But you will say that this fact is not to be taken for granted. I admit it; and therefore lay no further stress upon it. I go one step further; and shall endeavor, at least, to prove, that, supposing man is just as he was created, yet also supposing, what neither Mr. Parker nor Mr. Newman will deny, (and if they did, the whole history of the world would confute them,) that man"s religious faculty is not uniform or determinate in its action, but is dependent on external development and culture for a.s.suming the form it does, ample scope is still left for an external revelation. I contend that the entire condition of this susceptibility (as shown by experience) proves that, if in truth an external revelation be impossible, it is not because it has superseded the necessity for one; and that the declaration of the elder deists and modern "spiritualists" on this in the face of what all history proves man to be, is the most preposterous in the world.
Further; I contend that all the a.n.a.logies from the fundamental laws of the development of man"s nature,--from a consideration of the relations in which that nature stands to the external world,--from the absolute dependence of the individual on external culture, and that of the whole species on its historic development,--are all in favor of the notion both of the possibility and utility of an external revelation, and even in favor of that particular form of it which Mr. Newman and you so contemptuously call a "book" revelation.
I. I argue from all the a.n.a.logies of the fundamental laws of the development of the human mind. Nor do I fear to apply the reasoning even to the cases in which it has been so confidently a.s.serted that there can be no revelation, on the fallacious ground that a revelation "of spiritual and moral truth" presupposes in man certain principles to which it appeals. To possess certain faculties for the appreciation of spiritual and moral truth is one thing; to acquire the conscious possession of that truth is another; the former fact would not make an external revelation superfluous, or an empty name. Every thing in the process of the mind"s development goes to show, that, whatever its capacities, tendencies, faculties, "potentialities," (call them what you will,) a certain external influence is necessary to awaken its dormant life; to turn a "potentiality" into an "energy "; to transform a dim inkling of a truth into an intelligent, vital, conscious recognition of it.
Nor is this law confined to mind alone; all nature attests its presence. All effects are the result of properties or susceptibilities in one thing, solicited by external contact with those of others.
The fire no doubt may smoulder in the dull and languid embers; it is when the external breeze sweeps over them, that they begin to sparkle and glow, and vindicate the vital element they contain. The diamond in the mine has the same internal properties in the darkness as in the light; it is not till the sun shines upon it, that it flashes on the eye its splendor. Look at a flower of any particular species; we see that, as it is developed in connection with a variety of external influences,--as it comes successively under the action of the sun, rain, dew, soil,--it expands in a particular manner, and in that only. It exhibits a certain configuration of parts, a certain form of leaf, a certain color, fragrance, and no other. We do not doubt, on the one hand, that without the "skyey influences" these things would never have been; nor, on the other; that the flower a.s.sumes this form of development, and this alone, in virtue of its internal structure and organization. But both sets of conditions must conspire in the result.
It is much the same with the mind. That it possesses certain tendencies and faculties, which, as it develops itself, will terminate in certain ideas and sentiments, is admitted; but apart from certain external conditions of development, those sentiments and ideas will, in effect, never be formed,--the mind will be in perpetual slumber. Thus, in point of fact, this controversy is connected ultimately with that ancient dispute as to the origin, sources, and genesis of human knowledge and sentiments. I shall simply take for granted that you are (as most philosophers are) an advocate of innate capacities, but not of "innate ideas"; of "innate susceptibilities," but not of "innate sentiments"; that is, I presume you do not contend that the mind possesses more than the faculties--the laws of thought and feeling--which, under conditions of development, actually give birth to thoughts and feelings. These faculties and susceptibilities are, no doubt, congenital with the mind, --or, rather, are the mind itself. But its actually manifested phenomena wait the of the external; and they will be modified accordingly. It is absolutely dependent on experience in this sense, that it is only as it is operated upon by the outward world that the dormant faculties, whatever they are, and whatever their nature, be they few or many,-- intellectual, moral, or spiritual,--are first awakened. If a mind were created (it is, at least, a conceivable case) with all the avenues to the external world closed,--in fact, we sometimes see approximations to such a condition in certain unhappy individuals,--we do not doubt such a mind, by the present laws of the human const.i.tution, could not possess any thoughts, feelings, emotions; in fact, could exhibit none of the phenomena, spiritual, intellectual, moral, or sensational, which diversify it. In proportion as we see human beings approach this condition,--in fact, we sometimes see them approach it very nearly,--we see the "potentialities" of the soul (I do not like the word, but it expresses my meaning better than any other I know) held in abeyance, and such an imperfectly awakened man does not, in some cases, manifest the degree of sensibility or intelligence manifested in many animals.
