazards. It is the same
with the old-time assumption that "the king can do no
wrong."
In a similar way, if goodness is to make this postulate, if the
moral law makes necessary the belief in God, there must be some
basis for the postulate, some underlying philosophy, whether
held consciously or unconsciously. In Kant's philosophy good-
ness is made supreme. But there are two kinds of supremacy,
supremacy de jure and supremacy de facto. If we take the moral
sense by itself, all that we can say with absoluteness is that it is
supreme de jure. Kant, however, assumes that it is supreme
de facto, and that the universe itself must conform to the demands
of the moral law. Otherwise life would be left incomplete, and
there would be a mighty demand with no fulfilment. That is,
there would be an infinite breach in the universe, on the one
hand the demand of the highest spiritual nature and on the other
the absence of all response to this demand. Why should there
not be such a breach? If we reply that it is inconceivable, it
is because consciously or unconsciously we recognize the fact that
the universe is one. In other words, while Kant was attempt-
ing to work out his system upon the basis of the second idea of
the reason alone, unconsciously he was accepting as one of his
premises the first idea of the reason. His postulate would be
simply an infinite demand like the demand of the drowning man
for something to cling to, except as the unity of the universe is
assumed, a unity implying the correlation of all elements of the
universe with one another, and especially, in this case, the cor-
relation of the absolute fact with the infinite demand.
A comparison of the thought of Kant with that of Anselm
may make Kant's position clearer. Anselm bases everything
upon the thought of the greatest, the perfect being. His con-
ception of sin and of the necessity of the atonement rests chiefly
96 BEAUTY AND THE A PRIORI ARGUMENT
on his idea of the divine glory. Sin is a violation of what is due
to God.1 With Kant the fundamental thought is the highest
good, and God is postulated in order that the moral law may
be fulfilled. The moral law does not follow upon the recognition
of the relation of man to God, but the relation of man to God
is demanded for the accomplishment of the moral law. With
Anselm God is the end, with Kant God is the means to an end.
There is an illustration here of a tendency in theology to follow
in its development the political development of the world. At
first the idea of absolute monarchy furnished the type for theo-
logical conceptions, but with the recognition of democratic prin-
ciples in government theological conceptions also were modi-
fied. Thus Anselm assumes that the kingdom is for the mon-
arch. With Kant the monarch is for the kingdom. With him
it is not God who is first, but the ideal universe. It is worth
while to notice this tendency, partly because it may help to explain
certain transitions in thought, and partly because in recognizing
it we shall be more likely to use judgment in furthering or in
checking it, as the case may be.
In closing this part of our examination we have still to ask
whether the third idea of the reason involves the thought of divine
existence. The idea of beauty has been too much neglected
by theologians, and this neglect has more or less colored our
theologies. Even in philosophy it has hardly received fair treat-
ment as one of the fundamental elements of thought. Yet in
justice we must add that it is less fundamental than the others.
If we describe the three ideas of the reason by saying that truth
or unity affirms that which is, goodness that which ought to be,
and beauty that which is as it ought to be,2 beauty is seen to be
rather the resultant of truth and goodness than equally funda-
mental with them. Still, the dissatisfaction which the human
mind would feel in the thought of an incomplete world, the con-
tradiction to its esthetic demand which it would have to face,
points to the conception of a perfect universe, and if we deny
the teachings of religion it is hard to imagine a way by which
1 Page 304. 2 The Psychological Elements of Religious Faith, p. 200.
BEAUTY AND THE A PRIORI ARGUMENT 97
the discords in the world may be overcome. Religion, to be sure,
does not do away with all discords, but it does point to the pos-
sibility of their ultimate banishment and the final harmony of a
completed world. Of this, however, I have already spoken at
some length in our examination of the psychological elements of
religious faith.1
1 The Psychological Elements of Religious Faith, Chap. XH.
CHAPTER XI.
THE POSITIVE DISCUSSION OF THE A PRIORI ARGUMENT CON-
TINUED.— THE ADVANTAGES OF THE ARGUMENT FROM THE
THREE IDEAS OF THE REASON. — THE POSTULATES OF THE
INTELLECT.
The a 'priori argument as based upon the three ideas of the rea-
son holds, of course, only in so far as there is faith in these ideas.
But to a certain extent this faith is found in all men, or at least
there is the germ of it in every mind.1 What is important for us
to notice is that the least recognition of the three ideas implies
their absoluteness, even though this absoluteness be not granted.
For there can be no reason for the slightest recognition of any
of them as absolute in any one direction which does not involve
its absoluteness in all directions. If because of a law of conduct
a person surrenders self-interest to duty, or even if he condemns
another for failure to do this, he has recognized the absolute-
ness of the moral law. For there is no reason why it should be
applied in one case unless it is to be applied in all cases. Indeed
it may be said with little exaggeration that the law is not really
obeyed unless it is obeyed in all respects. For suppose a man
should be in debt to a number of persons all of whom have claims
equally just and resting upon the same basis, and suppose that
he should be moved by his conscience to pay one of his credi-
tors in full. If he pays one and does not pay the others, his act
of justice toward the one becomes through its partialness an act
of injustice.
There is this advantage, also, in the method of reasoning which
we have been following, that the ideas of the reason are funda-
i The Psychological Elements of Religious Faith, pp. 140-149.
THE POSTULATES OF THE INTELLECT 99
mentally bound up with religious faith.1 They are the elements
which to a large extent constitute religious feeling. If we suc-
ceed, therefore, in exciting the feelings which correspond to any
one of these ideas, we have made just so much progress toward
awakening religious faith itself. Any result gained, if actually
accepted, is not a mere logical result, but a real accomplishment.
We may convince a person without converting him, but if we
can stimulate these ideas in his mind, he is at least so far on the
way to conversion, if not already converted. Practically, we
find that religious faith is easy in proportion as the ideas of the
reason are strong in our nature, even though we may not see
any logical connection between the ideas and the faith. Thus
faith in immortality is never easier to hold than in those moments
of exaltation when one is inspired by pure and lofty music, and
similarly a lofty moral faith is not only akin to religious faith
but makes that religious faith easier.
"Whene'er a noble deed is wrought,
Whene'er is spoken a noble thought,
Our hearts, in glad surprise,
To higher levels rise." 2
If the analysis which we have been making is complete, our
argument will be found to follow along the line of the historical
development of religion. Now in studying comparatively the
different religions of the world we have seen that they tend to fol-
low one or another of the paths which have been marked out by
the ideas of the reason. Thus the first idea underlies the various
forms of Hindu belief, the Mazdean religion follows the impulse
of the second, and Greek religion has the inspiration of the third.
We must not dwell longer, however, upon the argument from the
ideas of the reason, for we have to consider another form of the
a priori argument, the postulates of the intellect. The instinct
of thought is fundamental in human nature. The longing for
knowledge for its own sake comes at a comparatively late stage
1 The Psychological Elements of Religious Faith, Chaps. IX-XII.
2 H. W. Longfellow, Santa Filornena.
100 THE POSTULATES OF THE INTELLECT
in the development of human thought. At first men think,
practically, just as they act. But men at all times trust in their
thought, or at least believe that any difficulties which they meet
can be solved by more thought. Then comes the love of truth
for the sake of truth, and of knowledge for the sake of knowl-
edge. The two inherent impulses in human thinking are, first,
faith in thought itself, and, second, thought for the sake of think-
ing, that is, knowing. The postulate of the intellect is the
demand for that which shall make thought and real knowledge
possible.
We can best begin this part of our discussion by referring to
Herbert Spencer's doctrine of the Unknowable, — not his thought
of the Absolute as unknowable, which we have already had occa-
sion to examine,1 but the doctrine of the universe as unknowable.
We could meet his argument in regard to the unknowability of
the Absolute. For the position which he held involved one posi-
tive element, the Absolute itself, and we could show that the term
was meaningless unless the Absolute were recognized as Absolute
Spirit. It is more difficult to meet him when he takes the more
negative position that the universe is unknowable.2 What knowl-
edge we have, he says, is through the nerves. But the mind and
the world are at opposite ends of the nerves, and it is inconceivable
that the nerves should give to the mind any true account of that
which lies beyond them. His argument is singular in that he
appears to forget that the nerves themselves are a part of the
objective world, and that we have no right to assume that we
know anything about them. But he presents to us one of those
logical circles which are as hard to meet as any argument.
Spencer justifies agnosticism in regard to the external universe
by saying that such thought as is possible for us serves us as well
as if it were true. What it gives us is "transfigured realism."
By this he does not at all mean anything like a transfiguration in
the sense of a glorification of realism, but simply realism under
a changed form. It is, he says, as though we saw the universe
reflected in a distorting mirror. The reflection gives no real
1 Chapter I. 2 The Princivles of Biology, Vol. I, p. 356.
THE POSTULATES OF THE INTELLECT 101
picture of the objects contained in it, for it follows the lines of the
mirror rather than those of the actual objects. Yet every change
in an object produces a corresponding change in the reflection,
and thus we have a world which for all practical purposes is as
good as though it were real. This, however, involves the assump-
tion that we think about the world merely for our own advantage,
that we may adapt ourselves to our environment and gain from
it the greatest possible pleasure with the minimum of pain. But
such a harmony with our environment for merely practical pur-
poses is not what we regard as one of the most important ends
in thinking. We think in order that we may know, and we wish
to know, not merely that we may use the object of our knowledge,
but because knowledge is in itself a joy. The impulse toward
harmony with the environment is not only practical but actual,
and Spencer himself yields to this impulse as readily as anyone,
and thinks for the pleasure of thinking and for the sake of
knowing. For what relation have all his theories of the ethereal
origin of the universe to our present ease or convenience ? And
when in his speculation in regard to the future he reaches for-
ward toward the time when the world shall again become an
ethereal mass as before, is it because he expects that we or any
of our posterity are to be alive at that time, or because we can
do anything to postpone or to advance the ultimate results ? In
all this he follows out his thought simply because he is by nature
a man hungry for greater knowledge.
But what can we know of the external world ? Clearly no knowl-
edge is possible upon the plane of sense or materialism. The
knowledge of the spiritual life, however, is open to us in all the
various forms of manifestation in which it is presented. Thus
we have a real knowledge of other persons. The mind cannot
comprehend what is different from itself, but it can comprehend
that which is similar to itself, and although I cannot understand
what heat is as it may exist in the bar of iron, I perfectly compre-
hend the feeling which you have when you touch the hot bar of
iron. It is often said that the idealist who denies the existence
of the world of matter must be ipso facto a solipsist, and must
102 THE POSTULATES OF THE INTELLECT
deny equally with the rest of the external world the existence of
other units of subjective consciousness. But this position is evi-
dently incorrect. We rightly say that we have no knowledge of
the material world, for the senses cannot report to us the facts
of the material world correctly. But we can have knowledge of
the feelings of others. Between our own feeling and the feeling
of another there is a resemblance, and the language which in refer-
ence to the material world was a foreign tongue here becomes the
language of the fact itself. Moreover, in the second place, we
have real knowledge of anything which is the embodiment of an
idea. For instance, I utter words, I use a certain form of ex-
pression. If I succeed in making myself clear, these words have
a meaning for you. They are transparent and through them you
know my thought. It is the same if I put my knowledge into a
book. The book is an object in the material world, but it is also,
or at least it is supposed to be, the embodiment of an idea, and that
idea is comprehended by you. The same is true of all the objects
of human creation in so far as they embody ideas. There may
be a material element of which you have no knowledge, but that
may be left out of the account for the present. So far as the book
or the picture or the house or the railway or the cathedral em-
bodies some idea of writer or artist or builder, so far it becomes
transparent to you, and to that extent you have knowledge of
your environment. What, then, is needed to make the whole
world transparent to us and real ? Only that it shall be the
manifestation of spirit, the embodiment of an idea. Grant this,
and the universe becomes absolutely comprehensible. For the
demand of the intellect is that the world shall be thinkable. The
impulse to think, which is fundamental in human nature, is not
satisfied merely to play with thought, or to consider phenomena
merely for practical ends. Men think in order that they may
know the truth. They recognize with Hegel that only that which
is false is unthinkable. Religious faith, therefore, offers precisely
what the intellect demands, for it recognizes in the universe as its
very essence this ideal element, the manifestation of Absolute
Spirit.
THE POSTULATES OF THE INTELLECT 103
I may put this in another form. We often use the term " object "
loosely as we do the term " subject," but strictly speaking the term
"object" is meaningless except as that of which it is used is rela-
tive to a subject. Now we can represent the world to ourselves
only as object. We cannot conceive of it as a thing, or as made
up of things. We can conceive of it only as made up of projected
sensations of our own. Take away our sight and hearing and
feeling and the other sensations, and what is left ? If we say, that
which is the cause of all, the thing in itself, even as we answer the
thing in itself becomes a thought. We remain still in the world
of thought and cannot escape from it. But if the world is made
up of our objectified sensations, what becomes of it when we are
not there ? Does it spring into existence as we look at it ? Gray
sings that "many a flower is born to blush unseen," but is this
conceivable? Can there be color or fragrance where there is
no one to see or smell ? The only escape from the difficulty is to
postulate an absolute subject to which the world shall always be
related as absolute object, to say with Theodore Parker whenever
we find ourselves in some new and beautiful spot, " God was
here before me."
In all this we have done nothing in the way of proof. We have
simply considered a postulate of the intellect. The impulse to
think requires that the universe shall be thinkable, that it shall
be transparent and real, not necessarily to your mind or to mine,
but conceivably so, and this need postulates that which religious
faith offers, the existence of Absolute Spirit. Dr. Royce has ap-
proached this question most interestingly from the opposite side.1
Basing his argument upon the fact of error, he finds that the only
thing which cannot be open to error is the possibility of error.
How, then, he asks, is error possible ? Every mind reacts in re-
lation to its environment according to its nature. Every indi-
vidual looks at things for himself and takes impressions for him-
self. Every one, therefore, being what he is, is justified. How,
then, are we to recognize the possibility of error? How, for in-
stance, are we to prove that the man whom we call color-blind
1 Josiah Royce, The Religious Aspect of Philosophy.
104 THE POSTULATES OF THE INTELLECT
does not after all see the world as it really is ? Dr. Royce finds
that what is needed is an absolute standard of measurement, a real,
ideal content of the world, and an absolute mind by whose thought
of the world the truth or falsity of the thought of finite minds may
be determined. No dynamic relation of the absolute mind with
the world is established. This should follow, however. For
unless we complete Dr. Royce's thought by regarding the world
as the manifestation of the absolute mind, we shall have on the
one hand an absolute mind reacting in relation to the world as
absolute, and on the other hand finite minds reacting as finite,
and there will be the same possibility as in the case of two finite
minds that each is true and that there is still no error. As creative
thought the absolute mind becomes the true standard, for since it
is through it that the world exists, its knowledge of the world must
be the true knowledge.
Of course this question as to how error is possible is only the
negative aspect of the question which we had just before consid-
ered as to how truth is possible. Interesting as the discussion is, it
seems to me better to make the postulate in the positive rather
than in the negative form. Not only do we believe as positively
in the possibility of truth as in the possibility of error, but we
could not conceive of the possibility of error at all if we did not
believe that ultimately we may reach the truth.
CHAPTER XII.
THE SECOND GENERAL DIVISION OF THE DISCUSSION: THE
MOMENT OF NEGATION: CREATION, FREEDOM, SIN AND
EVIL. — THEORIES OF CREATION: AS HAVING A BEGINNING:
AS WITHOUT A BEGINNING. — THE DIFFICULTIES OF EITHER
THEORY.
We have come now to the second general division of our dis-
cussion. Under the first division we have had to do with ideal re-
lations, the moment of abstract affirmation. We have now to con-
sider the moment of negation or separation. The unity which we
have reached is broken up, and experience enters to test with its
apparent exceptions the truth of the a priori argument. Here
our real difficulties begin, the practical difficulties which always
arise when one passes from the abstract to the concrete, from the
ideal to the real. The ideal circle is easy to comprehend. It is
the circle as actually drawn for which it is hard to find the formula.
The negation has three stages, which correspond to the three
ideas of the reason. Over against the idea of unity there is found
in the world an infinite diversity. The doctrine of creation pre-
sents itself as the first stage in the negation, on the one hand the
world in its complex variety, and on the other hand the unity which
is its source. What can we understand of creation ? How are
we to represent the variety of the world, its otherness, its relation
to absolute unity ? The antithesis only strengthens as we reach
the second stage of negation in the doctrine of human freedom.
Not only is the creation other than the creator, but it has a life of
its own, it is free and independent. With the third stage in the
negation this freedom and independence become antagonism.
The individual does not merely follow a course of his own in the
freedom of his will, but sets himself over against the absolute will.
In relation to the idea of goodness this antagonism is found to
106 THE DOCTRINE OF CREATION
be that which we call sin, a hostility in which the idea of unity
seems wholly lost. Finally, in relation to the third idea of the
reason, the conflict appears in still another aspect. In relation
to goodness the individual takes the offensive against the environ-
ment. Now, in relation to beauty, the environment has its re-
venge upon the individual and puts him upon the defensive. In
this antagonism in relation to beauty the problem of evil is pre-
sented, the problem of pain and suffering. It is true that sin also
is opposed to beauty, that sin as well as evil is a discord. But
with sin the antagonism is fundamentally to the idea of goodness.
In considering the first stage in the negation, the doctrine of
creation, we have first to recognize the different views of creation
that have been held or that may be held. As regards its relation
to time there are the theories, a, that it had no beginning, and b,
that it had a beginning. In relation to substance there is the
theory, a, that the universe was created out of something, either
(a') the divine substance or (&') some pre-existent matter, and
there is the theory, b, that it was created out of nothing. Thirdly,
as regards the method of creation there are once more two theories,
a, that creation was a matter of necessity, and, b, that it was a
matter of freedom. According to a God created the universe by
a necessity of his nature, and not only the fact but the form of
creation was a matter of necessity. According to b both the fact
and the form of creation are held to have been a matter of free
choice on the part of God.
If these theories are compared together, it will be seen that all
those which we have marked a involve a certain conception of
creation, and all those which are marked b involve another con-
ception. Those which are marked a represent the form of thought
which may be called philosophical, while the theories marked b
imply the form of thought which would be most naturally suggested
by religion. I do not here make this distinction absolute, as
though the philosophical form could not also be the religious form.
I merely say that the theories marked b would most obviously,
from a superficial point of view, be suggested by religion. The
theories marked a are held by certain theologians and are not
CREATION IN RELATION TO TIME 107
hostile to religion. It is for us to learn, if we can, which are the
forms best fitted to religious faith. The theories which are brought
together under a recognize no possibility of interruption or caprice;
all is regular and inevitable. Those which are marked b either
involve, or at least suggest, a dependence upon will. Thus in
the first group, the theories in regard to the relation of creation
to time, the idea of a creation which has no beginning most naturally
suggests the thought of necessity. Such a creation would be by
its very nature eternal. The theory does not exclude the possibility
of volition, but it falls easily into line with the philosophic view
of the universe which recognizes no break or crisis. On the
other hand the theory of a creation with a beginning suggests
more naturally an arbitrary act of will. Similarly, in the second
group, the theory of a creation out of something, and especially
out of the divine substance, most easily lends itself to the principle
of necessity, whereas the theory of a creation out of nothing sug-
gests again an arbitrary act. These relations culminate in the
third group in which one of the two methods of creation proposed
is necessary and the other voluntary.
To speak first of the relation of creation to time, the church has
generally held the theory that creation had a beginning. The
exceptions have chiefly taken the form of a belief in a series of
creations following one another in succession. The theory of a
creation with a beginning has appealed to theologians, first, I
suppose, because of its greater conformity to the scriptural account,
and in the second place because of the greater ease with which
creation is conceived as having a beginning. For a creation is
that which causes something to begin to be which before had no
being, so that a creation without beginning, an eternal creation,
would seem to be no creation. It is the difficulty which we have
already met in discussing the causa sui.1 How can anything be
the cause of itself ? and how can that be caused which has always
existed? Either theory of creation involves certain difficulties
and removes others. The theory of a creation without beginning
presents first of all the great difficulty that it implies a completed
i Page 75.
108 THE DIFFICULTIES OF EITHER THEORY
infinite, a thing difficult, if not impossible, to conceive.1 For if
we have a series of events which has no beginning and which
includes the present moment, then the series is completed at the
present moment. But since it has no beginning we have a com-
pleted infinite. Further, to draw the line at any given moment
is to say that behind that moment is a completed infinite, and
since the number of such moments is infinite we have an infinite
number of completed infinites. Then, since the number of events
behind moment b is greater than the number behind moment a,
is the infinite behind b larger than the infinite behind a? To
measure infinite with infinite is a contradiction in terms. It is
through paradoxes like these that Kant is led to believe in the
phenomenality of time. They all have to do with the quantitative
infinitude, and many of the difficulties which they present would
not occur if we had any real sense of what is meant by quantitative
infinitude. All involve measurement, and measurement is some-
thing wholly foreign to our thought of the infinite. A single illus-
tration will show what I mean. Suppose we take the point at
the end of a spoke in a wheel which is revolving with infinite
rapidity. Now if we lengthen the spoke and continue the motion
of the wheel, will the point at the end of the lengthened spoke
revolve with greater rapidity? If it must move more rapidly
than the first point, and if that was moving with infinite rapidity,
we are involved in inextricable difficulty. It is evident that the
question is based upon a completely mistaken notion of quantita-
tive infinitude. For my own part I hardly know what is meant by
infinite rapidity. If there is such a thing, it must follow that the
experiment could not be tried at all; either the spoke could not
be lengthened, or the wheel would move more slowly than before.
The difficulties, however, are more pressing in regard to time
than in regard to space. In regard to space the difficulty may be
stated as follows : suppose a line which begins with a certain point
and then is prolonged infinitely in one direction, and suppose a
second line which is infinitely prolonged in both directions. Is
the second line longer than the first ? The first line must involve
1 Bibliotheca Sacra, October, 1850, Article by the Rev. Joseph Tracy.
THE DIFFICULTIES OF EITHER THEORY 109
an infinite series of points, and yet one's impulse is to say that the
second line is twice as long as the first. But this attempt to divide
what is indivisible, and to measure what is measureless, is like
marking a point here in the circumference of a circle and another
there, and then asking which point has the greater length behind
it. In regard to time, if the series is infinite, we do have at
any given moment a series which is at the same time complete and
infinite, and the infinite is continually pressing forward into a new
infinitude. We get rid of the difficulty, of course, if we assume
the phenomenality of time, — that is always at hand as a sort of
waste-basket into which our difficulties may be thrown. But if
we accept that theory we gain nothing practically. We may
state the proposition, but when that is done we can think no
further.1
These difficulties cannot be avoided. Practically, matter may
or may not be infinitely divisible, but to thought there is a possible
infinitude in every inch of space. If time be only the possibility
of succession, that possibility may become infinite at any moment,
and whether the world has existed eternally or not, there is the
possibility that it has so existed. It is true that the difficulty which
we have been considering is not one of religion. It is purely
philosophical, a difficulty of conception which must remain what-
ever the form of thought which we adopt. Yet, if religion accepts
the theory of a creation without beginning, it loses an important
argument which has been based upon the assumed impossibility
of a completed infinite. For if this assumption is granted, the
series which makes up the universe must have had a beginning,
and since it could not have had a beginning without a cause, we
have a demonstration of the fact of causation. This argument
has often been used with great effect, and appears to bring us
face to face with the fact of creation which it assumes to prove, and
through that fact with the power of God himself as it originates
the universe. Furthermore, the theory of a creation without
beginning involves for religion the positive difficulty of introducing
any teleological principle. Creation implies a plan, the manifes-
tation of an idea in the universe. All its elements in time and
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110 THE DIFFICULTIES OF EITHER THEORY
space are members of a whole. Its movement is an advance toward
a result. But what sort of whole can that be, the members of
which are numberless in space and eternal in time ? What sort
of movement toward an end can there be, what idea of completion,
in a universe made up of a limitless series ?
This difficulty is clearly recognized by Kant in the Critique of
Pure Reason. After showing how from one point of view the world
of the understanding is too small for the reason, and the world of
the reason too large for the understanding, he goes on to show that
from another point of view the world of the understanding is too
large for the reason, and the world of the reason too small for the
understanding. For the reason demands an ideal world, and
therefore a completed world, a world which can be conceived as
a unity, a whole. The understanding, on the other hand, having
to do with the great successions of causation, can recognize no
limits in the universe. Dorner also recognizes the difficulty.
Since the divine love may be conceived as infinite, an infinite
number of individuals is needed to satisfy that love. Yet each
individual, he finds, must be different from every other individual,
and therefore the number of individuals in the universe cannot
be greater than the number of the variations or types of the indi-
vidual. Since the number of types is limited, the number of indi-
viduals also must be limited.1 Can Dorner, however, assume
that the number of types or variations is limited ? It seems to
me that there is no line drawn or conceivable at which the process
of differentiation will stop. There must be the same possibility
of an infinite number of variations among individuals that there is
of an infinite number of points in a given measure of space.
Dorner further assumes a sort of timeless world both before the
movement of creation began and after it shall end, a changeless,
timeless condition which gives way to time and change but is to
reassert itself in the future. It is not unlike the idea of creation
which we find in the first period of the Mazdean religion. Dorner
appears to use the phrase, " when time shall be no more," with the
meaning which has been popularly given to it. As the church
1 System der Christlichen Glaubenslehre, § 34, 3.
THE DIFFICULTIES OF EITHER THEORY 111
looks forward to a period when time shall cease, and there shall
follow an angelic creation which shall be eternal and removed
from all limits of time, so, he suggests, there may be no difficulty
in recognizing a similar celestial condition before the activity of
the world began. As we have already seen,1 however, the phrase,
"when time shall be no more," is a mistranslation and in its real
meaning the passage has no application in this connection.
The fact is that there is no way by which we can meet this diffi-
culty presented by the conflict between the demand of the reason
and that of the understanding, the difficulty of conceiving a cre-
ation which is at the same time the manifestation of a perfect
plan and also limitless. It is a difficulty which exists because of
our very finiteness. We can conceive of a universe in which the
perfect plan is always approaching completeness. It is the at-
tempt to conceive the process not only as without end but also as
without beginning which seems to us so difficult, if not impossible.
Yet if the conception of creation as having no beginning presents
these difficulties, there are also certain other difficulties which it
avoids, and first of all a difficulty connected with our thought of
the Absolute which has been a favorite argument with atheists.
If creation had a beginning, what, it is asked, was God doing
before the creation ? A question foolish enough in any case,
which perhaps might best be answered by saying that it is none
of our business. This difficulty the church has avoided by the
doctrine of the Trinity. The eternal communion between the
persons of the Trinity, the generation of the Son and the proces-
sion of the Holy Spirit, gives a content to an eternity which other-
wise would be unfilled.
A second difficulty, however, also connected with the thought
of the Absolute, is more profound. What could have been the
motive for creation ? Why should God create at all ? Why
should he create at one time rather than another ? What motive
could have been present with the Creator which had not been
present from eternity ? If the creation was without a motive, it
would seem to have been an act of caprice. If there was a motive,
it could not have proceeded from anything external to the Creator,
i Page 19.
112 THE DIFFICULTIES OF EITHER THEORY
for according to the hypothesis nothing external then existed.
But if the motive was from within, then there must have been
some previously existing need. Some have said that there was
no need, but only the desire for the manifestation of the divine
love or of the divine glory. But is there any real difference be-
tween the two positions ? No need is more pressing than the
demand for love, or the demand for activity or manifestation.
The difficulty, however, is wholly removed if we accept the theory
of a creation without a beginning, for then the need which may
have existed would never have been unsatisfied, and a need which
from all eternity has been satisfied is not a limitation but an
added completion. It is interesting to notice that in the Vedanta
the same question presents itself and is answered in a similar
manner.
Finally, the theory of creation without a beginning ends to a
large extent the conflict between science and religion. What
science insists upon is that the same forces have always tended
to act in the same way. Their action may have been modified by
reactions among themselves so that at different periods there may
have been different results. But these results are secondary. The
forces themselves have always been tending in the same direction.
Anything in the nature of a break, anything like a fresh start in
the history of the world, is excluded from scientific thought. It
insists that all things are bound together by the same laws and in
the same successions of causation, and in so far it holds firmly
to the principle of absolute unity in the universe. It is on this
ground chiefly that it has based its opposition to theology. There
has been the negative objection to theology on the part of scientific
men that theology has not proved its position, but their positive
objection has been on the ground that theology has maintained a
theory of interference, a system of interruptions, by which the
order of nature has been continually broken in upon. But if
we accept the theory of creation without a beginning, the divine
power becomes a constant in the history of the world, a force
which can be always calculated upon and always assumed. It
takes its place as the absolute force which is always present in
THE DIFFICULTIES OF EITHER THEORY 113
and behind those secondary and resultant forces which are recog-
nized as always present. And just as science recognizes a law of
growth present in all organisms, and acting until it has accom-
plished its end, so must the conception of the divine power as
present in the world from eternity become as truly an object of
scientific recognition.
Scientific men frequently make a very unscientific use of the
theory of divine agency, appearing to recognize it at certain points
just as some of the theologians do. Thus Darwin suggests1 that
at the beginning God may have breathed the breath of life into
one or more forms, although after that, it would appear, the world
was left to take care of itself. Here the scientific position would
be, either to deny that God breathed the breath of life into any
form whatever, — unless indeed the phrase "breath of life" is to
be understood only in a figurative sense, — or else to recognize the
divine power as present everywhere, not only at the beginning but
also throughout the movement of creation. In a similar way
Wallace assumes that the processes of evolution sufficed until
man was reached, but that with man certain faculties can be
accounted for only on the hypothesis of a spiritual nature, super-
added to the animal nature.2 But thus to conceive of the divine
power as inoperative so far as the creation in general is concerned
and then as suddenly manifesting itself when a knot appears
which nothing else can cut, — this is a most unscientific use of the
theory of divine power. If the divine power exists at all, it is
everywhere and constant. If it is seen more distinctly at certain
times and places than at others, that is because of our limitations.
There is another form of this unscientific use of the thought
of God which is more general. It appears in the manner in
which some seek to find God in one portion of the universe and
some in another. There are some persons who find him only in
the unknowable, others only in the knowable. To some he is in
all mystery, to others only where law and order are to be recognized,
and a divine purpose. We must feel great sympathy with either
view. We have to sympathize with those to whom God is revealed
1 The Origin of Species, Close of Chap. XV. 2 Darwinism, Chap. XV.
114 THE DIFFICULTIES OF EITHER THEORY
in the order and purpose of the world as they are seen and recog-
nized, and at the same time we realize that there is no manifesta-
tion of God which so fills the soul with awe as the thought of the
infinite and absolute being who is beyond the power of human
reason to find or comprehend. There is another view with which
we can have no sympathy, a habit of thought which recognizes
God only in that which is not understood, and then, if an explana-
tion has been found, considers that just so much ground has been
taken from religion and that God must now be sought in some
remoter region. There are people who have a fear, and others
who have an exultant hope, that as the field of science is more and
more enlarged, no place will be left for the thought of God. The
fact is, that with each advance of scientific knowledge our thought
of God, instead of retreating, simply takes on a new and often a
clearer form. The only scientific thought of God is that which
recognizes his presence and power not under one form or another,
or at this or that moment only, but under all forms and at all
times, in the knowable and the unknowable, in the unknown and
in the known.
It is to be noticed that the difficulties which we have been con-
sidering are of two sorts. They are in part metaphysical and in
part theological. The separation between them may be some-
what arbitrary, but it is important enough to be recognized. Of
the metaphysical difficulties, there is on the one side the diffi-
culty of conceiving an endless series without beginning, a com-
pleted infinite, and on the other side the difficulty of conceiving
an uncaused beginning. The one has to do with our power of
conception and the grasp of our thought, the other concerns the
category of causation. The one may be called static, the other
dynamic. Of the theological difficulties the first is the difficulty
of finding any teleological principle in the conception of a creation
without beginning or end, and the other is the difficulty of con-
ceiving an unmotived beginning. This second theological diffi-
culty is similar to the second of the metaphysical difficulties,
but there we had to do with a difficulty of thought, whereas the
theological difficulty arises from the feeling that an unmotived
THE DIFFICULTIES OF EITHER THEORY 115
act is more or less irrational, and that to associate such an act
with the Creator is to lower our conception of him.
These opposite difficulties tend to neutralize one another. Are
we to say, then, that there has been no creation ? But so far as
the metaphysical difficulties are concerned, they meet us equally
whether we take the thought of God into the account or not,
whether we assume a created or an uncreated universe. Because
we have thus two inconceivabilities over against each other, are
we to conclude that there is no universe ? But we know that there
is a universe. Then if the opposition between these two incon-
ceivabilities does not prevent us from recognizing the existence
of the universe, no more does it prevent us from recognizing the
existence of the universe as created.
It is through such arguments as these that both theist and atheist
have so often won an easy victory, each over the other. It is not
necessary that we should decide the questions which they raise.
We may, however, recognize the fact that the theory of a creation
without beginning is more in accordance with the tendencies of
the thought of the day. For the category of causation which
demands a creation without beginning underlies all scientific
thought. Furthermore, this theory implies nothing that is an-
tagonistic to theology. For Schleiermacher is right in so far as
he makes the doctrine of creation consist simply in the recogni-
tion of the absolute dependence of the universe upon God. This
is all that religion demands. The question whether creation had
a beginning or not is one which concerns science rather than re-
ligion. Religion merely affirms creation. It is for science to
determine so far as it can the method of creation. We look at a
flower and enjoy its beauty, or we look upon the mountains or
the sea. All that religion demands is that we shall have the con-
sciousness that these are God's creation, the manifestation of the
divine power. When we come to ask, how did God make the
flower, or how were the mountains formed, the question is for
science to answer. Of course the questions as to method have
an interest for religion. When I say that they do not especially
concern religion, I mean simply that they are questions which
116 THE DIFFICULTIES OF EITHER THEORY
religion is not obliged to answer. Religion may accept and use
the answers which science makes. It may feel a deeper awe in
the presence of the mountains, a fuller sense of the manifestation
of the divine power, when science has told how they were brought
forth. But what is essential to it is the fact and not the method
of the manifestation. It is like the service which a friend has
rendered. All that friendship really needs to know is that the
friend has done the service. Yet friendship is glad to know just
how the service was performed, and rejoices in all the special acts
of thoughtfulness which have their part in the completed service.
A second and fundamental proposition of Schleiermacher's is
that creation and conservation are the same.1 This implies that
creation has no beginning and no end, that the act of creation
is continuous with the existence of the results of creation. Here,
however, is an antinomy. For creation involves two elements,
on the one hand the dependence implied in the relation of the
creation to the Creator, and on the other hand a certain indepen-
dence, or rather interdependence, in that which is created, a de-
pendence of one part upon another, which is what we mean by
reality. But if the universe is created afresh every moment, how
can there be any mutual interdependence, any reality of existence ?
If there is no relation of past to present, how can there be any
unity ? We are tempted to fall back into the position of the later
Buddhists, that the world is merely an appearance, a dream, or
to accept Berkeley's view that we are all the time receiving fresh
impressions from the divine power. We have here something
like the relation of the rays of light to the sun. Each ray is de-
pendent upon the sun, and yet there is no light, strictly speaking,
but only a collection of rays, or rather undulations, each of which
has its source in the sun's action. That is, the light at one mo-
ment or in one place has no relation of dependence to the light at
another moment and in another place. But we recognize inter-
dependence as the fundamental element in reality. A real uni-
verse is one in which all the parts are dependent one upon an-
other.
i Der Christliche Glaube, Berlin, 1843, §§ 36-41, 46-49.
CHAPTER XIII.
theories of creation, continued. — vorstellungen : the
word; body and soul; child and parent. — creation
in relation to the created: supremacy of spirit in
the universe the mark of creation. — the account of
creation. — scientific theories: as to the beginning
of the world; as to the nature of the world. — the
atomic theory. — force and will.
In dealing with the question of creation and trying to find a
reconciliation for the antinomy which it presents, we cannot
expect to speak with accuracy or definiteness. The question is
too vast, it lies too far beyond all human experience. All that we
can hope to do is to find some vorstellungen, some forms of repre-
sentation, which may be suggestive even if they are inadequate.
There are three of these which have entered into common thought
and speech, each of which needs to be complemented by the
others. The first is the one most commonly used in the Bible,
and is perhaps most familiar to the thought of the Church. It is
creation by the word. Although the phrase "the word" is to be
understood literally as it occurs in the Old Testament, it was
very early given a special significance of which the spoken word
is only a symbol. This form of representation expresses in the
most absolute manner the dependence of the world upon God.
It leaves no room for independence in the world, or for any under-
lying reality except that which is received from God. The world
is simply the result of the divine command. If we go a step further,
however, and consider the representation somewhat more ab-
stractly, we find that we have presented in it the objectifying of
the divine will. For "the word" is the simplest from in which
our ideas can be made objective to ourselves and to the world
118 VORSTELLUNGEN : THE WORD
about us. Therefore by the phrase, "creation by the word,"
we understand that the divine idea is made objective, or given
an objective existence. This vorstellung, however, offers us no
recognition of any material element apart from the objectification
of the divine idea. What form, then, of interdependence, and so
of reality, can we find in such an objectified idea ? Our answer
lies in the recognition of the fact that this idea, like all ideas, is
concrete. We speak sometimes of an abstract idea. No idea can
be wholly abstract, and the divine idea, of which the universe is
the manifestation, is the most concrete of all ideas.1 Therefore
it involves elements, and these elements must depend one upon
another. For the idea is an organic whole which consists in all its
parts as all its parts consist in it, and in which each part demands
all the other parts and all the parts demand each part. Further,
since this organic whole is an absolute whole, the relations of
interdependence must be more truly absolute here than anywhere
else. Thus we find to a certain extent what we are looking for,
namely, the dependence of all upon the divine will and power, and
at the same time the interdependence and reality of the parts.
If the idea is considered in relation to time, two elements are
to be recognized, first, that of permanence, of unchangeability,
the eternal thought as it is in the mind of God himself, and second,
the element of change, of sequence, which is involved in the man-
ifestation of the divine thought. Here again, in the sequence of
the elements, is involved the same interdependence. We find,
indeed, a union more complete than that which is recognized in
the common thought of dependence, for we have working together
and complementary to each other the efficient cause and the final
cause. We have the absolute interdependence in which that which
comes before and that which comes after are bound together.
This is seen in any organic product. The growth of the plant,
for instance, is occasioned as truly by the principle of final causa-
tion as by that of efficient causation; the seed which a plant is
to bear is, from one point of view, as truly the cause of its growth
as is, from another point of view, the seed which produces it. If
a man builds a house, the foundation is as truly dependent upon
i Pages 49, 51, 55.
VORSTELLUNGEN : BODY AND SOUL 119
the roof as the roof upon the foundation. A vorstellung like this
leaves a great many questions unanswered, but at least it enables
us to conceive the possibility of an answer to the question which
we are considering, the reconciliation of the absolute dependence
of the creation upon God with that interdependence among the
elements which is necessary in order that creation shall be real.
The second form of representation is offered in the relation of
the body to the soul.
"All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body nature is, and God the soul."1
It is a vorstellung more often used by the poets and philosophers
than by the theologians, although Schleiermacher approaches it
when, in his Reden, before he arrives at the thought of God, he
reaches the thought of the world-spirit. There are three views
of the relation between the body and the soul. First there is
what would be called the Platonic view, that body is the result of
soul. According to the second view, body and soul are inde-
pendent of each other. This is the traditional view generally
taken by certain religious-minded people who look at things
chiefly from the outside. Body and soul have each a certain in-
dependent existence, and at some early stage the soul is introduced
into the body. Then there is the third view, the view which is
held by the materialists, which regards the soul as resulting from
the body. I mention the three views only that I may emphasize
more strongly the first of the three as that which serves our pur-
pose best. I am not assuming in advance that this view is true
and the others false. The true relation between body and soul
is something which does not concern us at this point. I simply
accept the first view as the one which will best serve as a form of
representation for our thought of God in relation to the universe.
It is a plausible view, even if we do not fully accept it. We
see how a thoroughly healthful body is simply the manifestation
of the life of the spirit. Indeed there are many who hold that
not only the healthful, normal body, but also the diseased body,
i Pope, Essay <m Man, Ep. I, 267, 268.
120 VORSTELLUNGEN : CHILD AND PARENT
is the manifestation of the soul ; we are all familiar with the theory
of the "faith cure," that if a person is ill it is his own fault, that
the trouble is not in his body but in his spirit. Furthermore
while the body is thus dependent upon the soul, we find in the
body various centres of activity. In the lower forms of life these
centres or ganglia can be to a certain extent separated and each
will continue its activity. The same thing is seen sometimes in
the animals of a higher order, as when a hen whose brain has
been removed still retains a certain form of activity, or as when we
find activities still present in a human limb which has been wholly
separated from any perceptible relation to the central ganglia.
Now suppose that while the body as the manifestation of the soul
has its own central consciousness, each of these ganglia should
have at the same time a certain independent consciousness. We
should then have various centres of consciousness and yet one
common consciousness embracing all. This thought is not
foreign to science, although it is maintained that in all probability
the consciousness of the various ganglia is much less when they
are in relation with a central consciousness than when, as in the
lower orders of creatures, the ganglia constitute all that there is
of life or consciousness. It has also been suggested that the sub-
consciousness which is present during waking hours but is lost
in the fulness of the central consciousness, makes itself felt in the
dream, when the central consciousness is to a large extent dormant,
just as the light of the stars is lost in the blaze of the sunshine but
is perceived as soon as the sun has set. But with these theories
we have nothing to do. I am only trying, in what is perhaps a
rather gross if not fantastic manner, to illustrate the possibility
of the interdependence of the elements of the universe among
themselves, and even of a certain consciousness of their own, at
the same time that all are united in a common dependence upon
the one absolute consciousness which embraces the whole.
The last of the three forms of representation is found in the re-
lation between a child and its parent. According to this view
the universe is to be regarded as born of God through a process
of eternal generation. If we examine in more detail the relation
VORSTELLUNGEN : CHILD AND PARENT 121
upon which our vorstellung is based, we find that at first the child
lives the life of its mother. There is a moment in which the lives
are hardly to be called distinct, and then, as the little organism
completes itself, the dependence upon the life of the mother con-
tinues. In this relationship the child is at first wholly uncon-
scious, but by degrees consciousness comes, and with conscious-
ness recognition. Finally, as knowledge and recognition increase
with the fuller growth of the child, we have again a union between
child and parent more real than that which existed between them
at the first, the union of love. For whereas their first union was
material, this is spiritual.
I know very well that if any one of these illustrations were to
be pushed too far, it would fail us at one point or another. I have
suggested the three in order that I may not make too much of
any one of them. Each furnishes some elements which may
help to make the relation between the Creator and the creation
conceivable, however vaguely and imperfectly. If in the im-
perfect relation suggested by these different forms of representa-
tion we find imperfectly accomplished the results which we de-
mand, we can conceive the possibility of the complete relation in
which those results shall be perfectly accomplished.
Two terms are frequently met in theological discussions in
regard to the relation of God to the world, the terms " immanence "
and "transcendence." The first taken by itself involves panthe-
ism; God is wholly in the world, is wholly lost in it. On the other
hand the term "transcendence" taken by itself implies what is
called "deism." Of course there is no inherent reason why the
term "deism" should have a different meaning from the term
"theism." But historically "deism" has come to express a con-
ception of God in relation to the world as wholly outside of the
world; there is a gulf between God and the world; God is the
Unknowable. In view of the different forms of representation
which we have been considering, which of these terms are we to
use ? Which expresses the relation of the soul to the body ? which
the relation between mother and child ? I think we should not
deny either the one or the other. Certainly we may not deny
122 VORSTELLUNGEN : CHILD AND PARENT
immanence, for the soul is diffused through the body, and there
is no part of the body which is not a manifestation of the soul;
every part of the body feels and reacts, every part is amenable to
the will. Yet we should not deny the transcendence of the soul,
for the soul has a consciousness which embraces the body, so
that the soul can say, "my body." In a similar way the life of
the mother is immanent in the child, and yet, in a much larger
sense than that in which the soul transcends the body, the life of
the mother transcends the life of the child. Any form of state-
ment which shall be in the most profound sense religious must
include both immanence and transcendence. Immanence gives
to religion that mystical element without which it is always im-
perfect and superficial. Transcendence preserves to this mystical
element its religious character and saves it from becoming panthe-
ism.
It may be asked whether with the last of the three forms of rep-
resentation we have not introduced a physical element into the
conception of the divine activity. Is not an emanation suggested,
a physical process ? The question is important, not only because
it shows how inadequate a single form of representation is by
itself, but also because the answer may help to bring the different
forms somewhat more closely together. We have found that we
can think of God only as absolute spirit. Therefore the ideal
must constitute his whole activity. In ourselves we separate the
physical and the spiritual, distinguishing between the physical
products of our activity and the spiritual. The distinction is one
of those which arise out of the incompleteness of the spiritual life
as we find it in ourselves. In absolute spirit there can be no
such distinction, and thus there can be no physical emanation
from the divine being. The fundamental difficulty in the various
theories of emanation as they have prevailed in different forms
of religious thought has consisted in the failure to recognize this
truth. Take, now, two phrases which are used again and again
in theological discussion to express the relation between the Father
and the Son, the "eternal generation" of the Son, and the Son
as "the word of God." The first naturally suggests something
THE ACCOUNT OF CREATION 123
like a physical process, an emanation, the second an intellectual,
a spiritual process. The one involves a physical, the other a
purely ideal element. Yet the two are used continually to rep-
resent the same process, and the fact that they are so used shows
how readily in our thought of the divine activity we give up the
distinction between the physical and the spiritual, or rather lose
the physical altogether in the spiritual.
Thus far we have been considering creation in its Godward
aspect. Now we have to ask what creation means as we look
earthward. What does it mean, not as heretofore in relation to
the Creator, but in relation to the created ? First of all, then, it
means that the world is absolutely dependent upon the Creator,
the complexity of the world upon the unity of the Creator. But
since the Creator upon whom the world depends is absolute spirit,
it follows, secondly, that the creation must have an ideal content,
must be in some sort the manifestation of spirit. The mark of
creation in the universe is the supremacy of spirit, and since
spirit acts not mechanically but ideally, the mark of creation is
found to be the supremacy of the ideal element in the world. If
the world is a creation, then in it the spirit comes to its own.
To determine whether this mark is present or not, we must
look at the history of creation. But where are we to find this
history ? Shall we take the story in Genesis ? If we turn to it
we recognize in the account three points which are fundamental.
First there is the fact of creation, the dependence of the world.
Second, there is the recognition of an order or sequence in cre-
ation. Third, we find a certain secondary dependence, what I
have before called an interdependence, among the elements of
creation; we read that "the earth brought forth" and that all
things were bidden to increase and multiply. Thus far the story
in Genesis conforms to our idea of creation. When, however,
I say " conforms to our idea of creation," the very phrase suggests
that there is something with which this story is compared. This
something is the account of creation which is given by science.
The attempt to reconcile the two accounts is a matter which does
not at all concern us. I doubt if such a reconciliation can be
124 SCIENTIFIC THEORIES
thoroughly carried out. At the same time we should not yield
too readily to the tendency among certain thinkers at the present
time, I will not say to exaggerate the difficulty, but to make light
of the attempts which have been made, as though any attempt
in itself implied an absence of scientific knowledge. The effect
produced upon my own mind in reading such discussions as those
of Professor Dana and Professor Guyot1 was not wholly convinc-
ing, but I wondered that the argument could be carried through
as successfully as it was. Still, the very fact that we apply this
test to the account in Genesis shows that we look to science for
our standard. Our demand is not that science shall conform to
Genesis but that Genesis shall conform to science, and those who
are interested in the attempt to reconcile the two, realize that the
only test which will be generally accepted is that of science.
We have already referred to science a number of important
questions which are often thought of as belonging to theology.
You may recall the illustration of the flower which I used when
we were considering the doctrine of creation as the recognition of
the dependence of the universe upon God;2 all that concerned
religion was to know that God made the flower, how he made it
was for science to tell. Now we may consider the world a greater
flower. Religion is satisfied with the general doctrine of creation.
For the history of creation religion looks to science. Religion asks
of science four questions. First, had the world a beginning, and
if so, when ? Second, what is the nature of the world ? what is
it that was created ? Third, what has been the nature of the
history of creation ? Fourth, in this history do we find that the
ideal element is preponderant ? I hardly need to say that answers
in full to these questions are not to be expected, lying as they do
outside the main purpose of our discussion. They are questions
which involve the study of a lifetime, and then would be left un-
answered. All that we can do is to glance at what is most funda-
mental in the ansAvers, so far as they can be given. Of the four
questions the one which concerns us most is the last, the question
1 Bibliotheca Sacra, January and July, 1856; also January and April, 1855.
i Page 115.
AS TO THE BEGINNING OF THE WORLD 125
whether it is possible to recognize in the history of the world the
supremacy of spirit. The answer to this question involves what
is commonly called the a posteriori argument for religion, and we
shall consider it at greater length than is possible in our examina-
tion of the answers to the other questions.
Had the world a beginning? Science tells us that the world as
we know it had a beginning. The calculations of Sir William
Thomson ' placed this beginning some one hundred million years
ago. His method was to study the process of cooling which the
earth has undergone, asking how long it must have taken for the
earth to cool down to the degree of temperature which we find
at present. In answering this question Sir William at last reached
a state of things at which his calculations no longer applied, and
they were brought to an abrupt stop. At that point, then, the
world must have begun. Here, however, a collision occurs. The
believers in the theory of a process of development and natural
selection require a very long period to meet the necessities of
their very slow process. The world has moved forward by in-
finitesimal stages, and although ten million years make a long
period, that period seems hardly long enough. On the other
hand, this collision strengthens those who believe in the epochal
nature of creation. Clifford2 is here as almost always interest-
ing and helpful. He recognizes with Thomson the fact of such
a catastrophe, but denies, and with reason, that this catastrophe
would mark an absolute beginning. It is simply the beginning
of the world as we know it, the beginning of an epoch which be-
longs to us, the beginning of an aeon, but not an absolute begin-
ning. To illustrate his position he uses the figure of a poker
which has been heated and is cooling. The mathematician can
calculate the rate at which the poker cools, and as he traces back
the state of the poker just as Thomson traced back the history
of the world, he reaches, as Thomson did, a point where his cal-
ulations fail. There is no longer any application, he has reached
the crisis. But this crisis is not the moment when the poker
1 Popular Lectures and Addresses (Nature Series), 1894, Vol. II.
2 W. K. Clifford, Lectures and Essays, "The First and the Last Catastrophe."
126 AS TO THE NATURE OF THE WORLD
began to exist. It is simply the moment when the poker was
taken from the coals. To an unscientific mind this conclusion
of Clifford's seems most plausible. Suppose, for instance, that
we accept the position taken years ago by Spencer in his
First Principles,1 that the movement of the heavenly bodies
is retarded by the presence of a certain ether, that this
retardation points forward to a time when all these bodies
shall be drawn in upon the sun, and that the inrush of the
heavenly bodies upon the sun will cause an intense heat and
the resumption of an ethereal form and the beginning of a
new creation. Such a beginning as this which Spencer recog-
nizes would be as truly indicated by Thomson's calculation as
would an absolute beginning. We have simply the scientific
formula for that which the Hindu expresses unscientifically when
he illustrates Brahma by the tortoise. The tortoise puts out his
legs, and then is the beginning of the universe; he draws in his
legs, and the creation ends. We need not interfere in the strife
between the mathematicians and the teachers of the theory of
development. We have only to recognize that the world as we
know it had a beginning.
What is the nature of the world ? What is it that was created ?
We find in the world as we see it two factors, spirit and matter.
For spirit we have all along accepted a formula. That which is
the basis of all knowledge is beyond definition. If we try to
define it, we bring it into relation with a further ultimate and
have still to seek a definition for this ultimate. But we know
spirit, even if only in its manifestation. We know it with that
real knowledge which is the only knowledge, we know it through
consciousness. We have also to a certain extent a consciousness
of matter, but what matter is, what remains when we take from
the world all its ideal elements, is hard to say. The answer most
commonly given is found in the theory of atoms, points infinitely
indivisible and minute, which unite in varied forms to make the
world, modified by all the changes into which they enter, and yet
retaining a certain individuality. When, however, we consider
i Chap. XXIII, "Dissolution."
THE ATOMIC THEORY 127
these atoms in relation to the thought of creation, we meet two
difficulties. In the first place they make the idea of creation most
difficult. These little points of matter are absolutely antithetical
to spirit. Spirit is subjective, and these atoms are so purely ob-
jective. Spirit is a unity, and the atoms are of such an infinite
multiplicity. The conception of any transition of spirit to the
atoms is so difficult that it is not strange that a belief in the atoms
as such has been found in many minds to be opposed to the idea
of creation, and that the thought of a material, atomic universe
has been substituted for the thought of a spiritual universe. Of
course, if we accept the idea of an ultimate duality, eternal matter
independent of and over against eternal spirit, then this theory
of the atoms serves well enough. But such a duality is opposed
to the absoluteness of the divine nature which our conception of
God demands. It implies in so far the exclusion of the creative
power, the formation rather than the creation of the world.
The second difficulty which is presented in the atomic theory,
although it has been less keenly felt, is more significant. These
atoms themselves are only projected sensations which we have
made objective to ourselves. Our whole thought of the external
world, as we have already seen, is made up of our own sensations
to which we have ascribed an external reality. We explain this
external reality not as consisting in our projected sensations but
as the cause of our sensations. Having the sensations we infer
the cause. I do not go through the world with the feeling that
there is something there which causes in me this or that sensation,
whether of hardness or warmth or color or form, but having these
sensations I make a world to correspond with them and believe
in the reality of this world. Now, however minute these atoms
may be, they represent nothing which we have not already reached
in this way. It is as though we represented them by looking at
the elements of the world through an inverted spy-glass which
reduces them indefinitely. They are simply reductions of what
we have already found. Take, for instance, the undulatory theory
of light. These undulations we have never seen; they are too
minute to be seen even if otherwise they might be visible. Yet
128 FORCE AND WILL
there is nothing in the conception of such undulations which is
not taken from our thought of undulations that we have seen. So
when the materialist presses us hardest he is simply urging us
back into an idealism from which no logic can drive us. When
he presents to us the atoms as the ultimate explanation of the
world, and we ask him what he means by his atoms, we find that
the terms in which he explains them are taken wholly from the
realm of our inner and subjective experience.
In the attempt to meet one or the other of these difficulties
other theories have been suggested. Sir William Thomson sub-
stitutes whirls of ether or " vortex-rings " in place of the hard
atoms.1 According to this theory an attenuated ether underlies
all existence, so different from matter in the ordinary sense that
it cannot rightly be called matter. Thus the molecules of gas
have a movement as rapid as that of a swift train, and light moves
two hundred thousand miles in a second. If we start with this
ether we can see that the thought of creation becomes easier, for
the world curdles as it were into being at a touch, as indeed at
another touch the whirls may take a new flight and the world
vanish. Yet no matter how different the ether may be from
ordinary matter, still it is matter. Whatever is not spirit is matter,
however attenuated the form may be in which it appears. Even
if we were to grant that there are in the universe the three elements,
spirit, ether and matter, ether would still be in the same relation
to spirit as matter, it would be antithetical to spirit. Further,
the ether is still nothing but our projected sensation. The ethereal
undulations which form light are simply undulations of motion
seen through the little end of the telescope. The theory of the
whirls of ether brings us no nearer to the solution of our problem
than we were before.
Another theory, that of Boscovitch, is that matter consists of
centres or points of force. I do not know that Boscovitch had
any problems of theology at all in mind, but certainly his theory
has been found useful by theologians. Picton discusses it interest-
1 See The Unseen Universe; also W. K. Clifford, Lectures and Essays, "The
Unseen Universe."
FORCE AND WILL 129
ingly in his Mystery of Matter,1 and Martineau in A Study of Re-
ligion.2 We know force, it is argued, only as the manifestation
of will. Therefore we may assume that all force is the manifesta-
tion of will. Then all the forces of the universe are the mani-
festation of an absolute will. But if what we commonly call
matter is conceived as consisting in points of force, and force is
the manifestation of the absolute will, then matter has really
passed away and the world is simply the manifestation of a divine
will and power. Martineau distinguishes between force as mani-
fested in matter and in the human spirit. He finds all force in
matter to be the direct manifestation of the divine will, but man
has had intrusted to him as it were a storage battery to use as he
will. God has relinquished to man this force which we know as
free will.
The solution of the problem which this theory offers is interest-
ing and ingenious. But the riddle is solved too easily. I am re-
minded of a sentence which once impressed itself upon me as I
came upon it in a European guide book, — "Beware of short
cuts." They are as dangerous in theology as among the moun-
tains of Switzerland. The proof which is given is simple and
direct, but the fundamental connection is not fairly shown. We
know force as the manifestation of will, but we know so little of
will that we cannot infer that all force is therefore a manifestation
of will. We are certainly familiar with the fact of force as exerted
by ourselves, and we also find at least an appearance of force mani-
fested between the objects of nature, a necessary dependence of
one upon another. I do not see why the subjective and objective
manifestations of force are not thus as different as the subjective
and objective manifestations of heat, allowing, of course, for this
great difference, that the kind of force with which we are familiar
we see in its beginning whereas heat is seen only in its effect. If,
on the other hand, we recognize force not as existing in material
things at all, but only as a manifestation of will which compels
us to recognize the divine presence in the universe, we meet two
1 J. A. Picton, The Mystery of Matter and Other Essays, I.
2 Vol. I, pp. 405-407.
130 FORCE AND WILL
difficulties, first, the difficulty of generalization which I have just
referred to, — of showing that because in certain cases spirit can
originate force it therefore follows that all force is necessarily
dependent upon spirit, — and second, the difficulty of finding in
our own manifestation of force the revelation of the divine method.
We are conscious of force as a nisus, and we have seen that even
omnipotence can hardly be conceived except as the overcoming of
some difficulty.1 Still we cannot easily carry over our thought of
a nisus into our conception of the manifestation of the divine will.
If, however, we find this difficulty slight, there remains the very
interesting view which is presented by Professor William James.2
Professor James suggests that we have no real consciousness of
any effort. We press something, for instance, and appear to be
conscious that we are exerting force, but what we really are con-
scious of is the rigidity of the muscles produced by the exercise
of the force. We have no consciousness connected with the nerves
of motion. The motor nerves, the efferent nerves, are not sentient.
We have only the consciousness of reaction brought through the
efferent nerves. A different theory is maintained by some phy-
siologists. Wundt, for instance, makes our knowledge of the
different aspects and relations of our environment depend largely
upon the amount of innervation which is necessary in order to
come in contact with them.3 But this theory is mistaken.
Furthermore, according to Professor James, all our action is re-
flex action, which takes place spontaneously as this or that ob-
ject calls it forth. What we do by our will is to keep an idea
firmly fixed in the mind. If it remains there long enough the
act takes place of itself. Here is suggested an explanation of
various acts or impulses of a somewhat puzzling character, such
as the tendency of a person who is learning to ride a bicycle to
run into the object which he is especially trying to avoid, or the
desire to throw one's self down which we sometimes experience
when standing on the edge of a precipice.
Schopenhauer recognizes two elements in the external world,
i Page 53. 2 The Feeling of Effort.
3 Vorlesungen uber Menschen- und Thierseele, Bd. I, p. 222.
FORCE AND WILL 131
first the world as phenomenal, and then behind this the presence
of will. We live, he argues, in a world of phenomena behind which
no one can look except in his own case. In his own case every one
finds the basis of his being in will. Then if he is a will embodied
in some phenomenal manifestation, what he finds in relation to
himself he is justified in expecting to find everywhere.1 Of
course one may easily object to this that the term " will " has no
meaning for us except as it is connected with consciousness, that
will is the conscious manifestation of force. But there are three
forms under which force is manifested. Besides the manifesta-
tion consciously in ourselves and the manifestation in the external
world mechanically, there is an intermediate form of manifesta-
tion in organized bodies. To the mechanical aspect we naturally
apply the term "force," and to the conscious aspect the term
"will," but there is no specific term by which we may represent
the intermediate form of manifestation, the tendency to action
which is inherent in a body in itself. If we must apply to it one
or the other of the terms already familiar to us, it may be a question
whether we ought to use the term "force" with its suggestion of
mechanism, or the term "will" which suggests consciousness. In
our ordinary use of the term "will" we certainly have in mind
only the conscious aspect of the force which we are considering,
and if at the same time that we take away from the force its con-
scious aspect we continue to apply the same term as before, I do
not see that the term can retain any special meaning except as it
may indicate that this inherent tendency is more nearly allied to
will than to mechanical force.
1 The World as Will and Idea, Book II.
CHAPTER XIV.
SCIENTIFIC THEORIES AS TO THE NATURE OF THE WORLD, CON-
TINUED: IDEALISTIC THEORIES: MIND-STUFF. — CREATION
THE OBJECTIFICATION OF THE DIVINE IDEA: LIMIT, IMPEN-
ETRABILITY, DIVISIBILITY. — THEORY OF ORGANIC DEVELOP-
MENT: NATURAL SELECTION. — THE A POSTERIORI ARGUMENT.
The theories in regard to the nature of the world which we first
considered were based wholly upon its material aspect. We then
considered the theories in which the attempt has been made to
reconcile the material and the spiritual aspects. These theories
present both a subjective and an objective element. The sub-
jective element is made more or less clear, but the external, ob-
jective element remains as unexplained as ever. Over against
all these theories of either kind are the idealistic theories which
deny to the external world any real existence. Thus Fichte rec-
ognizes only individual spirits and the absolute spirit or God; all
the objects which make up the external world are the products
of our own imagination; this imagination, however, is not lawless
or arbitrary but acts through the laws of our own spiritual being,
and these laws are similar for all individual spirits, so that all live
in a similar world; furthermore, these laws of the individual
imagination are dependent upon the absolute spirit of which each
individual spirit is a manifestation. We have also in various
forms the theory that the world is simply the divine thought itself,
— the theory of Berkeley, for instance, that the world is the divine
thought impressing itself on the individual spirit and causing the
ideas which represent the external world,1 or again what may be
called the Neo-Hegelian view, that the world is the divine thought
into which man enters to a certain extent.
i Of the Principles of Human Knowledge, CXLIX.
MIND-STUFF 133
Such views, however, do not quite satisfy us. We are con-
scious of a faith that there exists in the world about us something
real, which manifests itself through all these different forms of
sensation. Not only are we ourselves real personalities, with an
independent consciousness of our own, but also the conviction is
continually borne in upon us that objects about us have similarly
a real existence. In fact we should find it hard to tell where to
draw the line between the things which have real existence in
themselves and those which are purely the creation of thought.
Fichte tells us, if I am not mistaken, that the animal kingdom is as
unreal as the inanimate objects about us, that only the individual
spirits and God have real existence. Yet it seems to me that we
have the same sort of reason for recognizing the existence of the
animal world that we find for recognizing the existence of the
human world, and if we go so far, why are we to stop ? Can we be
sure that there may not be in all organized bodies some life which
is similar, although less in degree ? Who can assure us that in
the universe itself there is not such life ? May it not be in very
truth that
"The sun himself shines heartily,
And shares the joy he brings" P1
With this in mind we are naturally more or less attracted to a
view which is held by Leibnitz and which underlies the thought of
Spinoza, although it appears much less prominently in Spinoza's
philosophy than in the philosophy of Leibnitz, — the theory of
monads, the theory that there is nothing that has not a life of its
own and up to a certain extent its own consciousness. Clifford
presents the same theory in a different form under the term mind-
stuff.2 This mind-stuff consists of atoms, each of which, like the
monads of Leibnitz, has its conscious and its unconscious elements,
its spiritual and its material aspects. Certain complications which
Clifford introduces, such as the notion that our own consciousness
i R. W. Emerson, The World-Soul.
2 Lectures and Essays, "Body and Mind," "On the Nature of Things-in-Them-
selves."
134 MIND-STUFF
is built up of the mind-stuff, do not concern us here. According
to his general view the world about us is to be conceived as mani-
festing at every point, if not consciousness, at least a sub-con-
sciousness. Everywhere is found a kinship, although there are
differences in degree which the imagination cannot compass.
According to Spinoza the degree of consciousness varies accord-
ing as the organization is more or less complicated.1
This view is the most convenient of all which we have thus far
considered, so far as our thought of the external world is con-
cerned. Starting with our own consciousness, we find some-
thing similar to it, although in less degree, in all objects. We can
thus think the world up to a certain point, and without disregard-
ing to any great extent the demands of our spiritual nature can
realize the concrete existence that is about us. All these monads,
however, have their material aspect, and this material, unconscious
element involves all the difficulties which we have found presented
in the theory of the unconscious atoms. Our problem still is how
to get outside of ourselves, to think of that which is not thought.
There are three terms, if I may use the expression, to the problem,
three elements which are to be reconciled: first, the reality of the
external world, second, the knowability of the external world,
and third, the fact that we find in the external world something
which is the antithesis of spirit. It is in the last two terms that
the antinomy appears. On the one hand is the knowability of
the external world; on the other hand is the fact that this world
which is to be knowable is in part at least the antithesis of spirit
and therefore seems to be to that extent unknowable.
We cannot expect to find a complete solution of this problem.
All that we can do is to indicate the direction in which a solution
may be looked for, or to reduce the problem to its lowest terms.
I think that here as in every difficulty the solution must be sought
in the very heart of the difficulty itself. Like the man who is
splitting a log of wood, we must strike the knot. In stating our
problem I have just said that the external world which is to be
knowable is the antithesis of spirit. But if it is the antithesis of
i Ethica, Pars II, Prop. XIII, Schol.
CREATION AS OBJECTIFICATION 135
spirit, it stands in the most absolute relation to spirit. For no
elements are so closely bound together as those which are anti-
thetical or polar to each other, so that one is the correlative of the
other. The positive pole of a magnet is the absolute antithesis of
the negative pole, and vice versa; yet each has its very existence in
the other. We can conceive of the external world only as object,1
meaning by object that which is correlative to subject. Now if
we are to say just what we conceive matter to be, we shall define
it as the abstract of objectivity. According to the statement
which is generally made, matter is that which remains when all
ideal content has been abstracted. But if the world is considered
as object in the sense in which object is correlative to subject,
the ideal content cannot be abstracted. By the very process of
our thoughts we give content, and if the world is truly object the
content cannot be removed. Therefore our abstract of objectivity
can have no existence by itself apart from subjectivity, and so
matter, which we have defined as the abstract of objectivity, can
have no existence of its own. Further there can be no conscious-
ness of objectivity in general; all consciousness must have a
definite content. Thus we see once more that our abstract of
objectivity is reached only by a process of our own thought and
has no existence in itself. Matter cannot exist as apart from
spirit, or apart from the manifestation of spirit.
What, then, do we mean by creation ? Creation can be only the
objectification of the divine idea, not, however, in the sense that
the world is simply the divine thought, as according to the Neo-
Hegelian view, but with the implication that each created thing,
while of course dependent upon the absolute spirit, has also a
certain self -reference, a real existence of its own. But all ideas
are concrete. The world, as Spinoza has well said, is the mani-
festation of a single idea. This idea is concrete. It is organic,
part over against part, each part distinct from every other part.
Furthermore, in the objectification of this idea each element in
the process is kept distinct; there is no blurring. If all this
is so, every part must be wholly transparent to thought, and there
i Page 103.
136 NATURAL SELECTION
can be no limitation to the analysis to which the idea is open.
What is involved in this ? Here is the fact that every part, every
element, in the objectification of the divine idea, is distinct and is
kept distinct from all others. We have, therefore, first, the thought
of limit, and then, as implied in limit, the fundamental attribute
of matter, impenetrability and infinite divisibility. According
to this view of creation, matter is not merely abstract objectivity,
but limit. Furthermore, this limit manifests itself by surface, and
when we speak of solid matter we mean that go as deeply as we
will, or break as often as we will, we find always a fresh surface.
Here we have at the same time impenetrability and also, in the
infinite possibility of the manifestation of surface, infinite divis-
ibility. This view of creation, therefore, sets us free from the
difficulty in regard to matter.
We have reduced the thought of creation to its simplest form.
The one difficulty which remains is that which is inherent in any
attempt to conceive the actual creative act itself. The actual
objectification of the divine idea is something which we can no
more expect to understand than we can that separation of the
elements of consciousness into the I and the me which is the
ultimate fact of the spiritual life.
We may recognize the objectified idea as existing in three forms :
first, in the mechanical world, in the attraction by which the ele-
ments are held together, each acting upon the others from with-
out; second, in the world of organized bodies where the activity
is from within; and third, in the self-assertion of individual
elements in conscious, spiritual life. Any one of these forms
is as real as the others, but through the different degrees of man-
ifestation a progress is evident from the lower form upward until
we reach self-consciousness.
What has been the nature of the history of creation ? At pres-
ent science presents it to us under the form of evolution, unbroken
by any interference from without. The category of causation is
carried back indefinitely. So far as the history of organic life
is concerned, it is presented under the form of natural selection.
That is, natural selection is the special form under which the
NATURAL SELECTION 137
general theory of evolution or development is applied to organic
life. We need to distinguish accurately at the outset between the
two forms, between natural selection and development in general.
We hear this or that view spoken of as "Darwinism," only to
find on closer examination that it expresses a belief not in natural
selection but in the general theory of development.
What are the kinds of argument upon which belief in organic
development rests ? In the first place, the general basis of all the
arguments is the recognition of the absolute law of causation, the
absolute post hoc, ergo propter hoc. It is true that there is a fal-
lacious use of this argument which permits the loosest kind of
reasoning. Thus if we may designate the existing order of things
at any moment by the series a, b, c, d, z, and the existing order at
any other moment by the series a', b', c', d', z', then the faulty
use of the argument post hoc, ergo propter hoc, would be to connect
any one term in the second series immediately with the correspond-
ing term in the first series, to take for granted that a' was the
result of a, or z' the result of z. The savage beats his pans and
makes his outcry to frighten away the demon that is obscuring
the sun; the demon flees, the eclipse passes, and the sun shines
again; therefore the beating of the pans caused the flight of the
demon. In the absolute use of the argument, on the other hand,
the whole order of things as it exists at any one moment is con-
sidered as the cause of the whole order in the next succeeding
moment. This is the basis of all scientific thought. It rests
upon the assumption of the unity of the world.
We reason upon this basis in most relations. The theory of
natural selection has been criticised on the ground that it depends
upon a mass of suppositions and unproved hypotheses. But
there are cases where a supposition is as good as a reality. Sup-
pose, for instance, that a prisoner is confined in a cell, securely
locked and guarded, so that it seems impossible for him to escape.
But one morning the cell is found empty, the prisoner has gone.
There is a little window very high up in the wall. It would be
very difficult, hardly possible, for him to escape by it, but not
absolutely impossible. We are sure that the lock has not been
138 NATURAL SELECTION
tampered with, and that no other way of escape could have been
found. We assume, therefore, that the prisoner must have es-
caped by the window. But a different theory is urged. It is
said that an angel has let him go, or that the prisoner has used
some charm to free himself. We are told that we cannot show
that the prisoner had the cord necessary to lower himself from the
window, that we cannot prove a single step in the process of his
escape. We answer that we do not need to prove it. So long
as there is the possibility of escape by natural process, we accept
it rather than any theory of non-natural methods.
This is precisely the kind of argument which is urged by the
believer in natural selection or in evolution in general. He is
shown some bit of organism which it is difficult to think could
have been produced in a manner consistent with his theory, but
he offers one supposition after another to prove that it is not im-
possible that the organism should have been formed in the manner
which he has indicated. The answer usually made to his argu-
ment is that it is all based upon assumption. But the scientist
needs no basis of fact. So long as he can show the possibility
that the result may have been reached through natural processes,
the burden of proof lies wholly on the other side. If his opponent
holds that the line of causation has been broken, it is not for the
scientist to prove that it was not broken, but for the opponent to
prove that it was broken.
Spencer enters fully1 into the more detailed arguments which
rest upon this first great assumption. Of these the first is based
upon the nature of the differences and the similarities between the
various genera or species of animals or organisms of any kind.
The differences are found to be superficial, whereas the resem-
blances are profound. It is with these organisms as with lan-
guages that are descended from a common parent. In tracing
the development of the languages, we find on the one hand a vast
number of superficial differences, but on the other hand laws of
etymology, grammatical principles, and even roots, that are either
identical or similar, and because we find precisely this sort of
i The Principles of Biology, Part III, Chap. IV.
NATURAL SELECTION 139
similarity and this sort of difference we classify the languages as
belonging to a single stock. Of course this argument is not con-
clusive. Agassiz and others have argued that the similarity which
appears is ideal, the outcome of the one great idea in the mind of
the Creator. The similarity is made to rest upon supernatural
rather than natural causes. I do not know that there is any way
by which we can decide between these two lines of argument,
taken by themselves. According to either hypothesis the ex-
planation is perfect. Our decision must depend upon our gen-
eral view of the world and upon such other arguments as may
be brought forward in support of either view. There is this to be
said in favor of the ideal hypothesis, that the element of similar-
ity appears in cases where there is no possibility of a descent.
Crystals, for instance, have a similarity in relation to one another
like that of organic products, but no one assumes that one crystal
was produced by another crystal or that the crystals of today are
the result of crystals in the past.
However, the arguments become more conclusive as they
become more concrete. The second of the more specific argu-
ments is based upon the distribution of organic life in relation to
space and time. If we accept the ideal theory of creation, we
should naturally expect to find the similarity of organisms greater
under similarity of conditions. But instead of this what we
actually find is that where there is access from one region to an-
other the similarity is greater, although climatic and other con-
ditions differ, than in regions where the conditions are alike but
where access to and fro is not possible. This is just what we
should look for on the theory that the organisms are descended
from a common source.
The third argument is based on the existence of certain rudi-
mentary organs, which in some organisms have never been devel-
oped and are not used, but which in other members of the same
group of organisms are found developed into real organs and in
use. Thus the motor muscles of the ear are in man wholly use-
less; some have power to move these muscles, but it is a useless
power.
140 NATURAL SELECTION
The last and most important of the specific arguments is the
argument from embryology. It is based upon the assumption
that the more highly developed organisms pass through stages of
development similar to those of lower organisms belonging to
the same general type, so that the history of the development of
organic life in general repeats itself with the birth of each in-
dividual.
These arguments seem very plausible. But when we come to
look at the world as a whole, the differences are so vast between
the end and the beginning, between one kind of organism and an-
other, that it is difficult to admit the existence of the relations
which are assumed. Man feels so strongly his own supremacy
that he shrinks from any attempt to identify his history with that
of any lower form of organism. The attempt to bridge the gap
is made in the theory of natural selection, which Spencer has
happily termed " the survival of the fittest," but which because of
its author is commonly known as "Darwinism."1 The three
principles upon which Darwin bases his theory are heredity, the
tendency to change, and the struggle for existence with the sur-
vival of the fittest. The doctrine of heredity is that the offspring
tends to resemble the parent precisely. We find this indicated
everywhere. But as we look more closely we see that heredity
in itself also involves some tendency to variation. For the in-
dividual is descended not from a single parent but from two, and
these again from innumerable others. If there is any difference
between the parents, the offspring cannot resemble them both
but must naturally be different from either. Besides this inherent
cause of variation, we can readily understand that changes of en-
vironment may tend to produce other differences. Thus we have
to recognize not only the tendency to similarity but the tendency
to variation. But if there is any variation, it is natural that one
form should be more specifically adapted to the environment
than another; if, for instance, there is any change in color, it
is probable that one shade will be better fitted for the protection
1 Darwin, On the Origin of Species, Chap. III. Spencer, The Principles of
Biology, Part III, Chap. XII.
NATURAL SELECTION 141
of the individual than another. We have to recognize the struggle
for existence.
Suppose that a ship is wrecked and that the only means of
safety is a small raft which can carry perhaps a dozen men instead
of the hundred or more on board the ship. Leave out all thought
of sympathy or self-sacrifice, and imagine the struggle which
must take place in the attempt to gain a place upon the raft.
Other things being equal, it is the strongest who will succeed.
But the men who gain the raft will be exposed to hunger and
thirst, to heat or cold, and one after another they will die. Only
those who have the greatest power of endurance will survive.
Such a raft is this earth. Until we are told in figures we can have
no idea of the terrible nature of the conflict. Thus Wallace finds
that in ten years a single pair of birds would naturally produce
more than twenty million descendants. Yet at the end of fifteen
years in any given locality you would probably find these birds
no more numerous than at the beginning.1 Furthermore, the
process of destruction which we observe in one generation has
been repeated through every generation, so that we can have no
conception of the numbers which have perished. It is said that
if all the germs of life survived, in a very few years our rivers
would be solid with fish, the heavens black with birds, the air
thick with insects, and the ground so covered that we could not
move. Vegetable life probably increases even more rapidly than
animal life. Yet the various organisms appear to continue, under
conditions practically unchanged, numerically the same; the va-
riations are insignificant. Darwin tells us that in a single winter
four-fifths of the birds on a small tract of land belonging to him
perished, and only the hardiest survived. The incident is given
to illustrate the fact that if any of these individuals had an advan-
tage over the rest their chances of safety would be greatly increased.
There may be a tendency to exaggerate this dependence upon
fitness. For we may suppose that no variation has taken place
and that all the animals of a given type are equally well fitted for
the struggle. The result, probably, would still be about the same.
1 Darwinism, Chap. II.
142 NATURAL SELECTION
The persons struggling to reach the raft may have equal strength,
but only the dozen can be saved — the raft can hold no more.
We have to recognize the part which chance plays in all this, the
circumstances which are wholly independent of the adaptation
of the individual to the environment. Still, we have also to rec-
ognize that in fact all are not equally adapted to their surround-
ings. The dice are some of them loaded, and the slightest ad-
vantage may produce great effects. Thus any individuals that
survived because in some fearful winter their constitutions had
proved hardier than those of the other individuals of their class,
would no doubt propagate their powers of endurance in their
descendants, and the new generation would be hardier than the
generation which had preceded it. This principle would extend
to every aspect of the life of the organism. It would extend to
its color and form and strength; to its means of defence, the hard-
ness of its skin, the strength of its shell. It would extend to its
active organs, the keenness of sight, the strength and adaptation of
the wing. It is assumed that in the course of innumerable genera-
tions the whole organic world has undergone in this way a com-
plete metamorphosis.
Darwinism recognizes no tendency to advance. The term
"fittest" means only fittest for the environment, not the absolutely
fittest. In the tropics natural selection builds up luxurious
growths, at the poles it favors only the reduced manifestations
of life. The higher forms of whatever type are due to favoring
conditions in the world. Change these conditions and there is
a retrograde movement. According to Darwinism the great ad-
vance seen in the history of the organic world is merely an advance
along the line of least resistance. Natural selection, therefore,
is unmoral, unspiritual. Spiritually considered, Socrates was
the fittest to live of all in his time, but he was not the fittest for
his environment.
The origin of species is due to the principle of variation, the
tendency to change, in the struggle for existence. What surprises
us is the sharpness of the lines of demarcation. But this, we are
told, is accounted for by the intensity of the struggle. A purely
THE A POSTERIOEI ARGUMENT 143
natural cause works as accurately as any intelligent purpose. We
find this illustrated in something which is seen at times in a wholly
different sphere. In building bridges the upper ends of the piers
are usually made pointed so as to offer the least possible resistance
to the stream. Sometimes there is a bank of sand at the foot of
the pier, and this sand-bank assumes precisely the same shape
in relation to the current as that which has been given to the pier.
The result of the mechanical working of the natural force is as
definite as the product of human intelligence and skill.
So long as the environment remains the same, natural selection
tends to keep the forms of life the same. It is therefore pri-
marily a law of conservation. When the environment changes,
however, the change in the forms of life which would have been
disadvantageous while the environment remained the same,
becomes desirable, and that which was a law of conservation
becomes a principle of change. If it is asked why the process of
change does not continue indefinitely, the answer may be made
that life reaches a balance in which, although the conditions are
imperfect, the pressure is not great enough to bring about a change
Suppose there are only five men to be carried on the raft. Since
it will hold all five, the weakest is not at a disadvantage.
When we consider through what changes the world has passed
since organic life began, and see how vast the field has been for
all sorts of variation and their results, we realize how slow the
process must have been, and we can understand better the nature
of the controversy between those who would define the time at
which the existing world must have begun and those who demand
a limitless period.
We come now to the last of the four questions in regard to cre-
ation which may be asked of science. Is there an ideal element
manifest in the history of the world ? Is the principle of natural
selection enough to account for what we find, or must we recognize
some ideological principle ? The answer involves the second
argument for religious faith, the a posteriori argument. This
argument has been presented in various ways, but as a rule it has
consisted in calling: attention to the marks of contrivance in the
144 THE A POSTEEIORI ARGUMENT
world by which the organic life and the environment have been
fitted to each other. Paley uses at the beginning of his work1 the
illustration which has become classic. A savage finds a watch
and reasons upon it. He sees that it is different from the objects
of nature around him, that it shows marks of design and is in-
tended for an end, and that therefore it must have had a maker.
Paley argues that the world is to us what the watch is to the savage.
We see in it the marks of design and conclude that it has a maker.
But Paley's illustration is not a good one. He assumes too arbi-
trarily that the savage would recognize mind in the watch. The
savage would be quite as likely to think the watch a living thing,
some very curious sort of little animal whose heart he could see
beating. There is a story told of a traveller who left his cart
standing for some time and the savages came imploring him to
feed it. The tendency of the savage is to ascribe life to all things.
Furthermore, the fact that the watch was complicated would not
suggest to the savage that it was the work of design, for he sees
other things in the world about him which are equally complicated.
Finally, if he sees in the watch anything which leads him to con-
clude that it is the work of man, it will be simply its resemblance
to man's work rather than to the work of nature. If he had seen
any works of nature which were like the watch he would not have
discriminated between it and them. Diman2 urges that the argu-
ment from design is not dependent upon analogy; we see design.
But analogy does enter, even although it may be of the slenderest
kind. For it is because we see in nature marks which remind us of
things which man has designed that we attribute design in nature.
It is this form of the argument from design which has had to
bear most of the critical attacks made by the supporters of the
theory of natural selection. Therefore the attempt has been
made to find other grounds on which to rest the argument. There
are two of these arguments, complementary to each other. The
first is that of Clerk Maxwell and Sir John Herschel.3 This
1 Natural Theology.
2 J. Lewis Diman, The Theistic Argument, Lecture V.
3 W. K. Clifford, Lectures and Essays, "The First and the Last Catastrophe."
THE A POSTERIORI ARGUMENT 145
theory is based upon the uniformity in size of the atoms. In
Herschel's phrase, the atoms " bear the stamp of the manufactured
article." Clifford, however, doubts this uniformity in size of the
atoms, and maintains that it cannot be proved. It can be shown
that no atom is above a certain size, but this does not prove that
none is smaller. You have a sieve, and as you sift your meal
it all goes through; does it follow that the grains of meal are all of
the same size ? But suppose that the atoms are all of the same
size ? What then ? Why should they not be, even if they are en-
tirely the product of natural causes ? Seeing that the conditions
are the same for all, one would expect uniformity in them. It is
difference rather than uniformity which would require explanation.
The same question is to be asked in reply to the second of these
arguments, the theory proposed by Baden Powell.1 According
to this more grandiose argument, the uniformity of law in the
natural world is held to imply the existence of a supreme, creative
mind. But just as there is no reason why the atoms should not
be of the same size, so there is no reason why the law should not
be uniform. Mere uniformity and correlation do not take us
beyond the mechanical view of the universe. Nature is as likely
to be regular as not.
The best presentation of the a posteriori argument, in a general
way, is that which is given by Romanes as " Physicus " in A Candid
Examination of Theism. He writes from a non-theistic point of
view, but no theist could state the argument more clearly and
strongly. In the sixth chapter the theist is represented as urging
that the order and beauty of the world are inconceivable except
as the work of an infinite intelligence. But the reply is made that
infinite intelligence is inconceivable; the only processes of thought
of which we have any knowledge are those which we find in our
own minds which work through successive stages of consciousness ;
such a succession is inconceivable as associated with Absolute
Being. Here, then, are two inconceivabilities, on the one hand the
inconceivability of the harmony of the universe without a guiding
mind, and on the other hand the inconceivability of infinite in-
1 The Order of Nature, Essay II.
146 THE A POSTEEIORI ARGUMENT
telligence. Of these two inconceivabilities the first is relative,
the second absolute; the first makes too great a demand upon
our thought, the second contradicts our thought. Therefore
the first must give way before the second, the difficulty in conception
must yield to the contradiction in terms. The atheist appears
to have the better of the argument. But as we have already seen,1
Jevons points out that this action of the mind in successive stages
is not essential to the conception of thought but only an accident
of human thought due to its finiteness; the greater human intelli-
gences are able to grasp many things at once, and the ideal intelli-
gence would be wholly free from those limitations which Physicus
considers the quale of thought. Not only is the idea of infinite
intelligence or infinite spirit not a contradiction in terms, but the
idea of spirit is necessary to the idea of infinite being. The second
or atheistic argument, therefore, loses its basis, and the argument
of the theist remains in its full force.
i Page 37.
CHAPTER XV.
THE A POSTERIORI ARGUMENT CONTINUED. — THE NEED OF THE
TELEOLOGICAL PRINCIPLE TO ACCOUNT FOR THE RESULTS OF
ATOMIC ORGANIZATION. — THE TELEOLOGICAL PRINCIPLE AND
CHANCE. — THE TELEOLOGICAL PRINCIPLE AS INVOLVING
NATURAL SELECTION. — DIFFICULTIES. — ARE THERE ANY
RESULTS THAT CANNOT BE PRODUCED BY ATOMIC ORGANIZA-
TION ? — LIFE — MIND WITH ITS POWERS. — THE UNITY OF CON-
SCIOUSNESS.
The a posteriori argument is commonly known as the argument
from design. The word "teleology," however, is more funda-
mental and better suited to our purpose than the word "design."
For two elements are involved in design, a teleological element
and a conscious purpose. We find teleology both in the growth
of the plant and in the activities of man, but whereas in the one
case there is simply teleology, in the other teleology is accom-
panied by intelligence. The use of the word " design," therefore,
tends to emphasize too strongly the personal and transcendent
aspect of the Absolute. Furthermore, before we can prove design
we must first prove teleology.
We ask, then, first, whether any principle of teleology is needed
to account for the results which are produced in the world by the
organization and arrangement of the atoms, and secondly, whether
there are any results which no arrangement of atoms will account
for. Many theologians today regard the teleological argument
as obsolete, and take refuge in the instincts of the soul. The
teleological argument dwells largely upon instances of correlation
in nature, and it is now admitted that these may be explained on
the basis of natural selection. But in turning from external
testimony to the witness of the soul, the theologians forget that
148 TELEOLOGY AND CHANCE
what applies to the one may be made to apply to the other, and
that it may be held that the instincts of the soul are also to be
explained by the laws of natural selection. At the same time,
in the face of all these results, now as ever there is the choice be-
tween chance and teleology.
We use the word "chance" under strong protest from certain
scientists. Of course every one recognizes that there is no such
thing as chance in the sense that anything can be produced with-
out a definite cause. But there is a very important use of the
word which cannot be avoided, and in which it presents a truth as
absolute as that which affirms that all things are the result of law.
Chance is the intersection of two or more lines of causation each of
which was working independently. For instance I go to Boston
on my errand, and you on yours, and we happen to meet at the
same shop. It was not a chance that you went or that I went,
but it was a chance that we met, for the meeting had no place in
the plan which either of us had made. Again, it is not chance that
a locomotive throws out sparks, or that the sun has dried the
forest; but the two lines of causation are independent of each
other, and it is chance when they cross, and the sparks from
the locomotive set the forest on fire. Now, if in throwing dice
we turn up the same numbers repeatedly, we infer that the dice
are loaded. When the intersections of independent lines of cau-
sation occur more than occasionally, then we feel that some-
thing more than chance is present, and in proportion as chance is
eliminated, teleology becomes applicable. It is in this sense that
we have to choose between chance and teleology.
The objection has been raised that there can be no place for
teleology unless we know what was aimed at. But this is to mis-
conceive the teleological argument in its larger aspect. It is true
that it does not follow, just because a man has hit a target, that he
intended to hit it. Yet it is also true that if without knowing that
the man was firing at the target we should see him hit the bull's-
eye time and time again we should infer an intention on his part.
According to the admirable statement of Romanes, the harmony
which is found to exist among all the various forces of the uni-
TELEOLOGY AND CHANCE 149
verse in their complexity cannot be the result of chance. The
universe must have been so constituted as to produce these
definite, harmonious results. Either it has been a cosmos from
the beginning, or it has been so guided as to take form in this
cosmos. From the first, order has existed. Those who support
the theory of natural selection say that these results have been
produced through the play of external forces acting upon organic
life. But according to teleology the tendency to produce just
these results existed from the beginning, and the external forces
have been only the complementary elements in the process.
To repeat, however, the two questions which we have asked,
first, is any principle of teleology needed to account for the arrange-
ment of atoms by which the construction of the universe is ex-
plained ? Secondly, do we find any results which cannot be
conceived as accomplished by any arrangement of atoms ? In
answering the first of these questions we have to consider on the
one hand the original constitution of the atoms and their relation
to one another, and on the other hand the process by which they
have been combined in the construction of the world. The first
step in this examination involves the question of evolution. The
term is used in two senses which are often confused. Strictly
speaking, evolution implies involution, that is, that the germ of
the result, the tendency toward it, existed already at the beginning
of the process. In the other more popular and superficial use of
the term, it is synonymous with any process of changes by which
a certain result is brought about, no matter how. Tyndall, in
a famous passage in which he is speaking of the highest results of
the development of life in the history of the universe, says that
these " were once latent in a fiery cloud." 2 Here the term " latent "
corresponds to the idea of evolution in the true sense; that which
was before latent may be said legitimately to be evolved. Com-
pare the growth of a natural flower and the process by which a
wax flower is manufactured. The growth of a flower from its
seed is a process of evolution, the flower was latent in its germ;
1 A Candid Examination of Theism, Chap. VI.
2 Fragments of Science, VII, "On the Scientific Use of the Imagination."
150 TELEOLOGY AND CHANCE
but in no proper sense can the wax flower be considered latent in
the material from which it is made, and to call the process of its
manufacture an evolution is to misuse the term. When Michael
Angelo says that
"The stone unhewn and cold
Becomes a living mould,"
the phrase can be justified only in a highly figurative sense. The
marble is quite incapable of evolving the statue as the plant
evolves its flower.
Tyndall speaks of matter as containing the promise and potency
of all great results. But how are we to conceive of matter as con-
taining this promise and potency? There is no such thing as
matter, that is, in the same sense in which there is no such thing
as air or water. Air and water consist of collections of particles
which are so closely similar to one another that they are indis-
tinguishable. When these are united in a mass they produce
upon our minds the effect of uniformity, and we call the collec-
tions air or water as though we were speaking of distinct things
existing each as a whole. It is very much the same with matter,
if we accept the dictum of the scientists. It is a collection of atoms,
infinitesimal in size, and, if not infinite in number, at least incon-
ceivably numerous. To bring about the results which we rec-
ognize in the world there must have been co-operation among
these atoms. Now in so far as physicists maintain that the prin-
ciple of natural selection sufficiently accounts for this co-opera-
tion, and that the universe results from the working of external
laws, the proper term by which to describe the process is rather
"aggregation" or "agglutination" than "evolution." I cannot
but think that the use of the term "evolution" in a sense different
from that which rightly belongs to it has done much to make the
materialistic theories of the universe popular and acceptable, and
that if a legitimate term like "aggregation" had been used, the
theories would have found less acceptance. Evolution implies
involution, for only that can be evolved which was first involved.
Therefore evolution implies teleology.
Suppose we begin with the individual atoms. According to
TELEOLOGY AND CHANCE 151
any merely atomic theory they are as unconnected, except by out-
ward power of attraction, as though they were in different worlds.
That is, each is wholly distinct from the rest and there is no con-
tact whatever between them. To reach the results which we find
in the universe, these myriads of atoms, distinct and separate,
have to co-operate. Suppose, now, that we know of no guiding
principle at work in the development of the world. We shall
have to recognize a special adaptation of the atoms to this co-
operation. If as they are shaken together they fit themselves
into the forms of mutual relation in which we find them, they must
have been adapted for this purpose. This appears the more
plainly when we consider that this world is not one of many possi-
ble worlds. The forces which govern the atoms act with absolute
invariableness, and just as under certain conditions the solution
of some salt can produce only this or that particular crystal, so
out of these atoms only this precise world which we see could have
been produced. Here, then, is a dilemma of which one horn or
the other must be chosen. A principle of teleology must be in-
volved either in the very existence of the atoms or else in their
subsequent arrangement. It is with the world as with a child's
blocks. The blocks may be of uniform size and shape, depend-
ing upon the thought and skill of the child to combine them in
various structures, or they may be of different forms, as in a dis-
sected map, so planned from the first that they can be fitted to-
gether to produce one combination and only one. One or the
other of these two forms of teleology must be recognized.
It may be said that if the atoms were shaken together they must
have united in some form, and why not the form which we see
as well as any other. This form of reasoning applies where there
is a series one member of which must be taken, as for instance
in a lottery, where some one must win the prize. It applies also
in the case of geometrical forms; however intricate they are, it
may be said of them that some forms must in any case result, and
therefore these could be the outcome as well as any others. But
the case is different here. Furthermore, Spencer's theory of
differentiation and integration does not help us. It will explain
152 TELEOLOGY AND CHANCE
mechanical processes, but when we come to organic processes
it fails us. For integration is only the result of differentiation
as it separates, say wheat and chaff. Existing kinds of things
are separated, but there is no tendency to produce new relations or
a cosmos.
Of course chance can do a great deal. In the picture which
the frost draws upon the window-pane the crystallization is not
chance, but it is the merest chance when the forms resemble,
as they so often do, some woodland or other scene. It is chance,
again, and only chance, that the mountain side should have taken
the form of the great profile which we know as the Old Man of
the Mountain. If chance can do such things, it is sometimes
asked, why should it not have built the universe as we see it ?
We have to answer that in many cases it is indeed difficult, perhaps
impossible, to draw the line where chance is to give place to tele-
ology. But when we consider the complication of results, the
extent and variety of the mutual adaptations in the universe, we
feel that we have passed beyond the domain of chance. Up to
a certain point we may accept the explanation of chance or of
mechanical adjustment, but when we reach organic forms we pass
into the realm of adaptation, and then as we enter the world of
mind, and find subject and object in contrast to each other and
answering one to the other, when we find the world fitted to give
the joy that it does to the spirit, and the spirit fitted to take the
joy in the world that it does, then we feel that teleology must
have something to do with it all. Either the atoms must have
been specially adapted to come together in these relations, or else
they must have been guided.
You will notice that if we admit that there is a teleological prin-
ciple at the beginning, then we may admit all that is claimed for
natural selection in the mechanical carrying out of this tendency.
I am not insisting here upon any creative power. For our present
purpose the universe may be nothing but an organism that involves
a principle of teleology. To go back, however, for a moment to
our starting-point, it is an interesting process of thought to try
to conceive what the relation is in which the primeval atoms stand
TELEOLOGY AND CHANCE 153
to one another. They must represent a unity. Since they all
eo-operate to produce the results that we see, they must be bound
together in one way or another by some principle of unity. Perhaps
the question meets us quite as strongly when we consider some
single, individual result. Here is the simplest plant or animal.
Each organic form has started from a germ. The particles which
made up this germ had an understanding among themselves by
which this result has been reached. I use the term "understand-
ing " in a figurative sense. Or take a result like the Iliad of Homer.
We start with atoms wholly separate from one another, we shake
them up indefinitely, from eternity if you will, and from among
the other elements there drops out Homer's Iliad! Yet the Iliad,
is only part of a mighty whole many parts of which are of a like
perfection. Together with the Iliad we shake out also the mind
that produced the Iliad and all the minds that are to enjoy it.
To pass, however, to the construction of the world, we have
here again to decide between chance and teleology. We will
omit for the time being all the processes which precede the moment
at which we enter the world of organic life. We will start where
Darwin starts, with the beginnings of life, the minutest organisms
that possess life. By certain processes these have been developed
into the higher forms of life which we behold. What, then, is
the nature of the change which takes place in order that this result
may be reached ? What has natural selection to act upon ? For
natural selection, as Darwin often repeats, can originate nothing,
but is simply a principle of selection. Its materials are offered
to it, and it selects that which is most fitting.
[It has been thought best to omit the discussion of average and
individual variation, and the preservation of variations, into which
Dr. Everett here enters. He purposely leaves this discussion
"very general," considering "any minute discussion hardly ad-
vantageous." The question as to the processes of natural selec-
tion is outside the line of his main argument. Whatever the proc-
esses, the choice is still between chance and teleology,1 and if any
principle of teleology is recognized, "then we must also recog-
nize the importance of the principle of natural selection." — Ed.]
i Page 148.
154 TELEOLOGY AND NATURAL SELECTION
For it is through natural selection [he proceeds] that teleology
must work. The principle of natural selection not only does
not exclude teleology; it causes teleology to stand out in fresh
beauty. For if we ask under what form we should expect tele-
ology to manifest itself, we have to reply that it must be expected
to use natural laws; final causes must work through efficient causes.
There is another point of view from which the teleological prin-
ciple is regarded as standing over against physical relations, strik-
ing in now and then to adjust them. It is not to our purpose to
inquire whether such adjustments from without ever take place.
All that I insist upon is that the most profound and most normal
activity of the teleological principle is to be expected not as a
power working against physical relations but as a power that
works through physical relations. Therefore, in seeking for evi-
dence of the teleological principle we look first not for breaks in
the line of physical causation, but for such a consensus of the
elements that are at work in the world, such a concentration of
efficient causes to reach certain results, as cannot be explained by
any theory of chance combination. Thus we come back again
to the metaphysical argument of "Physicus."1
In this relation we regard the universe as we regard a plant.
In all the processes of the growth of the plant we find physical
influences, efficient causation, everywhere at work. There is
no interruption in the growth. Leaf and flower and fruit come
forth each of them from the nature of the plant itself, and
each is developed through the agency of this external, physi-
cal force. Yet through all these physical influences we recog-
nize the working of a principle of teleology, the tendency of the
plant, from the first sowing of the seed, to reach the result that is
finally attained.
We may not say with the certainty of mathematical demon-
stration that the organic world as we behold it cannot be the
result of chance, but the probability that it is not so to be ex-
plained is overwhelming. To make the world unteleological
overburdens the theory of natural selection. When we consider
the complications that are involved in the attempt to explain the
i Page 145.
DIFFICULTIES 155
•order and harmony of the universe by the theory of chance varia-
tions, to use the earlier language of Darwin, we are reminded of
the fate of the theory of cycles and epicycles of the older astron-
omy. It was a theory that explained the different phenomena
fairly well, but it broke down of its own weight, and gave place
to the simple law of attraction, which was found sufficient to ex-
plain all the phenomena. In a similar manner we fall back upon
the principle of teleology. We admit that the earthworm is seek-
ing its own ends as it toils away in the ground,1 but at the same
time we also admit that this is a part of the great process that
nature is using in the onward movement of its development
toward the higher life.
Such recognition as this of the principle of teleology cannot
be called unscientific, for the tendency is found to be a constant.
Take once more our illustration from the growth of the plant.
In this growth it is not unscientific to recognize the principle of
teleology, for at the same time that we recognize all the physical
elements of the growth, we know that through them all the plant
is tending to fulfil its own type. Just so the recognition of the
principle of teleology in regard to the world as a whole cannot
be regarded as unscientific. It might be so regarded if it were
hastily assumed. But if we find that it is impossible to admit
that the world as we know it today could have been produced
from the elements of fiery mist without the aid of teleology, if
we are actually driven to accept the principle of teleology as we
are driven to accept the law of gravitation, then to recognize
this principle is not to recognize an unscientific or non-scientific
element, but simply to enlarge the realm of causes with which
science has to do.
It is true that when we speak of this teleological principle as
embodied in the world, we meet certain difficulties. If there is
such a force, why do we not find it working all along the line?
Why are there so many examples of what from this point of view
must be called arrested development ? Why do we find the
exhibition of life that is stationary, organisms in which there is
1 Charles Darwin, The Formation of Vegetable Mould.
156 DIFFICULTIES
no movement toward higher forms of life, and even races which
show no tendency to develop into higher races ? It is too much
to ask, however, that we should explain this. For if the universe
is moving in accordance with a divine plan, any complete expla-
nation would involve complete knowledge of that plan. As it
is, we can understand only by slow degrees. We must take the
manifestation of the plan as it comes to us, and judge of what
God intends to do from what he has already done and is now
doing. Still, although we cannot give the explanation that is
demanded, we can conceive of the explanation as possible. For
what we observe in the history of the world is precisely what we
see in the history of the plant or of almost any form of organized
life. The plant tends to produce leaves and flowers and fruit,
and seed from which shall spring another plant similar to itself.
Moreover, leaves and flowers and fruit are all variations of a single
type of organism, so that no reason is apparent why every leaf-
bud should not produce a flower-bud and every flower fruit.
Yet there are even plants like the century plant which produce
only a single flower, and that one flower only rarely. Here is
the same question that has been asked in regard to the world.
Why this arrest of development ? The evident answer as regards
the plant is that the fact of arrested development is not inconsist-
ent with the teleological tendency in the plant, but on the contrary
that which is called the arrest of development is necessary to the
growth of the plant. The failure of certain leaf-buds to produce
flower-buds and the failure of certain flowers to produce fruit,
this all belongs to the nature of the plant. The fruit that is finally
developed is that which the plant was intended to produce.
We may even take a step further, though not indeed with cer-
tainty. Suppose that the highest development of life — and if
the highest development of life, then the highest development
of moral and spiritual life — were reached at a single point, and
that from this point the world adopted it by conscious acceptance.
We can conceive that a higher consciousness of unity might be
reached in this way by a race of men than if the same results
were arrived at through individual striving along separate lines.
LIFE 157
Still further, we may say that the highest result is not simple but
concrete, and that it can be more easily comprehended if the ele-
ments of which it is composed have severally their independent,
partial development. If I may use concrete instead of abstract
terms, let us suppose that Christianity is the highest result of
spiritual development. Let us suppose also that this result was
reached in a single race; that at first it was gained by a single
individual, and that then it became the possession of the race.
We can understand how a unity might thus have been attained
that would not have resulted in any other way. And if Christi-
anity is a composite unity, we can see how other religions have
their place in manifesting the various component elements sepa-
rately, developing them and bringing them into recognition, and
at the same time illustrating their insufficiency when taken by
themselves.
Of course you will not think that I am attempting to do what
I have only just now said is impossible, — to lay down the plan
according to which the world moves. I am only suggesting these
considerations to show that although we cannot answer definitely
certain questions that arise, we can still conceive of them as not
unanswerable.
What has been said may be presented in a somewhat different
form if we start from the position taken by Darwin. Darwin
assumes two things as given. One is life with its several powers,
and the other is mind with its powers.1 It may be said that
Darwin assumes them only with reference to his own system and
that he is not to be understood as implying that science in general
is to accept them. It seems to me, however, that Darwin goes
further than this, for near the close of the Origin of Species he
speaks of life as having been " breathed into " one or more forms,
and he somewhere indicates that Spencer goes a little too far in
trying to explain the origin of life.2 Therefore we may take it
for granted that Darwin did assume absolutely that the original
fact of life was not to be explained by science.
1 Origin of Species, D. Appleton & Co., 1873, p. 205.
2 Origin of Species, p. 100.
158 LIFE
Now, if life with its several powers is to be assumed, we have to
ask, what, then, is life ? The question is unanswerable. Life
itself can no more be explained than the law of gravitation. We
may indeed give certain characteristics of life to indicate what
we mean by it. Thus we may say that life at least involves a
tendency to organize ; wherever we find the tendency to an organic
existence we say that there is life. But organic existence has
organs, and these organs are not abstract but concrete. There-
fore if we recognize in life the tendency to produce organs, we
must look for the manifestation of life in specific quality. Here
is a vast transition, the transition from the mechanical to the vital.
We no longer have to do merely with geometrical relations, but
with organic relations. We have growth, not by aggregation, as
we found it everywhere in the lower forms of existence, but by
assimilation and reproduction. The simplest cell differs from
any merely mechanical arrangement in that it is an organic whole,
carrying within itself the possibility of development by putting
forth higher and higher powers. At first the organism may
be, so to speak, merely a single organ, but presently this single
organ differentiates itself into new and higher organs. When I
say that the organism is at the first a single organ, I do not describe
it as simple. For a single organ is in itself complex, possessing as
it does the elements which make possible the preservation of the
organ through these processes of assimilation and reproduction.
There is a method of scientific interpretation which assumes
that if we can show how a certain organ has been produced by
very slow degrees, tracing the development back to the first steps,
we have explained the existence of the organ. To attempt to
explain life in this way has always seemed to me very much as
though one should assume that if a ball rolls up hill by infinitesimal
stages no force is needed to explain the motion. Of course as
much force is needed to roll a ball up hill by infinitesimal stages
as at a bound, and a principle of teleology is required just as truly
to explain results when the development has been by slow stages
as when the process has been more rapid. One is reminded of
the story that some German writer tells about two countrymen who
MIND WITH ITS POWERS 159
are out shooting and one of whom cautions the other to pull the
trigger " gently, gently," as if that would make the report less noisy.
We are brought now to the point where we may consider the
second of the two questions in regard to teleology which we asked
at the outset.1 Are there any results that cannot be produced by
aggregation ? We find the answer in Darwin's second assumption,
that is, in mind with its powers. For the antithesis between
mind and matter appears from the very beginning in the lowest
forms of sensitive life. There is no transition from matter to mind,
from object to subject. Spencer appears to admit something of
the kind when, as he comes to the discussion of mind, he speaks
of approaching a class of facts "without any perceptible or con-
ceivable community of nature with the [physical] facts that have
occupied us." 2 We have, then, to insist that mind cannot be con-
structed by physical causes, by any aggregation of physical ele-
ments. Before, the results that we were considering could be
produced by aggregation, although we felt the necessity of assum-
ing some teleological principle. In the case of mental phenomena,
on the other hand, no aggregation will account for the results,
whether we assume the teleological principle or not. The aspect
of the case might be somewhat different if we could conceive of
matter and mind as passing one into the other by slight gradations.
But the gulf between the material world and the very germ of
consciousness is absolute. It is like a magnet, — a single grain of
the magnetic stone will have its two poles with the absolute an-
tithesis between them.
Furthermore, so far as we know what are called physical facts,
they are mental facts. We cannot conceive of the external world
except as objective, as standing always in direct relation to sub-
jectivity. Schopenhauer recognizes as a fundamental difficulty
the fact that external phenomena seem to be dependent upon the
mind, while on the other hand, when we consider the history of
the external world as it is manifested to us, mind seems to have
been developed out of matter. Matter appears to have the pri-
ority in time although mind has the logical priority. Mind seems
i Page 147. 2 The Principles of Psychology, Part I, Chap. VI.
160 THE UNITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS
to be dependent upon matter as its cause, and yet matter is de-
pendent upon mind because we know it only in relation to mind.
This difficulty, however, is met in the recognition of absolute
spirit. In ordinary usage we may think of the world as material
and as something that could exist without mind, but when we are
pushed to the consideration of these fundamental relations, then
we must appeal to the fundamental facts of our philosophical
thought and make the material world know its place. We must
remind ourselves that we learn the material world at second hand,
and that it is only spirit that we recognize at first hand, and we
must say to that which is to us only some form of ideal or mental
manifestation, that it cannot claim to be supreme. We may
alter a little the setting of a line of Emerson, and say that the mind
is like the sky,
"Than all it holds more deep, more high."1
One might as well insist that the mirror is in some sense caused
by the reflections that float across it as to say that the mind is the
product of material forces. The question may arise whether
this is not after all an argument ab ignorantia, and whether the
fact that we cannot separate the external from the internal world
may not mark simply the limitation of our own powers. We
may even ask whether the mirror might not reflect the process of
mirror making, and thus exhibit in its reflection the secret of its
own being. But if the argument is an argument from ignorance,
certainly the argument on the other side is an argument from the
absolutely unknown.
To pass, however, to another proposition, not open to such
doubt, the unity of consciousness is opposed to any conception of
it as produced by matter. The attempt to reach consciousness
and the spiritual life from the material side is the attempt to con-
struct the unity of consciousness out of a multitude of separate
atoms. Certain illustrations have been used in the attempt to
make clear the possibility of such a process. Thus it is said that
consciousness is related to the physical organization very much
as music is related to the instruments. But when we analyze
1 Woodnotes.
THE UNITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS 161
this illustration it fails. For music has no unity except an ideal
unity. It consists in a succession of undulations produced by
separate movements of the strings or of whatever else may form
the mechanism of the instrument, and these undulations have
unity only in the mind that composed the series and the mind that
appreciates the music. Apart from these minds, therefore, from
which the music springs and to which the music appeals, the music
has no unity, so that in the same sense in which we may say that
there is no water and no air, we may say that there is no music.
It is very important for our purpose that we should separate all
these phenomena into their component parts, in order that we
may avoid the fallacy of transferring what is purely material into
the spiritual sphere and then reasoning from it as though it still
belonged to the physical world. The materialist can give us only
discreteness. Spirit alone can give us unity.
Psychological physiology, in analyzing the brain and divid-
ing it into various tracts devoted severally to specific reactions,
appears at first sight to furnish an argument for the theory of the
production of mind from matter. But as we look more closely
we find that in reality its testimony points in precisely the opposite
direction. For the more distinctly the separate tracts are mapped
out, the further do we find the activity of the brain removed from
the unity that is essential to consciousness.
It may be urged against the unity of consciousness that men
sometimes have a divided or a double consciousness, in which
they are conscious of themselves as two persons or more. You
may recall the story told of Dr. Johnson, — how he dreamed one
night that he had been overcome in an argument, and how he
was much depressed by the thought of his defeat. But he was
reminded that he had been reasoning on both sides, and there-
fore was still the conqueror! In such cases each of the persons
who figure in the dream is a form of the individual's own person-
ality, and the unity of consciousness is not broken. The duplicity
is not recognized as a division of consciousness, but consists
merely in certain phenomena which the unity of consciousness
puts outside of itself and contemplates. It sometimes happens in
162 THE UNITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS
the first stages of insanity that the sufferer experiences a feeling
as though some one were trying to get possession of him, and
in spiritualistic seances the medium appears to be invaded by a
foreign power. But in all these cases consciousness as conscious-
ness, however it may differ at different times, maintains its unity.
When we speak of a double consciousness, we mean not that con-
sciousness has been divided, but that there are two independent
consciousnesses. Each of these, however, must be single. Let as
many consciousnesses coexist as you please, each is a unit. A
person may be thinking of one thing and may be writing at the
same time with the planchette of some wholly different thing.
But of this other thing the consciousness of thought or speech
knows nothing, and the very fact that one consciousness does not
know what the other consciousness is about testifies to the non-
divisibility of consciousness. A multiplication of consciousnesses
is a very different thing from a divided consciousness.
The line of reasoning that we have followed in regard to the
unity of consciousness applies further when we consider the theory
of so-called mind-stuff.1 According to this theory there is no atom
of matter that does not contain some germ of consciousness, and
no element of consciousness apart from matter; each atom has
its sentient and its non-sentient aspect; according, then, to the
manner in which the atoms are combined, the resulting organisms
manifest higher or lower forms of mental activity. Here is the
same difficulty that is involved in all attempts to construct mind
out of matter. For whatever the relations in which these atoms
are combined, they do not lose their separateness. Organize them
as you will, they remain a multitude of different centres of con-
sciousness. It may be said that the relation of the atoms to
one another tends to increase consciousness and to develop it
to a higher degree. But this is true only as it is true that in a
crowd of people at a camp-meeting, or rushing to a fire, or en-
gaged in a riot, the excitement of one individual increases the
excitement of another and the excitement of all increases the ex-
1 W. K. Clifford, Lectures and Essays, " On the Nature of Things-in-Them-
selves. Lotze, Microcosmos, Book II, Chap. I.
THE UNITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS 163
ciiement of each. In all this there is no fusion of consciousnesses.
We speak of the crowd as animated by a single purpose, but this
is only a figure of speech. All that we mean is that each member
of the crowd is in a state similar to that of all the rest. In the
same way, no matter how much the atoms of mind-stuff are in-
tensified by contact with one another, they are still only a crowd of
separate consciousnesses. There is no way in which a collection
of individuals can produce unity of results except as they all act
upon a single individual whose movement may be said to represent
the activities of all. But we find no indication of any such ele-
ment in the brain upon which all the other portions of the brain
and of the nervous system impinge, or which they in any way
affect by any process of interaction. And even if we could find
such an element, if we could reduce the substratum of conscious-
ness to a single atom, and say, "Here is the one atom which is
conscious," we should still have difficulty in taking the next step
toward an understanding of all the great and varied content of
consciousness.
The material explanation of spiritual things has been carried
so far at times that one might fear the possibility that all spirit-
ual phenomena would be made to appear dependent upon physi-
cal processes. Thus the mental faculties, memory, thought, are
found to be dependent upon the condition of the nervous system.
A man has a diseased brain: what becomes of his fine reason, or
his well-stored memory ? A man grows old : his mental powers
suffer the change so often produced by age, and begin to fail.
To a large extent the condition of the physical elements is the
measure of the condition of the spiritual elements. Yet, from
all that has been said, we see that there is a point beyond which
this sort of reasoning cannot go. Granting all the objections
that can be made, there is still a centre of consciousness that must
be independent of all material organization.
Little is gained by the attempt to free any one function of con-
sciousness from relation to the structure of the brain. Various
writers have made such attempts. Lotze, for instance, would
make memory independent. If memory, he says, appears to be
164 THE UNITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS
lost through some physical disorganization, it is simply that the
connection has been broken by which memory is reached.1 In
explanation of our forgetfulness of the phenomena of dreams it is
said that the whole dream world is so apart from the waking world
that there is no element of suggestion to recall the dream to our
memory. In similar ways others attempt to show that the will
is independent. But if we can reason from analogy we may as-
sume that there is no mental change that is not accompanied by
some change in the molecules of which the brain consists. The
only exception is found in the fundamental element of all, that
unity of consciousness which is the sphere within which all these
changes are contained.
The argument that mind cannot have been produced from
matter because of the inconceivability of the process is sometimes
met by the suggestion that other familiar processes are quite as
inconceivable. Thus Tyndall says somewhere that while he can-
not conceive how material forces can produce spiritual results,
he cannot any more conceive how the black earth can be trans-
formed into the plant and flower, so that he can see no particular
reason for insisting upon the inconceivability of this special re-
lation. The two inconceivabilities, however, are of a wholly
different kind. The difficulty in the case of the flower is only a
metaphysical difficulty. There is nothing in the relation itself
which challenges our ability to conceive it, but only the number
of the changes that are involved. When we consider that the
color and scent of the flower are simply different ways in which
the same atoms act upon our consciousness which before acted
upon it when they were in the water or the mud, we see that there
is nothing inconceivable in the changes but only a strain upon
the imagination. In the passage of matter into mind, on the
other hand, the inconceivability is that of an absolute contradic-
tion, the contradiction between the unity of consciousness and
any possible construction of multitudinous matter.
1 Microcosmos, Book III, Chap. HI.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE MIND AND ITS POWERS, CONTINUED. — THE WILL. — THE IDEA
OF PERFECTION. — THE PRINCIPLE OF TELEOLOGY AS INVOLV-
ING THE "WORLD-SOUL." — VON hartmann's THEORT OF THE
UNCONSCIOUS. — THE MOVEMENT OF THE WORLD TOWARD
CONSCIOUSNESS: TOWARD THE THREE IDEAS OF THE REASON
AS IDEALS.
Not only is it impossible to conceive of mind as produced from
matter, but it is equally inconceivable that certain contents of the
mind can be derived from the external world or from any simple
process of relation with it. They are elements that the mind
itself contributes. To quote a phrase which Professor Green
once used in a similar connection, and later repeated in his Pro-
legomena of Ethics? they have no " natural history." That the
mind should thus make its own contributions to the universe is
only what we should expect. Everything else has qualities of
its own which are not derived from the environment. The atoms,
for instance, we must suppose at first are simply attracted toward
one another, and this power of attraction is a quality inherent
in them and not produced by the environment. As they are
drawn more closely together, they may reach a point where they
begin to repel one another, but this repulsion is called out by the
approach, and when the relations into which they are brought
develop chemical and other aspects, what they manifest is still
something that has been inherent in them and is now simply
called forth. In the world of organic life, also, organism, as we
have just seen,2 means at least the tendency to organize. In a
similar way we should expect to find that the mind has its own
peculiar qualities or reactions, — for qualities are nothing but
reactions, — and since the mind is more elastic and more widely
related than anything else, since it is the only thing that can
1 Introduction, p. 5. 2 Page 158.
166 MIND WITH ITS POWERS
go beyond itself and return, we should expect to find its quali-
ties more varied and more marked.
We are met here by the difficulty that all our nomenclature is
borrowed from the material world. Shall we say, for instance,
that spirit is a substance? But substance is a term taken origi-
nally from the material world, and it is hard to separate the idea
of substance from that world; substance we think of as something
that is fixed, but in mind or spirit there is nothing that is fixed.
The same is true of the term "thing" and of other terms which
may suggest themselves. The mind finds it difficult, if not im-
possible, to employ in regard to itself any term that is derived
from the material world. This difficulty is one that occurs in
various relations. Take, for instance, the phrase which is so
commonly applied to the mind by the followers of Locke, " tabula
rasa." This implies that the mind may be either written upon
or else in some way embossed. Neither process, however, can
apply to the mind. For in the one case a foreign element is
introduced, and in the other an absolute passivity of the mind
is implied. But the mind is open only to its own modifications
and it never is merely passive but always reacts. It is now dis-
tinctly understood that the process of perception involves cate-
gories of the understanding just as truly as do the higher processes
of thought, and that there is no such thing as simple percep-
tion. We cannot be in the truest sense conscious of a sensation
without some process of thought by which we distinguish and
generalize. Even the perception of a tree or of a bit of wood or
stone involves categories of thought. The figure of the "tabula
rasa" is wholly false.
As I said before, we must expect to find that the mind is marked
by certain elements of its own, that it makes its own contribu-
tions to the universe. In considering some of these elements
I shall pass over much that has been discussed already in our ex-
amination of the psychological elements of religious faith. Thus
the element of love would naturally be considered here, but I
have already spoken of it both in relation to the religious feelings
and in discussing the theories of a natural basis for the moral
WILL 167
law.1 I shall add here only that in the spiritual world love would
seem to be as fundamental and inherent as attraction is in the
material world, and if it is thus inherent in the mind, it cannot
be the product of natural selection but is one of the elements
which natural selection uses.
I must pass on, however, to consider the element of will. Ac-
cording to Spencer,2 the will is the impulse to do that which is
most habitual under circumstances which for the time being
have made the course to be followed a matter of doubt. Thus
I see some animal coming toward me in the woods, but do not
know what it is. At first I think it may be some wild beast,
and my impulse is to run away, but then I think it may be a dog,
and I am doubtful what to do. Finally I see plainly that it is
a calf, and I keep on my way untroubled. The illustration is,
of course, a simple one, and where circumstances are at all in-
volved the complications that arise are more numerous, but in
all cases the principle is the same.
The general question of the freedom of the will we shall take
up later. I am considering it now merely in its most external
aspect. Spencer's account of the will seems to be the very oppo-
site of the truth. What we mean by "will" is not the finding out
and doing what is most habitual, but the doing what is least habit-
ual. In other words, we recognize will where habit is broken
through. The man who acts merely in accordance with habit
appears to us to be destitute of will; he is drifting, not steering.
Thus the drunkard is in the habit of entering the saloon, and he
exercises his will in breaking the " habit." It may be said that
in this case we are using the word habit in too restricted a sense;
that what the drunkard has been seeking all the time is pleasure
and that when he discovers that he loses more pleasure by drink-
ing than he gains and therefore tries to give up drinking, he is
still doing what he has always done, — he is still seeking pleasure,
although in a different way. But this does not break the force
of the illustration, for there is no good reason why a man's habit
1 The Psychological Elements of Religious Faith, Chaps. VIII and XI.
2 The Principles of Psychology, Part IV, Chap. IX.
168 WILL
should be separated into these two elements. The method of
seeking is a part of the habit as well as the end that is sought.
This man has been in the habit of preferring immediate pleasure
to future pleasure; now he makes up his mind to subordinate
present pleasure to future pleasure. He has been in the habit
of seeking his own pleasure, but now he is roused to thought for
the happiness of his family. Thus his habit is broken through
in two ways, first as regards the relation to immediate as compared
with distant pleasure, and secondly as regards the relation to his
own pleasure when compared with the happiness of others. We
may be told, perhaps, that the case is one of heredity, that the man
is descended from a virtuous and temperate stock and the struggle
is between the man's individual habit and the habit of his fathers.
But here we come upon the fact that what we recognize as the
loftiest manifestation of will breaks through all precedent, estab-
lishing a new precedent and forming a fresh habit on a higher
plane. It is in this way that the great leaders of the world, the
epoch-making men, have broken through the constraints of the
past. From whatever side, therefore, we look upon the matter,
we find that will is the opposite of habit, and that it is in the power
of the will that spirit manifests itself in a form peculiarly strik-
ing and original.
As regards Spencer's Psychology in general, it may be of great
service if it is taken as a tentative or experimental work, but if
considered as a final statement of the questions with which it
deals, it is wholly inadequate. The materials with which he has
to work are few and only such as his philosophy will admit. There
is the illogical and unexplained acceptance of some reality outside
of ourselves as a datum, but this is the only point at which the
wall that shuts us in within ourselves is broken through. This
external something, whatever it may be, has the power to set our
intellectual activities at work. We recognize its existence, but
otherwise we know nothing about it. It is assumed that it under-
goes changes which correspond in a certain way with the changes
that take place in our mental states, but when we have granted
this touch from the outside world to set us going, we are to admit
THE IDEA OF PERFECTION 169
no further impulse from it ; there is no feeling that is directly caused
by this "thing in itself," if I may use Kant's expression. All the
elements that have direct relation to the external world are thus
excluded, and we can understand better the resort to the some-
what roundabout method by which sympathy is explained. That
great leap which the spirit takes in love and sympathy, by which
we pass outside of ourselves and identify our interests with those
of others, suffering not only with them but for them, finding it
sometimes more difficult to reconcile ourselves to the sufferings of
others than to our own, — for this great leap Spencer's psychology
has no place or recognition.
I have given this simply as an illustration of the meagreness of
the elements with which Spencer has to work. It is not strange
that at times the phenomena which he is describing have to be
made over to suit his system, the pegs whittled down to fit the
holes. The process is not unlike that which we have found in
the theology of Schleiermaeher * where feeling is cut down to fit
the place allowed for religion in his system. Spencer comes as
near to the realities that he is considering as he can. In the
case of the will he seems hardly to have looked at the object that
he is describing. As I said before, the discussion is helpful if it
is considered as tentative. We see precisely what can be accom-
plished with the means that Spencer recognizes, and we see also
that whatever cannot be explained by his system demands some
explanation that goes beyond that system.
I have already spoken of the innate character of the three ideas
of the reason.2 There is one aspect of them, however, which
may be considered more especially at this point, the idea of God,
or according to the phrase used by Anselm and Descartes, the
idea of the most perfect being. The third Meditation of Descartes
contains much that is of interest in this connection. He here
raises the question as to the origin of the idea of the most perfect
being. We have considered this question in relation to the a
priori argument,3 and now the thought that it suggests may illus-
1 The Psychological Elements of Religious Faith, p. 60.
2 The Psychological Elements of Religious Faith, Chap. IX. 3 Page 72.
170 THE IDEA OF PERFECTION
trate and strengthen the a posteriori argument. Among the vari-
ous ways suggested by Descartes in which the idea of infinite
perfection might have been obtained, the one that perhaps offers
itself most readily to that thought of the present day which regards
everything as produced by the environment, is a process by which
the infinite is to be reached through the negation of whatever
is finite. But this cannot be, he urges, if we are to consider in-
finite substance as having more reality than finite substance.
We can get the idea of substance from our own being, but not the
idea of infinite substance. For if we follow a process of negation
we are giving up certain elements of our own experience, whereas
what we are seeking is something that transcends our own ex-
perience. Hence, he argues, the idea of the perfect, the absolute,
is more fundamental than the idea of the finite. For how do I
recognize my impressions as finite except as I compare them
with that which does not possess these imperfections ? How
do I know that I lack, if I do not have some idea of that
which is absolutely complete? Thus the idea of the infinite is
fundamental and the idea of the finite secondary. But perhaps
it is false, he suggests, this idea of the perfect, and has no source
and no reality. Here he falls back upon his test for the reality of
belief in the clearness and distinctness with which an idea presents
itself; he finds nothing so clear and distinct as this. This argu-
ment would have weight chiefly with Descartes himself and his
immediate followers. Perhaps all these elements, he questions
further, which I conceive as belonging to the most perfect being
are in me potentially. Certainly our own good qualities do have
3, gradual increase, and there are elements potentially present in
our natures that gradually pass from a potential to a real existence.
But no potentiality can be associated with the idea of the infinite.
The infinite is complete and possesses all its qualities, its full per-
fection, in reality. These elements that we find potential in our-
selves can never by any process of development reach infinitude.
Furthermore, the thought of perfection cannot have had its origin
in me, for in that case I should have given myself a perfection to
correspond with it, and by the same reasoning it could not have
THE IDEA OF PERFECTION 171
been derived from my parents. Neither could I have obtained
it piecemeal, gathering its elements here and there, for that which
is most essential in this idea of the divine perfection is its unity.
This idea, then, must have been impressed upon me by God him-
self, as the stamp which he has put upon his handiwork.
It should be said in passing that the figure of the stamp as
Descartes uses it has a very different meaning from that in which
Sir John Herschel speaks of the assumed similarity between the
atoms as the stamp of the maker.1 That involves only a low idea
of creation. But the recognition of these great ideas as the maker's
stamp is something much more profound and much loftier. For
if man has his source in God we should expect to find in him some
such marks of his divine origin.
Descartes can never quite free himself from the assumption of
that which he is trying to prove. But although his arguments
may not always convince, they do awaken us to the importance
of the question, how we come by these ideas of perfection. It
may be said that they are the beginnings and the indications of
a growth within us, the reaching forward of the soul in the process
of its development, the bud conscious of the coming flower. But
whence comes this impulse to a development that transcends all
experience? Fichte has suggested that the aspirations toward
perfection belong to infinite being itself, and are manifestations
of the infinite in the finite. Absolute being has differentiated
itself into these points of consciousness each of which presses
toward the completeness of its infinite origin. Other ideas we
gather from experience and observation, but these absolute ideas
are not the outcome of any experience but are manifestations of
the inmost life of the soul itself. The ideals thus conceived by
us are never attained, says Fichte, and therefore, since the finite
can reach infinitude only in eternity, we are destined to eternal
life.2
It is to be noticed that with the conception of the absolute ideas
the motive power by which man is raised from the brute becomes
1 W. K. Clifford, Lectures and Essays, "The First and the Last Catastrophe."
2 C. C. Everett, Fichte's Science of Knowledge, Chap. XII.
172 THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT
transformed. Man is driven upward by the struggle for existence,,
but with the development of his nature another element enters,
and he is no longer driven, but led by ideas that entrance his soul.
The fitness to survive no longer depends upon adaptation to the
environment but upon the possession of that which is most worthy
and exalted in human nature. The individual who is in the
loftiest sense fittest may be unfit in relation to his environment.
Man's faith in the absolute ideas is one of the instincts of his
nature. I shall not attempt to consider this instinct of belief at
this point in our discussion, except in relation to the principles of
natural selection. This relation I have already touched upon1
in speaking of the theologians who are ready to abandon without
question the argument from design and appeal instead to
the religious instinct. They forget that natural selection under-
takes to explain the origin of instincts no less than the origin of
those organs that are made the basis of the argument from tele-
ology. The religious instinct is no more inconsistent with the
principles of natural selection than is teleology. At least we must
admit that religious beliefs have the support of natural selection
in so far as they are recognized as filling a place and serving a
need in the development of the world. Natural selection may be
looked at in either of two ways. It may be regarded as the process
through which teleology is working, or it may be considered as a
process pure and simple in which no principle of teleology is at
work. If we suppose that natural selection is the process through
which the principle of teleology is working, there are again two
forms under which the teleological principle may be conceived.
On the one hand we may think of it as representing the supreme
being, the overruling intelligence, by which the principle of natural
selection is guided in its operations. If we admit this, we do not
need to say anything further, for we have assumed that which is
the object of religion; we have assumed as a starting-point that
toward which we are reasoning. But on the other hand we may
think of teleology as a simple tendency, like an organic impulse
to growth, an immanent teleology, so to speak, as compared with
what may be called the transcendent teleology of the first form.
i Page 147.
THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT 173
If we accept this second form, then the religious instinct that has
been so fundamental and so active in the history of man is given
the authority of nature itself, and we can use with a certain literal
truth the words of Emerson,
" Out from the heart of nature rolled
The burdens of the Bible old."1
But what if we consider natural selection as a process by itself
in which no principle of teleology is at work? What in that
case will be the relation of the religious instincts to natural selec-
tion ? They will have to be regarded as moulded by the outer
world, and will therefore be known to bear a certain relation to the
environment and so to have a certain truth. It may be urged
that such results are merely temporary, and that religion is, as
Comte has declared, one of the stages through which all forms
of thought have to pass. But the question at once occurs whether
nature can be supposed to produce her most important results by
means of delusion. It is assumed that the results of natural selec-
tion are in harmony with the environment, but here would be a
discord, and nature, while following truth in her lower works,
would be proceeding in her highest works on the principle of
delusion. A certain element of delusion may be found in the
lower world, as for instance in the processes of mimicry. But in
such cases the delusion is not for the advantage of the being that
is deluded; thus it is the enemies of the insects that are foiled by
the delusion. In the case that we are considering it is man him-
self who would be deceived by his delusion.
There is still another aspect of the case. We do find in the
lower organisms a change in instinct corresponding with the
change in the organism. The mosquito, for instance, begins its
career in water and then rises into the air, the tadpole undergoes
a similar change. The butterfly first crawls like a worm and then
lifts itself upon its wings. May there not be a similar change of
instinct in the human spirit, only with a reversal of the process,
so that at first it mounts up toward the heavens and later merely
crawls upon the earth ? It is to be noticed, however, that in all
i The Problem.
174 TELEOLOGY AND THE " WORLD-SOUL "
these changes in the lower organisms, each form of instinct cor-
responds to some permanent reality. The organism simply is
brought into relation with different parts of the environment.
When the mosquito leaves the water, when the butterfly leaves
the earth, water and earth do not cease to exist. Neither of them
has been a delusion, but from the beginning there has been a real
relation to a reality. Therefore if we are to make any compari-
son between the instinct of religious belief and the instincts of the
lower organisms, to show that an instinct may exist for a time
and then pass away, we have to recognize this fact, that instinct
always has relation to some reality. On the other hand, just in
so far as we believe that the religious instinct is essential to the
highest life of man, so far we may believe that it has the guar-
antee of the principle of natural selection. For the irreligious
race would tend to give way before some race that had the
strength which comes from the full and free development of the
religious instinct.
We have considered the relation of the religious instinct to the
principle of natural selection under both of the two aspects that are
presented, examining it first on the supposition that natural selec-
tion is the process through which teleology is working, and then on
the supposition that natural selection is a process by itself in
which no teleological principle is at work. In point of fact,
however, we have found reason to recognize the principle of
teleology as working through the process of natural selection.
Therefore we need not dwell upon the second aspect of the re-
lation but may turn, back once more to the first aspect.
What, then, is the nature of this principle of teleology ? What
does it involve ? If nothing more, it involves at least something
like that which has been called the "world-soul," or like the
"Will" of Schopenhauer, or the "Unconscious" of Von Hart-
mann. All these expressions embody in different language the
same thought of a power that is working through all the changes
of the world and in a certain sense controlling them. In Von
Hartmann's Philosophie des Unbewussten the conception is per-
haps reduced to its lowest terms, for he does not call the power
von hartmann's theory 175
that thus works in the world either will or world-soul but simply
"the unconscious." He states only that which he assumes as a
fact, that there is a power which works unconsciously through
all things. Von Hartmann's system as a whole is disappointing.
The first part, in which he undertakes to prove the existence of the
principle of the unconscious, is very interesting, and even if the
conclusions are not always perfectly sustained, yet it seems to pre-
pare the way for a helpful philosophy. One difficulty is in-
volved which is similar to a difficulty that appears in the system
of Schopenhauer. Many have found it hard to conceive of
Schopenhauer's "unconscious will,"1 but it is much harder to ac-
cept the "unconscious vorstellung" of Von Hartmann. He
argues that if the power that is at work through everything is
working toward an end, this end must in some way be present to
it, and it must therefore have a vorstellung; but since the power
is unconscious, the vorstellung also must be unconscious. But
the expression seems to be a contradiction in terms.
It is when Von Hartmann comes to his philosophical discussion
that he is so disappointing. Instead of basing a system upon
the facts which he has observed, he explains the facts by a system
which he appears to have adopted quite independently of them.
In the first part of his work he has shown that there is a teleologi-
cal principle in the world, the principle of the unconscious. But
the philosophy of the unconscious is not developed from this
unconscious element, which is of little assistance toward his final
conclusion.
Of Von Hartmann's pessimism I will not speak here, except to
say that although he claims to be an optimist he is practically a
pessimist; his teleology is the destruction of teleology; the pur-
pose of the world is to put an end to itself. I have referred to his
system in order to prepare the way for the suggestion of what
appears to me to be the true method of studying the philosophy
of the unconscious. For suppose we accept Von Hartmann's
theory that there is an unconscious power working through the
world. What way should we take to find the ends toward which
1 F. H. Hedge, Atheism in Philosophy, "Arthur Schopenhauer."
176 THE MOVEMENT TOWAED CONSCIOUSNESS
this power is working, and thus to find what is the nature of the
power itself ? We should ask, what is the direction of the move-
ment, and, given the direction, what is the goal ? And then, if
we had arrived at any definite conclusion, we should ask, what
is involved as a postulate provided the goal is to be reached ? It
is some such method as this which we might have expected Von
Hartmann to adopt in the second part of his discussion.
It will be helpful to follow out this line of thought briefly. In
the first place the world evidently has been working from the
beginning toward intelligence and consciousness. The move-
ments of the inorganic elements before life appears, the appear-
ance first of organic and then of sensitive life, then the appear-
ance of consciousness, at first in its lower manifestations and then
in the form of higher and higher intelligence until we reach man,
the development of man in an ever-enlarging sphere of knowl-
edge,— all these, science tells us, are stages in a single course of
development. Therefore the movement has been steadily toward
the highest results that have as yet been reached. But if the
world has been tending toward intelligence, and if we assume
that the movement is not fortuitous, then we may ask what is
necessary in order that a consummation may be possible. We
have a right to assume that the movement has not been fortui-
tous. Throughout the world we find such adaptation to the
various ends, nature has such definite and perfect ways of ac-
complishing her purposes, that we may take it for granted that
nothing has been aimed at which involves contradiction or ab-
surdity.
The intelligence is of two kinds, according as it is related to
that which is without or that which is within. On the one hand
is the comprehension of the world, knowledge, and on the other
the comprehension of ourselves, self-consciousness. If it is
wholly attained, the world becomes transparent, within and with-
out. Perhaps this result is never to be reached by finite beings.
But it contains nothing that is in itself contradictory or incon-
ceivable. The end toward which nature has been tending is a
possible end. What does this involve as regards the external
THE MOVEMENT TOWARD CONSCIOUSNESS 177
world ? We turn back to that which we have found to be the
postulate of the intellect.1 The world must be comprehensible,
it must be ideal, and if it is ideal it must be the manifestation of
spirit, that is, of something which is akin to man himself. For
if it is otherwise, then the whole movement of the world toward
intelligence is to end at last in the doctrine of the unknowable;
it is to end in darkness when through all the ages of its history
it has been pressing toward the light. It is this idea of the un-
knowability of all things that almost breaks the heart of Faust
when, after devoting himself all his life to the search for knowl-
edge, he finds that knowledge is unattainable. The case of Faust
is the case of a single individual. But here is the whole world,
through all its long development, pressing forward to know! If,
therefore, we may thus interpret the workings of nature, we find
that the end which she seeks demands for its fulfilment the same
truth that is demanded by religion, the presence of a spiritual
life in the universe as its source.
As regards self-consciousness, the knowledge of ourselves, the
suggestion that I have to make is offered with less confidence.
Self-knowledge seems to depend largely upon sympathy. We
understand ourselves, in some degree at least, in proportion as
we are understood by others. The sympathy of others and the
expression of ourselves to others reveal us to ourselves as no dumb
life can. If we place an individual alone on some island, his
inner life must become less distinct and less conscious of itself,
in spite of whatever help it may receive from the memory of
former associations. Human sympathy, however, goes only a
little way. The deepest feeling of the heart cannot be expressed
even to the nearest friend;
"Thought is deeper than all speech,
Feeling deeper than all thought."2
If I am right in thinking that the sympathy of others is necessary
to the fuller consciousness of ourselves, then an absolute, infinite
companionship is demanded, the companionship of a spiritual
i Page 102. 2 Christopher P. Cranch.
178 THE MOVEMENT TOWARD GOODNESS
presence to which the very depths of our inward life are thrown
open.
Again, and secondly, the movement of the world has been
always toward the ideas of the reason, accepted not merely as
ideas but as ideals, as powers in the life, representing the highest
ends toward which intelligence itself is working. For the highest
spiritual life of man is reached in proportion as the truth and
goodness and beauty of the universe are recognized, not as ab-
stractions, but as active factors in the life. From the lofty char-
acter of the ideas of the reason it might be inferred that we should
have to wait for a considerable development of intelligence before
we found any trace of them. It is therefore pleasant to recognize
the fact that they are rooted very deeply in the life of the world,
and that we find traces of them low down in the process of devel-
opment before the beginning of human life. Sometimes there
is a jealousy of this lower life, and an unwillingness to grant to
it any elements that belong to our higher life. But we do not
need to be jealous of the lower life. If we must fight for our
supremacy, no doubt that supremacy is more imperilled in this
direction than in any other. But the gulf is so great that we can
afford to grant freely whatever we really find in the lower life.
If we have no disposition to insist upon the difference between
the higher and the lower, then, of course, we have no fear upon
this point. It is interesting to notice how religion has almost
always dreaded any new opening and enlargement in the rela-
tions of universal life, and yet when once the broader view has
been accepted she has found in it new strength.
To speak first of the idea of goodness, we find an instinctive
faith in goodness in the trustfulness of the lower life of the world,
the trust, for instance, with which beast and bird meet the dark-
ness. But not to press this aspect, I shall pass at once to the
subjective view and examine goodness as a power in the life.
Here, of course, we must use the term "goodness" in its broadest
and fullest significance, for if we mean by goodness only the
submission to the moral law recognized as such, our search would
be useless. But we have found that love is the essence of good-
THE MOVEMENT TOWARD GOODNESS 179
ness, the fulfilment of the law, and where love is present we find
also, if not goodness, at least that which is the culmination of
goodness, that for which goodness is the preparation. Some
moralists and theologians are in the habit of speaking slightingly
of the natural affections as compared with that moral goodness
which is adopted consciously and through principle. Yet if the
position that we have taken is correct, the natural affections repre-
sent at certain points the results toward which morality itself
would urge us; they are in a sense higher than morality, inas-
much as they are already a part of life. I do not mean to say
that there is no difference between the virtue which has come to
be part of the nature after passing through the stages of conscious
morality and the virtue that has undergone no such conscious
process. I am not insisting that the love of the beast for its own
is equivalent in value to the love of the Christian mother. For
while her love is as natural as that of the beast, the great spiritual
realities which she recognizes add to it a beauty and fulness that
otherwise it could not have. At the same time we have to recog-
nize the fact that natural affection is in its lowest and earliest
form essentially the same as in the highest, and that the life that
has attained to it in so far finds itself upon the height which it is
the business of life to reach in all relations. The life of animals
has been spoken of as carnage. But the "struggle for existence"
does not necessarily imply combat and the destruction of others,
but simply self-assertion, and to this self-assertion and the de-
velopment of life the element of love is as essential as the element
of strife. It is even more essential, for where no struggle is nec-
essary love still is needed for the care and protection of the young,
and love is the cord which binds one generation to another. Fur-
thermore, the love of the animal is not confined to its young or
to those who stand in immediate relationship with it. Every
one is familiar with the self-sacrificing love of the dog for man, a
being wholly alien to him, and Darwin, in The Descent of Man,1
tells the story of a small ape which when its keeper was attacked
by a baboon sprang to the keeper's assistance. But in such love
i Part I, Chap. HI.
180 THE MOVEMENT TOWARD BEAUTY
are the beginnings of the higher life. For the higher life is life
outside one's self, and in that forgetfulness of self which involves
the thought of others is the true manifestation of the higher life.
When once a man loves, if only a single person, a single thing,
then there is found in him at least the beginning of the higher
life. It may be only the germ of that life, so weak that it can
hardly come to its full development, but it is there.
If the movement of the world has been toward goodness it has
been no less toward beauty.1 Everything seen in its type, its
ideal, is beautiful. Not that every creature is beautiful; but
wherever any one sphere of life is manifested, there we find beauty.
What is of still more importance for our purpose, the perception
of beauty, the esthetic sense, begins far down in the line of being.
It has been said that the manifestation of the sense of beauty is
first seen in the adornment of the person.2 It is hard either to
affirm or to deny this, but probably the beginning is rather in the
adornment of the environment. Thus humming birds frequently
ornament the outside of their nests, and the Australian bower-
birds build their arbors not as tents for shelter, but as halls of
courtship or for pure amusement, and decorate them in various
ways, with bleached bones or grasses or different colored
shells.3
The taste for music frequently shown by the lower animals
is of course familiar to us all. Horses are easily trained to dance
in time, and dogs often appear to be much moved by music, some-
times even assuming sentimental attitudes. In an article in
Littell's Living Age, taken from The Spectator, entitled "Or-
pheus at the Zoo,"4 the writer tells of an experiment made in a
zoological garden to test the effect of music upon the animals
confined there; the wolves, it seems, were terrified, but nearly
1 The Psychological Elements of Religious Faith, Chap. XII.
2 Popular Science Monthly, Jan., 1881, an article by Grant Allen entitled
"^Esthetic Evolution in Man."
3 Darwin, The Descent of Man, Part II, Chap. XIV.
i Littell's Living Age, Dec. 5, 1891.
THE MOVEMENT TOWARD BEAUTY 181
all the other animals showed a great deal of pleasure; further-
more they all appeared to be sensitive to discord, the cobra being
especially affected.
If we accept Darwin's theory of sexual selection, that each sex
has certain marks which are pleasing to the other, and that these
marks are inherited, it follows that the existence of so many
birds of brightly colored plumage, or of sweet or brilliant song,
may be due to the esthetic sense in animals. It has been sug-
gested, however, that such variations are merely sexual marks,
and that the individuals which possess them in a higher degree
have the advantage over others simply because in them the ele-
ment of sex is stronger. But if this is so, then we only have a
dilemma either horn of which will serve our purpose. To some
extent our dice are loaded. Whether nature has produced the
beauty directly or has given a love of beauty to the lower creat-
ures, there is in either case a tendency of the world toward the
beautiful. It is said in favor of the assumption that the marks
of beauty are sexual marks, that any peculiarity serves the pur-
pose equally well; thus the headgear of the turkey-cock exercises
an attraction of a sort similar to that of the exquisite appendages
of the bird-of-paradise. But this does not affect the question.
For if we recognize taste at all, we may recognize bad taste as
well as good taste. Certainly that is what we find in the world
of men. People set up pictures and statues that are as different
from real works of art as the headgear of the turkey-cock is differ-
ent from the plumage of the bird-of-paradise. The dress of men
and women, beyond what is necessary for decency and warmth,
must be considered as in some sense an expression of taste, an
effort more or less distinctly made toward beautifying the person.
But if we had never seen anything like the dress of the gentleman
of the present day and were looking at it from the point of view of
some savage, it would no doubt seem to us as absurd as we now
consider the dress and adornment of the savage. Yet all this does
not show the absence of taste. The effort that has been made,
however unsuccessful it may appear, is in the direction of taste;
it is an effort toward beauty.
182 THE MOVEMENT TOWARD BEAUTY
It may be that we all experienced a shock when we learned that
the color and fragrance of the flowers are largely governed by
principles of natural selection in the attempt to attract the pollen-
bearing bees. We might say that the bees themselves enjoy the
fragrance of the flowers as well as the rest of us. But facts would
hardly justify this assertion. For conspicuousness appears to be
all that is essential. The fragrance of the flower is the sign of
its little shop in which honey is offered for sale in return for the
service that the bees render. Therefore the fragrance and color
of the flowers are built upon utility. But here as elsewhere we
must recognize that all teleology works through efficient causes,
and if we find that all these elements of efficient causation, however
modified, have had some part in making the world beautiful,
we can only say that this is the method which nature takes, and
repeat with greater emphasis our original statement that the
tendency to beauty is inherent in nature itself.
When we arrive at human life, the esthetic sense declares itself
still more plainly, taking form both in personal adornment and in
art. Even in the stone age we find the beginnings of art, draw-
ings of animals and the like, well done, and done for the sake of
the drawings. Here is an immense step in the development of
life, — the separation of form from reality, and the enjoyment of
form without regard to the reality which it represents. For such
enjoyment witnesses to a certain freedom from the dominion of
the material elements of the world. Life has begun to be in a
certain sense a play. The spirit is emancipated, and can contem-
plate things without regard to personal needs. After a time the
passion for beauty becomes in certain natures dominant and is
made a cultus, an object of devotion, so that men sacrifice to
beauty as they sacrifice to goodness and to truth. I do not mean
in the torture that they are willing to undergo for the sake of
personal adornment, in the thought of giving pleasure; there is
indeed the recognition here of an ideal of beauty, but it is a very
low ideal. What I have in mind is that recognition of ideal beauty,
without regard to personal relations, which impels men to give
up for its sake wealth and position and ease of life. It is that
THE MOVEMENT TOWARD UNITY 183
devotion which we find in artists like Millet and Corot, refusing:
to paint except in accordance with their ideals of beauty.
Thus in beauty as in goodness there is at first simply an uncon-
scious movement toward the end, the tendency of nature itself.
Then, as life advances, the consciousness of the impulse becomes
stronger and stronger until it reaches that fulness and power
which must be regarded as in a certain sense divine. The strug-
gle and unconscious sacrifice in the earlier stages indicate before-
hand the nature of the higher life of free-will sacrifice that is to
come. In all the different stages the movement is the same,
responding first to the pressure from without and then to the im-
pulse from within.
In what I have been saying of the movement of the world
toward the ideas of the reason I have spoken first of goodness
and of beauty because the movement toward truth or unity is
less conspicuous. Yet an analysis of the three ideas shows that
the idea of unity is the basis of the others.1 Therefore just in
so far as power is found in goodness and beauty, must unity also
be regarded as having power. It may be that the trustfulness
of the lower life of the world implies an instinctive faith in the idea
of truth as well as in the idea of goodness. But as I have said
before,2 I do not wish to give much weight to this suggestion.
When, however, we come to human life we find unmistakably
the recognition of unity. At first this recognition is unconscious,
and the idea of unity is simply taken for granted, as in the proc-
esses of induction and the perception of the absoluteness of the
law of causation. Then it comes to fuller and fuller conscious-
ness, until at last men are ready to sacrifice to it as they do to
goodness and to beauty. There is something peculiarly sublime
in the sacrifices which are thus made to truth. That reply of
Agassiz, that he had not time to make money, expresses not
merely the feeling of Agassiz alone, but of all that immense body
of men of whom he was a representative, and who in the pur-
i C. C. Everett, The Science of Thought, pp. 137-164.
The Psychological Elements of Religious Faith, pp. 149, 185, 199.
, 2 Page 178.
184 THE MOVEMENT TOWARD ALL THREE IDEAS
suit of scientific truth have not only turned aside from paths that
might have led to wealth and honor, but have given up their hope
of immortality or their faith in the divine guidance of the world
because they believed that truth required it.
There is, then, the same history in regard to all three ideas of the
reason, — at first the unconscious movement toward them, then
the more or less marked recognition of their power, and then,
with the full consciousness of their meaning and value, the glori-
fication of them as something divine, and the readiness to make
them the object of the most complete sacrifice. We may even say
that it is in this form that the divine has manifested itself to those
who give themselves up to this special service.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE A POSTERIORI ARGUMENT THE COMPLEMENT OF THE A PRI-
ORI ARGUMENT. — RELIGION AND THE THEORY OF NATURAL
SELECTION.
What relation do these results bear to our general argument ?
We have all along recognized in the three ideas of the reason
the content of religion. Therefore if we find that they are no
afterthought or invention but have their roots deep down in the
very constitution of things and are bound up with nature itself,
then we may conclude that religion also has its roots in the history
and constitution of the world. Thus the a posteriori argument
in this aspect and the a priori argument complement each other.
The a posteriori argument furnishes a basis and background for
the a priori argument, while the a priori argument comes to com-
plete the evidence of the a posteriori argument. Together they
form a circle. It is not a vicious circle, for the one is not involved
in the other; in this circle the arcs strengthen as well as complete
each other as they come together.
The ingenuity and complexity of organic life do not in them-
selves indicate, as some of the older thinkers have held, the pres-
ence of a teleological principle in the world. But as we find one
range of being growing out of another, the higher out of the lower,
we are driven more and more to seek the impulse of this move-
ment somewhere beyond any one stage in the process. In every
stage we find certain potentialities which are not yet manifested
and for which the necessary conditions are not given. Certain
material conditions, of course, may appear, apart from which these
potentialities do not exist. But that impulse which leads to the
transition from the lower stage to the higher is not found in any
material conditions. Thus in the plant we know from observa-
186 THE A POSTERIORI ARGUMENT CONCLUDED
tion that any one stage in its history contains the promise and
potency of all the rest, and yet there is nothing in the material
conditions whether of this stage or of the stages that have pre-
ceded it to warrant the result. In a similar way it might be said
that the world itself is like a plant, with one period of its existence
springing from another, as the Hindu systems have represented
it; but here, too, there would be the same difficulty in finding
in any present, outward conditions the unifying impulse. It is
when we get the outcome of it all, so far as we can as yet recognize
this outcome, that a flood of light is poured over the whole history
of the world, and nature at last speaks to man as spirit to spirit.
Then, as we look back, we find that from the very beginning there
has been a tendency toward this spiritual manifestation, a spiritual
impulse working from the first. I call it a spiritual impulse be-
cause the outcome is spiritual. I do not mean merely that the
human spirit has been produced out of the material universe, al-
though this result would be sufficient for our purpose, but that
man, himself a spirit, as he comes to his fuller development, meets
in nature a spirit that is akin to his own, so that a great ideal of
beauty greets him and exalts him.
We find, then, that from the first nature has been an idealist.
That is, the ideas which we claim, whether rightly or wrongly,
are in some sense innate in the spirit, have been innate in nature
itself. All these material forces in their strife with one another
have seemed to exclude the ideal element, so that as we have
looked upon them we have been almost ashamed to assert the
thought of the spiritual as anything more than an accident in the
universe. But we find instead that all through the working of
the material forces these ideas have been the ruling principle to
which the material world has been subject. In view of this we
may be surprised at finding that according to the indications
of science the history of the world is to be a limited history, — that
by degrees the motion of the earth will become slower and slower
until it stops, that everything is tending to an equipoise in which
life will be impossible. Of course there may be error in such fore-
casts; the scientists may or may not be right. But it will not
THE A POSTERIORI ARGUMENT CONCLUDED 187
do here or anywhere to leave our theories dependent upon chances.
At first sight, certainly, the theory of an ultimate decline in the
life of the world would seem to affect the principle of teleology.
It is easy to see that natural selection, which up to a certain point
works in favor of the most completely developed organisms, would
after that point was reached work in a precisely opposite direction.
For just as when the conditions are favorable the higher forms
of life, the more complex and more developed forms, have the ad-
vantage, so as conditions become unfavorable the advantage is
with the simpler and lower forms.
In such an event, however, we may reply, the world must be
considered as an organism like all the other organisms with which
we are familiar, having like them its periods of growth and ful-
filment and decay, and we do not need to deny the existence of the
teleological principle in the world because of the decline in its
life any more than we deny the existence of the teleological princi-
ple in the plant or animal or in man simply because after their
growth they begin at last to wither and pass away. Nor would
the decline of life in the world vitiate the conclusions that are
reached during the period of development and fulfilment. For
just as an organism is judged not by the period of its decline but
by the period of its freshness and maturity, so the real signifi-
cance of the world is to be found in the fullest result, the highest
product, which has been attained in the course of its development.
Furthermore, if we ask what place there would be for religious
faith under the changed conditions that are assumed, we must
also ask what place there is for faith at a similar moment in the
history of the individual life. Experience has shown that relig-
ious faith is not dependent upon favorable external conditions.
When external conditions are favorable, faith may indeed use
them to justify itself, but when they cease to be favorable faith
uses them only as something that is to be discredited; it gives
up its foothold upon the earth and takes to its wings. And if we
ask what manifestations there would be of the divine, we may
reply that although certain forms of manifestation upon which
faith has relied might be absent, yet other forms might be present
188 THE A POSTEEIORI ARGUMENT CONCLUDED
in even greater fulness, such as the divinity of self-sacrifice and
love.
Our examination of the a posteriori argument ends here. So
far as the principle of teleology is concerned, the tendency in
nature toward a certain result, the argument is well made out.
Given the necessity of choice between chance and teleology, we
must recognize teleology. Some may hold further that teleology
is incomprehensible unless it is regarded as design. I have nothing
to urge against this position. There might be some question,
however, whether the incomprehensibility is of such a nature as
to force us to recognize the presence in the world of a conscious,
designing will. If we leave out of account the a priori argument,
the importance of which I would not undervalue, the argument
that is based upon the thought of a final cause seems to me stronger
than that which is based upon the idea of efficient cause. It seems
to me that God is needed more as the end toward which nature
is pressing than as the cause from which it proceeds. Whether
the simple adaptation of means to ends in the organic life of the
world would be enough to lead us to the thought of a designing
will, may be open to question; but when we see the outcome of
it all, when we see not only that nature is tending to certain results
but that these results are ideal, spiritual results, and when we see
what is demanded by them, the thought of an infinite, spiritual
presence which alone can satisfy the needs of the soul, then, cer-
tainly, our side of the argument must seem to us the stronger. It
is the working of the teleological principle in nature that has
brought us into the position to make our demand. Everything
has pointed toward this result, and we are justified by the whole
great sweep of the movement of the world.
We can better understand now the limitation of that position
in which Hume has been followed by Kant and others, namely,
that we can reason to no greater fulness of spiritual life than that
which we see manifested in the world about us.1 This position
must be enlarged by asking what is involved in the results that are
reached, in the degree of perfection that we see. In examining
1 The Psychological Elements of Religious Faith, p. 49.
NATURAL SELECTION AND RELIGION 189
a piece of machinery we do not measure the inventive genius of
the man who has contrived it by our own comprehension of the
mechanism, but from what we do see we reason to what we do
not see. In a similar way we find in the world sufficient evidence
of the power and conscious wisdom that are needed to fulfil the
ends toward which the world is tending. Seeing all this we
must feel that the world cannot be a failure, as it certainly would
be if the needs which the development of life had excited were
not to be met, and if the spirit on reaching its most mature devel-
opment were then obliged to fall back into a world of material
relations instead of rising into a world of spiritual relations.
"The frailest leaf, the mossy bark,
The acorn's cup, the raindrop's arc,
The shining pebble of the pond,
Thou inscribest with a bond,
In thy momentary play,
Would bankrupt nature to repay."1
But what is the relation of the theory of natural selection to this
process that we have been considering and the results that we have
reached ? We hear theologians say that religion can use the prin-
ciple of natural selection, that the creative power can be con-
ceived as working through it as easily as through any other method.
But this is not the point. The question is not whether religion
can use this principle but whether it must. It is this question
which we have been trying to answer. What relation, then, is to
be recognized ?
In the first place, granting that religion is right, the theory of
natural selection offers certain helps to our thought of the world.
Thus it takes from the world the aspect of mechanism and from
its maker the aspect of a contriver. If all the little intricate
appliances by which organic life is sustained are to be regarded
as the result each of some specific design, the idea of God may or
may not remain for us, but certainly it is a relief to find that these
i R. W. Emerson, Ode to Beauty.
190 NATURAL SELECTION AND RELIGION
more minute results may be explained in large part through the
working of general principles rather than by special contrivance.
Of course omniscient spirit must recognize not only the general
laws but the particular results, and the most minute results must
be open to it. Yet it is a relief to approach the matter from the
side of general principles and not merely from that of specific
contrivance.
Another help, however, still more real, is afforded. We know
how large a place is held by strife and suffering. We now see that
these have been the instruments by which nature has been goaded
on from point to point until it has reached the measure of perfec-
tion that we observe, and we recognize that no element of such
suffering has been useless but that all has contributed to the gen-
eral result. Here a greater question arises, — whether omnis-
cience and omnipotence could not have created the world without
using so terrible a method of advance as this. This question,
however, is apart from our present discussion. At present we
have only to recognize that although the relief which is suggested
by the principle of natural selection is not final or absolute, it
is nevertheless up to a certain point very helpful. Moreover, in
so far as it shows that there has been progress in the world, it
affords a refutation of absolute pessimism, for that world cannot
be considered wholly evil in which strife and suffering have been
the instruments of good, and in which the lower stages of life have
given place continually to the higher. It may be urged that the
real evil will come through the highest consciousness. We can
only reply that no one of these suggestions is final, but that all are
helpful.
The relations that we have just considered are indirect. If
we ask what has been the direct part played by the principle of
natural selection, we find that it has not been a force of impulsion.
It has acted rather as a cog, preventing retrogression in the move-
ment of the world and preserving at every stage the highest results
already attained. We find also that a fresh light is thrown upon
these results, showing more clearly the unity and harmony in the
universe. For leaving out the results of conscious, spiritual life,
NATURAL SELECTION AND RELIGION 191
and turning back to the lower stages of human life and to the life
below man, we see that there could have been no advance which
was not supported by a real worldly or earthly power, no ad-
vance which did not make the individual better able to live and to
cope with his environment. It is sometimes said that a special
manifestation of the divine power which controls the world is
shown in the preservation of man in his helplessness among all
the wild forces of nature. But according to the principle of natural
selection man could not and would not have maintained himself
if he had not had some advantage in the struggle for existence.
Although he was feeble physically, yet by his mental powers he
was able to contend successfully with the elements and with the
wild beasts. He became the master of the world because he
had in himself the power to secure the mastery. Thus a special
providence appears not to be needed for the preservation of
man at the beginning of his career any more than for the
preservation of the lion or the tiger. In the one case as in
the other the working of providence is seen in the fact that to
each creature is given the means by which he is able to maintain
himself.
As we reach the higher stages of human life, the principle of
natural selection applies less than it did in the lower stages. To
repeat what I have said a little before in another connection,1
as man advances, instead of being driven by the forces of natural
selection, he is attracted by the manifestation of the higher ideas.
Human ingenuity and the mental powers in general have so far
changed the relation between man and his environment, that
whereas up to the beginning of this more conscious and intelli-
gent life of man the survival of the fittest meant on the whole the
survival of the best and highest, when once we reach the stage
of the more complex human society, that which survives may still
be fittest in the strict sense of the Darwinian phrase, as most
adapted to its environment, but it may not be at all the fittest in
the highest sense of the word.
Greg, in the Enigmas of Life, has given a number of illustra-
tions to show how in certain aspects the principle of natural se-
i Page 172.
192 NATURAL SELECTION AND RELIGION
lection appears to work against the survival of the fittest.1 Thus
in the middle ages, when men's interests were for the most part
divided between the world of war and the world of monasticism,
war tended to kill off in battle the strongest physically and the
most courageous, while monasticism through its encouragement
of celibacy tended to leave the more spiritual-minded without
offspring, so that the general tendency of the period was to sup-
press the development both of the physically best endowed and
also of those who were best endowed spiritually. Another singu-
lar illustration, which may apply better to England, perhaps,
than to our own country, is found in the statement that since
heirs are looked upon as valuable prizes in the matrimonial mar-
ket and since the richest heirs are generally only children, the prin-
ciple of natural selection working through the marriages of these
heirs tends to a diminution in the size of families, since an only
child would be less likely to have many children than the members
of larger families. A larger application, however, of this theory is
seen in the fact that as a rule the more cultivated part of the
community tends to have fewer children than the less cultivated.
In all this, in so far as it is true, there is simply another
indication that in the more advanced relations of life we must
trust rather to the inspiration of the ideal than to the working
of natural selection. Natural selection does indeed work in these
higher relations through communities. The community which
possesses the higher life will be stronger than one which does not
possess it. It is possible that the forces of natural selection
working within the several communities may kill out the higher
ideas in each, and that all may be left to contend upon the same
plane. But here our trust must be in the recoil of the spiritual
life. Just as in the past we see that in the very moment when
things looked darkest there came some fresh access of the spirit-
ual life, so we may have hope and confidence for the future.
As we look back upon the lower stages in the development of
the world we can see in what direction the movement of the whole
has tended. We can also see, as we reach the more complex
i W. R. Greg, Enigmas of Life, III, "Non-Survival of the Fittest."
NATURAL SELECTION AND RELIGION 193
relations of the higher civilization, that here, too, the movement
has been mainly in the same direction. Furthermore, we recognize
that it has been in that same direction partly in spite of the forces
of natural selection which have been at work within each com-
munity. We recognize that in part, at least, the development
of the higher civilization has been a movement against the stream.
Thus the charities and philanthropies of the world have been
opposed in greater or less degree to the principles of the political
economy which would base itself upon the theory of natural selec-
tion. But in recognizing this we also recognize the more clearly
the power of those ideals which we have been considering. As
our confidence in the power of the steamship increases when we
see it moving against the stream, so we may have fresh confidence
in these motive forces of humanity as we find them by their own
might setting themselves against the forces of natural selection.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE BEGINNINGS OF CREATION. — MAN'S POWER TO THINK IN
GENERAL CONCEPTS: AS ILLUSTRATED IN THE STORY OF THE
GARDEN OF EDEN. — SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE SENSE
OF THE SUPERNATURAL. — Man's RECOGNITION OF THE IDEAL
AND OF THE HINDRANCES TO ITS ATTAINMENT. — THE SENSE
OF THE COMIC. — THE SENSE OF BEAUTY. — MAN THE ULTI-
MATE PRODUCT IN THE PROCESS OF DEVELOPMENT.
We now take up again the story of creation. Scientists tell us
that the world existed for ages without man. But Philosophy asks,
" How could this be ? If the world exists simply as object, how
could it have existed when there was no subject ? " Religion
answers that infinite spirit recognized the world and so gave it
objectivity. Furthermore, there are those who find the germs
of subjectivity in the world itself. But then comes the question,
" If the world is interesting chiefly as the dwelling place of man,
why should it have existed for so long a period without man ?
Why was not man created at once, and the world at once made
ready for his dwelling place ? " Or if the phenomenality of time
is recognized, why were there so many stages below man ?
It is to be said at once that if we assume that the world was
created only on account of man, we meet difficulties on every side.
You may remember the lines of Pope : —
"While man exclaims, 'See all things for my use!'
'See man for mine!' replies a pampered goose."1
The thought of the existence of the world for long ages before
man came, the recognition of creatures that are troublesome to
man or useless to him or that flee before him, all show that this
i Essay on Man, Ep. Ill, 45, 46.
THE BEGINNINGS OF CREATION 195
point of view is one that cannot be maintained. If in any sense
man is to be considered the centre of the world, it must be rather
as the final cause in the process of development, the world tending
constantly toward the highest life that is possible for it, and if
all things are tributary to this highest life, it is because they repre-
sent the stages which must be passed through before the highest
life is reached. There is no more objection to this than to the
recognition of man as the final cause in the process of embryonic
development. Instead of regarding man, therefore, as a sort of
afterthought, we should rather look upon the lower forms of life
as cases of arrested development, like the leaf as compared with
the flower.
Still the question may be asked, "Why was this final result
so long deferred ? " To one who compares the suffering and
struggle in human life with what seems to us the peace in lower
forms of life, it may seem that the question should rather be, why
so soon ? Emerson has given expression to this thought in The
Sphinx, but the picture that he draws is exaggerated from both
points of view. On the one hand there is a glory in human life
that is found nowhere else, and on the other hand strife and suffer-
ing are found in the lower forms of life as truly as in the life of
man. Consciousness does indeed add a new element to suffering
in human life through the power of reflection and concentration
that it brings ; a man as he looks back upon the past and forward
into the future may feel all the sorrow of a lifetime concentrated
into a single moment. But if consciousness thus adds to the suffer-
ing of the higher life it adds in equal measure to its joy, and if
man can ask of the lower forms of life, " Is there any sorrow like
unto my sorrow?" he can also ask, "Where is there any joy that
is like my joy?"
Furthermore we have to recognize that no process, except as
it is merely a mechanical process, is completed simply in its re-
sult. In mechanical processes, such as the building of a house
or the manufacture of a watch, the only thought is of the result
that is to be accomplished. If the watch, for instance, is incom-
plete, it is good for nothing except in so far as there is a possibility
196 THE BEGINNINGS OF CREATION
of completing it; its worth comes with its completion. In organic
processes, on the other hand, each part, each stage, has a value as
truly as another. I do not mean, of course, that all stages have
the same value. But take the illustration that is offered in the life
of the individual man. We might ask why man is so long in
maturing. Why all these years of helplessness and of education
and training, these years of folly and inexperience ? Why should
not every man come into the world another Adam, full-grown and
perfect, with all his faculties matured ? But we know very well
that if anything of this sort were to take place life would lose a
great part of its beauty and joy. For the full-grown man is the
man only as he is also the child and the youth. Sometimes we
speak of childhood as though its value were in the promise of
manhood that it gives. But ask the poet or the mother, and they
may say that man exists for the sake of the child and reaches his
true flowering and beauty in the child. The truth is that neither
is the man for the sake of the child nor the child for the sake of
the man, but human life is for the sake of all and each stage has
its value.