If the seclusion from sense and experience be quite complete, the life of such a soul would be wrapped up in the germ, and possess no more consciousness than a vegetable.
It appears, then, that universally, however true it may be, and doubtless is, that the laws of thought and feeling enable us to derive from external influence what it alone would never give, yet that influences an indispensable condition, as we are at present const.i.tuted, of the development of any and of all our faculties.
As this seems the law of development universally, it is so of the spiritual and religious part of our nature as well as the rest; and in this very fact we have abundant scope for the possibility and utility of a revelation,--if G.o.d be pleased to give one,--even of elementary moral and spiritual truth; since, though conceding the perfect congruity between that truth and the structure of the soul, it is only as it is in some way actually presented to it from without, that it arrives at the conscious possession of it. And what, after all, but such an external source of revelation is that Volume of Nature, which, operating in perfect a.n.a.logy with the aforesaid conditions of the soul"s development, awakens, though imperfectly, the dormant elements of religious and spiritual life? So far from its being true in any intelligible sense that an external revelation of moral and spiritual truth is impossible, it is absolutely necessary, in some form, as a condition of its evolution; so far from its being true that such revelation is an absurdity, it is in strict a.n.a.logy with the fundamental laws of our being. Whether, if this be so, the express external presentation of such truth in a book constructed by divine wisdom and expressed in human language,--this last being the most universal and most appropriate instrument by which man"s dormant powers are actually awakened,--may not be a more effective method of attaining the end than any of man"s devising, whether instinctive or artificial; or than the casual influences of external nature, well or ill deciphered;--all this is another question. But some such external apparatus--applied to the faculties of men--is essential, whether it be in the Volume of Nature, or in the "Bible"
or in a book of Mr. Newman or Mr. Parker. All that makes the difference between you and a Hottentot (to recur to that ill.u.s.tration which Harrington, I really think, fairly employed) depends on external influences, and the consequent development of the spiritual and religious faculties.
And this very fact--the unspeakable differences between man and man, nation and nation, as regards recognition the conscious possession of even elementary "moral and spiritual truth" (varying, as it perpetually does, as those external influences vary, and more or less perfect, according as that external "revelation," which, in some degree, and of some species, is indispensable, more or less perfect)--affords another indication of the ample utility of an external divine revelation, as well as of its possibility; and a proof that, if there be one, it is in harmony, again, with the conditions of human nature. And here I may employ, in further ill.u.s.tration, one of the a.n.a.logies I adverted to a little time ago. Not only is the flower never independent of external influences for its actual development,--not only would it remain in the germ without them,--but we see that within certain limits, often very wide, the kind of external influence operates powerfully on the species, and on the individual itself;--according as it is in one climate or another,--in this soil or that,--submitted to culture or suffered to grow wild. It is needless to apply the a.n.a.logy. While we see that the moral spiritual faculties of man no more than his other faculties can attain their development except in cooperation with some external influences, we also see that they exhibit every degree and variety of development according to the quality of those external influences. Is there then not even a possibility left for an external revelation? If the actual exhibition of any spiritual and religious phenomena in man not only depends on some external influences and culture, but perpetually varies with them, what would such a revelation be but a provision in a.n.a.logy with these facts? But it is sufficient to rebut this gratuitous dictum, of an external revelation of "spiritual and moral truth being impossible," that some external influence is necessary for any development of the religious faculty at all. If the last be necessary, I cannot conceive how the other should be impossible.
Nor is it any reply to say,--as I think has been abundantly shown in your debates with Harrington,--that any such external influences only make articulate that which already existed inarticulately in the heart; that they only chafe and stimulate into life "the ivory of Pygmalion"s statue," to use his expression,--the dormant principles and sentiments which somehow existed, but were in deep slumber. That which makes them vital, active, the objects of consciousness and the sources of power, may well be called a "revelation." Nay, since it seems that, in some way, this outward voice must be heard first, I think it is more properly so called than the internal response of the heart. That is rather the echo.