"Till
The traveller and the road seem one
With the errand to be done," —
Those lines of Emerson's1 sometimes seem tome to contain more
philosophy than was ever put into so few words.
Another illustration of the same truth is to be found in the novel
or the play. The purpose of the novel is not accomplished simply
in the union of the hero and the heroine. If our interest were
only in the fact that at last John and Jane were married, we might
as well take the list of marriages in the morning paper and have
half a dozen romances at once. But it is the story that we want.
The end is for the sake of the story, and not the story for the sake
of the end. The last act of Hamlet is by no means the most inter-
esting part of the play. It is the same in a game. A man does
play to win, but the game is not for the winning, as the player
who cheats mistakenly assumes.
1 Etienne de la Boece.
THE BEGINNINGS OF CREATION 197
We may find here the suggestion of a way to remove the diffi-
culty which some have felt in recognizing the principle of final
causation in the world and which may also have presented itself
in regard to the principle of teleology. This difficulty is best
stated by Spinoza, who says that there can be no final causation.
For, he reasons, we cannot conceive of God as doing anything
that is not worth doing in itself, anything that is done merely
for the sake of something else.1 The solution of this problem
is found in bringing together Spinoza's doctrine that everything
must exist for its own sake and our other doctrine which recog-
nizes the working of a teleological principle in the world. We
must consider everything as created both for its own sake and
also as a part in a greater whole. Thus we do away with the
element of aimlessness which seems to be introduced with the
denial of final causation, and at the same time we avoid the mere
service and secondary worth that are implied in the teleological
principle when we insist upon it from the ordinary point of view.
Kant urges that every man is an end in himself and must not
be made an instrument; he may use inorganic matter as instru-
ments but he must not be an instrument himself.2 We may apply
to all the elements of the world this principle which Kant applies
to man, and say that there is nothing which should be conceived
as merely an instrument. Yet just as service is the great glory
of humanity, and the crowning grace of life is found in the fact
that man makes himself an instrument, so the complete beauty
of the world appears as every stage or part contributes to all the
rest, and all contribute to each part. This does not lower our
estimate of humanity. It simply puts humanity in a fresh light,
and we see in it a new beauty.
Of the beginnings of human life as distinct from the lower
forms of life, science gives no account. When we first find it,
it is already far advanced, for even in the stone age we find the
beginnings of art. It is not strange that man should have for-
1 Ethica, Pars I, Appendix.
2 The Critique of Pure Reason, F. Max Muller, 1881, Vol. II, pp. 468-481.
198 THE STORY OF EDEN
gotten the earlier stages of his general existence, just as he for-
gets in his individual life the first months or years of his childhood,
and it is equally in the nature of things that there should be no
record of these earliest years, for that man should be able to make
any sort of record is in itself evidence of no little progress in his
development. In the story in the book of Genesis there is a pict-
ure which to many has stood, and still stands, as the authentic
account of the beginning of human life upon the earth. This
glimpse into the garden of Eden is like some beautiful romance.
Here are earthly conditions, but earthly conditions the most favor-
able that are possible. All the elements are absent that can cause
pain, and all that can give joy are present. There is perfection
within, and without there is an environment to which this per-
fection is adapted. Those who have accepted this picture have
differed somewhat in their interpretation of certain details. Thus
the Arminians and Socinians take the ground that the goodness
of Adam and Eve was rather the goodness of innocence than of
virtue, the entire absence of fault rather than the presence of
actual perfection. The Protestants have been inclined to regard
the original perfections as natural, the Catholics have tended to
consider them as gifts, so that whereas according to the common
Protestant view when man fell his nature became corrupt, accord-
ing to the Catholic view certain supernatural endowments were
taken away from him. Here the Arminians and Socinians agree
with the Catholics to this extent, that they regard immortality
as a special gift,1 instead of holding with Protestants in general
that man was by nature immortal.
As we read the story in Genesis, however, we find it difficult
to understand how all these qualities can be derived from it.
Even a natural immortality is hardly in accord with the fear which
God is made to express that man may eat of the tree of life and
live forever, and moral perfection such as is attributed to Adam
and Eve seems not to be consistent with their fall at the first
temptation. But apart from such questions and from whatever
value the story may have in general, it has a special interest in
1 Jacobus Arminius, Disputationes Privates, Thesis XXVI.
THOUGHT IN GENERAL CONCEPTS 199
connection with the next step in our examination, and I shall
refer to it again shortly. Leaving it, however, for the moment,
and returning to the scientific account of human life, at what point
are we to begin to use the term " man " ? It is impossible to draw
any sharp line of division, but the criterion which may be used
with most safety is the power of thinking in general concepts.
This is the position that is taken by Schopenhauer as well as by
Locke and others. The animal thinks in pictures or in some
form of sensation, whereas man although much of his thought
may also be on this lower plane, has the power to think in gen-
eral concepts or ideas.
This position would be attacked from both sides. On the one
hand there are some who insist that man also thinks only in
pictures; they confuse perception and imagination. On the
other hand some maintain that the animal as well as man has the
power to think in general concepts, and they urge that it cannot
be proved that it does not think in this way. To this we can
only answer that it cannot be proved that it does, and that in ac-
cordance with the law of parsimony the burden of proof is upon
those who hold that it does. We must carry the method of think-
ing in pictures as far as we can, and it is astonishing to see how
far one can advance without thinking in concepts. Take for
instance the association of ideas. If the sound of a dinner bell
always suggests to a dog a picture of a dinner, the practical effect
is the same as if the dog had reached the conclusion that the din-
ner bell stands for dinner. There is here the germ or the hint of
a syllogistic process, but we have no reason to suppose that the
germ is developed into the process itself. We all know how very
strong this power of association is. Here is a city street in which
all the houses are so nearly alike that one must look at the num-
bers to make sure which is the house where he wishes to call,
and yet a horse which has stopped only once at one of those
houses, months before, will go directly to the same house again.
A horse happens to be hit by a whip in the hand of the driver
of a red omnibus, and thereafter the horse shies whenever he
meets a red omnibus. These principles of association no doubt
200 THOUGHT IN GENERAL CONCEPTS
enter largely into human thought, and, as I have already suggested,
it is possible that in animals there is the germ of the power to
think in general concepts. It is well to notice, however, that
such beginnings of the higher intellectual life as are found in
animals appear most clearly in domestic animals. It would not
be strange if animals that have been brought under the influence
of man should catch something of the human spirit and some
elements of the inner life which they could not have originally
in themselves. But although the line between the thought of
animals and human thought may not be drawn sharply, it cer-
tainly is sufficiently marked to serve our purpose.
We will assume, then, that thinking in general concepts dis-
tinguishes the beginning of the life of man as man. Turn again,
now, to the story of the garden of Eden. As we analyze it we find
that whether by design or not it appears to deal with precisely
this moment of transition from thinking in pictures to thinking in
concepts. I do not mean that the story was founded upon any
theoretical idea of human nature. I mean simply that if the
definition of the beginning of human life which has been given is
the true one, and if there is to be a picture of the moment of
transition, the circumstances which are related in the story are
to a great extent those which would naturally arise at such a
moment. Thus the story may be taken as a symbol of this tran-
sition, illustrating concretely certain points which need to be
emphasized.
There is no mark which more distinguishes thinking in concepts
than language. The possession of language implies thinking in
concepts. If we exclude exclamations and interjections, as only
the immediate expression of momentary feeling, like the cries of
the beast, words are general terms, and general terms imply gen-
eral concepts. Therefore we find it only natural that one of the
first acts of the first man as he enters upon his inheritance is to
name the objects around him. For names are generic. Even
our proper names which in present usage appear to form an
exception are originally generic terms, the family name standing
for the group or the clan, and the individual name given to express
SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 201
some peculiarity or relation or quality, whether actual or imag-
ined, so that in each case the name represents some classification
of one sort or another.
A concept, however, is a limited universal; it implies two ele-
ments, a universal and a particular; the individual is recognized
as belonging to a certain class and thus the universal and the
particular are brought together. But the very fact that they can
be thus brought together implies that they have been previously
discriminated. In the relation of the animal or the child to the
external world all this is latent, but in the man the process becomes
conscious, and in bringing together the universal and the par-
ticular he recognizes the breach between them. This breach may
have either of two forms according as attention is directed to one
or the other of the two elements. On the one hand man thinks
of himself as an individual, and in so doing he has to separate
himself from the class to which he belongs and from the universe
of which he is a part. Thus he becomes self-conscious. In this
self-consciousness the man's sense of separation between himself
and his environment may become extreme, the form of the sepa-
ration varying according to the view which the man happens to
take of himself. Thus we have that sense of shame in which the
individual, conscious of himself as over against the universe and
feeling that he is the centre of observation, shrinks from this
isolation in which he finds himself, — an isolation which is still a
relation. The first man recognizes his nakedness and tries to
hide himself; the individual becomes conscious of his individu-
ality and shrinks from the observation to which he feels that he
is open. Here we have the beginning of some of the greatest
misery in life, one of the elements that may contribute most to
the degradation of life; self -consciousness so often robs what is
noble of its nobility, so often it brings unhappiness and pain.
Yet in another aspect this same self-consciousness enters in due
proportion into all that goes to make up the real glory of living.
For after all it is the element of self-consciousness which forms
the distinguishing mark of man and is the centre of the mystery
of life.
202 THE SENSE OF THE SUPERNATURAL
In contrast, however, with this subjective aspect of the breach
between the universal and the individual, there is a second, objec-
tive aspect in which the universe is recognized as over against
the individual. This recognition appears in various forms. First
of all, and appearing very early in the history of man, there is the
sense of the supernatural, the consciousness of the environment as
acting immediately upon the individual without the intervention
of the ordinary agencies. The individual recognizes on the one
hand his own personality and on the other the divine personality
or personalities. Just as in the one case he goes behind his own
phenomenal existence and reaches the " I, " so in the other case he
goes behind the phenomenal manifestations of the world about
him and reaches the power that is within and behind them all.
A second form of this recognition of the universal element is found
in the relation of the individual to society in the sense of justice.
If this second form is taken together with the first we have the
sense of justice, human and divine, the sense of wrong and the
sense of sin. As man recognizes the voice of God he is conscious
of his own guilt and estrangement, and in his sense of sin there
appears the absolute breach between the two elements that stand
in relation to each other. The individual feels himself to be not
only over against the universe but under its condemnation. Lastly,
the recognition of the universal element brings with it the thought
of death. The individual realizes that he is only a point flitting
across the face of the universe, and that the universe can exist
without him.
It is interesting to notice that, so far as we can know or con-
jecture, man is the only being in the world that has the conscious-
ness ox mortality. As we look upon the life of beast and bird we
think of them as sharers in our own destiny. But man is in a
special sense mortal in that he knows his own mortality. The
bird and the beast appear to have no consciousness of limit in
their lives except as it may be shown in the shrinking from death
and from whatever is related to death. Thus there is terror
among them sometimes at the sight of blood. Yet if the animal
really knows what this means, it can at most regard death as an
THE RECOGNITION OF THE IDEAL 203
accident which may happen to it but which also may be avoided.
Indeed one may question whether at the very first man himself
does not consider death accidental; at least if he thinks of it as
due to supernatural interference, he may believe that if he can
avoid this interference he will live indefinitely.
The power to think by concepts, however, makes possible an
ideal element in life. The individual does not rest in mere ab-
straction, but having received his concept he shapes it more or
less to suit himself, and adds to that which he has found to be
real whatever he can conceive as possible. He attempts to carry
out his ideal and make the world conform to it. This is essential
to human life, for man has been placed in the garden of the world
"to dress it and to keep it." But he is forced to see that the
world does not conform to his ideal. Obstacles arise, the " thorns "
and the "thistles," which may have existed before, but which man
does not notice until they seem to spring up in opposition to his
attempt to fulfil his ideal, as though his own work had called
them forth. Here enters for the first time the possibility of pessi-
mism and even of absolute despair. Man's conception has two
stages, first the abstract idea, and then the ideal which he creates
out of his own longing and his thought of what is possible. He
finds, however, that the world does not fulfil his ideal, and as he
looks further he sees that although in theory his ideal is possible
of fulfilment yet practically it is not possible. Here are the ele-
ments of the philosophy of despair; the truth that has been
reached by processes of abstraction from the external world, and
the ideal which one conceives as theoretically possible, conflict
absolutely. Thus the power to think by concepts infroduces not
only the labor of life, the toil that comes in the effort to fulfil
one's ideal, but also the sorrow of life, as man discovers that
the ideal cannot be fulfilled. Just as sin is possible only for one
who thinks by concepts, so thinking by concepts alone makes
possible the labor and sorrow of life. I do not mean that these
results follow inevitably from thinking by concepts, but only that
they could not be produced without this method of thought.
The question whether they are universal among men does not
204 THE SENSE OF THE COMIC
affect our position. It is enough that given these peculiarities of
human nature and of human activity, thinking by concepts is seen
to be necessary to produce them.
Thus far the results of the transition from thinking in pictures
to thinking by concepts which we have considered have been
illustrated or symbolized in the account of the beginning of the
life of man that is given in the Old Testament story. We have
yet to consider one or two results which very naturally find no
illustration there. The first of these is the perception of the
comic, the sense of the ludicrous. I think it is quite safe to say
that man is the only creature that really laughs. When we speak
of the laughter of the hyena or the horse we have in mind only
the resemblance between certain sounds and laughter. It has
long been recognized that the sense of the ludicrous arises from
the perception of incongruities, and this perception of the incon-
gruous, as Schopenhauer was, I think, the first to point out,1
comes only through a process of generalization. We are moved by
certain points of similarity to bring together under a general head
elements which, when we have thus brought them together, we
recognize as incongruous, and the sharper the contrasts between
the different elements the greater our sense of the ludicrous. In
other words there is absolutely nothing in nature that is comic,
nothing, that is, when taken by itself and considered apart from
any process of generalization. We find the monkey ludicrous,
but that is simply because the monkey suggests so obviously the
thought of a very peculiar little old man; the monkey is not
funny in himself. The most superficial form of the ludicrous
appears in the pun. Here the basis of our generalization is
merely a word, but the two meanings expressed by the one word
are so incongruous that they excite the sense of the ludicrous.
This is especially the case when some pointed relation is involved,
such, for instance, as Life has chronicled in the picture of the
American lady in Paris who asks a cabman whether he is fiance
and adds that, if not, she will take him. We laugh; and we
i The World as Will and Idea, trans, by Haldane and Kemp, Book I, § IS,
and "Supplements to the First Book," Chap. VIII.
THE SENSE OF BEAUTY 205
laugh simply because we possess this power of generalization
which man may use or misuse to his misfortune but also for his
sport.
We must not forget, however, that with the exception of the
mere play upon words there is hardly anything that is comic which
might not also be tragic, just as there is nothing tragic which might
not also be comic. Both the tragedy and the comedy of life are
found in the perception of incongruities. But whereas in comedy
these incongruities are recognized only formally, in tragedy they
are recognized as real. We see this very clearly in certain plays.
Thus in Schiller's Don Carlos, to give only a single instance, a
love-letter miscarries and is given to the wrong person; it is a
situation which might easily be ludicrous; but as it occurs in this
play we feel no inclination to laugh, because we recognize the
reality and seriousness of the complications that are involved.
It is to be noticed also that we have here still another branch of
the process of abstraction. For the sense of the ludicrous arises
not only first of all from the process of generalization by which
incongruous elements are brought together under a general head,
but also, in the second place, from the process of abstraction
carried so far that the form is separated from the substance. The
subject is one that suggests a great many questions and problems,
some of which are most interesting, but this is not the place to
consider them.1
The last of these results of thinking by concepts that I shall
mention is the sense of beauty as shown in the enjoyment of imi-
tative art. We may not say simply art, for, as we have already
seen,2 both decorative art and a certain kind of esthetic enjoy-
ment are found in the lower animals. But in the appreciation
of imitative art we reach a process of abstraction similar to that
which contributes to the perception of the comic, — the separation
of the real from the formal. An animal may mistake a picture
or the reflection in a mirror for the reality, but the moment that
he discovers his mistake his interest in the reflection or the picture
1 A fuller discussion may be found in Dr. Everett's Poetry, Comedy and Duty.
2 Pages 180-181.
206 MAN THE ULTIMATE PRODUCT
is gone; he is interested only in things as things. Man, on the
other hand, as far back as we can trace his history, shows an
interest in the appearance apart from the reality. This demands
thought by concepts, the power not only of abstraction but of
very delicate and careful abstraction. It implies the faculty of
ideal contemplation, the enjoyment of a thing not merely as a
reality but as an idea. The nearest approach to this in the lower
animals appears in their fondness for play. Even the industrious
ant will play at the close of the day's work. Dogs love to play,
and they imitate in their play the methods of the chase. Here is
unquestionably the beginning of the power of abstraction. First
there is an overflow of energy; energy and nervous force have
accumulated and must find a vent, and they overflow along the
nervous lines that are most active in the life of the animals; with
this comes a certain imitation, and thus we have the beginning
of the power of abstraction. But since it is manifested not in
contemplation but in activity, since it is activity and not contem-
plation that gives pleasure, it is low down in the scale and serves
chiefly as one of the indications that the line of demarcation is not
sharply drawn.
Except in one point the story in Genesis gives little if any hint
of the great superiority of humanity which so many have found
in it. There is certainly a charm in the picture of this earthly
paradise, with its freedom from self-consciousness and labor. It
is like the charm still to be found in the comparatively innocent
life of some of the southern islands where the complexities of
civilization have not entered. But the transition must be made
from this moment of the childhood of the race, and in such tran-
sition there is always peril. A little knowledge is a dangerous
thing, and so is a little freedom. The beginnings of all the higher
forms of life are perilous. Now there is in the story in Genesis
one element which gives promise of safety in the transition and
which does exalt the hero of the story. Man, it is said [in the
first chapter of Genesis, a different account from that of the
second and third chapters, but combined with it, we may assume,
in the later Hebrew conception], is made in the image of God-
MAN THE ULTIMATE PRODUCT 207
The whole story is here lifted to a height which otherwise is not
attained. The precise significance of the phrase is hardly to be
determined, but it is one of those great words which admit un-
limited development in human thought. The term "image of
God" has led to theologies in which man is conceived as at the
first perfect. But this pushes the story too far. For granting
to the first parents of the race such perfection as we may, this
perfection must still be infinitely removed from the divine perfec-
tion. No perfection in man could make him equal to God, any
more than any imperfection in man could absolutely separate him
from God. The resemblance between God and man must be
found in something which both possess. When we speak of a
child as resembling its father, we do not mean that the child has
the strength or the wisdom of the father, but simply that there is
in the child some beginning or germ or hint of the qualities of
the father. Now we have seen how from the very first the ideal
element has controlled the history of the world, how the growth
and tendency of the world have been from the very first toward
spirit. In man we reach at last the actual appearance of this spirit-
ual life. There is a consciousness of self, there is a consciousness,
however vague and distorted, of the author of life, there are
glimpses of the divine ideas that hover before man as ideals. The
difference between man and God is still infinite. Yet in so far
as there is found in man the germ of the spiritual life, the con-
sciousness of himself and of the world about him by which he is
enabled to enter into communion with the source of his being, in
so far may it be said that man is made in the image of God. The
thought may be at the outset anthropomorphic, but even so it is
the recognition of a fact that becomes clearer as the world de-
velops, and larger as human life itself grows larger.
In saying this, however, are we not speaking extravagantly ?
Is it not possible that man may give place on the earth to some
still higher product of evolution, and that a race of beings may
appear as superior to man as man is superior to the lower animals ?
From what has been said already it must seem obvious that this
is impossible. The considerations that I have brought forward
208 MAN THE ULTIMATE PRODUCT
justify us in assuming that man is the highest and ultimate prod-
uct in the process of development. For in the first place man
is capable of indefinite or even infinite progress without specific
change of form, and this through his power to think by concepts,
and to use the results which follow upon thinking by concepts.
Ever since the time when the results that had been reached by
his ancestors came to be worth recording, he has been able to
hold results. There is therefore practically no limit to the in-
tellectual development of man as man. The brain responds to
the demands which are made upon it, and grows in power from
generation to generation. Furthermore, if we consider the ques-
tion from the physical point of view, we find confirmation in the
fact that man is a tool-using animal. As soon as man begins to
use tools he enters upon a career of indefinite progress. For if a
successor is to drive him from the earth and take his place, that
successor must be in one way or another the superior of man;
either he must possess intellectual power greater than man's, or
else he must be physically mightier. But man has a power of
thought which is capable of indefinite development, and his arm
has become strong not only through the use of tools but through
the very forces of nature, for he has made the elements his servants.
Any successor who by the process of natural selection is to drive
out man not only must be wiser than man can become, but he
must be stronger than steam, swifter than the steam engine or
the electrical engine, swifter and stronger than all the powers of
nature which man can subject to his own use.
Finally, when we look at the lower animals we see that in order
to reach a higher degree of development they must transcend
themselves. They do not possess either the power of thought or
the power of activity which would make it possible for them to
advance without such change. Without the hand, for instance,
the power of thought would be useless, just as without the hand
it could not have been developed. For the mental power does
not develop apart by itself, but is developed largely through the
varied forms of relation to the external world into which the in-
dividual is brought. A power of adaptation is demanded, a power
MAN THE ULTIMATE PRODUCT 209
of use, a power to take to pieces and to put together again. In
other words there must be the power of touch and the power of
adjustment, both carried to a high degree of perfection. We do
not reach the highest possibility of thought so long as we merely
contemplate the world about us. It comes as we give to things
new relations and put them to new uses. Man alone possesses the
possibility of infinite development without change of structure,
and by the law of parsimony in nature any further growth must
tend to lie along the line of least resistance. The suggestion has
been made that a race of winged beings might have an advantage
over man. It is to be remembered, however, that the develop-
ment of animal life always has been along certain lines; organs
are produced from corresponding organs, and arms take the
place of wings, and wings take the place of arms. Since man
is as yet the highest product in the process of development, any
higher being, if it is to come, must be developed from man, and
if it is to be winged the wings must in some way take the place of
arms. But the winged being is weaker than the being with arms.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE SECOND STAGE IN THE MOMENT OF NEGATION: THE DOCTRINE
OF FREEDOM. — REAL FREEDOM: AUTOMATISM: REFLEX
ACTION. — FORMAL FREEDOM, OR FREEDOM OF THE WILL. — THE
ARGUMENTS AGAINST IT: THE A PRIORI ARGUMENT: THE A
POSTERIORI ARGUMENT: THE SO-CALLED PRACTICAL ARGU-
MENT.— THE ARGUMENTS IN FAVOR OF IT: AS BASED ON
DIRECT SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS: AS BASED ON THE MORAL
CONSCIOUSNESS.
We have been considering the first stage in the moment of
negation,1 the stage of difference, or, speaking more concretely,
the doctrine of creation, in which the creation appears as other
than the creator. We pass now to the second stage, the doctrine
of freedom, the recognition on the part of the creation not only
that it is other than the creator but that it has a life of its own,
that it is free and independent. There are two forms of freedom,
of which the first has been called real, the second formal. These
terms have no special fitness, but we will use them because they
are already in use. By real freedom is meant freedom in one's
self, the power of fulfilling one's own nature unhampered from
without. Formal freedom, more commonly known as freedom of
the will, is freedom over one's self. The first form does not
imply the second.
Real freedom is found in nearly all stages of existence. Thus
a stone is free when it follows the law of its nature in the mutual
attraction between its own particles and the earth; it is free in
falling; if it is thrown, its freedom is impaired. In the organic
world this freedom appears in a higher and more significant form.
One element in the activity of the stone is outside of itself. The
i Page 105.
REAL FREEDOM: AUTOMATISM 211
organism is more truly a unity. The action and reaction which
take place are within itself, and its many elements work together
to one end. It accomplishes this end in proportion as it is free.
A still higher form of real freedom is found when we come to the
mental or spiritual world. Some even use the term "freedom"
for the first time at this point, in order to mark the difference
between conscious and unconscious being. For the mind is not
merely a unit but a conscious unit. The man knows what he is
going to do and consciously guides himself toward it, and even
if we allowed to the man no more freedom than we allow to the
plant, yet the fact that the man works in the light and the plant
in the darkness makes an immense difference.
Is this freedom really spiritual, or is it material ? Huxley and
Clifford and others have urged that consciousness has nothing to
do with the activities of life, and although Spencer does not quite
assent to this, it would seem to follow naturally from his general
theory of consciousness. It is interesting to notice in passing
that this is precisely the position that is taken in the Sankhya
philosophy, where consciousness is represented as merely a spec-
tator. Clifford compares the light of consciousness to the head-
light of a locomotive that only illuminates the track which after
all guides the locomotive. Are we to accept this ? Or is the light
of consciousness rather like the lantern which a man carries in
his hand in order that he may choose his way ? To the objection
that it is impossible to conceive that mind should influence matter,
Professor James replies that it is impossible to comprehend any
causation, but that it is incredible that a fact in consciousness
should be the only fact out of relation with other things in the
universe.1
The chief argument, however, in support of the automaton
theory is found in the fact that certain results which in man are
regarded as ordinarily produced consciously, are under some
circumstances produced unconsciously; frequently in the lower
forms of life, and sometimes in the higher forms, processes of
reflex action take place apparently without consciousness. Thus
1 The Principles of Psychology, Vol. I, Chap. V.
212 REFLEX ACTION
if we take away the brain of a frog he will continue to respond to
irritation as readily as though he knew what he was about, and the
same thing is even more strikingly illustrated in human life, for
if by some lesion of the nerves a man's leg becomes separated from
the brain in such a way that there is no consciousness of any feeling
in the leg, it will still respond to irritation, and more violently
than under conditions of consciousness. Again, there are instances
of somnambulism where the most complicated acts are carried
through of which the individual on waking has no recollection.
Now if the response is unconscious under circumstances of this
kind, why may it not be always unconscious ? Why need we
suppose that consciousness is anything more than an accident in
the whole process ?
This argument, however, can be made to level upward as well
as downward. So far as our knowledge extends we find that
these responses are accompanied by consciousness. Why, then,
may we not assume that consciousness is present in the cases where
our knowledge does not extend ? Obviously our consciousness
does not extend beyond itself, and we know only what we are
conscious of; the region of which we are not conscious, and from
which we have no direct report through any conscious individ-
ual, is for us an unknown land. But it may be maintained with
great plausibility that a certain amount of consciousness is con-
nected with every act and that no response is without it. Even
in our human organism it may be assumed that there is a certain
sub-consciousness in every nerve centre, every ganglion, although
these lower grades of consciousness are lost in the fuller con-
sciousness of the great centre ganglion, just as the light of the
stars is lost in the light of the sun at noon. This position is taken
by Wundt and other physiologists. So far as somnambulism is
concerned, there is no reason to suppose that there is no con-
sciousness of what is taking place simply because the individual
does not remember what he has done. Here, as in the dreams
that we forget as soon as we awake, the lower ganglia have as-
serted themselves.
The two arguments, the argument that denies the necessity
REFLEX ACTION 213
of consciousness and the argument that affirms its universality,
may be left to contradict each other. A more positive argument,
however, according to Professor James, is furnished by natural
selection. It is often said by evolutionists that if the more use-
ful activities were not healthful, the creature could not live, and
the fact that the pleasure of feeling is connected with its useful
activities has been a great aid in preserving organisms, while a
lack of this correspondence between pleasure of feeling and
activity would tend to destroy the organisms. The theories of
Huxley and Clifford and of Spencer would eliminate all this,
and would make of consciousness only so much waste. But the
power of any organism increases with the increase in intellect.
Furthermore, Professor James holds that consciousness gives
stability to the brain and increases its efficiency, through interest.
The combinations of brain molecules are extremely liable to dis-
turbance, so that there is a tendency in the brain to continual
unrest. Consciousness weights certain combinations and gives
them an advantage, and thus the mind is not left to fluctuate,
but has kept before it useful ends.
Reflex action in the more highly organized beings, so far as we
can observe it, appears to be of three kinds. The first form I
will call absolute and unqualified, the second may be called
qualified, while the third form is accompanied by consciousness
and apparently is caused by consciousness. The first form, that
which I have called absolute reflex action, appears never to have
been accompanied by consciousness. Thus we do not know of
any form of organism in which the beating of the heart is caused
by conscious will, and the same is true of the other essential
processes of life, those processes without which life itself could
not be continued for a moment. If any consciousness has ever
accompanied these processes, it must have been some form of
that sub-consciousness to which I have already referred. At
the last they are maintained through natural selection. The
animal in which the beating of the heart was dependent upon
the will would very soon pass out of existence. In disease we
become conscious of some of these processes, and under some
214 REFLEX ACTION
circumstances they may be in a certain sense caused by our wills.
Thus we can control the breath to some extent. But we breathe
when we do not will to breathe, and no one, so far as we know,
has ever put an end to his life by voluntarily ceasing to breathe.
The qualified forms of reflex action are those of which we know
the history, those which were originally accompanied by con-
sciousness but through long continued habit have come at last
to be performed unconsciously. There are a good many things
that we do without needing to think that we are doing them.
A woman knits without looking at her needles. A pianist plays
with no conscious selection of the keys. It is a happy circum-
stance in life that this is so, — that what is old may come to be
habitual and leave the mind free for what is new. If we had to
be thinking all the time of what we have to do in the little, famil-
iar activities, what space would be left in our thought for the
greater things ? There are many mechanical processes in which
the first direction to be given is that we should observe what we
are doing, and the second, that we should forget what we are
doing.
Finally there are the forms that are fully and absolutely con-
scious. It is pure assumption to maintain that action in these
forms can be carried out without consciousness. I make a wide
detour in order to avoid meeting some man whom I dislike. To
say that I can thus avoid him unconsciously, implies a very com-
plicated theory according to which every man is supposed to have
his "sphere," and when my sphere approaches the other man's
sphere or comes in contact with it, a repulsion is felt. The the-
ory offers no explanation of the change from unfriendly to friendly
relations which often occurs in such cases. Again I read in some
book a discussion of the theory of consciousness and am prompted
to talk about it here. What effect could the letters have in con-
trolling my activity except through the medium of consciousness ?
The theory of automatism seems to be the reductio ad absurdum
of the attempt to explain the world from the point of view of mere
materialism.
As regards real freedom itself, apart from this question as to
FREEDOM OF THE WILL 215
the relation between consciousness and action, there is no differ-
ence of opinion. No one disputes its existence in the world. A
man is really free when he can go and come as he wills without
hindrance; he is not free when he is shut up inside a prison.
But what of this other form of freedom, this formal freedom, the
freedom of the will ? What is meant by it ? It affirms that " I
will what I will." But who denies this ? It is mere tautology,
and I may as well say, "I go where I go," or "I think what I
think." I may try to make the statement more definite by say-
ing that "I determine what I will." But this only throws the
difficulty further back. For if "determination" in this connec-
tion means anything, it means will. Therefore there is an act
of will behind the will, and behind this act of will still another
will, and so on in an infinite retrogression, in which at last the
free will is barred out of the existence of the individual in time and
finds its place only before that existence.
It is interesting to notice that whereas Jonathan Edwards in
reaching this result regards it as a reductio ad absurdum which
settles the whole question, some other writers accept it as the
explanation of freedom of the will. Thus Schelling * holds that
each life is colored and controlled by a determination that took
place before the existence in time began, and Julius Miiller 2
takes the same position, recognizing an act of will that colors our
existence at the very beginning of our individual lives. Fichte
also appears to take a somewhat similar view, although he does
not state it so distinctly as Schelling. With Kant it is a noumenal
act in contrast with the phenomenal life of the world.
If, however, we leave out of the account these determinations
outside of time, our difficulty remains the same. How is it pos-
sible to accede to a proposition which cannot be even formulated ?
It is true that we may recognize a meaning in it, even though we
have no language at our command to express the meaning. Prac-
tically, the question that we have to ask is whether, supposing
that all the circumstances except a man's act of will remained
1 F. W. J. Schelling, Philosophische Schriften.
2 Die Christliche Lehre von der Sunde.
216 FREEDOM OF THE WILL
just as before, the man could do differently. Furthermore, the
evolutionist might insist that the confusion has been introduced
by the necessitarian, who has degraded the term "will" to his
own use. Yet the necessitarian would reply that he believes in
freedom, and certainly there is no grander statement of free-
dom than that of Spinoza, who believes only in real freedom. We
still must acknowledge the difficulty so far at least as terms are
concerned.
The world is full of books on freedom of the will. Jonathan
Edwards' great treatise is of course the classic presentation of de-
terminism. Buckle in his History of Civilization in England 1
gives the statistics that bear upon the question. Martineau has
an interesting discussion of it in his Study of Religion. Ward's
Philosophy of Theism2 is especially interesting because of the
discussion with Mill into which he enters and the pertinence of
what he says. Alexander von Oettingen, in his Moralstatistik
offers a classification in which those who deny freedom of the will
are described as determinists, naturalists and objectivists, while
those who affirm it are termed indiffer enlists, atomists and sub-
jectivists.3 Those who believe only in real freedom and deny
freedom of the will are called determinists because everything is
fixed for them in advance. Given the organism and the environ-
ment, the result is certain and it is possible to predict absolutely
what will take place. Thus if a rose-bush is planted in favorable
soil, we know that it will produce roses, and similarly, to the de-
terminists, all human activity is determined in advance. This
same class are called naturalists because man, like a plant or a
stone, is regarded as simply filling a certain place in nature; and
just as there can be a natural history of a plant, or of one of the
lower animals, so there can be a natural history of man. They
are called objectivists because man is regarded as merely an object,
with no interior life that may by freedom of action change his
nature; he is a product of his environment, and if he reacts upon
the environment, it is only in such activity as the environment
1 Vol. I, Chap. I. 2 W. G. Ward, Essays on the Philosophy of Theism.
3 Die Moralstatistik in ihrer Bedeutung fiir eine christliche Socialethik, pp. 733 f .
FREEDOM OF THE WILL 217
has fitted him to use. On the other hand those who affirm the
freedom of the will are called indifferentists because in the extreme
view man is regarded as wholly indifferent in advance as to the
course that he will take, and it is impossible to predict what he
will do. They are called atomists because each individual is
regarded, so far as concerns his will, not as part of a great whole,
but as an independent centre of activity, a law unto himself.
Indeed we might add to Von Oettingen's list the term separatists, for
each individual is as truly apart from the universe, according to
this view, as though he lived in a world of his own. Finally those
who affirm the freedom of the will are called subjeetivists because
their action is determined wholly from within. Both of the views
that Von Oettingen describes in this way are extreme and are
recognized as such by Von Oettingen himself. Mill would not
allow himself to be called a determinist because the term implied
causation from without as opposed to the theory of causation that
he derived from Hume as the invariable sequence of one event
upon another.
Many deny both of these extreme views, and adopt a medium
position in which they speak of liberty under law. We may find
that there is such a thing as this liberty under law, but as the ex-
pression is ordinarily used it seems to me utterly meaningless.
It appears to assume that the mere collocation of two contradictory
terms is to be regarded as an explanation of the difficulty involved.
It is a little as though we were trying to reconcile the circle and
the square, and finally were to say that we had a square-circle.
At the same time we have to recognize that this mingling of the
two elements is something which we are to seek.
Of the various arguments against freedom of the will the first
that I shall consider is the a priori argument, based upon the
principle of causation. We recognize this principle as absolute.
But the theory of formal freedom, it is argued, the theory of the
undetermined freedom of the will, disregards the law of causa-
tion. It assumes that the spirit stands as it were at a place where
the roads separate, and makes its choice not as some cause may
determine but by its own spontaneous act. The argument is
218 FREEDOM OF THE WILL
used largely as an argumentum ad hominem. For those who
affirm the freedom of the will are apt to be those who hold most
strongly to the a priori necessity of the law of causation. Our
beliefs seldom hold together logically, but rather grow out of
certain tendencies of our minds. Thus it is the Calvinist, taking
the darkest view of the future for those who die unrepentant,
who more often believes in capital punishment, while the Univer-
salist, with his optimistic expectation for all men, more often
opposes it. Each might accuse the other of inconsistency, but
the course that is taken in either case is evidently the result of
general mental tendencies. In a similar way those who insist
most strongly upon the a priori nature of the principle of causa-
tion are apt to be those who most dignify the human mind and
spirit, and so affirm most strongly the freedom of the will, whereas
those who deny freedom of the will make comparatively little
use of the a priori nature of the principle of causation. Edwards,
however, is an exception; he used the argument more earnestly.
Hamilton attempted to avoid the difficulty by assuming that our
belief in causation results from our mental incompetence, that a
beginning is something of which we cannot conceive. Of course,
if we regard the belief in causation as the result of mental incom-
petence, we need not be troubled at the conflict between it and
the belief in freedom of the will. But this theory has found little
acceptance outside the circle of Hamilton's more immediate fol-
lowers. It rests some of our most positive assumptions upon a
strongly negative basis. Mill would deny both necessity and
freedom, and would recognize only the law of uniformity of se-
quence; but this uniformity is never broken and therefore is
practically equivalent to a necessity, even though Mill does not
recognize it as such.
I shall consider this difficulty more fully a little later, but there
are one or two considerations that it may be well to suggest here.
The difficulty is based upon the absoluteness of the law of causa-
tion. But this law of causation is not the mere uniformity of
sequence of which Mill tells us, but an inner relation by which
all things are bound together in a common whole. In other words,
FREEDOM OF THE WILL 219
the law of causation, translated into more abstract form, is the
principle of absolute unity.1 Now if we take our idea of unity
from spiritual rather than material sources, we may break some-
what the force of the argument that we are considering. For if
we assume that freedom in the sense in which we are now regard-
ing it is an attribute of spirit, and that the unity in which all things
consist is a spiritual unity, then we should expect that this spiritual
unity would manifest itself in acts of freedom, and that freedom,
as we find it, would not be inconsistent with the principle of unity,
because it is akin to it and in a certain sense one with it. But
if we assume a unity that at once breaks itself up into points of
independent volition, is not such a unity a contradiction in terms ?
This question, however, we may consider to better advantage
later, when we know more fully what freedom is and how it is
exerted.
Certainly, whatever our intellectual theories may be, we always
do seek a cause for every event and for every act of the will.
Whether formalist or realist, we ask what has made a man do
thus or so. We recognize that there is no act of the will without
some motive, that a man never acts without a reason. In other
words, the mind will not act in vacuo. In accepting this, those
who affirm the freedom of the will say that the will chooses be-
tween motives. They thus reduce the difficulty to a minimum,
but they do not remove it. For the question, how the mind de-
termines which motive it will follow, is still left undecided. There
is still an unexplained residuum, an act of the will that is not
accounted for. The objection may be made that in the choice
between motives the mind might remain balanced, unable to
move in one direction or the other. Practically, however, this
seldom, if ever, occurs. There are, of course, persons who always
find it difficult to make up their minds, and we are all of us some-
times perplexed as to what decision we ought to make. Yet when
the moment arrives at which we must decide, we do make up our
minds in one way or the other. As we walk across the Cambridge
Common, what reason is there for taking the path to the right
1 The Psychological Elements of Religious Faith, p. 163.
220 FREEDOM OF THE WILL
or the path to the left ? Yet, when we have to choose, we choose.
The mind is never absolutely balanced, because it is so concrete;
so many elements enter into it that an absolute balance would be
impossible; only a vacant mind could be thus balanced. The
classic illustration of absolute mental balance is the story of the
jackass that starved between two bundles of hay. The phi-
losophy of that story is found in the reply of the boy, just home
from college, when his father asked him, "Why did the jackass
starve?" The boy answered, "Because it was a jackass."
In passing to the a posteriori argument against freedom of the
will, the argument from induction, we have first to consider the
induction based upon material facts. That is the basis upon
which this argument more often is made to rest. We are familiar
with the world of matter; we know that in this world of matter
everything yields with absolute certainty to the strongest force
that is brought to bear upon it; since this is true of everything
else, it must be true also of the human will. That is the way in
which the astronomer reasons about the heavenly bodies. The
law of gravitation has been proved in regard to only a very few
of them, but the astronomer applies it with absolute confidence
to them all. Here, however, we have to notice the very impor-
tant fact that the force of induction weakens with the difference
in kind between the objects that are compared. The greater the
unlikeness between the basis from which we reason and the basis
to which we reason, the less is the force of the argument. It
ceases to be induction and becomes analogy.1 Now in the case
that we are considering the difference is as great as it can possibly
be. It is the difference between subject and object, between
spirit and things, between the conscious and the unconscious.
There is nothing here in common except being. Induction, there-
fore, has no place here, and even analogy has only the weakest
basis. So that we may dismiss entirely the argument from in-
duction that is based only on material facts.
There is, however, the induction that is based on spiritual facts.
The only question here is whether the case is really made out. It
i C. C. Everett, Science of Thought, pp. 267-357.
FREEDOM OF THE WILL 221
is said that the will always yields to the strongest motive. This
phrase, "the strongest motive," we must notice in passing, is not
in itself exact. The strongest motive is not that which is strong-
est per se but that which is strongest relatively. In the case of
a car on a railway track it would be a mistake to say that the
car will yield to the strongest motive, if we mean that it will move
in the direction in which the heaviest pressure is exerted. For
a very great pressure, if made against the side of the car, will be
resisted, while a much slighter pressure applied at either end
may be effective to move the car. Now a man's habits are the
tracks upon which his mind moves, and the pressure that directs
him along the line of his habits needs to be very slight as com-
pared with the pressure required to move him to one side or the
other. But to return to the assumption that the will always
yields to the strongest motive, how do we know that it does ?
How do we know what is the strongest motive ? We have no
means of knowing except that the will yields to it. There is no
common measurement to apply, no exact analysis to be made.
In the spiritual world we do not have things of a kind as in the
physical world. Men differ from one another, and different
motives vary in intensity in different men. The scientist can tell
precisely what will be the lifting power of a certain energy, but
in the spiritual world there can be no such accuracy, and we do
not know just what the result of a spiritual force will be. The
results of such comparisons as are possible here must necessarily
be vague.
An application of the a posteriori argument of greater force is
found in the inferences that may be drawn from our observation
of the regularity of certain acts under certain circumstances.
Buckle's great work did much to popularize this form of the argu-
ment. The statistics that he brings together all tend to confirm
the idea of the bondage of the will as based upon the regularity
of human action. The relation of the number of marriages to
the price of corn, the number of suicides annually, and the pro-
portion in which they are distributed between the sexes and the
different ages, the number of murders and the similarity in the
222 FREEDOM OF THE WILL
kinds of instruments by which they are committed, the regularity
in certain kinds of blunders such as the misdirecting of letters, —
these are some of the more striking illustrations that he gives.1
The position is one which to a certain extent we naturally take.
If we place a coin on the floor, we feel sure that such and such a
person if he passes through the room will leave the coin where it
is, that another will put it in a proper place, and that a third will
carry it away. We are seldom mistaken in our instinct about
such matters. Nevertheless, from any scientific point of view,
it is all very loose reasoning, a mere post hoc, ergo propter hoc.
Statistics deal with things in the rough. Consider how very little
is known of all the facts that must be reckoned with. We may
say that marriages vary with the price of corn, but a thousand
conditions may enter into the problem of which we have no knowl-
edge. A man may act about as we expect him to, but how loose
is this expectation, and how slight is the real knowledge of the
man and his history and his environment upon which it rests!
Every now and then, too, we are disappointed. Thus some man
commits a crime of whom we least expected it. The determinist
may say that in such cases we have not known all the circum-
stances, we have not seen into the heart of the man. But this is
only to reason in a circle. When a case proceeds according to
our rule, we say that it proves the rule; when it turns out con-
trary to the rule, we are not to consider it an exception, because,
we are told, we cannot have understood the circumstances. All
this only goes to show that the argument against freedom of the
will that is based on spiritual facts has not been placed on a sci-
entific basis, and for the reason that it never can be. A presump-
tion that human acts are determined may be based upon the
regularity of those acts, but the foundation for such a presump-
tion cannot be made so universal as to leave no room for the free
play of the will to some extent.
The third argument against freedom of the will is the so-called
practical argument. If the will were free, it is urged, education
would be impossible, and the proverb, "Just as the twig is bent
1 History of Civilization in England, Vol. I, Chap. I.
FREEDOM OF THE WILL 223
the tree's inclined," would not hold. Certainly the trust which
we repose in education shows that we do believe that the
will is more or less subject to the influences that are brought
to bear upon it. In the business world we trust the man who has
been trained in business habits rather than the man of high ab-
stract principles who has not been so trained. Education does
provide the track along which the will more naturally moves.
Yet here again neither are the results certain nor is our confi-
dence in them absolute. Furthermore, if we do not recognize
freedom, we lose the highest results of education. For a man
has not reached the highest point that is possible for him until
his moral sense is aroused to independent activity, until he is
himself moved to choose the right without regard to the direction
that habit may have given. In other words, we have not accom-
plished education until we have brought the man to where of his
own free act he will choose the highest.
Of the arguments in favor of freedom of the will, the first is
based on direct self-consciousness. We are conscious, we say,
of the power to choose, conscious of perfect freedom in making
our choice. This argument, however, has less force than is gen-
erally attributed to it. The same difficulty appears that met us
at the beginning of this discussion when we were attempting to
define freedom of the will.1 We say that we are conscious that we
can take whichever way we will. But what is the source of this
will itself ? If we say that we are conscious of willing what we
will, we only enter, as we have seen already, on an infinite retro-
gression. If we did not possess freedom of the will, I am not sure
that our consciousness in choice would be at all different from the
consciousness that accompanied our possession of such freedom.
If we could give a mountain brook consciousness, I suppose that
as it leaped down toward the sea it might have a sense of freedom
similar to that of which we are conscious. In a hypnotic trance a
person may be so affected that when no longer in the trance he
will do something that the hypnotizer has willed that he should do,
and yet the hypnotized person thinks that the act is done of his
own free will. It is instructive to throw a chip into a stream and
i Page 215.
224 FREEDOM OF THE WILL
watch its movements. They offer a good picture of the exer-
cise of our wills as we weigh first one motive, then another, and
finally decide. Whatever theory we may have in regard to free-
dom of the will, consciousness does not go behind activities, it
does not go behind itself. But any absolute power of choice must
be in some sense behind consciousness, for it consists not in the
weighing of motives, not in decision, but in the inexpressible
somewhat that lies behind decision. Therefore little account is to
be made of this argument from the consciousness of freedom.
The second argument, however, based on the moral conscious-
ness, is more important. Here, whatever our theories may be,
there are certain facts which we all recognize. Thus we blame
the wrong-doing of another and praise him when he does what is
right. Furthermore, our feeling in regard to another's acts differs
according as he is base in character or merely deficient in judg-
ment, and according as he is sane or insane; we pity the insane
man for the act for which we condemned him so long as we
supposed him sane. Again, our judgment of moral worth, our
appreciation of nobility of character, is very different from our
admiration of genius. But such distinctions as these become
meaningless if there is no freedom of the will. When we venerate
a man, when we give to him moral admiration, it is because we
feel that it was in his power to do differently, and we applaud him
because he chose the better course. Shall we say, then, that we
make freedom the postulate to justify our moral judgments ?
Rather these judgments show what we actually do believe. We
can often judge of a man's beliefs more by what he does than by
what he professes to believe, and the praise and blame that we give
one another indicate that we do believe in freedom of the will,
and that this belief is very deeply rooted in our nature.
It may be suggested that we are outgrowing the feelings of blame
and praise. No doubt a certain tendency in this direction does
exist. Society is now considered responsible in some measure
for sins for which the individual alone was formerly held to ac-
count. There is with not a few a tendency, as though the case
were that of an insane person, to pity the wrong-doer instead of
FREEDOM OF THE WILL 225
blaming him. Some urge that all life is necessary, no matter what
form it takes, and therefore there is no place for praise or blame.
There is a limit, however, to all this. Indignation against wrong-
doing not only is a part of healthy character but has been a great
element in doing away with evil in the world, and if it is allowed
to disappear, much that is noble must at the same time pass out
of life. Some critics have felt that the condemnations uttered by
Jesus take from the nobility and dignity of his character, but
to healthy minds nothing more contributes to exalt the thought of
Jesus than his words of terrible rebuke when they are taken in
connection with the habitual tenderness and graciousness that
mark his life.
In comparing these arguments that we have been considering,
for and against the freedom of the will, we may dismiss for the
present the a posteriori arguments. The facts upon which they
are based are too general to admit of accurate results. Of the
a priori arguments we have seen that the argument against free-
dom of the will is based upon the absoluteness of the law of cau-
sation, or in other words upon the first idea of the reason, the idea
of absolute unity. It is assumed that to break the line of causa-
tion is to break the unity of which the universe is the expression.
On the other side, the argument for freedom of the will rests upon
the second idea of the reason, the idea of moral goodness. Let
us suppose that each carries the weight which is assumed for it,
that belief in the first idea of the reason excludes freedom of the
will, and that belief in the second idea of the reason demands free-
dom of the will. Let us grant that the opposition between the
two is as great as possible. What then ? Are we to assume that
in this collision it is the first idea of the reason that must prevail ?
Is there any reason for assuming that the idea of unity should be
recognized as supreme over the idea of goodness ? Suppose them
theoretically balanced. I think we must see that the second idea
of the reason has even then the advantage, because it involves a
postulate that is necessary to our highest idea of life. If we find that
the noblest life demands freedom of the will, and that if the moral
idea gives way to the principle of unity we have simply mechanism
226 FREEDOM OF THE WILL
in life instead of spiritual beauty, the second idea of the reason is
given a certain advantage, and the balance inclines to its side.
There is another consideration, also. The practical instinct
is more likely to be correct than the theoretical instinct. We have
found indications of this all along. The understanding attempts
to illuminate the universe for us, but the practical instinct rep-
resents to a large extent that unconscious part of our nature
which, however we may explain it, is larger than the conscious part
and in general is more to be relied upon. We may say that the
unconscious part of our nature is the result of long forgotten in-
heritance, the result of the moulding of all the advantages of life
upon the world, or we may say that it belongs to our nature as
created. In either case it is larger and usually truer than the con-
scious part. The history of philosophy has been to no little ex-
tent the story of the understanding setting up its little light and
spreading its illumination, only to find that the unconscious part
of the nature has after all been right.
We may say that on the other side there is also a postulate, —
that in all the affairs of life we have assumed a unity in nature
and acted upon it, and that in all our dealings with men we as-
sume that they are reasonable, and that they yield to the motive
which is relatively the strongest. We have, then, one postulate
over against another, and we can only ask which is the more im-
portant, the postulate that has reference to character or the postu-
late that has reference to being.
In all this we are assuming that the collision here between the
first and second ideas of the reason is absolute. As we go further,
although we cannot expect to remove the difficulty altogether,
we may find that we can reduce it to a minimum, and that practi-
cally all that is demanded by the postulate of unity may be held in
connection with all that is necessarily demanded by the postulate
of character.
CHAPTER XX.
FREEDOM OF THE WILL, CONTINUED. — ITS LIMITS. — FREEDOM OF
THE WILL AS THE POWER TO PUT MORE OR LESS OF EARNEST-
NESS INTO LIFE. — EFFECT OF THIS VIEW UPON THE A PRIORI
AND A POSTERIORI ARGUMENTS AGAINST FREEDOM OF THE
WILL. — ABSOLUTE FREEDOM. — THE MEANING OF THE TERMS
"NATURE" AND "NATURAL." — THE DIVINE FREEDOM.
Suppose that we look at freedom of the will as though we had
never heard of it before. What sort of freedom do we want, and
what sort can we conceive as possible? Do we want intellectual
freedom ? We speak of freedom of thought. Do we mean by
that the freedom to think what we please ? Do we wish to think
3 + 2 = 6, or do we wish to be compelled to think 3 + 2 = 5?
Freedom of intellect or freedom of thought is here reduced to its
lowest terms. There is no question as to what we want in such
a case. We wish to see things as they are, to judge correctly.
None of us would want freedom of thought in the sense of free-
dom to think what we choose, or of freedom to choose what we
think. The intellect in this sense is passive and leaves itself to
be acted upon by the forces of the universe. Just in so far as it
fails to do this and interposes any caprice of its own, just in so
far is the intellect imperfect ; it is like a mirror that is scratched
or discolored. Do we want freedom in regard to beauty? — free-
dom of taste? Do we wish to be free to prefer one painting or
building to another according to our individual judgments? We
certainly do not want freedom to admire what is poorest; we wish
rather to cultivate our taste and to free it from caprice. But cul-
tivation of the taste, like cultivation of the intellect, tends to
exclude individuality and to make the individual conform to the
universal. How is it as regards freedom to act ? Do we wish to
be free to act according to our caprice, independently of reason?
228 FREEDOM OF THE WILL
There are people who do act thus independently of reason, but
we speak of them not as free but as crazy men or fools.
We have asked these questions in the attempt to conceive
what kind of freedom is possible and what kind we desire. There
is a fallacy, however, in our method of proposing our questions.
We could not ask the same questions in the moral sphere. What
we really wish is to act according to law, but to feel that we are
doing this of ourselves and not as mere parts in a machine. We
want room for criticism, for blame or praise. We do not want
a freedom of the will that allows us to make fools of ourselves,
but a freedom that shall give dignity to what we do.
The attempt to prove the possibility of freedom of choice is
often made in relation to unimportant matters, where there is
no evident reason why a person should take one course rather
than another. Thus we are asked to touch one of the squares
on a checker-board. Choice enters here, and so freedom. Not
that freedom exists only under such conditions. Indeed a free-
dom to choose merely among things to which one is indifferent
is no freedom of worth. But if we find freedom in such cases as
this, it is urged, we may assume that it exists elsewhere. Yet we
have to notice that even in these unimportant matters the balance
is not wholly even. Some of the squares in the checker-board are
nearer and some are more remote. When we cross the Common
and come to the place where the paths divide, some habit deter-
mines us in going to one side rather than the other. A rope may
not reveal to the closest scrutiny one part as any weaker than the
rest, and yet when the strain comes that breaks the rope the
weakest part is known. In a similar way, whenever we have to
make a choice, the pressure upon the will finds the point of least
resistance, and, as I have already suggested,1 the mind is so con-
crete, so many elements enter into it, a very slight pressure is
enough to disturb its balance.
There are certain limits to our freedom which are easily recog-
nized. There is first of all a man's nature, the result of heredity
and of all the general circumstances connected with his birth.
Peter may admire and imitate Paul, or vice versa, but Peter
i Page 220.
FREEDOM OF THE WILL 229
cannot by any possibility ever become Paul, or Paul become
Peter. Secondly, there is education, whether technical or untech-
nical, the influences that are brought to bear upon a man in and
through his environment. From these influences he can never
escape. He may react against them, but even so he is not the
same that he would have been had they been different. Then,
thirdly, there is the result of habit. We may break our habits,
but we are other than we should have been if we never had had
those habits. What God makes man, what society makes him,
and what he makes himself, — these are limits from which he can-
not escape. In recognizing these limits there is this gain, that we
see at the same time that there is no break in the history of society
or of the individual. The new is always the child of the old.
Luther was as truly the child of the church in which he was edu-
cated as though he had remained faithful to it; the influence
of his environment was upon him whether he yielded to it or
resisted.
Granting these limits, then, what place remains for freedom of
the will? It is to be found in the power to put more or less of
earnestness into life. A man is under restraint everywhere; what-
ever the immediate sphere in which he finds himself, he is bound
by the laws of that sphere. But by greater earnestness of life he
may pass from one sphere into another. In this other sphere he
is equally bound, but he is bound in a different way. Take the
case of a school-boy who has been given a sum in arithmetic to
work out: his will cannot affect the true solution of the problem,
but if he is indifferent, the result which he obtains is likely not
to be the true result, whereas if he gives his mind to his task, his
figures can hardly fail to come out right. Again, the owner of a
music box cannot change its tunes, but he can determine which
of those tunes shall be played. A man in a balloon is in a certain
sense at the mercy of atmospheric currents, but these currents
move in different directions at different heights, and the aeronaut
can cause his balloon to rise or fall from one current to another.
Freedom of thought thus becomes the power to look facts in
the face. By a change of mental tension we bring ourselves under
230 FREEDOM OF THE WILL
the power now of one set of associations and now of another. A
man may dismiss the thought of duty by relaxing the tension of
his mind and allowing superficial, more pleasurable elements to
rush in. On the other hand, if his thoughts have been occupied
with lighter things, and duty presents itself, the fulfilment of that
duty depends upon his power to exert the necessary tension.
The minister who would not permit himself to look into the
question of slavery because, he said, every one who did became a
fanatic, is only the type of many men. Many men have some fact
or facts in their lives which they will not face, — the skeletons in
their closets.
However, in thus putting greater earnestness into life, are we
not after all merely following the strongest motive? Is this any-
thing more than determinism in another form? It is of course
impossible to prove that it is not. Freedom of the will is not
something that can be proved. The only absolute implication of
freedom is contained in the moral sense. The moral sense both
requires us to recognize a certain amount of freedom and implies
that we believe in a certain amount. If a person denies moral
responsibility, no further argument is possible with him in regard
to freedom. We can only say that for the sake of his system he
is giving up one of the most important elements in life. The
measure of freedom that is required by the moral sense is most
easily recognized in earnestness of living. If it is said that the
place that is thus left to freedom seems small, we reply that such
freedom, however limited, influences the character of the whole
life, and to a great extent determines it. There is a saying of
Theodore Parker's to the effect that freedom of the kind that we
are now considering makes up about three parts in a hundred of
our life. We may admit this in the same sense in which he makes
the statement, but we must recognize at the same time that these
three parts in a hundred are at the very centre, so that the result of
the exercise of freedom here affects all the rest. Measured by
its effects, therefore, it may be momentous. Furthermore, we can-
not estimate the amount of freedom by the results that are ob-
tained. The measure of the result does not express the measure
FREEDOM OF THE WILL 231
of the effort that has been necessary to bring about the result.
The effort of the school-boy in working out his sum may involve
as much moral energy as that of the great mathematician in
solving some problem beyond the reach of ordinary minds.
This view of freedom lessens the force of the a priori argument
against freedom, in that it recognizes the unity of the world. Ab-
solute indeterminism, a freedom in which any one could do any-
thing that he pleased, would break up this unity. But according
to this view the continuity of life is not broken. Man is not free
to branch out in any direction as he pleases, but must move within
the limits set by nature and education and habit; he is free not
to escape from law but to pass from one sphere of law to another.
It is equally open to Peter and to Paul either to exalt or to degrade
the Petrine or the Pauline spirit, but the Petrine is always Petrine,
whether good or bad, and the Pauline is always Pauline. Augus-
tine is always Augustine, whether profligate or regenerate. This
combination of the freedom of the individual with the limitation
of humanity finds illustration in the way in which the heroisms
of one age become the commonplaces of the next. Thus great
earnestness of life, great heroism, was needed once in this country
to face the question of slavery, but what heroism does it require
of us today to pronounce on the moral character of slavery ?
Another illustration is seen in the fact that so often some dis-
covery is made by several persons at about the same time. The
discovery may have been impossible a little earlier because the
data upon which it must be based were not yet clear. But then
came a time when the earnest attention of the strong minds that
were studying these data seized upon the relations between them
and leaped to the conclusion. Thus we may almost say that it
is the age rather than the individual that has made the discovery.
Can the hero, then, do more than hasten a result ? Has he the
power of origination, or is the question merely one of time, and
does he perceive only a little earlier facts which would in any case
become obvious later to other minds? It seems to me that we
must recognize the fact of an originating power in certain minds,
and this in moral and spiritual things as well as in other relations.
232 FREEDOM OF THE WILL
Just as certain mathematical results are beyond the reach of
ordinary powers, so there are moral and spiritual results that may
not be attained except as genius and earnestness united pass
beyond the line which humanity otherwise would reach. Spencer
is mistaken, therefore, in thinking that merely by living together
men may work out the highest results in alti-uism and morality,
that because they live in social relations the social instincts must
therefore become the strongest. Selfishness is as possible in the
social life of modern civilization as in the life of a savage tribe.
Indeed, social life develops an intense selfishness, a conscious and
calculating selfishness, to which the savage life is a stranger. An
ideal must be struck out to which men shall seek to conform, and
such an ideal does not necessarily manifest itself to all men or
even to the majority of men simply because they are living together
in social relations. It may be an ideal which ordinary men could
not have discovered for themselves, however glad they are to
recognize its worth and beauty when once it is presented to
them.
We have still to ask whether the a posteriori argument against
freedom of the will is affected by this view of freedom. We have
seen that the facts upon which this argument is based are too
general to admit of accurate results, and that although the regu-
larity of human acts permits a presumption that those acts are
determined, the foundation for this presumption cannot be made
so universal as to preclude the possibility of a certain degree of
freedom.1 Now this degree of freedom is precisely what the view
that we have been considering suggests. It allows a certain
space within which the will has free play. There is no incon-
sistency between this degree of freedom and the regularity of action
that is observed in ordinary life. Such regularity is to be expected.
For truth may be so coercive as to leave no opportunity for free-
dom, and in the ordinary relations of life it is generally thus
coercive. But when some occasion arises where truth is not so
compelling, or where it does not so immediately force itself upon
the mind, then the will asserts its freedom.
i Pages 221, 222.
ABSOLUTE FREEDOM 233
When all this has been said, the mystery of freedom still remains,
the mystery of that choice which the individual determines by
some act of sovereignty within himself. This mystery of freedom
has led many to deny it. But what do we mean by mystery ?
We mean in general that which cannot be formulated, and we are
especially inclined to consider as mystery that which cannot be
expressed in physical formulae, because it is in physical formulae
that we express to so large an extent our thought and observation.
For this very reason, however, we need never think that we are
on the wrong track when at the heart of a subject and back of all
our formulae we find mystery. For there must be a mystery
behind all formulae. This mystery of freedom is simply the
unformulated essence behind all ethical formulae without which
those formulae in any real sense would be impossible. At times
the term " mystery " is used in a somewhat different sense, of that
which cannot be explained or for which a cause cannot be found.
Now, if we give up the idea of such freedom of the will as this
which we have been considering because it is a mystery, in the
sense that it cannot be formulated, we come face to face with
mystery in this other sense, in that we recognize the fact that the
moral sense and the moral judgment make up a great part of
life and yet we can find no adequate cause for them. But the
mystery that arises from the impossibility of explanation, the im-
possibility of finding any cause for a given fact, is far more trouble-
some than the mystery that comes from the inability to formulate.
The inability to formulate is only what we must expect sooner or
later in the course of any examination that we may make, whereas
the mystery of causation is a mystery which it is the great business
of science and philosophy to do away with.
We have now reached a point at which we must recognize that
there is a third form of freedom, uniting real freedom and formal
freedom. Absolute freedom is found when both real and formal
freedom are present, when the most perfect real freedom is reached
by the power of free will.
" Our wills are ours, we know not how.
Our wills are ours, to make them thine."
234 THE TERMS " NATURE" AND " NATURAL"
There are limitations from which no one can escape. When
Paul says, "Know ye not, that to whom ye present yourselves as
servants unto obedience, his servants ye are whom ye obey," x
representing both the higher and the lower life as states of servi-
tude, his view is true. But so also is the view that finds expression
in those words of the Gospel according to John, " If therefore the
Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed." 2 Whatever
life we lead, we do indeed serve, and the man who acts from the
principle of love is no exception; there is perhaps no servitude
so absolute as that of love. Yet this servitude of love may be
considered in the highest ethical sense as freedom. For if we
recognize the fact that one form of life is more natural than an-
other, then that form is nearest to freedom which is most natural.
A form of life lower than the natural life is slavery even when it
has been adopted freely; the drunkard has chosen to drink, and
yet he is the slave of his passion. On the other hand the higher
life that is nearer the natural life is in so far freedom, however
subject a man may feel himself to the moral laws that control
the higher life. Thus the service of him who works from love
is freedom because it is according to his nature.
But what do we mean by "nature"? There are three uses
of the term, each true if taken in its proper relation. First there
is the use in which both the higher and the lower life are recog-
nized as equally natural. This is the view which Mill insists
upon so strongly in his essay on Nature,3 and to a certain extent
he is right. We cannot escape from the power of nature; no one
can do anything that is not natural. That great word of Shake-
speare tells the whole story,
"Yet Nature is made better by no mean
But Nature makes that mean." 4
The unnatural is simply the impossible. In all the history of
organized life and development there is no point at which the life
is unnatural. Civilization is as natural as the savage life, result-
1 Romans, vi, 16. a John, viii, 36.
3 Three Essays on Religion. i The Winter's Tale, Act iv, Sc. iv.
■I
THE TERMS NATURE AND NATURAL 235
ing as it does from the development of man's nature. The Brook-
lyn Bridge is as natural as the beaver's dam. If we say that the
bridge is the result of conscious effort, and therefore artificial,
we are reminded that conscious effort also is natural. In the
second use of the term the lowest stage of life is considered nat-
ural. This use is common in dogmatic theology, which contrasts
the state of " nature" with the state of " grace," the state of nature
being that lower state out of which a man is lifted by the power
of grace. In a similar way we often speak of a person's " nature"
as over against the moral life to which he has attained through
self-discipline and self-control. When we think of the life of im-
pulse and of possible selfishness into which men are born, the
truth and propriety of this use of the term are evident. Yet there
is a profounder truth in the third use, which recognizes the higher
life as after all the most natural. For it is in relation to the higher
life that we use the word "freedom," and if the higher life is the
freer life, then it must be the most natural, since only that can be
called free which is the fulfilment of the natural.
The explanation of these different uses of the terms "nature"
and "natural" is to be found in the fact that every man has two
natures, or rather that there are two aspects of his nature, the static
or individual, and the dynamic or universal. They are the two
aspects which appear in everything that has life. Thus a grain
of corn in one aspect of its nature is the hard kernel that we see,
and tends to remain so, but at the same time there is another
aspect of its nature which tends to break up the kernel into some-
thing different from what it is. The static nature tends to pre-
serve the kernel in its first form; the dynamic nature, the germ of
the plant within the seed, is always pressing out to make it some-
thing that it is not. The static nature is the individual nature
in which the seed "abideth alone"; the dynamic nature is the
universal nature by which the seed is made to "bear fruit" and
take its part in the great processes of the universe. It is the same
with the egg. There is the hard shell without and there is the
germinating life within, and the shell holds the chicken in until
the chicken by its own effort breaks through the shell. Here as
236 THE TERMS " NATURE" AND " NATURAL"
everywhere the static offers a certain resistance to the dynamic.
In the lower forms of life this struggle is to a great extent uncon-
scious. In man, however, it becomes conscious, and often the
collision between the two aspects is violent. It is this struggle
that Paul describes when he tells of "the law of God after the
inward man" and the "different law" in his members warring
against each other.1 In every man there is at the same time
the impulse to remain what he is, and the impulse to become what
he is not, and the tragedy of life consists in the struggle between
these impulses.
Of the two impulses, the two aspects, which more truly rep-
resents the real nature of man ? The dynamic could not exist
apart from the static. But just as it is the dynamic element that
differentiates the seed from the stone, so the dynamic impulse in
man is that which more profoundly represents his nature. We
have seen how from the first a teleological principle has been at
work in the universe. The dynamic aspect of human nature is
this teleological principle working in man. The pressure of the
individual toward the higher life, this pressure which is not from
without but from within, is the manifestation consciously of that
advance, hitherto unconscious, which has been taking place from
the beginning of the world. Here is the justification of the use
of the term "nature" to describe the higher life of man. The
static aspect is natural, for all life must have a starting-point.
But the static exists only that it may be overcome and give place
to something higher. When the static impulse is obeyed, when
a man rests in the static aspect of his nature, then his life becomes
unnatural, as unnatural as the life of the grain of wheat which has
been preserved in some Egyptian tomb and so restrained for cen-
turies from all development and growth.
Of course, if no principle of teleology is recognized, or something
that is the equivalent of such a principle, there is no absolute
standard by which to determine what is natural; one thing is
as natural as any other thing, one condition or aspect of life as
much according to nature as another. But if we are right in as-
i Romans, vii, 22-23.
THE DIVINE FREEDOM 237
suming that there is a teleologieal principle, then whatever con-
forms to that principle and makes itself its instrument is in the
highest sense of the term natural, while that which opposes the
teleologieal principle is unnatural. We have seen that there is
nothing in nature that is absolutely static. It may be said that
God makes only "seeds." Everything is germinant. But whereas
in the lower forms of organic life there can be no considerable ad-
vance without change of structure, in man such advance with no
change of structure is possible to an indefinite extent. The strong-
est recognition of this is seen in the belief in the possibility of the
incarnation of God in man. As I have said, the pressure is not
from without but from within. The principle of teleology does
not work over against man as a vis a tergo, but as embodied in
him and as a part of his nature. His growth is by his own con-
sent, and most of all are his highest advances made by his con-
scious will. Through the teleologic impulse working uncon-
sciously the seed dies in the lower aspect of its life that the higher
aspect may take its place. By the same teleologic impulse, but
consciously, man surrenders the individual life that he may find
his place and fulfil his part in relation to universal life.1
One question suggests itself at which I shall only glance. In
human life we have to recognize the fact that freedom in the object
of reverence is essential to the deepest reverence. How is it as
regards reverence toward God ? What are we to say of the divine
freedom ? I refer to this question because it comes naturally
in our way, but it opens up one of those transcendent problems
which I for one cannot undertake to discuss. We can have our
guesses and our theories, but the account of freedom that we have
followed up to this point is based on analogies of human life and
human consciousness, and here these human analogies fail. God
is absolute being. In the phrase of the schoolmen he is actus
furus, absolute activity. Whether it would be possible for divine
power to hold itself back, whether it might remain static instead
of becoming dynamic, is a question upon which each of us may
exercise his thought if he wishes to do so. I shall not venture to
discuss it.
i Matthew, x, 39.
238 FREEDOM OF THE WILL, CONCLUDED
In the history of Christian theology the metaphysical diffi-
culties in regard to freedom occupy only a small space. They
were not felt until late. Augustine and Calvin hold that man
was free before the Fall but after the Fall lost his freedom in refer-
ence to the higher life. Here the metaphysical difficulty is en-
tirely ignored. Calvin says that man has freedom in little things
and in wrong-doing. The difficulty rests wholly upon theologi-
cal grounds, and no a 'priori difficulty is recognized. Man is free
to do wrong, says Calvin, but has lost his freedom to do right.
Can this properly be called freedom ? — a freedom to move in one
direction only ? Augustine says, " Yes " ; that as God is free, but
free only to do right, so man must be considered free when he is
free only to do wrong. It might be urged that the two cases are
not parallel, because right-doing is the complete nature. But
these theologians would say that although wrong-doing is man's
present nature it was not his original and true nature. Further-
more they recognize that man is not always free to do wrong.
For there may come a time when God wills to save a man, and then
he is no longer free to resist. The Pelagian and Socinian theo-
logians recognize a certain freedom. According to their view
man needs God's help but can resist; very much as the great
forces of nature are always ready to serve our ends, so God's
help is at hand, and man can choose whether or no he will avail
himself of it. Is the divine foreknowledge destructive of free-
dom? Calvin answers, "Yes," and Augustine, "No." "You
know that you will always wish to be happy," argues Augustine,
"and yet you know that you will will this freely." From the
metaphysical point of view the whole discussion is crude and su-
perficial, and fails to meet the real difficulties. It is not until we
come to Jonathan Edwards that we find a profound discussion
of the problem.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE THIRD STAGE IN THE MOMENT OF NEGATION: SIN AND EVIL. —
THE THEORY OF SIN DEPENDENT UPON THE THEORY OF FREE-
DOM OF THE WILL. — CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS SIN. —
ATTAINMENT NOT A MEASURE OF THE AMOUNT OF SIN. — SIN
PRIMARILY A STATE. — SIN NEGATTVE. — SIN FOR ITS OWN SAKE.
— SIN FROM THE DESIRE TO CAUSE SUFFERING.
We have considered thus far the first two stages in the moment
of negation,1 the stage of difference, or the doctrine of creation,2
and the stage of independence, the doctrine of freedom.3 We
come now to the third stage, in which the negation appears in its
most intense form, and the freedom of the second stage becomes
antagonism. This antagonism manifests itself either as sin or as
evil, according as it is considered in relation to the idea of good-
ness or to the idea of beauty.4
The theory that we hold in regard to sin depends upon the
theory that we have adopted in regard to freedom. According to
the definition commonly given by liberal thinkers, sin consists
in doing consciously that which at the time we know to be wrong.
According to the opposite view, sin belongs to man's nature and
therefore is essentially unconscious. In the first definition the
emphasis upon consciousness reduces sin to a minimum, for it is
comparatively seldom that the average well-meaning man delib-
erately does that which he knows at the time to be wrong. On
the other hand, the second definition raises sin to a maximum,
and perhaps exaggerates it. St. Augustine's remark that the
virtues of the heathen are splendid vices illustrates one aspect of
this exaggeration, but it appears in a form especially familiar to
i Page 105. 2 Page 105. 3 Page 210. * Page 106.
240 CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS SIN
us in the doctrine of total depravity, the theory that all that a man
does in a state of nature is sinful.
We have to recognize, I think, that only the smaller portion of
sinful acts are committed in full consciousness. Now if con-
sciousness is to be considered an essential element of sin, the
degree of sinfulness should vary with the degree of consciousness.
But experience does not show this. We find that if we have
only a partial consciousness of sin at the time when the act is
committed and later become fully conscious of it, the sinfulness
does not vary with the degree of consciousness but may even be
considered in some degree independent of consciousness. A man
may at the time of wrong-doing see the ideal before him and feel
the pressure of duty, and may shrink from the exertion that he
must make in order to do right. But in such cases, and in nearly
all cases, there is a tendency on the part of the wrong-doer to
excuse himself and to make light of his offence. Thus a man who
appropriates money belonging to his employer may do it with
the hope and expectation that he can return it soon; he takes it
to bridge over some temporary need, and the offence seems small
in comparison with the advantage that is to be gained; there is
a minimum of the consciousness of sin. I do not mean that there
may not be those who sin with full consciousness of what they
are doing, who cry out, "Evil, be thou my good!" We meet
them in poetry and romance, and we may meet them also in real
life.
The question, however, which is the most important for us to
answer is whether unconscious sin is possible. We admit at the
outset that the idea is illogical. It is easy to urge that if a man
does not know at the time that he is doing wrong, he cannot be
blamed. But we have already found that life is not logical,
especially the moral life. We might say that it is impossible that
a man should feel an obligation if he cannot explain the reason
of it, and yet men do feel the obligation of the moral law when
they can give no explanation of it or only a mistaken explanation.
But whatever disposition we make of the logical aspect of the
case, our first business is with the facts. Take the case of a cap-
CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS SIN 241
tain of a steamship who knows that in an hour his vessel will be
in a dangerous position where all his care will be needed, but
that meanwhile his presence on the deck is not required. He is
tired, and knowing that some relaxation will most refresh him and
prepare him for his coming duty, he goes below to amuse himself
among the passengers. He becomes absorbed, the time passes
unheeded, and he is aroused to a sense of his duty only by the
shock with which his vessel strikes upon some rock in the dangerous
passage. The ship is lost. Are we to blame the captain ? He
was perfectly right in assuming that he was at liberty for the
hour, and that relaxation for a time would enable him better to
meet the coming strain. He was not conscious how fast the
hour was passing; he had no consciousness, no "sub-conscious-
ness," that anything was wrong. There was no one point at
which it could be said that he was to blame. Yet we do blame
him. We hold him to be not only responsible but criminally
responsible for the loss of his ship. Or again, take the case of
a child who is going to school. The child purposely leaves home
half an hour earlier than is necessary so that he may have time
to play on the way and not be late. The time passes and the child
is late. He is blamed, but why ? There was no moment at which
he was conscious that he was doing wrong.
Furthermore, we have to recognize the fact that in life every
mood tends to justify itself so long as it lasts. While we are
angry, thoroughly angry, we do not blame ourselves. We see
only that act of the other person which appears to us to justify
our feeling. We may even apply in self-defence Kant's principle,
that a man should act as every one might act under the circum-
stances. We often say when angry or discontented that every
one would feel and do as we feel and as we are doing. In a cer-
tain sense every mood is justified. For every mood has some
cause, but no cause could produce an effect if the cause were not
equal to producing that effect, and in so far as it has a cause the
mood finds its justification in that cause. The difficulty is that
so long as the mood lasts we look only at a single point in our
environment. Thus while we are angry with another person, we
242 CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS SIN
see, as I have said, only that act of his in which we find justifi"
cation for our anger. But when the anger passes, we find that
whether we were or were not mistaken as to the cause, we were
looking at a single act of the person with whom we were angry
instead of at his whole life. When we come to ourselves, we
see the one act no longer apart by itself but in relation to the
man's life as a whole. How shall we blame these moods ? Ac-
cording to the view that denies all freedom of the will we shall
not blame them; it is only a misfortune that men experience
them. But in so far as we affirm freedom of the will we leave a
place for blame. We say that the man knows that he is liable
to this infirmity and should be on his guard against it ; he should
exercise his power of self-control. For the power that a deter-
mination has over the unconscious life is very great. We have
a striking illustration of it in the way in which certain persons
by willing beforehand can rouse themselves from sleep at a given
time. How does one do it? How does the unconscious nature
keep the run of time? There is no satisfactory explanation.
But we recognize the fact. We have this power over our lives
and are responsible for its use, and it is in the failure to exercise
it that the occasion for blame arises in these different cases that
we have considered. Any one of these persons, — whether the
man beside himself with anger, or the child late at school, or the
captain who has lost his vessel, — any one of them may say, "I
did not mean to." But the reply in each case must be the same, —
"Did you mean not to? Did you will earnestly enough not to
do the thing that you did do ? "
There are some who never take command of themselves or
realize that it is their duty to do so. What are we to say of them ?
There are men who grow up without ever facing the great prob-
lems of life. They are not without knowledge of the higher
relations, because they live in a community in which such rela-
tions are recognized as commonplaces. But other habits of life
such as those to which they are accustomed are also considered
commonplace; other men besides themselves are living carelessly
and indifferently and merely for themselves. They have never
ATTAINMENT NOT A MEASURE 243
lived earnestly enough fairly to ask what sort of life they ought
to lead. They have not refused to ask, but they have not asked.
They are taking it for granted that in some way or other they will
come out right. Here there is no consciousness of wrong-doing.
But we blame such men just because they do not question and
do not choose, because they do not take hold of life in earnest
and will to make something of themselves for the world. We
blame them because instead of steering themselves they only drift.
Actual attainments amount to little in determining the amount
of sin, for they vary both with the moral condition of the com-
munity in which the individual lives and also with his own nature.
Thus one man may be living in a community where the habit is
simply that sort of idle self-seeking to which I have just referred.
It would require a great effort on the part of a man so situated to
commit a crime. But take a man who lives in a lower stratum
of society, where a certain amount of crime is as habitual as the
mere self-seeking by which the first man is surrounded. It is
easy for the second man to commit a crime. The two cases,
however, are alike in that in both the individual has yielded to
external influences. The first man may be simply a harmless
member of society, while the second may belong to the dangerous
class. Yet in so far as both fail to exercise the power to reach
the best that is possible under the circumstances, both alike sin
and in the same degree. Or again, the habitual drunkard may
have struggles which serve at most only to prevent him from
sinking lower and are powerless to lift him higher, but which
would make a saint of one more favorably placed. Or compare
this poor child of earth, endeavoring to struggle upward, with an
angel fallen and present among us. The angel might seem to us
to be holiness itself, and yet because he would be living on a
lower plane than that which his nature had made possible he
would be sinful as contrasted with the drunkard who is trying
to work his way to something higher. It is like the great tree,
blighted and dying at the top, and the little sapling that is just
beginning to lift itself above the earth. We judge the life not by
its attainment, its present condition, but by the direction in which
244 ATTAINMENT NOT A MEASURE
it is tending. It is with this in mind that Jesus is represented
as telling the priests and elders that the publicans and the harlots
go into the kingdom of God before them.1 Of course in all this
I do not refer to isolated acts or momentary tendencies. I do not
mean that a single fault committed by one who occupies some
exalted height implies a degradation such as I have referred to.
What we have to consider is the general tendency of the nature,
whether that which it is seeking is above it or below it. A man
may fail in his highest endeavor and find himself doing that which
he knows to be wrong, and yet may be able to say with Paul, " it
is no more I that do it, but sin which dwelleth in me."2 A man's
real life is in his ideal, that which commands the general ten-
dency of his nature, and whatever is exceptional to that ideal and
tendency does not really belong to him. There are men whose
faults do not really belong to them just as there are men whose
virtues similarly are not part of their real life.
Our logic may perhaps have led us to results which might not
recognize themselves in concrete form. Emerson says that " when
we see a soul whose acts are all regal ... we must thank God
. . . and not turn sourly on the angel and say ' Crump is a better
man with his grunting resistance to all his native devils,'"3 and
our feeling very likely responds to Emerson's and we doubt if
Crump is better. Is not the man who stands higher the better
after all ? Is not the distinction that we have been making some-
what artificial ? We must distinguish, however, between judg-
ments that are really artificial because they are foreign to the
facts, and judgments that may appear to be artificial simply
because they have to do with facts which are not obvious. Our
feeling toward persons is determined by their relation to us and
others. But the judgments that we have here to make require us
to go behind this relation and deal with the actual thoughts and
purposes of the heart. Our esthetic feeling toward people is one
thing, — the love that we bear them and the pleasure that we take
in their society; our moral feeling, the moral judgment which we
1 Matthew, xxi, 31-32. 2 Romans, vii, 20.
3 Essays: First Series, "Spiritual Laws."
ATTAINMENT NOT A MEASURE 245
must pronounce, is quite another thing. We may not enjoy the
society of the man who is trying to get the better of his temper,
and we may not choose as our companion the man who is strug-
gling against his habit of drunkenness. Yet we may feel toward
them a real sympathy and a profound approbation, and it is even
possible that as we come to realize the heroism and pathos that
are involved in such struggle, the esthetic charm also may be as
great as in those relations which at first thought seem more natu-
rally to suggest it.
Furthermore, we have to recognize that all beauty of character
is in some sense or other the result of moral triumph. If certain
characteristics of kindliness and sympathy and truth have become
habitual, so that they are commonplaces and can be acquired by
individuals without effort, this is to a very large extent the result
of struggles in the past by which men's natures have been soft-
ened and made more true and tender and sympathetic. It is not
necessary to suppose that these victories were won by the effort
of the direct ancestors of an individual, or by the community at
large in which he finds himself. We know what power may be
exerted by certain ideal lives.1 The moral struggle and triumph
of a single individual may render beautiful and noble living easier
for multitudes. The influence of such a person becomes an ele-
ment in the environment, and his life helps others to lead lives
that shall be somewhat similar. Thus the whole aspect of society
may change as the result of the moral triumph of a single life.
But wherever we may lay the stress, whether on the individual
himself, or on his ancestors, or upon the influence of certain ideal
lives, we see that all moral excellence bears witness to a moral
triumph, so that the approbation which we give is not without
foundation even in the case of those who seem to attain without
personal struggle the grace that we find in them. Of course the
most perfect result is reached when the highest nature and the
happiest environment meet, when the individual recognizes and
adopts as his own the best that he finds, whether within himself
or without. Under such conditions we have a character that can
be contemplated without hesitation or mental reservation, a char-
i Pages 156, 157.
246 SIN PRIMARILY A STATE
acter which at the same time wins our sympathy and commands
our approbation.
Sin is primarily a state rather than an act. In strictness we
may speak of sin rather than of sins. I do not mean that we are
to give up the term "sins," for there are many terms that we
should not use in an abstract discussion which we still may use
in common speech. Sin, the sinful state, manifests itself in acts
and in failures to act, and these forms of omission and of commis-
sion in which sin thus manifests itself may properly be called sins.
But sin itself is a state of inertia, the resting on some lower plane
of life when it is possible to rise to a higher plane. As we have
already seen,1 the sins, the forms in which sin manifests itself,
vary according to the environment in which one lives, or accord-
ing to the inherited or acquired tendencies of the individual. Sin
itself, on the other hand, is the same thing always, whatever the
environment and whatever the nature of the individual; it is the
same thing on Beacon Street that it is at the North End. It may
be well at this point to distinguish between the term "sin" in its
stricter sense and certain other terms that are used to express moral
wrong. Not only does sin denote a state, but the term is theologi-
cal or metaphysical, according as that state is considered in relation
to God or in relation to some universal principle. Vice, on the
other hand, has a personal as immorality has a social significance.
I have said 2 that our theory in regard to sin depends upon the
theory that we hold in regard to freedom of the will. We have
seen 3 that this freedom consists in the power to put more or less
of earnestness into life. It follows that sin is the failure through
lack of earnestness to reach the best that is possible to our nature
and our environment. Therefore sin is negative rather than posi-
tive. To many in our time this seems a very lax doctrine, but it
is the view that has been held by the profoundest theologians.
Thomas Aquinas and Jonathan Edwards would not be consid-
ered superficial, but they define sin as negative,4 and so does
i Pages 243-244. 2 Page 239. 3 page 229.
4 Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Pars I, Quaest. XL VIII, Art. I. Edwards,
Works, Vol. VI, Original Sin, Part IV, Chap. II.
SIN NEGATIVE 247
Augustine,1 and so does Leibnitz.2 Those who oppose this view
are apt to say that it renders sin "merely" a negation, as though
the description of anything as a negation made light of it. But
there is nothing mightier or more terrible than negation. Negation
does not mean nonentity, and to say that a thing is a negation does
not mean that it accomplishes nothing. Cold is a negation, the
absence of heat, and we know how powerful it is. Leibnitz takes
it to illustrate the power of negation generally, using the ex-
periment in which a gun-barrel that has been filled with water
bursts when the water is allowed to freeze. The negation that is
most terrible to our thought and imagination is death. It is
"merely" a negation, but it is a negation before which all
tremble. There is no limit to the illustrations that might be given
of the negations that bring suffering and terror to our lives.
It is true, of course, that in all these cases we are met by posi-
tive results, and that the elements which immediately produce these
results are positive. When the earth is cooling, it is the power of
attraction, we are told, that lifts up the mountains. It is the posi-
tive genius, the force of will, in a Napoleon, however selfish he
may be, that overturns all Europe. It is the positive passions of
lust and anger and the rest, that bring about all that we recognize
as sin. This is all true. Yet what we have to notice is that the
action of these positive elements is dependent upon the presence
or absence of other elements. It is only as heat is taken away
from the earth that the attractive power by which the mountains
are lifted begins to work. It is not the elements themselves that
bring about a certain result, but those elements acting without the
restraint of some controlling 'principle behind them. It is the same
in human life. The elements that produce the positive results,
the passions and the will, the powers of calculation and of combi-
nation, are none of them sinful in themselves. But sin results
through the absence of the higher principle which should restrain
and control these forces.
Nothing is wrong in itself. There is no element of the nature,
no instinct, no power, that does not have its place. A thing be-
1 Confessiones, Books II, VII. 2 Essais de Theodicee, § 153.
248 SIN NEGATIVE
comes wrong only when it takes the place of some possible better
thing. Beastliness is not wrong in the beast, because nothing
higher is possible for it, but for man a higher and better life is
possible, and therefore beastliness is for him sinful. It is the same
with all our ideals and tendencies. No ideal is bad except as
it takes the place of an ideal that is better. No tendency is wrong.
If a tendency appears to be excessive, it is only because other
tendencies have not been developed to correspond with it. There
may be disproportion in the moral and spiritual life, but not ex-
cess. This is not true of the body. Certain bodily organs may
be too large simply because if a man were framed throughout
upon the model that such an organ suggests, the man would
be a monster. That is because we recognize a certain size as
normal for the body. It is a matter of habit with us, or of con-
vention. In a colossal statue all is in proportion, but it does not
represent the normal man, and any member of it taken in rela-
tion to a figure of ordinary size would be not only out of pro-
portion but excessive. In the spiritual life, on the other hand,
there is no norm of development, but the larger and fuller the
development the better. The possibility of development in the
spiritual life is infinite, and therefore the greater development
of any one part may invite a corresponding development in all
the parts without making a monster of the spiritual nature as a
whole.
In holding that nothing is in itself wrong we recognize that
there are some difficulties which we must face. Thus we may
say of sickness that it is merely the unregulated, abnormal action
of functions which all have their natural place in the organism.
But how is it in the case of a disease like cancer? Is there not
here a process — I ask, of course, as one without professional
knowledge — which appears to have no normal place in the body,
and which is not to be explained but only extirpated, if extirpa-
tion is possible? And are there not similarly certain aspects of
sin which are exceptional or which at least appear to be so ?
Of these sins that occasion special difficulty in relation to our
general theory there are two classes. To some extent these classes
SIN FOR ITS OWN SAKE 249
overlap each other, but on the whole they are distinct enough to
require separate treatment. The first class includes all those
cases in which the wrong is done just for the sake of wrong-
doing, where no temptation exists except in the fact that the
thing to be done is wrong, whereas if the thing were right we
should not think of doing it. The second class includes the
cases where the wrong-doing results from the love of tormenting,
the desire to cause suffering for the pleasure of inflicting it. The
consciousness of wrong-doing may add zest to the love of tor-
menting, but there is an element in the love of tormenting that
does not belong to the pleasure in wrong-doing considered by
itself. This pleasure in wrong-doing for its own sake finds illus-
tration at once in the proverb about the sweetness of stolen fruit,
which we have in so many forms. Augustine, at the beginning
of his Confessions,1 in the account of his boyhood, gives the classi-
cal presentation of such cases. He tells how with other boys
he robbed a pear tree in a neighbor's orchard. The pears were
very poor, and he could have got much better at home. The
stolen pears were thrown away. What induced him to commit
the theft ? At the end of a long discussion of the question he con-
cludes that the act was done for fun, that it was not the love of
doing wrong which caused him to steal, but the excitement, the
adventure, in the act. In all this, however, I am not sure that
Augustine goes to the heart of the matter. What was it that
gave to the fun its particular zest? Was it not the fear of dis-
covery and the danger of punishment, the excitement that comes
from peril ? But perhaps Augustine implies this. Then there
may also be in the wrong-doing a certain joy of liberty. We are
surrounded by all sorts of conventions and rules of propriety,
and often we feel a restraint from which it is a great satisfaction
to escape. But there are many who confound morality with con-
ventionality, and who protest against the laws of morality as
though they were only conventions. Furthermore, we have to
recognize the fact that the sense of freedom which constitutes
the joy of wrong-doing of this kind is after all a type of the highest
life of the spirit. The spirit is not meant to be perpetually under
i Book II.
250 SIN FOR ITS OWN SAKE
the dominion of these laws of morality. Ultimately it is to be
free. But it is to make its escape, not by breaking laws, but by
rising above them and reaching a point of development at which
laws shall have been absorbed into the nature, so that a man will
do right not because it is right but because it is natural.
Profanity is often referred to as a sin which has no end in view
and is performed wholly for the sake of its sinfulness. But this
is superficial. Men indulge in profanity not because it is wrong.
We are imitative creatures, and under certain circumstances we
tend to do whatever those circumstances suggest. Professor
James tells us that if there were a single concept in the mind,
that concept would lead to its distinctive action.1 If a man
thought of murder, and all other feelings such as love or prudence
were absent, he would commit the murder. So with profanity,
if one is continually in the company of profane persons the pro-
fane word comes naturally to the lips in any moment of strong
feeling, even if it does not pass them. The sin of profanity is
that it indicates a superficial view of the profound relations of
life. The Church is to some extent responsible for the light use
of the name of God, in so far as it has represented God as a con-
demning judge. Generally, however, the profane use of the
name of God is without any thought of the deeper meaning.
Furthermore, it appears that as a rule profane words are the
most forcible phonetically in the language, and therefore have
most value in giving relief to the emotions. Then, too, we find
here again the protest against convention, with the confusion
between the conventions and the ethics of life. In many cases
the use of profane language results almost entirely from this de-
sire to escape from the conventions; a boy swears or smokes
with a sense of boldness and of a certain dignity. In general
we may assume that where a thing is loved because it is wrong,
it is through the sense of freedom that accompanies the wrong,
the desire to protest against the conventionality of law. There
are extreme cases where the individual feels that he has been
misused by the powers that control his world and where the
1 The Principles of Psychology, Chap. XXVI.
THE DESIRE TO CAUSE SUFFERING 251
whole nature has become soured, eases in which the divine being
has been misrepresented or misunderstood. But although these
cases may seem at first to present some difficulty, they are in real-
ity no exception to the general rule.
That which offers greater difficulty, however, is the love of tor-
menting,— the pleasure that boys take in throwing stones at frogs
and birds, or in impaling insects on pins and watching their
struggles, the joy of the savage in tormenting his captive, the
satisfaction that some people find in the gossip in which a per-
son's character is torn to pieces. Of course allowance must be
made in such cases for a certain amount of thoughtlessness; it
may not occur to the boy that the fly has feelings. Furthermore
the love of power enters. Thus the case of the savage and his
captive may be regarded as a contest in power, — the savage
wishes to show his enemy how thoroughly he is conquered, and
the captive is equally determined not to show that he is thus con-
quered. Then there is the love of excitement, no matter what
form it may take. Life that is not varied becomes monotonous,
and relief is sought in any and all ways, and thus enjoyment is
found even in pain so long as it is not too painful. With some
the mere semblance of pain is enough to satisfy this desire. They
go to the theatre to weep, to enjoy the luxury of painful sensa-
tions in following the scene of some tragedy which all the time
they know is not real. Or they delight in reading sad books or
in listening to melancholy music. In music, as in literature and
art, the great works of a joyous character are few as compared
with those of tragedy or sorrow, so much more easily is a strong
emotion of sadness produced than one of joy. Then there are
people who torment themselves by dwelling upon their own
troubles. The satisfaction which they find in this self-torment
appears to be very real, and one wonders whether such persons
would know what to do if they were suddenly to find themselves
surrounded with happiness and comfort. In all these cases the
semblance of pain is enough, as I have said, to satisfy the desire
for excitement. But when the sensibilities are blunted, a stronger
stimulus is required, and there must be the spectacle of actual
252 THE DESIRE TO CAUSE SUFFERING
suffering, — the gladiatorial show, or the bull fight, or the public
execution. Even here, however, there may be an appeal to some-
thing besides the desire for excitement. For together with the
suffering there is often present at such times a heroism, whether
in animals or in men, which is not possible except when there is
the risk of death.
It may be asked whether some of these tendencies may not be
a survival from a lower stage of existence. Certainly there is a
place in the lower animal life for the love of destruction. We all
know that the mere eating for the sake of satisfying one's hunger
is hardly enough to preserve life at its best. In order that food
may have its best effect there must be something to attract the
taste. Now the lower animals of the carnivorous sort cannot
flavor their food with condiments and sauces, but they do have
the instinct for destruction, the joy in the chase, the joy even in
tearing their prey, which give zest to their food and add much to
their chances for continued existence. It may be that it is this
element which survives in men in the love of tormenting, or in
that desire for excitement which, as we have seen, appears to
account in part at least for the pleasure that men find in causing
suffering.
Finally we have to recognize the fact that the joy in causing
suffering has a certain place in the normal development of human
nature. Just as there is a righteous anger, so there is such a
thing as a righteous exultation in the punishment that befalls the
wrong-doer. Whether this joy will ever be outgrown is a ques-
tion that we do not need to discuss, nor do we have to ask within
what limits the feeling should be confined. We have here only
to recognize that it exists and that it has played a necessary part
in the progress of the world. If men had meted out justice to
one another with only the cold impartiality with which the judge
upon the bench utters his sentences, the world would have been
far less advanced than it is today in the direction of the higher
morality. As it is, wrong-doing has aroused in men a terrible
sharpness of condemnation, with hatred and scorn toward the
offender, and there has been a joy in striking down the wrong-
THE DESIRE TO CAUSE SUFFERING 253
doer and in feeling that he has had to experience the same sort
of treatment that he has inflicted upon others. Even gossip, or
something that is akin to gossip, has its place. There is a duty in
the discovery and exposure of wrong-doing. The difficulty in
gossip is that the process is ordinarily ex parte; the tribunal is a
secret one, and no opportunity is given either for defence or for
impartial examination. Yet it is only a morbid form of what is
really an essential element in the health of society. Unless a
wrong-doer knew that his character might be exposed and his
wrong-doing pass from mouth to mouth, a great restraint upon
men would be lacking. Of course the joy in retribution may
be detached from the sense of justice, just as anger may be de-
tached from its normal relation either to self-preservation or to
the preservation of the community. We must consider all the
various facts together in order to arrive at a right understanding
of them.
CHAPTER XXII.
SIN AS SELFISHNESS. — SIN AS DEATH. — THE MEANNESS OF SIN. —
SIN IN RELATION TO THE DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION. THEO-
RIES OF SIN WHICH TAKE AWAY ITS SINFULNESS. — THE THREE
BASES OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH IN REGARD TO SIN.
In line with the definition of sin as negation which we have
been considering is a second definition of it as selfishness. Sin
is the absence of altruism, the separation of one's self from the
universe, or the attempt to make one's self the centre around which
the universe revolves. This definition is not new. Like the defi-
nition of sin as negation, it has been insisted upon by both theo-
logians and philosophers. Thus in the interesting table which
Bunsen presents in Christianity and Mankind,1 in which the theo-
logical terms are placed on one side and the philosophical terms
on the other, selfishness is given as the equivalent of sin. But do
the terms sin and selfishness exactly cover each other? Sin con-
sists in the absence of self-control. May not a man exercise
self-control selfishly? May he not abstain from momentary in-
dulgence merely because he recognizes that self-control will en-
able him to prolong his pleasure in whatever seems to him most
attractive in life? Self-control of this sort, however, is rather
a form of prudence. It is not to be confounded with that self-
control in which, regardless of his individual happiness, or with-
out any distinct recognition of it, a man contends with lower
impulses just because he feels that they are unworthy. Such
self-control is plainly self-surrender. If it were not, we could
not understand how a person who had been cast away upon some
desert island, without any prospect of restoration to society, could
have either sin or holiness. As it is, taking this larger view, we
can see that for such a person there still are higher principles
i Edition of 1854, Vol. IV, pp. 212-219.
SIN AS SELFISHNESS 255
and relations to which he may yield himself, so that even under
these conditions there is the opportunity for a self-control that
shall result in self-surrender.
In saying that sin is selfishness we must remember that just as
no one is wholly sinful, so no one is wholly selfish. There is no
human being who is not in some direction or other taken out of
himself, none who has not some love, some self-sacrificing spirit.
I speak of this in order to prepare the way for the consideration
of a difficulty that has been urged. If sin is selfishness, it is asked,
what are we to say of the wrong that is done for the sake of an-
other ? Thomas Aquinas attempts to meet this difficulty by say-
ing that the friend for whose sake we do the wrong is an "alter
ego," another self, and therefore what is done for him is done as
though for one's self. But this is hardly satisfactory. For we do
distinguish between the wrong act of a man who does it for him-
self alone and that of another who does it for the sake of a friend.
It is at least the beginning of a higher life for any man to have
an "alter ego." That to some extent he should have his life in
another instead of in himself shows that he has broken through
the barriers of his selfishness. If a man has an "alter ego" it
must remain an "alter ego" and can never become an "ego,"
and in so far selfishness is set at naught. Therefore if the defi-
nition of sin as selfishness is to stand, the term "selfishness"
must be qualified. It must be used as meaning the preference
of some smaller, narrower relation to one that is broader and
larger. The man with his "alter ego" is unselfish as compared
with one who lives only for himself, but his life is narrow as com-
pared with that of a man who lives not merely for one other per-
son than himself but for the good of many, and in relation with
higher and broader laws than those which make only for his own
individual interest or his friend's. In cases of this sort selfish-
ness is often a matter of emphasis. Thus patriotism is a virtue
in so far as the individual gives himself in service to his country,
but when he says with Decatur, "our country, right or wrong,"
a larger principle is sacrificed to something smaller.
Still another definition or characterization of sin, but this time
256 SIN AS DEATH
in figurative form, is found in the description of it as death. The
term " death" as applied to sin occurs frequently in the New Tes-
tament and is often used in common speech today. The most
obvious explanation is that death is insensibility. It is in this
sense that Paul speaks on the one hand of being " dead unto sin
but alive unto God"1 and on the other hand of being "dead
through . . . trespasses and sins. " 2 Here a question arises
similar to that which met us when we were considering the use of
the term "natural."3 Can the term "death," in any true sense,
be absolutely applied, so that when we say that a spirit is dead
we need not specify whether the death is to the higher or to the
lower life ? We may reply that if the higher development is that
which belongs to the truer, deeper, more absolute nature of the
spirit, then the failure to reach that higher development may
be considered in some absolute sense as the death of the spirit,
and therefore except when the term is expressly referred to the
lower life it will always mean the death to the higher life.
There is another and more profound sense, however, in which
the term "death" may be used of sin without any possibility of
misunderstanding. In any living creature, man or beast, the
lower elements of the bodily life, the various mechanical and
chemical forces that enter into it, are all to great extent under
the control of some vital principle. What we commonly call
death is the withdrawal of this principle. We do not have to
inquire here as to the nature of the controlling element. We
have only to recognize that it exists as the higher law in the life of
the body, and that when its control is no longer felt, and the lower
laws have full sway, dissolution follows. Now the death of the
spirit is of very much the same sort. So long as the higher pur-
pose, the will to do right, is present, all the lower elements of
the nature are held in subordination and controlled. The sub-
ordination may not be perfect, any more than the similar sub-
ordination of the lower elements in the life of the body. But so
long as the will to control is active, any lack of subordination
in the lower elements appears abnormal and, as it were, acci-
1 Romans, vi, 11. 2 Ephesians, ii, 1. 3 Page 234.
SIN AS DEATH 257
dental. "It is no more I that do it, but sin which dwelleth in
me." 1 Paul has so committed himself to the higher life that
whatever happens to have remained over from the lower life is
foreign to him, and in so far as he is doing his best to conquer it
he is not responsible for it. But when in sin the will relaxes its
hold, and all the lower elements, all the baser passions and desires,
assert themselves uncontrolled, then the dissolution of the spirit-
ual nature follows.
A living body has command to a certain extent over its en-
vironment. It reacts against it according to its own nature, and
derives health from it instead of sickness. The bracing cold of
a winter day, instead of lowering the vitality of a vigorous body,
increases it; the body responds with fresh vitality. In a similar
way the spiritual nature which has control of itself, the nature
which is truly alive, moves among temptations unharmed and
makes them contribute to its greater strength. On the other
hand, just as the dead body is at the mercy of its environment,
so when the elements of the spiritual life lack the supreme con-
trol of the higher purpose, the individual yields to the influence
of his environment, whatever it may be, and responds to it ac-
cording to the tendencies of the lower elements of his nature.
The process of dissolution may be retarded. The dead body may
be so shielded as to remain for a long period in a state of incor-
ruption, and the individual who has fallen into the state of sin,
or who has not risen above it, may have an environment that pro-
tects him to some extent from the worst transgressions into which
he might otherwise fall. But ordinarily the processes of disso-
lution and decay are swift.
This characterization of sin as death is especially helpful in
that it sets the nature of sin in its true light. The dissolution and
corruption of any form of life are always disgusting, and the higher
the nature of the life the more disgusting its dissolution. The
corruption of the soul is more horrible than that of the body as
the corruption of the body is more horrible than that of the plant,
and if our spiritual sense were as finely attuned as our physical
senses, we should have the same feeling in even stronger form
1 Romans, vii, 17, 20.
258 THE MEANNESS OF SIN
toward the corruption of the spirit that we have toward the cor-
ruption of the body; we should have the same dread of it for
ourselves and the same shrinking from it in others. The only
modification that there might be in this feeling would spring from
the thought that the corruption of the spiritual nature may not
be complete, or perhaps never is complete, but that some germ
of life always remains to afford hope or promise.
The last characterization of sin that I shall give is less a char-
acterization than the expression of feeling or judgment in regard
to it. All sin is meanness. There is nothing strong or noble or
admirable in any sin. Sin always implies weakness and at least
the tendency toward selfishness, and if anything may receive the
condemnation of meanness, it is the mingling of weakness and
selfishness. It is true that there are sinful lives from which we
cannot withhold a certain admiration. But what we really ad-
mire is not the sin but the quality of the nature which has yielded
itself to sin. The appearance of strength in a sinful life is due
to the positive elements that enter into it. Thus Napoleon
showed a keenness of intellect, a vastness of design, a power,
which compel our admiration. But the spirit of the man who
would gain the whole world and hold it for himself alone is as
mean as the spirit of the boy who will filch from a companion's
lunch basket the cake or the apple that he wants.
If we accept the doctrine of evolution, sin is the lingering in a
lower stage of existence when one has the power to attain to a
higher stage. The sinful man fails to take the place that the
development of the world makes possible for him. If we ask
what is meant by the terms "lower" and "higher" in this con-
nection, Spencer's definition is as good as any other, — the higher
life is that which carries with it the more complex relationship.1
Breadth and length are the terms used by Spencer, but the breadth
is so much the more important of the two that we may speak of
it without regard to the length. On the one hand is the individual
who lives for himself alone, on the other is the man who lives for
the great interests of the world about him. The purely selfish
1 The Principles of Biology, Part I, Chap. VI.
THEORIES OF SIN AS NOT SINFUL 259
person touches the world at only a single point, the other derives
sustenance from many directions and various sources. The most
perfect man would be one who should consciously and by his
own choice always make the best of himself, maintaining himself
always upon the most advanced wave of human progress. It is
not the fault of the great mass of men that they do not occupy
this position. A man such as we have in mind would be one in
whom the elements of human life are happily combined and
whose environment has been the most favorable. In the case of
most men conditions are not thus wholly favorable. A man's
character varies much according to the position from which he
starts, and his starting-point may be anywhere along the line of
human progress as it is represented in different communities and
nationalities. Men live in different centuries, as it were, at the
same time. Yet, whatever a man's position, it is always possible
to make the most of it, and sinfulness in any man, in the strictest
sense of the term, consists, as I have said, in remaining in a lower
stage of progress when it has been in his power to make some
advance, however small.
There are certain theories in regard to sin which define it in
such a way as to take away its sinfulness. That is to say, they
take out of it all that calls for condemnation. Such theories
naturally include all those that deny the freedom of the will, for
where there is no freedom of the will, there can be no condemna-
tion, no blame.1 There are two general classes of these theories,
the first philosophical, the second theological. The philosophical
theories present first of all a view that rests upon a recognition of
the fact that in an infinite world of verities some must be higher
and some lower, and every place must be filled, the lowest as well
as the highest. Thus there comes imperfection, and if sin is
imperfection, then we have sin. The best statement of this view,
although not in precisely the form in which I have suggested it,
is to be found in Spinoza's Letters. 2 Spinoza here urges that sin is
made to exist through a faulty generalization. We put Judas and
i Page 224.
2 Efistolce XXXII-XXXIV. R. Willis, Benedict de Spinoza, pp. 295-312.
260 THEORIES OF SIN AS NOT SINFUL
John in the same class and apply to both the same standard, and
then we call Judas sinful, and blame him, because after we have
ourselves classed him with John we find that he does not possess
the qualities that John possesses. But what right have we,
Spinoza asks, to make such a generalization ? What right have
we to put Judas in the same class with John and then blame him
because he does not fulfil the conditions which that class implies ?
We do not attempt such generalization in other relations. We
do not put a stone in the same class with a plant, or a plant in
the same class with an animal, and then find fault with the stone
or the plant because it does not fulfil the conditions of a class in
which it does not belong. In nature there are no classes, but
only individuals, and we must judge each thing by itself and not
make our judgments depend upon our own arbitrary classifica-
tions. Spinoza, however, does recognize that John has an ad-
vantage in occupying the higher position. Each individual life
is to be measured by the fulness of being that it possesses, and
since being is the highest good, greater fulness of being is the
greater good. Therefore we ought to try to raise Judas to a
condition in which he may be ranked with John. Just as it is
our duty to help the poor out of their poverty, so we ought to help
these imperfect existences out of their imperfection.
But the sin that is simply imperfection can hardly be considered
real sin. Real sin, as we have seen,1 consists, not in a man's hold-
ing a lower place, but in his holding that lower place when it is
possible for him to rise to something higher. It is no sin in the
brute when he fills the place intended for him, however low, but
when a man lets himself sink to the place of the brute it is sin for
that man.
Another view that is presented in these philosophical theories
about sin is that just as darkness is necessary to light, so sin is
needed in order that holiness may exist. It is true that light must
be interrupted by darkness, and darkness by light, if we are to
be conscious of either. But to assume therefore that sin must
exist in order that there may be holiness, is to go too far. For
all that is necessary to holiness is the possibility, not the actuality,
i Page 246.
THEORIES OF SIN AS NOT SINFUL 261
of sin. Sin has its place in the universe of free spirit, but only as
a foe that is to be met and conquered, and it may be conquered
as truly when it is present only in idea as when it is actually present.
You may contend with an enemy while you keep him shut out
from your city walls as truly as after he has been admitted into the
city. There is no reason, theoretically at least, why any individual
should be absolutely sinful in order that sin may be overcome. In
Raphael's painting of St. Michael the dragon has its place in the
picture, but its place is at the foot of the angel, and this is the
place of sin in life.
The second general class of theories that exclude the sinfulness
of sin are theological. Schleiermacher's theory in regard to sin
is of this class. First in his statement of the nature of sin and
then in his account of the history of sin he takes from it all real
sinfulness. His statement of the nature of sin follows from his
definition of religion. Religion is the sense of absolute dependence.
Then sin is a state in which absolute dependence either is not
felt at all or is felt with difficulty, a state in which the individual
feels himself more or less independent. This definition of sin
as independence may seem to come very near to the definition
that we have already considered * which identifies sin with selfish-
ness; for independence, in so far as it is a matter of the will, is
the affirmation of self. There are various ways, however, in
which one may fail to reach the sense of absolute dependence,
and the sense of independence becomes identical with selfishness
only when the individual is unwilling to have the sense of de-
pendence, and clings to a certain autonomy. In general the
"sense^of^absolute dependence involves to a very marked degree
an intellectual recognition. The individual must have a large
view of the universe, and of his own relation to it, if the sense of
absolute dependence is to force itself upon him. But this is not
true of the ideas which we have recognized as entering into the
content of religion. One does not need such absoluteness or vast-
ness of knowledge to admire that which is beautiful or to feel the
weight of the moral law.
Furthermore, I do not think that most persons would consider
i Page 255.
262 THEORIES OF SIN AS NOT SINFUL
the sense of dependence a matter for praise, or the lack of it a
cause for blame. Here Schleiermacher's definition excludes that
which to the ordinary consciousness is necessarily implied in the
thought of sin. We might feel like congratulating the person
who had the sense of absolute dependence or commiserating the
person who did not have it, but this commiseration or congratu-
lation would be very different from the blame or praise that is
given the individual who is or is not guilty of sin in the ordinary
sense of the term. It may be asked, why need we hold to the
ordinary sense of the term ? Why not let our notion of sin con-
form to whatever theory we adopt in regard to it? But our
theories must conform to the fundamental elements of our con-
sciousness. We must take these elements as they are, and if at
any point our consciousness in regard to them is disturbed by our
theories we must question the correctness of the theories.
In his history of sin Schleiermacher makes sin result from the
fact that in the development of life the physical or natural has
the start of the spiritual, and so the spiritual is always at a dis-
advantage. The consciousness of sin arises as those who are
behind in spiritual progress compare their position with the stage
that has been attained by those who are in advance. Now we
may certainly recognize the fact that "that is not first which is
spiritual, but that which is natural; then that which is spiritual." *
But here again I think that we make a mistake if we oppose the
natural and the spiritual too sharply. We may say that first
there is the selfish and then the altruistic; a man must have a
self before he can surrender it. But if sin is to exist there must
be some freedom, and no matter how much the spiritual may be
oppressed by the physical, if the individual is only doing his best
to overcome the lower nature he is in so far free from sin.
I have referred to Schleiermacher's position in this way because
his theory of sin is somewhat different from the theories that
have marked the history of the Christian Church in general, but
these also if urged to an extreme take away from sin its sinful-
ness. For, in the first place, if sinfulness is real only in so far as
1 1 Corinthians, xv, 46.
THEORIES OF THE CHURCH AS TO SIN 263
it is a matter of blame, then in the ordinary sense of the word
"blame" the doctrine of total depravity allows room for only
one act of sin in the history of man, that act of Adam through
which all men have inherited the taint that is called sin. Here
is something of the nature of a terrible disease. The individual
is no more to be blamed for it than a man is blamed because of
some disease of the body which he has inherited. Making allow-
ance for all the distinctions that have been made between differ-
ent kinds of freedom, the fact remains that from Augustine down
this doctrine denies that it is possible for any one to free himself
from the power of sin. But if he cannot free himself he is not to
blame, and he may make his confession of sinfulness very freely
and openly; if we all have the disease we can speak of it frankly
and without any real self-condemnation. Furthermore, the state
of sin in which a man is placed by the doctrine of total depravity
does not necessarily affect his character; as some one has said,
he may be "a very good man and yet totally depraved." In stricter
phrase, moral character may be denied to virtues that exist in the
unregenerate, and, with Augustine, we shall see in the virtues
of the heathen splendid vices. Now it is perfectly true that a
man may be honest and kindly and may preserve his relations
with others honorably, and yet may be profoundly selfish. His
goodness may be wholly superficial, and yet enough to enable
him to make a fair showing in the world. It is also true that a
life may be lived honestly and purely and yet lack the transform-
ing grace of religion, and this lack must take something from the
beauty of character. A virtue in an individual who feels himself
jsolated in his struggle for the right has a somewhat different
aspecTtfonTthat of the same virtue when it is possessed in the full
light of the consciousness of the divine presence, and the thought
of a relationship to God gives an inspiration that may enable one
to reach greater heights of virtue than would otherwise be possible.
Yet it may not be a man's fault, sometimes, but his misfortune,
that he fails to reach the religious consciousness. Inheritance
or habit or environment may have so entangled his spirit that it
does not recognize the source of the higher elements in his life;
264 THEORIES OF THE CHURCH AS TO SIN
intellectual difficulties may hinder, or the presentation of relig-
ion under a form which he cannot accept. Such a man lacks
the grace of religion as a landscape on a cloudy day lacks the sun-
shine. It is a different matter when the failure to reach the relig-
ious consciousness results from frivolity or hardness.
The theories of the Church have rested on one or more of three
bases: first, some real or supposed scriptural authority, second,
philosophic speculation, and third, some fact or facts in human
nature. It is to be said in passing that the selection of the passages
from scripture is usually determined by some picturesqueness of
statement rather than by any critical knowledge of the text.
Scriptural authority may be considered the ultimate basis of the
theories. Yet it is hardly in human nature to accept and hold
a doctrine on this basis alone. Man is a rational being, and it
is impossible for him to hold any one view wholly distinct from
other views. Therefore the doctrine which he accepts first of
all on the authority of revelation must be incorporated into a sys-
tem of philosophy; he must justify his theory of sin by showing
that it stands in natural harmony with a general theory of life.
Furthermore, no matter how strongly the authority of scripture
or philosophy may be felt, a doctrine will not stand unless it appears
to be supported in some way by the facts of life and to some ex-
tent explains those facts.
The doctrine of the Church in regard to sin first of all regards
man as wholly evil and exposed to the wrath of God; secondly,
he is so by nature; thirdly, his condition is the result of Adam's
sin. In the "Formula of Concord,"1 a distinction is made be-
tween man's nature and the corruption of that nature. There
is a sense in which human nature is still good. God still makes
it, and all that he makes we may suppose to be good. Christ took
man's nature upon himself but did not at the same time take his
sin. Sin is not nature, in the most profound sense of the term,
but a corruption of nature. This corruption is not something
external, merely hindering goodness, as the garlic juice that is
rubbed over a magnet is said to prevent the communication of
i Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, Vol. m, p. 93.
THEORIES OF THE CHURCH AS TO SIN %65
its power. It is so profound and universal that it leaves nothing
sound. In a sense which, as the theologians are careful to ex-
plain, is purely philosophical, sin is an accident. The danger in
using this term is recognized. In common usage, to say that a
thing is an accident is to make it something superficial. The
theologians insist that it must be taken in a profound and philo-
sophical sense. As we have already seen in another connection,1
this accident of sin is regarded from the Catholic point of view
as the result of a withdrawal of the divine grace, whereas from the
Protestant point of view it has been more generally regarded as
a corruption of man's nature.2
The scriptural basis upon which this doctrine of sin is made to
rest is furnished especially in two passages in the New Testa-
ment, Romans, v, 12, and Ephesians, ii, 3. The first of these pas-
sages as given in the King James version appears not to carry
fully the significance that has been attributed to it. But the trans-
lations in the Vulgate, "in whom all sinned," and in the revised
version, "for that all sinned," perhaps lend themselves more easily
to an interpretation which identifies the sin of all with the sin of
Adam regarded as a momentary act. I should like, however,
to refer those who insist upon precision of translation in such
cases to the passage, Romans, iii, 23, in which the same word and
the same tense are used evidently in a different sense and with
a different application. It will be urged that the circumstances
here require the special translation. That is a question which
I will not discuss, but in general we may doubt how closely Paul
should be held to the minuteness of grammatical requirements.
In the second passage, Ephesians, ii, 3, the phrase "by nature
chlidren^of wrath" admits two interpretations, according as the
word "nature" is understood to refer to that into which a man is
born or only to his present character. In this case the broader
interpretation is given by some of the commentators who are very
strict in their interpretation of Romans, v, 12. Meyer, for instance,
i Page 198.
2 Jonathan Edwards, Doctrine of Original Sin Defended. John Tulloch, The
Christian Doctrine of Sin. Charles Hodge, Essays and Reviews, II.
266 THEORIES OF THE CHURCH AS TO SIN
insists that " nature " is here only a general term for character.
This, too, is a question which I will not discuss. But no study
of New Testament theology is complete without a knowledge of
contemporary thought. The rabbinical doctrine of sin appears
to have been similar to Paul's doctrine, but less strict. It rec-
ognizes such a tendency to sin since Adam that practically all men
are sinners. But man is still responsible for sin, for although with
very few exceptions all men sin, there is no necessity that they
should sin. Paul stiffens this doctrine by lessening the oppor-
tunity for freedom.1
Of course the two passages to which I have referred do not
stand alone. They are only especially emphatic and distinct.
We find a number of passages in both the New and the Old Tes-
tament which emphasize the universality of sin. "There is none
that doeth good."2 "The heart is deceitful above all things." 3
We have to remember, however, that in all such passages the ele-
ment of rhetoric enters largely, not rhetoric in any artificial sense
but the rhetoric of passion. These books of the Bible were in
large part written by two classes of persons, on the one hand the
prophets and holy men who were lashing sin in others, and on the
other hand saints struggling with sin in their own hearts. In
either case, whether a man is himself struggling with sin or is
exposing the sin of the world, whether he is full of penitence or
full of wrath, he does not weigh his words very carefully, and it
is a mistake to take the utterance of his passion and base a dogma
upon it. A case in point is that famous passage in which Paul
declares himself chief among sinners.* No doctrine has as yet
been based upon it, and I do not suppose that the most literal
interpreter of the New Testament would insist that Paul was the
chief of sinners. Yet that is what he calls himself, and when he
said it, no doubt he said it in earnest. The phrase has often
been used since in imitation of Paul, and perhaps in the same
profound sense in which he used it. We can understand how he
could feel justified in applying the term to himself. When he
1 F. W. Weber, Judische Theologie auf Grund des Talmud.
2 Psalm, xiv, 1, 3. 3 Jeremiah, xvii, 9. *I Timothy, i, 15, 16.
THEORIES OF THE CHURCH AS TO SIN 267
thinks of the light that has come to him, and then of his cruelty
toward the followers of Christ, the passion of his self-condem-
nation is only natural. I dwell upon this because it illustrates
the kind of speech in which the Old and New Testament writers
so often refer to sin. The view that I have suggested does not at
all lessen the real force and point of such utterances. We are
made to see how evil a thing sin is, and how these holy men hated it.
When we turn to the philosophical basis of the doctrine of the
Church in regard to sin, we find that strictly speaking it is rather
a result than a basis; that is to say, it presents itself naturally
after one has accepted the scriptural basis. It has rested in gen-
eral on a recognition of the solidarity of the race. Presented by
Edwards in its extreme form, it has been softened by later thought.
Edwards uses the figure of the tree and its branches.1 The
branches, he says, partake in the act of the root and in its conse-
quences. If the objection is made that we are not identical with
Adam, he answers that we are not identical with ourselves from
one moment to another. Edwards denies any causation other
than that of the divine will. God can establish whatever causa-
tion he desires, and therefore he can connect our sin with that
of Adam. We have to bear in mind that the doctrine of abso-
lute individuality is of comparatively recent growth. The tribe
was responsible for the act of any of its members, children and
children's children were held accountable for the deeds of their
parents, and the law of attainder was regarded as the natural
expression of a real relation. The sense of a vital connection
between a man and his posterity affects us still. If you learn
that your companion is the son of a murderer, very likely you will
at ~fii§t thought shrink a little from him. The instinct is a rem-
nant of"the-oloLrealism.
The third basis of the doctrine of sin as commonly held by the
Church is found in certain facts. The first of these is the univer-
sality of death. Edwards makes much of this, assuming that
death came as a consequence of sin, that sin involved death.2
1 The Doctrine of Original Sin Defended, Part IV, Chap. III.
2 The Doctrine of Original Sin Defended, Part I, Chap. II.
268 THEORIES OF THE CHURCH AS TO SIN
The second fact is the universality of sin. There are two senses
in which the term "total depravity" may be used, one intensive
and the other extensive. According to the first sense, everything
is as bad as it can be, and consequently no germ or beginning
of good is to be found in human nature; it is "totally de-
praved." In the other sense there is nothing that is perfect;
no one is as bad as he can be, and yet no one can be wrong in part
and not be affected in his whole nature. If we may use the ex-
pression, there is a totality of imperfection, — "for whosoever
shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is be-
come guilty of all." * A man's virtues are not quite what they
would be if he were without faults. Thus a man has the virtue
of thrift, but he has the vice of niggardliness; is his thrift a virtue
in the highest sense, considering that it grows out of a disposi-
tion which disinclines him to help others ? Or he is generous,
but is also prodigal; has his generosity the merit that it would
have if there were not this prodigality in other directions ? A
prodigal man does not fairly weigh the worth of that with which
he is prodigal, and the generous man who does not weigh the
worth of what he gives, of course has less merit in his generosity
than one who does fairly weigh the value of his gift. The list of
such illustrations might be extended indefinitely. It is as impos-
sible to lower character in any one respect without lowering it
in all as it is to draw water out of one of a series of connected ves-
sels and not change the level in them all. Character seeks its
level as truly as water. We are not made up of a bundle of
characteristics or of faculties. We are individuals, and if the
unity of our character suffers in one respect it suffers in all.
To go back for a moment to the philosophy of the doctrine of
sin, there is one point that should have been touched upon, — the
measurement of sin. There is here a curious antinomy. Accord-
ing as the sinfulness of sin, its demerit, is regarded in relation to
the object of sin or in relation to its subject, it may be held either
that since sin is committed against an infinite God the demerit
must be infinite, or that the sin which is committed by a finite
being cannot be absolute. According to Edwards there is an
1 James, ii, 10.
THEORIES OF THE CHURCH AS TO SIN 269
infinite demerit in our relation toward God which must infinitely
outweigh all merit that may be found in any virtue which we
possess, and this view is often urged by others. It would seem,
however, that sin should rather be measured by the nature of the
sinner.
In speaking of the universality of sin, I said that there were
two senses in which the term "total depravity" might be used, the
one intensive, the other extensive. In this latter sense the term
becomes very much softened, for one might be on the very verge
of sainthood and still be considered totally depraved, on the ground
that imperfection at any point involves imperfection everywhere.
We may approach the same position in another way. Suppose
that you dislike a person. You dislike everything that he does.
Even his virtues have a certain taint. The presence of whatever
it is that causes you to dislike him is felt all through his nature
and in all his ways. A father or mother may sometimes feel in
regard to a child who shows ability and goodness here and there,
but is indolent and careless, that the very excellence of the child
is displeasing, in that it suggests how different the child's life as
a whole might be. In this aspect we realize a certain truth in
that phrase in Isaiah which is so often quoted, and sometimes
carelessly, "all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags."1 The
highest virtues of the imperfect life are tainted and fragmentary.
Still a third fact to support the doctrine of sin is found in man's
nature. Nature in this sense is the original state into which a
man is born. Now that state is one of self-love. We can hardly
call it selfishness, because as yet there has been no collision be-
tween what the individual claims for himself and what he owes
to others. The infant is the centre of its world; it considers
itself a kmg-~and_is regarded as such. Here there is only inno-
cence. But if the child, as it grows up, continues in this state,
and still claims the service of others, and considers the rights of
others as nothing, then the state in which it has thus continued
has become a state of sin. Are we still to call it nature? It is
nature in so far as it is the state into which a man is born; it has
become sinful as it has been persisted in.
1 Isaiah, briv, 6.
270 THEORIES OF THE CHURCH AS TO SIN
Another of these facts is the absence in many of any real prin-
ciple. They may show various good qualities, but they have
not really made them their own. They are living through the
impetus which they have received from their ancestors or their
environment. Their virtues are in a certain sense accidents. If
Paul can say, "it is no more I that do it, but sin which dwelleth
in me," why may we not say to these men, " it is not you who do
it, but right that dwelleth in you" ?
Then, finally, there is the difficulty that men experience in
raising themselves from a lower to a higher state, a difficulty so
great that if we look at it by itself, such rise seems to be an im-
possibility. Think what it is that a man has to do. The change
that is required is not merely a change of belief, or a change in
the activities of the life, but a change of heart, a change of
affection, a change by which the man shall come to love that
which now he does not love, and hate that which now he loves.
How is it possible for any one thus to control and transform his
nature ?
These facts and these possible points of view have been held
to support the doctrine of the Church in regard to sin, and to
justify the use of terms which express this doctrine even if the
doctrine itself is somewhat broadened and modified. They are
in general facts of human nature and must be accepted as such.
The question is, what are we to do with them ? In what light
are we to regard them ? Of course the entire aspect of such
facts will differ according to the life out of which the facts in each
experience have sprung, the background against which we view
them. What would show as spots of darkness against one back-
ground will appear as points of light against another. In the
Bibliotheca Sacra for January, 1880, there is an interesting com-
parison between Calvinism and Darwinism.1 The two systems
are at once seen to have much in common. In both there is
something of the same necessity, in both the whole of the past
cleaves to us in all our life and activity. But whereas according
to the one point of view man is seen against the background of
* G. F. Wright, Some Analogies between Calvinism and Darwinism.
THEORIES OF THE CHURCH AS TO SIN 271
the original holiness of his first parents, according to the other
the primitive savage state furnishes the background. In the one
case the movement, if not itself downward, is the result of a
downward movement; in the other the movement is upward.
From the point of view of Calvinism the virtues that we find in
human nature as it now is are the remnants of what was once
complete; from the point of view of Darwinism, these virtues
are the beginnings of that which may at some time become com-
plete, or will at least tend more and more toward completeness.
The difference in the two views is like the difference in our feeling
toward the evening twilight and the twilight of the morning. If
we were to awake from some long slumber at one or the other
of the twilight hours, we might hardly know for a little whether
it were morning or evening. But as the moments passed, what
a difference there would be in our feeling, according as the dark-
ness or the light increased! The evening twilight brings with
it a certain sadness, the morning twilight a sense of freshness and
of inspiration.1
As regards the argument that the difficulty which is experi-
enced in raising one's self to a higher plane implies the hopeless-
ness of man's condition, it must be remembered that no character
is wholly upon any one plane. We are so accustomed to abstract
definitions that we often attach to them more reality than they
possess. We speak of saints and sinners, the altruistic and the
selfish, the converted and the unconverted. But I take it that
no term of the sort applies absolutely to any individual; a selfish
man is something more than a selfish man, a murderer some-
thing more than a murderer. It is this that gives ground for
hope. The lower elements in human nature may react upon the
higher^fjut so may the higher react upon the lower. Certainly
the opportunity^forjK)nflict is given, and with conflict the oppor-
tunity for victory. Furthermore, no life is left wholly to itself.
We have to recognize the working of "the power not ourselves
1 Horace Bushnell, Sermons for the New Life, "Dignity of Human Nature
Shown from Its Ruins." C. C. Everett, Tracts of the American Unitarian Associa-
tion, 2d series, 3, "Human Nature Not Ruined but Incomplete."
272 OTHER THEORIES OF SIN
that makes for righteousness." Speaking philosophically, we
recognize a ideological principle or tendency in the world which
exerts its pressure upon every individual life; speaking theo-
logically, we recognize the spirit of God everywhere striving to
find entrance into the individual soul. In all this we do not
expect any sudden transformation, although it may take place.
But we do look for an uplifting of the nature. To dwell longer,
however, upon this subject at this point would anticipate the
discussion of Conversion, which will have its place later.1
There are theories which try to place the source of sin in some
previous state. Thus there is the theory held by Schelling,2 that
at some moment preceding the actual entrance upon his present
existence he commits himself to sin or to righteousness. The
same theory from a somewhat different point of view is found in
the doctrine that we are fallen angels, and are given the oppor-
tunity in this world to reach once more the state from which we
have fallen. Such theories, however, do not help us any more
than does the doctrine of the fall of Adam. We have still the
fall, the beginning of the sin, to account for, and the beginning
is as difficult to explain in a preceding state as in man's present
existence. We may go back and back into the infinite, but we
must still face the question of the origin of sin in all its mystery.
i Page 456.
2 Julius Miiller, Die Christliche Lehre von der Sunde, 5th ed., Vol. II, pp. 128-
153.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE DOCTRINE OF EVIL. — EVIL AS INDEPENDENT OF SIN. — PES-
SIMISM: THEORIES OF SCHOPENHAUER AND VON HARTMANN.
— EVIL AS DEPENDENT UPON SIN.
We have now to consider the doctrine of evil. Evil is dis-
tinguished from sin as referring not to that which is morally
wrong but to that which causes suffering. As freedom is the
negation of the first idea of the reason, and sin is the negation of
the second idea, so evil is the negation of the third idea, beauty.
The beauty of the universe consists in its absolute harmony, and
evil is the discord in this harmony. Of course sin also is a dis-
cord, but, as I have said before,1 the antagonism in sin is more
fundamentally to the second idea, goodness.
In considering evil two distinct questions present themselves :
first, the question of evil as independent of sin, and second, the
question of evil as dependent upon sin. In the first place, then,
we find that evil exists apart from sin. It is found among the
races which can do no sin as well as among those to which sin is
possible. Bushnell, indeed, regards the suffering and death
among the lower creatures as anticipatory of sin.2 As a jail is
put up in some new settlement before there are any criminals to
occupy it, so evil is the antieipative effect of human sin. But
Bushnell is less strong as a theologian than as a preacher. Inde-
pendently of sin, then, suffering arises first of all through the
conflict^-of man with his environment. Man enters upon the
world underthose-same conditions of the struggle for existence
which govern the development of all life; he has to suffer until
he becomes adapted to his environment; furthermore, the en-
vironment changes, and each change requires still further adapta-
tion. In his struggle for existence man has adopted two methods
1 Page 106. 2 Nature and the Supernatural, Chap. VTL
274 EVIL AS INDEPENDENT OF SIN
of defence, first a hardening by exposure, and then the fortifying
of the person by external protection. But as perfection has been
approached in one direction, it has been lost in the other; the
adaptation has remained always imperfect. Accident, also, must
be taken into account. Finally, the environment at last tri-
umphs, and like all the other inhabitants of the world man suc-
cumbs.
I need only hint at the evil that is involved in all this. Death
itself, physically considered, we recognize to be an anaesthetic;
it brings an end of suffering. Yet if the suffering of the indi-
vidual who has died has ceased, there remains the suffering which
his death has caused for the friends who are left behind. Further-
more, the fact of death is not to be taken by itself. Although
there are cases where death is sudden, without previous warning
and without pain, generally it does not come in a moment, but
is preceded either by the shrinking and weakening and dulness
of old age, however peaceful, or by the wasting of disease. It
is true that in general death is more dreaded at a distance than
when it is close at hand. One of the most striking facts in war
is the readiness with which, as a rule, soldiers meet death when
their time has come. It is as though when life had reached its
limit it detached itself, as fruit falls of its own accord when ripe.
Henry Ward Beecher has compared the dread of death to the
dread that children have of being put to bed in the daytime.
Still, when all has been said, we must recognize death as one of
the most terrible elements in the suffering of the world.
The question may occur whether it is proper to speak of death,
as I have done, as the triumph of the environment. Is not death
the natural result of the development of the organism itself ? Just
as we have among the flowers the annuals and the biennials, is
there not an appointed term for man, his "three score years and
ten " ? and can it be said of man that he is overpowered by his
environment, except as the end of life comes before the fulfilment
of his given term ? A ship is fitted out for a voyage across the
ocean : when it reaches its destined port it is no triumph of any
environment that coal and provisions shall have been exhausted.
EVIL AS INDEPENDENT OF SIN 275
We have to remember, however, that from the point of view of
the theory of development the term of duration is itself the result
in every case of the balance between the individual and his en-
vironment. Each stock is strong enough to last under the most
favorable circumstances a certain time, and that time is fixed for
the descendants by the strength and endurance of their ancestors.
Therefore what may have been at first a matter of chance, the
issue of a struggle in the past between the individual and his
environment, becomes at last a matter of habit and is regarded
as the allotted term of life for animal or plant. The builder of
a ship may be able to calculate very closely how long that ship
is likely to last, and we may say of it as of the plant or animal
that it has its allotted term. Yet we know that the ship has
within itself the elements of weakness, and that it yields itself
finally because it becomes so weak that it is overpowered by wind
and wave. In a similar way, whatever the process has been in
the development of the plant or animal, when the end comes it
is because the environment has overpowered in the individual
the tendency to live.
We are reminded here that death itself, together with all this
struggle of the individual with his environment, has been held by
the Church to be the result of sin, and that consequently evil in
this form should be considered as dependent upon sin. Against
this view there is no positive proof that can be urged. The
answer commonly made is that death was in the world before
man began his course. There are cliffs all made up of tombs,
the shells of the little toilers that have wrought their vitality into
the strength of the earth. But in reply it may be said that the
spiritual nature of man differentiates him from the lower creatures,
and thatjherefore it does not follow that because the lower creat-
ures were mortalman would also have been mortal if he had
not sinned. But if there is no positive proof that for man death
was not the result of sin, positive proof is equally lacking for the
argument that it was the result of sin. Of course if we accept
Paul's statement that " sin entered into the world, and death
through sin"1 as made with the absolute authority of certain
1 Romans, v, 12.
276 EVIL AS INDEPENDENT OF SIN
knowledge, there is no room for further question. But it is
another matter if we believe that Paul was only expressing views
commonly held by his contemporaries.1 So far as the account in
Genesis is concerned, immortality does not appear to have been
a part of the dower with which man began his course.2 In the
absence of proof on either side it seems to me to be the more
natural presumption that man should have entered upon the
world subject to the same law as that which governs all other
forms of organic life.
We recognize, therefore, that there is suffering in life independent
of sin, that suffering is bound up with life. Even in Spencer's
golden age 3 there must be suffering. For suppose that men have
become perfectly altruistic. They will still be exposed to the
conflict with the environment, and the triumph of the environ-
ment; they will be exposed to accidents, using that word in its
largest sense ; they will be exposed to evils that come through mis-
takes. Suppose a community that is wholly altruistic, but does
not understand the laws of health or the principles of economics.
Then if sanitary measures are neglected, or if charity is applied
in an unscientific manner, we have at once the elements of possible
unhappiness. Spencer might say that the altruistic development
should be accompanied by the development of the understanding.
But even then the possibility of accident would still remain.
This view of evil which recognizes that a great deal of suffer-
ing in the world is independent of sin, is not necessarily pessimistic.
For in the first place the evil may be regarded as working for ulti-
mate good, and in the second place, however great the amount
of suffering may be, happiness may still preponderate. Yet a
tendency that is not merely of the present time, to exaggerate the
evil in the world,* has given prominence to certain forms of pessi-
i Page 266. 2 Genesis, iii, 22-23. 3 The Data of Ethics, Chap. XIV.
4 Examples of this exaggeration are to be found in an article by Frances Power
Cobbe in the Contemporary Review for January, 1888, and one by Huxley in the
Nineteenth Century for March, 1888. These articles are reviewed by Dr. Everett
in an article entitled "Rhetorical Pessimism" in the Forum for September, 1893.
Martineau in his Study of Religion, Vol. II, pp. 80-104, perhaps makes too light of
the difficulty.
PESSIMISM : SCHOPENHAUER 277
mistic doctrine. The first of these theories that I will consider
is that of Schopenhauer.1 It is based upon the assumption that
whereas suffering is positive, happiness is merely negative; what
we call happiness is only a lessening of unhappiness. Just as
ice can never become warm, but as it reaches the point where
it would have become warm ceases to be ice, so happiness ceases
at the very moment when it might have become complete. When
we are thirsty we enjoy water, but our enjoyment varies accord-
ing to the degree of our thirst; as the thirst lessens, the enjoyment
lessens, and when the thirst is wholly satisfied enjoyment has
ceased. Schopenhauer finds this true of all forms of happiness;
what is called happiness is always nestling in the arms of un-
happiness. Furthermore, the fundamental element in the life
of the world and of the individual is the will, and the will is never
satisfied. The present moment is always like the spot in the
landscape that is shadowed by the drifting cloud; the sun has
shone upon it and will shine upon it presently again, but just now
it is in the shadow. So men think of themselves as happy in the
past or as about to be happy in the future.
"Man never is, but always to be, blest."2
Or to quote the Buddhist saying, the satisfaction of desire is like
drinking salt water.
In so far as Schopenhauer's argument rests upon the assump-
tion that happiness is merely negative, it is easily met; the recog-
nition of a positive element in happiness overthrows the whole
system. Thus the mere fact that there are such vices as gluttony
and intemperance is enough to show the falsity of the theory.
For these^vices spring from the pleasure that men find in eating
or drinking afterirhe line of hunger or thirst has been passed.
We all know how the positive pleasure in eating may lead us
beyond the point at which hunger is satisfied; the Roman habit
of taking an emetic during a banquet only illustrates the extent
1 The World as Will and Idea, Trans, of Haldane and Kemp, 3d ed., Vol. I,
pp. 397-420, Vol. H, p. 372, Vol. IQ, Chap. XLVI.
2 Pope, Essay on Man, Epistle I, 96.
278 pessimism: von hartmann
to which men may go in their desire to renew or prolong this
pleasure. Schopenhauer himself recognizes an exception to his
rule in the case of esthetic pleasure. He sees that in the enjoy-
ment of beauty man is for the time being lifted out of the struggle
for existence and made free, and that therefore such pleasure is
positive. But there are other pleasures of a similar nature with
the enjoyment of beauty, the pleasure of friendship, of love, etc.,
and these also, at least in their ideal form, are positive.
As regards the argument from the nature of the will, that un-
satisfied desire in which Schopenhauer finds a basis for pessimism
is made by others a basis for optimism. Thus Fichte sees in the
absolute demand of the spiritual life the promise of its eternal con-
tinuance and blessedness. Whereas Schopenhauer emphasizes
the negative aspect of the demand, the desire that is never satisfied,
Fichte lays stress upon the positive aspect, the continual advance
and the renewed satisfaction in it. It is all like some journey.
"The end can never be reached," Schopenhauer might say.
"Very true," Fichte might reply, "but there will always be the
joy of passing from one charming region to another."1 It should
be noticed, however, that Schopenhauer insists that his doctrine
is not hard but merciful, especially as compared with those doc-
trines of the Church which assume a waiting hell.
In so far as Von Hartmann2 claims to be an optimist we may
not, perhaps, consider him a pessimist. He does indeed say that
the world is the best possible world. But when he proceeds to
urge that the best possible world is worse than none at all, his
theory is quite different from what would ordinarily be called
optimism.3 Von Hartmann sees the mistake of Schopenhauer in
saying that happiness is merely negative. He recognizes a posi-
tive happiness in the world, and does not attempt to prove on any
a priori principle that happiness is only the lessening of suffering.
But he finds that the proportion between the pleasure in life and
the pain is like that between the portion of an iceberg that shows
1 C. C. Everett, Fichte's Science of Knowledge, Chap. XTTT.
2Philosophie des Unbewussten, 7th ed., Vol. II, C, XTTT.
3 Sir William Hamilton, Lectures an Metaphysics, XLU, XTJTT.
pessimism: von hartmann 279
above the water and the greater bulk that lies below the surface.
He makes a list of the various possible forms of happiness, and
shows how each of these involves more misery than happiness.
This gives a wholly different aspect to his treatment from that of
Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer's pessimism is like sad or plain-
tive music. He had in him much of the poet, and there is a cer-
tain enjoyment in reading even his most extreme statements.
Von Hartmann is more prosaic. He seems like a grumbler and
fault finder, and his complaining lacks the charm of Schopen-
hauer's pessimism.
Von Hartmann recognizes three stages or "stadia," as he
calls them, of illusion: first, the thought that there may be joy
in the present life; second, the thought that there may be joy in the
life after death; and third, the thought that there may be joy in
a future state of the world. This third form of illusion is the
expectation that happiness may be reached on the earth in some
more complete stage of its development; but life upon the earth
then, he argues, will involve the same conditions as before. The
second form of illusion, the hope of happiness after death, is
based upon religious ideas which he regards as illusory, and there-
fore any satisfaction which is taken in such a hope must be an
illusion. He forgets that the happiness based on an illusion is
very real if that illusion is believed; the joy of the world in its
religious faith remains. As belonging to the present life he
enumerates various deceitful forms of joy. There is the joy that
brings with it more pain than pleasure. The delicacy and sen-
sitiveness of organization in persons of artistic temperament un-
doubtedly make possible for them a keener pleasure, but at the
sameHm^expose them to greater pain. Thus there is more bad
music in the "world than good, and the cultivation of the musician's
ear opens up to him more discomfort and pain than satisfaction.
Then there is the joy that brings pleasure to one but pain to an-
other, the joy of the hunter. There is the joy that may bring
more pleasure than pain, but is produced at a cost.
Youth and health Von Hartmann calls the zero points in life.
They are not in themselves pleasures, they simply enable one to
280 pessimism: von hartmann
take pleasure; in health one is free from the pain of illness, and
in youth one is free from the infirmities of old age. But here ex-
perience contradicts his theory, for health and youth as we know
them are not zero points. In perfect health there is a sense of
physical well-being which is in itself a joy; the very tingling of the
blood brings with it a satisfaction. Emerson tells of the " perfect
exhilaration" that he has enjoyed when in good health, in "cross-
ing a bare common, in snow puddles, at twilight, under a clouded
sky," without having in his thoughts any occurrence of special
good fortune,1 and we have only to carry his statement a little
further to recognize the fact that every activity of life gives pleasure
so long as it is not overdriven. In climbing a mountain there is
delight in the very strain of the body, and then, when one reaches
the summit tired, the satisfaction in resting is one of the most
exquisite pleasures in life. It may be said that this is negative,
that the nerves accumulate a certain amount of energy, and that
there is a sense of oppression until this accumulation of energy
is set free. But our own experience tells us that our pleasure in
activity and rest is more than this, and that both the process of
setting free one's nervous energy and the reaction that follows are
positive joys. I have wondered how laborers on a strike could
endure standing about in a public square doing nothing, until I
reminded myself that for them the mere rest was in itself a delight.
It was a blacksmith who said that he believed himself to be the
only man who thoroughly enjoyed Sunday, the sense of cleanness
and of rest was such a pleasure to him.
As I have already said, Von Hartmann does recognize a positive
happiness in the world. But he fails to realize how largely hap-
piness consists in the reasonable activity of the functions of mind
and body. A child when active may be called perfectly happy,
because practically all its faculties are engaged at the same time.
As men grow older all their powers are seldom active at once;
differentiation is greater, and whole fields or types of activity are
suppressed, and capacities are left unsatisfied. A man's happi-
ness, therefore, is largely a compromise. He cultivates certain
forms of activity, but not all, and those that are not cultivated
1 Nature.
EVIL AS DEPENDENT UPON SIN 281
protest. But if all the powers of the man could be fulfilled as
nearly at the same time as are those of the child, he would be as
much happier than the child as his capacities are vaster and more
varied.
What has been said, however, needs a good deal of qualification.
There is much that is unpleasant which cannot be explained.
Take for instance unpleasant tastes. I do not know of any
theory that explains why some things are agreeable and some
disagreeable. Tastes change, they can be cultivated, and these
changes show that there is no absolute reason why one thing should
be pleasant and another unpleasant. If we go back to a period
where life is guided by instinct rather than reason, we find pleas-
antness or disagreeableness of taste corresponding to the health-
fulness or unhealthfulness of food. You may recall how in The
Swiss Family Robinson the monkey was used to test food and
discover whether it was poisonous or not. It is possible that we
may have some inherited reason for disliking the things that are
unpleasant to us. But all this is mere conjecture.
When we turn to the question of evil as dependent upon sin,
we have to notice first of all that according to some forms of relig-
ion all evil is the result of sin. This is true of both Buddhism and
Parseeism; but whereas the Buddhist considers evil the result
of the wrong-doing of the individual, the Parsee makes it the
work of Ahriman, the personified power of evil. In his Glaubens-
lehre Schleiermacher recognizes all evil as the effect of sin except
unavoidable imperfection and necessary stimulus.1 His state-
ment here is so vague that it amounts to nothing. By " unavoid-
able imperfection" I suppose he means in general the sort of im-
perfectiontiiat results from the differences in grade between men;
those who are lower in the scale will lack some things which those
who are higher will possess. But just what imperfection in any
given case is unavoidable, I confess I do not fully understand.
Neither is it clear what is to be understood by "necessary stimu-
lus." We may have a general notion of the kind of evil that is
needed as a stimulus, but when we undertake to draw the line,
i Der ChrisUiche Glaube, §§ 62-75.
282 EVIL AS DEPENDENT UPON SIN
we find it impossible to say exactly what is necessary, the degree
of the stimulus in every case depends so entirely upon the nature
of the individual; the amount of temptation which will rouse one
man to a noble life may have no effect upon another or may over-
power a third. Consequently the temptation which each man is
to meet would have to be proportioned to his nature, and we should
have to have a separate universe for every individual exactly
adapted to his need. Even then the conflict might remain doubt-
ful, for who could make it certain that the stimulus would be main-
tained? The response which one or another makes to tempta-
tion and sorrow is like the response of a bell to the blow that is
struck upon it. The bell should answer the blow with the music
that is its natural note, but just as there may come a blow which
will crack the bell, so that the reply thereafter will be only a dis-
sonance, so the sorrows and temptations which come to men may
overpower and crush them. We can reconcile this with our gen-
eral principle only as we remind ourselves that men are to be
measured, not by their apparent success or failure, but by the actual
resistance that they offer to these assaults. The men who fought
at Bunker Hill were no less heroes because they were defeated.
When all is said, however, sin must be regarded as the cause of
the greater part of the unhappiness of the world. Not necessarily
for the individual, for lives are different; to some men their great-
est unhappiness comes through accident or mistake. But taking
society as a whole, the greater part of unhappiness or evil results
from sin. Evil of this sort falls into two divisions. In the first
place there is the suffering which comes to the individual through
the sins of others. We see the part that selfishness and injustice
and greed have played, either positively or negatively, the op-
pression that exists in most civilized communities, the disregard
of others' feelings, the failure to help where help is possible. If
all these forms of sin were to be removed, we can easily see how
much less of evil there would be. It is this that Spencer would
bring about in that golden age to which I have already referred,1
when men shall have become perfectly altruistic. Some indeed
have held that such an altruistic state would be undesirable and
i Page 276.
EVIL AS DEPENDENT UPON SIN 283
in itself an evil, on the ground that if life were to be freed from
all struggle it would become dull and commonplace. Mill tells
in his Autobiography how he was disturbed for a time by the ques-
tion whether there would be anything left to live for when all the
reforms that he had in mind should have been accomplished. He
found comfort in reading Wordsworth, for he was thus brought into
relation with the beauty of nature and made to see that life had an
esthetic charm which would remain after the battle had been won.
A life of esthetic contemplation, however, would be a life of rest
and inaction, and the question arises whether no form of joyous
activity would remain. An answer is suggested by the change
which takes place in the course of the development of the world
as life ceases to be driven and is instead attracted and led. Just
as a man who is not obliged to labor with his hands in order to
live nevertheless exercises his body of his own accord because he
wishes to, so in the spiritual world men who are drawn by ideals
of truth and goodness may still find opportunity for full activity,
even when all hindrances have been overcome.
Perhaps even more important than the suffering which results
for the individual from the sin of others is that which he experi-
ences in consequence of the sin within himself, his own lack of
right feeling. Some persons are all the time in an attitude of
warfare; they think themselves persecuted, or they attribute
false motives to those about them, or they dwell upon the evils of
life. If one could only take whatever wrong or misfortune may
come in a spirit of patience and forgiveness and trust, much of
the evil of the world would be removed. In fact, if we should
draw a line through society, leaving the greater part of the external
happiness in life above, and the greater part of the seeming un-
happiness-J^elow, we should very likely find more real happiness
below the line than above it; the greatest happiness would be
found not among those who appeared to be better off than their
fellows, but among those whose circumstances appeared to be less
fortunate. At all events, happiness and unhappiness do not
correspond with external prosperity or adversity. The way in
which a man takes things is a more important factor in his happi-
284 EVIL AS DEPENDENT UPON SIN
ness than the things themselves. If we say that this is a matter
of temperament, an inheritance, we merely carry the sin a little
further back; instead of the man himself, it was some ancestor
or ancestors who neglected the elements in life that we are now
considering. Furthermore, while the question how far the indi-
vidual can struggle against his temperament is to be determined
only by experience, certainly something can be accomplished;
the evil may be lessened by true feeling, it is immensely magnified
by bad feeling.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE BREACH CAUSED BY SIN AND EVIL: BETWEEN MAN AND
HIS ENVIRONMENT: BETWEEN MAN AND GOD. — THE MOVE-
MENT ON THE PART OF MAN TO HEAL THE BREACH : SACRIFICE :
VICARIOUS SACRIFICE, REAL AND FORMAL. — THE MOVEMENT
ON THE PART OF GOD TO HEAL THE BREACH: PENALTY. —
RETRIBUTION AND REFORM. — THE NATURE OF THE PENALTIES
FOR SIN. — THE FINAL HEALING OF THE BREACH.
Evil and sin together constitute a breach between man and
his environment, a breach of which some trace appears even in
the very earliest times. In sin man sets himself up against his
social and spiritual surroundings, and as he does this he feels that
no sympathy exists for him any more than he in turn has sym-
pathy for those against whom his hands are raised. The sense of
separation increases with the awakening of conscience. Not only
has he cast out the world, but the world has cast him out. What
is true of sin is true of evil; evil also causes him to feel that he is
not in accord with his environment.
The breach, however, is not merely with the environment. If
the divinity is recognized either as the sum or expression of the
environment, or as that which has made the environment what it
is, the separation becomes a breach between man and the divinity.
Of the elements that have entered into this breach there is first of
all, in the case of the divinities that are considered friendly, the
uncertainty^whether their friendliness will continue; they are
friendly so long asTone-keeps on the right side of them; yet the
most friendly are capricious. In this capriciousness they are
like the forces of nature, of which indeed they are often the
embodiment or personification. The forces of nature favor us,
but only so long as we keep them under control. Fire is a good
286 THE BREACH BETWEEN MAN AND GOD
servant but a bad master. The elements are very restive under
the yoke which man places upon them, and if at any moment he
remits his care they rise and overpower him.
This characteristic of the divinity is distinctly recognized in a
high sense in the teachings of the Chinese religion; in a certain
high sense the gods are not to be trusted. That is to say, be-
cause a man has hitherto received favors, he may not therefore
look for a continuance of them, except as he still does what is
right. The same thought appears in the Hebrew phrase, that
" God is no respecter of persons," 1 used in the high moral sense
that only so long as the individual does right will he be favored.
In a similar way, but from a lower point of view, the conception
of the divinity as no respecter of persons is found in religions of a
lower order. Here each individual must keep the favor of the
gods by fulfilling the required observances according to the re-
quired manner, or prosperity will fail; and a city that is wanting
in proper devotion to its divinity is liable to the wrath of that
divinity. There was often more danger in the rites themselves
than in the performance of them. This was especially true of
religious observances among the Romans, for the same minute-
ness that characterized their laws was carried into the forms
of their religion. De Coulanges draws a vivid picture of the con-
dition of things where men can never feel themselves free from
danger from the malice or anger of some god, where among the
multitude of divinities it is difficult to know precisely what divinity
should be propitiated, or what methods or rites should be observed,
and where any remissness or mistake will produce the same
sort of peril that would result from a mistake in a matter of law.2
No doubt De Coulanges exaggerates the feeling of fear in men
who lived under such conditions. To take continued precau-
tions against evil does not necessarily imply that one lives in terror
of evil. We lock our doors without any special sense of a peril
that must be warded off, and the general custom of insuring prop-
erty does not mean that people are in constant terror of fire. Still
there is much truth in the view that he has given. Religion of
i Acts, x, 34. 2 The Ancient City, pp. 213-280.
THE BREACH BETWEEN MAN AND GOD 287
this sort was to a large extent a source of fear, especially when
it is remembered that to the anxiety lest the divinity might be
offended was added the apprehension that he might be seduced
by other worshippers and go over to the enemy. Thus the Vedic
worshippers must be punctilious and lavish in their gifts of soma
juice, or the divinities most trusted may help the enemy, provided
that enemy gives more lavishly and regularly. This is the reason,
it is said, why the divinities of cities often were not named; the
name was kept a secret so that it might not be known to the
enemy.
All these perils were connected with the divinities which were
on the whole favorable. But, as a second element in the breach,
there were also hostile divinities, on the one hand demons and
other beings that were by their very nature enemies of man, and
on the other hand the divinities of other peoples, the divinities of
the enemy. When there was war upon earth, there was war also
among the divinities, and the worshipper had to fear not only
that he might lose the friendship of his divinity, but that
his divinity might be overpowered by the mightier divinity
of his enemy. Here again the comparison between these
divinities and the forces of nature suggests itself. For there are
natural forces which seem to be in themselves hostile to man,
such as pestilence and tempest and earthquake, and between
these and the forces that seem friendly men have to take their
course, keeping those that are most friendly in subjection lest
they go over to the enemy.
Thirdly, there is the element of fate, the sense of absolute limit,
of a force that cannot be escaped, of a barrier against which men
may beat but which they cannot pass, the consciousness of a power
to whose decision even the gods themselves submit. As we see
the various divinities representing one aspect or another of the
forces that ruleTthe world, we may almost regard the idea of fate
as that of the undivided residuum of the divine might, not rep-
resented by any special form, but remaining after all these special
forms have been constructed from it. Akin to the consciousness
of fate is the thought of the jealousy of the gods, the feeling that
288 THE BREACH BETWEEN MAN AND GOD
if any human being has prosperity beyond a certain point, the
gods become jealous of him and bring suffering upon him. Thus
Herodotus tells the story of how Amasis, the king of Egypt, re-
fused to form an alliance with Polycrates on the ground that Poly-
crates was so prosperous that there must come to him some change
of fortune. Such a view is not unnatural. In all games of chance
a course of uninterrupted success is always followed by a suc-
cession of reverses, and so far as life may be considered a matter
of chance rather than of skill, the same result may be expected.
The ancient thought of the jealousy of the gods finds its counter-
part in the proverb that we use so commonly, " pride goeth before
a fall."
Finally there enters into the breach between man and his en-
vironment, or man and the divinity, the element of suffering and
death. Suffering is obviously a form of evil, and of suffering
death is the climax. It is true that it was met fearlessly in the
ancient world. Often it was accepted in place of what would
seem to us a much lighter evil. Among the Romans suicide not
only was not uncommon but was considered often worthy of a
certain reverence. We find even Epictetus using so light a com-
parison as to ask, " Is the house smoky ? If only a little," he
answers, "I will stay, if very smoky, I will go out. For you
must always remember that the door is open."1 Sometimes
also the life after death is spoken of with enthusiasm. Thus we
read of one who to reach Plato's Elysium leaped into the sea,
and Cicero's exaltation in his treatment of this theme is familiar
to us all.2 Nevertheless, the attitude toward death was on the
whole one of apprehension and dread. The life beyond was re-
garded as a place of shades, a world of unrealities. The most that
men could hope for from death was peace. Furthermore, the
apprehension was intensified by the thought of sin and the penalty
for sin. No doubt sin in the thought of the ancient world was in
part formal, but it would be a great mistake not to regard it as
also to a certain extent real. Anything by which the gods were
offended was regarded as sin, whether it was the omission of a
i Discourses, Book I, Chap. XXV. De Senectute, XXI-XXHI.
SACRIFICE 289
form, or a mistake in some ceremonial, or what we should con-
sider sin. It would be a grave mistake to eliminate this sense
of sin, and to disregard its power in the lives of men.
There have been two methods of healing the breach. On the
one hand is the attempt from man's side through sacrifice, and
on the other a movement on the part of the divinity through
penalty or retribution. Perhaps nothing is more often misunder-
stood than the term "sacrifice" and what it represents. It is
often understood as the transference of a penalty, as though in
sacrificing some animal a man conceived that although he him-
self deserved punishment, the punishment could be transferred
to the animal, and thus the law be satisfied or the offended deity
appeased while the man himself went free. Incidentally some
such element may have entered into the thought of sacrifice, but
if so it came in very late. If we ask what was the nature of sac-
rifice when men first began to offer it, we find that it was simply
a gift to the divinity. There was no thought of a transference
of sin or penalty, but the worshipper brought to the divinity some-
thing which he believed the divinity would like. In his relation
with the divinity the man acted precisely as he would have done
in relation to other men. If a man has offended his neighbor he
seeks to do something that will please him ; if it is a judge before
whom he is being tried, he resorts to bribery; if some ruler is
angry with him for good cause, and he wishes to remove his ill
will, he makes him a present of a lamb or some other animal that
is good for food. One may say that in a certain sense the animal
has borne the man's fault, for the man was in fault and the animal
has suffered in his stead. But the suffering of the animal has
nothing to do with the result; the man simply presented the other
person with something that he liked, and incidentally it happened
that this somethmg^must be jaufrix> death before it could be pre-
sented. This is exactly what happens in the earlier sacrifice to
the gods. The suffering and death of the animal are incidental
to the offering, but not at all essential to it. A good illustration
of the point that we are considering is found in the similarity that
appears between offerings made to the spirits of the dead and
290 SACRIFICE
those made to the gods. Spencer uses this similarity as an argu-
ment to prove that all divinities were developed out of spirits of
the dead.1 As I have said elsewhere,2 in the course of a some-
what fuller treatment of the question of sacrifice, Spencer's rea-
soning in regard to this matter seems to me entirely wrong, but
it does illustrate the point that I am making, that the offerings
made to the divinities were of the kind which were supposed to be
pleasing to them, and if suffering and death were involved, it was
only because the gift could not be made in any other way.
This is equally true of later forms of sacrifice. When the
Hebrew psalmist represents God himself as urging the useless-
ness of animal sacrifice, saying "If I were hungry, I would not
tell thee," and bidding the worshipper to offer "the sacrifice of
thanksgiving," 3 it is plain that in the time of this writer at least
the sacrifice was supposed to be simply an offering to the divinity
of that which was acceptable to him. In the only instance in
Hebrew ceremonial in which the sins of the offender are openly
and obviously identified with the animal and are put upon it so
that it becomes the bearer of them, this animal, the scapegoat,
is not sacrificed but is sent out into the wilderness; it is to bear
the sins away, not to suffer for them.4
The use of blood would seem to be one of the most obvious
methods of connecting the sacrifice more closely with the person
who is offering it. It reaches its most extreme development in
the Taurobolium of the later Roman ceremonial.5 In this the
worshipper places himself under a perforated platform upon which
the victim is slaughtered, and as the blood runs through, the
worshipper is literally bathed in it. This may have been only to
identify as closely as possible the gift and the giver, so that the
divinity should see the giver through the blood of the gift, and
his satisfaction in the gift thus be made inseparable from satis-
1 The Principles of Sociology, 3d ed., Vol. I, Chap. XIX.
* The Gospel of Paul, p. 12.
3 Psalm 1. 4 Leviticus, xvi, 21.
5 Gaston Boissier, La Religion Romaine, Vol. I, p. 442.
VICARIOUS SACRIFICE 291
faction with the giver. It is possible also that we have here an
example of the principle to which W. Robertson Smith first called
attention in the use of sacrifice to renew or intensify the sense of
tribal community between the worshipper and the divinity. '
The human sacrifice, in which the value of the offering reaches
its consummation, offers no exception to the general principle.
The sacrifice is still the gift to the divinity of that which shall be
most pleasing and most serviceable to him. It is thus that the
Chinese noble, in praying for the recovery of his sick brother,
offers to die himself in his stead; the noble tells his ancestors
not only that his brother is needed upon the earth, but that since
he himself is accustomed to serve, he can be of more use to them
in the heavenly state than his brother could be.2 Furthermore,
the fact that human sacrifices appear to have been made quite as
often in times of joy as in times of disaster indicates that they
were not offered with any idea of substitution.
In what I have been saying I have already suggested that there
are two uses of the term "vicarious." A man may kill some
pheasants and by the gift of them may appease his judge; the
death of the pheasants may be said to have been in a sense vica-
rious, but it was not necessary to appease the judge. Suppose
that a city is besieged and that the garrison make a sortie. Some
of the men are killed, but the city is freed. These men who were
killed suffered vicariously for all the rest, but their death was an
incident only in what they did, for the enemy might have been
driven away without any loss on the part of the besieged. On
the other hand, if the enemy had given the town its freedom on
condition that half a dozen, let us say, of its citizens should first
have been put to death, the aspect of the sacrifice is entirely
changed. In " real " vicariousness death is only incidental ; where
death is essential we have "formal" vicariousness. So far as
ancient sacrifices appear to have been in any sense vicarious,
their vicariousness was "real"; death was the incident and not
1 Lectures on the Religion of the Semites, pp. 236 f., 257 f.
2 Shu-king, Part V, Book VI.
292 PENALTY : RETRIBUTION
the essential thing in the transaction. The view of sacrifice as
formally vicarious crept into the Christian world in connection
with certain theories in regard to the death of Christ. As the
Church came to hold the doctrine that Christ vicariously and for-
mally suffered for the sins of men, preceding sacrifices were ex-
plained on the same principle, and " real " terms concerning them
were interpreted formally.
The second method of bridging the gulf between men and the
divinity was by the act of the divinity, through penalty. Sac-
rifice attempted by perpetual offerings to keep the account square.
Penalty wiped out the debt by exacting payment in full. Pen-
alty is generally recognized under three aspects : first, as warning,
where a person suffers for a crime in order that others may be
deterred from it; second, as retribution; and third, as reform.
The first aspect does not concern us here. We are considering
penalty only as a method of healing the breach, and penalty con-
sidered as a warning does not affect the relations of the individual
who has committed the crime; he is punished for the sake of
others. We may notice in passing, however, that in the opinion
of many people this is the only aspect in which penalty may
properly be recognized by the state. According to their view the
state has the right to do no more than is required for self-
defence.
In approaching penalty in its second aspect, as retribution, we
have to recognize the fact that there is in most men the feeling that
sin deserves punishment. Often there is a sense of joy when the
punishment has been inflicted. People who are in other respects
sympathetic and affectionate show a certain exultation in the
acute suffering of any one who has caused suffering in others. It
is true that this sense is less keen today than in some former
periods of the world's history, and that with the tendency to look
upon punishment only as a means of reformation, many shrink
from the thought of suffering, even in the case of those who are
guilty. But to many healthy minds this leniency appears ex-
cessive. I shall not discuss the question here. It is enough
for us to recognize the general prevalence of the sense of satis-
RETRIBUTION 293
faction in the punishment of sin. However much it may have
been mitigated in the progress of the years, either by true senti-
ment or by a false sentimentality, it still remains, and the mildest
of philanthropists would probably feel something of a pang if
the wrong-doer should go unpunished. Even the criminal him-
self shares the feeling; not infrequently a man gives himself up
and makes confession of his guilt voluntarily, partly, it may be,
because he fears discovery, but also because of the restless-
ness of conscience, the sense that the balance is against him,
and that relief can come only when the balance is made right.
This is perhaps the view that is commonly held in regard to
penalty as retribution, — that it is a righting of the balance. It is
the view that Hegel takes in general, but he adds something which,
so far as I know, is peculiar to himself. Retribution, he suggests,
recognizes to a certain extent the rights of the criminal. That is
to say, it accepts the law which practically he himself has laid
down.1 "You believe in violence," it says to him. "Very well,
let violence be the law, and we will apply it to you." It accepts
the wrong-doer as his own arbiter, and makes him pronounce his
own sentence. We have here an illustration of that irony which
to a certain extent underlies the whole process of the Hegelian
system. Each partial position is accepted and allowed to work
itself out until, simply because it is partial, it works its own de-
struction.
It is possible that the demand for retribution may be allied to
the instinct of self-preservation. This instinct intensifies itself
into vengeance, blinds itself into justice. Altruism renders the
feeling of the individual stronger against the wrongs done to
others than against those done to himself; thus Jesus is indignant
at the suffering of the poor and helpless, but prays God to for-
give the men who are putting him to death. The question, how-
ever, for us to answer, but which I must leave for the time being
unanswered, is whether there is an absolute basis for this feeling.
It is one of the most difficult questions that we have to meet. If
i The Logic of Hegel, W. Wallace, pp. 233, 243. Werlce, Berlin, 1832, Vol.
xn, p. 19.
294 REFORM
a man has done wrong, how does his suffering right the wrong?
How does the breach of a man's privilege in any way counter-
balance the injury which he may have done to others ? Yet a
world in which there should be no retribution would seem to us
a false world. In fiction, although poetic justice does not always
demand that the innocent should be rewarded, it does invariably
demand that crime shall meet its penalty. But what we demand
of fiction is what we demand of life. We are willing that in
fiction the innocent sufferer should sometimes fail of any compen-
sation, because that is what we so often see in life. We demand
that the guilty shall be punished, not because it is what we always
see in life, but because it is what we demand of life.