It may be admitted that the elementary truths of religion, once propounded, are promptly admitted, but still in some external shape they require to be propounded. There is such a thing in the human mind as unrealized truth, both intellectual and spiritual; the inarticulate muttering of an obscurely felt sentiment; a vague appetency for something we are not distinctly conscious of. The clear utterance of it, its distinct proposition to us, is the very thing that is often wanted to convert this dim feeling into distinct vision.
This is the electric spark which transforms two invisible gases into a visible and transparent fluid; this is the influence which evolves the latent caloric, and makes it a powerful and active element.
I cannot help thinking that the great source of fallacy on this subject arises from confounding the idea of certain characteristic tendencies and potentialities of our nature with the supposition,-- contradicted by the whole religious history of man in all ages,--that they must be everywhere efficaciously active, and spontaneously exhibit a moral manifestation; than which there cannot, I conceive, be a greater error.
I must entreat you to recollect Harrington"s dilemma. Either the supposed truths of your spiritual theory, or that of Mr. Newman or Mr. Parker, are known to all mankind, or not; if they are, surely their books, and every such book is the most important in the world; if not, these authors did well to write, supposing them to have truth on their side; but then that vindicates the possibility and utility of a "book-revelation."
II. But I go a step further, and not only contend that, from the very law of the soul"s development, there is ample scope for a revelation, even of elementary "moral and spiritual truth," but that even if we supposed all men in actual possession of that truth, in some shape or other, there would still be abundant scope for a divinely constructed external instrument for giving it efficacy; and that this, again, is in perfect a.n.a.logy with the fundamental condition of the soul"s action. The principles of spiritual and religious life are capable in an infinite variety of ways, of being modified, intensified, vivified, by the external influences brought to bear upon them from time to time. Not only must that external influence be exerted for the first awakening of the soul, but it must be continued all our life long, in order to maintain the principles thus elicited in a state of activity. Sometimes they seem for a while to have been half obliterated,--to fade away from the consciousness; they are reillumined, made to blaze out again in brilliant light on the "walls of the chambers of imagery," by some outward stimulus; by a "word spoken in season"; by the recollection of some weighty apothegm which embodies truth,--some enn.o.bling image which ill.u.s.trates it; by the utterance of certain "charmed words," hallowed by a.s.sociation as they fall on the external sense, or are recalled by memory. How familiar to us all is this dependence on the external! How dull, how sluggish, has often been the soul! A single word, the sight of an object surrounded with vivid a.s.sociations, the sudden suggestion of a half-forgotten strain of poetry or song,--what power have these to stir its stagnant depths, and awaken "spiritual" and every other species of emotion, as well as intellectual activity! The lightning does not more suddenly cleave the cloud in which it slumbered, the sleeping ocean is not more suddenly ruffled by the descending tempest, than the soul of man is thus capable of being vivified and animated by the presentation of appropriate objects,--nay, often by even the most casual external impulse. If this be so, is it not possible that an external instrument for thus stimulating and vivifying spiritual life might be given us by G.o.d; which, if not, in literal strictness, a "revelation," would virtually have all the effect of one, as rekindling the dying light, reillumining the fading characters, of spiritual truth?
Nor, surely, is there much presumption in supposing that the appropriate influences of such an instrumentality may be brought to bear upon us with infinite advantage by Him who alone possesses perfect access to all the avenues of our spirits; a perfect mastery of our whole nature; of intellect, imagination, and conscience of those laws of a.s.sociation and emotion which He himself has framed. If Shakspeare and Milton can daily exercise over myriads of minds an ascendency which makes their admirers speak of them almost with the "Bibliolatry" with which Mr.
Newman makes Christian speak of the Bible, I apprehend G.o.d could construct a "book," even though it told man nothing which was strictly a revelation, which might be of infinite value to him; simply from the fact that the modes in which truths operate upon us, and by which our faculties are educated to their perfection, are scarcely less important than either the truths or the faculties themselves.
But I need say the less upon this point, inasmuch as Mr. Newman has spoken of the New Testament, and its influence over his mental history, in terms which conclusively show that, if it be not a "revelation,"
ample s.p.a.ce is left for such a divinely constructed book, if G.o.d were pleased to give one.