As I have already suggested, however, there is a growing feeling
that all punishment should aim at reform. It is this feeling
which underlies the objection to the death penalty, and because
of it no form of demagogism more quickly excites indignation than
that which would forbid useful labor to the prisoner; to condemn
a man to a life of idleness or of unproductive toil is to degrade
him. But how does punishment reform? At first thought there
seems to be something illogical in the idea, and this illogicalness
is often urged against it. Here is a boy who is not fond of his
books, or who has the habit of lying. The boy is whipped. What
logical connection is there between his dislike of books or his habit
of lying, and the whipping which is to correct him? It may be
that through fear of another whipping the boy will study and will
not allow himself to be caught lying, but has he become either
studious or truthful? Have you not rather made him sullen or
sly or craven ? Without insisting on the advantage of this method,
it is often found to produce an effect precisely the opposite of this,
for instead of becoming sullen the boy who is punished becomes
more tender-hearted and affectionate, and instead of losing his
spirit he becomes more manly. There is a sense of justice in the
boy, and he must not have reason to think that he has been pun-
ished unjustly. But if he recognizes the justice of the punishment,
he bears no ill will; he takes account, also, of the feeling with
which the punishment is given. Of course we see that children
RETRIBUTION AND REFORM 295
have sometimes been spoiled by undue chastisement. There
may be, and doubtless there are, better methods of correction.
There are different methods of cleaning a coat; it may be beaten
or it may be brushed. There is in some a genius for teaching
which can dispense with punishment. But we are not studying
the best methods of education. We are simply asking how it is
that punishment can produce in any case the good effect which it
does produce, when its tendency would seem to be more naturally
toward precisely the opposite result.
We shall find it helpful at this point to recall the definition of
sin as selfishness. When selfishness is examined closely it is found
to involve, either as its basis or as a corollary, a certain pride.
Here is an individual who lives for himself alone; whether con-
sciously or unconsciously he acts on the assumption that he is
worth more than the whole universe besides, that his smallest
joy is more important than the greatest pleasures of other people,
his least suffering of more account than the deepest sufferings of
others; he makes himself the center of the universe. Here is
the very embodiment of pride. Now punishment may at least
humble this pride. Take the case of the boy. Punishment
may rid him of his conceit. He has been feeling too important
altogether, making his pleasure of more account than the tasks
required of him or than the duty of truthfulness, and he is made
to realize that he is a poor, weak boy, who is at the mercy of those
about him; he learns to know his place. In the great words of
the parable, words which stand at the very centre of all discussion
of sin and punishment and repentance, the individual who is
thus humbled "comes to himself,"1 and, coming to himself, he
comes to the perception of his natural relation to the things about
him.
This loss of pride or conceit, in coming to one's self, appears in
all the various forms of retribution and their practical application,
whether the retribution be the retribution of vengeance or the
retribution of justice. Thus a person is eager to take revenge
upon his enemy; the vengeance is incomplete unless the enemy
can be humbled and made to feel his weakness, unless he can be
1 Luke, xv, 17.
296 THE NATURE OF THE PENALTIES
made subject, or, perhaps better, abject; if the enemy pre-
serves his pride, if he smiles serenely back, the vengeance is in-
complete. Browning has given the classic example of such failure
in the retribution of revenge in his Instans Tyrannus,1 where
the tyrant tries to smite down his enemy; but the enemy con-
quers, at first through his indifference, and then at the last
through the prayer to God which causes the tyrant himself to fear.
In the same way Prometheus conquers Zeus by remaining stead-
fast under his torment.
In the highest form of humiliation self is given up. The in-
dividual no longer constitutes himself the centre of the universe,
but finds his life in the realities that are about him. Humility
is a term that is often misunderstood. It is apt to bring to mind
a person who is conscious of his own abasement or inferiority.
But such self-consciousness really involves a certain pride. Why
should this man compare himself with others ? Why should he
think of himself as inferior to others ? Why should he refuse to
sing because others may sing more skilfully ? True humility
is the self-forgetfulness of the child. It is to live in the realities
that surround one, taking one's place naturally, without thought
of its lowliness. It is at this point that we return again to our
doctrine of penalty as retribution, for at this point retribution and
reform meet. Retribution seeks to accomplish by violence that
which reform strives to make voluntary. Retribution would
crush the individual who asserts himself against the universe,
reform endeavors to bring him to the point at which he will gladly
surrender himself.
What is the nature of the penalties for sin ? They may be
either artificial or natural, but of these the artificial penalties
may be left out of account, at least for the present. For what
we want to see is the inevitable connection between the sin and
the penalty, and when the penalty is inflicted from without the
inevitableness of the connection is not apparent but the con-
nection seems rather to be only accidental. The natural pen-
alties for sin are those results to which the sin naturally leads. If
a man is selfish and arbitrary, he becomes unlovable; people
1 Dramatic Romances.
THE NATURE OF THE PENALTIES 297
mav serve him, but only because they must. If a man lies, he
finds himself no longer believed, even when he may be telling the
truth; his lies and his truthfulness alike fail him. In business
disbonestv is the worst policy, for business is done on credit, and
the dishonest man cannot maintain his credit. Again, if a man
gives himself to intoxication and licentiousness, he is sapping the
vitality of his physical and mental strength.
But real and terrible as these results of sin are, they still do not
satisfy our demand for retribution. They sometimes fail, and
what we demand is not only that the penalty shall be natural
but that it shall be infallible. But the most selfish man is some-
times the most beloved. What an affection followed Napoleon!
How his soldiers worshipped him ! We may say that he was not
wholly selfish, but the fact remains that he was largely selfish.
We may say that people did not know how selfish he was, but
that is not the question. Our point is only that here was a very
selfish man who still was widely and greatly loved. Again, can
we affirm that honesty is the best policy absolutely in this world ?
Suppose preachers to speak out this whole thought, would it
be for their worldly good ? Is not the person who is most suc-
cessful very often the one who is not absolutely honest but "in-
different honest " ? Certain men have been dishonest, and known
to be dishonest, who nevertheless have acquired great wealth and
have become leaders in the financial world. The man who is
best adapted to his social environment is most often the one who
succeeds, and the environment may determine the standard of
his virtue. Finally, men may indulge in sensual excesses and
still to all appearance preserve their vigor unimpaired.
If we turn to conscience, we find that its rebuke is also uncer-
tain. Some of the best men in the world are those whose con-
sciences trouble them the most; the higher a man's standard the
more likely is he to have a keen and sensitive conscience. Con-
science is also uncertain in that men are often more concerned
because of petty weaknesses than on account of their graver wrong-
doing.
Furthermore, the natural punishments are often dispropor-
298 THE NATURE OF THE PENALTIES
tionate. A man's environment is made up of various strata or
systems of laws, using the term "law" in the impersonal sense,
and whatever the system that is violated, the man must expect
to suffer the penalty. No matter what the spirit is in which the
law is violated, whether ignorantly and without a purpose, or
with a good purpose, or with a sinful purpose, the punishment
comes in every case alike. It takes no account of motives, it
regards only the facts. A child may fall into the fire through some-
one's carelessness, a man may enter into it to save another's life,
and both are burned; the fire does not consider motives. Over-
work of the eyes ruins them; Milton thus abuses his sight in a
good cause, and he becomes blind. And in a similar way, if
Socrates violates the ethical and religious laws of his environ-
ment and suffers, he suffers not because he is good, but because
he has violated the public sentiment of his time. For what is
true of physical law is also true when we rise above the realm of
physical law and enter the realm of duty. There are lower duties
and there are higher duties, and though it may be for the sake
of a higher duty that we violate the lower, we must still pay the
penalty.1 It is in its recognition of this conflict between duties
that Greek tragedy differs so widely from the modern drama.
In the modern drama it is usually guilt which is punished as guilt,
and the conflict is between guilt and innocence. In Greek
tragedy we have to do not so much with guilt and its punish-
ment as with the conflict between duties, the recognition of law
above law. Orestes avenges his father but slays his mother.
The gods have urged him on, but none the less he is pursued by
his mother's furies. One may violate the law of the family for
the law of the state, or the law of the state for the law of the fam-
ily, but in either case the penalty must be paid.
Two elements, then, are necessary to the perfect punishment
of sin, — certainty and proportionateness. Neither of these is
fulfilled in the natural penalties. We find the complete punish-
ment of sin only in sin itself, either a deeper sin or, if there is
repentance, in the pain of the struggle with which sin is relin-
i C. C. Everett, Science of Thought, pp. 209-221.
THE NATURE OF THE PENALTIES 299
quished. Either sin becomes fastened upon the sinner more
terribly than before, or else he recognizes his sin and makes the
wrong right, but only with suffering. Obviously this sort of pun-
ishment is both certain and proportionate. It may seem at first
thought to lack the terror that punishment should carry with it.
We may ask what fear a man who loves sin can have before a
punishment which consists in fastening sin upon him. But have
we not here a hint of the terrible nature of the punishment, that a
man's whole being should become so degraded as to lose its dread
of spiritual death? It is a fearful thing to be conscious of one's
own degradation. But suppose that that very consciousness is
lost! No doubt there may be less pain in consequence, but the
spectacle will not be on that account more cheering. A man
cruelly wounded may rejoice in the cessation of his pain, when the
physician sees in it only the beginning of mortification and death.
The question whether the punishment of sin may ever become
capital, so that the whole spiritual life is at an end, is one which
we cannot attempt to answer here. But the thought of such a
possibility may account in large measure for the horror of sin that
is felt by the healthy spirit.
From a wholly different point of view a punishment of sin is
found in the loneliness which results when in the extreme of
selfishness the individual has cut himself off from that communion
with his fellows and the world in general which constitutes the true
life of men. It is true that there is also a loneliness of holiness,
the loneliness of the saint. But this is not a real loneliness. For
the love of the individual still goes forth and embraces even those
who are most opposed to him; although others may not recognize
him as their fellow, he still feels himself one in the great body
of mankind. The real loneliness is that which a man makes for
himself when his own sympathies are so shut in that there is no
exit for them, when there is no play for the great beatings of the
heart. That is the absolute loneliness. Repentance may indeed
replace it, or interrupt the progress toward it, but the struggle of
the individual in the attempt to rise will correspond to the degree
of his sin.
300 THE FINAL HEALING OF THE BREACH
We have recognized the existence of a breach between man and
his environment. We have seen how attempts have been made
to heal this breach through sacrifice, and how the gulf has been
bridged in a negative sense through retribution. But the breach
itself still remains ; the blood of bulls and goats cannot take away
sins.1 We come now to the point where we must recognize the
fact that suddenly there appeared in the world a religion bearing
certain marks which differentiated it from all the religions that
had preceded it. In the first place it was a religion without the
rites of sacrifice. Secondly, whereas in the classic religions espe-
cially the element of fate was present, in this religion we find in-
stead a recognition of providence. Thirdly, suffering, hitherto
looked upon as one of the chief elements in the breach, is now
accepted and glorified. Finally, death, which has been feared as
the great enemy of man, is welcomed with joy.
In the palace of the Vatican there is a long gallery in which the
opposite walls are covered, one with inscriptions from the pagan
columbaria, the other with inscriptions from the Christian tombs.
On the one side we read again and again the words " In Pace " ;
on the other wall, " In Spe." In Spe. The element of hope has
entered, and men are enabled to regard death as a blessing.
Obviously in some way or other the breach has been healed.
Something has been done, or men believe that something has
been done, which has closed it. We enter here upon the third
general division of our examination. In the first division we have
considered the moment of affirmation,2 and in the second the mo-
ment of negation.3 We have now to consider the moment of
reconciliation.
i Hebrews, x, 4. 2 Chapters I-XI. 3 Chapters Xn-XXIV.
CHAPTER XXV.
THE THIRD GENERAL DIVISION OF THE DISCUSSION: RECONCILIA-
TION.— THE DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT. — THE " CUR
DEUS HOMO" OF ANSELM. — PETER LOMBARD AND THOMAS
AQUINAS. THE REFORMATION. THE SOCINIANS AND GROTIUS.
— THE DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT AS INVOLVING THE
PRINCIPLE OF VICARIOUS SUFFERING. — THE CHANGE OF AT-
TITUDE TOWARD VICARIOUS SUFFERING: THE EXPLANATION
OF IT SUGGESTED BY COMTE's THEORY OF THE HUMAN UN-
DERSTANDING.
It may seem as though we were only now beginning our ex-
amination of the content of Christian faith. But that content
is both general and special, and in its general aspect it involves
all the various questions that we have been considering. Of
the doctrines that are specifically Christian we find that in the
history of the Church three have been regarded as fundamental,
the doctrine of the Incarnation, the doctrine of the Atonement,
and the doctrine of the Trinity. Of these the doctrine of the
Incarnation is the most fundamental. For the doctrine of the
Atonement to a large extent has been developed in order to ac-
count for the doctrine of the Incarnation. God became flesh;
for this mighty act there must have been some adequate mo-
tive; this motive is found in the theory of the Atonement.
Anselm brings this out most strikingly in his great treatise on
the Atonement, Cur Deus Homo. The doctrine of the Trinity
appears also to have grown out of the doctrine of the Incar-
nation.
Although the doctrine of the Incarnation is the more fundamen-
tal, we shall find it helpful to study the doctrine of the Atone-
ment first. At the very outset, however, we have to observe that
302 THE DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT
there is no orthodox doctrine of the Atonement. That is to say,
no one form of the doctrine has been recognized so long or so in-
variably as to claim for itself the authority of the Church. The
one thing to which the Church has held throughout is that in
some way or other man is saved through Christ, and that in this
work of salvation the death of Christ has been a very important
element. But the great question remains, how does Christ save
the soul, and to this question there have been various answers.
Down to the time of Anselm the leading thought is that Christ
saved man from the devil by giving himself into the devil's power;
in seizing the body of Christ the devil committed an act of such
unrighteousness that he lost his power over the souls of men.
By violating the law of God man had come into the power of the
devil. Not that the devil had really any right over him; the right
was only in seeming, for both the devil and man were rebellious
servants. If, now, the devil could be induced to overstep his
rights, man would be freed from any appearance of duty to the
devil. This is effected by the incarnation. The divine man
appears among men, wholly sinless, and offers himself in the way
of the devil. It is like bait upon a hook. The devil seizes this
bait and himself becomes the prey. To state it more generally,
the devil, by causing the death of an innocent soul, loses his power
over all who identify themselves with Christ by putting their trust
in him. This is the view that is taken by Augustine, who states
it very clearly.1 He emphasizes the thought that the devil was to
be conquered, not by the power of God, but by the justice of
God,2 that men might see the importance of acting with justice
rather than injustice. Although nothing was found in Christ
worthy of death, the devil slew him. Therefore it was just that
those debtors of his should be freed who believed on him whom
without any debt he had killed. Thus it is, Augustine adds in
a most impressive manner, that we are said to be justified in the
blood of Christ.3 It may be said in passing that passages in Co-
lossians 4 and Hebrews 5 possibly furnished some ground for this
i De Trinitate, IV, xiv, etc. 2 XIII, xiii. 3 XIII, xiv.
* Colossians, ii, 15. « Hebrews, ii, 14.
anselm's "cur deus homo" 303
view of the atonement, although they should be explained other-
wise.
With the teaching of Anselm, in his Cur Deus Homo, we reach
a turning-point in the development of the doctrine. Ever since
Anselm the view that he held has been the germ of those views
which have the strongest claim to be considered orthodox.
At the same time his statement of the theories that were current
in his day as to the nature of the work of Christ illustrates what
I have said of the absence of any distinctively orthodox doctrine
in regard to it. The treatise of Anselm is written in the form of
a conversation; a monk is introduced, as a learner rather than a
controversialist, who proposes the questions which Anselm an-
swers. Quite early in the treatise Anselm insists upon the fitness
of the method by which the Deus-homo saved men. Since it was
through a woman that man had been lost, it was fitting that he
should also be saved through a woman, and since it was through
the enjoyment of the tree that the devil had conquered, it was
fitting that the devil should be conquered by the passion of the
tree. At this point Anselm recognizes that man should properly
be the servant of whoever should save him. Then follows a most
interesting statement of the things from which man is held to have
been saved by the death of Christ, — his own sins, the divine anger,,
hell, the power of the devil.1 The list shows plainly how con-
flicting are the theories of the time as regards the atonement, and
how prominent still is the idea of salvation from the power of the
devil. It is also plain from the references made by Anselm that
the theory was still prevalent that it was proper that the devil
should have been conquered by the justice of God, and also the
theory that although man deserved punishment, the devil had
no right over him, because both were the servants of God.2
In the eighth section of the first book we are told that God
did not really suffer. When we say that the Deus-homo suffered,
we understand that the suffering was only in respect of his human
substance. But ought God to have caused an innocent one to
suffer ? He suffered willingly, is the reply. Still, it is urged, he
1 Book I, § vi. 2 Book I, § vii.
304 ANSELM S CUR DEUS HOMO"
was commanded to suffer. Jesus owed obedience to God, is the
further reply,1 but not to death, for only one who had sinned de-
served death. Therefore death was not required of Christ. Yet
God could not free man without it, though he did not ask the
sacrifice, and Christ, knowing the desire of God, freely gave him-
self. It was because Christ wished to save man that God gave
him the command. Christ's will to save man ran in advance of
the expressed will of God, and just as we tell a person how to do
a thing which we know that he longs to do and which we consider
desirable, so God laid his command upon Christ as the direction
by which he might perform that which he himself desired to ac-
complish.2 We are told further that no mere man can be free
from sin, nor can he be blessed without this freedom. This leads
to the fundamental question,3 what is sin? Sin, we are told,
consists in withholding from God that which is his due. What
is God's due ? That the entire will of the rational creature should
be subject to the will of God. The will to accomplish this sub-
jection pleases God even if one is unable to carry it out. Who-
ever does not do this takes honor from God, and this is to sin.
But why does not God forgive sin outright?4 It is a very dif-
ferent thing, is the reply, for the private individual to forgive
offences against himself and for the ruler of a kingdom to do so.
For if the ruler were thus to forgive offences, disorder would be
introduced into the kingdom, and justice be made less free than
injustice. Yet God commands us to forgive? Yes, but it is
because vengeance belongs to God alone. But if God is free
and wholly loving, why can he not forgive ? Liberty is for what is
fitting, and benignity does not imply anything that is unworthy
of God. Whatever God wills is right. Yet if God should will
that which is wrong, the fact that he had willed it would not make
the wrong right; it would show that God was no longer God.
Nothing is less to be borne than that honor should be taken away
from God.5 For if there is no punishment, God shows himself
either unjust, or else impotent to preserve his honor or to avenge
i Book I, § ix. 2 Book I, § x. 3 Book I, § xi.
4 Book I, § xii. 5 Book I, § xiii.
anselm's "cur deus homo" 305
the loss of his honor. But if God loses his honor, does he regain
it by punishment ? * God does not lose it, is the reply. Either
man pays it voluntarily, or God takes it by force. Can God
suffer his honor to be lessened at all ? 2 No one can really add
to or take from God's honor. He who serves God is said to
honor him, and he who does not serve him is said not to honor
him, but in reality neither affects God's honor.
In the sixteenth section the question is approached from a
new point of view. God will restore the number of the fallen
angels from man. Why not create new angels to fill the place
of those who have fallen ? 3 New ones would not be on the same
footing, is the not very obvious reply. Then will there be in the
future more saints than there were bad angels ? 4 Apparently
there will be. But if men are to replace the fallen angels they
must be like the good angels.5 Is this possible for those who
have sinned unless satisfaction has been paid ? What, then, shall
be the satisfaction ? 6 Satisfaction should be more than what
is due. The Bible promises forgiveness upon repentance, but
this promise holds only for those who have looked for Christ
or have received him.
In the twenty-first section one of the most fundamental ques-
tions is presented. Of what weight is sin? We are told that if
one tells you to look one way and God says "No," it would be
better that the universe should perish than that you should dis-
obey God. Furthermore, the satisfaction must be more than
the sin; the whole universe would not balance sin, and the satis-
faction must be more than the balance. Man was placed in
Paradise without sin, to live aright and to shame the devil, but
he yielded to the devil.7 If man could not stand then, what can he
do now? By conquering the devil man must restore to God
what he took from him in yielding to the devil.8 Man cannot
be saved without paying what he owes. But how is this to be
done? Only through Christ.9
1 Book I, § xiv. 2 Book I, § xv. 3 Book I, § xvii.
* Book I, § xviii. 5 Book I, § xix. « Book I, § xx.
7 Book I, § xxii. 8 Book I, § xxiii. 9 Book I, §§ xxiv, xxv.
306 anselm's "cur deus homo"
At the beginning of the second book it is stated that man was
created righteous in order that he might be happy by enjoying
God, and that if he had not sinned he would not have died.1 In
the resurrection body man must be what he would have been
if he had not sinned. For God must finish what he began; it
is foreign to God that any rational nature should wholly perish. 2
This is a very strong statement, — stronger, no doubt, than Anselm
intended. But if God acts thus by a necessity of his nature,
why should we be grateful? Although he acts by necessity, is
the reply, he still acts also from love. 3 One must be able to give
to God more than all besides. * But no one can do this except
God, and no one is bound to do it except man. Therefore it must
be done by the God-man. Here we have the kernel of the whole
discussion. In the God-man the two natures must be perfectly
united and each must be perfect in itself. 5 There are four ways
in which the Deus-homo could be produced; from the union
of man and woman in the ordinary manner of birth; from earth,
like Adam; from man alone, like Eve; from woman alone. The
last way has not been tried, and it is well to try it; and further-
more since sin has come from woman, so let redemption also come
from woman, that woman may not despair.6 Why should it be
the second person of the Trinity rather than the first who enters
into the union ? Because if the Father had become incarnate, there
would have been two grandchildren in the Trinity. The Father
would have been the grandchild of Mary's father, and the Son
would have been the grandchild of Mary. This would be unfitting.
Moreover it is more fitting that the Son should pray to the Father
than that the Father should pray to the Son. 7
Christ was under no obligation to die, for Christ could not sin.
But if this is so, why should we honor him for his holiness ? God
and the angels cannot sin, is the answer, and yet we honor them.8
Is not the Deus-homo mortal because of the human part? Not
necessarily, for if Adam had not sinned he would not have been
i Book II, §§ i, ii. 2 Book II, §§ iii, iv. s Book II, § v.
< Book II, § vi. s Book II, § vii. « Book II, § viii.
7 Book n, §k. s Book II, § x.
anselm's "cur deus homo" 307
mortal. Christ is free to die or not to die. But if man fell
through pleasure, is it not fitting that he should be saved through
suffering ? 1 After a consideration of the possibility of the divine
suffering,2 the question is asked whether Christ put on ignorance
as well as mortality. The reply is that all was done of his own
knowledge.3
How can the death of Christ suffice for the sins of the world ?
Would you slay him knowingly, is the counter-question, to escape
the guilt of the world ? No. Then his life is immeasurably
more precious than all, and outweighs all. You would willingly
take upon yourself all the other sin of the world to escape the
sin of knowingly putting to death the God-man. 4 How is it,
then, with those who killed him ? Are they not beyond the pos-
sibility of redemption? They did it ignorantly?5 How is it
with those who were born before Christ ? They also share in
the benefit of his death.6 In the discussion in regard to free-
dom which follows,7 an interesting circle occurs: Christ could
be born only of a pure virgin; the virgin could be pure only
through the death of Christ; therefore Christ must die in order
that it might be possible for him to be born.
The Deus-homo ought not to be without remuneration. If
nothing is given to him he will seem to have done his work in
vain. Yet what can the Father give him ? However, he can
transfer his merit to others, and to whom should he transfer it
rather than to men. God can reject no one who comes in his
name.8 After a discussion, first of the divine mercy, and then of
the question whether the fallen angels as well as men are recon-
ciled to God in the death of Christ, the argument ends with the
conclusion that everything in the Old and New Testaments is
justified.9
I have dwelt upon this treatise of Anselm's at such length
because of its importance in showing both how late was the devel-
opment of the doctrine of the atonement and how loosely it was
i Book II, § xi. 2 Book II, § xii. 3 Book II, § xiii.
* Book II, § xiv. s Book II, § xv. e Book II, § xvi.
i Book II, §§ xvii, xviii. 8 Book II, § xix. 9 Book II, §§ xx-xxii.
308 PETER LOMBARD
held even then. There is a certain grandeur in the argument
in spite of what seems to us the pettiness in some of the questions
and answers. We need not notice here the contradictions of a
superficial nature which occur. But a more fundamental diffi-
culty is found in the statement, first that man must pay the debt,
and then that the Deus-homo can transfer his merit to man. What
is more important to notice, however, is the precise manner in
which Anselm views the atonement. He regards it rather as a
transfer of merit than as a satisfaction or penalty suffered for
another, and it was the great merit of Jesus in undergoing what
was for him a needless death which deserved reward. The
element of sacrifice has its place in the discussion, but this other
element appears to be more prominent. The use which Anselm
makes of the thought is illustrated in his Admonitio Morienti,1 when
he says, " I offer his merit for the merit which I should have but
have not." Sin, according to Anselm, is a mere negation; he
uses the figures of a beast without a chain, a ship without a helm;
that which is absent constitutes the sin.2 As regards Anselm's
central doctrine, what surprises us is that he does not support
it by any Biblical authority; he assumes from the New Testa-
ment the fact of an atonement, but the form, the method, of this
atonement he constructs for himself on general grounds. Ritschl
calls attention to the fact that Anselm's theory was in accordance
with the Germanic law, by which either the wrong-doer might
he punished or satisfaction made, — a principle foreign to either
Greek or Roman law.3
According to the view of the atonement held by Peter Lombard,4
justification takes place in two ways: the love of God removes
sin, and Christ frees men from the power of the devil by suffering
death. The devil had rushed into the strong man's house, seized
us as vessels and filled us with bitterness, but God poured out the
bitterness and filled the vessels with sweetness. Christ offered
i Opera, p. 194. 2 De Casu Diaboli, X-XI.
3 Die Christliche Lehre von der Rechtfertigung und Versohnung, 3d Ed., Vol. I,
p. 40.
4 Sententiarum Libri Quatuor, Lib. Ill, "De Incarnatione Verbi."
THOMAS AQUINAS: THE REFORMATION 309
himself to the Trinity and not to the devil, although primarily
the devil supposed that he could get Christ into his power as
a man, and being thus deceived lost his apparent power over
man.
When we come to Thomas Aquinas, we find that his views in
regard to the atonement are somewhat confused.1 He seems to be
trying to bring together certain elements which do not belong
together. The method recommends itself to us, he says, be-
cause it commends God's love to us and gives us an example.
Again, man is bound by sin both to God and to the devil, to God
as judge and to the devil as tormenter; man is to be redeemed out
of regard to God, not out of regard to the devil. Again, the devil
puts to death Christ who did not deserve it. And again, Christ's
death frees from punishment for sin in two ways: first, directly,
because through the infinite nature of Christ the satisfaction
given is more than enough, and secondly, indirectly, through
its influence upon man. Thus three elements are presented, —
the satisfaction that is given to God, the price paid to the devil,
and the subjective influence upon man himself. Of these the price
paid to the devil and the subjective effect are on the whole brought
out most distinctly. In the matter of the infinite sacrifice Thomas
Aquinas is opposed by Duns Scotus, who insists that it was not
God who suffered, but Christ's mortal body.2
I will not dwell longer upon these earlier statements. The
Reformation gathered up all the scattered elements. It welded
together and wrought out the whole system of doctrine into sharp-
ness and definiteness. Together with the doctrine of the Trinity
the doctrine of the Atonement was developed. Luther added
what had been lacking in the argument of Anselm. Anselm had
not made it clear why the death of Christ was pleasing to God.
Luther shows how Christ in his own person should not suffer,
but because he took upon himself the sin of the world, there-
fore he must hang upon the cross. Forsaken of God for a little
while, he bears on his body the sin of all, and atones for them with
i Summa Theologica, Part III, Q. XLVI-XLIX.
2 R. Seeberg, Die Theologie des Johannes Duns Scotus.
310 THE SOCINIANS
his own blood. Luther brings out the relation of Christ to the
individual sinner with a peculiar distinctness and picturesqueness.
When Christ came into the world, he says, God threw upon him
all our sins, saying "Thou art David, thou art Paul," etc. As
regarded Biblical authority, Luther found to a certain extent what
he was looking for in Galatians, iii, 13.
It often happens that just when an organization is complete,
it begins to fall to pieces, and hardly does the doctrine of the
Atonement reach its full development before a process of disinte-
gration begins. This is due in large part to the work of Socinus
and his followers. First they insisted that Christ could not
have offered an infinite sacrifice for sin. For Christ suffered only
for a very short time, and the most intense suffering for a limited
period is as nothing compared with the eternal suffering to which
man was liable. If it is said that the suffering is greater in so
far as he who suffers is infinite, so also is the power to endure the
suffering greater. But even the suffering of an infinite being
cannot take the place of eternal suffering. Furthermore, if it
is granted that Christ has offered infinite atonement, it is im-
possible to speak of the forgiveness of God, or of man's gratitude,
for before God remitted the penalty he had required an absolute
satisfaction. Here, however, an antinomy must be recognized
which may affect the strength of this position. If Christ is con-
sidered distinct from God, the Socinian argument holds; in that
case man would owe no gratitude to God. But if the Son is re-
garded as God, and if the penalty was owed to him as well as to
the Trinity, then the aspect of the case is somewhat changed.
In the third place the Socinians urged that the law was no
longer binding; since the penalty for sin had been paid in full,
man had full liberty to do what he would. Within certain limits
Paul had said this very thing as strongly as it could be said. But
the Socinians went beyond Paul. For whereas Paul had de-
clared simply that the redeemed were no longer under the law
but under grace, and that they had no disposition to do wrong,
the Socinians insisted, — and this was the fourth point in their
argument, — that since the offering of Christ was absolute and
GROTIUS 311
infinite it included all, and universal salvation must follow. In
other words, God had no right to add further conditions. The
whole price had been paid, past, present, and future, and all
debtors were now free. For suppose a number of us had owed
a great debt to an earthly creditor, and someone had paid it all,
what right would the creditor have to make further conditions ?
It might be suggested, in defence of the original doctrine, that the
person who had paid the debt might possibly have a right to
make conditions. But this involves a complexity of relations
into which I will not enter.
The argument of the Socinians was very ingenious. It threw
the emphasis on the moral effect of the death of Christ. As
applied to the various aspects of the doctrine of the Church, con-
sidered in its absoluteness, it put the whole matter in a new light.
But if their criticism was ingenious, it was not more so than the
defence that was made by Grotius.1 Grotius was a writer on in-
ternational law, and he approached the question from the point
of view of a student of law. He urged that the very term "sat-
isfaction" in itself destroyed the force of the Socinian criticism.
For "satisfaction" is that which is accepted in the place of that
which is required. In accepting something as satisfaction you
do not consider that you have received again precisely what you
have lost. Christ by his suffering had not made absolute pay-
ment, but had done that which God was willing to accept as
satisfaction in the place of that which was required. It is as
though some one had paid a part of our debt, saying to our credi-
tor, " I will pay you this if you will call the account square." In
such a case the creditor would still have the right to make con-
ditions.
Let us look again at the arguments of the Socinians. The first
was that Christ could not have offered an infinite sacrifice. Gro-
tius admits this. In the second place the Socinians argued that
no room remained for forgiveness or for gratitude. Grotius re-
plies that there has been forgiveness and there is a place for grati-
tude, because a part of the debt has been remitted. In answer
i Bibliotheca Sacra, 1879, CXLI-CXLIV, trans, with notes by F. H. Foster.
312 GROTIUS
to the remaining arguments, that the law is no longer binding
and that universalism must result, Grotius argues that only those
who conform to the conditions which God still has the right to
impose are to receive the benefit of the transaction. Thus on
the one hand the peril of universalism is avoided, and on the other
hand the conditions may be such that those who share the fruit
of the transaction may be either those upon whom the law is
binding, or those whose spirits shall have become so transformed
that they have no need of the law.
If it is asked why there should be any penalty, why forgiveness
should not be absolute, the reply is that this would dishonor the
law. Enough must be demanded to make the law respected by
men and angels. If this has been done, no more need be required.
We often find in history instances where great numbers of people
have joined in some rebellion or riot, and have rendered them-
selves liable to the extreme penalty of the law. In such cases,
if all were punished, a whole community might be depopulated,
and yet if all were forgiven men might assume that mobs could
gather and do violence with impunity. Consequently two or
three of the ring-leaders are shot or hung or otherwise made an
example. In this way enough is done to show that the law is
not a dead letter. It may be said that this is illogical, and so it
is. But the practice of the world often is illogical. It is illogi-
cal, if ten men or a hundred are guilty, to select two or three who
alone are to be punished. Yet although in such cases the satis-
faction has not been complete, the dignity of the law has been
sustained. This theory of Grotius, known as the "governmen-
tal theory," is the more interesting because later we find it enter-
ing so largely into New England theology. Thus Edwards ar-
gues that God could not be just to himself unless there be an
atonement which would lead to a repentance and humiliation and
sorrow proportionate to the majesty insulted. The atonement
could be dispensed with if this repentance could come from the
heart of man, but that is impossible.1 And Park says, that with-
1 Miscellaneous Observations on Important Doctrines, " Of Satisfaction for
Sin," §§ 1-3.
GROTIUS 313
out the atonement God would be unjust to himself and to his
law.1
The change to this position of Grotius from that of Anselm is
great. With Anselm God and his honor are all in all, and satis-
faction is to be rendered in order that honor may not be withheld
from God. With Grotius the transaction has taken place for the
sake of the universe, that government and the respect for gov-
ernment may be maintained. Baur, whose history of the doc-
trine of the atonement 2 seems to me one of the most fascinating
works on the history of theology ever written, argues that in tak-
ing this position Grotius has yielded the whole field to the Socin-
ians. For they held that the effect of the death of Christ upon
the believer was subjective and moral, and this is practically
the ground taken by Grotius when he admits that the demand
of the law is not fully met, and that the object of the atonement
is to make men reverence the law. Foster, the translator of
Grotius, replies to this criticism that it does not meet the case,
because, he says, if there were but one sinner in the world, it would
still be as important that something should be done to satisfy the
law as though there were an infinite number of individuals.3 But
to narrow the field in this way does not seem to me to affect the
argument, or to remove Baur's objection. At the same time it
must be granted that Baur does not do Grotius full justice. The
atonement is required, not that God may seem just, but that he
may be seen to be just. If it were only that he might seem just,
the effect would be subjective, and Baur's criticism would be
justified. But in so far as the transaction takes place in order
that God may be seen to be just, the actual presence of a certain
amount of objective justice is implied, and therefore in this aspect
the atonement looks law-ward if not God-ward. Of the two
elements in the manifestation of the divine justice, Baur recog-
1 Introductory essay to Discourses and Treatises by Edwards, etc., pp. 444,
521, 156.
2 F. C. Baur, Die Christliche Lehre von der Versohnung.
3 Bibliotheca Sacra, 1879. Also A Defence of the Catholic Faith concerning
the Satisfaction of Christ, Andover, 1889, Translator's notes, pp. 300-301.
314 VICARIOUS SUFFERING
nizes the element of manifestation, but he fails to see that the
very term "manifestation" implies that there is something to be
manifested. Take the case of the rioters to which I have referred.
When two or three out of all the number are selected for punish-
ment, we do not say that this is done in order that the law may
seem to be executed, but that it may be seen to be executed. Thus
he law is really honored. If the men, instead of being put to
death, were smuggled off into another country and then the an-
nouncement was made that all had been put to death, the law
would seem to have been honored. But when the chosen men
are put to death, then the law is seen to be honored, because up
to a certain point real satisfaction has been rendered.
In order to criticise understandingly the various forms in which
the doctrine of the Atonement is presented, one has to go behind
them and consider a principle which all involve, the principle of
vicarious suffering. I have already had occasion to refer to the
distinction between real and formal vicarious suffering.1 A fur-
ther distinction must be made between the two kinds or degrees
of formal vicarious suffering, the first where the guilty suffer for
the guilty, as in the case of the rioters, and the second where the
innocent are made to suffer for the guilty. A number of exam-
ples are given to illustrate this second kind of formal vicarious
suffering, and to advocate its reasonableness. Not all of them
apply accurately, but perhaps accuracy is not required in such a
case. Thus there is the story of the king whose son had been
sentenced to the loss of both his eyes. The king has one of his
own eyes put out and one of his son's. Here the intent of the
law was blindness, but no one was made blind. The best of
these examples is a recent one, — the story of the way in which
Mr. Alcott 2 undertook to punish the boys in his school at Con-
cord. Mr. Alcott made the rule that if any boy did wrong, the
boy should whip him. Here the law was justified, for there was
no violation of it without a penalty. Obviously the experiment
was not a safe one. Yet we must recognize the fact that under
the circumstances there was a real power in this method of car-
i Pages 289-292. 2 A. Bronson Alcott.
VICARIOUS SUFFERING 315
rying out the law by such a transfer of the punishment, and it
is not an objection to it that the boy did suffer after all in seeing
the master bear the punishment which he himself had deserved.
It is sometimes said of the doctrine of the Atonement that in al-
lowing the suffering of the innocent for the guilty it tends to make
men selfish and at ease in their sin. This may be true in the case
of mean natures, but in proportion as the heart is generous and
gentle it would more naturally be conquered by the love which
is thus manifested.
When we read the stories of the transference of suffering from
the guilty to the innocent in the past, we can enter to a certain
extent into the spirit of them, and we can admire the unselfishness
that led to the sacrifice. But we should feel quite differently
if such transference were to be attempted at the present day.
If nowadays a criminal were to be condemned to death, and it
should be proposed that his wife be allowed to suffer in his place,
or if Lincoln, instead of being killed incidentally, had offered to
die on condition that full amnesty should be given to the South,
we should protest. We should say that the crime would not
be atoned for but only increased by this sort of transference.
The law of righteousness would not be vindicated but only more
deeply violated. How do we explain this change of feeling ?
We may be helped to understand it by Comte's theory of the
human understanding.1 According to this theory there are three
stages in human history, the theological, the metaphysical and
the positive. In the theological stage all that takes place is
explained as resulting from the activity of supernatural spirit.
The metaphysical stage is not so clearly defined, but in general
it may be said that it is the stage in which there is the recognition
of something behind and beyond the physical form, an entity
distinct from the thing itself. It is the stage of a scholastic real-
ism. Such terms as "attraction" and "gravitation" are used
as expressing some generalization, and not as suggesting the
cause of the phenomena. In the third or positive stage the
metaphysical entity is dropped; we have to do only with phe-
1 Positive Philosophy, Book VI, Chap. VI.
316 VICARIOUS SUFFERING
nomena and do not go behind our experience. Now in the
metaphysical stage sin and penalty are regarded as entities which
may be separated from personality, and therefore it makes little
difference in this stage of thought, so long as penalty is inflicted,
whether or no the same person who has committed the sin also
bears the penalty. But at the present time sin and penalty are
regarded as personal, and the penalty must be inflicted not on a
person but on the person who has deserved it. There is, how-
ever, one survival of the theory of sin as an entity. A fine may
still be paid by an innocent man on behalf of a guilty man, and
whenever this is done we have still the satisfaction of the law
through a punishment for sin which is borne by some one other
than the person who has been guilty of the sin; the sin and the
penalty are separated from personality.
CHAPTER XXVI.
modern theories of the atonement: mcleod campbell
and dorner; bushnell and newman smyth. — the
pauline view. — the doctrine of the trinity: dorner
and shedd; the argument from the new testament.
— the doctrine of the incarnation: dorner and
ritschl. — the nature of jesus and of the holy spirit
considered as the arrival of the spiritual principle
in the world at complete self-consciousness.
When we turn to modern theories of the Atonement we find
that the subject is approached from one or the other of two oppo-
site points of view. According to the first view the work of
Christ is accomplished through his identification with man;
the second view emphasizes his identification with God. Of
those who represent the first view, McLeod Campbell 1 takes
as the basis of his theory that idea of freedom of the will as
demanding a pre-existing state which to Edwards appeared to
be a reductio ad absurdum? According to Campbell there must
be an amen from the heart of man to the condemnation of sin
by God. No man could have this profound sense of the evil
of sin. But Christ, identifying himself with man, can recog-
nize fully the true nature of sin and utter the amen to God's
condemnation, and thus he accomplishes for man the response
that is required of him. A similar view is taken by Dorner.3
Christ so identifies himself with men through sympathy that he
takes upon himself the sense of sin which should be theirs, and
1 J. McLeod Campbell, The Nature of the Atcm,ement.
2 Page 215. Also C. C. Everett, The Gospel of Paid, pp. 90-91.
3 System der Christlichen Glaubenslehre, Vol. II, pp. 650-652.
318 MODERN THEORIES OF THE ATONEMENT
by his love includes all others in his act. As he cannot be thought
of without man, so man cannot be thought of without him. Thus
the penitence, if we may so speak, of Christ covers the sin of
man.
According to both these writers Christ accomplishes his work
through his humanity ; identifying himself with man, he approaches
God from the man-ward side. Of those who take the other view
by which the identification of Christ with God is emphasized,
Bushnell, in his Vicarious Atonement, advances a purely subjec-
tive theory which is akin to the Socinian view. Later, however,
he felt the need of something more objective, and in Forgiveness
and the Law he argues that the greatest love is called forth by
suffering for the one loved, and that God so suffered in Christ
that his love for man became such that he could forgive his sin.
As I have said before, Bushnell is a great preacher, but as a
theologian his method is uncertain. In this case, we feel that it
must have been an absolutely profound love from the first that
called forth the suffering, and therefore the love was the cause
rather than the effect of the suffering. Newman Smyth, in
The Orthodoxy of Today takes a view which is similar to that
of Bushnell, so far as concerns the emphasis upon the ap-
proach from the God-ward side. But Smyth is more profound
than Bushnell, and more in accord with the early view of the
Atonement. God cannot forgive sin without suffering for it. Yet
God cannot suffer in himself, but only in some outgoing of him-
self. The suffering is thus not something designed primarily
for its effect upon the sinner, but necessary to God in order that
he may forgive.
The two views as exemplified in Campbell and Dorner on the
one hand, and on the other hand in Bushnell and Smyth, have
nothing in common except that they complement each other.
Both views suggest certain questions. Thus one may ask of
Campbell and Dorner why it was necessary that a divine being
should identify himself with man in order to respond to God's
condemnation of sin. Why would not a sinless man be sufficient ?
If the reply is that only an infinite nature could thoroughly un-
MODERN THEORIES OF THE ATONEMENT 31&
derstand the infinitude of sin, the further difficulty arises that
there are two standards for the measurement of sin. Which
of these is to be used ? — the infiniteness of God, against whom
sin is committed, or the finiteness of man who commits the sin ?
On the other hand, if we turn to Bushnell and Smyth, we may
question why there should have been any identification with man
if all that was needed was that God should suffer, whether in
himself or through some outgoing of himself.
In The Pauline Theology of Stevens an attempt is made to
reconcile the two views, and to show the necessity of both the
divine and the human elements. I will not dwell upon it, nor is
it necessary to mention here other recent books in which the
theory of the Atonement is discussed. They illustrate still
further the fact that no one theory can claim the authority of the
general consent of the Church. In all branches of the Church
at present the feeling is common that there is no need of any
precise theory, — that it is enough that the individual should feel
that in some way Christ has done something which makes salvation
possible. This position is not illogical. It puts faith in the
person of Christ in place of faith in any special act, and this is a
natural outgrowth from the theology of the school of Schleier-
macher, in which the person of Jesus is the only distinct reality.
Of all the different writers no one makes any claim that his
special views represent the teachings of the New Testament.
In most cases little attention is paid to them.1 Where there is
any direct reference to them, the attempt is too often made to
read into the words a meaning that shall support the theory which
has been assumed. But as a rule each writer begins with the
fact of the Atonement, and asks in what way the death of Christ
could have made forgiveness easier. Then he seeks to devise a
scheme which shall answer this question satisfactorily. If, how-
1 An interesting example of this inattention occurs in the conflict between
Bushnell's theory that the suffering of God called forth the love which made for-
giveness possible, and the passage in the Gospel according to John (John, iii, 16)
in which it is said that "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten
Son."
320 THE NEW TESTAMENT TEACHING
ever, we turn to the New Testament, and especially to Paul's writ-
ings, we find that they present two aspects of the Atonement. The
first is merely formal. It appears in passages like that in Ro-
mans, iii, where faith in Christ is declared to be sufficient for salva-
tion. Under the second aspect we have to notice first the legal
effect of Christ's work in the abrogation of the Hebrew law.
The vastness of this change is difficult for us to conceive, but we
have an illustration of the hold of the law upon the life of the
people in the manner in which many at the present day still
regard the Sabbath. Paul himself looked upon the Hebrew law
as divinely given, and not to be broken through by any human
will; if it was to be abrogated it must abrogate itself. Now
Christ in the crucifixion suffered the extreme penalty of the law.
He became accursed, and all who followed him shared his pollu-
tion. But this involved another step. Those who were thus
accursed were freed from obedience to the law, as any exile is
freed from obedience to the law of the nation that has driven him
into exile. But in exile was found that which never had been
found before, — freedom and satisfaction in Christ.
All this is developed very clearly in the letter to the Galatians.
Here the statements in the third chapter should not be slurred
over. Paul was an extremely logical writer, and to get at his
thought one should take every statement as literally as possible.
It is often said that Christ was crucified because he was accursed
of God. But this is not Paul's position. According to Paul,
Christ was accursed because he was crucified. The curse was
not a curse against sin, but a legal, ceremonial curse, and its in-
fluence was ceremonial.1 Why had Paul persecuted the Chris-
1 Another illustration of the ceremonial aspect of the law and of the crucifixion
in relation to it, is seen in the extension to the Gentiles through Christ's death of
a common privilege with the Jews. In the letter to the Ephesians (Eph., ii, 11-22 )
we are told that the "wall of partition," the "enmity," between Jew and Gentile
had been the law. But Christ by his death had abolished this enmity, "that he
might create in himself of the twain one new man, so making peace." It may be
asked in this connection whether the withdrawal of the law does not imply change-
ableness in God. The reply would be that the law is honored in that it speaks
the final word by which the separation between Jew and Gentile is ended, even
though in this final word it puts an end to itself.
THE NEW TESTAMENT TEACHING 321
tians ? He himself gives the reason. " Christ crucified, unto
Jews a stumbling-block,"1 — a stumbling-block because "it is
written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree." 2 To the
Jew those who followed Christ were polluted equally with him
by his crucifixion, and as a zealous Jew Paul did his utmost to
drive them out of the Jewish church. Then when his conversion
took place, when he believed that he had seen the glorified Christ,
instead of simply admitting as some would have done that he had
been mistaken, he followed the logic of his conviction; he saw
that he had no place any longer with the Jews and followed Christ
without the church; and then in the consciousness of his own
freedom he used all his rabbinical skill to bring about the eman-
cipation of others from the law, and to encourage them in the
enjoyment of the Christian life. Not only does the law have no
further claim upon the follower of Christ, but all former pains
and penalties are wiped out.3 Thus remission of sins follows also
upon the abrogation of the law ; the banished citizen can suffer no
further penalty for any offence, either past or future, under the
law of the country that has exiled him. Furthermore, not merely
the ceremonial law but all law as such is abrogated.4 This is
only to be expected as a result of the mingling of ceremonial and
moral transgression in the old legislation. But only the man
who is in real relation with Christ, who really shares in his excom-
munication, is thus free; the man who is without the spirit of
Christ is still under the law ; only those are free who are fit for
freedom. In other words, all real relations remain; it is the
externals that are done away with. It has taken the world a
great while to reach Paul's position of freedom.
All this legal effect of the Atonement, however, is only negative
as compared with its spiritual effect. Although Paul lays so
much stress upon the abrogation of the law, it is after all the new
life that is of most importance to him. The legal aspect of Christ's
work was temporary and special, the means by which the Jewish
Christian was to be freed from the yoke of the law, and salvation
1 1 Corinthians, i, 23. 2 Galatians, iii, 13.
3 Cohesions, ii, 14. 4 Romans, vi, 1. Galatians, ii, 17.
322 THE NEW TESTAMENT TEACHING
made possible for the Gentile. But the power of the Christian
life was permanent. In the statement of this positive faith it is
only natural that the language of sacrifice should be employed
freely. The stamp upon his life of the Hebrew ritual, and the
impression made by the crucifixion of one whom he regarded as
the Messiah, were blended in the thought of Paul, and it is not
strange that this thought clothed itself so continually in sacrificial
imagery. Furthermore, there is an identification of the believer
with Christ which may be regarded either as mystical or only as
the symbolical expression of strong emotion, but which in either
case testifies to the reality and positiveness of the faith which
thus found utterance. Thus we find Paul saying to the Romans,
" if we died with Christ we believe that we shall also live with
him," 1 and " if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin,
but the spirit is life because of righteousness." 2 Again, in the
letter to the Galatians, he writes, " I have been crucified with
Christ; yet I live; and yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me." 8
"For ye died," he says to the Colossians, "and your life is hid
with Christ in God," 4 while earlier in the same letter occurs that
striking passage in which he speaks of filling up "that which is
lacking of the afflictions of Christ." 5
In the Epistle to the Hebrews the reference to Melchizedek, if
taken literally, is peculiarly beautiful and instructive. Melchi-
zedek is described simply as a novus homo, a priest "without
genealogy." 8 The fact that this priest of nature blesses Abraham
"that hath the promises," symbolizes the greatness of the spir-
itual relation of man to God as compared with the narrowness
of the law. And this, the writer continues, "is yet more abun-
dantly evident, if after the likeness of Melchizedek there ariseth
another priest, who hath been made, not after the law of a carnal
commandment, but after the power of an endless life." 7
Of the references to the Atonement in the Gospels, the larger
part are only formal. Thus when Jesus says that " all things are
1 Romans, vi, 8. 2 Romans, viii, 10. 3 Galatians, ii, 20.
* Colossians, iii, 3. 5 Colossians, i, 24. 8 Hebrews, vii, 3.
7 Hebrews, vii, 15, 16.
THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY 323
possible to him that believeth," 1 he does not tell what is to be
believed. The sick man must believe in his physician, but he
must also have the physician's prescription. Now the prescrip-
tion of Jesus, if I may use the figure, is found in the Sermon on
the Mount and in the teaching of the fatherhood of God. The
most striking passage in the Gospels is that in which Jesus is
represented as speaking of the cup as "my blood of the covenant
which is shed for many unto remission of sins." 2 It is possible
that we have here a reference to the use of blood in covenants,
common in ancient religions, as a guarantee of the seriousness and
good faith with which the compact is made,3 and that the sugges-
tion is that in the death of Christ a guarantee is offered of God's
faithfulness. But the introduction of the second figure of the
payment of a debt, in the words, "unto remission of sins," con-
fuses this interpretation, while on the other hand, if the blood is
shed in payment of debt, the whole reference to the Atonement
becomes only formal. In view of the similarity to some of Paul's
expressions, it may be that the passage is simply a reflection of
Pauline thought.
One important element in the New Testament view of the
Atonement should not be overlooked, — its intercessory character.
Intercession belonged to the priestly office, and intercessory
prayer is common with the apostles and the disciples. It is not
strange, therefore, that it should be assumed that prayer on the
part of Jesus would be especially efficacious.
As I have already said, no one theory of the Atonement can,
strictly speaking, be considered orthodox. The theory of the
Atonement depends largely upon the view that is taken of the
Incarnation, and this in turn is bound up with the theory in
regard to the Trinity. In the attempts to define or illustrate
the doctrine of the Trinity the difficulty lies in the reconciliation
of the one and the many. The doctrine has swung between
what may be called a functional or psychological trinity on the
i Mark, ix, 23. 2 Matthew, xxvi, 28.
3 Genesis, xv, 9. Exodus, xxiv. W. Robertson Smith, Lectures on the Religion
of the Semites, IX.
324 THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY
one side and an apparent tritheism on the other. Sometimes the
unity of the divine nature has absorbed its trinity, and again the
unity has been lost in the trinity. Augustine discovered a mani-
festation of the Trinity wherever three elements are united in one
essence. Thus in the outer life an illustration offered in body,
sight and intention, and in the inner life in memory, self-knowl-
edge or consciousness, and will or love. It should be noticed
that these elements are suggested by Augustine only as an illus-
tration of the Trinity. The Father is not merely as memory, or
the Son merely self -recognition. Each element involves all
three. But in the case of the Father the emphasis is on the first,
and so on with the Son and the Holy Ghost. This is necessary
in order that the separate personalities may not be lost in the
unity of the divine nature. The distinction is important and
should be borne in mind in comparing the view of Dorner with
that of Augustine.
What Augustine used as an illustration Dorner uses as an ex-
planation. The philosophical sense with Dorner is stronger than
the historical, and his attempt to construct the Trinity is simply
the attempt to construct personality.1 God is absolute life,
knowledge and goodness. Now wherever we find life, we find
first the element of unity, then the element of differentiation, and
then the element of integration. This appears even in the physical
aspect of life, as when the tree differentiates itself into the various
processes which in turn constitute the tree. In knowledge there
are the subject and the object, and the recognition that these are
one; there are the "I" and the "me" and the recognition of
identity. In goodness there are necessity and freedom, and
love uniting freedom and necessity. Under these different as-
pects we have the content of the triune personality of God, the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Perhaps if Dorner had not
been under the necessity of conforming to the order of the three
persons of the Trinity, his statement of the ethical aspect might
have been, freedom, necessity, and love rendering the necessity
freedom. He seems to have given freedom the second place partly
1 System der Christlichen Glaubenslehre, Vol. I, p. 404.
THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY 325
because of the doctrine which he had in mind, and partly be-
cause freedom implied a choice. In this construction of the
Trinity there is the construction of every conscious spirit, the
organization necessary to every complete consciousness. For in
all conscious life there must be these three elements, — the
great pulse beat of the world. If this is the doctrine of the
Trinity, then every theist is a Trinitarian. But Dorner's state-
ment does not satisfy the historical conception of the Trinity.
Shedd has tried to do this in his History of Christian Doctrine.1
With Shedd as with Augustine the three centres of consciousness
in the Trinity are conceived as separate, whereas with Dorner
the Son has no separate consciousness apart from the Father
and the Spirit, or the Father or the Spirit, similarly, apart
from the Son. Either theory presents difficulty. On the one
hand it is hard to distinguish these three separate centres of con-
sciousness and still maintain the conception of unity, and on the
other hand it is equally difficult to accept Dorner as orthodox.
Historically the doctrine of the Trinity was developed from a
scriptural basis. Although it is nowhere taught explicitly in the
New Testament writings, those who hold it believe that it is taught
implicitly. It grows out of a theory of the Incarnation by which
the pre-existent Christ is exalted to an equality with God. Then
since we have God the Father and Jesus Christ as God, since the
Holy Spirit is spoken of in the same relation, and since the unity
of the Godhead must still be recognized, there follows the doc-
trine of three Persons and one God. The course of reasoning,
however, by which the Holy Spirit is included, would appear to
cover other cases where some personality is spoken of in the same
relation with the Son. Thus in the Gospel according to John
there is the prayer that those who believe on Jesus "may be in
us," "even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee"; 2 and in the
Revelation of John the saints are represented as singing "the song
of Moses . . . and the song of the Lamb."3 I do not myself find in
the New Testament writings taken as a whole the teaching that
i Vol. I, pp. 251 and 404. 2 John, xvii, 20-23.
3 Revelation, xv, 3.
326 THE INCARNATION
Christ is equal with God. He is exalted above humanity and his
pre-existence is recognized, but throughout the different writings
he seems to be spoken of as subordinate to God.1 The Gospel
according to John is especially interesting because it brings together
the two extremes of New Testament teaching, — on the one hand
the exaltation and mysticism in such phrases as "He that hath
seen me hath seen the Father," 2 and on the other hand the sub-
ordination in the words, " The Father is greater than I,"3 and again
the blending of the two, as in the passage from the prayer of Jesus
to which I have just referred.4 The nearest approach to the
New Testament position, considered as a whole, in regard to the
nature of Christ, is found in the Arian doctrine.
In its historical development the doctrine of the Incarnation
has swung, as Baur says, between Docetism and Ebionitism,
covering everything from the theory that the human aspect of
Christ's nature was only apparent to the view that his humanity
was the essential thing. The difficulty has been to find the point
of union between the divine and the human. In Christ, the God-
man, the two are brought together; but they are still foreign to
each other, the problem still remains. At the time of the Refor-
mation the doctrine of the Incarnation in common with all other
doctrines may be said to have reached the climax of its develop-
ment, and we have the " communicatio idiomatum," the attempt
to weld together the various elements. This attempt has various
forms. In the first the attributes of both the divine and the hu-
man natures are all applied to the one personality, Christ himself,
in its entirety. In the second form one or the other of the two
natures is spoken of as possessing the attributes of the personality
as a whole; thus Christ died for us, and so we are to say that the
Son of God died for us. In a third form we have the human
nature with divine attributes, — that is to say, the active attri-
butes, not those that are static, such as omniscience. Still a fourth
form is possible, by which the divine nature might be spoken of
1 Mark, xiii, 32. 1 Corinthians, iii, 23; viii, 6; xi, 3. Hebrews, i, 2.
2 John, xiv, 9. 3 John, xiv, 28. < John, xvii, 20-23.
THE INCARNATION 327
as possessing human attributes; but this would be merely formal.
In all this no real element of union appears. An external force
is applied, through which the elements are, so to speak, clamped
together. But there is no organic element of relation. The dif-
ficulty remains, that the divine is conceived as possessing nothing
of the human, and the human as possessing nothing of the divine.
Dorner finds in the Incarnation the very crown of history. He
seeks a point at which the divine and the human may unite, and
finds it in the polar antitheses of the two natures, fulness and
need, love and receptivity.1 This solution, however, is largely
formal. For in order to be assured that the human need is satis-
fied by the divine fulness, we demand that there shall be behind
the antitheses some element of identity, and Dorner takes for
granted a certain community which is not fully recognized. There
are not two natures in Christ, Dorner says, but two elements in
one nature, of which the " I," the consciousness, is the focus. It
is like conscience in the individual life. Conscience, "the voice
of God," does not exist as an element foreign to human nature,
but is blended with other elements of the nature and focussed in
the one ego of the consciousness. In using this illustration, how-
ever, Dorner leads one to question whether his position in regard
to the nature of Christ might not be assumed as also true of every
human soul. Dorner would admit this so far as regards the pres-
ence of the Holy Spirit; so far as the voice of conscience is made
to serve as an illustration, the line of demarcation between the
life of Christ and other lives is somewhat blurred. But Dor-
ner insists that there is something very special in the life of Christ.
According to Ritschl the divinity of Christ appears in the fact
that he overcame the world.2 Otherwise Ritschl advances no
theory in regard to Christ's nature, but simply recognizes in him
the revelation or manifestation of God, and this is all that many
writers of the present time insist upon.
In attempting now some more positive statement in regard to
1 System der Christlichen Glaubenslehre, Vol. II, pp. 406-411.
2 Die Christliche Lehre von der Rechtfertigung, etc., Vol. HI, p. 426 f.
328 CONSCIOUS LIFE COMPLETE IN JESUS
the nature of Christ and the doctrines of the Trinity and the Atone-
ment, let us go back again to those vorstellungen to which we
resorted in order to represent to ourselves the relation between
the creation and the Creator.1 According to two of these vor-
stellungen,— the relation of a child to its parent,2 and the relation
of body to soul,3 — there is a certain supernatural or divine ele-
ment in the world. We have recognized this in that principle of
teleology which has prevailed all through the history of the world.4
Whatever guidance from without may be discovered in the devel-
opment of this history, we have found it easier to regard it as
essentially the result of the working of an inner principle, as a
growth like the growth of a plant or an animal or a human life,
so that the world may be considered as one great organism, with
its various stages of development. In this development there is
nothing external, in the sense that any results are dependent upon
the chance relations of merely superficial elements. It is a devel-
opment as orderly, and as truly involved in its beginning, as the
development of the plant, but with this great difference, that
when we come to man an element of freedom enters, in accordance
with which it depends more or less upon man's will whether the
development is to be checked or is still to advance, and, if it is
to advance, whether with greater or with less rapidity.
The inner principle is at first unconscious of itself. At the very
beginning there is what we should ordinarily call external mate-
rial. Then comes the beginning of organic life, — not the begin-
ning of life itself, for that first stage was the manifestation of
life; from the first there was the "world-soul," or whatever we
may choose to call the inner, supernatural, divine element. Then
with the organic life of the plant comes the organic life of the
animal, and then the sensitive life of the animal, and then the con-
scious life of the animal and the man. Finally that conscious life
of the man reaches its most complete self-consciousness and the
most complete consciousness of its environment in Jesus. In
Jesus this divine life that has been in the world comes to recog-
nize itself as divine, and to look up and recognize in the fullest
i Chapter XIII. 2 page 120. 3 page 119. 4 pages 143-188.
CONSCIOUS LIFE COMPLETE IN JESUS 329
and freest sense its divine source, not only as its source, but as
the presence which from the beginning has been the helpful com-
panion and guardian of its own divinity. In Jesus, God and the
world become one as they had never been before. Furthermore
Jesus did not stand wholly alone in this consciousness of self and
of God. He is "the first of many brethren."1 With him the
whole race takes an upward step, so that we have the beginning
of a new life in the world, a life animated by a higher conscious-
ness and by a deeper impulse toward better things.
There is, then, a certain sense in which Jesus may be spoken
of in a special manner as the Son of God. If the world may
be regarded as in some sense the son of the Father, born of the
divine life, and if up to the time of Jesus the world had not been
fully conscious of this divine sonship, but first came to its full
consciousness in him, so that he first stood in this absolute rela-
tion to God, then we may say of him in a special sense that he
was the Son of God. In a similar way, using the term in the
same large and general sense, we may also speak of the Holy
Spirit. According to Hegel, it is a mistake to place the reality
of the Holy Spirit in any relation of priority to its embodiment
in human life or of separation from it. In Hegel's thought the
Holy Spirit comes to the consciousness of itself in the Church.
By the Holy Spirit and by the consciousness of it he would mean
that which is in part expressed by the phrase, "Christian con-
sciousness," the consciousness in the Church of the unity of its
life.2 The use of the term in such a sense is not wholly foreign
to our use of the term "spirit." We are in the habit of using
this term to represent life at a certain stage of consciousness.
Thus we do not speak of the lower animals as possessing spirit
in this sense. We use the term only when we reach human life,
the special distinction of which is the consciousness of self. A
spirit is that which is to a certain extent conscious of itself as an
individual being. The Holy Spirit thus becomes that which in
its perfect self-consciousness transcends itself, and finds that it is
not merely an individual life, but a part in a larger, more com-
i Romans, viii, 29. 2 Werke, Berlin, 1832, Vol. XII, pp. 257-288.
330 CONSCIOUS LIFE COMPLETE IN JESUS
plete life, of which it is a manifestation. To use a very imper-
fect illustration, the difference is like that between a leaf con-
scious of itself only as a leaf, — supposing that we could give a
leaf consciousness, — and that same leaf as it becomes conscious
that it is part of the organism of the tree and feels within itself
the common life of the whole tree even more than its own indi-
vidual life. In the Holy Spirit we have the divine life mani-
festing itself in the soul not as over against the individual life,
but as the greater fulness of that life itself. The individual life
passes out from the little limits of its individuality and enters
into the common life of the spiritual brotherhood of man and
the sonship to God.
In the Bible there are three uses of the term " Spirit of God "
or "Holy Spirit." The first of these is very general. Accord-
ing to it the spirit of God is spoken of as the animating source
of all life; it is by God's spirit that men have understanding.
A second use, peculiar to the New Testament, relates to the pos-
session of the life by a constraining spiritual presence which
manifests itself in special revelation and in special guidance.
In the third use the term represents something that is less formal
and more in accord with the natural life of the soul. Thus it is
said that "the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace,"1 etc., quali-
ties which are simply the more perfect fruits of the tree of life,
the result of the re-enforcement of the ordinary life of the soul
through the fuller and freer development of the life of God within
it. It is to this last use that the view of Hegel which I have been
illustrating more nearly corresponds.
I have no disposition to insist upon scriptural authority for the
use of these terms in the sense which I have just indicated, nor
have I any special partiality for the use of the terms in any sense.
Yet it is interesting and suggestive to see how naturally and
easily the terminology of the early Church may be made to cover
views not originally contemplated by it, but which have been
reached in various ways through the natural development of
thought. Furthermore, the use of these terms in such a sense
i Galatians, v, 22-23.
CONSCIOUS LIFE COMPLETE IN JESUS 331
as that which I have suggested is at least as scriptural as the use
which Dorner makes of them. For example, Dorner argues
that the Logos had no consciousness apart from the Father and
the Spirit prior to the moment of the Incarnation.1 But this
is not in accordance with the New Testament view. For if we
hold that the New Testament teaches the pre-existence of Jesus,
as it appears to do, — and as in my judgment it cannot be under-
stood as not doing, — we must also hold that this pre-existence
was conceived as a personal pre-existence in the ordinary sense
of the term, a pre-existence in which there was the conscious
surrender of a larger and more joyous life in order to become
the savior of men. Therefore any statement in regard to the
pre-existence of Jesus which does not involve the element of con-
sciousness appears to me not to meet the exegetical requirements,
and thus the theory of Dorner is no more scriptural than the
theory which finds in the life of Jesus a fuller manifestation of
the divine life which has been in the world all along.
All that we can say is that each age must use its own thought
as best it can, and perhaps the most that can be expected is a
union in sympathy and in general results. As the philosophy
of one age cannot be that of another, so the thought of any given
age cannot flow altogether naturally into all the forms of state-
ment that have been used by former ages. The New Testament
writers start from the philosophy of their day and use the terms
that are offered to them. At the period Sin which they lived
the monarchical idea was still supreme in the world, and men
were judged more or less according to the outward dignity of
their position. It was natural, therefore, that Jesus should
be exalted as having a special place in the history and govern-
ment and creation of the world. Nowadays we are reaching
theoretically, although as yet not practically, the thought that
honor does not depend upon external position. It is the spirit-
ual life, the life of love and consecration, which alone is divine
and wholly glorious. We recognize the supremacy which Jesus
recognized, the supremacy of service, and we measure greatness
1 System der Christlichen Glaubenslehre, Vol. II, p. 419.
332 CONSCIOUS LIFE COMPLETE IN JESUS
by the greatness of service consciously and gladly rendered. If,
in place of the lofty dignities which the early Church delighted
to bring to Jesus, we offer this higher honor, we may feel that we
are still one in spirit with that early Church, no matter how much
our forms of speech may differ. For the recognition of the
spiritual greatness of Jesus was nothing foreign to the thought
of the early writers, — it was fundamental with them; but they
surrounded it and thought to exalt it by extraneous honor.
The breach which was left by the philosophy of Kant between
man and his environment was filled by the philosophy of Hegel.
That was a theoretical process. It is a practical process that
we are now considering. In this coming of the divine life to con-
sciousness in man Baur finds the real doctrine of the Atonement.
Here, he says, is the objective element which the Church has
sought. In the Incarnation something has actually been done.1
So far merely as this is concerned I should agree with him. But
it seems to me that Baur's thought, and the thought of Hegel as
represented by Baur, is not complete. It appears to imply only
the intellectual recognition of the fact. Man has learned at last
that his life is one with the life of God. He has lost the sense of
strangeness toward God and has recognized himself as God's
child. This merely intellectual recognition, however, seems to
me to represent only a part of the work of Jesus. And not only
so, but as a part is seen imperfectly always when taken thus
separately without the whole, the intellectual discovery itself is
not fully represented by such a statement. The phrase in the
Gospel according to John expresses the full thought more truly, —
" as many as received him, to them gave he the right to become
children of God." 2 The gospel of Jesus is not merely the pro-
clamation, "You are the sons of God," but rather the summons
to become the sons of God. Or if we accept his message as a
declaration it is a declaration of potentiality rather than of act-
uality; man is potentially the son of God.
1 Vorlesungenben uber die Christlichen Dogmengeschichte, Vol. HI, p. 565 f.
Die ChristLicke Lehre von der Versdhnung, p. 688 f.
2 John, i, 12.
CONSCIOUS LIFE COMPLETE IN JESUS 333
It is true that this potentiality represents an actuality. Man
could not be potentially a son of God, in the sense in which I am
using the term, unless he was actually a son of God. On the
one hand man must have that relation to God which makes the
potentiality real, there must be in him some germ of the divine
life; and on the other hand God must be conceived as willing to
receive man, and as occupying toward him a parental relation.
Yet these two factors, the germ of the higher life within, and
the waiting love of the divine life behind and above, only represent
the possibility by which man, through the development of the
principle within him, may enter upon the supreme life and claim
his inheritance. Liberalism in religion, like liberalism in politics,
often makes a profound mistake in resting in the declaration of
fact instead of going on to utter the summons to that which is
possible. The demagogue proclaims that all men are born free
and equal. But the real function of democracy is not to produce
in men this sense of equality or supremacy, but to arouse them
to the possibility that is before them. " It is possible for you,"
it tells them, "to accomplish a life that shall be the equal of any
life. You are called to the highest, and there is no external
obstacle that shall keep you from the highest." Democracy
should be a levelling upward and not a levelling downward. In
a similar way liberalism in religion does not fulfil its function
simply by the indiscriminate preaching of this absolute relation
between man and God. It must indeed recognize those two
factors of the germ of the highest life within and the divine father-
hood whose love extends to all. But this is incomplete, and the
result will be very incomplete, unless the soul is stimulated to
fulfil the potentiality that is involved, and to heed the Father's
call.
CHAPTER XXVII.
CHRISTIANITY AS THE ABSOLUTE RELIGION. — THE THREE IDEAS
OF THE REASON THE TEST OF ABSOLUTE RELIGION. CHRIS-
TIANITY AND UNITY. — CHRISTIANITY AND GOODNESS. — CHRIS-
TIANITY AND BEAUTY. — CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEEDS OF
THE UNDERSTANDING AND THE HEART. — THE TEACHING
OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. — CHRISTIANITY AND MODERN
THOUGHT.
Apart from all technical discussion, and considering the work
of Christ and the nature of Christianity in themselves, are
we to say that Christianity is the absolute religion? The
question presents itself under two aspects, one theoretical, the
other practical. Under the first of these I am going to offer
two propositions: first, that Christianity is a religion more per-
fect than any other that is known to us, and second, that as a
religion it can never be surpassed. In a certain sense the first
of these propositions is not essential to the thesis that Christianity
is the absolute religion. For we can conceive it possible that
this absolute religion might have presented itself under different
forms, starting from different centres, so that we should find in
various parts of the world a number of religions, each of which
should embody the absolute ideal of religion and each be as per-
fect as another, and thus it would be a matter of accident or choice
whether one form or another were accepted. These different
forms might coalesce, whether under a name already existing as
applied to one of them, or under some new name; or since the
religions were all at heart identical and were recognized as such,
the need of any common name might not be felt. This is all
conceivable. Yet as students of history we are obliged to recog-
nize the difference between the various religions, and to compare
THE TEST OF ABSOLUTE RELIGION 335
them with one another according to the degree of perfection or
imperfection that we find in them.
The question has been raised whether such comparisons do
not imply a certain provincialism in those who undertake them, —
whether the broader course is not simply to take the form of
religion most natural to us and make the best of it that we can.
It is true that there is a provincial way of judging others. But
we must recognize the fact that there is an absolute standard for
religion as there is for morality, and that because it is possible
to form a judgment from a provincial point of view it does not
follow that it is impossible for one to make his comparison by the
absolute standard. I may visit Paris and learn much, and have
my views greatly broadened; but it does not follow that I am to
regard the laxity of the ordinary Parisian attitude in regard to
the marriage relation as equally estimable with the more careful
regard in which that relation is held by certain other peoples.
The shrinking from emphasis, from the recognition of the real
perspective in things, is one of the failings of our time. If in
studying the various forms of religion we regard them simply
as so many manifestations of the religious feeling, we shall only
make a mush of the whole examination; we shall have lost the
delicacy and accuracy which belong to any true historical study.
For religions do differ among themselves ; they differ in the em-
phasis that is placed upon the various aspects of the religious life.
Yet it is true that we may easily be prejudiced in our judgment
of Christianity. For it is hard to subordinate our associations
with the forms of a religion into which we are born. Either we
may err from too great sympathy with those forms, or in the ef-
fort not to let such sympathy interfere with our judgment we may
fail to appreciate them at their full value; in the desire to stand
erect men sometimes bend backward. Any test, therefore, by
which we are to determine whether Christianity is absolute as com-
pared with other religions, must be objective, and the only ob-
jective test that we can use is the psychological test. The abso-
lute religion must satisfy the whole nature of man, — his under-
standing, his affections and his will. It must cover perfectly the
336 CHRISTIANITY AND UNITY
psychological scheme of life, the three ideas of the reason, unity,
goodness and beauty, just as without religion those psychologi-
cal elements could not obtain full and free manifestation. This
is the test which must be applied to Christianity. How far does
Christianity adapt itself to these psychological elements, these
fundamental facts of human nature ?
First of all, then, no religion can meet what is required in the
first idea of the reason which is not theoretically or practically
a monotheism. Now Christianity is monotheistic; its God is
one, and absolute; the three Persons of the Trinitarian Christian
are still one God. It may be said that in its earliest form Chris-
tianity did not recognize a unity, but rather a divided universe,
a dualism such as appears in the Mazdean religion. But if the
fundamental principle is found, we need not be disturbed if it
is not at once fully carried out, and the devil of Christianity was
a created being, and a being that was to be overcome. The unity
of God was to reinforce itself, on the one hand by love, as men
should voluntarily yield themselves, and on the other hand by
power, through the subjugation of all elements foreign to itself.
The closing words of the parable of the judgment between the
sheep and the goats ' may seem to contradict this. But we must
bear in mind both that it is a parable, and also that the eschato-
logical utterances attributed to Jesus reflect the current thought of
the time. Paul takes another view when he writes to the Romans
"that a hardening in part hath befallen Israel, until the fulness
of the Gentiles be come in; and so all Israel shall be saved."
There is a unity, however, more profound than the mere mono-
theism of a religion, the unity which consists in the interpenetration
of the finite by the infinite spirit. This mystical element which
is so essential to all deeper forms of religious life and thought is
central and fundamental in Christianity. It is found in the doc-
trine of the Holy Spirit, the assumption that a way is open between
the finite and the infinite by which the infinite life may become
one with the finite, and the finite, not only through obedience
but by interpenetration, may become one with the infinite. This
i Matthew, xxv, 46. 2 Romans, xi, 25, 26.
CHRISTIANITY AND GOODNESS 337
doctrine finds expression in Christianity from the first. It ap-
pears in such passages in the New Testament as the familiar
words of Paul on Mars Hill, "for in him we live, and move, and
have our being," * or those in the Epistle to the Ephesians, "one
God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in
all," 2 and again, in the First Epistle of John, "God is love; and
he that abideth in love abideth in God, and God abideth in him." 3
Christianity in its beginnings does not give a philosophy of the
world, but we find in it the elements which may expand into such
a philosophy. In the Mazdean belief there is no similar ele-
ment of mysticism. Brahmanism does recognize the unity of
the spirit, but it is to be attained not through manifestation in
the finite but by withdrawal from the finite. It is true that in
Christianity asceticism has at times laid stress upon withdrawal
from the world as helpful or necessary to the attainment of the
spiritual life, but this aspect of Christianity has been partial and
temporary. Self-denial is characteristic of Christianity, but it
is self-denial not for its own sake but as a means to a greater end.
We find unity again in still another form when we proceed to
ask how far the requirements of the second idea of the reason are
fulfilled in Christianity. For a fundamental characteristic of
Christianity is the absolute blending of religion and morality;
the religious ideal is the ethical ideal. Now a union between
religion and morality may be brought about by causing religion
to swallow up morality, so that a man is regarded as moral if he
fulfils the formal requirements of his church. Or religion may be
swallowed up in morality, and the effort to promote the good of
society held to be all that constitutes a man a religious person.
But in the coalescence of religion and morality in Christianity
neither sacrifices anything of its real nature. Both remain, not
as separate elements, but rather as different aspects of the same
thing. It is this which makes possible the larger view by which
religion may be regarded as including the whole of life. Not
that all of life is religious; it was not George Herbert's thought
that every one " who sweeps a room " is performing a religious act.
1 Acts, xvii, 28. 2 Ephesians, iv, 6. 3 / J0hn, iv, 16.
338 CHRISTIANITY AND GOODNESS
But the various relations of life which call for the activity of men
are all forms which may be filled with the religious content. They
are all instruments which the religious life may use. Morality
becomes glorified by religion, and religion is made concrete and
vital by morality. God is regarded as the absolutely good, and
the goodness of God is something that may be made the ideal of
human life, — "Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly
Father is perfect."1 It is said that the word "perfect" in this
passage is to be taken in a special sense, as applying simply to
the equal manifestation of love to all alike, but even with this
limitation we still have the divine set before us as the ideal of the
human.
The blending of the two elements appears conspicuously in the
life of Jesus, and in all his teaching. We find in Jesus, on the
one hand the loftiness of thought, the mystical sense, which is
so often associated with separation from the world, and on the
other hand a practicalness of life, a continuous relationship with
others. The two are not separated one from the other, but are
only different aspects of the same life. Of course one aspect may
be emphasized sometimes more than the other; Jesus may with-
draw to the mountain or the wilderness for prayer and commun-
ion. But this is no more than to say that any one who is engaged
in the activities of the world must pause, if only to take food and
sleep and refresh the bodily strength. The spirit as well as the
body must have its nutriment, and just as the pause in any busy
life makes no break in it but rather is the condition of its con-
tinued activity, so these pauses for spiritual refreshment in the
life of Jesus are only a condition necessary to its continuance.
We hear it said sometimes by those who emphasize the ethical
aspect of life that the Sermon on the Mount suffices for them, with
the implication that the Sermon on the Mount is simply ethical.
But in reality it is saturated with religion. There is hardly a
phrase that does not point to God. It is like a road that runs
along by the sea, on which every now and then, through open-
ings among the trees, we look out upon the ocean. "Blessed are
the pure in heart," — here is ethics; but Jesus adds, "for they
i Matthew, v, 48.
CHRISTIANITY AND GOODNESS 339
shall see God," and the precept is given its divine aspect. " Blessed
are the peacemakers," — yes, "for they shall be called sons of
God."
I have spoken of the two elements as blending. They blend
so completely that we cannot separate them. It has been brought
forward as a great discovery by some writers of comparatively
recent days that the lofty attributes ascribed to God are human
attributes, that men are worshipping in God simply that which
is most excellent in humanity, and that in serving God they are
serving only that which is best in the life of men. But the dis-
covery is not new. It dates back to Jesus himself. He set the
thought of the life of God as the ideal for the life of men, and
placed the service of God in the service of men. This is pre-
cisely the result which we should expect to find, if we assume a
community of nature between God and man. Morality under
this aspect receives its perfect development. Through this rela-
tion between morality and religion it is open to morality to tran-
scend itself and become love. Minute regulations of law and
obedience give place to an animating spirit. The individual
lives the life of righteousness not under compulsion or through
the sense of duty but from his own desire. Morality has ceased,
but only because it has been raised to a higher power. Goodness
has become "bonus et plus quam bonus."
Now if we compare other religions with Christianity in this
respect, we find either that forms, more or less arbitrary and
technical, take the place of the spiritual element, or if the forms
are less conspicuous the inspiring principle still is not present as
in Christianity. Thus the Chinese religion is wholly lacking in the
mystical element. The sublime thought of God which appears
in the Mazdean and Hebrew religions is in both shut in by a
complex ceremonial which binds the believer at every moment.
If the typical Buddhist were to attain his ideal the life of the
world would cease, whereas if all men were typical Christians
the life of the world would continue, growing better and better.
Buddhism is essentially the incarnation of pessimism. To the
Christian the good in civilization has nothing in it which Chris-
340 CHRISTIANITY AND GOODNESS
tianity cannot inspire yet further, and the evils of civilization per-
sist only because true Christianity is still so imperfectly practised.
As compared with other religions, then, Christianity presents
on the one hand greater freedom from external, restraining forms,
and on the other hand a greater intensity of spiritual life, — a
spiritual life which is at one with the ethical life. Yet precepts
for conduct are given in the New Testament, and is not the moral-
ity conveyed in them imperfect? Are the passive virtues which
they inculcate real? Are not peacemaking and long-suffering
and gentleness carried too far? Is not the charity of the New
Testament a wasteful almsgiving ? Nietzsche says that the Chris-
tian virtues are those of slaves, and that true virtue appears in
manliness and self-assertion. But the Jews were slaves, and
from the heart of Judaism came the teaching which found the
ideal of conduct in a slave's virtues. It was by the irony of his-
tory that the Jews cast out their own teacher.1 That Nietzsche
should write in this strain is not remarkable. But what is of
more interest to us is that there is a cult which follows him ; there
are many whose feeling he expresses. Furthermore, if we con-
sider these virtues in the abstract, such criticism is just. They
find their place only as they are related to something higher and
better than themselves. There are two elements in New Testa-
ment morality, on the one hand these passive virtues, and on the
other hand service. Taken apart from service the passive virt-
ues have not a high value, for if a man has only himself to care
for, he may as well assert himself. But when one's object in
life is the service of others that is inspired by love, self-assertion
becomes petty; one has something more important to do than to
stand up for little individual rights or to avenge little personal
insults. Thus the passive virtues find their proper background
in the larger interests of Christianity. The question as to charity
in the New Testament I shall consider a little later in another
connection.2
iJenseits von Gut und Bose. Der Wille zur Macht (Werke, Leipzig, 1901,
Vol. XV), pp. 105-159.
2 Page 350.
CHRISTIANITY AND BEAUTY 341
While goodness is thus supreme in Christianity, it is not the
only thing that is insisted upon. The whole nature is satisfied.
In the blending of the mystical, spiritual element with morality
the requirements of the third idea of the reason are fulfilled, and
we have the possibility of beauty. For beauty is the manifesta-
tion of the ideal in the real,1 and if the life of the world is made
the manifestation of the divine life, then it becomes beautiful. I
need not dwell here upon the recognition of beauty which appears
from time to time in the New Testament, — the reference of Jesus
to the lilies of the field, his use of the child's nature, in its spon-
taneousness and freedom, to symbolize the religious life. These
are after all only incidents. Beauty is fulfilled in Christianity
because through the presence of the Holy Spirit the ideal life,
the divine life, is manifested in the life of man. And if we turn
from the positive to the negative aspect, suffering is no longer a
discord in the harmony of life, according to the Christian view,
but is transmuted and becomes itself an element in that harmony;
the Cross is glorified. As some one has said, when men see in
some countenance an expression of peculiar beauty they ask,
" What has this life suffered ? " for it is the victory in and through
suffering which brings such transformation and illumination. It
is true that Christianity brought with it in its earlier develop-
ment a reaction against outward beauty, and that such beauty
was felt to be a temptation to men to sin. But this was only
natural. For the first battle of Christianity was an ethical and
spiritual one, and beauty ministered to pagan religions. Still
later the Christian turned his back upon the outward world alto-
gether, with all that belonged to it. But this separation of the
spiritual from the worldly had its value in emphasizing the su-
premacy of the spiritual life, so that when the spiritual and the
worldly should be again united, the spiritual should use the
worldly and not be used by it. When the time of that reunion
came, the Church called forth a glory of outward beauty in art
beyond all that ever before had been accomplished. For the
Greek ideal of beauty had over-emphasized the bodily life, but
Christian art embodied the highest ideal of the spiritual.
i Page 61.