"There is no book in all the world," says he, "which I love and esteem so much as the New Testament, with the devotional parts of the Old.
There is none which I know so intimately, the very words of which dwell close to me in my most sacred thoughts, none for which I so thank G.o.d, none on which my soul and heart have been to so great an extent moulded. In my early boyhood, it was my private delight and daily companion; and to it I owe the best part of whatever wisdom there is in my manhood." (Soul, pp. 241, 242.)
I only doubt whether even this testimony, strong as it is, fully represents the power which the Book has had in modifying his interior life, though he would now fain renounce its proper authority; whether it has not had more to do than he thinks in originating his conception of such "moral and spiritual" truth as he still recognizes.
Its very language comes so spontaneously to his lips, that his dialect of "spiritualism" is one continued plagiarism from David and Isaiah, Paul and Christ. Nay, I may well be doubted whether the entire substance of his spiritual theory be any thing else than a distorted and mutilated Christianity.
Some of the previous observations apply to the possibility and utility of a divinely originated statement of "ethical truth"; nor will they be neutralized by an objection which Mr. Newman is fond of urging, --namely, that a book cannot express (as it is freely acknowledged no book can) the limitations with which maxims of critical truth are to be received and applied; that all it can do is to give general principles, and leave them to be applied by the individual reason and conscience. Such reasoning is refuted by fact. The same thing precisely is done, and necessarily done, in every department in which men attempt to convey instruction in any particular art or method. It is thus with the general principles of mechanics, of law, of medicine. Yet men never entertain a notion that the collection and inculcation of such maxims are of no use, or of little, merely because they must be intelligently modified and not blindly applied in action. If indeed there were any force in the objection, it would put an end to all instruction,--that of Mr. Newman"s "spiritual faculty" amongst the rest, for that too can only prompt us by general impulses, and leaves us in the same ignorance and perplexity how far we are to obey them. That is still to be otherwise determined. The genuine result of such reasoning, if it were acted upon, would be that we need never, in any science or art whatever, trouble ourselves to enunciate any general principle or maxim, because perfectly useless! Similarly, we need never inculcate on children the duty of obeying their honoring their superiors, of being frugal or diligent, humble or aspiring, the particular circ.u.mstances and limitations in which they are to be applied being indeterminate! But is not the experience of every day and of all the world against it? Is not the early and sedulous inculcation of just maxims of duty fell to be a great auxiliary to its performance in the circ.u.mstances in which it is necessary to apply them? Is not the possession of a general rule, with the advantages of a clear and concise expression,--in the form of familiar proverbs, or embodied in powerful imagery,--a potent suggestive to the mind; not only whispering of duty, but, by perpetual recurrence, aiding the habit of attending to it? Is not the early and earnest iteration of such sententious wisdom in the ears of the young, --the honor which has been paid to sages who have elicited it, or felicitously expressed it,--the care with which these treasures of moral wisdom have been garnered up,--the perpetual efforts to conjoin elementary moral truth with the fancy and a.s.sociation,--is not all this a standing testimony to a consciousness of the value of such auxiliaries of virtue and duty? Is it not felt, that, however general such truths may be, the very forms of expression,--the portable shape in which the truth is presented,--have an immense value in relation to practice? Admitting, therefore, as before,--but, as before, only conceding it for argument"s sake (for the limits of variation, even as regards the elementary truths of morals, are, as experience shows, very wide),--that each man in some shape could antic.i.p.ate for himself the more important ethical truth, there would be yet ample scope left for the utility of a divinely constructed instrument for its exhibition and enforcement, in perfect harmony with the modes in which it is actually exhibited and enforced by man, in close a.n.a.logy with the form in which he attempts the same task, whenever he teaches any practical art or method whatever.
Only may it not be again presumed here, that He who knows perfectly "what is in man" would be able to perform the work with correspondent perfection? Whether He has performed it in the Bible or not, that book does, at all events, contain not merely a larger portion of pure ethical truth than any other in the world, but ethical truth expressed and exhibited (as Mr. Newman himself, and most other persons, would admit) in modes incomparably better adapted than in any other book to lay hold of the memory, the imagination, the conscience, and the heart.