342 CHRISTIANITY AND THE WHOLE NATURE
Apart, however, from all question of outward beauty no other
form of religion fulfils so completely the requirements of the
third idea of the reason. The recognition of beauty is not found
in the Mazdean religion. Buddhism recognizes the divine life
in the world, and the world as in a certain sense part of the divine
life; but the world is still unreal, a delusion, in which beauty
can have little place. The religion of the Greeks presents beauty
as its most characteristic element. Indeed, the Greek religion
emphasizes too soon the element of beauty. For goodness should
take precedence of beauty, and the ethical element in the religion
of the Greeks is at the minimum. But even so, beauty is less
fundamental in the Greek religion than in Christianity, for
instead of the sense of an absolute divine unity there is poly-
theism, and suffering remains unreconciled with the harmony
of life. It is true that among later minds a loftier religion is
revealed; but even with Plato the idea of God is less definitely
wrought out than the Christian conception, and there is far less
place for personal piety.
When I said that in Christianity the whole nature is satisfied,
I had first of all in mind the requirements of unity, goodness
and beauty. But Christianity also has a place for the under-
standing, the power of analysis or differentiation, as contrasted
with the reason, the power by which the unity of life is recognized.
For, unlike Brahmanism, it does not sink everything in the first
idea of the reason; the individual has his place. The infinite
spirit is in the finite, but every human life preserves its indi-
viduality as a single manifestation of the infinite life. The
needs of the heart, too, are met by Christianity with a fulness
which all admit. It is a religion of the love of God toward man.
The personal affections may sometimes be subordinated, as when
Jesus tells the disciples that "he that loveth father or mother
more than me is not worthy of me," 1 but only that larger rela-
tions may be emphasized. And in no other religion has the
hope of immortality so large a place, with all that such a hope
means for human affections.
I have considered thus far the first of the two propositions
i Matthew, x, 37.
CHRISTIANITY NOT TO BE SURPASSED 343
which I presented under the theoretical aspect of the question
whether Christianity is to be regarded as the absolute religion.
We turn now to the second proposition, that as a religion Chris-
tianity can never be surpassed. More hesitation may be felt
in accepting this second proposition. It may be said that we
are here putting a limit to progress. What right have we, it
may be asked, to assume that the point that has been reached
in Christianity is a final point? We admit the danger of such a
mistake, and we need to understand clearly what we mean when
we say that Christianity cannot be surpassed. I do not under-
stand this proposition as at all setting a limit to progress, for
we must all see both the necessity and the possibility of a measure-
less progress. I am only recognizing the nature of this progress.
That which cannot be surpassed is the nature of Christianity,
or, in other words, while the process by which its outline is to
be filled may go on indefinitely, the outline itself will remain.
In all branches of study we find something which we do not hesi-
tate to regard as fixed. Who expects that the law of gravitation
is ever to be superseded ? We may come to understand it better,
and the field of its application may be vastly widened, for we
have thus far applied it only to a little group of worlds, and here
is a whole universe before us ! But the most skeptical mind has
no doubt that if we could reach the farthest world, we should
still find the manifestation of this law. Yet who would main-
tain that in affirming its finality we were setting a limit to the
progress of science ? Rather, the fact that certain fixed points
have been reached is that which makes the progress of science
possible. And if this is true of science, why should we not expect
to find it true of the spiritual life as well? If we assume that
this proposition in regard to Christianity is true, then instead
of checking progress in religion either it or something akin to it
is needed to make religious progress possible. Besides, there is
this great difference between a physical law like that of Newton
and the principle of Christianity, that whereas the law of gravita-
tion is based only on induction, the principle of Christianity,
the principle on which I have rested this proposition, is based
344 CHRISTIANITY NOT TO BE SURPASSED
on a deductive process; it is the result of the analysis of the
human soul. For we have found it possible to analyze the factors
that enter into the spiritual life. We have learned what methods
of activity are open to the spirit. If, therefore, we have a form
of religion which satisfies these elements of the spiritual nature,
we may be very sure that until new elements are discovered such
a form of religion cannot be surpassed.
This does not imply that the world will always be religious.
The thought of man may drift away from religion. Of course,
if men were to give up the thought of God, they would be giving
up one of the fundamental conceptions of Christianity; a religion
of humanity would necessarily be quite different from Chris-
tianity. But in all such changes religion has become less intense.
Positivism, for instance, is less intense than Christianity. If
the world were to pass from Christianity to a religion of humanity,
it would be because it was passing out from the focus of religion.
The thought of God, the spiritual life which is in and over all
things, from which and through which and to which are all things,
is the culminating thought of religion, and any change in which
men pass away from this central position will be a lessening of
religion. Therefore it cannot be urged that men may advance
beyond Christianity, for such a movement would mean only a
lessened intensity in religion. At least this would be true so
long as man continued to be man. There is the a priori possi-
bility that man may develop new faculties, new ideas of the rea-
son, a new power that shall be as high above the reason as the
reason is above the understanding. But in such a case man
would cease to be man and become a new creation, and we have
already found reason to assume that man can never thus out-
grow himself or be outstripped upon the earth as he has out-
stripped all other creatures.1 We based our assumption on two
considerations. On the one hand we saw that since man is a
tool-using creature with all the powers of nature more and more
at his command, any new creation in order to surpass him physi-
cally must be swifter than steam or electricity, and stronger than
all the forces of nature that man can use. On the other hand
i Page 207.
CHRISTIANITY NOT TO BE SURPASSED 345
we found in man intellectually and spiritually the capacity for
infinite progress without change of nature; we found in mem-
ory the power of human thought to take up and preserve the
results of past achievement and make them the starting-point
for new achievement. Furthermore, so far as concerns any
need of new faculties, we have in man's nature as we have already
analyzed it, the simplicity of perception, the differentiation of
the understanding, the higher unity of the reason. This higher
unity passes through the three stages of truth, or that which is,
of goodness, or that which ought to be, and of beauty, or that
which is as it ought to be. We can conceive of no progress which
would not be related to these elements or principles, or which
would not be covered by them.
There are still certain other qualifications which must be
recognized. In saying that Christianity is the absolute religion,
we do not say that it is perfect. All that we have said is that it
presents the sphere, it lays down the limits, within which develop-
ment and progress are to take place, just as in the law of gravita-
tion are laid down the limits within which the study of the heavenly
bodies is to be pursued. Christianity is not perfect, but it con-
tains within itself the possibility of an infinite development, which
must, however, take place along the lines and in the direction
that are indicated by it. We do not even say that Christianity is
perfect as regards the laying down of its general principles. In
studying any religion we have to consider, on the one hand the
highest point that is reached in the statement of it, and on the
other hand its general drift. If these two coincide, if the general
drift of the religion is in the direction of the highest point that it
has reached, then we may consider this highest point truly repre-
sentative of the religion. If the two elements do not coincide,
if the general drift is toward a lower level than the highest point
that appears, then we are left in doubt. For the question arises
in such a case whether this highest point may not be only an
accident rather than representative of the essential spirit of the
religion as a whole. In estimating the character of Buddhism one
does not make much account of the element of trance, because it
346 THE NEW TESTAMENT TEACHING
is easily seen that this element is foreign to the general drift of
the religion, something which has been taken up into it from other
sources and for which it can hardly be considered responsible.
Similarly, the proposition that Christianity is the absolute religion
does not compel us to insist that every statement in the New
Testament, or everything that is put into the lips of Jesus, shall
be fully in accord with what we may recognize today as essential
to absolute religion, or that all the utterances of the New Testa-
ment shall stand upon the same level. It is sufficient for our
purpose that the general drift of the teaching of the New Testa-
ment and the highest point that is reached in it coincide, and
that these elements represent that which we must regard as the
absolute religion. So far as the general drift is concerned, there
is great danger in attempting to judge any teacher by isolated
passages; it is unsafe to insist that any teacher must always have
been absolutely true to his highest thought. In saying this I am
not suggesting difficulties as actually presented in Christianity,
but am only defending the position that we have taken against
such criticism as might be made upon it. But suppose a mathe-
matician to discover and announce some fundamental principle
in mathematics, and suppose that this same mathematician now
and then makes an error in the application of his principle; the
truth of the principle would remain, and it would be by his dis-
covery and announcement of the principle that he himself would
be judged. Galileo on occasion may have been for the moment
false to himself and to the truth which he had discovered, but
he could not take back what he had given to the world, and he
retains the glory of his great discovery. Furthermore, in the
case of the New Testament we have to recognize the looseness
and unscientific character of the record, and the difficulty in affirm-
ing in regard to any single passage taken by itself that the lan-
guage was actually that which was used by Jesus. Especially
in any statement which is in opposition to the general teaching
of Jesus would the possibility of mistake be greater. A blunder-
ing record would be more likely to contain statements below the
standard of the teacher than anything that was above that stand-
THE NEW TESTAMENT TEACHING 347
ard ; the phraseology of the common thought of the time would
be more likely to creep into the record than the utterances of a
loftier thought. We see in the Gospel narratives how often the
disciples of Jesus misunderstood him, and how many times he had
to explain and to remonstrate. I know that such a method of
criticism as this is loose and dangerous. All that I insist upon is
that so far as the general drift of the teaching of Jesus is con-
cerned there can be absolutely no doubt. Even if the authority
of the Gospels as a historical record were destroyed, and there re-
mained of the picture only the dust of the canvas, still the image
that would be left upon this dust is unmistakable; even Strauss
admits that the kernel of phrases in the Sermon on the Mount
must be genuine. 1 I am not affirming the results of negative
criticism. I am simply recognizing the possibility of all that
such criticism can accomplish. Granting, then, to negative
criticism its fullest possible swing, there can be no doubt either
in regard to the general teaching of Jesus or in regard to the type
of the life of Jesus.
Still another difficulty appears in the danger of misinterpreta-
tion. This danger is one into which the disciples, as I have just
said, fell repeatedly. It is a danger which is attendant upon the
interpretation of the thought of any speaker or writer, especially
when he makes use of figurative forms of expression to any extent.
In the study of Plato, for instance, how difficult it is to determine
in every case what is only a figure and what Plato intends to have
taken as literal fact. This difficulty has been continually a source
of error or uncertainty in getting at the meaning of the New
Testament. Thus when Jesus says, "This is my body," 2 does he
mean that the words shall be taken literally or figuratively ?
The Catholic replies "literally," the Protestant, "figuratively."
There are a number of other passages of which the interpreta-
tion is similarly doubtful. What meaning, for instance, is to be
given to the word "eternal" ? But I will not dwell longer upon
this. I will simply repeat that such difficulties do not affect
i The Life of Jesus, Trans, of M. Evans, Part II, Chap. VI.
2 Matthew, xxvi, 27.
348 THE NEW TESTAMENT TEACHING
the position that we have taken. There is no question as
to the general drift of the New Testament teaching, or
any doubt that it is in the direction of the highest point that
is attained.
Suppose, however, we are led to conclude that it is a mistake
to assume in Christianity a supernatural element and to ascribe
to Jesus a supernatural lordship, and yet find ourselves obliged
to recognize in the teaching of Jesus and in the New Testament
generally this assumption of the supernatural element. Suppose
that we have to ask ourselves which element is more important in
historical Christianity, the element of supernatural authority, or
the content, the truth of absolute religion, and whether it is pos-
sible to separate the two. These questions, with others of a
similar sort, are not for us to discuss at any length at present. I
refer to them only that I may ask how they would affect the
central position that we have taken in regard to Christianity
as the absolute religion. Now, whatever we may think in regard
to the supernatural element in the teaching of Jesus, we find
it always subordinated to the content of the teaching. Jesus him-
self is constantly pointing from the form to the content, and the
words, "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall
enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my
Father which is in heaven,"1 are representative of the aspect
in this respect of all his teaching. Whatever view we may take
of New Testament Christianity and the teaching of Jesus, we
should make a mistake if we emphasized the form instead of the
content, if we made the question of the supernatural element as
important as the substance of the teaching; and supposing that we
rejected the supernatural element, we should make a great mis-
take if we assumed that because this element had lost its hold
upon us, we must also give up Christianity itself. It seems to me
that this is brought out most strikingly in that difficult passage
in which Jesus is represented as declaring that every sin shall be
forgiven except the sin against the Spirit.2 Here the Son is dis-
tinctly subordinated to the Holy Spirit as that principle of spirit-
i Matthew, vii, 21. 2 Matthew, xii, 81-32.
CHRISTIANITY AND MODERN THOUGHT 349
ual union and fellowship in which is found the absolute content
of Christianity.
There is another point of view, however, from which the prop-
osition that Christianity is the absolute religion may be considered.
It may be urged that certain advances have been made by which
the nature of Christianity has been transformed, and that thus we
have reached a religion which may still call itself Christianity,
but which in reality is more complete than Christianity. Of these
advances, the first is theoretical and has to do with the nature of
our belief in God, involving as it does the relation of law to love.
The second is ethical, and involves the relation of political econ-
omy to charity. It is said that whereas the New Testament
recognizes the absoluteness of the divine love, science has taught
us to recognize only law, and not to expect longer any inter-
ference in the order of the universe ; and whereas Jesus taught an
absolute charity, science has so modified our view of our relation
to others that the charity of the New Testament is criticised as
promiscuous and wasteful and demoralizing. Now it seems to
me that in both cases we have in the teaching of Jesus that which
is essentially religious, and in the elements which constitute the
changes that have taken place that which is not absolutely relig-
ious. In both cases the changes have been simply in the forms
under which the religious principle manifests itself. For we may
have a most intense form of religion which recognizes the abso-
luteness of the divine love, with little thought of law or any form
of limitation, simply regarding God as one who loves his children
and watcbes over them, blessing or punishing them according to
their deserts and needs, and the principle of love in such a religion
remains unchanged when we come to consider it as working
within the limits or under the forms of law ; if we have the principle
of absolute love, with or without the addition of law, we have
religion. But in a world of law alone there would be no place
for religion except as there should be discovered behind the law,
and working in and through the law, the presence of divine love.
The recognition of law simply modifies the external form of relig-
ion and not its essential principles. The manner in which the
350 CHRISTIANITY AND MODERN THOUGHT
religion of the New Testament has taken possession of law is only
another illustration of what I have said of the infinite possibilities
of growth within the outlines of absolute religion. Furthermore
it is to be noticed that we find in the teachings of Jesus himself
at least the beginnings of the recognition of the law through which
the divine love manifests itself. "If it be possible," he is rep-
sented as praying, " let this cup pass away from me." * He rec-
ognizes a limit which his prayer may not transcend. "First the
blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear."2 In the method
which he here uses to illustrate the development of the spiritual
life is the recognition of order. The influence of his teaching in
the world was to be in accordance with this principle of gradual
growth. He had no expectation of a sudden transformation of
the world. Again, "the kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven."3
Here is the germ of the whole philosophy of history, in his percep-
tion that the true nature of his teaching would be almost lost from
sight, and yet would retain its power and by degrees slowly exert
its influence upon the world.
What I have said of the relation of law to love is no less true of
the relation of political economy to charity. Political economy
by itself has no ethical value whatever; it is only when it is ani-
mated by charity that it has ethical value. Charity asks, "How
can we best help men ? " With no knowledge of political economy
the answer is, "Take your money and give it to the poor." But
political economy says, "In that way you will only injure them;
the way to help men is to lead them to help themselves." Does the
different view, the different method, change at all the nature of
charity itself, the nature of love ? Does the mother who brings up
her child with wisest discipline love her child less than the mother
who allows her child to go unrestrained? Does not rather the
thoughtful, careful mother love the more truly of the two? In
all charity the fundamental principle is love, with the desire to
serve, and this desire to serve should also be a desire to find the
best way in which to serve. It is not a question of charity over
against the methods which science teaches us are wise, of love
i Matthew, sxvi, 39. 2 Mark, iv, 28. 3 Matthew, xiii, 33.
CHRISTIANITY AND MODERN THOUGHT 351
over against machinery. Just as the religion of the New Testa-
ment has taken possession of law, so the charity that Jesus taught
takes and uses the machinery of the present day. Here again we
have in the New Testament a glimpse of the modern view. In the
words " If any will not work, neither let him eat," 1 there is the
spirit of modern political economy, however isolated at the time.2
1 II Thessalonians, iii, 10.
2 C. C. Everett, Essays Theological and Literary, "The Historic and the Ideal
Christ."
CHAPTER XXVIII.
CHRISTIANITY AS THE ABSOLUTE RELIGION: THE PRACTICAL AS-
PECT.— THE PRECEPTS OF CHRISTIANITY GENERAL AND INTU-
ITIONAL. THE TEACHING OF CHRISTIANITY EMBODIED IN
THE PERSONALITY OF JESUS: THE LIFE OF JESUS AN IDEAL
FOR ALL LIVES: HIS SINLESSNESS: THE CHARACTER OF HIS
LIFE UNIVERSAL. — THE INSTITUTION OF THE CHURCH.
I pass now to the practical aspect of the question whether
Christianity is the absolute religion. I shall consider its power
as a historical religion, controlling the world as well as the indi-
vidual, and I shall examine this power first in the form of the
teachings of Christianity, second in the life and personality of
its founder, and finally in the institution of the Church. First,
then, as regards its teachings, it is easy to see that if Christianity
is to be regarded as a universal religion the form of its original
announcement must be of a nature to adapt it to this use. We
find this to be the case both as regards the teaching of the New
Testament in general and especially as regards the teaching of
Jesus. The precepts are general in their form, and intuitional
in their substance. Even the special character of the occasions
upon which the teaching of Jesus, and to a large extent the teach-
ing of the New Testament generally, is based, gives rise as a rule
to universal principles. The teaching does not content itself
with directing what shall be done in any particular case. It is
a wonderful characteristic, not only of the New Testament but
to a greater or less degree of the whole Bible, that no matter how
trivial the starting-point of the immediate and special theme may
seem to be, we soon pass out into the field of the universal. We
find great ideas opening before us that are capable of universal
application.
THE LIFE OF JESUS AN IDEAL 353
Furthermore, not only is the teaching general, but it is intui-
tional rather than argumentative. Jesus does sometimes use
argument, but its form is simply that of an appeal to the intui-
tion. "What man is there of you," he asks, "who, if his son
shall ask him for a loaf, will give him a stone ? ... If ye, then,
being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how
much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things
to them that ask him ? " 1 The form of reasoning is almost always
less permanent than the results of reasoning. For argument is
usually only the means of justifying that which is seen by intui-
tion to be the truth, and since it depends for its starting-point
upon the peculiarities of the individual and his environment, it
must vary from age to age. Except in the most abstract sciences
a different route must be taken today, in order to arrive at cer-
tain results, from the route travelled in former years. The intel-
lectual habit changes, and so any form of reasoning soon becomes
old-fashioned. But intuition endures. The poetry of Greece is
fresh today. So is the idealism of Plato, although his machin-
ery has lost much of its power. The arguments of Paul have
bewildered the world quite as much as they have instructed it,
whereas the intuitive passages in his letters, such as the thirteenth
chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, are as living today
as when they were first written. The preponderance, therefore,
of the intuitional utterance of truth in the New Testament teach-
ing goes far to establish its universal character.
But if the power of Christianity is seen in the form of its earliest
teaching, it appears still more in the embodiment of this teaching
in the personality of Jesus. The world is always more interested
in persons than in systems, and in other ways also the embodi-
ment of an ideal in a personality carries with it certain advan-
tages. The various aspects of an ideal which are often so dif-
ficult to describe, and between which it is sometimes not easy
to preserve a balance, are united vitally when embodied in a single
life, and sympathy with the personality as a whole leads where
reason would have failed. Thus in the teaching of Jesus the in-
junction to meekness and the denunciation of the Pharisees might
i Matthew, vii, 9-11.
354 THE LIFE OF JESUS AN IDEAL
seem irreconcilable apart from his personality. But as it is,
they are simply two poles of a single nature, and neither stands
alone. Besides this, with the embodiment of the teaching in a
life, there enters the power of love, the sense of personal relation
and of loyalty.
But just what place does Jesus actually fill ? First, then, his
life furnishes an ideal for all lives. In saying this I do not mean
to affirm the sinlessness of Jesus. It does not concern our pres-
ent purpose either to affirm or to deny it. Our present aim is
not theoretical but practical. A rule is given us that we may
measure with it and draw our line by it. We do not examine it
under a microscope to see whether its edge is rough or not. And
for a life we have no microscope. If the question as to the sin-
lessness of Jesus is raised, we are forced to recognize how very
little we know about his life. One or two statements, which
perhaps are to be regarded as more or less legendary, about his
childhood, and then a few great utterances, a very few of his in-
terviews with the world about him, and then the account of his
death, — how little it all is! The four Gospels to some extent
repeat the same story, and how brief it is and at the same time
how diffused ! Certainly the story does not afford ground to
affirm the sinlessness of Jesus. In what is recorded we may
indeed find no sin, but we have to remember how very little is
recorded. The incidents which have troubled the world at all in
regard to this aspect of the life of Jesus are for the most part
superficial, and either have been misunderstood or else may be
regarded as at least to some extent legendary. Perhaps the most
troublesome passage is the account of the cursing of the fig tree,
a story which may have arisen from a parable.1 Another pas-
sage is the story of how he drove the traders from the Temple.2
If, however, the authority of Meyer is to be trusted, it was only
the sheep and oxen that were driven out, while he spoke to those
who sold doves. As regards the indignant utterances against
i Matthew, xxi, 19; Mark, xi, 12-14, 20-24; Luke, xxi, 29-33.
2 Matthew, xxi, 12; Mark, xi, 15; Luke, xix, 45.
THE LIFE OF JESUS AN IDEAL 355
the scribes and Pharisees, so far from being a cloud upon the char-
acter of Jesus we may feel that they are characteristic of one of
the most glorious aspects of it. For a moral character that is
incapable of ethical wrath is imperfect. Jesus meets injustice
toward himself with absolute gentleness and meekness and for-
giveness, but harshness and injustice toward the humble of this
world call out in him a holy indignation which we cannot too
much admire.
When all is said, however, the belief that anyone may have in
the absolute sinlessness of his life must be a matter of faith rather
than of demonstration. It must be based upon general principles
rather than upon the specific details that are presented to us.
Thus the belief in the absolute divinity of Jesus involves the
belief in his sinlessness, whereas a belief in his entire humanity
affords less ground for any dogmatic affirmation in regard to it.
It is true that we find in the New Testament the statement that
he was " in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." x
But it would be a mistake to regard this and similar passages as
the utterance of anything like dogma. The writer of the Epistle
to the Hebrews may have had in mind simply the thought that
Jesus was subject to the temptations to which all men are sub-
ject and that he withstood them. On the other hand it would
be equally a mistake to consider the reply of Jesus to the young
lawyer, " why callest thou me good ? none is good save one,
even God," 2 as involving dogma in the opposite direction. Rather
an utterance like this may perhaps raise our conception of the
character of Jesus to a greater height than if he had claimed for
himself absolute goodness. No, our answer to this question will
depend, as I have said, upon general principles. It will depend
largely upon our view of the nature of Christ, and it will depend
also upon our theory in regard to sin. If we believe that sin is
inherent in all life except the Infinite Life, then unless we regard
Jesus as himself the Infinite Life, we should find sin in him. On
the other hand if we regard sin as the failure to fulfil the calling
that is impressed upon one's nature, then we should find in him
1 Hebrews, iv, 15. 2 Mark, x, 18.
^
356 THE LIFE OF JESUS AN IDEAL
no sin, for he met the summons which called him, and fulfilled
the duty that was laid upon him. Here, as elsewhere in regard
to matters that are beyond the reach of positive knowledge, I
will not venture a statement. All that I wish to say is that when
I speak of the life of Jesus as furnishing an ideal to which all lives
may seek to conform, I do not want to have this proposition
encumbered by such questions as whether his character was or was
not without any trace of sin. Questions of this kind have been
far too prominent in the study of the life and work of Jesus. They
have arisen, on all sides, out of a mistaken emphasis. Jesus
comes to bring the world salvation, and the world begins at once
to ask what he is, and what is his rank, and so on. When we
consider what it is that he came to do, such questions are in com-
parison frivolous. Two questions only in regard to him are of
prime importance. First, of what kind is the authority with
which he spoke? what is behind him? of what is his life the
manifestation? And second, what is the special help that he
brings to us ? The question is not, what honor is to be paid to
Jesus, but what is the service which he came to render. For the
highest honor, and the only honor which he would desire, is, so
far as we are concerned, obedience, and so far as regards him-
self, the power to serve.
Not that all these other questions are to be ruled out altogether.
The question, for instance, as to the honor that is to be paid to
Jesus is most interesting when subordinated to these questions
of first importance. The difficulty is that the questions which
should have been kept secondary too often have been made pri-
mary, and the strife, such as that in regard to the duty or the
humanity of Jesus, has obscured the great questions which deal
with his absolute relations and with the practical aspect of his
life. If we had really reached his own point of view, the ques-
tion as to the honor and rank that belong to him and the question
as to the power of service that was in him would flow together,
and the real honor that belongs to him would be found, as I have
just suggested, in the nature of his service to man. "Whosoever
would be first among you, shall be servant of all."1 That was
1 Mark, x, 43, 44.
THE LIFE OF JESUS AN IDEAL 357
the rule which he bade his disciples apply to one another, and
it is the rule which he would apply to himself. The world has
been slowly growing to recognize the divinity of service. No
doubt we fail as yet to realize its meaning profoundly in our
hearts, but its phraseology has become easy to us, and we per-
ceive, intellectually at least, the absolute truth that the only real
glory in the world and the only divinity that can be manifested
in the world are the glory and the divinity of loving, self-forgetful
service.
The power of the life of Jesus as an ideal rests in part upon
the fact that like his teaching the character of his life was uni-
versal. We often lament that we cannot form a more distinct
picture of his life in its details. But I am inclined to think that
for the success of his work it is better so. For the very fact that
the details are so obscure only forces into more distinct relief the
universal elements and makes them easier of general application.
We do not have to disentangle the great utterances and acts of
Jesus from a mass of special occasions and special aims. They
stand out already disentangled and clear, in all the grandeur of
their universality, and with all the practicalness that arises from
universality, and thus we have in the story of the life of Jesus
the picture of absolute self-sacrifice, with just enough detail to
make that sacrifice vivid and impressive, but with not so much as
to give it a particular or individual aspect. The cross, as the
symbol of the life and death of Christ, becomes a universal symbol.
I have spoken of the difficulty in preserving the balance be-
tween the various aspects of an ideal. If we try to make a state-
ment in regard to the Christian life in which its qualities shall
be balanced one over against another, what a difficult task it is!
In fact we cannot balance the Christian qualities. We have to
say simply that there must be enough of gentleness and enough
of firmness, enough of love and enough of condemnation, enough
of contemplation and enough of activity, enough of devotion and
enough of practicalness, and so on. The difficulty is one which
appears in connection with all moral precepts. Virtue, we are
told, is a mean, it is a matter of proportion. But proportion is
358 THE LIFE OF JESUS AN IDEAL
something which cannot be accurately defined beforehand. When
we fully appreciate this difficulty in defining qualities, we realize
what power there may be in this respect in an embodiment of the
ideal of the Christian life in which the various qualities blend in a
perfect unity, an embodiment in which we can find an example
of that which we could not have reached through any process of
a priori reasoning. When we ask ourselves what this ideal means
in general, we reply that it means spirituality as against material-
ism, love as against selfishness. It means the embodiment of a
reasonable self-sacrifice. It would be a happy thing if the term
"Christianity" could be used in relation to this ideal. A man
doubts whether he is a Christian or not, and we doubt with him.
But true Christianity is simply conformity to this ideal. How-
ever confidently a man may apply the term "Christian" to him-
self in relation to the dogmatic statements which have served so
largely to give content to the term, we can understand with what
hesitation he would use the term of his own life in relation to this
sublime ideal. But we recognize the fitness of the life of Jesus
to become such an ideal. So far as we can know it and under-
stand it, not only does it conform perfectly to our highest thought
but it has been to a great extent the source from which our high-
est thought has sprung.
There is still another point of view from which we may regard
the inspiration that comes from an ideal. A soldier may fight
well without a standard, but he will fight better with one. Men
need some outward symbol of that to which they devote them-
selves. This symbol may be nothing in itself, but even so we know
what its power may be, — we know what the power of the Roman
eagles was. Now in the standard which Christianity has adopted,
the standard of the cross, we have not a mere arbitrary symbol
but one which actually embodies that for which the Christian is
striving. The life of Jesus is not only formally but really the
standard of the Christian. This would be true even if we did not
believe the story of his life. The picture that is drawn for us would
still give the ideal of the Christian life, together with the power
that flows from it. But new power is added when we consider
THE LIFE OF JESUS AN IDEAL 359
that this life is not merely a picture but a reality, that it was
actually lived upon the earth, and that the thought of Jesus
represents not only the ideal of the true life but an ideal which
has been at least practically fulfilled. The attraction of a per-
sonality in which the highest thought and faith are thus em-
bodied will naturally affect men more or less powerfully according
to the different nature of different minds, and perhaps also accord-
ing to the view that one holds in regard to the nature of Jesus.
If one believes that Christ is very God, the object of absolute
worship, however much we may differ from his view, we must
still recognize the fact that the worship which is thus offered is
real; it is a worship brought to that which is really above the in-
dividual who brings it, and it is the power of the real life of Jesus
that is worshipped. Again, one may take a somewhat different
view, and instead of emphasizing the worshipful aspect of the
nature of Jesus, may dwell rather upon the thought of his sym-
pathetic presence as still in living relation with his Church. He
may think thus of the disciple as still in personal relation with
his Master, so that as his love goes out personally to the living
personality of Jesus, so the love of Jesus flows back personally
to him, and the spiritual presence of Jesus is felt by the dis-
ciple as a living reality in all the crises of his life. Here we
have in what is perhaps its most intense form the power that
may come from the embodiment of the Christian ideal in the
personality of Jesus. Or, again, one may have simply a rever-
ential memory and love, as toward a life which has been lived
upon the earth, but which, although one may believe that it still
exists, is now felt to be less nearly and personally related to the
individual. As one looks back in this way, he realizes freshly the
beauty of the presence of Jesus upon the earth, and the greatness
of the blessings that have flowed from him. Whatever, then, the
view we take of the nature of Jesus, in every case we find this
power in his personality and in the fact that his life is the em-
bodiment of the highest teaching.
Here, however, a question arises. May there not be other lives
as good as the life of Jesus ? and if there is this possibility, why
360 THE LIFE OF JESUS AN IDEAL
exalt his life as thus absolutely pre-eminent ? This question is of
a sort to which I have been obliged to refer already a number
of times, questions which propose theoretical difficulties in the
way of our most satisfactory results. We have to consider them in
order to see what remains if we grant them their fullest possible
sweep. In this case the position that we have taken does not
require us to determine by any a priori reasoning whether there are
now or can be in the future lives as good as the life of Jesus. The
historical view is all that here concerns us. From the historical
standpoint we can say with confidence that no life and personality
can ever take the place of the personality and life of Jesus. For
if we have in Christianity the highest possible religious teaching,
then the beginning of Christianity will always have a central place
in the life of the world, and the founder of Christianity will fill a
place in the hearts and lives of men such as can never be filled by
any one else. We tend always to associate the teaching of any in-
dividual with his personality whenever any ground is offered for
such association. How easily the people of a parish think of their
minister as good above all others in the community! In reality
there may be many who are as good as he, or better; but the people
are so accustomed to hear him utter lofty thoughts, and his life
so far as they can know it appears to be so good, that the fact that
he is the one to utter great truths leads them to regard his life as
in some special manner representative of them. Emerson may
not have been any more truly independent and self-reliant than
many of his neighbors; but because individuality was the central
principle of Emerson's thought, and his presentation of it made
an epoch in many lives, and because his life sufficiently conformed
to what he taught, the very thought of him has come to be asso-
ciated with the ideal that he had in mind. History is full of similar
instances. Now if religion and morality are the most important,
the most essential elements of life, then he who has done most to
establish the highest form of both has a place which must always
remain the highest, and in Jesus we have the most authoritative
and most central utterance of the highest truth, associated with a
life of complete self-sacrifice and devotion embodying the spirit
THE INSTITUTION OF THE CHURCH 361
of his teaching. Of course there is a certain sense in which every
life is important, and the function of one as essential as the func-
tion of another; in a certain sense the private soldier is as neces-
sary as the general, and the hod-carrier as necessary as the archi-
tect. Yet in all relations the highest position is given to the most
central and most commanding figure, and whatever theories we
may entertain in regard to the comparative excellence of other
lives, the position of Jesus historically will remain central and
supreme, for the reason that his leadership rests simply on the
fact that he actually leads. Here, as at other points in the ex-
amination that we have been making, I have purposely brought
down our assumptions to a minimum in order that we may see
what remains from the more limited point of view. In proportion
as any may find it possible to raise their assumptions above this
minimum, all that I have said will only become more emphatic.
It remains emphatic, even with the lowest assumptions that are
justified by historical truth.
We have seen that the element of a life which is the incarna-
tion of the spirit of the religion, and which has been the medium
through which has come the central utterance of its teachings, is
a necessity to the absolute religion. This element Christianity
possesses in common with Buddhism. But there is this difference,
that whereas the life of Jesus is the embodiment of his teaching,
the life of Buddha, in so far as it represents the element of ser-
vice without hope of gain, goes far beyond that which is required
by his teachings. The life of Buddha, however, like his teach-
ings, is deficient both as regards the purely religious element
and also in the direction of a healthy relation with the world.
For Buddha taught the reality of no divine being higher than
man, and he summoned his followers to a life of seclusion sup-
ported by the alms of others.
When we turn to the third factor in the power of Christianity,
the institution of the Church, we have to recognize the embodi-
ment of the early teaching in the life of Jesus as the vital element
in the history of the Church from the beginning. We are apt to
dwell chiefly upon the more formal, external manifestations of the
362 THE INSTITUTION OF THE CHURCH
life of the Church, in the proceedings of councils and in the doings
of bishops and popes and kings. All these represent the points
at which the Church has come in contact with the world and has
been invaded by it, and naturally enough this outward history has
been full of worldliness and pride and hypocrisy and persecution.
But we must not forget that behind and beneath these external
manifestations, these official lives have been the lives of the
countless men and women who after all have really constituted the
Church and who to greater or less extent have all been inspired
by the teachings and the life of Jesus. When we seek to account
for the influence which the Church has had in moulding institu-
tions and shaping civilizations, we are not to look at the external
forms; we are to see the power of the Christian life and teach-
ing working silently through all like the leaven hid in the
three measures of meal. It shows the wonderful vitality and
recuperative power of Christianity that these inner, spiritual
forces should have held their own to such a large extent in the
midst of all the corruption that surrounded them, and should
at last have cast it off and emerged in something of their orig-
inal purity.
The fact that the Church is an institution is no doubt the source
of much of the corruption that has accompanied it. For if it
were not an institution worldliness would have found little room;
the worldliness has entered through the struggles of those who
had charge of the institution to give it supremacy from the
worldly point of view. Yet if the Church had possessed no
organization, we may question whether the teachings of Jesus
would have accomplished anything like the results that have been
actually achieved. If the institutional aspect of the Church has
opened the way for many of the imperfections which have been
the reproach of Christianity, it has been at the same time a great
power for the spread of Christian faith. In all the great religions
of the world we have to recognize the power that there is in some
sort of organization. There is always the danger that the organ-
ization may overpower the inner spirit, but this is a danger which
belongs to life. You may remember the choice which, according
THE INSTITUTION OF THE CHURCH 363
to the Mazdean story, was offered to the Fravashis. They were
asked whether they would live in peace and quiet as spirits, or
would enter bodies and share in the conflict with the world and
suffer from all the ills that might result, in the hope of contributing
toward the triumph of the powers of good; and they decided to
enter bodies, and run the risk of all the imperfection and suffering
incidental to them, that so they might have part in the great
struggle of life. We may imagine that a choice like this is offered
to the spirit that is to enter into one or another of the religions of
the world, — that Christianity, for instance, was asked, "Will
you remain pure but to a large extent powerless, or will you take
to yourself a body, with all the dangers and imperfections that
may attend it, that thereby you may become a more efficient in-
strument in overcoming the powers of ignorance and sin?" We
should feel sure that the decision would have been the same as
that of the Fravashis. The teachings of Socrates have been an
inspiration to many minds, but in the absence of any organiza-
tion to cherish them and spread them, they have had comparatively
little general influence upon the history of the world. It is true
that various philosophers have had their schools, but their pur-
pose has been mainly to furnish opportunity for intellectual dis-
cipline. The great religions have profited by the power that
organization brings, and in the case of Christianity the power of
organization is added to the power of those other elements that
are essential to the absolute religion.
But if there is to be an organization, it must be truly an organ-
ization; it must be an organism, it must have organs; there
must be some form. The very simple rites which Christianity
adopted have no doubt been the source of much of that external
element which follows upon organization. As we look back, it
seems as though the early Church, whose outward form was at
first so simple, had by a sort of instinct gathered itself into a
firmer and more complete organization, and taken on a more
earthly form, that thus it might have strength to press through the
difficulties with which it had to contend. I shall find occasion
later to speak of the rites of the Church in some detail. I have
364 THE INSTITUTION OF THE CHURCH
referred to them here only to emphasize the gain that has come to
Christianity through the possession of these forms.
The question may arise at this point whether there is not a
difference between an absolute religion and the absolute religion.
Is it not possible that another religion may be developed indepen-
dently which shall rival Christianity in the world, if it does not
supplant it ? But where is such a religion to come from ? We
cannot look to the barbarian world for its discovery any more
than we should expect from the barbarian world the discovery of
the law of gravitation; and when we turn to the world of civili-
zation there is no community within it which has not already
some knowledge of Christianity, so that it becomes increasingly
difficult to determine how far this or that development in religion
may be the result of the influence of Christianity. Thus we
find Hindu teachers who do not call themselves Christians but
yet teach a doctrine which is an approach to Christianity.
There is today a convergence of the world in regard to re-
ligion, a nearer approach to a common sympathy. No doubt
other forms of religion may retain their names at the same time
that they appropriate much of the spirit of Christianity. But
the position of Christianity as central cannot be relinquished.
Its name may not be assumed, but its power must be recog-
nized everywhere.
CHAPTER XXIX.
THE DIVINE APPOINTMENT OF JESUS. — HIS DIVINITY. — MIRACLES:
THEIR A PRIORI POSSIBILITY OR IMPOSSIBILITY. — THE VALUE
OF miracles: THE value attributed to them in the
new testament; their value in themselves. — THE
QUESTION AS TO THE ACTUAL OCCURRENCE OF THE NEW
TESTAMENT MIRACLES.
There are certain special questions in regard to Jesus Christ
and Christianity which have entered largely into theological dis-
cussion. The first of these concerns the divine appointment of
Jesus. Was he divinely appointed to his work ? Hase, in the
beginning of his Geschichte Jesu recognizes three elements as
entering into every individual life, — the divine purpose in the life,
the free action of the individual by which he conforms more or
less perfectly to this purpose, and the environment which is
acted upon by the individual and in turn reacts upon his activity.
These are elements which anyone who believes in a divine provi-
dence or a teleological principle in the world, must recognize as
entering into every life. Every life has its purpose, and, if we
accept any thought of a guiding spiritual principle, its divine pur-
pose. But how are we to know what this purpose is ? Theo-
logians have sometimes made the mistake of attempting as it
were to enter into the divine councils, determining what must have
been decided in them, and then discovering in the world the
actualization of this decision. It is impossible to do this. We
can know what the divine purpose is only as we find it mani-
fested in the world, or, in other words, as we bring together all
the indications that we perceive of such manifestation both in the
world without and in the world within, — the high ideas and the
lofty aspirations which we consider most divine, whether in
366 THE DIVINE APPOINTMENT OF JESUS
the inner or in the outer life. That is, we learn the divine
purpose from the divine accomplishment, recognizing that this
result must be modified somewhat by our own self-consciousness.
In considering the divine accomplishments, however, we have
to distinguish between those elements which belong to the ideal
world, and those which are foreign to it and opposed to it. We
may consider all lives as in a certain sense instruments of the
divine purpose, and yet recognize that they accomplish the divine
work more or less completely according as they conform more
or less closely to the ideal standard.
Now if we recognize the presence of a divine purpose in any
single aspect of the life of the world we must recognize it here
in this field of religion and morality which we are now considering.
Here in the teaching and the life of Jesus we reach a point at
which the highest truth in regard to God and man not only finds
utterance, but is embodied in such a form as to possess the greatest
possible working power. If there is a guiding providence in
the world at all, it must certainly be recognized in this great and
central moment in the world's history. Or if we prefer to speak
less theologically, then we must recognize in the life and teaching
of Jesus the point of completion toward which that teleological
principle which has been working all through the history of the
world has tended from the first. Almost anything else we might
consider accidental, but when in the working of the teleological
principle a great result like this emerges, we cannot find in it
an accident. In the work of the sculptor the grain or the color
of the marble may be accidental, it may be an accident that he
is working with this or that special tool; but it is not accident
when the form which the sculptor is trying to portray begins to
show itself.
It may be asked why we should insist upon this here in the
field of religion more than anywhere else. All the other highest
results of thought and life are also embodied in some move-
ment, like the art of Greece or the law of Rome. Why emphasize
this movement among all the rest? Why not recognize the
presence of the divine purpose equally in other great discoverers ?'
THE DIVINE APPOINTMENT OF JESUS 367
in the masters of science and literature? in Dante? in Shake-
speare ? in Euclid ? But geometry can be studied equally well
with or without a sense of the divine appointment of Euclid. It
is a different matter when the teacher in question is a teacher
of religion, the relation of man to God and of God to man. It is
of greater interest to know whether the message of such a teacher
comes from God or not. Jesus teaches the presence of a loving
Father. It is essential to our thought of such a Father that
he should in some way manifest himself to his children; the
loving God must be the self-manifesting God. If we imagine
a child who has always supposed himself to be an orphan and
to whom there comes a messenger telling him that he is not an
orphan, that he has a father whose thought and care for him are
constant, one of the first questions that we should expect from
the child would be, " Did he send you ? " If the child found
that the father was taking no measures to bring the child into
actual relations with himself, the child would be apt to think
that the messenger either was without authority or had greatly
exaggerated the love of which he spoke. The teaching of Jesus,
therefore, requires the person of Jesus. His own relation to
God is an essential part of his teaching, and if his life has no
such relation to the infinite life, his teaching loses the very heart
of its significance. The various religions of the world represent
not only the efforts of men to reach God but also the self-mani-
festation of God to men. All religions show these two aspects
of the movement of the spiritual life. In all God reveals him-
self to man according as man is able to receive the revelation,
and the difference in this respect between other religions and
Christianity is a difference in degree. In Christianity the two
movements, the movement from man to God and the movement
from God to man, appear in a completeness that is found nowhere
else. The aspiration and striving of the individual soul toward
God open the life of man to receive the fullest possible manifes-
tation of the divine presence.
How are we to measure the position of Jesus in the world?
We have to recognize the fact that he occupies the highest place
368 THE DIVINITY OF JESUS
in history. In saying this we assume that the religious and
moral needs of the soul are the highest needs in the world, and
that the work of satisfying these needs is the highest that can be
placed in the hands of anyone. We recognize the importance
of any and all work for the well-being of man, but the chief
value of all other work is after all as a means to the accomplish-
ment of this highest task. For all other work has to do with
the maintenance of life, with comfort, with ease of communica-
tion, and so on, but man lives in order that he may fulfil his true
end, and that end is spiritual. The world of mechanical inven-
tions is simply the stage upon which the highest life may be lived,
and we can feel only a certain contempt for the machinery of
life if it is unaccompanied by life itself; we can understand Emer-
son's criticism upon the modern world of conveniences when he
says that
"Things are in the saddle
And ride mankind."
If the life of Jesus, therefore, marks the beginning for the world
of the highest spiritual consciousness, if through his teaching and
the embodiment of that teaching in his life men are enabled to
enter into the highest relation with God, then we must recog-
nize his work and his position in the world as the highest. If
his name has become the symbol of the greatest realities of life,
then from this point of view at least we need not hesitate to speak
of his name as " above every name." 2
Is Jesus to be considered divine? In answering this question
we are embarrassed by the extremely different senses in which
the word may be used. We hesitate to use it at all for fear that
we may be misunderstood in that in which we would have our
meaning most clear. If we say that Jesus is divine, we may be
understood to mean that he was the absolute God come down
to earth. Yet to say that he is not divine would invite a mis-
understanding more disastrous than the first. For the question
in the first case concerns personal relations, and however great
1 Ode, inscribed to W. H. Channing. 2 Philippians, ii, 9.
THE DIVINITY OF JESUS 369
the importance that we may attach to the right adjustment of the
relations between divine and human personalities, certainly the
divine substance, that which is in itself divine, is more important
still. The person who says that he does not believe in God but
yet devotes his life to righteousness, is surely nearer to God than
one who says, "Yes, I believe in God," but shows no concern
for that which is in itself divine. Therefore the denial of the
divineness of Jesus involves a greater peril than any misappre-
hension that may arise from the affirmation of it. To define our
use of the term, however, more closely, we may speak of Jesus
as divine if we mean by divinity nothing that is foreign to human-
ity. We have recognized a divine principle as working in the
world from the beginning. We have spoken of it as derived
from the life of God. Our method of speech is clumsy, but the
inadequacy of our terms must not lead us to lose sight of the
fact. This divine principle in the world manifests itself more
and more until at last it comes to the full consciousness of itself
in the life and teaching of Jesus. It is in this derivative sense
that Jesus may be regarded as divine. We may use the term
"divine" freely in regard to him so far as we understand it as
implying the relation of sonship. His divinity is not that of one
who has come down from above; it is that of the life in which
the divine element that has been working in the world comes at
last to its consummation and reaches the point at which the doors
open between the lower and the higher, so that the divine life
flows freely downward and the human life upward, and the
divine and the human mingle. Jesus identifies himself with his
followers; "my Father and your Father," the writer of the
Gospel according to John represents him as saying, "and my
God and your God," J and again, " that they also may be in us,
even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee."2 In this sense
we may say that Jesus is divine through the very perfection of
his humanity, for the ideal of human nature is the fulfilment
in it of the divine element.
The "double nature" of Christ is often spoken of. One of
1 John, xx, 17. 2 John, xvii, 21.
370 THE DIVINITY OF JESUS
the great difficulties with theologians in discussing the doctrine
of the incarnation has been to discover the point of union between
the divine and the human. The incarnation in Christ was de-
signed to bring them together. But the division remained as
real, the two elements were still as distinct and separate, in the
God-man, as they had been in the world before; the solvent had
not been found. The view that we have taken, however, fur-
nishes the solvent. There is a divine element in humanity which
only needs fulness of development and freedom of manifestation
to become wholly conscious of itself. The human and the divine
can blend because they are not foreign to each other. From
this point of view that which distinguishes Jesus from others is
the singleness of his nature and not its twofold character. Rather
it is we who have the double nature. If we recognize the indi-
vidual and the universal as the two elements that enter into life,
it is in ourselves that they are found in collision, standing each
over against the other; it is in our lives that the contest is carried
on which Paul pictures so vividly, between the law of God after
the inward man and the law that is in the members.1 In so far
as Jesus transcends ordinary humanity it is by the singleness of
his nature, by the fact that in him these two elements, hitherto
kept apart only by the imperfection of the development of human
life, have at last come together. Enough trace of them remains
in him for us to recognize their presence, and to see that the
reconciliation between them is not mechanical but spiritual and
voluntary; enough of the lower element is left to surrender itself
freely to the higher. "If it be possible, let this cup pass away
from me: nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt."2 Here is
the perfect blending, the full unity, and yet the result is not me-
chanical but free and living. When we say that Jesus is divine,
if we open the question merely to fix the place of an individual
life in history and to decide what terms we may apply to it, our
discussion will be of comparatively slight importance. But if
we mean that as we contemplate the life and character of Jesus
we are in a certain sense brought into the divine presence, if we
i Romans, vii, 15-25. 2 Matthew, xxvi, 39.
miracles: their possibility 371
mean that the love and spiritual life and power which Jesus
reveals are the truest manifestation of God that has been given
to men, then the discussion becomes one of the most profound
and important in which we can engage.
The question whether Jesus was a worker of miracles is one
which to many minds has assumed much importance. It is a
difficult question. As I have said before, we find it compara-
tively easy to discuss abstract relations, but as we approach con-
creteness difficulties increase at every step. This question in
regard to miracles may be divided into three questions: first, are
miracles a 'priori possible ? second, if we grant that they are
possible, what is their value ? and third, are the miracles re-
counted in the New Testament writings to be regarded as facts ?
The question as to the a priori possibility of miracles is per-
haps more strictly a question as to their a priori impossibility.
That is to say, is there any a priori ground for assuming in ad-
vance that a miracle is impossible ? In answering this question,
the position of Hume is the most important of any that we have
to consider, for his statement in regard to miracles is the classical
one.1 I presume that his position in general is already familiar
to you. It is not that the miraculous is impossible, but that no
evidence could force us to believe in the miraculous. For our
belief depends upon our experience, and whereas we have ex-
perience that men may be deceived, the miracle is by its very
nature contrary to our experience. Therefore when we are told
of some miracle, we find it easier to believe that the narrator of
the story deceives or has been deceived than that the story is
true. Hume recognizes only one condition under which this
would not hold, — in cases where the assumption that the narrator
could either deceive or be deceived would be as contrary to our
experience as the assumption that the story is true. Here we
should have a balance of improbabilities, with the miracle still
not proved. Or, to state the same thing more concretely, let us
suppose that certain persons in whom we have the most absolute
confidence tell us that they have seen with their own eyes and
i Works, Vol. IV, p. 131.
372 miracles: their possibility
felt with their own hands these things that are considered miracu-
lous, but suppose the things themselves contrary to our own
experience. In a case like this we could not believe that men
such as we know these men to be could either deceive or be de-
ceived, and yet our experience forbids us to believe that such
things could have happened. Consequently, we remain undecided.
Mozley has replied to Hume's position by saying that although
it is right in principle, it is not right in application.1 He agrees
with Hume that it is impossible by any logical procedure to justify
the results of induction. We are here using the term " induction "
in its ordinary sense, as describing the process by which we arrive
at a result which is broader than the data that we have examined.
Thus we have studied the movements of only a very few worlds,
and yet we have assumed that all worlds are subject to the law
of gravitation. But if we knew all the effects that have taken
place in the history of the universe up to the present moment,
these would furnish no reason that we could justify logically why
we should expect similar effects to occur under similar conditions
in the next moment. Hume recognized this difficulty, and in-
sisted that belief is merely the result of a habit of the mind by
which we are led to expect that events which ordinarily in our
experience have been connected will be connected always; so
that when one of the elements in such a relation occurs, the other
element or elements associated with it are called up in our minds
so vividly that we naturally look for their occurrence also.
So far as any strictly logical relation is concerned, both Hume
and Mozley are right. But when Mozley concludes that no
argument from experience can render any event a priori im-
possible, he overlooks the fact that we do place confidence in in-
duction, and cannot help doing so. The question as to the logical
justification of our confidence is one thing; the fact of this con-
fidence is quite another thing. The lack of logical justification
for our faith in induction is a reason, not for abandoning it, but
rather for asking what the foundation is upon which it rests.
i J. B. Mozley, Eight Lectures on Miracles, pp. 33-61. C. C. Everett, Psy-
chological Elements of Religious Faith, p. 157.
miracles: their possibility 373
When, therefore, Mozley assumes as a result of his argument that
faith in induction is not to be regarded, he is going beyond what
is justified by his own premises. In fact, his argument works
against himself, for if it takes away any reason for not believing
in the miraculous it takes away equally any reason why one
should believe in it. For whatever belief we may have in miracles
is based upon the fact that according to our experience the testi-
mony of men is to be accepted under certain circumstances. If
we deny all validity to experience we cut away the foundation
not only from the position of our opponents but also from our own
position, and the whole matter is thus left hanging in the air,
and belief or disbelief becomes a matter simply of caprice.
The only reply to Hume is the recognition that there is a degree
of testimony which will compel us to believe almost anything.
Science itself justifies this assumption. The fundamental datum
of science is that there is a tendency in nature always to produce
like results under like circumstances. This may remain true.
But another more superficial, more general assumption of science
is that the world has on the whole gone on in the past as it is going
on today. We find, however, certain points in the history of the
world at which all previous experience is set at naught. Imagine
a spectator watching the course of things upon the earth from the
first and reasoning upon them as we reason upon them today.
From time to time he would find results that were absolutely
opposed to any that he had met before. These fresh starting
points, these " nodes," are scattered along all through the history
of the world. The first is formed by the beginning of life upon
the earth; the second that is of enough importance for us to dis-
tinguish today marks a still greater change, the introduction of
sensation; the third marks the coming of distinct consciousness.
We might go on in this way from consciousness to self-conscious-
ness, from self-consciousness to abstract thought. For con-
venience, however, we may mark three stages as more important
than any others: the first, that of merely physical relation; the
second, that of vital, organic relation ; the third, the stage in which
the great element of subjectivity appears, the absolute opposite
374 miracles: their possibility
of anything that had been present in the world before. These
results we accept at the hands of science, although each in turn
contradicts all previous experience. Furthermore, we accept
them from science as from a wholly irresponsible authority.
That is to say, it is impossible for science to verify them. Science
tells us that at one time the world was simply a molten, fiery mass,
and that out of this mass appeared organic life. Indeed, that
extreme form of science which refuses to recognize anything
higher than physical relations insists that by its very nature matter
itself at a certain point or under certain circumstances tends to
assume the form of organic life. All this is entirely unverified.
With all its efforts science has been unable to demonstrate the fact
that the development of organic life out of inorganic life is pos-
sible. The only experiments that have been tried with any appear-
ance of success have been made with a solution of organic matter.
If any attempt to produce organic matter from matter wholly
inorganic has been made, it has never, so far as I am aware,
entered into the discussion. Spencer goes so far as to say that
even if such experiments were successful, and certain creatures
which stand low down in the scale were thus produced by spon-
taneous generation, we should still have no light upon the great
question of the origin of life upon the earth; for these creatures,
however humble in their scale, would all be vastly complicated in
comparison with what must have been the first appearance of
organic life in the world. * In all these questions, therefore, we
have at the hands of science statements and beliefs which accept
as facts results which at certain periods of the world's history
would have been absolutely contrary to all previous experience,
and which at the present day cannot be verified in the sense that
they can be repeated.
Now it is entirely possible to affirm, with some extreme defen-
ders of miracles, that the life of Jesus and the introduction of
Christianity into the world constituted such a node. Here, it may
be said, is a point at which, so far as certain facts are concerned,
previous experience counts for nothing. There is nothing in the
1 The Principles of Biology, Vol. I, Appendix.
miracles: their possibility 375
a priori view, or practically in any view, of the history of the
world, which would lead us to deny in advance that such a node
might occur at which there would be this further step upward.
And if we have thus a fresh node in the history of the world, we
have no reason to expect that our previous experience will not
be contradicted; science has no right to assume in advance that
such a contradiction is impossible. Of course science would
reply — that is, the science which denies the influence of anything
higher than physical relations — "This needs verification. Re-
peat these experiences and we will believe them. Show us your
miracles today and we will accept them." But the believer in
miracles might answer, "Do you repeat the experience of the
development of organic life from inorganic matter, the develop-
ment of the conscious out of the unconscious, and we will
accept your results." This of course cannot be done, and the
question therefore becomes a question of evidence. According
to a theory that is often held by those who believe in miracles, the
repetition of a miracle would be contrary to its very nature; a
miracle continually repeated would cease to be a miracle. When
life first entered the world, or when consciousness was first in-
troduced, we can conceive it possible that circumstances may
have attended the change which have never since occurred again.
And just as spontaneous generation, for example, has not oc-
curred again because it has not been needed again, so the cir-
cumstances which were required by the introduction of Chris-
tianity have never been needed since and therefore have never
occurred again.
We are safe, then, in saying that science can furnish no reason
for affirming that miracles are a priori impossible. The real diffi-
culty, the real conflict, is not with physical science, but with the
science of history. It is a difficulty of proof. The question
returns to the point which Hume insisted upon ; it passes from the
a priori possibility or impossibility of the miracle itself to the
a priori impossibility of proof. The difficulty in regard to history
is that we find by experience that evidence as to the miraculous
is easily procured, and that in general it carries very little weight.
376 miracles: their possibility
It was this which led Hume to take the position that he did. He
was travelling on the Continent and came upon accounts of
miracles which seemed to be thoroughly well authenticated by
testimony which in regard to anything else he would have accepted
without question. As it was, however, this testimony made not
the slightest impression upon him. He asked himself why it did
not, and in working out an answer reached the result that we have
been considering. Thus his examination was begun and carried
through, not with any polemical purpose, but in order to solve a
difficulty that had arisen in his own thought.
With the Protestant Church the tendency has been to deny all
miracles except those that are recorded in the Old Testament and
those that were performed by Jesus and his immediate followers.
All other stories of the miraculous it has set down as the result
either of fraud or of superstition. The Catholic Church, on the
other hand, recognizes a continuance of miracles in every period
of the history of the Church down to the present day. Therefore
it is not disturbed by the difficulty which Hume encountered and
which presents itself to almost every Protestant mind; it accepts
a story of the miraculous about as easily as it accepts the story
of anything else. For anything that we regard as a priori possible
and as in itself not extremely unusual, we are ready to accept on
very slight evidence. There is thus a great difference between the
Protestant position in regard to miracles and the Catholic position.
The miracle means much more to the Protestant than to the
Catholic, but the proof of the miracle is much easier for the Catholic
than for the Protestant. The Protestant, so to speak, plays for
higher stakes, and therefore the danger of losing is just so much
increased.
Perhaps we may say in regard to this question of miracles in
general, that the influence of science, whether physical science
or the science of history, is felt chiefly as it affects our habits
of thought. It becomes a habit with us to expect regularity in the
processes of the world, and to look for external and physical causes.
Consequently we are a little startled when anything comes to in-
troduce what appears to be irregularity or to suggest the presence
miracles: their possibility 377
of some element other than the physical. There is that wonderful
something which we call " the spirit of the age," according to which
we accept at one period almost without proof what it would be
impossible to prove to another age, and again with as little definite
reason deny that which another age might easily accept. It is
not that one age necessarily knows more about the matter than
another, but only that a certain habit of thought is characteristic
of each age and works in and through all the processes of its
thought. It is fortunate that this is so, for it is because the world
does not have to start afresh from the beginning with each new
period, but accepts certain habits and results as established, that
advance is possible. Yet there is this difficulty, incidentally, that
each age in turn tends to regard its own spirit as final, and so
measures the possibilities of human thought and experience by tests
which have no absolute validity and may disappear with the age
that has applied them. Therefore in any fundamental examina-
tion, while we recognize that the spirit of the age will enter largely
into our discussion, we must try at the same time to go behind it.
If we look more carefully at this question as to scientific thought
in relation to the belief in miracles, we recognize three realms
with which science has more or less to do. First, there is the
realm of purely physical relations. This is fairly well under-
stood from the point of view of science. Second, there is the world
of life, of organism. The step from one world to another science
knows nothing about. Spencer indeed attempts to indicate the
nature of the transition, but we cannot consider his effort success-
ful. When, however, the world of organic relations is once en-
tered, science feels very much at home. But it is not master of
the situation. For in regard to the vital element itself science
admits that it knows little. It attempts to reduce all vital proc-
esses to chemical processes, and such indeed they are to a great
extent. But as Lewes insists,1 the processes that go on inside the
body are not the same as the processes that take place outside the
body, because the conditions are different. In this difference in
the conditions is the very heart of the problem. What are these
1 Physical Basis of Mind, Problem I, Chap. I.
378 miracles: their possibility
different conditions under which chemical processes inside the
body lead to results which are never produced by similar processes
outside the body ?
The third realm with which science has to do is that of psycho-
physical relations. I might perhaps have said the realm of
psychology, but psychology is usually given over by science to
philosophy; I do not understand the brain any better because I
have analyzed it, but I do understand it much better when I
know what its connection is with thought; thus a difference in
terms which might appear to be of little importance really involves
a fundamental difference of view. The psycho-physical realm
is one of which science has comparatively little knowledge. It
covers the border line between the physical and the psychical
and includes many relations between mind and mind, and between
the mind and external phenomena, about which science knows
little. Formerly science contented itself with a wholesale denial
of numerous relations of this kind which now it begins to consider
worthy of investigation. It is to this comparatively unexplored
region of psychical-physiology that miracles belong, the realm of
the relation between mind and matter. This is true if we regard
them from the point of view of the mere student of phenomena,
and it is no less true if we assume for them the highest possible
religious significance; from the religious point of view, they are
still the expression of the relation of spirit to matter. As regards
the knowledge possessed by science, this psycho-physical world
is like the world of meteorology. Of this also science knows little.
For the test of scientific knowledge is the power to predict, and
this exists in meteorology to only a slight extent. If the observer
sees that a wave of heat or cold is within a day's journey of us, so
to speak, he can tell us that it will be upon us tomorrow, and that
is about all. Yet meteorology is much more of a science than the
study of this realm that lies on the borders of the material and the
spiritual worlds.
To sum up, then, in a few words, our whole discussion of the
question as to the a priori possibility of miracles, we must con-
clude that they are not a priori impossible. Neither are they a
THE VALUE OF MIRACLES 379
priori incredible, for we accept again and again at the hands of
science statements of relation which are utterly contrary to our
previous experience.
We have next to ask what is the value of miracles. What value
is attributed to them in the New Testament ? What value have
they in themselves ? In the Gospels we find the fact of the mira-
cles taken for granted; the stories in regard to them are told as
naturally as any other stories. But what did Jesus think of them ?
How important did he consider them ? We find that, so far as
we can judge, he ascribed very little importance to them. Ac-
cording to the story of his life he had this miraculous power just
as he had other powers, and used it as he used his other powers.
The fundamental value which he appears to have attached to
his miraculous power was that it enabled him to relieve suffering
and to comfort sorrowing hearts. So far as they might serve to
support his teaching or authenticate his authority, he seems to
have regarded them as of little importance. Indeed, if there was
anything which he appears to have wished especially to avoid,
it was a reputation for wonder-working. When he heals a man
he tells him to say nothing about it. When Nicodemus, impressed
by the miracles, comes to Jesus saying "We know that thou art
. . . come from God: for no man can do these signs that thou
doest, except God be with him," Jesus replies, "Except a man
be born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God." 1 Any au-
thority from miracles is swept aside, and the whole emphasis is
laid upon the spiritual relation to God. When Jesus does appeal
to the miracles in support of his teaching, it is as a last resort.
"Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or
else believe me for the very works' sake"; 2 if you cannot see the
divine element in my life, he says to the disciples, then you must
accept what I am trying to teach you because of the miracles.
The most distinct appeal to the miracles occurs in the denuncia-
tion of Chorazin and Bethsaida, when he cries out that if the
mighty works which had been done in them had been done in
Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago.3 But here
1 John, iii, 1-3. 2 John, my, 11. 3 Matthew, xj, 13. Luke, x, 13.
380 THE VALUE OF MIRACLES
again his words are in the nature of a last resort; it is the ex-
treme condemnation of Chorazin and Bethsaida that they would
not believe even the testimony of the miracles. We are told that
Jesus "did not many works" in Nazareth "because of their un-
belief." ' But if the miracles were to be regarded primarily as a
basis for belief, one might suppose that this would have been
just the sort of place in which he would most surely multiply them.
We find, therefore, that although now and then Jesus appeals
to the miracle as to the lowest kind of testimony, that which he
desires always first of all is a recognition of the more profound
and lofty proof that he offers. Furthermore, the miracles are
performed as quietly as possible, and not in order to create faith
but where faith already exists. There is one passage which seems
to stand apart. When the Pharisees and Sadducees ask Jesus
for a "sign from heaven," he points to "the signs of the times."
" Ye know how to discern the face of the heaven," he tells them ;
" but ye cannot discern the signs of the times. An evil and adul-
terous generation seeketh after a sign," he adds, "and there
shall no sign be given unto it but the sign of Jonah." 2 It is
interesting to notice that Strauss calls special attention to this
passage and finds in it a fragment of the original story of the life
of Jesus as it was given before the element of the miraculous
began to enter.3
When we turn to the other New Testament writings we find
a different view of miracles. Peter is represented as speaking
of Jesus as " a man approved of God unto you by mighty works
and wonders and signs," 4 and Paul writes similarly of himself,
reminding the Corinthians how "the signs of an apostle were
wrought among you in all patience, by signs and wonders and
mighty works." 5 The emphasis is entirely different from that
of Jesus, and must be regarded as indicating how distinctly lower
1 Matthew, xiii, 58.
2 Matthew, xvi, 1-1. Mark, viii, 11, 12. Luke, xi, 29, 30.
3 Life of Jesus, Trans, of M. Evans, p. 428.
4 Acts, ii, 22. 5 II Corinthians, xii, 12.
THE VALUE OF MIRACLES 381
was the position of the apostles in regard to the consciousness of
spiritual truth. They do not reach that clearness of vision which
we find in Jesus.
We have seen what value is attributable to miracles in the
New Testament. What value have they, considered in them-
selves? There are two aspects of their possible worth; they may
be regarded as furnishing evidence of spiritual truth either indi-
rectly or directly. Indirectly a miracle may suggest the exaltation
of the person who performs it. We see his superiority in this
respect and infer that he may be similarly superior in other re-
spects; we conclude, therefore, that he is to be trusted as having
in general a wider outlook and greater powers than we possess.
At first thought this process of reasoning might seem to be nat-
ural and safe. But there is a difficulty. For take the relation
between the white man and the savage. The white man comes
with his gun and his cannon and all the other appliances of his
civilization, and the savage, recognizing the various ways in which
the white man is thus his superior, thinks that he must be as wise
and good as he is powerful, — that he is some divinity that has
come down to him. But presently he finds that although the
white man has introduced much that is good he has also brought
with him much that is evil; he has proved not to be the divine
being that those wonderful powers seemed at first to indicate.
Again, the miracle may serve indirectly to authenticate the
authority with which the person speaks who has performed the
miracle. He performs some supernatural act through what he
may believe to be the working within him of a divine power, and
he may himself believe, and may lead others to believe, that this
is the sign of his authority, and that one who can perform such
works must be speaking by the authority of God himself. But
here once more a difficulty arises, in the fact that the laws by
which the world is governed and by which man is brought into
relation with the world, are still so imperfectly understood. In
a realm of such relations, the laws of which are not fully under-
stood, any result may appear under certain conditions to be
miraculous. Thus the savage sees in an eclipse a monster that
382 THE VALUE OF MIRACLES
devours the sun. He shouts and beats his tom-tom, and the
monster is driven away. At any rate the eclipse ceases, and the
sun shines as before; and as the savage always raises the outcry
whenever the eclipse comes, and as the eclipse always passes, it
is only natural that he should conclude that it is because of his
effort that it has gone. But Columbus foresaw an eclipse and
told the savages that unless they brought him food within a cer-
tain time he would blot out the sun forever. When the time
arrived and the sun began to darken, the savages brought the
food. Here are two different types, on the one hand the type of
those cases in which the persons who profess to accomplish the
miracle are themselves deceived, and on the other the type of the
cases in which natural powers are used with the full knowledge
that they represent natural laws. The first type is of more im-
portance than is sometimes supposed. For it is a mistake to
think that the accomplishment of miracles by natural means is in
all cases for the purpose of deception. The person who performs
the miracle may himself connect the result with something which
appears to him to be the cause when really it is not the cause.
The deceit that has been charged against the priesthood at
certain periods no doubt was often a self-deceit.
Sometimes in considering the question of spiritualistic phe-
nomena, I have puzzled myself by asking whether there is any
test by which the reality of such appearances can be proved
beyond question. We recognize the possibility of clairvoyance,
of optical delusion, of the action of one mind upon another in
such a way that the optical delusion of one may be shared by the
other, and we recognize also the possibility of jugglery or of
fraud. The more we consider these possibilities, the greater the
difficulty becomes of finding any absolute test by which to judge
the phenomena. It is an interesting question, also, whether the
possession of miraculous powers, if granted, would raise the
individual who possessed them in our estimate of him as a teacher
or guide of life. The question is one which each may answer
for himself. I am inclined to think that our estimate would
depend very much upon accompanying circumstances and upon
THE VALUE OF MIRACLES 383
the general impression that we had received in regard to the
character and purpose of the individual himself.
The indirect evidence of spiritual truth which a miracle may
furnish depends upon the form of the miracle, the way in which
it is performed. Its direct evidence depends upon its content,
upon the nature of the transaction itself and of that which it
involves. This content of the miracle is of two kinds, special
and general. The most prominent example of special content
appears in the resurrection of Jesus. Of this I shall speak more
fully later.1 I refer to it here simply as an illustration of what
is involved in the special content of a miracle as the direct evi-
dence of spiritual truth. The miracle of the resurrection of
Jesus, then, does not involve as its content the immortality of
all men, nor the existence in every man of an immortal element;
for the circumstances in the case are all of so special a nature
that the life after death may also be a special circumstance. The
special content of this miracle is the possibility of life after death;
if there is a realm of spiritual existence which is independent of
bodily existence, the fact that a single individual is known to
have entered this realm would take away any inherent impossi-
bility that others also may enter it. So far as the general content
of the miracle is concerned, we must regard it as a manifestation
of some higher law with which we had not been familiar previ-
ously, and not as the special act of a supernatural being. For
even if it be the special act of a supernatural being, that very
fact reveals to us primarily the law that a supernatural being
may thus strike into the common course of things upon the earth
and change the usual relations. So that even if we regard the
miracle as a most special act of divine will, there still remains
the absolute importance of the law behind the special act. We
still must recognize a relation between the world and God which
makes such interference possible.
This relation, this law, is that of the supremacy of spirit over
matter. We know something of this supremacy through what
we can see of the relation between consciousness and the bodily
organism. The miracle would illustrate it more directly. If
i Page 466.
384 THE VALUE OF MIRACLES
by the will of any spiritual being, whether high or low, the sun
could be made to stand still, or the sick be made well, or any
other of the physical laws of nature be similarly suspended, we
should thus have brought before us most distinctly the fact of the
dependence of the material universe upon a spiritual universe.
It is true that this evidence would be of the very lowest kind, and
of a kind that we ought not to need. We ought to be able by
our own intuition to recognize the nobility of spirit as compared
with matter, to see that the higher elements of the spiritual and
moral life are divine, and that they are supreme over any of the
lower elements of life that depend upon material conditions.
Anyone who does recognize the supremacy of spirit thus intui-
tively could not be helped by all the miracles in the world, for
they would not bring him any nearer to the full perception of the
glory and dignity and divinity of the spiritual life; he would see
in them merely another manifestation of a force with which he
was already familiar through other channels. Yet we can con-
ceive that to certain minds such a display of the power of the
spirit in the material world might sometimes be helpful. It
might give to the spiritual life an emphasis, a predominance, by
which a person's attention would be caught and held so that he
would be led to perceive its divineness more clearly than might
otherwise have been possible. He might be helped to feel that
the principle which perhaps he had recognized as de jure supreme
in the world was also supreme de facto.
An interesting illustration of this may be found in Kant's Cri-
tique. In what he has to say of God and immortality he speaks
of the impossibility of really yielding ourselves to the power of
the spiritual life unless we see that the world itself is subject to
it. If nothing came of righteousness in the world of facts, he
says in substance, if happiness were not apportioned to desert,
the moral life itself could not compel our full allegiance.1 Here
is the testimony of one of the greatest thinkers of the world, who
felt perhaps more than any other, certainly more than most others,
the sublimity of the moral law, — here is his testimony that the
i Trans, by F. Max Miiller, 1881, Vol. II, pp. 690-703.
THE VALUE OF MIRACLES 385
moral law itself wins allegiance by showing that the world of
facts is subject to it. We may admit that Kant was in a sense
driven to this by the exigencies of his argument. Yet we cannot
help giving a good deal of weight to the fact that such a mind
as this was helped in its reverence for righteousness by seeing the
supremacy of righteousness in the world of experience. We feel
that if this was the case with a man like Kant it must naturally
be still more so with the average man.
If we regard miracles in this way as illustrating the supremacy
of spirit over matter, we see that the miracles recorded in the
New Testament do not stand absolutely alone. We find that
there is a whole world of phenomena that may be in a certain
sense or in a certain degree of a kindred nature. I have already
referred to the phenomena of clairvoyance, mind-reading, and
the like, which science is beginning to recognize but for which
as yet it has found no test. These are ordinarily manifested in
an abnormal development of human nature, and to compare
them with the New Testament miracles may appear at first sight
to degrade the miracles. But let us consider the matter from
the highest standpoint. Jesus moved in a physical world and
made use of the physical relations of life. His body was sup-
ported by food; he made use of the ordinary material appliances
of the time; he used ordinary speech. These ordinary physical
relations and activities he inspired with new meaning, manifest-
ing through them a certain divine spirit. All this we recognize
as not at all degrading to his earthly life, whatever the exalta-
tion that we may ascribe to him before or after. Now if we sup-
pose that there is above this world of ordinary material relations
another world of relations of which we have only glimpses now
and then, but which does exist and which involves forces that
do manifest themselves occasionally under varying circumstances,
then we may suppose that Jesus used the relations of this other
world just as he used the relations of the physical world.
I said that such phenomena are usually manifested in some
abnormal development of human nature. It often happens that
the person who has clairvoyant power or who professes to be a
386 THE VALUE OF MIRACLES
medium, whatever the term may mean, loses the power with
some change in health; not infrequently power of this sort mani-
fests itself in a low state of the physical condition, and passes
away as that condition is restored. This is not absolutely and
invariably the case. Whatever view we take, so much that is
contradictory is connected with the question that no data are to
be had for a scientific statement. There may be mediums who
are in good health, and there may be persons who are in other
respects healthy and abnormal only in this particular direction;
I have in mind as I speak one or two mediums who are healthy
persons, but they are for certain other reasons regarded as frauds.
I do not mean to say that there is any absolute connection between
the manifestation of these vague forces and the ill health of the
persons through whom the manifestation takes place, but they
often occur together. Certainly these powers frequently appear
in connection with a low moral development, and in general we
recognize their abnormal character. Thus the clairvoyant must
as a rule be taken out of the world of life. He loses the highest
gifts that belong to him as man, and sinks down into the common
material of undeveloped thought. Nevertheless we may at least
conceive the possibility of a normal development of life so com-
plete and perfect that these relations also shall have their place
in it. It may be that in abnormal humanity we have a hint of
relations which after all find their true place in the absolutely
normal life. Of course this is mere conjecture. Yet it may
illustrate one positive aspect of the discussion, namely, that these
phenomena are not to be dismissed as wholly unnatural and
improbable, or as wholly without any relation to the higher de-
velopment of the spiritual life.
Possibly our greatest interest in this question, so far as the
stories of the New Testament miracles are concerned, relates to
our satisfaction in reading the Gospels. Many of the loftiest
words of Jesus seem to be so closely connected with some mirac-
ulous event that if the miraculous element is taken away there
appears to be danger that much of the higher, spiritual element
will also be taken. In regard to this Strauss makes a suggestion
THE ACTUAL OCCURRENCE OF MIRACLES 387
which may be helpful, — that sometimes a saying may have sug-
gested the incident which appears in the story of the life as a
framework for the saying.1 According to this view, as the great
words of Jesus were handed down at first by oral tradition, and
passed from mouth to mouth, the constructive tendency, the
myth-making tendency, of the human mind, would by degrees
in all honesty and good faith suggest the circumstances under
which these words must originally have been spoken.
This, however, brings us to our third question. Did the mira-
cles as they are recorded in the New Testament actually occur ?
Let me say at once that the discussion of this question belongs
properly to another department, that of New Testament study
and the evidences of the genuineness of the Gospels. Up to this
point we have been moving wholly in the realm of theory, asking
only what might have been and the meaning of what might have
been, but now the question is whether certain events which are
said to have taken place really did take place. In answering our
first question, we tried to remove all antecedent impossibility of
the occurrence of the miracles. This third question brings us
to the domain of history, and the answer to it must come not
through any theoretical considerations but by historical study.
There are one or two suggestions, however, which may be made
here without trespassing far upon the field of others. First of
all, then, we must recognize the fact that in general the narrative
in the Gospels is unquestionably faulty; that on the whole the
materials were gathered in an uncritical manner, and at a time
considerably removed from the period in which the events oc-
curred. We should therefore find it difficult to lay the finger on
any one event and say that it must certainly have taken place.
On the other hand, there is no story of the life of Jesus that does
not involve in some degree a miraculous element. The two
elements, the spiritual and the miraculous, appear to be blended
in all the glimpses that we gather, unless we accept the suggestion
of Strauss to which I have referred, that there was an earlier
story of the life into which the element of the miraculous had
1 Life of Jesus, Trans, of M. Evans, p. 600.
388 THE ACTUAL OCCURRENCE OF MIRACLES
not as yet entered, and that here and there we are given hints
of this earlier story in the later narratives that have come down
to us.1 However this may be, we have also to recognize, secondly,
that there are in the New Testament certain statements in regard
to miracles which rest upon an authority that is known to us.
The differences of opinion in regard to the authenticity and gen-
uineness of the Gospels do not extend to the principal letters of
Paul, and we find in them definite reference by the apostle not
only to miracles in general but especially to miracles which he
himself has performed. The author of Supernatural Religion
states that no testimony to a miracle is found to be given by the
author of the miracle himself.2 It is true that we do not find
Paul saying " I performed this wonderful work," but in both the
letter to the church at Rome and the second letter to the Corin-
thians we do find him claiming that he has performed the " wonders
and mighty works" which constitute "the signs of an apostle."3
Here we have the direct testimony of Paul, in documents which
it is generally agreed are genuine, that he himself had performed
works of the sort that we call miraculous; and elsewhere, as in
his first letter to the Corinthians4 he refers to such works as habit-
ually performed by the apostles. In what Paul says there is no
direct testimony as to whether Jesus also performed works of
this kind, but if we accept Paul's statement in regard to his own
works, we may admit the probability that works of a similar kind
occurred to a greater or less extent in the ministry of Jesus.
I suppose that very few at the present day would regard mira-
cles under any aspect as wholly apart from law. Even if they
are considered as the interference, in the most extreme sense, of
a divine power with the course of nature, the manifestation of
a single, separate act of the divine will, few if any would insist
that such interference is mere caprice. Some rationality would
i Page 380.
a W. R. Cassels, Supernatural Religion, Vol. I, p. 200 f., Vol. HI, p. 325.
3 Romans, xv, 18, 19. II Corinthians, xii, 12.
i I Corinthians, xii, 9, 10.
THE ACTUAL OCCURRENCE OF MIRACLES 389
be recognized, — something which could be formulated into a
general principle. It might be the principle that when in the
development of the world a certain crisis is reached, such inter-
ference follows. But without rising to these heights of specula-
tion, we may recognize in the miraculous, in so far as we admit
that it exists, the working of the higher, spiritual principle within
the world of material relations.
In speaking of the actual occurrence of miracles, one is tempted
to try to draw a line between one miracle or class of miracles
and another as regards their probability. We may go a little
way in such an attempt, but it is likely to end in purely arbitrary
distinctions. The worst possible method of explaining the
stories of the miracles, it seems to me, is the so-called natur-
alistic or rationalistic method. According to this method, the
stories which appear to contain accounts of miracles are ac-
cepted as literal facts, but they are explained in accordance
with the ordinary processes of nature. Thus the story of the
feeding of the multitude * is explained by the supposition that
when Jesus saw that the people were hungry and encouraged his
disciples to bring out their little stores, others who saw what they
were doing followed their examples, and then others still, and
thus the hunger of the multitude was satisfied. So in the story
of the healing of the demoniac boy after the transfiguration of
Jesus, the words, "This kind can come out by nothing, save by
prayer and fasting,"2 are explained as intended to teach that a
special physical and spiritual regimen was necessary in order to
effect such cures. Suppositions of this sort are fruitless. It is
better to sweep the whole account away than to try to explain
these stories and reason the very heart and essence out of them
by such processes. This "naturalistic" method furnishes an-
other illustration of the depth to which the loftiest teaching may
fall. It all grew out of the Kantian doctrine that nothing enters
into religion except that which has a purely ethical relation.
i Matthew, xiv, 14-21. Mark, vi, 34-44. Luke, ix, 12-17. John, vi, 1-14.
2 Mark, ix, 14-29.
390 THE ACTUAL OCCURRENCE OF MIRACLES
Since one can serve God only by righteousness and has no rela-
tion to God except as the administrator of the moral law, nothing
must be allowed to remain in the New Testament that does not
correspond with this. We can only compare the efforts that have
resulted with Matthew Arnold's attempt to find in the Jahweh
of the Old Testament simply "the Eternal Power not ourselves,
that makes for righteousness."
CHAPTER XXX.
THE USE OF THE NAME "CHRIST": THE QUESTION WHETHER
JESUS HIMSELF CLAIMED THE TITLE OF MESSIAH. — THE USE
OF THE NAMES "CHRISTIAN" AND "CHRISTIANITY": THE
ACCEPTANCE OF THE LEADERSHIP OF JESUS. — FREE RELIGION.
— THE RELATION OF OTHER RELIGIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. —
THE QUALE OF CHRISTIANITY. — THE FIFTH DEFINITION OF
RELIGION.
The question whether the name "Christ" ought to be used
is for us comparatively unimportant, although some of the dis-
cussion of our time has given it a certain prominence. It is to
be said first of all that this name like other names is a matter of
history. It is the name which has been applied to Jesus of Naz-
areth and by the process of historical development has come to
belong to him. Individually we may prefer another name. We
may prefer the name " Jesus " as representing the personality
of the life as " Christ" represents its official relation. It may seem
to us that whereas the name " Jesus " has a certain tenderness
and carries with it the sense of personal relation, the name " Christ"
tends rather to lift the life to which it is applied out of the simple,
human relationships. Furthermore we may feel that the name
"Christ" looks backward as well as forward, and suggests the
Jewish traditions.
Yet the name has its own very important signification which
is not to be disregarded. For when we look at the matter less
superficially, we have to ask whether there is in the nature of
things any inherent reason why the name "Christ" should not be
applied to Jesus. It is frequently said that since the contem-
poraries of Jesus were expecting a Messiah who should come as
a temporal ruler and exalt the Jewish nation to the supremacy
in the world which they believed to be their due, and since Jesus
392 THE USE OF THE NAME " CHRIST
5>
fulfilled no such function as this, it is therefore a dishonest use
of terms to speak of him as "Christ." By what right, however,
is the usage of the contemporaries of Jesus, or of those who were
his predecessors for a limited period, to be taken as the standard
in determining the meaning of the term ? It is a term of national
significance and must be interpreted in the light of the national
history as a whole rather than by the understanding of it in any
single period. As we look back through the Hebrew scriptures
we find in the earlier references to the Messianic expectation some-
thing very different from the narrow view that became current in
later Jewish history. If we may accept the view so generally
held, that the Messianic expectation appears in the story of Abra-
ham,1 then both in the story itself and in the various references
to it we have an outlook that is large and unconditioned. The
argument which Paul rests upon the story 2 may seem to us fan-
tastic, but nevertheless it has a fundamental meaning in this
aspect. Paul argues that since the promise to Abraham was given
before the law and even before the establishment of Jewish nation-
ality, it was to be fulfilled outside of the law and outside of the
mere nationality, and he urges that later enactments cannot annul
or contradict the breadth of the earlier promise.