Even then, if we conceded that elementary "spiritual and moral truth"
is not only congruous to man"s faculties, but in some shape universally recognized and possessed, it might yet be contended, from the manner in which such truth is dependent for its power and vitality on the forms in which it comes in contact with the human spirit and stimulates it, that ample s.p.a.ce is left for such a divine instrument as the Bible; and that it would be in perfect conformity with the laws of our nature, --in a.n.a.logy with the known modes in which external aids give efficacy to such truth. At the same time, be pleased once more to remember, that I concede so much only for argument"s sake; I contend that in the stricter sense, without some external aid,--and the Bible may be at least as effectual,--the religious faculty will not expand at all; and that, even where there are these indispensable external influences, the recognition of the truth is obscure or bright, as those influences vary in their degrees of appropriateness. Where they are rude and imperfect, (as amongst barbarous nations) we have the spectacle of a soul which struggles towards the light, like a plant to which but small portion of the sun"s rays is admitted; it depends on the free admission of the light whether or not it shall arrive at its full development,--its beauty, its fragrance, and its color. The most that merely human culture can promise, even under the most favorable circ.u.mstances, (witness ancient Greece!) is that men, in some few favored instances, may possibly attain those truths which it may be admitted are congenital to the soul, and easily recognized when once propounded but which, in fact, few men, by nature"s sole teaching, ever do clearly attain. It is infinitely important that the path, dimly explored by sages alone, should be thrown open to mankind. Is it not even possible, then, that this task should be performed by a book like the Bible? and if such a book were given, would it not be, I once more ask, in a.n.a.logy with the fundamental laws of the soul"s development,--its uniform dependence on external influences for any result, and the variable nature of that result, as the influence itself is more or less appropriate? To affirm that each man at once, by in internal illumination alone, attains a clear recognition of even elementary "moral and spiritual truth" is to ignore the laws according to which the soul"s activity is developed, and to contradict universal experience, which tells us that the great majority of mankind are but in partial possession of this "spiritual and moral truth,"
and hold it for the most part in connection with the most prodigious and pernicious errors.
You will perceive that I have here chosen to argue the question of the possibility and utility of a "revelation" on your own grounds; but recollect what I have said, that, in fact, the princ.i.p.al reasons for a revelation would still remain in force, even if all you demand were conceded. It is a point which I do not find that Mr. Newman"s dictum affects.
There may obviously be other facts and other truths as intimately connected with man"s destinies and happiness as the elementary truths of religious and moral science; facts and truths which may be necessary to give efficacy to mere elementary principles, and to supply motives to the performance of moral precepts. And how ample in this respect are man"s necessities, and how large the field for a "divine revelation,"
if we content ourselves with such a meagre theology as that of Mr. Parker and Mr. Newman, you see plainly enough in the questions asked by Harrington! How many of Mr. Newman"s and Mr. Parker"s a.s.sumptions--the moment they step beyond such "spiritual and moral truth" as is "elementary" indeed--does Harrington declare that he finds unverified by his own consciousness, and needing, if true, an authority to confirm them far more weighty than theirs! As to the terms of access to the Supreme Being,--his aspects towards man,--man"s duties towards him,--the future destinies, even the future existence, of the soul (a point on which these writers are themselves divided),--the boasted "progress" of the race, which they "prophesy," indeed, but without any credentials of their mission,--you see how on all these points Harrington maintains--and oh! how many, if the Bible be untrue, must maintain with him--that he is in total darkness!
III. But I must proceed to show yet further, if you will have patience with me, that, supposing a divine external revelation to be given, it is in striking a.n.a.logy, not only with the primary laws of development of our whole intellectual and spiritual being, but with the fact-- undeniable, however unaccountable--that our subjection to external influence does, in truth, not only mould and modify, but usually determine, our intellectual and religious position. We see not only some external influence is necessary to awaken activity at all, but that it is actually so powerful and so inevitable from the manner in which man enters the world, and is brought up in it,--his long years of dependence, absolute dependence, on the education which is given him (and what an education it has ever been for the ma.s.s of the race!),--that it makes all the difference, intellectually and morally, between a New Zealand savage and an Englishman,--between the grossest idolater and the most enlightened Christian. This fact affects alike our intellectual and spiritual condition. The savage can use his senses better than the civilized; but the interval is trifling compared with that between the intellectual condition of a man can appreciate Milton and Newman, and that of our Teutonic ancestors.