Paul's argument, however, is open to criticism. Without
giving it too much weight, and without confining ourselves to
single passages which may be of doubtful interpretation, we have
to ask what were the dominating thoughts of the Hebrew people
throughout their history as it finds expression in their scriptures.
One was the thought of God, the other that of the Hebrew nation-
ality. These two elements were often in conflict, but on the
whole they moved forward together with a certain harmony. As
we compare them, which was the more fundamental and essential
in the Jewish mind ? Did God exist for the sake of the Hebrew
people, or did the Hebrew people exist as a nationality to carry
out the will of God ? I am not asking the question in regard to
the fact as we might look at it. I am only asking what was the
relation between the two elements from the Hebrew point of view,
1 Genesis, xii, 3, xxii, 18. 2 Romans, iv.
THE USE OF THE NAME ' CHRIST " 393
and I think that we need not hesitate to say that in the Hebrew
thought the nationality existed in order to carry out the will of
God. We find that the greatest promises are made to the Hebrew
people, but we also find that every promise is conditional, and
furthermore that there are threatenings which are as intense as
the promises. So long as the nation is obedient and true, and does
the will of God, so long shall the people be his people; but if the
nation ceases to yield itself to be the instrument of God, then it
will be itself forsaken by him. That is the teaching throughout
the Old Testament scriptures in regard to the relation between
the Hebrew people and God. If this is recognized, we may go
a step further and find in the Christ the flowering or completion
of this whole development. If heretofore in the development
the universal or divine element rather than the national element
has been the essential element, then we should expect to find that
in the Christ the divine rather than the national element would
be similarly predominant. But if the national element is thus
subordinate in the Christ idea, the Messianic idea, when consid-
ered as representing the general trend of Hebrew thought through-
out the history of the nation as a whole, then the fact that the
coming of Jesus was not a national triumph need not disturb us
or prevent us from speaking of him as Christ.
This theory finds confirmation or illustration in the Christian
use of Hebrew scriptures and forms and customs. The Hebrew
scriptures are read in Christian pulpits and together with the
peculiarly Christian scriptures form the sacred book of the Chris-
tian. The God of the Hebrews is worshipped by Christians under
the names by which the Hebrews worshipped him; Christians
accept literally the great phrases of the Hebrews in regard to God,
as Creator and Lord of all. The sacred day of the Hebrews is
kept by Christians; that is to say, a "seventh day" is observed,
and, to a very large extent, in obedience to the Hebrew law. Thus
we have many of the essential elements of the religious life of the
Hebrews made universal in Christianity. We must recognize,
however, that all fulfilment is larger than the hope; the future is
necessarily foreign to the experience of men, and can be pictured
394 THE USE OF THE NAME " CHRIST "
by them only in the terms which are familiar to them. Still we
recognize the early hope as prophetic even although the fulfilment
so far surpasses it. Thus we know perfectly well that Columbus
did not undertake to discover a new world, but was simply trying
to find a new way around to the other side of the old world; he
did not know that he had discovered another continent. Yet
because he accepted the best thought and learning of his time,
and acted upon them, we applaud him as the discoverer of the
new world and give him praise for the results, although they were
so different from what he thought and planned. Luther by no
means undertook to found a new division in the Church when he
set out to reform the methods of the established faith. The Pil-
grims came to this country to escape the interference of those
from whom they differed, but we regard them as the founders of
our religious freedom. The discoveries of science are largely
accidental; yet when such discoveries lie in the direction in which
the individual scientist was looking, when the accident has found
him ready, we give him the credit of the result, no matter how
much greater it may prove than anything that he had foreseen.
Or take the thought of immortality. If we try to picture to our-
selves the larger life, we know that any image that we can form
of it must be incorrect, and that when it comes we shall find it
very different from what we dream. Yet we do not doubt that
our dream is a prophecy, and that the larger life, although beyond
what eye hath seen or ear heard, shall still be the fulfilment of the
life that now is. Suppose the bud were to dream of the coming
flower; the flower is beyond the power of the bud to anticipate,
and yet it is the fulfilment of the bud. Christianity was such
a flowering of the Jewish life, and however different the Christ
was in his actual coming from the expectation in regard to him,
he may none the less be accepted as its fulfilment. It seems to
me that this is true whatever the attitude that we take in regard
to Jewish history. We may regard the Messianic anticipation
strictly as prophecy, or we may think of it only as the dream of
the people. But in either case, if we take the larger view that I
have indicated, the use of the term " Christ" is justified.
"christian" and "Christianity" 395
Did Jesus himself claim the title during his life? Martineau's
discussion of this question1 is profound, but he is not always happy
in his exegesis. He finds in the charge of Jesus to the disciples
"that they should tell no man that he was the Christ" 2 a denial
of the Messiahship. There is here, it is true, this aspect of the
case, that since according to the account in Matthew and Luke
Jesus up to that time had not been known as the Messiah and
then charged the disciples that they should not make his Messiah-
ship known, it is possible that the story is one of later growth, in-
tended to explain why Jesus was not recognized as the Messiah
during his own lifetime. The prediction of the coming of the Son
of man before the disciples shall have gone through the cities of
Israel3 may be an acknowledgment of the Messiahship, unless
we assume that the prediction is simply a remnant of the earlier
belief in the coming of the Messiah, and that Jesus is preaching
that coming just as John had been preaching it. Romanes thinks
that the belief in the resurrection of Jesus led his followers to
assume that he was the Messiah. Over against all this, however,
the inscription on the cross, "The King of the Jews," indicates
that there had been the acceptance of the Messiahship during the
life of Jesus, that he had recognized himself as the Messiah and
had been so recognized by his followers. This inscription is
found in all four of the Gospels,4 and is one of the earliest of the
traditions.
It might be supposed that if the term "Christ" may be used,
the terms "Christian" and "Christianity" also may be taken for
granted, and vice versa. But there are some who do not assent to
this. All agree that "Christian" and "Christianity" are his-
torical terms; the question is, to what period of belief shall they
be applied ? It has been urged that medieval Christianity is the
real Christianity, not because this was more in accord with the
teaching of Jesus, but because it was the historical form which
Christianity assumed and under which Christianity became an
1 The Seat of Authority in Religion, Book IV, Chap. II.
2 Matthew, xvi, 20. Luke, ix, 21. 3 Matthew, x, 23.
4 Matthew, xxvii, 37. Mark, xv, 26. Luke, xxiii, 38. John, xix, 19.
396 "christian" and "Christianity"
organized power in the world. Those who take this view would
have the broader forms of the Christianity of today spoken of
as Neo-Christianity, just as the later school of Platonists was
called Neo-Platonism. The suggestion, however, is not a happy
one. For whereas the term " Neo-Platonism " has a definite mean-
ing in the history of philosophy, the term "Neo-Christianity"
can have no such definite meaning in the history of Christianity,
but must always be a movable term. Medieval Christianity
itself was Neo-Christian as compared with earlier forms, and if
that which it is now proposed to call Neo-Christianity were to hold
its own long enough to have a historical existence equivalent to
the existence of what is now called Christianity, then through its
very survival it would come to be known itself as Christianity, and
the term "Neo-Christianity" would be applied to some yet newer
form. The term "Neo-Christianity" would thus be continually
pushed forward until its content would be as various as that of the
term "Christianity" itself. No, the historic sense has judged
rightly in giving the one name to the entire movement which
began with Jesus and his apostles, however great the changes
that have taken place in the course of its development. For there
is, if nothing more, a certain sequence or current, which justifies
the use of the same term throughout. It is like the course of a
great river. A slender stream at first, how vast it is as it approaches
the sea! Other rivers have poured themselves into it and have
become lost in it, and still we call it by the same name that it bears
at its source. Men may object, "It is not the same stream here
that it was there ! See how impure it has become ! See how much
there is in it now that does not belong to the original stream!"
But still we recognize the one course throughout, and we feel that
the one name is rightly given to the whole. In a wholly similar
way, the history of Christianity is a single movement, the out-
growth of a single impulse. External influences have more or
less modified it, the philosophies and sciences of the world have
contributed to it, the working of man's reason has broadened or
deepened it. But still it is the same stream, and may bear through-
out its course the same name.
"christian and "Christianity" 397
We may go deeper. There are certain elements which have
been the same in all periods of Christian history. The impulse
that came from Jesus to human faith and human brotherhood
we find effective throughout. As I have already said, we are not
to look for this in external forms, in that outer region in which
Christianity became turbid through its contact with the world
around it; we are not to look for it in creeds and in official lives
and in ecclesiastical conditions. We are to look for it in the inner
life, in the love and the self-sacrifice which manifest themselves
under all these outward forms. It is here that in spite of much
error and crudity of thought and sinfulness we find embodied in
greater or in less degree the fundamental principles of Christianity,
and it is to these fundamental principles that we refer when we
speak of Christianity, rather than to the over-shadowing ecclesias-
tical structure. Thus in the profounder aspect of Christianity as
well as from the outward, ecclesiastical point of view, we see the
propriety of carrying on the name "Christianity" to all the larger
results of the later growth. It would seem to be especially un-
fortunate to choose the present time in which to give up the name
just when Christianity is beginning to have more of the spiritual
significance that from the teaching of Jesus himself so essentially
belongs to it. There is a great deal in the mere momentum of
history, and when we find that a mighty current is tending more
than ever before in the direction in which we wish to move, and
in which we desire that the world shall move, it would seem not
to be the best time to dig our little canal in order to start an inde-
pendent movement of our own.
There is an objection, however, of a different kind, which per-
haps is more generally felt than this which we have just been
considering. Does not the use of the name "Christian" imply
a certain servitude? Does it not imply the recognition of Jesus
as a master, and does not this involve an intellectual submission,
a limitation of our freedom of thought ? But it must be remem-
bered that Christianity is not primarily or fundamentally an in-
tellectual system. It does not mean a dogma. What it does
mean is the power of the spiritual life. It may be said that when
398 "christian" and "Christianity"
Paul writes "though we, or an angel from heaven should preach
unto you any other gospel ... let him be anathema," * he is laying
down a dogma which must be accepted on pain of expulsion, or
of whatever is meant by the word "anathema." But Paul is
here opposing the teaching which would make obedience to the
Jewish ritual essential to Christianity. Instead of laying down a
dogma, he is in reality protesting against the limitation from any
dogma. He is protesting in behalf of liberty, of absolute liberty.
Of course the spiritual life implies a certain belief; it demands
for its complete development the belief in God. Jesus, in bring-
ing fresh inspiration to the spiritual life, insisted upon a higher
conception of God and of man's relation to him than had ever
been recognized before. In this sense it is true that we have a
doctrine or dogma underlying Christianity. But those who
would shrink even from such recognition as this, who would
urge the necessity of absolute freedom of thought and insist upon
the ethical theory of life, forget that there is nothing so dogmatic
and uncompromising as ethics. Ethics demands absolutely that
what is right shall be seen to be right. Our morning papers con-
tain a protest from the Mormon leaders insisting upon the right
of liberty in regard to the question as to a plurality of wives. In
almost any other aspect of life a protest that urged the right of
liberty would meet with some sort of response in the hearts of the
people. But the people recognize the fact that when a funda-
mental principle of morals is involved the principle of liberty
does not apply. In matters of belief ethics is as absolute as re-
ligion. Furthermore, when we speak of freedom of thought in
regard to matters of fundamental belief, we recognize or ought to
recognize the fact that the highest life is impossible without
certain beliefs. The highest moral life is impossible without a
belief in some principle of right, and the highest religious life is
impossible without some belief in God; the very highest religious
life demands the highest belief in regard to God. Yet while
Christianity thus of necessity recognizes divine reality as the ob-
ject of belief, that belief is embodied in the heart and in the life.
Jesus brings a higher, nearer belief in God. But he does not
1 Galatians, i, 9.
"christian" and "Christianity" 399
insist upon belief; he takes belief for granted. "Ye believe in
God," he is represented as saying, "believe also in me."1 Or
again, " Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is
perfect."2 He does not argue that there is the Father who is
good and perfect, but he emphasizes the power of that spiritual
life which blends ethics and religion in inseparable union.
There may be a certain grandeur in the protest against leader-
ship considered simply as leadership and as implying absolute
allegiance from those who follow. But there is surely something
petty in the protest against leadership when it demands activity
and the development of the powers of life itself. In any great
crises there are always enough to protest against such leadership
and to stand back and criticise. But when there is some one who
is leading in the direction which we recognize as that in which we
and all the world ought to move, it seems to be mere folly to draw
back and raise questions as to the propriety of such leadership.
We might well question if we found that the leader was going
wrong, or that there was another in advance of him. We might
question if we should find, any of us, that we were ourselves in
advance. But the protest is hardly justified when it comes from
the ranks, from those who are still far from the position to which
the leader would draw us on. I have spoken of the great power in
the mere momentum of the history of Christianity. This mo-
mentum has been gained by the force of Christianity itself and by
the leadership of Jesus. There is a profound truth in that parable
of the vine which Jesus uses; mere individual effort can accom-
plish little as compared with what might result if the individual
effort were joined to the great movement which is bearing society
along with it. If we are to seek for the justification of the leader-
ship of Jesus, we must look primarily, as I have already said, to
the fact that he leads. For in any great conflict like this between
right and wrong, between the spiritual and the material, the fact
that any one leads is the real justification of his leadership. In
the story of the battle of Lake Regillus, when the twin gods came
to lead the Roman hosts to victory, their divinity was recognized
1 John, xiv, 1. 2 Matthew, v, 48.
400 "christian" and "Christianity"
not because of any marvel or splendor that accompanied them,
but because they pressed forward against the enemy and the
Romans followed them and won the battle.
It is sometimes urged, as still another difficulty in accepting the
leadership of Jesus, that accident had so large a part in giving him
his position in history.1 Thus there was the belief in his speedy
second coming, which inspired the early Church and sustained it
in the midst of its trials. Such accidents no doubt did enter
very largely into the life of Christianity and aided in its triumph.
Suppose that we start with all this. What of it? Is there any
leadership into which accident does not enter? How many
accidents entered into the career of Lincoln! How many knew
him when he was nominated for the presidency ? Would he have
been nominated if he had been known? Among the thousand
and one elements that contributed to his nomination and election
was the fact that the country did not dream how large-hearted
and large-minded a man he was. And history is full of examples
of this kind. But this does not detract from the work that is
accomplished. The true leader is he who can make use of these
accidents and so prove his right to the position to which they
have brought him.
Of course I am speaking most superficially in using the term
"accident" in this way, for we have already recognized the work-
ing of the great principle of teleology toward precisely this result
that we have been considering. But looking at the question
merely from the outside, we still are justified in urging that acci-
dental circumstances are nothing in comparison with the fact
that the leader who is thus brought forward shows the right
and the power to lead. As I have said before in another con-
nection,2 the only cause for which anyone need hesitate to take
the name " Christian " would be the doubt whether he was worthy
to bear it. It stands for the ideal of the spiritual life, and to take
and bear it implies that one has felt the power of that life.
It may be that what I have already said makes it unnecessary
1 Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Chaps. XV, XVI.
2 Page 358.
FREE RELIGION 401
to dwell at any length upon what is known as free religion. Yet
there are one or two matters of which I wish to speak in this
connection, even at the risk of some repetition. I refer to free
religion by name, because the name is that which is most dis-
tinctive. I suppose free religion means fundamentally uncora-
bined religion. The term may best be explained by a chemical
analogy. Free oxygen is oxygen which is wholly uncombined;
usually oxygen is found in union with other elements, and free
oxygen is obtained for the most part by artificial chemical proc-
esses. Now to a certain extent religion may be said to resemble
oxygen in that there is the pure religious element, the fundamental
religious principle, which, however, is found in history combined
wth other elements and forming thus the various historical re-
ligions which we know as Buddhism, Parseeism, Christianity,
etc. By free religion, therefore, following the analogy, we should
understand the religious principle separated from the elements
with which it is combined in these various religions, and taken
for what it is in itself. The principle of free religion as thus
understood is of fundamental importance, and the members of
the different religious bodies of the world may unite with great
advantage in comparing notes with one another and recognizing
what they have in common. Yet the attempt to reach the gen-
eral principle of religion by mere analysis is not one, it seems to
me, that holds out to us the highest hope of great accomplish-
ment. For as I have already suggested1 the religions of the world
are to a large extent complementary to one another, and if we try
to take from each that which is common to all, the result may be
rather meagre. We are rather to take the principle which each
religion insists upon as most fundamental and add it to our gen-
eral conception of religion. Any attempt to arrive at what is
common to all the different religions must be like Spencer's com-
promise between science and religion which left in his hands only
the empty form of his Unknowable? In that case we saw that
the true compromise was to be reached not by a process of ab-
straction but by a process of concretion, and here in a similar
'Page 86. 2 Chapter I.
402 FREE RELIGION
way we must ask of each religion what is most concrete in
it and thus obtain its most real contribution to our religious
thought.
Practically speaking, the theory of free religion tends to put all
religions on a level. As I have said before,1 there is no a priori
reason why this should not be done. There is no reason why
we should say in advance that any one religion would be superior
to any other, and in a comparative study of the different religions
we must take it for granted at the outset that the contribution of
one is as likely to be important as the contribution of another.
But from the a posteriori point of view we find that all religions
are not upon a level. It is doubtful whether anyone would claim
that the religion of a savage which consisted in a dread of dis-
embodied spirits and the desire to propitiate them, was on an
equality with the Mazdean religion, with its recognition of one
divine being, the absolute Creator and the absolute Good. If,
then, as we study the various religions, we find that there is a differ-
ence in the importance of the contributions which they severally
have to make, our a priori assumption of an equality among them
goes for nothing, and we must ask ourselves what it is in which
religions differ and whether there is any which is superior to all
as truly, if not to so great a degree, as the Mazdean religion is
superior to the religion of the savage. In answer to these ques-
tions we have found that Christianity does stand higher than
any other religion. Not only is its own especial contribution the
most important, but there is in it a place for what is most essential
in each of the other great religions. Freedom of religion, em-
bracing all religions, is too vague. It suggests no aim, no ideal.
Freedom in itself is the emptiest of categories; it must serve
always as the basis for some accomplishment. Free religion lacks
the emphasis which is needed as a stimulus to the spiritual life.
Such emphasis may indeed be harmful if it is not absolutely true.
But we have seen that the emphasis of Christianity is true. It
rests upon that which is most precious and essential in all re-
ligion. When, therefore, we use the term "Christianity" we use
a term which represents that which is at the same time absolute and
i Page 334.
OTHER RELIGIONS AND CHRISTIANITY 403
definite. It is absolute because it is the highest ideal, and it is
definite because that highest ideal is a real ideal.
I have already touched on the objection which is sometimes
made to the use of the term " Christianity," that other religions
in their later results stand as high as the highest teachings of Chris-
tianity.1 These later developments in other religions have been
confessedly an outgrowth of the influence of Christianity. The
question in regard to them is whether the blending of the thought
of other religions with Christian thought has added anything for
which Christianity has no place or of which it does not offer the
germ. Thus all that the later Hindu thought might be expected
to add would be the mystical doctrine of the presence of God in
nature; but Christianity finds place for this both in the doctrine
of the Holy Spirit and in the express teachings of Paul. What is
true here is equally true in other directions. Indeed it is im-
possible that the results which Christianity has reached should be
reproduced by any independent historical process. I need not
repeat what I have already said in regard to this. I will only re-
mind you that throughout the whole of our discussion as to the
absoluteness of Christianity in its practical aspect we have con-
fined ourselves to the examination of facts as history presents them
to us. The results which we have reached seem to me to flow
naturally and necessarily from these facts. They are of course
open to examination and criticism and refutation. All that I
urge is that in any examination of them the facts upon which they
are based should not be ignored.
It is an interesting question whether other forms of religion as
they develop into the fulness of Christianity should take the
Christian name. At first thought it would seem more appro-
priate that those who have received the highest religious truth
through the instrumentality of Jesus should accept the name of
the religion of which he is the founder. Yet the question is after
all not unlike Peter's question when he asked, "And what shall
this man do ? " 2 You will remember that Jesus called Peter back
to his own duty, and for us the essential question is as to our own
i Page 364. 2 John, xxi, 21.
THE QUALE OF CHRISTIANITY
Christianity. Certainly the name is far less important than the
thing itself, and no reasoning which leaves the whole matter open
and free to others ought to affect our own relation to Christianity
so long as we find in it the highest inspiration. There are two
courses either of which is a priori possible. One would be the par-
allel movement of the various religions along distinct lines but
with a certain harmony between them. The other would be
the centering of all religions in a unity which should result from
influences extending from the single point at which the highest
spiritual truth was first attained. No doubt the result in the
second case would be the more organic. But the question is one
which we can only wait for time to answer.
What is the quale of Christianity?1 What is it that makes
Christianity what it is? Several answers have been given. The
first, and one in which very many have agreed, is that the essen-
tial thing is an act, — the great act of vicarious sacrifice, through
which Jesus took upon himself the sin of the world and suffered
the punishment of it. The second answer is that feeling is the
essential element, not feeling in the sense in which Schleiermacher
uses it, but the enthusiasm for humanity which we find insisted
upon in such works as Ecce Homo. The third answer, that the
distinguishing feature of Christianity is the belief in the doctrine
of immortality, is given by many who no longer hold to the first
answer, and who dwell upon this in the search for some element
that shall mark Christianity as distinct from all other religions.
The fourth answer insists upon the ethical teaching of Jesus, and
especially upon certain scattered commands which, it is claimed,
are higher than any precepts that are to be found elsewhere.
It seems to me unnecessary to dwell upon these answers at
any length. It is enough to say that a certain enthusiasm for
humanity is found in greater or less degree in all the missionary
religions, as in Buddhism, for example. The belief in immortality
is almost as wide-spread as the human race itself. Some would
say that what is essential to Christianity is the belief in immortal-
1 C. C. Everett, Essays Theological and Literary, "The Distinctive Mark of
Christianity."
THE QUALE OF CHRISTIANITY 405
ity as based upon the belief in the resurrection of Jesus. Their
emphasis, however, is quite different from that of Paul; Paul
believed in immortality before his conversion to Christianity;
to him the resurrection of Jesus was important as the completion
of the work of atonement. Of the substance of the first answer
I have already spoken at length.1 As regards the fourth answer,
there is hardly any precept in the New Testament which cannot
be matched with greater or less completeness with maxims from
other religions. I say with greater or less completeness, for I do
not wish to be dogmatic on either side. All that I wish to suggest
is that the discussion may easily become somewhat petty if we try
to take this and that precept and weigh them to see whether one is
fully equal to the other.
In my own thought the specialty of Christianity consists in its
lack of specialty, in the lifting of the whole plane of thought
and life. Let me illustrate this in the different elements that have
been emphasized as essential in the answers which we have just
considered. According to the first answer the essential element
is the act of vicarious sacrifice. Now if the conclusion to which
we came in our discussion of the Atonement is correct, that in the
Atonement we have the union of the human and the divine, and
the beginning of a new and diviner life upon the earth, then this
act precisely corresponds to the definition of the special character-
istic of Christianity which I have used, — the lifting of the whole
plane of life. For it is life in its completeness which manifests.
the results of the Atonement.
The element which was emphasized in the second answer, the
enthusiasm for humanity, lacks definiteness of meaning when
it is taken by itself. Such enthusiasm may be only the enthusi-
asm for what appears to us to be the most intelligent animal in the
world, the animal that can accomplish most for himself; we look
upon all that men have done in the way of personal advancement,
and the advancement of civilization if you will, and we say, " How
great and glorious a being is man!" But to have the true en-
thusiasm for humanity we must have the true ideal of humanity,
i Pages 301-323, 327-333.
408 THE QUALE OF CHRISTIANITY
and that is what Christianity presents to us. Through Chris-
tianity we recognize all that is highest in man's nature, and our
enthusiasm for humanity thus becomes an enthusiasm for man as
a being capable of the highest moral and spiritual perfection.
Here again, therefore, we find that the specialty involves the
absence of specialty. It involves the fulness of humanity in its
highest aspect, the fulness of the spiritual life of man.
The third answer insists upon the doctrine of immortality as the
distinguishing mark of Christianity. I have reminded you that
this belief in immortality is common to many religions. Yet,
after all, how different it is in Christian thought from what we
find it elsewhere! The thought of immortality with the Greeks
and Romans was helpful. It broke down to some extent the wall
which otherwise would have shut in the individual spirit, and gave
an outlook into something beyond. But except for such rare
moments of exaltation as came now and then into the thought
of a Plato or a Cicero, it remained vague and negative and com-
paratively barren. In other religions the thought of immortality
was for the most part either the anticipation of a sensuous para-
dise or, as among the Chinese, the maintenance in heaven of re-
lations that had already existed upon the earth. But in Chris-
tianity the thought of the life hereafter is lifted at the same time
with the conception of the truer life of man upon the earth. The
thought of the infinite contemplation of the celestial vision, the
thought of the union more and more perfect with the infinite
divine spirit, the thought of an infinite power of service — in a word
all that development of the thought of the spiritual life hereafter
which follows from the content of Christianity as it is recognized
in the earthly life — gives to the belief in immortality a fulness
and meaning such as are found nowhere else. Even in the Parsee
belief, which is perhaps the highest of any among religions other
than Christianity, the future life is conceived as at a standstill;
all are to be either fifteen years of age or forty years, either in
the perfection of youth or in the perfection of manhood; there
is little place for aspiration or advance, and largely because of the
lack of that mystical element which in Christianity is so strong, and
THE FIFTH DEFINITION OF RELIGION 407
which furnishes that outlook into an infinite advance in the higher
life which characterizes the Christian belief. Thus we have here
still another illustration of the way in which any one element of
belief is enlarged and lifted in Christian thought through the ele-
vation of the whole plane of the spiritual life.
It is the same when we turn to the ethical teaching of Jesus.
There has been something humiliating in the sort of strife into
which men have entered over the question whether the precepts
of Jesus are or are not higher than the similar teaching to be
found in other religions. This strife has been pushed so far
that some who have engaged in it have been tempted to try, on the
one hand, to undervalue the teachings of other religions, and then
again, on the other hand, to detract from the loftiness of the pre-
cepts of Jesus. From time to time something like a sense of re-
lief has manifested itself on the one side or on the other when
some imperfection has been discovered. This sort of partisan-
ship which enters thus into the discussion of the loftiest themes
is sometimes disheartening. Humanity is not so rich that it can
afford to do anything but rejoice over whatever can be found in
the world of that which is best in life. We need not ask whether
in this or that point of its teaching Christianity is or is not equalled
elsewhere. Here as in other respects it is the completeness of
Christianity that is its glory, and we cannot help seeing for our-
selves that in this completeness it is unequalled.
The course of our examination has been marked thus far by
successive definitions of religion. Beginning with the most ab-
stract and inclusive definition,1 we have passed to definitions
which were more typical at the same time that they retained in
some degree the inclusive element of the first definition.2 We
now reach the fifth of these definitions by introducing the element
of Christianity. We retain the breadth of the base that we have
already found but add the element which marks the highest form
that religion has assumed. It is like the definition of life itself,
1 The Psychological Elements of Religious Faith, p. 51.
2 The Psychological Elements, pp. 88, 208. Theism, p. 55.
408 THE FIFTH DEFINITION OF RELIGION
which must be such at the outset as to include the lowest forms,
but gains in completeness as we are able to add that which shall
cover higher and higher developments and finally the culmina-
tion in humanity as the highest type of all. According to this fifth
definition, then, religion is the feeling towaed a spiritual
PRESENCE MANIFESTING ITSELF IN TRUTH, GOODNESS AND
BEAUTY, ESPECIALLY AS ILLUSTRATED IN THE LIFE AND TEACH-
ING OF JESUS.
CHAPTER XXXI.
REVELATION. — REVELATION AS INSPIRATION. — REVELATION IN
NATURE.
Now that we have thus recognized the fact of Christianity,
we have further to recognize certain elements which distinguish
it. First of all, then, we have to consider Christianity as a revealed
religion.
Revelation involves two elements, the one objective and the
other subjective. The first of these, inspiration, I have called
the objective element, because it indicates the objective presence
of some higher power. Faith, the second of the two elements,
I have called the subjective element, because faith is the sub-
jective condition both of inspiration itself and of the reception
of the results of inspiration. I will speak first, then, of inspira-
tion, and more especially of inspiration with reference to the
Bible. Considering the matter somewhat externally at the out-
set, we recognize that there are a great many different views of
inspiration, ranging from the strictly mechanical view at one
extreme to what may be called the vital view at the opposite
extreme. Of the views that are more or less mechanical there
is first of all the theory of literal inspiration, according to which
every word and every letter of the Bible is inspired. Then there
is the view which abandons the theory of literal inspiration, but
insists that all statements of fact are inspired and must be im-
plicitly accepted. Still a third view gives up this second the-
ory, but urges that all the statements which have to do with eth-
ical or religious facts are to be accepted as true.
I do not propose to discuss these views at any length. So far
as the theory of literal inspiration is concerned, it is shattered,
of course, by any imperfection of grammar or any other defect
of the sort that may occur in the writings. One cannot help
410 REVELATION AS INSPIRATION • 1^,,'^ | j H
recalling Emerson's reply to the poet who thought himself
" divinely inspired " : " At least the Spirit would use good gram-
mar." As regards the view by which all statements of fact are
to be accepted, a single example will serve as well as a thousand.
In his denunciation of the scribes and Pharisees Jesus is repre-
sented as referring to the murder of "Zachariah, son of Bara-
chiah " * when in reality it was another Zachariah who was mur-
dered. Commentators have shown considerable ingenuity in
trying to meet this criticism, but I think that all fair-minded
scholars of the present day recognize the difficulty. Of course
the matter is in itself of very little importance and would not be
worth mention if it were not that in the face of the assumptions
made by those who support this view of inspiration the slightest
instance to the contrary becomes important. Finally, as opposed
to the view by which all statements are to be accepted which
have to do with ethical or religious facts, we have the impreca-
tory psalms. On this whole question Professor Ladd's Doc-
trine of the Sacred Scriptures is of great importance, and Lee's
Inspiration of Holy Scripture is a wholesome book.
But suppose that such contradictory instances as these to
which I have referred did not exist. Even then how could abso-
lute inerrancy be proved ? Suppose, for example, that we rec-
ognize the New Testament writers as infallible. How do we
know that we have their exact words ? We can only trust to
the efforts of the scholars, and how almost fearfully important
their minute and careful study becomes, if the result is to deter-
mine our acceptance or rejection of that which claims to be some
definite and final statement of divine truth. Then there is the
question of interpretation. How far are we to read between
the lines ? And what is figurative, and what is literal ? Are
we to insist with the Romanist that the words, " this is my body," 2
are to be accepted literally, or shall we agree with the Protestant
that they are figurative ?
Furthermore, is there any reason why we should assume for
the Bible an infallible authority? The Bible itself makes no
i Matthew, xxiii, 35. 2 Matthew, xxvi, 27.
REVELATION AS INSPIRATION 411
such claim. A famous passage in the Second Epistle to Timothy
has often been quoted in this connection. But the revised trans-
lation destroys the point of the application, and in any case the
passage of course refers only to the Old Testament writings.
Speakers and writers do indeed claim divine authority, but it
if for what they say and not for themselves. I have had occasion
before 2 to refer to the passage in the Epistle to the Galatians
in which Paul prays that whoever preaches a different gospel
from that which he had preached may be anathema,3 and we
have seen that what he is here asserting is not some dogma but
the principle of freedom. In this passage he is not claiming
any formal authority and still less infallibility; he is simply sure
in regard to what he is saying. There is a great difference
between a man's confidence in the truth of what he says and the
claim that what he says shall be accepted as true without question.
It is sometimes said that the Bible acquaints us with facts of
which otherwise we should have had no knowledge. But we
have no test by which we can be assured that these facts might
not have become known through other channels. So we come
at last simply to the recognition of the beauty and grandeur of
the result itself, as something that is nowhere else equalled. But
however helpful this may be to the individual, it does not serve
as a basis for dogmatic assertion. There is a highest every-
where, but who knows the limit to what human powers them-
selves may attain. And then at the heart of all we reach the
test of spiritual recognition. Here is something that is really
vital. But it refers to the content of inspiration and not to its
form. It can hardly be used dogmatically. For there is a differ-
ence in vision, and if you do not see what I see, I may say that
it is because you are carnal, or you may make a similar answer
to me if it is I who cannot see what you see. Therefore the rec-
ognition which is to serve as a test must be the individual recogni-
tion of whatever person has reached the highest spiritual develop-
ment, if we can determine who that person is. That is to say, if
the person of highest spiritual development in the period since the
i II Timothy, iii, 16. 2 Page 398. 3 Galatians, i, 9.
412 REVELATION AS INSPIRATION
beginnings of Christianity should say that he finds in Christianity
the loftiest teaching that the world has seen, his authority would
outweigh that of all other persons. But then we should have
to apply to him the very same test that we are applying to this
whole question. How are we to know that his spiritual develop-
ment is the highest ? Here are people at the present day who
tell us that what we call spiritual development is a mistake, that
we cannot get behind phenomena, or cannot rise above the world
of matter, and that those who claim any relation to the infinite
and to a spiritual universe are mere dreamers. What can we say
to such people that will convince them of error? If we appeal
to the magnificent content of the New Testament teaching itself,
or to the testimony which has been borne to that teaching by
the most spiritual-minded of all later times, his answer will remain
the same; he will say as before, that we in our day have passed
beyond all this, and have reached the final epoch of more positive
science.
Yet, after all, this is the only result that we can reach. This
method is the one that we have used before, and the one which
in all the higher relations of the soul we cannot escape using.
How are we to prove the supremacy of Shakespeare, or Raphael,
or Angelo ? We cannot prove it. We can only point to a pict-
ure and say, "This is beautiful." If the man cannot see its
beauty for himself and has no confidence in our opinion, what
are we going to do about it ? The highest life, whether in rela-
tion to truth or goodness or beauty, or to religion itself, must be
dogmatic. It must rest finally in a position which cannot be
proved but can only be spiritually discerned. Even in logic
some basis has to be assumed. If a person accepts your funda-
mental proposition, then you can use your logic to show that
some other statement is in accord with it, but if he does not accept
the fundamental proposition, how are you to prove to him the
truth of your result ? The fact is, doubtless for good, that we
are left without those convenient external methods, those visible
means of proof, which we sometimes think might be so helpful.
In our garden we may bind the branches of our vine to trellises
REVELATION AS INSPIRATION 413
and train it just where it should go. But there is no such trel-
lis for the spiritual life, no such support or bondage for its
branches. The soul is placed in the world, it is surrounded by
the highest influences, it has open to it the inspiration of the
highest life, and it is told to grow. If it follows its highest nature,
it does grow, until at last it recognizes more and more perfectly
the ideals that are set before it, and is able to say, " This is divine !
This is the true life!" But a result like this cannot be proved
to another except as his development is so far similar that he
can accept the principles on which it rests. This might seem
to leave the whole matter hopeless. But we have to recognize
the fact that no normal nature is wholly without these higher
elements, and therefore an appeal can be made to every nature
in the confidence that either awake or asleep some element is
there which can respond.
If now we are to attempt a positive statement of the doctrine
of inspiration, we must begin with that divine principle which
we have already recognized as working in the world from the
beginning, at first unconscious of itself, but gaining in definite-
ness and strength until at last it comes to recognize itself, and
enters into communion with the absolute divine life from which
it came. Meanwhile that absolute divine life has been an ever-
present factor in the process of development, drawing the human
soul nearer to itself and responding to its aspiration. The divine
principle in the world has not been left solitary like an orphan,
parentless and alone, but rather has developed its strength like
the child who grows in the presence and support of its father's
love. How or why the Jewish people should have come to be
the stalk on which the consummate flower of Christianity was to
blossom is not for us to say. We can only recognize the fact.
All religions are manifestations of the divine power and life.
No one of them can be considered purely human, however dim
and uncertain the divine element may appear. But in the com-
parative study of religions one cannot help noticing how many
religions, after they have reached a certain height, begin to
decline. The Chinese religion is already at its highest when it
414 REVELATION AS INSPIRATION
first becomes known to us historically and then becomes more
and more unspiritualized. Twice the Vedic religion seems to
be on the very point of becoming a complete religion; but after
Brahma there is the return to Indra again, and the later theism
with its utterances of lofty spiritual promise sinks into pantheism.
In the Hebrew religion, on the other hand, there is development
up to the point at which it blossoms into the larger thought of
Jesus.
Two elements declared themselves at a comparatively early
period in the history of the Hebrew religion which, although at
first they sustained themselves with difficulty, were of the great-
est advantage in all the later development, — the recognition of
monotheism, and the fact that all images were forbidden. Here
is a beginning from which an indefinite advance becomes pos-
sible; it is for religion what the beginning of the power to think
in concepts is for human life. Take for instance the Hebrew
psalms. At first sight some of the Assyrian psalms seem in their
form to suggest a comparison with them. But on examination
we find that the Assyrian psalms bring us into a region of poly-
theism, together with physical images of the gods, whereas the
Hebrew psalms, in spite of certain false conceptions that are
contained in them, have on the whole a universal character which
fits them for use as the expression of a higher spiritual develop-
ment. The same sort of difficulty that we meet in the Assyrian
psalms presented itself to the Greek philosophers in their attempts
to lift the popular thought to their own higher standards; thus
the term " Zeus " was so entangled with polytheistic and mytholo-
gical ideas that it could hardly be understood aright by the com-
mon people when used in any higher relation.
It may seem as though in some respects the Mazdean religion
would have been a more natural channel than the Hebrew by
which the spiritual principle in the world should reach its full
manifestation. But in the Hebrew religion there are glimpses
of a tenderness of relation which are hardly to be found in the
Mazdean religion, the beginning of the recognition of the relation
of the earthly child to its heavenly father. This may be said,
REVELATION AS INSPIRATION 415
however, — that it is one of the striking facts of history that these
two religions, the Hebrew and the Mazdean, with an insight
into the being of God and the divine holiness such as we find
nowehere else, should have to a certain extent coalesced in the
production of Christianity. I know very well that " coalescence "
may be too strong a term. Still some of us have seen 1 how the
Mazdean religion, more than any other element outside the
Hebrew religion, contributed to this result that we are consider-
ing. So that it may at least be said that in Christianity as it
originally appeared we have the results of the two best stocks,
the two highest forms of religious development. Throughout
its history Christianity has received contributions from the most
complete thought of other peoples; Greek philosophy and Roman
polity have had each a part in its inner and outer development.
Yet, when all is said, the Hebrew religion must still be consid-
ered as in a very special sense the source of Christianity. What-
ever the help that came from other religions, it was chiefly as an
outgrowth of all that had preceded in the Hebrew religion that
the final blossoming came.
Now the Old Testament is the history of the growth of the
Hebrew people and the Hebrew religion. Its great power consists
in these two facts, that it gives us not infrequent glimpses of the
higher spiritual truth, and that we have in it the story of the
development of a national life which was finally to result in the
most complete form of religious expression. We see, therefore,
how it is possible for those who recognize both the presence of
errors in the Old Testament and the miscellaneous character of
its contents still to hold that in a very special degree and manner
it is inspired. Indeed, those who take this view would say that
the belief in the absolute inerrancy of the Bible often blinds one
to what is strongest and most beautiful in some of the writings
that are contained in it; thus the Book of Jonah now too
often suggests a smile when it ought to call forth only admira-
tion.
When we include the New Testament and consider the Bible
1 In Dr. Everett's course in the comparative study of religions.
416 REVELATION AS INSPIRATION
as a whole, I may repeat what I said before in a similar con-
nection,1 namely, that the first utterance of a great intuitive truth
has a power far greater than that of any truth which is based on
demonstration. Perhaps you remember the counsel that was
given a judge, never to offer reasons for his decisions, because while
the decisions would very likely be right the reasons would prob-
ably be wrong ! This is eminently the case with all higher results
as we find them declared in history. Where men have been given
sublime insights, the arguments by which they attempt to sup-
port them as a rule soon become inadequate, whereas the insights
themselves still maintain their power over the world. Almost
every great system of thought has left an impression of this kind,
the results of some profound insight, while the technicality of the
philosophy has become obsolete. Thus the systems of both Kant
and Hegel have a power far beyond any that either might possess
through the apprehension of its technicalities; each has intro-
duced a new point of view, a new aspect of truth, which is to a
large extent independent of the special form that it has assumed
in the development of the system.
Furthermore a book, or a collection of books, which is thus
constituted, which contains teachings in which the highest spiritual
truth is presented under an intuitive form, will gain in sacredness
with use. As each generation employs certain forms of speech as
sacred, those forms are given a new sanctity. The forms of
speech that we have heard in our childhood have a power which
very few that are acquired later can ever have, and this power
only increases as we recognize the associations which all through
a long past have been gathering about these same forms of speech.
Take the Psalms, for instance. They have their original sanctity,
and they have that added sanctity which comes from their use
through long ages in the most exalted and most profound mo-
ments both of individual and of national life. In reading that
passage in the book of The Revelation in which the golden vials
or bowls full of incense are spoken of, "which are the prayers
of the saints,"2 I have sometimes thought that certain of the more
i Page 353. 2 Revelation, v, 9.
REVELATION AS INSPIRATION 417
sacred psalms might very well figure as these golden bowls, so
often have they been the vessels that have carried the prayers
of the saints to heaven, and so continually has new fragrance
been gathered to them as to so many censers with every added
generation. What is true of the Psalms is similarly true in greater
or less degree of the Bible generally. We find in it the elements
of our religion presented in a form which is not absolutely perfect
or absolutely free from admixture with foreign elements, but is
such as to fit them for universal use; and to the original power
of the various writings themselves is added the element of long
association.
There are four views that may be held in regard to the inspira-
tion of the Bible in general. According to the first, the Bible is
the only book that is to be regarded as inspired. This is the view
which, more or less clearly held, has been most common in the
history of the Church. " Inspired writers " are the writers of the
different portions of the Bible as compared with all other writers.
The most secular passages of the Bible are "inspired," the most
spiritual utterances of men whose words are not recorded in the
Bible are " uninspired." If a certain kind of inspiration is
granted to other writings, yet the inspiration of the Bible is of so
different a sort that it is still regarded as par excellence the one
inspired book. This view may be productive of much good.
It is a great point gained to recognize a single book as inspired,
or even a single sentence, provided that sentence is the utterance
of some lofty truth. For there is here at least a starting-point
for a conception of God as not only manifested from without
but as speaking to us from within. But the view has its disad-
vantages. There is first of all the danger in thus exalting the
thought of the Bible writers, that our estimate of other thought
may be lowered. It is like that regard for the Sabbath which
causes all other days to be considered profane. But the sanctity
of the seventh day should be of a sort that would make all days
more sacred, and the conception that we have of the inspiration
of the Bible should lift rather than degrade our estimate of other
literature. On the other hand, there is also the danger in this
418 REVELATION AS INSPIRATION
view that the lower standards found in certain portions may
become standards for the whole of life. Thus the Puritans, in
dealing with those whom they considered heretics, applied the
stern maxims of the Old Testament against Gentiles to the cir-
cumstances of their own times, while later on the polygamous
ideas of the Mormons found a precedent in the practice of the
patriarchs, and slaveholding in customs taken for granted by the
writers of the New Testament.
Yet if there are dangers in this view as compared with a larger
and freer conception, it is infinitely truer and higher than the
view which finds no inspiration at all in the world, either in the
Bible or in anything else; one sacred book, or one sacred day,
is infinitely better than none. This second view would leave the
world wholly apart from the life of God. In the controversies
of our day this aspect of the case is sometimes overlooked, and the
assumption of the special inspiration of the Bible is regarded as
though it were in itself an evil, whereas, broadly considered, it
is in itself a good.
At the other extreme from the view that recognizes no inspira-
tion anywhere is the view which finds equal inspiration every-
where, in all kinds of life; Shakespeare and Paul are equally
inspired, all human life is divine, every occupation is holy. My
statement of this view may seem extravagant, but I think I have
not exaggerated a fashion of speech with which we all are more or
less familiar. One can only say of this view that if it is seriously
held it contradicts our common sense. We know very well that
some occupations are unholy, and there is much honorable busi-
ness which still is not holy. There is of course a certain holiness
in honesty and care and accuracy, but there is a higher holiness in
the devotion to some noble aim, in love, in philanthropy. The
sort of holiness which those who hold this view would have us
find everywhere must be regarded as a possibility rather than as
actually existing. It is true that there is nothing which is in itself
right that may not be done in the highest spirit, but to say this is
not at all the same as to say that all life is holy. It is a glorious
thing for men to feel that their lives open upon the highest, but it
REVELATION AS INSPIRATION 419
is perilous to make men suppose that their lives are already at
their highest.
Furthermore, while the divine life does manifest itself every-
where, there is a difference of nature between the kinds of mani-
festation. Here we come to the fourth view of inspiration. All
forms of life, both active and intellectual, result from a certain kind
of inspiration. But that which inspires them is not necessarily
what we know as the holy spirit; the inspiration that comes from
the consciousness of one's relation to God is of a very different kind.
Grant that Shakespeare was as much inspired as Paul in degree.
His inspiration was still wholly different in kind, and between the
two kinds there can be no comparison. For the inspiration
through which utterance is given to life itself cannot be reduced
to a level with the inspiration by which life is only pictured, how-
ever perfect the picture may be. Shakespeare gives us an image
of the world, and we rejoice in the picture; he creates a new
world, and we delight in his creation. Yet except as the char-
acters whom he depicts have more wit and genius than the men
and women whom we ordinarily meet, the world that he gives us
is like that which we see every day. Therein lies its glory. But
Paul introduces into the world a power that is to transform it;
he brings us into direct relation with the ethical and spiritual
nature of God and man.
Of the Bible in relation to other literature we may say that it
embodies the highest expression of religious faith that has been
reached independently, that is, without the aid of the Bible itself.
The world at large obtains its knowledge of the scriptures of other
religions by selection, but the complete Bible is in every man's
hand. Thus the best of other sacred literature is set over against
the Bible as a whole. But to compare other scriptures with the
Bible in this way is like comparing a glass of filtered water with
the natural stream that flows by our door. Either all should be
considered in their entirety, or else the comparison should be
between selections made similarly from all. No absolute distinc-
tion can be made between the inspiration of the Bible and the
inspiration of other sacred books except this distinction of which
420 REVELATION AS INSPIRATION
I have just spoken. We find in the Bible that form of inspiration
which has resulted in lives of the highest spiritual nature and in
the presentation of a religious ideal that can never be surpassed.
If this culmination of religious truth and life in the Bible is what
is meant by perfect or absolute inspiration, the term may be used,
though only at the risk that its meaning maybe understood in some
different sense. If we ask ourselves how all this applies to the
teaching of Jesus himself, our answer has to be of a similar kind.
In the life and teachings of Jesus is found the culmination of that
general religious life the development of which is embodied in the
Bible.
To any question as to the laws of inspiration it is hazardous
to reply. So far as it applies to the spiritual life Jesus compares
it to the wind. "The wind bloweth where it listeth."1 The
process by which the spirit manifests itself is incalculable; it is
impossible to predict what the nature of its manifestation may be,
or when or where it will take place. We can only say with Emer-
son that
" There are open hours
When the God's will sallies free
And the dull idiot might see." 2
There are certain students of history of the present day who under-
take to explain all these matters. They attempt to construct the
hero or the genius out of the common elements of his time,
and they make of this common clay a very good image. All that
is missing is the inspiration which made the great thinker or the
great poet or the great leader just what he was. For there is the
inspiration of genius, as there is the inspiration of the spiritual
life, and they are akin in this, that each follows its own laws.
The wind does indeed blow "where it listeth." Yet the wind
has its laws ; there is nothing that is more regular. Of the nature
of those laws we know little; the meteorology of the winds is
hardly yet a science. But if we are so slow to comprehend this
meteorology of the earth, how shall we understand the meteorology
of the spiritual life?
1 John, iii, 8. 2 Merlin.
REVELATION IN NATURE 421
Back of all inspiration, however, is revelation. What is the
revelation of God? Where are we to find it? What does it
mean ? The universe is the revelation of God. Spencer speaks
of the universe as the manifestation of the Unknowable. But
a manifestation which leaves that which is to be manifested un-
known and unknowable is no manifestation. A power that is un-
knowable can be only that power in its abstraction, apart from
the universe. A manifestation of the power in the universe
must be a revelation of it. It is thus that God is revealed through
the manifestation of him in the universe. The complete reve-
lation of him would be the completed universe, quantitatively,
organically, spiritually. Everything is in some sense a manifesta-
tion and therefore a revelation of God, but each thing by itself
is more or less unintelligible and misleading. For revelation does
not exist outside of experience, and for a complete revelation there
must be a complete experience. If we take evil by itself we can
find in it no revelation of the divine, but in the universe as a whole
evil is seen to be a part in the complete manifestation, the absolute
revelation.
There are stages or concentric circles in this revelation, each of
which is true so far as it goes. Each sphere is partial, and that
which is incidental to it may mislead, but so far as the sphere goes
it is true. A man's life has spheres which may be contradictory
to one another. A man may be honest in business but dishonest
in politics, or he may shrink in horror at the thought of shooting
another and yet join without hesitation in urging on a war. There
are inconsistencies in individual human life. But the universe is
a unit, whose circles are concentric, corresponding to one another
and forming parts in one great whole. Any one circle considered
by itself carries with it a certain falsity, not because it is itself
untrue, and not because there is any absolute contradiction between
it and other spheres, but because the truth of each sphere or circle
needs for its completion a complemental truth. Take for instance
the revelation of God in nature. It has been dealt with hardly
by some of the theologians, who have pictured "the God of
nature" as stern and pitiless, presenting in contrast the infinite
422 REVELATION IN NATURE
tenderness that is manifested in the revelation of Jesus. But
the aspect of revelation which is offered in the physical world
should not be set aside or misinterpreted. Nature by itself is
not to be regarded as in any complete sense a revelation of God.
It is first of all a revelation of God's -power as it is manifested in
the universe. Suppose that a rock were to form an idea of the
power that was manifested in itself. It would conceive of that
power as a mighty rock; it would see God in its own image. As
conceived thus in the image of the physical world in general,
God would be a being uniform and without caprice. This con-
ception of permanence and regularity in that which governs the
world is fundamental in our thought of God. "The Lord is
my rock," l we cry with the Psalmist. The power that is thus con-
ceived is not yet a power working for good, but it is a power which
can be absolutely depended upon, and this element of trust-
worthiness is a very important element of revelation. The disci-
pline which it implies is essential to the full development of human
life. Men outgrow caprice as they themselves become orderly
through living in an orderly universe, and this discipline of orderli-
ness leads also to a discipline of strength. Men adapt themselves
to the order that governs the world about them; they learn that
they must take things as they are and as they come, they learn
that they must reap as they sow. Thus by their obedience they
learn to command, and strength results that could not have been
found in a capricious universe. The revelation in nature, there-
fore, brings trust, and the discipline of orderliness, and the disci-
pline of strength.
Mill has suggested2 that goodness cannot be manifested in the
natural world. But goodness can be manifested on the basis
which the natural world affords. For good is first that by which
all may be made happy and secondly that by which all may be
made good, that by which character may be developed. The
process which leads to the second result is not always that which
leads to the first. The physical world is unfeeling, as Mill says;
like the government which commands on its own behalf that
1 Psalm, xviii, 2, etc. 2 Essays on Religion, "Nature."
REVELATION IN NATURE 423
which may not be permitted to the individual, the physical world
maintains itself at whatever cost. But this characteristic of the
physical world, as we have just seen, is essential to the best disci-
pline of man, and thus there appears in it an element of goodness.
The revelation of God is imperfect and needs that which shall
complete it, but so far as it goes it is true.
Still another element appears in the revelation in the natural
world, the element of beauty. The world does not need flowers
or animal life to be beautiful; it has the grandeur of the sea and
the mountains, the glory of the sunsets. There may be sternness
in certain elements, but there is harmony between them, and in
this harmony, as well as in the sublimity of the physical world,
there is the hint of the higher revelation that is to come. Perhaps
that which is most marked in the physical world is its sublimity.
It is an element that is too easily lost out of the religious life. We
emphasize certain aspects of the fatherhood of God in such a
way that we blind ourselves to other elements of his being. The
term "fatherhood" does indeed represent that which is highest
in our conception of God, but it should be regarded as a culmina-
tion of his whole being and not as something which may be kept
apart by itself. When it is kept apart it too often carries with it
a thought which takes from the nature of God something of its
strength. In attributing to God love as that which marks our
highest thought of him, we too often forget the sublimity and law
and absoluteness by which love should be accompanied. Re-
ligion should bring comfort, but it should also strengthen, and
of the two strength is more important than comfort, for the truest
comfort of religion is in the strength it brings.
The next stage of revelation in nature is life. If a tree were
to form its idea of God, God would be a mighty tree. The life of
the physical world, apart from man, would not reveal God as
spirit; the physical world in itself declares pantheism and not
theism; the idea of the tree would be imperfect. Yet so far
as the idea of the tree went it would be true. God is the absolute
life of the world. Here enters the principle of teleology. The
materialistic view regards the world as something static, a play
424 REVELATION IN NATURE
of forces forever on the same plane. With the world regarded
as a great organism moving toward a definite result there comes
the revelation of life, and of a life which is more than a cycle of
change in which there is no progress; this life that is manifested
in nature is like a spiral in which any point as it swings around
the circle is found each time higher than it was before. There
is no dead matter any longer. Matter is living, and a part of the
universal life. Viewed thus, the physical world is a true revela-
tion of God as Life. In this relation also, as well as in the others
that we have considered, the revelation brings its lesson for man.
Man must first of all live. He may not remain stationary. He
must share in this progressive life of the world and enlarge together
with it. He must be that which he was created to be, a living
soul.
In the contrasts that have been drawn between "nature" and
"grace," or between "nature" and "revelation," man appears to
have been regarded often as in some way apart from both nature
and revelation, a personality to whom revelation is made. It is
true in a certain sense that revelation is made to man. Yet man
is himself a part of nature, and the most important part, and the
revelation that is in him must not be neglected for the revelation
to him.1 Man is the culmination of all the processes of nature,
and to speak of the revelation in nature and leave out the revela-
tion in human nature is to present only half the story. For how-
ever important are the permanence and regularity in the forces
of nature as a revelation of God, however important may be the
revelation of him in the sublime beauty of the natural world and
in the general manifestation of life, still more important is the
revelation in the sympathy and love and thought and aspiration
and consecration of human life. This revelation that comes
through human nature is higher than that which offers itself in
the physical world below man, simply because man is the con-
summation of the lower processes. If we are to find anywhere
the key to the mystery of life, we must look for it at the highest
point in its development rather than at the lowest. There is no
1 C. C. Everett, Essays Theological and Literary, "Reason in Religion."
REVELATION IN NATURE 425
greater mistake than that which is made so commonly nowadays,
of explaining everything from below upward instead of from
above downward. It is as though we were to explain the man
by the infant, and say of man that he is an advanced infant instead
of saying of the infant that it is an incipient man. Furthermore,
the revelation in man is also higher for the reason that it is clearer
and more distinct. While we receive from the external world
the fundamental revelations of permanence and order and sub-
limity which are essential to our thought of God, still the lower
forces of nature are in themselves unconscious, and we cannot go
behind them except as the light of consciousness enables us.
But there is no mistaking the voices of the revelation in human
nature, those voices of tenderness and love and consecration to
righteousness.
It is interesting to notice how often we criticise the course of
things in nature and in history as though we were outside of them.
We need to ask who we are, or what it is in us that makes these
criticisms. Is it a power, a life, that comes from some system
foreign to this world and is justified in criticising what it finds ?
We have to remember that the nature which criticises is a mani-
festation of the nature which created the order that is criticised.1
There is but one controlling principle in nature, and since this
power to criticise, to apply to outward things the test of high ideals,
represents the loftiest and clearest revelation of this principle, it
is more to be accepted than any other, only not as apart from out-
ward processes but as complemental to them.
In attempting to understand the universe we have no right to
assume the lower and leave out the higher aspects. When we
consider the infinite vastness and complexity of the universe
and the mystery of it, perhaps we may be willing to admit that
the glimpses which the highest forms of human nature afford
of a wise and tender power, a personal interest, working through
all, are as much as we could reasonably expect. Who can under-
stand and explain even a bit of intricate machinery, unless he
is himself a trained mechanic ? A curious illustration of the
1 C. C. Everett, Essays Theological and Literary, "Reason in Religion."
426 REVELATION IN NATURE
mistakes that are made in this direction may be found in Spen-
cer's First Principles,1 where he is criticising the theologians
who attempt to explain the processes of nature, presumably
with special reference to Martineau. Compared with these
critics, Spencer says, Alfonso of Castile was modesty itself. It
was Alfonso, you will remember, who said that if he had been
consulted in the making of the worlds he could have suggested
a much better way. What makes the illustration so interest-
ing is that we now see that Alfonso was right. He was applying
an ideal of reason to the universe as it was then understood, and
this universe did not conform to his ideal; with its system of
cycles and epicycles it was too complicated; he could have sug-
gested a much simpler system. In reality it was not the universe
itself that he was criticising, but the imperfect representation
of it that men had made. He applied an ideal of reason, and
the ideal justified itself, for it proved to be that in accordance
with which the world was really governed. Now this is what
takes place whenever we apply the ideals of reason to the history
of the world, and especially the ideal of infinite goodness. At
first thought such attempts may seem to be audacious and wholly
out of place. Yet it is precisely in these fundamental ideals of
the soul that we have the highest revelation of the power that
is working in and through all things. The power that criticises
is of the power that creates and guides. There can be no breach
in the universe; there can be only one principle, and this prin-
ciple we must understand as we can. It seems to me that from
any reasonable point of view, when we cannot reconcile the ideal
and the actual, we should recognize the ideal as the higher man-
ifestation and use it in the attempt to explain the lower mani-
festation. Then if we find that we cannot wholly explain the
lower by the higher, and must lay our emphasis upon one rather
than the other, let that emphasis be upon the higher.
According to the view that we have taken, it is the highest
point of this revelation in nature that is found in Christianity
and the Bible. The highest type of Christianity does not go
1 First Principles, Part I, Chap. V.
REVELATION IN NATURE 427
beyond this point, and if we look more closely we see that it
cannot. For the highest revelation of Christianity is contained
in that most familiar word of our human speech, "father," and
in the intensifying of the human instinct of love. As the dis-
covery of Newton lay in the application to the universe of a law
of the common phenomena of life, so Christianity takes the ex-
perience of human nature expressed in the word "father" and
applies it to the thought of God. At the same time Jesus does
not use this experience in its crude form. In this sense the reve-
lation in his life and teaching was greater than the meaning
which any words that he used brought to him. For they could
not in themselves carry a meaning beyond the experience of the
past, whereas his own spiritual life was beyond that experience.
It was a new experience that he added, although one to which
the experience of the past had led the way.
CHAPTER XXXII.
FAITH. — FAITH A FORM OF BELIEF. — ITS POSTULATE OF GOD AND
IMMORTALITY. — HELPS TO FAITH. — DIFFICULTIES IN THE WAY
OF FAITH. — THE SUMMUM BONUM. — PROVIDENCE AS THE
OBJECT OF FAITH.
Of the two elements involved in revelation 1 we have considered
only the first, the element of inspiration. The second element is
faith. If faith is not absolutely necessary for the reception of
inspiration, it certainly is necessary for its utilization, for inspira-
tion would come and go without result unless there were a faith
to make the inspiration a principle of life. The world "faith"
is used in two senses, the one complementary to the other. It
means on the one hand fidelity, that which can be trusted, and
on the other hand confidence, that which trusts, confidence imply-
ing fidelity. In considering the place of faith in religion, faith
as confidence, or trust, is the more fundamental. For not only
does trust imply fidelity in that which is trusted, but it is itself a
source of fidelity; one can hardly be faithful to any principle unless
he trusts it; if he is faithful to his word, it is because he trusts
the divinity of truth. In our present discussion, therefore, we may
set aside the use of the term in its first sense, now that we have
recognized it. There is a use common in theological writings
by which "faith" represents the mystical apprehension or ap-
propriation to one's self of that which is believed. In this use the
word tends to lose any definiteness of meaning and to become
synonymous with almost the whole of religion. It is better to
hold to its usual distinct meaning.
Faith, then, is a certain kind of belief. It is a specific under a
generic term. Not all belief is faith, but faith implies some de-
gree of belief. But what is belief? Belief is that which holds
i Page 409.
FAITH A FORM OF BELIEF 429
wood where there is no absolute demonstration. No one would
■O
say that he believed that two and two make four. That is
something which we know, and where knowledge begins belief
stops. There is of course a sense in which we believe that two
and two make four, but in ordinary speech we do not use the term
of that which has been demonstrated. Therefore faith, since it
is a form of belief, exists where no demonstration has been pos-
sible. But as a specific form of belief it implies that the object
of belief is desirable. Thus we may speak of it as confidence or
trust. It is "the assurance of" (or "the giving substance to")
"things hoped for."1
It is very important to recognize both of these elements in faith,
that which it has in common with all belief, and that which dis-
tinguishes it. Otherwise we may be led into a good deal of dif-
ficulty and doubt. Take, for instance, religious faith generally.
Faith exists where there is no demonstration. But precisely here
the difficulty enters which has troubled so many in regard to
religious faith. Since it cannot be made a matter of demonstra-
tion, they say, they cannot hold to it. The question between
religion and non-religion thus becomes really the question whether
one will or will not have faith. But in this relation the term
"faith" has been used to cover all sorts of inconsistencies and
weaknesses. The believer in some contradictory dogma or some
extravagant assertion of fact cries out, "You must have faith."
Properly defined, however, faith can cover first of all only that
which is to be hoped for. Other things may be matters of belief
but not of faith. Thus one may believe the doctrine of total
depravity; when I say that it cannot be a matter of faith, I do not
deny the truth of the doctrine; I only say that if it is believed,
faith is not the term that should be applied to it. On the other
hand the doctrine of human perfectibility would be a matter of
faith, as that which is above all things desirable; but this is not
to say that the doctrine of human perfectibility is true, but only
to define the use of the term "faith." Furthermore, in the second
place, we must discard as far as possible, in relation to faith, what-
ever lies outside the fundamental elements of the spiritual life.
1 Hebrews, xi, 1.
430 THE POSTULATE OF FAITH
The difficulty with many kinds of so-called faith is that they are
so superficial; they have nothing to do with confidence in the
absoluteness of truth and goodness and beauty, but only with
this or that man's thought or act or assertion.
I have said that faith is confidence or trust. It is a form of
loyalty. A man has faith in the father or mother whom he loves ;
if a charge is brought against them he indignantly denies it; it
may be that he cannot disprove it, but he does not and will not
believe it; his faith in his parents cannot justify itself by dem-
onstration, but his loyalty goes out to them instinctively. All
such faith as this that is based upon our conception of an indi-
vidual life may be deceived, and one of the most terrible things
that can happen to a young man is to discover that the father or
mother whom he has venerated as the incarnation of virtue is
soiled with sin and is not worthy of his reverence. Absolute
faith is that which goes behind all individual and finite forms.
When one finds that his faith, his confidence, in human life is
disappointing him, there still remains for him the motherhood of
nature, the fatherhood of God. The faith which manifests itself
in these special forms, toward special individuals, simply indicates
the tendency in the human mind to an absolute faith which reaches
out beyond all individual and finite things and affirms that there is
in the universe something that is worthy of confidence. Of
course the impulse to trust individuals is desirable. The cynic
who takes it for granted that no confidence is to be placed in man
or woman is apt to have little confidence in the soundness of the
universe itself, just as the life which lacks the absolute faith is
less likely to have faith in individuals. Yet it should always be
borne in mind that the shattering of the finite form to which faith
has clung is not one with the destruction of the absolute object
of faith itself.
Absolute faith postulates that without which the world would
be a failure. The only argument that the mind has to offer is
precisely this. " If this were not so," it urges, " if my faith were
without a basis, then the world would be a failure." If it is
asked why the world should not be a failure, it can only reply,
HELPS TO FAITH 431
"I cannot believe otherwise." It feels that such faith is essential
to the highest life of the soul, and therefore it must hold it. This
is the position of Kant, although his statement is in a more ab-
stract form than the statements which are ordinarily given. It
is in the very necessity of the nature of the soul, Kant declares*
that it should fulfil righteousness; but it cannot fulfil righteous-
ness unless there be a God and an eternity; therefore it has a
right to assume God and immortality. It is an entire misunder-
standing of Kant's statement to suppose that he intends it as any
sort of proof. It is not a proof but a postulate. It is often said
that faith may be and is an act of will, that a man can determine
to what world he will belong. Fichte urges this as fundamental,
and Professor James takes a similar position. Will is here regarded
in two aspects, as the tendency of the nature, and as the voluntary
act. The Ritschlians also recognize this. Man affirms his re-
lation to the spiritual world, and chooses the banner under which
he will think and work. Faith thus consists in voluntarily allying
one's self with that which is highest and best.
It is true that faith finds certain helps in what it sees of goodness
and beauty in the world, and of unity and adaptation. There
are so many indications of the presence of a teleological principle
that even external facts would lead us to affirm that the great end
of life toward which all the world has been moving could not be
itself a failure. Yet faith is often strongest when all reasoning
and speculation come to naught. At death all outward supports
fail, and the whole visible universe appears to be falling away
from around and beneath the individual, and yet faith is never
stronger than at the hour of death. In moments of deepest
sorrow, also, faith is at its strongest. It seems sometimes as
though when all outward things were going well, the soul trusted
to them, and only when these things were taken away, and it was
thrown back upon itself, did it discover the real power of faith.
Perhaps one of the greatest helps to faith is found in the sym-
pathy with noble souls who have themselves cherished such
faith. It is interesting to see how often we find faith associated
with general nobility of soul. It is the great natures that manifest.
432 HELPS TO FAITH
faith most strongly, no doubt because faith is an element in the
freest and fullest development of life, whereas a distrust of one's
environment is unfavorable to the healthiest growth. This is
one great source of the power of Jesus. Standing as he does at
the central point in the movement of history, all who have honored
him have felt the contagion of his mighty faith. In such faith
as this there is no weakness. Mere credulity is weak, but faith
is heroic. In a world where there is so much evil and suffering,
it is the heroism of faith that it can affirm an infinite good above
and in the world and working through it. In a world where all
life seems to die and pass away, it is the heroism of faith that it
affirms immortality. This faith rises about the great mass of out-
ward facts which seem to contradict it, and trusts itself. In it
the spiritual lays down the law to the material.
Some have said that courage is born of faith, and others that
faith is born of courage. Both statements are significant. That
courage is born of faith is true in the sense that in so far as a man
has confidence in himself and in his purposes, the more courage
he has in carrying through that which he has undertaken to its
result. But on the other hand it may be said that the more
his courage is based on faith, the less he has; for if he is sure of
accomplishing a thing, there is not much courage in undertaking
it. Therefore the kind of courage that is born of faith is less needed
as faith is stronger. Yet it may be said that faith in the object
itself, rather than in its accomplishment, does give greater courage
and disregard of danger. On the other hand faith is also born
of courage. We recognize this more readily if we substitute the
word "boldness" for "courage." Boldness certainly increases
with faith, for faith is self-asserting in relation to that which it
has recognized as best. Why is it that we admire courage and
faith? Foolhardiness we despise, and superficial readiness
either to believe or to act we feel to be unworthy. We also think
little of a timid or doubting heart. But there is something about
confidence and courage that we admire. Just as we feel con-
tempt for the cowardice of the man who gives way, so we honor
the man who we see stands for something, at least for himself,
HELPS TO FAITH 433
if for nothing better. I suppose it is because both faith and cour-
age spring from a more abundant life, and in turn stimulate it.
There are two elements in the highest religious faith, the recog-
nition of the highest good as supreme de jure, and the recognition
of it as supreme de facto. The first recognizes the divinity of
righteousness, the second, the omnipotence of righteousness.
The first declares that righteousness ought to be supreme, the
second, that it not only ought to be but is supreme. The first
is sufficient for a sturdy morality, the second alone affirms that
which we call religion. Indeed, this distinction between religion
and morality is as good as any that we can make, that whereas
morality recognizes the supremacy of the divine goodness de jure,
religion recognize it not only de jure but de facto.
We have already had occasion to notice how science itself rests
upon faith, so far as its fundamental principles are concerned.1
Science believes what it cannot prove. It finds the law of gravita-
tion illustrated in a few worlds, and affirms that it is the controlling
force of all worlds. It discovers a few instances of a connection
of cause and effect in the past, and affirms that such connection
always has been and always will be universal. This is a faith as
magnificent as the faith of religion, and as pure. Religion adds
to this faith in truth the faith in goodness, and because of its
faith in truth and goodness it has also its faith in beauty; because
it has its faith in what is and in what ought to be, it also has its
faith in the universe as being that which it ought to be. We hold
the faith of science because it is necessary to life ; we could not live
without that trust in the unity of things which is the basis of
science. But faith in the religious sense is as essential to the life
of the spirit as faith in the scientific sense is to the life of the body.
We are told, however, that the faith of science is confirmed by
experience, whereas such confirmation of the supremacy of good-
ness is not found in anything like the same degree. It is true
that science finds its faith confirmed by experience to a large
extent, and it is also true that although there are still a great
many things in the world that cannot yet be reduced to the unity
of scientific faith, there are vastly more things that cannot be
i Page 374.
434 DIFFICULTIES
brought within the requirements of religious faith. It is more
difficult to prove the supremacy of goodness in the universe than
to prove the supremacy of law. Yet religious faith has also its
confirmations. It holds that "to them that love God all things
work together for good," * and everyone who has fairly put this
to the test has found it true at least of his own experience.
At the same time we have to recognize that there are many
difficulties with which faith must contend. We cannot be sur-
prised at this, for faith would not be faith if there were no diffi-
culties. The surprise is that the difficulties are so great. It
is a surprise that is especially apt to meet the young as they
enter upon life. It is so easy to talk about temptation, and it
seems as though it would be as easy to resist it. It is not until
one has had personal experience of it that he realizes that the
essential element in temptation is that it tempts. So long as our
difficulties are difficulties only of the imagination it is easy to be
heroic, but when the reality of pain and toil and grief brings with
it real difficulties, then we are surprised at finding how great they
are. Faith implies a certain degree of optimism, and it is open,
therefore, to the same difficulties to which all optimism is open.
We affirm the supremacy of good, and we find an actuality of
evil. The question is often asked why God did not make spirits
perfect at the first. The Christian tradition says that he did,
and that the experiment failed; the angels fell, and the Creator
was obliged to begin again and build up from the bottom. The
tradition illustrates the great lesson which life teaches, that apart
from all theories and looking only at the actual relations of things,
we find that the highest cannot be created outright, cannot be
given outright, but must be won by each individual for himself.
And it must be won at a cost.
I know that this is superficial, and that we must go behind it.
If God is omnipotent goodness, we have to ask, why has he not
made the world a good and happy world? I have already re-
ferred to this question in considering the doctrine of omnipotence.2
We have found that the thought of omnipotence pushed to this
i Romans, viii, 28. 2 Page 53.
DIFFICULTIES 435
extreme would do away with all other attributes and qualities.
We have seen1 that the "unconditioned" of Spencer is an im-
possibility, even to his own thought, because the Absolute that
he describes must by its very nature produce the precise universe
that we have and could not produce any other. Even in the
divine nature, even in an ideal relation which we cannot com-
prehend, we may conjecture that there exists a connection for
all finite natures between virtue and effort as absolute as the law
of contradiction itself. A virtue given may be as truly a con-
tradiction in terms as any that can be conceived; to be good
without having won the good may be a contradiction as truly as
to be and not to be, in the same sense and at the same moment.
Of course this is merely conjectural, but it is the last word that
we can say upon the matter. We have two fundamental prin-
ciples to apply: first, the unconditioned is something the exist-
ence of which we cannot even conceive, because such an existence
would lead to nothing; and second, if there are conditions, these
conditions may be of the character which I have just suggested.
Practically, in actual life, we recognize often the gain in strength
and beauty which may come through the limitations of the earthly
experience. Something of this finds illustration in the attempts
that have been made by the painters in trying to portray a per-
fect holiness that has not known struggle. When in these pictures
we compare the faces of the angels with those of the saints, the
angel faces are no doubt fair and sweet, and yet there is in the
faces of the saints, however furrowed by age and suffering, a
nobler kind of beauty that is lacking in the angel faces. Perhaps
we may interpret in a larger sense than was intended that story
of the Hindu maiden who was about to choose a husband. You
will remember that three gods took the form of her beloved, so
that she saw four semblances of him instead of one; but whereas
the three gods were of an absolute purity, her human lover was
soiled with sweat and dust, and so she knew him by the marks
of his earthly infirmities, and we may conceive loved him the
better because of them.
The suffering of the lower animals presents a harder problem.
i Page 6.
436 DIFFICULTIES
It was the problem which troubled Theodore Parker; he found
no difficulty in human su ; ering. We may indeed reduce the
suffering of the lower animals to a minimum in our thought. It
is true that whereas human suffering is so concentrated by memory
and fear that the whole burden of long periods may be felt at
every moment, the burden in the case of the animal is spread out
over the whole of life. It is true that whereas wilfulness exag-
gerates human suffering, there is in the suffering of the lower
animal a certain passivity often, — it desires simply to crawl away
and hide itself. Still the suffering is there, and we are quite as
likely to underrate as to overrate it. The whole field is obscure.
In regard to man's future we have our faiths in immortality,
but as regards the future of these lower creatures we can neither
affirm nor deny. To make a conjecture that may seem bizarre,
is it possible that as the life of the world moves slowly upward
from the lower to the higher through this terrible struggle for
existence, the spiritual element is working in these pains so that
a higher inheritance may result ? But I can only repeat that at
present the whole region is obscure, the whole question as to
what animal life really is, and what is its consciousness, and its
history. It is very obscure and very tantalizing.
Returning to the world of human life, it is reassuring to recog-
nize that in spite of all its many obscurities, there still are certain
luminous points which shed light upon the rest. Spencer tells
us that pain is absolute evil.1 Let me say here, in passing, that
it is well to avoid the temptation to speak slightingly of a writer
who meets us thus at almost every point in our discussion. This
statement, however, in regard to pain we cannot accept. For
in a world without pain we should find no place for heroism, no
place for sympathy in any profound sense, and no place for the
development of character, or for helpfulness and the various
glad activities of life. These activities imply friction, and yet
the slightest friction or difficulty is of the nature of pain. Fur-
thermore, it is through difficulties that life works upward from
the lower animal plane to the spiritual plane. The devil is painted
i The Data of Ethics, Chap. III.
DIFFICULTIES 437
with horns and hoofs, and it may be that this symbolizes the
animal nature of sin, the fact that moral evil is from below. It
is also suggestive that in the medieval plays the devil figures
simply as an instrument and tool. Certainly we can recognize
no absolute evil; temptation as well as suffering may be the
instruments of the higher life. It is sometimes urged that if the
principle of absolute evil is denied, the principle of absolute good
must go also. But whereas evil is negative, good is positive,
and the positive may abide even if the negative passes away. I
say nothing as to the possible existence of evil spirits; we can-
not say on any a priori grounds that there may not be a whole
hierarchy of such spirits. But the principle of absolute evil can
have no place in our thought of the universe.
Theoretically most people no doubt would agree with what
has been said. It is very easy to recognize in theory the fact that
suffering and temptation may be helps to a life which could not
be lived without them. The real difficulty comes when we meet
the fact of temptation and suffering, whether in our own lives
or in the lives of those about us. We who perhaps have solved
without difficulty the problem of the suffering of the universe,
find our theoretical optimism put to shame by a toothache, to
say nothing of severer suffering. Then it is that we ask why
suffering should be permitted in a world that is ruled by supreme
goodness. The suffering of those who are dear to us involves
still greater difficulty. For in bearing his own burden of pain or
sorrow a man has some resources which fail him when he tries
to bear the burden of another. He may make light of his own
sorrow, but not of the sorrows of his friend; he may summon
up energy to meet troubles of his own, but he cannot provide
in this way for another's trouble. Practically speaking, what
disturbs our faith is not the idea of suffering but its reality; it is
when we feel the reality of it that we protest. So that the very
hardest lesson that we have to learn is that if the battle is to be
fought, it must be a real battle. If suffering is to do its work,
it must be real suffering. If we are to be made perfect through
temptation, the temptation must be that which really tempts.
438 THE SUMMUM BONUM
If victory is to be real, the battle must be not a sham fight but a
real battle, involving the possibility of real and absolute defeat.
The real difficulty, then, lies in a lack of proportion. These
persons or those, we say, or perhaps we ourselves, have more
than a just share of suffering or temptation; and we are very
apt to magnify our own share. But how is the just proportion
to be determined? If theoretically we grant the necessity of
suffering, if practically we grant its reality, how are we to deter-
mine the degree in which it shall be shared? The fundamental
difficulty in the whole matter, practically considered, is the fact
that in our hearts we fail to recognize what is the real end of life.
We may recognize it theoretically, but not actually in our hearts.
Theoretically we agree that the end of life, so far as it is open to
us, is the development of our spiritual nature in the direction of
the highest virtue, if I may use an inadequate term for a great
fact. Practically, I suppose that most of us feel that the end of
life is happiness, and so, if unhappiness comes to us, we feel that
our life is failing to fulfil its end, even though the straight and
narrow path which leads to the spiritual heights may still be
open to us.
One of the most difficult themes, in a discussion in which all
the themes bristle with difficulties, is the question, what is the
summum bonum. Is it happiness, or is it virtue? I suppose
we should all say that practically it is both; that the universe
would be perfect if happiness could be reached by virtue. But
which is higher? Shall we say that happiness is the inevitable
comcomitant of virtue, or that virtue is the means to the highest
happiness? I think it is obvious that from our present point of
view virtue must be regarded as the highest good. For although
we may admit that the highest happiness can be reached only
through virtue, and that virtue thus may be regarded as the means
by which to reach the highest happiness, still the true end toward
which we are to strive is the highest spiritual life. If we really
felt this, if we were really convinced in our hearts that the highest
spiritual life is the highest good of which we can at present con-
ceive, the questions that we have been considering might still
THE SUMMUM BONUM 439
remain unsolved theoretically, but practically, for most men,
they would be answered. The reason why most of us are so
pressed by our difficulties is that we do not realize that virtue is
worth all that it costs. If we did realize it, the inspiration of the
thought of the spiritual life as we should see it in all its beauty,
would give us such strength and earnestness that our difficulties
would seem slight in comparison. Furthermore, when we con-
sider happiness and virtue side by side, we see that happiness is
not possible for all ; but for all normal souls not only is the growth
in virtue possible, but it is made more easily possible through
these very difficulties which trouble us. Therefore if we fully
realized both the power of this ideal and the possibility of drawing
nearer to it, we should find the foundations for an optimistic
faith greatly broadened and strengthened. A work that is most
helpful in this connection is Edward Dowden's Critical Study of
the Mind and Art of Shakspere, because of the clearness with
which the sternest difficulties of life, as they are pictured in the
tragedies, are contrasted with the higher life which causes those
difficulties to seem of comparatively little account.
I have sometimes used an illustration which I find is given in
an essay by Frances Power Cobbe.1 She speaks of the bewilder-
ment and questioning that would arise in the mind of a person
who had never seen a ship and who in passing along the shore
should come upon one on the stocks and mistake it for a house.
We can imagine his perplexity. On the one hand there would be
the evidences of art and skill and contrivance, the evidences that
in many respects the comfort and taste of the future occupants
had been anticipated and provided for. Yet on the other hand
it would appear in many ways so inconvenient and unattractive
that he would wonder how an architect or builder, evidently of
so much genius and skill, and with so much money at his dis-
posal, could have made such a house as this. In a similar way,
if the world is to be considered simply as a house in which
we are to dwell comfortably, difficulties at once appear. We
confess that there is evidence enough of design, and evidence
1 The Peak in Darien, "The House on the Shore of Eternity."
440 PROVIDENCE AS THE OBJECT OF FAITH
enough of power and of the preparation of that which may satisfy
our highest desires. Yet in spite of all this the world presents
so much of inconvenience and of suffering ! Certainly if the
world is only a house for present dwelling, these difficulties may
easily seem great beyond the possibility of explanation. But if
the world is not a house but a ship, if the mere dwelling at ease
is not the end of life, but the accomplishment of the highest ideals,
the development of the highest spiritual life, then we find that
the world may be well adapted to its purpose.
We have seen with what difficulties faith has to contend. We
have also seen in what way faith may be aided in overcoming
these difficulties. It is to be noticed that the evil of life is felt
much more, as a rule, by those who consider the evil theoretically
than by those who are actually suffering. The faithful souls
who pass through suffering and look upon it from within see
the real meaning of it and realize the good that it is working out,
as those who look upon it sympathetically from the outside do
not. Men learn that there is such a thing as patience, and a
faith that can transform sorrow, and an aspiration that rejoices
at finding in suffering that upon which it feeds. The world, then,
is to be regarded as designed not so much to test character —
for there is nothing to test until the experience has come — but
rather to develop character. In a certain sense, however, it
may become a test, for all these things may be misused. It is a
great mistake to suppose that suffering in itself has power to save
men. To realize this, we have only to remind ourselves how
many natures have simply been hardened by it. But there is
in it the possibility of salvation; it offers a way by which salva-
tion may be attained.
When we pass to the consideration of the object of faith, the
idea toward which it strives, the divine providence, we find that
two views are held with more or less distinctness: the belief in
what is technically defined as special providence, and the belief
in that which may be called general providence. The terms
are inadequate, but we may use them for convenience. Accord-
ing to the first view every element of life and every event in life
PROVIDENCE AS THE OBJECT OF FAITH 441
is specially adapted to the special needs of each individual, so
that if special suffering comes to a man, or special joy, there is
the question why this joy or suffering should have come to this
particular individual. According to the other view the laws
of nature are invariable, and every spirit alike is subject to
them. Therefore when this or that experience comes to an indi-
vidual, he does not ask why the special event should have hap-
pened to him, but sees in it one manifestation of the forces by
which all men are surrounded. According to the first view,
a man's relation to the world is like a bath that has been specially
prepared in accordance with the directions of the physician,
with just such qualities to the water, and just such temperature,
and so on. According to the other view, the relation is like bath-
ing in the ocean, where there is no preparation for the individual,
but the same surf beats upon all alike.