Its the sentiments of a nature there is the same wide gulf--or rather wider--between a Hottentot and a Paul. Yet the same "susceptibilities"
and "potentialities" are in each human mind. The same remark applies to the sense of the beautiful and sublime; the characteristic faculties are in all mankind; it is education which elicits them. Nay, would you not stare at a man who should affirm that education was not itself a species of "revelation," simply because the truths thus communicated were all "potentially" in the mind before? The fact is, that education is of coordinate importance with the very faculties without which it cannot be imparted.
Now we cannot break away from that law of development with which our individual existence is involved, and which necessarily (as far as any will of ours is concerned) is a most important, nay, the most important, element in that tertium quid which man becomes in virtue of the threefold elements which const.i.tute him:--1st, a given internal const.i.tution of mind; 2d. the modifying effects of the actual exercise of his faculties and their interaction with one another, resulting in habits; and, 3d, that external world of influences which supplies the materiel from which this strange plant extracts its aliment, and ultimately derives its fair fruits or its poisonous berries. All this is inevitable, upon the supposition that man was to be a social, not a solitary being,--linked by an indissoluble chain to those who came before and to those who come after him,--dependent, absolutely dependent, upon others for his being, his training, his whole condition, civil, social, intellectual, moral, and religious.
If, then, an external instrument of moral and religious culture were Given by G.o.d to man, would it not be in strict a.n.a.logy with this tremendous and mysterious law of human development?
IV. I must be permitted to proceed yet one step further, and affirm that the very form in which this presumed revelation has (as we say) been given--that of a Book--is also in strict a.n.a.logy with the law by which G.o.d himself has made this an indispensable instrument of all human progress. We have just seen that man is what he is, as much (to say the least) by the influence of external influence as by the influence of the internal principles of his const.i.tution; it must be added, that to make that external influence of much efficiency at all, still more to render it either universally or progressively beneficial, the world waits for a--BOOK. Among the varied external influences amidst which the human race is developed, this is incomparably the most important, and the only one that is absolutely essential. Upon it the collective education of the race depends. It is the sole instrument of registering, perpetuating, transmitting thought.
Yes, whatever trivial and vulgar a.s.sociations may impair our due conceptions of this grandeur of this material and artificial organon of man"s development, as compared with the intellectual and moral energies, which have recourse to it, but which are almost impotent without it. G.o.d has made man"s whole career of triumphs dependent upon this same art of writing! The whole progress of the world he has created, he has made dependent upon the Alphabet! Without this the progress of the individual is inconceivably slow, and with him, for the most part, progress terminates. By this alone can we garner the fruits of experience,--become wise by the wisdom of others, and strong by their strength. Without this man everywhere remains, age after age, immovably a savage; and, if he were to lose it when he has once gained it, would, after a little ineffectual flutter by the aid of tradition, sink into barbarism again. Till this cardinal want is supplied, all considerable "progress" is impossible. It may look odd to say that the whole world is dependent on any thing so purely artificial; but, in point of fact, it is only another way of stating the truth that G.o.d has const.i.tuted the race a series of mutually dependent beings; and as each term of this series is perishable and evanescent, the development and improvement of the race must depend on an instrument by which an inter-connection can be maintained between its parts; till then, progress must not only be most precarious, but virtually impossible.
To the truth of this all history testifies. I say, then, not only that, if G.o.d has given man a revelation at all, he has but acted in a.n.a.logy with that law by which he has made man so absolutely dependent upon external culture, but that if he has given it in the very shape of a book, he has acted also in strict a.n.a.logy with the very form in which he has imposed that law on the world. He has simply made use of that instrument, which, by the very const.i.tution of our nature and of the world, he has made absolutely essential to the progress and advancement of humanity. May we not conclude from a.n.a.logy, that if G.o.d has indeed thus const.i.tuted the world, and if he busies himself at all in the fortunes of miserable humanity, he has not disdained to take part in its education, by condescendingly using that very instrument which himself has made the condition of all human progress? I think, even if you hesitate to admit that G.o.d has given us a "book-revelation,"
you must admit it would be at least in manifest coincidence with the laws of human development and the "const.i.tution and course of nature."