It may be asked, where, if we take this latter view, is the pos-
sibility of recognizing any providence at all ? Where is there
any opportunity for faith? The difference, however, between
the two views is largely one of detail. There is opportunity for
precisely the same sort of faith in the one case as in the other,
the faith in an absolute ordering of events. Only according
to the second view we assume that the divine providence has
ordained this subjection of man to a system of invariable law
as the best method of education for the spiritual life, recogniz-
ing that in a world where laws might be suspended, where the
action of forces might vary according to every varying need,
the soul would lose its strength and vigor. The question in
regard to our conception of the divine providence is a question
as to the best method of training; is the individual soul best
trained under the one system or under the other? An imperfect
parallel to this question appears in the question in regard to
the education of children, whether private education is better,
or education in the larger schools. The illustration is a very
poor one, but I use it purposely. For if the world is designed
for the training of the spiritual life, then we must see that the
question as to which method is better may be a very open one.
442 PROVIDENCE AS THE OBJECT OF FAITH
What I am insisting upon is that the idea of an overruling provi-
dence enters just as much in the one case as in the other. The
providential care may show itself in the strength that is inspired
in the hearts of those who seek it, as they find themselves exposed
to the action of the invariable laws. The father may, as it were,
himself bear his child into the ocean, so that as the waves beat
upon the child, the father's hand supports him and the father's
voice gives him courage.
As we compare the two methods further we have to recognize
that whereas the first admits no a posteriori proof, the second
does admit such proof up to a certain point. Not that this dis-
credits the first method. But supposing that we held this view,
we could not expect to be able to "justify the ways of God to
men." For in order to understand the relation of outward events
to individual character, we should need to have a knowledge
of the character and of its relations that we cannot have. As
it is, we interpret providence in each case according to the result.
We regard the same experience sometimes as a judgment and
sometimes as a discipline, according to the person to whom it
has come. And as a matter of fact, apart from any theory as
to a special or a general providence, that is what we find in the
world. "All things work together for good to them that love
God," whatever the explanation we may give, whether the cur-
rent of events is so guided as to bear the lover of God on his
way, or whether the lover of God has the power to transmute
the environment in which he is placed into that which shall
nourish and develop his life. This power of transmutation differs
in different individuals as one plant differs from another; given
the rosebush, all things work together to produce roses, and
given the thistle, all things work together to produce thistles.
Or from another point of view, it is like the sailing of ships
upon the sea; nothing is more striking to one who sees it for
the first time than the passing of ships, one in one direction
and another in precisely the opposite direction, and yet both
impelled by the same breeze. The second view does admit
a posteriori proof to some extent, though not absolute proof.
PROVIDENCE AS THE OBJECT OF FAITH 443
This proof appears in the fact that no suffering has been found
so great that souls have not been purified and lifted by it. The
difficulty is that so many souls have been hardened by even less
suffering, and the question which cannot be determined by any
a posteriori reasoning is whether in such cases the individual
was incapacitated by his nature from drawing out of his expe-
rience the possible benefit. What we may say with tolerable
confidence is that there is no suffering from which the individ-
ual may not, if he will, receive some betterment. At the same
time no observer of life can fail to see that there are natures
which harden with suffering but blossom into a certain beauty
in the sunshine of prosperity.
I suppose that in the largest possible view both theories would
flow together. That is, if we recognize absolute omniscience
and absolute omnipotence in the sense in which we have used
these terms, and if we regard this all-wise omnipotence as estab-
lishing absolute laws, then we must conceive of this power as
seeing these laws from the first in the whole sweep of their his-
tory and results, so that in their very establishment their applica-
tion to the needs of every individual would have been foreseen
and provided for. But this carries us very far into a region
where I for one do not like to penetrate. My object has been,
not to press either the one view or the other, but only to emphasize
what it is that religion has at stake in this question. The diffi-
culty is that individuals are apt to insist upon the inflexibility
of law and then leave the matter there, whereas for the com-
plete religious view we need to recognize the fact that religion
assumes that the individual is indeed subject to law, but subject
to it by the act of divine wisdom and love. It may be helpful
to notice that the second view suggests a distinction like that
which Paul so emphasizes, between law and grace. The natural
law, like the Jewish law, may be regarded as the schoolmaster
to bring men to Christ, training men's spirits by the discipline
of its invariableness until they can rise into the higher realm of
love. But however this may be, without some view of provi-
dence the soul cannot rest and religion cannot exist. All that
444 PROVIDENCE AS THE OBJECT OF FAITH
religion demands is the recognition of an infinite spirit of love
into relation with which the finite spirit is brought.
We have seen that practically speaking no finite nature can
reach the highest perfection possible to it without the discipline
of evil, at least in the form of friction. However hopeless we
may be in regard to any answer, I suppose we cannot help
asking the question, how is it, then, with the infinite spirit ? Is
the infinite spirit also made perfect through suffering ? This is
wholly beyond our knowledge, and we need not be confused
if the results that we have reached in regard to the finite spirit
seem foreign to the infinite. Yet we may recall a thought which
has haunted many profound thinkers. We may remember the
sacrifice of Purusha by which the universe was created, and
the words of Lao-Tse, "He veiled his glory and became one
with the dust,"1 and we may call to mind certain doctrines of
the Christian church. In other words, in philosophical language,
we may recognize that negative element which is the condition of
creation. But in regard to this whole realm we can only peer
into the mists and the measureless distances and remain silent.
Happily the question is practically clear enough and is made
still clearer by Christianity. For in Christ and Christianity we
find the glorification of suffering. The Christian sees the captain
of his salvation made perfect through suffering,2 and the cross
becomes the symbol of the highest life.
To go back now to the point from which this discussion started,
I said that faith is a condition of inspiration. Since all higher
life is in greater or less degree the result of inspiration, it fol-
lows that faith is essential to the highest life. It is indeed the
one important thing in the religious life, the faith in something
that is worthy of reverence. Perhaps this may help us to un-
derstand those words of Jesus, "the publicans and the har-
lots go into the kingdom of God before you."3 For we may
suppose that Jesus saw that they had a faith in a better life, even
i V. F. Von Strause, Lao-Tse' s Tab T'e King, p. 22. S. Julien, Le Livrc de
la Voie, etc., p. 16.
2 Hebrews, ii, 10. 3 Matthew, xxi, 31.
PROVIDENCE AS THE OBJECT OF FAITH 445
though they believed themselves to be shut out from it, and that
he felt that the sinful man or woman who had faith in the possi-
bility of the better life was nearer to it than the Pharisee who
had no real faith in the divinity of goodness and whose morality
was merely either a habit or a pretence. We must bear in mind
that this is probably not the precise point of the comparison as
Jesus intended it; for the Pharisees, as he painted them, were
not the morally religious people we are too apt to think them,
but rather men whose religiousness was hypocritical, men who
were said by him to "devour widows' houses and for a pretence
make long prayers."1 Still we may extend the comparison in the
form in which I have stated it, and say that the most imper-
fect life which keeps its faith in a better life, even though it has
lost the hope of reaching it, is really nearer God than the most
upright life which has lost this faith.
1 Matthew, xxiii, 14. Mark, xii, 40. Luke, xx, 47.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE INDIVIDUAL IN KELATION TO SIN AND ATONEMENT. — REPENT-
ANCE. FORGIVENESS. REGENERATION. — PRAYER.
We have considered the great facts of sin and the atonement in
their general aspect. We have now to consider the individual
in relation to these great facts. We have looked at the environ-
ment and have seen how it is adapted for harmony with the devel-
opment of individual life. We now have to look at the individual
and see him adapting himself to a relation in harmony with the
environment. It may seem like a Hibernicism to say that the
environment may be in harmony with the individual, and yet
the individual be out of harmony with the environment, but
the explanation of the seeming paradox is to be found in the fact
that the individual may be out of harmony with himself. The
individual has two selves, the universal element in his nature,
and the individual element. The environment is in harmony
with the larger self, the universal element, and it is the business
of the individual to bring the smaller self into harmony with the
larger self and so with the environment.
I will speak first of repentance. The word as we find it in the
New Testament signifies primarily a change, a transformation,
but in common speech it has come to mean regret, so that when
we speak of repentance for sin, what we have in mind is not so
much the turning from sin as the sorrowing because of it. To
this meaning the Catholic adds, through a mistranslation, an
element of penance. I mention the three meanings because all
are helpful to the complete idea of repentance. All the three
elements are involved. The change is the fundamental thing;
but this can hardly come except as it is either caused or accom-
panied by regret, while the test of repentance is the willingness
to do penance, the penance of right living.
REPENTANCE 447
In its subjective aspect the fact of repentance is most inter-
esting. We have seen 1 that identity can be recognized only in
the case of self-conscious beings, in whose thought past, present
and future are united. In the case of an impersonal object the
past leaves an effect, but the past itself no longer exists; with
persons, on the other hand, the past is taken up into the present.
Therefore in repentance there is not merely the memory of a
deed, but the recognition of responsibility for the deed. The
person extends his present into the past and brings over his past
into the present. "This experience is mine," he must say to
himself, " and mine in such a way that I can blame myself for it."
Thus responsibility is brought out most clearly in repentance.
But the person may say further, "This experience is truly mine,
and yet I disown it. It has no business to be mine, for it was
not my true life that accomplished it. It was my self that did
the act, but not my true self." Thus repentance emphasizes
the distinction between the lower and the higher self, the his-
torical and the permanent self. There is in it both an accept-
ance and a rejection of the past act. The sin is of the
person, it is his own sin, but it is something foreign to his true
nature. Thus in the case of the individual as well as in its
general aspect, sin is negative. The objective act itself and the
ruling motive at the time when the act was performed were
indeed positive, but what constituted the sin was the absence of
the higher motive and the higher deed which should have been
present. At first the thought of the positive act is uppermost in
repentance; the other element appears later. "I am sorry that
I struck that blow," is the first thought; but then comes the
thought, " I ought not to have given way to my passion." Thus
the more profound repentance goes back to the negative aspect
of the experience.
I said that the sin is recognized by the individual as foreign to
his true nature. He finds further that this foreign element is
superficial, and that it can be cast out and he himself remain
whole and sound. This will appear more plainly if we compare
repentance with remorse. Remorse like repentance sees that a
1 Page 24.
448 FORGIVENESS
foreign element has come into the life, but unlike repentance it
believes that this element has entered so deeply into the life, and
has become so large a part of it, that it cannot be removed, so
that whereas repentance is full of hope, remorse is hopeless. In
repentance the case is like that of a person who suffers from some
external trouble which the surgeon's knife may easily remove
without touching the source of life itself, but the person who is
filled with remorse is like the man who finds that a cancer is
feeding upon his very vitals. It is thus that remorse seeks relief
sometimes in suicide. Peter goes out and weeps, but he knows
that his heart has all along been true and that his sin is one that
his sorrow can wash out. Judas abhors not merely his sin but
himself; he feels that no way is open by which he may eradicate
his sin except as he eradicates himself. Yet however remorse
may be regarded from a subjective point of view, viewed from
without it should be considered a ground for hope. For the
individual who can abhor himself on account of his sin has the
faith of which I have only just now spoken, that there is some-
thing worthy of the highest reverence, something that is worth
living for.
From certain points of view, forgiveness seems to be a very light
and easy thing. But when one looks at it more closely he realizes
the difficulty that is involved. For if you forgive a person, you
are supposed to treat him and to feel toward him as though he
had not done the wrong, and how is this possible? There is a
play of Racine's in which Augustus is made to detect Cinna in
leading a conspiracy to take his life. He not only forgives him
but shows the reality of his forgiveness by saying, "Let us be
friends, Cinna." Here is the difficulty set in the clearest light.
Here is a man asking another man who has been preparing against
him the sword of the assassin, to be his friend! What sort of
friendship could there be between these two ?
Three different attitudes are possible in the object of forgive-
ness, and the nature of the forgiveness in each case varies accord-
ing to the attitude. In the first case the offender has repented.
Here forgiveness ought to be easy, and yet we know that there
FORGIVENESS 449
are persons whom apparently no amount of repentance leads to
forgive those who have wronged them. In the second case the
offender has not repented, but is believed to be true at heart.
Here there may be forgiveness even before repentance, according
as the person who is wronged has power to see the life of the
wrong-doer in its completeness. It is the forgiveness which is
so often felt by the loving father or mother toward their children,
or between friend and friend. For a moment your anger at an
unkind word or deed may magnify it so that it hides from you
your friend's life as a whole; but presently your love looks around
and beyond the act and sees it only as a single incident over
against the complete life, and you only sorrow that your friend
should thus have yielded to the impulse to do a wrong which is
unworthy of his truer self and of which you are sure he will repent
presently. The third case, and the case which occasions the
chief difficulty, is that in which even the calm judgment of the of-
fended person cannot separate the wrong act from the life of the
offender as a whole. If the act was deceitful, he has to recog-
nize the fact that the person who has done it is deceitful; if the
person has inflicted an injury upon him he cannot help feeling
that this person is cruel. In such circumstances what sort of
forgiveness can there be? It would seem at first thought that
the most that one could do would be to leave out of the account
all personal considerations, and to judge an injury done to one's
self exactly as though it had been done to some one else, consider-
ing it calmly and condemning it without passion. Such a course
undoubtedly requires a certain degree of magnanimity. We see
constantly persons who regard some aspect of wrong-doing very
comfortably until they themselves become the victims and then
suddenly discover that the offender is unworthy of any considera-
tion whatever. At the same time it is possible that a profounder
view of life would even here, as in the second case, look beyond
the more immediate conditions, with faith in the ultimate good-
ness of every individual, and that here, too, there would thus be
mingled with whatever indignation one might feel an element of
sorrow. Forgiveness does not imply any lack of indignation
450 FORGIVENESS
against evil, but it does imply the absence of personal vindictive-
ness. It is entirely possible that one's attitude toward wrong-
doing in general may be as much too lax as the anger at personal
injury is too intense, and that in the case of some minds the sense
of personal relation to a wrong may serve to make them see more
clearly the real nature of the wrong itself. But it is only the
more superficial minds that wait thus to realize an evil until it
has touched themselves.
When we come to consider forgiveness in its theological aspect,
we find the same difficulties that have met us in the ethical aspect.
We not uncommonly hear it said that such a thing as divine for-
giveness is impossible, that there is simply sowing and reaping,
and men must abide by the results of their own acts. Thus we
have a principle like that of "Karma," by which every act has
its fruition, whether of good or of evil. In one sense this is true,
and yet as thus stated it is likely to convey a false idea. For-
giveness is in some sense or other the remittance of penalty. Now
in analyzing the nature of penalty and asking what are its ele-
ments, we have found that it involves first of all what may be
called the natural result of sin.1 I use the term "natural" in
the absence of a better word, for in a certain sense all the results
of sin are natural; I use it with reference to the more external
and superficial results of sin as they are found in the nature of
the individual who sins. We have many examples of this ele-
ment of penalty, especially in the relation of human life to the
external world. Nature speaking through her various laws says
to us, not "Thou must" or "Thou shalt," but only "If thou
doest this, thou shalt suffer the penalty." Thus the man who
transgresses natural laws by taking insufficient nourishment
suffers in one direction, and if he transgresses them in his use of
intoxicating liquors, he suffers in another direction, and so on.
As yet no ethical element is involved; we have to do simply with
laws of nature which exact their own penalty from those who
transgress them. But here we have also that which may serve
as an illustration of forgiveness, the recuperative power of nature.
The individual in transgressing the natural law has incurred its
i Page 296.
FORGIVENESS 451
penalty, but although the law enforces itself irrevocably, it is as
though there were at the heart of nature a sort of love by which
she attempts to soften and remove the effects of the transgression.
There is something marvellous in these restorative processes.
Some of the penalties are removed very promptly, as in the
speedy healing of cuts or other wounds in a healthy body. In
other cases the results may disappear more slowly, and in still
others not at all.
I have spoken of these processes as constituting forgiveness,
because we see in them the attempt at the removal, or it may
be the actual removal, of the penalty of transgression. But
these violations of the laws of nature may from a higher point
of view become sin. A man's body is his instrument for doing
the work which he has been placed in the world to do, and if
through intoxication or in other ways he disables his body, he is
guilty of sin just as much as the carpenter's apprentice who wil-
fully abuses the tools with which he is set to work. In consider-
ing the natural results of transgression from this higher point of
view, weaknesses of will are to be taken into account as well as
infirmities of the body, and with the change in the nature of the
transgression another element enters into the penalty. Take
transgression in the use of intoxicating liquors. It becomes a
sin because the man unfits himself for his duty toward his own
family and for his share in the general work of society. He be-
comes a burden and an infliction instead of a help. He sets an
obstacle in the way of the development of his own nature. As
the natural result of his transgression he becomes a wreck. But
here enters the second element in the penalty. So long as he
continues to surrender himself to the power of this sin, he is to
a certain extent an outcast, even from the noblest affection of his
own family. His wife may continue to love him, but her love
will be no longer a wifely love but rather that of a sorrowing,
pitying mother, and that which changes the form of her love
changes the feeling toward him in society to aversion or contempt.
Now if the man reforms, there is an attempt on the part of nature
to remove the effects of the penalty, and this attempt may or
452 FORGIVENESS
may not be successful. The wasted body may become in part,
perhaps wholly, strong again, the weak will, by its very effort to
overcome the temptation, may gather strength, and the man may
again become useful ; or on the other hand recovery like this may
have become impossible, so that the man remains a wreck. But
even so, although the physical penalties of his transgression can-
not be removed, his reformation has brought about a change in
the attitude of his family and of society. He has once more the
old love from the heart of his wife and children, and the sym-
pathy and respect of society. He is no longer an outcast. So
far as his relation to his household and to society is concerned, he
is forgiven.
This illustration may have made clearer why I hesitated to
use the term "natural" of any one kind of penalty. For the
exclusion of the drunkard from the sympathy of those about him
is as natural a result of his transgression as the wrecking of his
bodily health, and the return of men's respect for him when he
has reformed is also a natural result of such a change. Still
the process, especially so far as forgiveness is concerned, depends
so largely upon volition that we are justified in placing it in a
somewhat different category. There are men of a certain hard-
ness of heart or coldness of purpose who refuse to forgive a fall
of this sort. Let a man once have been a drunkard and their
sympathies are closed against him forever. They are like the
elder son in the parable of the Prodigal Son ; the father welcomes
the repentant prodigal to his home again with joy, but the elder
brother looks coldly on.1
When we consider the relation of men to God we find the same
elements. We have as before the natural element in both the
penalty and the forgiveness of the transgression, and also the
element of the spiritual relation. Just as between man and
man, so also between man and God the spiritual relation can-
not be the same while the man continues in his sin that it is after
he has repented. It is with God and man as it is with a wise
earthly father and his child. When the child does wrong, the
father does not fly into a violent rage, nor does he, as soon as the
lLuke, xv, 11-32.
FORGIVENESS 453
child repents, give way to a paroxysm of joy; nevertheless the
relation in which the father stands toward the child when it is
disobedient is necessarily different from the relation that is pos-
sible when the child is repentant and loving. For the complete
flow of love requires two poles that are in connection with one
another; there must be a return as well as an outflow, and the
outflow is checked if there is no return. Love may be present,
but it is under constraint and cannot manifest itself as it would
under other circumstances. In a similar way, although we may
believe that the divine love watches and follows the whole of
life, and that the divine insight measures not by any momentary
act or state but sees the nature and the tendency that are under
all, yet even this divine love must manifest itself differently, the
relation between it and the life of the individual must be different,
when that life is open to receive it, and gives forth its own love
in return.
It may be urged that in all this there is nothing that can prop-
erly be called forgiveness, but that the process is all natural. But
it will be seen that our method of judgment is different; the man
is looked upon as weighed rather than measured. For the idea
of judgment is too often that of measurement, the counting up
of a man's deeds. When I say that here we are considering the
man as weighed, I mean that we are thinking of him as judged
not for what he has done, but for what he is; whatever fineness
of nature, whatever true tendencies there may be underneath
the different deeds, these will appear in the weighing. We may
even carry the figure a little further and say that since weight
is the manifestation of the attraction of any body to the world
of which it is a part, so character is the manifestation of the
attraction of the individual nature to the absolute realities of
the universe. Furthermore, in these higher spiritual relations
we have to do with spirit, and however irregular its manifesta-
tions may be, we must recognize them as spiritual and voluntary
rather than natural. The fact that a father always provides
for his children is very different from the fact that the tree or the
field to which they look for support always bears fruit. For even
454 FORGIVENESS
if there is necessity in the case of the father, that necessity passes
through the channel of the will, and, as we have seen,1 there is a
power of will by which a man may yield himself more or less
perfectly to the fundamental laws of his being and the relations
in which he stands. So that the return of the spirit into these
higher relations, into the relation of love to a father, into abso-
lute union with God, may rightly be called forgiveness. It is
true that as a man soweth so also shall he reap; there is no caprice
in the government of the universe. But the absence of caprice
does not imply the absence of spiritual activity.
There remains the important question whether a spirit that
has sinned can ever make up for its sin, the question whether
forgiveness is so absolute that the individual life shall be as well
off ultimately as though the sin had not been committed. There
are some who maintain that the loss by sin is never made up
through all the eternal life of the spirit, that the ground once lost
can never be regained. There are others who insist that in for-
giveness the soul is taken into a more intimate relation with God
and reaches loftier heights than if the sin had never been com-
mitted; according to a phrase that often appears in theologies
and in hymns, the redeemed have a joy of which the angels know
nothing, the joy in the consciousness of sins forgiven. The
question is one of those which are interesting to contemplate,
but which perhaps we need not attempt to answer dogmati-
cally. Without laying down any absolute principle, we may
notice that in many cases a fall does appear to lead to gain. The
individual is stung by his own transgression into such a sense of
the evil of sin that he recoils from it as he might not have done
otherwise, and he may experience an exaltation in the conscious-
ness of freedom and of forgiveness which otherwise he might
not have known. It may even happen that only through sin
do certain spirits come to recognize fully the reality of God's
existence and the power of the moral law; there are those who
must be driven against a wall in order to realize its existence and
feel the recoil. With this in mind we can understand the lofty
utterances in the New Testament in regard to the "joy in heaven
i Page 229.
REGENERATION 455
over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine
righteous persons, which need no repentance." *
Is not all this, however, contrary to the principles of ethics ?
I think we have already recognized the fact that the universe is
not governed ethically, in the strict sense of the term. We
have seen that ethics is only an intermediate stage, and that a
wise and earnest love is greater than morality. The universe is
fundamentally not an ethical but a spiritual universe, governed
by spiritual laws, not by ethical laws. We have in it not a sys-
tem of pedagogy but the outflow and inflow of the spiritual life.
It is, if I may use the phrase, not the working but the play of
life. The ethical pedant may criticise such statements as these
that we have been making, but we may still rejoice that the uni-
verse is the manifestation of the spiritual life, and that this life
is higher than all the laws that are made merely to render life
under certain circumstances easier of fulfilment. And we may
be sure that there is in the heart of the individual himself, in
the heart even of the sinner, something which responds to this
power of the spiritual life more readily than to the laying down
of ethical principles. Therefore it seems to me that religious
feeling may recognize the fact not only that there is forgive-
ness in the universe, but that forgiveness may be absolute. The
state of the soul that had sinned and been forgiven would be
different from what it would have been, had not the sin been
committed, but the difference might be only a new quality in the
joy in the higher life upon which the soul had entered.
In considering the subject of regeneration theologians have often
treated it as part of a process in which there are various stages
described by certain technical terms. There is the "divine
call," resting upon the "election" of the individual soul; then
there is the "awakening," in which the individual is aroused
from a state of indifference; then follow his "conversion," in
which he is turned toward the higher life, and his "justification,"
in the sense in which Paul uses the term; finally "regeneration"
plants the new life in the soul, and is followed by " sanctification,"
1 Luke, xv, 7.
456 REGENERATION
the assumption of the just life which crowns the whole process.
I shall not attempt to follow the line of these technical terms,
but shall speak of regeneration simply as a great fact or great
possibility in human life. I shall perhaps make the whole ques-
tion more real if I ask whether any of you can recall absolutely
and distinctly the case of a person who you knew had been in
any sense of the term converted, and if so, in what you believe
the change in him consisted. Up to a certain point we no doubt
can easily recall such examples, using the term "conversion"
not in a technical sense and not in a specifically religious sense,
but in relation to the life of the individual generally. Thus we
have known men who had been intemperate who have reformed.
Reformation is familiar to us. But the question goes deeper
than reformation, that is, a reformation in external morality.
Regeneration involves a change in the heart, a change by which
a selfish person becomes loving, or a thoughtless and indifferent
person becomes thoughtful. Now we recognize that changes
of this sort do take place. There is, for example, a certain
ripening in life, as time goes on, which must be granted without
any hesitation or discussion. I remember having seen once
a criticism upon Dickens's novels in relation to this very point.
Writing from a point of view not uncommon in our day, which
assumes the invariableness of character, the critic said that it
was a great mistake to represent a man so cold and selfish as
Mr. Dombey is in his middle life as undergoing the transforma-
tion by which he becomes in old age a rather thoughtful and
kindly person. But the transformation in Mr. Dombey is of
a sort which those who have seen much of the world must often
have found. The change may be one of environment, but even
so it manifests itself as a change in the individual. Further-
more, the change is often of such a kind that the man who has
been indifferent to spiritual things, and has lived a worldly and
selfish life, becomes a believer in religion. In such cases, how-
ever, the change may be only superficial; the religion of the
selfish man may be selfish, and the religion of the worldly man
may be and often is worldly. We have to go behind external
REGENERATION 457
changes, and ask whether the heart of the man is changed;
has the mean man become generous, and the selfish man loving,
and the hard man tender? For myself, although I might find
it difficult fairly to defend my position even by examples, so much
does the whole question have to do with that which lies below
the surface of ordinary experience, I have a faith, or trust, or
hope, that such change may take place, and that there often may
be in this profound sense a new birth of the human soul.
Such a change of heart is equivalent to a fresh start in life.
It may be recognized as the yielding of allegiance to the highest
that the individual knows. The question how high this highest
is, is of less account than the fact that the individual gives him-
self to his highest, whatever that may be. Thus it is that we may
find conversion and regeneration in any religion that is worthy
of the name. For every religion which is in any way worthy
offers to its followers something higher than their ordinary life,
and when the individual yields himself to this, he yields himself
to the highest that he knows. Here we have the explanation
of the wonderful fact which to many seems at first so mysterious,
and which in some minds raises doubt in regard to the whole
question, that under such different forms of faith there may be
a like process of conversion. Thus Christendom is broken up
into numerous sects, and each sect claims that it has to some
extent a monopoly of truth. Yet we find that in all alike the
religious experience is exalted; there is a unity among them all
in this regard, in spite of the differences in form. And what is
true of Christianity is true in some respects of other religions
also. I have told elsewhere in a similar connection, but with a
different emphasis, the story of the boy who sold the neighbors
tickets to his mother's garden in order that they might enter it
to see the eclipse.1 The illustration has its serious and positive
aspect. It may often happen that the soul does not lift its eyes
to the heavens until it has passed inside the gates of some par-
ticular religion or sect. Not that all religions are equal, or that
any one can accomplish as much for the spirit as any other.2
1 The Psychological Elements of Religious Faith, p. 107. 2 Page 335.
458 REGENERATION
Although the process of conversion may be the same in all, al-
though all may have doors which open into the one great temple,
that which claims the allegiance of the spirit as highest in one
may be higher than the highest in another. Christianity has
this great advantage, that it makes the process of conversion
easier in causing it to be in some respects more attractive; it
offers a fuller spiritual life, which grows out of a more profound
insight and a larger knowledge. Furthermore, in Christianity
the ideal to which the soul surrenders itself is really an ideal,
manifesting itself under the form of a perfect spiritual life, in
the person of Jesus. In all these various ways Christianity has
a power which is lacking to other religions.
The conversion which manifests itself in newness of life is first
of all a transition from selfishness to love. This is a regeneration
that must take place at some time, consciously or unconsciously,
in every individual. For the infant is the centre of his world, its
king. If he continues to live in this relation with the universe,
he must become a selfish youth, a selfish man. But he must pass
out of this relation, and the transition may be made uncon-
sciously, or it may cost more or less of conscious effort and
struggle. It is as though a world that hitherto had turned only
about its own axis should finally yield itself to the attracting power
of the central sun, and swing out into the circling orbit of its
greater course. But, secondly, conversion is a change from caprice
to principle. If it were necessary for me to describe in a single
phrase the straight and narrow way "that leadeth unto life," I
am not sure that I should not make it this, — the acceptance of
some principle as the rule of life. A principle is that from which
one can start and to which one can return. It does not forbid the
play of life. No life is cast-iron; play there must be in it, and
chance. But now the dice are loaded, for whereas the man was
before indifferent, now he is on the side of the better life. In
Christianity this principle is, as I have just said, the ideal that is
manifested in the life of Jesus. Finally, conversion is a transi-
tion from the material to the spiritual; the soul is brought into
conscious relation to the infinite spirit. This is conversion in
REGENERATION 459
its highest form, its culmination. With it there comes the life of
faith and obedience, and of joy in the Holy Spirit. These transi-
tions, this process, by which the soul rises from a lower to a higher
state, may take place again and again. The religious life is
like a stairway in which, as we ascend, each new step may be
considered as in a certain sense a conversion or regeneration. Yet
at the same time there may be, and perhaps must be, some first or
more important step, when the individual life turns its face in
the direction in which henceforth it is to move. Whether this
step is taken consciously or unconsciously will depend largely
upon circumstances. In the family life there comes unquestion-
ably a moment at which the child begins to surrender self, to
abdicate his royalty. Yet the child who is well brought up prob-
ably is never conscious of this moment; the change takes place
naturally as part of a general development. But the question is
one in regard to which we may not dogmatize in either direction.
How is conversion to be produced ? The difficulty lies in the
fact that what we are seeking is not merely reform but regeneration,
not merely a change in the outward life but a change of heart.
A change of heart implies that a man loves what before he did
not love, and hates what he did not hate. A man may change
his methods and the outward forms of his life, but one's heart
would seem to be beyond one's power to change. The difficulty
is so great that Schopenhauer insists that while a man may change
his opinion, his intellectual view of things, he can never change
his disposition. He illustrates this by saying that a man will
laugh over mistakes which he may have committed in the past,
but none likes to be reminded of a past act of meanness because
he feels that such acts tell against him in the present. I cannot
help thinking that Nicodemus may have been dealt with rather
unfairly by some of the commentators in taking it for granted that
when he asks how a man can be born when he is old, he shows
himself so obtuse and dull.1 It is assumed that Nicodemus is
speaking only of the external, bodily birth while Jesus is speaking
of the spiritual birth. But it is possible to suppose that Nico-
demus also was speaking figuratively, and that he was only urging
i John, iii, 1-21.
460 PRAYER
upon Jesus the fundamental difficulty in the case, the difficulty
which must always present itself whenever, to use a phrase current
just now, "the man needs to be made over and to be made dif-
ferently."
I recognize thoroughly all the difficulties. As I speak, I re-
member how I once heard an orthodox preacher insist that the
orthodox were really more liberal than the so-called liberals,
because it was so common among liberals to deny the possibility
of such a change as is implied in regeneration, whereas this possi-
bility was a fundamental element in orthodox belief. Perhaps,
therefore, I shall not be suspected of underestimating the diffi-
culties when I say that as we consider the matter more closely,
we must see that they are after all more verbal than real. For
man is not a unit. He has many various tendencies, and he does
not advance evenly all along the line. Thus no man, we may
assume, no normal individual life, is wholly selfish; in every man
there is, if not some beginning of the higher life, at least the germ
of that higher life, the germ of unselfishness, waiting only for the
impulse that shall develop it. Therefore the change that takes
place in conversion is not to be regarded as an absolute change
of nature in the individual life. What is already higher in the
life lifts that which is lower, and the germs of that which is higher
are stimulated to activity by new influences, while behind all is
the mighty spiritual power of God. From this point of view,
although we need not be surprised when conversion takes place
suddenly, still we should expect that more usually and more nat-
urally the change of front would proceed somewhat slowly, as
the powers and tendencies germinated and developed and thus
the whole nature ripened. Even when the impulse might have
come in some one moment, still the results would usually appear
in the processes of this gradual development.
The subject of prayer is one which on some accounts I should
prefer not to consider in an examination such as we are making.
It seems to me not to enter naturally and fittingly into theological
discussion. For prayer should be simply the natural expression
of the spiritual life at that stage, whatever it may be, at which the
PRAYER 461
soul finds itself. Whatever the religious standpoint of a man
may be, he should be left to himself to express his spiritual life
naturally. If his religion does not impel him to pray, then prayer
will be for him artificial unless indeed it be the prayer for prayer.
Fundamentally, in a large sense, prayer is communion between
the soul and its divinity. Communion implies sympathy, and if
sympathy is present, it makes little difference what is actually
said or thought. You may meet a man and say to him merely
that the day is fine, but if you have said it with sympathy, you have
had communion with him. On the other hand you may have
talked long with him and on high topics, but if it has been without
sympathy, there has been no communion. The sympathy need
not find utterance at all. Animals do not talk, and yet they like
to be together, and it is pleasant to sit by one's friend, though he
and you may speak no word to each other for many minutes.
Now if we raise all this to the highest point, it may help to show
what communion is like between man and God, and it will be
seen that given the communion, the sympathy, the form or sub-
ject of one's prayer will matter little; the soul may be trusted to
pour itself out in its sense of sympathy and submission. The
poor serving-woman who can understand hardly a word of the
Latin service has the sense of the divine presence and lays open
before it her life with all its needs. When the prayer does seek
utterance and takes shape in words, these words will be such as
most naturally suggest themselves. Of course there may be
some differences in form between the prayer of public worship
and that of private devotion, but whatever they are, they should
not interfere with naturalness of expression. Whether the prayer
of public worship takes the form prescribed by some ritual, or is
extempore, will depend upon the preferences of individual minds.
The liturgical prayer is more universal, the extempore prayer
more particular; liturgical forms tend to develop a general re-
ligious sense, the extempore prayer tends rather to call forth inten-
sity of feeling in a few.
If we turn now to the more definite aspects of prayer, we may
consider first the element of worship or praise. This element
462 PRAYER
has been sharply criticised ; we offer to God, it is said, what we
would not offer to a man. But we must look at prayer from the
human rather than from the divine side. Whether God needs
such praise is one question, and whether man needs to offer it
is quite another question. There are moments of warmth and
enthusiasm in which we do not hesitate to express to our friends
our praise of them, moments when we cannot restrain ourselves
but have to give utterance to our feeling toward them, and this
is not flattery, but only the natural outpouring of our love and
appreciation. So it is in prayer. It is one of the ways by
which man climbs upward, and when in his love and adoration
he utters his praise to God, that praise is not meant to influence
God; it influences the man himself; it helps to keep before him,
to fix in his mind and heart, the object of his devotion. It is
interesting to notice that even in Comte's religion of humanity
prayer had an important place. Every day had its saint, and the
prayer consisted in the repetition of the virtues of the saint and
the desire that they might be fulfilled in the life of the worship-
per. There was no response from the saint who was thus wor-
shipped, but there was believed to be an inspiring effect upon the
worshipper.
The element of petition presents greater difficulties. If God
knows all, and does all for the best, may we not trust to his guid-
ance at least as much as we do to the guidance of men ? And if
"prayer moves the hand that guides the world," what are we that
we should grasp at the rein in the hand of the skilful driver ? But
it may be said in answer, first of all, that prayer changes the
conditions ; God causes the grain in the field to grow and ripen, but
man plants the field and chooses what kind of grain it shall bear.
Petition is of three kinds: the prayer for spiritual blessings for
ourselves, the prayer for spiritual blessings for others, and the
prayer for material blessings for ourselves or others. The first
kind of petition, the prayer for spiritual blessings for ourselves,
we may recognize as distinctly a condition to the end desired; it
is the opening of the heart, the natural method by which the gift
may be received. From the point of view of the understanding,
PRAYER 463
prayer must inevitably be its own answer, for when the heart is
ready for good, good must enter as it were by a certain divine
necessity. But if we grant the truth of religion, this sort of pe-
tition and its fulfilment appear in a higher aspect. The response
of spirit to spirit may indeed be as inevitable as any action and
reaction in the natural world, but the method is different. Be-
cause the response is regular, it is not therefore mechanical.
The spiritual acts voluntarily.
The question is somewhat harder when we turn to the petition
for spiritual blessings for others. God must know their needs;
it is the human spirit, not the divine, which requires to be
prompted; and such petition is not obviously a condition of the
fulfilment of that which is desired. But here we must do as we
have done before, — apply the test of religion itself to our theories,
and if our theories do not bear the test, sorrow for them, if possible
change them, but at all events resist the temptation to cut our
religion to fit our theories. Now our truest spiritual life leads us
to pray for others. We may explain this as justified simply by
the effect which the intense thought and feeling of one person has
upon another. But from the point of view of religion, is there
not more ? Is it not true that as the mother gives utterance in
prayer to her longing for her child's good, her heart is opened,
so that the influence which she exerts upon the child becomes
not merely that of her own desire and will, but also that of the
divine presence itself ? The bit of steel that is charged by a
magnet becomes powerful to charge other bits of steel. In such
petition what we have is not the human will making the divine
will follow its desire, but the divine will making the human will
its instrument.
In the prayer for material blessings, whether for ourselves or
for others, the connection between the petition and the fulfilment
is far less obvious. All the tests that have been suggested are very
superficial. Thus Tyndall proposed as a prayer-gauge by which
the petition for material blessing should be submitted to scientific
test, that two wards should be set apart in a hospital, in one of
which the patients should be treated by physicians in the usual
464 PRAYER
way, while in the other ward they should simply be prayed for.
But Tyndall here fell into an error common with scientists when
dealing with questions of religion or metaphysics. He did not
recognize the spiritual nature of prayer, and failed to see that in
this experiment that he proposed the conditions would be such
that the prayer offered would not be prayer at all. It would not
be the expression of personal desire, but the demand that God
should display his power. The fact is that there is no test that can
be applied. The question is not whether prayer is a good irri-
gator or fertilizer, but whether it is a real power. If a man be-
lieves that it is, then let him pray as he wishes, spontaneously and
freely. The sense of the stability of the laws of the universe grows
upon us. Yet, as I have said before, the harvest does not depend
solely upon natural laws. Furthermore, the power to make the
best of things, with all that it involves, is a spiritual power, and
he who loves God and communes with him, and submits his will
to the divine will, is like the ship that takes advantage of any
winds that blow; he is in a position to accept and use whatever
comes. Finally, whatever else we recognize, we must not forget
that prayer is first of all communion, and that with every true
prayer of the individual soul, the heart of the world! is lifted
nearer to God.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
immortality. — the argument from reappearance: from
analogy: from physico-psychological phenomena:
from the unity of consciousness. — the philosophico-
teleological argument. — the ethical argument. — the
argument from the sense of the ideal: from the
consciousness of god: from man's instinctive faith.
— difficulties: immortality of animals: pre-existence :
question of selfishness. — nature of the future life.
— the argument for religion of personal experi-
ence.— sixth and final definition of religion.
Whenever the subject of immortality is considered, the ques-
tion as to the reality of life after death, it is the habit of our time
to ask for proof. Men ask for a demonstration of immortality
as they ask for a demonstration of the existence or being of God.
This questioning and doubt of the present day are more serious
than such doubt has been for the most part in other ages. There
has always been more or less of superficial skepticism, but the
skepticism of today is based upon larger considerations than in
former times, and is more profound and more reverent.
I have already reminded you that religion is not a matter of
demonstration but of faith. This principle in its relation to the
doctrine of immortality is well stated by John Fiske in his Destiny
of Man. Science, he shows, has nothing to say against the doc-
trine of immortality, and scientific results on the whole are favor-
able to it; yet, although immortality is something in which un-
questionably man will always believe, "it must ever remain an
affair of religion rather than of science."1 Of course there is a
i The Destiny of Man, p. 108.
466 THE ARGUMENT FROM REAPPEARANCE
certain kind of demonstration which we can conceive as possible,
or rather a kind of proof that would approach demonstration.
If the doors of the future life were left ajar, so that we might look
in, or so that the inhabitants might be free to come and visit us,
we might have in this an approach to demonstration, although
there would still be ample room for questions in regard to optical
and other delusions. Many have regarded the resurrection of
Jesus as a demonstration of this kind. Others have objected,
and with a certain logical and superficial correctness, that the
resurrection of Jesus would not prove the doctrine of immortality
as applied to other lives; that the very fact that Jesus rose from
the dead and entered heaven in the manner that has been recorded
would show that his case was exceptional, and that his resurrec-
tion might naturally be as exceptional in its result as it had been
in its method. But this argument seems to me to have little to
do with the real question. For, after all, what men really want to
know is not so much whether this or that individual may enter
the spiritual world, but whether such a world exists, and if only a
single individual were known actually to have died and then to
have lived again, and to be living now in some sphere hidden
from our mortal vision, nothing more would be needed to quicken
the faith of men ; if they could be sure that there was this sphere
of being, this world of spiritual existence, then they would have
at least the hope, if not the confidence, that some door would be
opened by which they themselves might enter.1
The real difficulty in the case, so far as any demonstrative evi-
dence is concerned, is the lack of scientific certainty. One may
shrink here from any criticism or test. But evidence that depends
upon historical facts must submit to historical investigation; we
cannot have in full force at the same time the argument from
spiritual insight and the argument from the scientific proof of a
material, external fact. Now all the difficulties that have beset
the study of the genuineness of the gospels and their apostolic
authority meet us here. For example, criticism has made much
of the differences in the manner in which the story itself is nar-
rated. Here as elsewhere we find ourselves upon firm ground only
i Page 383.
THE ARGUMENT FROM REAPPEARANCE 467
as we study those epistles of Paul which criticism has left intact.
In saying this, I do not mean, of course, that we are sure of the
absolute truth of what is said ; but we are sure of our witness, we
know that it is Paul who is writing, and from the letters them-
selves we have some idea of the sort of man that he was. We find
that according to Paul's testimony in regard to himself and the
other disciples, both he and they believed in the actual appearance
of Jesus to his followers after his death. Of course there is here
no demonstration, for it is easy to say that the experiences nar-
rated may have been only delusions. All that we know is that
Paul and the others believed them to be real. I suppose one who
had no faith in the possibility of immortality would make much
of Paul's account of his visions. But to one who does believe in
either the reality or the possibility of the immortal life the occur-
rences which Paul describes may be only what he has expected,
and he will find in them, if not a basis for his faith, an illustration
and to a greater or less extent a confirmation of it.
The difficulty, however, in regard to such evidence as this, ap-
pears in the fact that to so many thoughtful minds the claims
of so-called spiritualism at the present time make such slight
appeal. If spiritualism were true, there would be little difficulty
in the matter, and there are multitudes of people who have been
convinced by it. But as soon as one enters to any extent upon the
investigation of it, the first thing that he meets is the great fact
of fraud. It is admitted by fair and liberal and at the same time
earnest believers in spiritualism that many of the most noted
mediums fill out by fraud their lack of real power. But this intro-
duces a very great difficulty, for if you know that there is fraud
up to a certain point, it is very hard to say where the fraud ceases.
Unquestionably the phenomena of mind-reading have much to
do with the phenomena of spiritualism, and may be used to ex-
plain them to some extent. Perhaps we may admit the possibility
that actual spiritual persons may be involved in some of these
manifestations. Yet I confess that I feel more confidence when
the manifestations occur under somewhat different circumstances.
Thus the visions which sometimes greet the dying have, in my
468 THE ARGUMENT FROM ANALOGY
judgment, much more force as evidence than those produced
by mediums whose character may not be of the highest order.
We might almost expect that now and then when a soul is just
on the border line between the two worlds they should both be
within its vision at the same time. Here again there is no demon-
stration, for demonstration would require us to go behind the
fact and see for ourselves whether the reality were according to
the appearance. What has stood most in the way of spiritualism
is the generally low order of its results. There has been very
little in them that has brought inspiration to the world, and the
picture of spiritual life as revealed by spiritualism does not seem
to be on the whole attractive. It is sometimes said in explana-
tion of this that we are brought more easily into relation with the
lower order of spirits, although some communications are re-
ceived from those who profess to be exalted spirits. In my own
investigations what little I have seen has given me a greater reali-
zation of the amount of fraud practised than I had before. Yet
I do not consider that I have myself judged the question, and I do
not wish to judge it here. All that I wish to urge here is that for
the great mass of men spiritualism cannot at present be relied
upon as a proof of immortality.
This first form of the argument for immortality that we have
been considering may be called the argument from actual reap-
pearance. The second form of the argument is that from analogy.
The classic example of this form of the argument is the life of the
butterfly, but it is easy to see that the analogy here is very weak.
For the life of the butterfly is still in the material world, and our
fundamental question is whether there is a spiritual world into
which one may enter, apart from the material world. All such
illustrations show merely that immense changes may take place
in the life of an individual without destroying his individuality;
the analogy goes so far, but no farther. The doctrine of the con-
servation of force is often brought forward as an argument, but it
can hardly be considered helpful. For this doctrine does not
teach that a force is preserved under the same form as that in
which it has previously existed. It teaches precisely the opposite
PHYSICO-PSYCHOLOGICAL PHENOMENA 469
of this. The great energies of nature manifest themselves now
under one form and now under another. The doctrine of the con-
servation of force, if we applied it in the manner in which it is
applied to the facts that come under the investigation of the sci-
entific world, would lead us to ask whether the force which now
manifests itself as spirit might not later show itself under some
other form.
In its third form the argument for immortality is based upon
the interesting physico -psychological phenomena of clairvoyance,
mind-reading, and the like. In regard to these phenomena two
questions are to be asked: first, are there any exceptional in-
dividuals who possess the power that is manifested in them ?
and, secondly, is it a power that is possessed at least in germ by
all men? The claim is sometimes made that the two must go
together, and that the power which one possesses must be to some
extent possessed by all, but it seems to me not necessary to assume
that all must possess it in such a degree as to affect the results
even slightly. That certain individuals, however, possess the
power seems to me hardly to admit of doubt, and that it is mani-
fested in a special form by some persons in the hypnotic state is
unquestioned, although many experiments have failed and al-
though men who claimed that they possessed the power have
been found to be mistaken. It is very difficult here to exclude
all possible error. In the attempts to explain the phenomena
the most ingenious suggestion is that the person whose thought is
communicated to the other may unconsciously frame the words
with his vocal organs in such a way that although no sound is heard
sufficient force is yet produced to influence slightly the auditory
nerve and so the brain of the percipient. So far as the bearing
of the phenomena upon the question of immortality is concerned,
they seem to me, up to a certain point, very interesting. They
do not show that the mind can act without a physical medium,
for brain may be said to act upon brain by means of some subtle
physical connection. But what they do show is that there may
be an activity of the senses independent of the organs through
which the senses commonly act, so that we have hearing indepen-
470 THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ARGUMENT
dently of the organs of hearing, and vision that is independent of
the eyes and not limited by those objects which ordinarily inter-
cept vision. The liberty is not absolute. But the fact that this
partial liberty is possible, that there may be this independence of
that part of the physical organization through which communica-
tion usually takes place, affords at least a hint of the possibility of a
more complete emancipation from the physical organization.
The fourth form of the argument, the psychological argument,
rests upon the fundamental psychological fact of the unity of
consciousness. I have dwelt at length upon this subject already,1
and I need not repeat what I have said. We have seen that it is
absolutely impossible that the unity of consciousness should be
produced by any conglomeration of atoms. However subtle they
might be, or however delicate the connection between them, the
result would be what might be turned a crowd of consciousnesses
and not the unity of consciousness, that unity which manifests
itself in the use of the pronoun "I." Not that we have here any
absolute proof that this unity may survive the dissolution of the
body. Lotze, who presents the fact of the unity of consciousness
with the greatest distinctness, 2 himself admits that it is not of the
nature of a proof. If we knew that this unity had always existed,
Jiad never had a beginning, then we might reasonably assume
that it would always continue; but in the thought of most of us
this individuality of ours had a beginning, and if so, then its non-
composite character does not prove that it may not come to an
end. Yet nevertheless the fact has a very strong negative im-
portance. For if the unity of consciousness is not the result of a
combination of the molecules that compose the brain, if it cannot
by any possibility be the product of them, then we are helped in
our thought that it may survive when the physical organization
has ceased to exist. This is a result the importance of which has
hardly been recognized as yet by physico-psychologists or psycho -
physiologists. Some of them seem not even to have felt the
difficulty. Tyndall says that he does not understand how the
i Page 160.
2 Microcosmos, transl. of Hamilton and Jones, Vol. I, p. 152, f.
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ARGUMENT 471
flower grows. But this is an entirely different matter. The
development of the flower is something that we do not under-
stand, but the unity of consciousness is something which we know
could not have resulted from any combination of physical ele-
ments. It is not a question her* of any mere lack of compre-
hension. We do comprehend the impossibility of producing this
unity by any process of composition.
I have spoken of the unity of consciousness rather than of our
consciousness of unity, because the demonstration of the unity of
consciousness is far more important than that of the consciousness
of unity. For our consciousness of unity may be regarded as
merely a postulate of thinking, whereas the unity of consciousness
is independent of any consciousness of our own except as our
consciousness is one and always one.
The question that may be raised in this connection as to the
immortality of the lower animals is one that does not concern us
here. I may say, however, in passing, that one or two elements
which are among the most important factors in the human thought
of immortality appear to be absent in the case of the lower animals.
Whether there is in them an approach to absolute self-conscious-
ness, and if so in what degree, we cannot say. But I am inclined
to think that any approach of this sort appears most strikingly in
those instances in which the animal has come under the influence
of man. As I may have reminded you before, the domestic ani-
mal borrows much from the human consciousness that would
hardly have been gained otherwise.1 The pride and ambition of
the race-horse may indeed involve a certain degree of conscious-
ness, a sense of separation from others. Whether the jealousy
of animals in the pairing season has anything to do with such
consciousness is open to some doubt; what appears to be jealousy
may arise simply from the desire of possession; certainly it is
not mere jealousy that leads a dog to fight for his bone. Some-
thing that is more obviously, or less doubtfully, of the nature of
jealousy, does appear in domestic animals, as when a dog shows
what looks like jealousy at the attention paid by his master to
another dog. But how much these reflected emotions, caught
iPage 200.
472 THE PSYCHOLOGICAL AKGUMENT
from the higher life into the midst of which the animal has been
thrown, have to do with the nature of the animal himself, is a
doubtful question. As I said at the outset, the matter is one that
does not concern us in connection with our present discussion.
The question as to the immortality of the lower animals is wholly
distinct from the question as to the immortality of man. If the
decision in regard to the immortality of man should involve a
decision as to that of the lower animals, I do not know why we
need to protest. But all that we can say with any definiteness
is that the indications of the immortality of man are very much
more marked than those of the immortality of the lower animals,
and for the reason that whereas the personality of man is devel-
oped, that of the lower animals is not.
There is, however, another aspect of the fact of consciousness
which does concern us here, namely, the question as to the theory
which finds the origin of religious belief, and more especially the
origin of the belief in immortality, in the dream. If these beliefs
were based on a theory which has proved to be mistaken, why,
it may be asked, should the beliefs remain when the theory
upon which they rested has been demolished ? Of course the
reply may be made that the fact that religion and the belief in
immortality remain in spite of the decay of this alleged founda-
tion, would imply that the relation between the beliefs and the
theory was not so absolute as some have supposed. I do not
need to discuss here the relation of this theory to religion in gen-
eral, but as regards its relation to the doctrine of immortality we
have to recognize the fact that belief or knowledge may be ob-
tained purely by accident, and then, when once obtained, may
find a stable psychological foundation. In speaking of the origin
and growth of Christianity I said that the fact that accidents
might have contributed largely toward establishing the leadership
of this or that person, did not at all affect his power and right
to lead, provided that power was manifested.1 So here, the fact
that it may have been an accident which first brought this great
thought of immortality into human consciousness does not imply
that there may not have been a special psychological basis upon
iPage 400.
THE PHILOSOPHICO-TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT 473
which it could rest permanently. The savage did not only be-
lieve that the spirit or shade of the departed still lived and visited
him in dreams, and that he himself in his dreams left his body
and wandered to distant places. He also found that there was
within himself something separable, the sense of personality, the
sense of the "I," which gathered itself up and separated itself,
not merely from surrounding personalities and the physical en-
vironment, but also from his own body, so that he could say with
a sense both of possession and of identity "my body." It is
possible, and I am inclined to think it probable, that this was
the basis upon which the thought of immortality first found rest,
as the theory of dreams began to give way to other views. At
least it complements the theory of dreams, and might easily serve
to give additional and permanent strength to the belief which
that theory had suggested.
The fifth form of the argument for immortality is the philosophi-
cal or teleological argument. I give the two terms, but I am in-
clined to think that a single term, philosophico-teleological, would
express my meaning better. I use the word "teleological" in
its largest and most fundamental sense. Suppose we assume the
Absolute as the foundation of all thought as well as of all being.
The Absolute, by that fundamental process which underlies all
thinking and all spiritual life, produces from itself individuals.
These individuals are individual in the strict sense of the term;
they have separated themselves from the world about them and
have become conscious egos. Now there are two dispositions of
these individuals that are conceivable: first, that they should
lose their individuality, and sink back again and be absorbed
into their original source; and second, that they should continue
to develop as individuals, and should return to their source, not
mechanically or physically, so to speak, by the mere process of
absorption, but through self-surrender and love, in a process
which should be endless, always accomplishing itself and yet
never finally accomplished. According to the first view, we
should have only the first two stages of the great and fundamental
logical process, unity and differentiation, and a differentiation
474 THE PHILOSOPHICO-TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT
which really amounts to nothing. There would be no third stage
of integration, for that is not integration in which the individuals
simply fall back again into abstract unity; true integration re-
quires that the differentiated elements shall all be taken up and
preserved in a difference which yet shall not be a difference of
separation. On the other hand, according to the second view,
the theory of immortality, we have a conception of the universe
which is complete, a process of perpetual differentiation and
integration. This process is without end, because the individual,
in the eternal process of his identification with the Absolute, can
complete the process only in eternity; his goal is an infinite goal.
Yet it is not a process which is worthless until completed. There
are such processes. A mechanical process is in large part worth-
less until the finished result is reached; the unfinished mechanical
instrument is practically good for nothing. But it is very different
with organic life. Here there is worth at every stage even of its
incompleteness. Thus the life of the child is of immense worth
even if it never becomes the life of the man, and yet it is incom-
plete, because there are possible values which it has never at-
tained. In a similar way, in this process of eternal differentiation
and integration which is never complete and yet always com-
pleting itself, we may say that the joy is in the process rather than
in the result. For in the process the individual is entering always
more and more into the divine relationship. If the result were
attained, so that the individual was absolutely lost in God, then
there would be no individual consciousness whatever; the indi-
vidual would have passed away. In the process the individual is
preserved at the same time that he is lost. For it is a process of
voluntary self-surrender. He asserts his individuality in the very
act of surrendering it. It is he who surrenders himself, but he
does not remain merely a separate individual, for he surrenders
himself.
It may be asked whether such a process, or such a result, might
not be attained through an eternal sequence of individuals, by
which each generation should enter into the results of the genera-
tion that had preceded it, and so the advance in the direction of
THE PHILOSOPHICO-TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT 475
the divine relation be made through waves, as it were, of human
life, rather than through individuals. But whatever other diffi-
culties in the way of this assumption may occur to us, it is enough
that we meet this fundamental difficulty, that science makes no
provision for an advance of this kind. Not merely certain scien-
tific men but science itself would declare that if anything is certain,
it is that there is no such thing as perpetual motion. There is
no such thing as motion without friction, and friction by its very
existence is destructive of motion. So that if a man comes to any
scientific person and tells him that he has discovered a machine
which without any influx of fresh power from without will move
on forever, the scientific person does not need even to look at the
machine, but knows in advance that the man is either a crank
or uninstructed. There is this friction in the revolution of the
earth. Kant himself, if I am rightly informed, was the first to
call attention to the fact that the tides are like a great brake upon
the rotation of the earth, — the fact which may help to justify that
awe which so many feel in the presence of the ocean, and which
certainly enhances our own sense of its sublimity when we think
that this is the hand that is laid upon the earth to delay its course.
If we accept this dictum from science, we find that the per-
petual development of the human race upon the earth is not con-
ceivable. Any outward "good time coming" of the sort to
which men have so long looked forward, must be rather a culmina-
tion than the close of a development. That is, it must be merely
a highest point from which there will be a slow recession. If
there is to be a golden age in the later period of the earth's history,
it must be a golden age of the spiritual life as it finds itself beset,
to a degree of which we can hardly conceive, by the elements that
are slowly to crowd man out of his place upon the earth. If
there is to be a perpetual development, it must be through the in-
dividual rather than through the race, and what is true of our
world must be true of all worlds, for the principle that is involved
is fundamental.
There is a more personal aspect of this philosophico-teleological
argument, in the great possibilities that are bound up in the
476 THE ETHICAL ARGUMENT
spiritual nature of every individual. There are two views which
one may take of immortality. When we see a nature which
seems already nearly perfect and hardly to need the process of
death in order to reach that higher spiritual life which we call
angelic, we are apt to think at first that the idea of immortality
is easy to conceive, for we seem to see the immortal life already
begun on earth. But when we consider some poor ignorant,
degraded specimen of humanity side by side with that first exalted
nature, we find in it no hint of immortality. It would be pos-
sible, however, to take quite another view. We might say of the
exalted nature that perhaps it had had its fulfilment; it had looked
upon the universe and had seen God, and might be content, as
we also might be content for it, that it should pass away. But
of these other, lower lives, which in spite of present ignorance and
degradation still have within themselves the possibility of the
divine vision, the germ of the immortal life, we might say that
these were the natures of whose future existence we might be most
assured. In the first case it is easier for us to conceive of im-
mortality because we see the spirit shining through the flesh; in
the second case because the flesh still so overlies the spirit. In the
first case the conception rests on intuition, in the second case on
reason.
These two aspects of the argument, as related on the one hand
to the universe and on the other to the individual complete each
other. That which the universe demands in the relation of the
creation to the Creator is seen to be demanded also by the nature
of the individual.
The sixth form of the argument, the ethical aspect of it, follows
naturally upon what has just been said. The individual, it is held,
cannot fulfil the law of righteousness within any brief or limited
period. Besides this, there is the question whether the universe
is at heart just or unjust. This question presents itself in two
aspects. First there is the question as to the justice or injustice
of exciting hopes that can never be fulfilled or making beginnings
that are to lead to nothing further. Then, secondly, there is the
matter of equality, the fact that some come into the world so
THE ETHICAL ARGUMENT 477
pressed by outward circumstances that their lives can be only
misery, while others are so fortunate that it is their own fault if
they are not supremely happy; the fact that some holy individuals
because of their very holiness suffer martyrdom, whereas others
through their sinfulness not only obtain worldly prosperity, but,
so far as one may judge, are not troubled by even the inner pains
of conscience which so beset those who are more virtuous than
themselves. It has been a favorite argument for immortality
that the balance should be restored. The answer has been made
that this restoration goes on all the time, that the balance is always
being accomplished, that righteousness pays as it goes. But so
far as happiness is concerned, I think we must admit that Kant
is right, and that virtue does not make a man happy. He may
indeed be less miserable than he would be if he did wrong. In
exceptional cases, as when he suffers the flames of martyrdom
for conscience sake, he may have such a sense of the nearness of
immortality as to make him absolutely happy. But where a man
who without any exalted religious faith is simply doing right,
suffers for his right-doing, we can say only that he is less miser-
able than he would have been, had he not done right; we cannot
go so far as to say that he is happy. I know that the answer
may be made to this that the individual who does right in order
that he may be happy does not really do right. But we are not
putting ourselves now in the place of these individuals and utter-
ing the complaint of the man who does right and suffers. We are
looking upon the question from the outside. We are pressing it
not for ourselves but on behalf of others, and above all on behalf
of the universe itself. We demand poetic justice for the uni-
verse, in order that it may be complete ; that it may have the crown
of beauty as well as of holiness. It is from this point of view that
the ethical argument for immortality is to be pressed. It loses
weight, we freely admit, when it is urged by the individual on his
own behalf; the person to whom it applies has not the right to
offer it. But when we leave ourselves out of the account and look
upon man and the universe at large, then perhaps we do have a
right to urge it.
478 man's sense of the ideal
In its seventh form the argument for immortality is based upon
man's sense of the ideal, the fact that he attains to the recogni-
tion of the absolute ideal. For these ideas are eternal, and he
who sees things sub specie osternitatis, to use one of Spinoza's
most striking phrases, is taken up out of the flux and sweep of the
things of time. It is possible and even probable that this sweep
of change is all that the animal sees, and perhaps all that some
men see. But above and beneath it are the things that abide,
the absolute truth and goodness and beauty, together with all the
forms under which they manifest themselves. The fact that man
has the power to recognize these elements may not be an argument
for immortality, but at least it enables us better to conceive the
possibility of immortality. The spirit which has entered the
realm of eternal things to the extent of having looked upon them
may with less difficulty be supposed to partake of their eternity.
One feels this the more strongly when one recalls how easily the
sense of immortality arises in those moments when one is exalted
by the ideal relations; thus the lover of music seems often in cer-
tain moods to be lifted above the limits of time, and there is a
similar experience in all similar exaltation. The individual who
has entered this realm is not merely a higher animal, for he has
entered where, so far as we can judge, the lower animal cannot
enter. There is here another of the indications which make it
easier for us to believe in the immortality of man than in that of
the lower animals, although as I have already suggested1 it is in
no way necessary to the upward flight of the spirit that the lower
life should be pressed downward.
This element which we have just considered reaches its cul-
mination in the consciousness of God. Here is the eighth form
of the argument. In the thought of God all the ideas of the rea-
son are blended in absolute unity. The spirit that feels itself
rooted in him feels itself independent of earthly things. It is like
the water lily, the lotus, rooted beneath the stream. I hardly
understand how one who has a real faith in God can have serious
doubt in regard to the immortality of the spirit. For from one
point of view the only real difficulty is the question as to the
iPage 472.
THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF GOD 479
sphere which the spirit is to inhabit after it has been severed from
its material environment. But if we recognize a spiritual as well
as a physical universe, if we recognize the Infinite Spirit as well as
the infinitude of matter, then all difficulty of this kind appears to
be solved; there is a sphere in which the spirit may live, apart
from the physical environment. Furthermore, if we attain to the
consciousness of God, those arguments to which I have already
referred, in regard to the demand for justice and completeness in
the universe, have a special significance and power. For with-
out God the universe would be only a world of atoms of which
little of justice or equality could be expected. Apart from this,
however, the fact that the spirit reaches the idea of God is itself
an indication of immortality, because in this thought it already
severs itself from the mere material world about it, and if we may
assume that the thought embodies an absolute reality, then this
reality provides an absolute foundation for belief. I do not mean to
say that the belief in individual immortality must inevitably follow
from the belief in the existence of God. What I am urging is
that if we grant the existence of God, then the fact that the indi-
vidual is conscious of the divine life, and feels that his own life is
rooted in it, makes the thought of immortality in one aspect easy
if not necessary, while the fact that an infinite sphere is provided in
which the spirit may dwell when severed from the material world
removes the difficulty of the belief in another aspect.
We see how the belief in immortality is one of the outgrowths of
religious faith. We have left far behind that world of dreams of
the savage, with its play of the fancy and its suggestion of demonic
life. We have reached the fulness of the spiritual life, in which
the soul meets the Absolute face to face. It lives in a higher world,
the world of ideas, the world of God. The ideal elements of this
world may go very far beyond anything that is found in the ex-
ternal world. It is a world which in part the spirit has created,
or which it perceives by its own powers of intuition. For the
absolute goodness and truth and beauty, as we have all along seen,
involve that which we have called the supernatural} But since
1 The Psychological Elements of Religious Faith, p. 89.
480 man's instinctive faith
the spirit lives in this world which is above nature, it seems nat-
ural that it should be to a certain extent independent of the world
of nature. At least we can conceive it possible that as the lower
world of change drifts on beneath the spirit, it shall not be swept
along with it in its course.
Finally we come to the suggestion that is offered in man's divina-
tion of immortality, his instinctive faith in it. Of the two aspects
under which this manifests itself historically, the aspect that has
been more often emphasized is the universality of the belief.
From the earliest period of which we have any knowledge we find
evidences of it, and it is doubtful if a race has ever been found
in which it did not exist. Individuals have professed that they
did not have it, but so far as the history of the race in general is
concerned we find it everywhere. It is the second aspect, how-
ever, which is the more important, namely, the belief of the
higher natures. Wherever the inner life of the spirit has been
most developed, there we find, as a rule, the strongest faith in
immortality. At least this is true of the past. In our own time
there have been some very noble spirits, such as Harriet Martineau
and George Eliot, who appear not to have had faith in immor-
tality. But one may easily make too much of individual examples.
For in our day questioning and criticism are so common that
the natural instincts hardly have free sweep. The element of
self-consciousness also has often a repressing effect upon instinc-
tive faith. It works here very much as we see it so frequently in
the case of acquired instincts, as when one plays from memory
upon an instrument or as when one walks at a great height upon
a narrow plank; one's success depends largely upon the extent
to which one can avoid thinking about what one is doing. We
can easily understand how in the winds of doctrine that are so
prevalent nowadays the spirit as it strives to rise may be swept
out of its course.
It is interesting to notice the faith in God and even in immor-
tality that we find in writers whose general habit of thought might
lead us to expect from them little sympathy with such beliefs.
Thus we have seen how Darwin speaks of God as breathing the
man's instinctive faith 481
breath of life into a few original forms,1 and in The Destiny of Man
John Fiske out of the very process of evolution itself grasps the
thought of the permanence of the individual.2 The religious
spirit should recognize the fact that its friends and allies are more
numerous than is sometimes thought, and that in the minds of
many of the men of science and of the questioning habit there
remain the fundamental religious faiths which it is simply not a
part of their special work to emphasize or elaborate.
The instinctive faith in immortality which we are here con-
sidering is in itself a most striking fact. The more we think of
it the more we realize the weakness of any explanation like the
theory of the phenomena of dreams, to account for this long-
continued faith in man by which
" He thinks he was not made to die."3
The very thought of eternity would seem to lift man out of the
limits of time, especially when we consider the fact that man is
the only being upon the earth that is in the strict sense of the
word "mortal," the only being that is conscious of its mortality.4
For in spite of occasional stories to the contrary, the lower ani-
mals cling instinctively to life, and it is safe to assume that they
have no consciousness of the limitations of their lives, but pass
each moment as though it were part of an eternal existence, with
no thought of any end or separation. I am inclined to think
that natures of the sort to which I have just referred, like Harriet
Martineau and George Eliot, may have denied a belief in im-
mortality largely because in a similar way they had already en-
tered into an eternal life, so to speak, and therefore were hardly
conscious of the coming day. But however this may be, we see
how man's faith in immortality rises out of his recognition of the
great fact of death. He has crossed a gulf which the lower life
does not recognize. The lower animal has the sense of life, but
1 The Origin of Species, close of Chap. XV.
2 The Destiny of Man, Chap. XVI.
3 In Memoriam, the prologue. i Page 202.
482 DIFFICULTIES
not the sense of death; man has the sense of death, but he has
also the sense of immortality. Here is the final stage in the
great process of affirmation, negation, and negation of the ne-
gation. This instinct is not merely the form in which belief
commonly appears, but it may be in itself an indication of the
trustworthiness of belief.
Of course difficulties occur to us. There is the difficulty to
which I have already referred, in regard to the life of the lower
animals. >But, as I said before, the question as to their immor-
tality is wholly independent of the question as to the immortality
of man. If the lower animals also are immortal, so much the
better. All that can be said is that certain reasons exist for a
belief in the immortality of man which do not hold in the case of
the lower animals. In the lower animals as in man there is
affection, there are elements of consciousness, there is suffering
which may demand compensation. But there do not exist in
the lower animals that distinct, rounded, self-conscious person-
ality which appears in man, and that faith in love, that instinct by
which man's spirit clings to the departed and will not give them
up but follows them into some new and higher life. I once heard
a sermon in which the preacher insisted that our feeling toward
the departed was not properly to be described as love. I do not
know what was the practical or spiritual purpose of the sermon;
I only know that it chilled the spirits of many among those who
listened to it. But if we have any belief in immortality, why
should we not call this feeling love which reaches through the
veil that separates us from the unseen world ? Such love is one
of the forms in which the fundamental instinct of immortality
manifests itself. Even the lower animal has it to some extent —
the dog that knows nothing of the mystery of death and yet will
die of sorrow on the grave of his master. However, all that I
wish to urge here is that the question as to the immortality of the
lower animals does not concern us in relation to our present dis-
cussion.
This is also true in regard to the question of pre-existence.
Many hold that the doctrine of immortality involves the doctrine
DIFFICULTIES 483
of pre-existence. But pre-existence is something about which
we know nothing whatever. For anything that we know to the
contrary, we may have existed indefinitely or from eternity. Cer-
tainly we existed long before our consciousness could tell us any-
thing in regard to it, and the earlier years of conscious life are
whollv passed from memory. Who can say what previous ex-
istence may or may not have been ours ? Perhaps our spirits
have had their growth slowly through all the stages of lower
life, and that thus there may be an immortality of the beast as
the lower life takes form at last in the higher life of man. But
a matter that is so uncertain not merely as regards the fact, but
also as regards the relation of that fact to the doctrine of im-
mortality, hardly needs to enter into our consideration. Our
present question is not as to the eternity of existence, but whether
existence as we find it here is of such a nature as to justify a faith
in its immortality.
We must bear in mind always that nothing that has been said
proves the doctrine of immortality. All that we have been doing
is to bring out the elements of the highest religious faith in their
relation to this doctrine. Religion is a matter of faith, not of
demonstration. Even in the more ordinary subjects of human
thought one sees clearly enough how little room there is for
demonstration. We cannot prove to a man that Wilberforce had
a nobler career than Napoleon, and we ought to see as clearly
how powerless demonstration is in relation to the elements which
constitute man's higher life.
There are, however, certain other difficulties which are urged
from quite another point of view. It is said, for example, that
the belief in immortality is narrow and selfish. But we must
recognize the fact that one's thought of immortality rests as
largely upon the thought of others as upon the thought of one's
self. It is our thought of the universe that demands it rather than
the thought of our own individual lives. What concerns us most
is not what may happen to us individually, but the question
whether or no we must give up our dreams of a universe which is
governed by love and wisdom, and which is working toward some
484 DIFFICULTIES
great and worthy end. It is the faith in all the higher relations
of human existence which points to the faith in immortality. But
even if we consider only the individual, the doctrine of immor-
tality when viewed from the proper standpoint is seen not to be
a manifestation of littleness or selfishness. It is true that there
is a great beauty, almost a sublimity, in the self-forgetfulness
and self-abnegation of the spirit which lays down its hope of
immortality in obedience to what it believes to be the demands
of truth. Men have made many sacrifices to truth, but none,
perhaps, that is more profound than this. The words of George
Eliot are very touching when she speaks of rejoicing, or trying to
rejoice, in the thought of the sunshine that shall be in the world
after we are gone, and when she prays in the great utterance of
that poem which is now so familiar,
"Oh may I join the choir invisible,"
we cannot but admire the unselfishness that is manifested in such
belief. But the question as to the selfishness or unselfishness of
the hope of immortality depends almost entirely upon the nature
of that hope. The hope of one who is looking forward merely
to a paradise of personal joy may not grow out of actual selfishness
but certainly is centred in self-love. But in the higher life self is
given up. The individual spirit does not think of itself as self-
centred but as in relation to the infinite spirit. Its hope is not
for a universe in which everything shall conform to its desire and
will, but for one in which it shall itself conform always more and
more to the divine will.
Perhaps the lowest form of the belief in immortality arises out
of the mere habit of living; we are used to living and we hate
to have the habit broken up. The true thought of immortality
is not this mere clinging to the habit of living, but the recogni-
tion of the true end of life, and the glad and full surrender of one's
self to it. Granting such recognition and surrender, what if the
spirit does pray for an immortality of life in which it shall be bound
to the other spirits about it by natural love, and in which it shall
DIFFICULTIES 485
share more and more in the inflow and outflow of the divine life ?
Shall we call such existence selfish or even self-centred ? A child
is sick unto death, and the mother shrinks from having any hand
but hers minister to it. Shall we call such a mother selfish ? She
wishes to give up the peace of her nights and the pleasure of her
days to this care. Is it selfish ? Is there not here the very un-
selfishness of love ? Or when in some perilous assault soldiers
rush forward to share the post of danger, is it selfishness or un-
selfishness ? There may be the thought of self, but only in the
eagerness to surrender self. Is it selfishness or unselfishness that
the spirit longs to be itself the instrument of the eternal love ?
Or, to speak more especially of the relation of love to its object,
is it selfish or unselfish in the spirit that it shrinks from an eternal
separation from the object of its love ? Is it selfish or unselfish
in it that it clings to the thought of living more and more fully in
the perfection of the divine love, that it shrinks from passing out
of the world of God himself? If this is selfishness, it is cer-
tainly a qualified selfishness. To me it seems to be the very op-
posite of selfishness. In a single word, the relation of the thought
of immortality to self depends, as I said before, upon the nature
of the immortality that is the object of one's hope. If it is an
immortality of love and service and self-surrender, then the long-
ing for it would seem to be free from selfishness.
One of the fundamental difficulties in regard to this whole
question at the present day arises from the fact that we set too
low an estimate upon the personal. There is even a tendency
to look upon it as something to be escaped from, a feeling that
the impersonal is higher and worthier. We are reminded that
although individuals may pass away, the eternal laws of the uni-
verse abide; there is still the movement of the great forces which
constitute the physical life, there is still the activity of the great
spiritual forces; so long as these endure, what does it matter that
the merely personal comes and goes ? But when we look more
closely we find that personality is the one thing in the universe
the permanence of which is of value to us. We may even ask
what would become of this infinite, absolute universe itself if
486 NATURE OP THE FUTURE LIFE
personality should disappear. For there are no laws outside of
the human soul, or rather outside of conscious spirit; there are
only facts. It is the power of generalization which unites these
facts in a single thought and brings them together in a common
law, which changes facts to laws. Again, personality is the one
thing in our lives which we are not willing to change or to replace.
Anything else may come and go, but when your friend goes, his
place cannot be filled ; his personality has made it sacred. Thus
the grief for personal loss is the one grief for which we are not
willing to be consoled. Even the things which we cherish, the
lock of hair, the bit of ribbon, are things that have become dear
to us through the touch of personal association. If we could
fully realize the place and value of the personal in our lives, if
we could fully appreciate its power and its divinity, we should
shrink less from applying the term even to God himself, and we
should certainly feel more deeply the power of the spiritual life.
I have spoken thus far of the nature of the faith in immortality.
What shall we say of the nature of that future life which we may
accept from the hands of faith ? We can only say with the apostle,
"Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the
heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that
love him." * How is it possible for us to conceive the nature of
this higher life ? Granting the absolute certainty of it, what can
we know of it ? Or supposing it possible that we should be placed
in the midst of it, what could we comprehend ? What does the
child comprehend of the world in which he is placed, of the lives
of his father and mother, of their relations to all the life that circles
about them ? He sees, and he thinks he understands, but we
know that he comprehends little of the underlying reality of it all.
Or take some person who has the musical sense but in whom
that sense is wholly untrained, and set him in the midst of the
world of music and make him listen to some perfect concert.
What does he know of it ? And what is true in his case and in
the case of the child, is true in varying degrees and varying rela-
tions of all of us. No spirit comprehends the world about it
except by the most imperfect divination. We can trust only to
1 1 Corinthians, ii, 9.
NATURE OF THE FUTURE LIFE 487
certain absolute principles. From the beginning of our examina-
tion the ideas of the reason have been our guides. They have
suggested to us the content of the religious life, they have shaped
our visions, and it is they alone that can give us any prophecy
in regard to the nature of the immortal life. We believe that
God is the source of all that exalts us in the earth. The unity
after which the thought of philosophy is always striving, the good-
ness of the universe, its beauty, these all are only the manifesta-
tions of God. We are assured that if there be this eternity God
fills it, and that what has been the source of joy here is the possible
source of ever increasing joy, a joy that is not selfish but the
opposite of selfishness.
Various questions will suggest themselves and may be answered
after a fashion. There is the question as to the recognition of
friends in the coming life, the relation of spirit to spirit. It may
help us here to bear in mind what I said just now of the love
which clings to the departed as one of the powers by which the
faith of the spirit is compelled to "trust the larger hope" and
press on, as it were, into the unseen world. Emerson makes
little of the personal element that we have been considering. *
Yet Emerson's loftiest song, the song in which he is moved to a
passion that we rarely find in him, and in which the great thought
of the infinite realities becomes most clear to him, is that poem
which grew out of his personal bereavement.2
There is the question as to universal salvation. Will all spirits
reach the fruition that seems possible for them, at least in their
ideal of life, or will some either drop out by the way and cease
to be, or else continue in an eternity of sin and misery? Who
can venture to answer such questions as these except in the
familiar words that I have just used,
" And faintly trust the larger hope."3
The difficulty here is one of which Dorner makes much, the
antinomy between God's power on the one hand and individual
1 Essay on Love. 2 Threnody. 3 jn Memoriam, Iv.
488 NATURE OF THE FUTURE LIFE
freedom on the other. How can the doctrine of universal sal-
vation be affirmed without doing violence to the freedom of the
individual? Can God compel a spirit to love him, to choose
the good instead of the evil? On the other hand we have to
recognize the might of the forces that are pushing in the direction
of universal salvation, the omnipotence of God and the divine
spirit, and the real nature of man himself, which, however it
may strive to satisfy itself with lower things, yet never can be
satisfied so long as its highest possibilities are unfulfilled. If
we look about us, do we find any in whom the germs of the better
life have wholly disappeared? As your eye falls on some com-
pany of roughs, you may ask yourself what elements of a higher
life are to be found in natures such as theirs. But suddenly
a child falls into the water, and while you and I stand full of
horror but shrinking back, one of these men plunges in and saves
the child, it may be with an oath on his lips at the very moment
of self-sacrifice.
In general there is little room here for dogmatism, but great
room for faith. It is easy to paint the curtain that hides from
us the unseen world and think that the pictures represent it,
but the curtain is still there. I do not mean to imply that the
play of the imagination by which we attempt to make what is
so dimly seen more concrete, may not have its place. We may
indeed regret that such pictures cannot be more real. Yet there
is the danger that the definite representations of the future life
that are sometimes given, however comforting and helpful in
certain ways, may exclude or weaken somewhat that thought
of the relation to the infinite which after all is among the most
helpful elements of the great doctrine. The inspiration which
comes from the recognition of this element of mystery is not to
be lightly prized, even while we trust our higher faith and while
our imagination pictures for us as it can that which "eye hath
not seen, nor ear heard."
At an earlier stage in the examination that we have been mak-
ing we considered first the a priori and then the a posteriori argu-
ment for religious faith. We are now concluding what may be
FINAL DEFINITION OF RELIGION 489
regarded as a third argument, the argument from personal expe-
rience. It is found in the religious consciousness itself, in the
joy and power of the religious life, in the sense of the divine com-
munion. If one is pressed logically, one must admit that looked
at from the outside such an argument rests only upon the indi-
vidual interpretation of certain phenomena of consciousness, and
that there is the possibility of self-deception. Nevertheless we
must recognize that it is precisely what the a priori and a posteriori
arguments lead us to expect. It comes as a confirmation of
them — as a confirmation, too, without which they would lose much
of their power. One may be deceived in regard to the external
world, one knows that there may be delusions there, and yet
one cannot help trusting the testimony of the senses. Here we
have the spiritual sense, and thus the experience of religion
becomes one of the most important arguments for the truth of
religion. The phrase "experience of religion" is often used,
if not wrongly, certainly in its least important significance. A
person is said to have experienced religion at the moment when
his religious life begins, whereas properly and strictly the expe-
rience of religion should come with the continuance and develop-
ment of the religious life itself. A sailor's "experience" does
not come in the moment when he first sets foot on board his ship
or first feels the motion of the waves beneath him ; such a moment
may well be an epoch in his life, but experience is something that
can come to him only with the long years of actual service.
With the close of the argument from personal experience we
reach our sixth and final definition of religion. As we added
to the fourth definition * the element of Christianity to obtain the
fifth definition,2 so now we add the element of the personal expe-
rience of the individual soul. Religion, then, is the Feeling
toward a Spiritual Presence manifesting itself in Truth,
Goodness and Beauty, especially as illustrated in the
life and teaching of jesus and as experienced in every
soul that is open to its influence.
i Page 55. 2 Page 408.
CHAPTER XXXV.
THE AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH. — BAPTISM. — COMMUNION.
It would be interesting to consider at length the development
of the authority of the Christian Church. Comparisons are
sometimes made between that authority and the authority of sci-
ence. The world, it is said, respects the authority of science
as it does not that of the church. It should be remembered,
however, that the authority of the Church is of two kinds: on
the one hand it is concerned with religion itself, the spiritual
experience of the human soul, and on the other hand it has to
do with matters of belief and administration which have grown
up about religion. In this second aspect it is either a divided
authority or an authority assumed at second hand, and must
naturally suffer when set beside the comparatively undivided
authority of science. But in its first aspect, in its relation to
spiritual experience, it is an authority at first hand and absolute.
Whatever may have been the misapprehensions or contradic-
tions in the beliefs about religion, underneath and through them
all the Church has nourished the positive thought of the spiritual
presence, and so the faith of the absolute religion. The eternal
heavens may often have been obscured by the disputes of the
theologians, but there has been no time at which the eternal
light has not shone through. As regards the three ideas of the
reason, the Church has recognized them in varying degree, but
in general, by its philosophy, by its methods of organization and
of work, and by its services, it has tended to do its part in fur-
nishing to the religious life its content of truth and goodness
and beauty.
It remains for me to consider, though very briefly, the two
rites which the Church at large has recognized, the one positive,
the other negative, communion and baptism. The rite of
BAPTISM AND COMMUNION 491
baptism represents negatively the cleansing of the spirit and its
entrance upon a new career. It seems especially fit and pleas-
ing in the case of infants and of those who are about to join for
the first time in the communion service. It is easy to ridicule
the baptism of infants on the ground that we are doing for them
that which they do not understand. But we do not usually
wait to do something for a child until it can understand what
we are doing. We do not wait till it is conscious before we adopt
it into our hearts, and as the son or daughter rejoices that the
love of father and mother met them at their birth, so it may be
a help to a man or a woman to think that the Church thus met
them and received them upon their entrance into the world.
As regards the communion, the fact that the Church has chosen
this method to commemorate its founder is enough. It is first
of all a service of commemoration; in how intense a form we do
not always remember. It goes back without a break to the tender-
est moment in the life of Jesus. It is almost as though we received
the cup warm from the hand of the Master himself. One should
bear in mind that in all that is essential it is a very simple ser-
vice, and also that it is a service which has been newly conse-
crated again and again by the holy men and women, the heroic
lives, who in every age have joined in it. Furthermore, it is a
symbol both of the profound mysticism which underlies all true
religion and especially the Christian religion, and also of the
manner in which the daily life of men should be transfigured.
It has been too often associated with artificial interpretations
of its meaning. Too often, also, it has been held to apply to an
actual attainment of the worshipper rather than to his aspiration
and endeavor. But rightly understood it brings the soul into
present relation with the highest spiritual realities. It is at once
a commemoration of the fullest manifestation of the spiritual
life that the world has seen, and also a call to everyone to share
in that higher life. We speak sometimes of looking back to
Jesus. Is it really a backward look ? Or do we look forward
to him?
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