To conclude; I must say that Mr. Newman, in his account of the genesis of religion, does himself in effect admit (as Harrington has remarked) an "external revelation," though not in a book. For what else is that apparatus of external influences by which the several preparatory or auxiliary emotions are awakened, and the development of your "spiritual faculty" effected?--contact with the outward world,--with visible and material nature,--the instruction of the living voice! You acknowledge all this without derogation, as you imagine, to the sublime and divine functions of the indwelling "spiritual" power, why this rabid, this, I might almost say, puerile (if I ought not rather to say fanatical), hatred of the very notion of a "book-revelation"?
Let us confess that, if a revelation be possible at all, it cannot be more worthy of G.o.d to give one even from "within" than in such a shape as a "book"; since without a "BOOK" man remains an idolater, in spite of his fine "spiritual faculties," and a barbarian, in spite of his sublime intellect; in fact, not much better than the beasts, in spite of all those n.o.ble capacities which, although they are in him, are as it were hopelessly locked up till he has obtained this key to their treasures.
Nor do I think that the invectives of the modern spiritualists on this point are particularly becoming, when we reflect not only that they freely give mankind what Harrington declares to be to him, and I must say are equally to me, their "book-revelations," but in very deed, as he truly affirms, have given us nothing else. It has been much the same with all who have rejected historical Christianity, from Lord Herbert"s time downwards.
I paused, and Fellowes mused. At last he said, "I cannot feel convinced that the "absolute religion" is (as Mr. Parker says) essentially the same in all men, and internally revealed. The want exists in all, and there must, according to the arrangements of universal nature, be the supply; just as the eye is for the light, and the light is for the eye.
As he says, "we feel instinctively it must be so.""
"Unhappily," said Harrington, "Mr. Parker says that many things must be which we find are not, and this among the number. At least I, for one, shall not grant that the sort of spiritual "supply" which is to the Calmuck, or the savage "besmeared with the blood of human sacrifices," at all resembles that uniform light which is made for all people"s eyes."
Fellowes seemed still perplexed with his old difficulty. "I cannot help thinking," he began again, "that the "spiritual faculty" acts by immediate "insight," and has nothing to do with "logical processes" or "intellectual propositions," or the sensational or the imaginative parts of our nature; that it "gazes immediately upon spiritual truth." Now in the argument you have constructed, you have expressly implied the contrary. You have said, you know, that, even if you granted men to be in possession of "spiritual and moral truth," there might still be large s.p.a.ce for a divinely constructed book from the reflex operation of the intellect, the imagination, and so forth, upon the products of the spiritual faculty; both directly, and also indirectly, inasmuch as external influences modify or stimulate them."
"But," said I, "does not Mr. Newman himself, in the first part of his Treatise on the Soul, admit the reciprocal action of all these on the too plastic spiritual products; and as to "logical and intellectual processes," does he not continually employ them--for his system of opinions, though he will not allow them to be employed against it? And by what other means than through the intervention of your senses, by which you read his pages,--your imagination, by which you seize his ill.u.s.trations,--your intellect, by which you comprehend his arguments, did he reclaim you, as you say he has done, from many of your ancient errors? How else, in the name of common sense, did he get access to your soul at all?"
"I cannot pretend to defend Mr. Newman"s consistency," said he, "in his various statements on this subject. I acknowledge I am even puzzled to find out how he did convince me, upon his hypothesis."
"Are you sure," said I, laughing, "that he ever convinced you at all?
However, all your perplexity seems to me to arise from supposing the spiritual powers of man to act in greater isolation from his other powers than is conceivable or even possible. Not apart from these, but in intimate conjunction with them, are the functions of the soul performed. The divorce between the "spiritual faculties" and the intellect, which your favorite, Mr. Newman, has attempted to effect, is impossible. It is an attempt to sever phenomena which coexist in the unity of our own consciousness. I am bound in justice to admit, that there are others of our "modern spiritualists" who condemn this attempt to separate what G.o.d hath joined so inseparably. Even Mr. Newman does practically contradict his own a.s.sertions; and outraged reason and intellect have avenged his wrongs upon them by deserting him when he has invoked them, and left him to express his paradoxes in endless perplexity and confusion. But this conversation is no bad preface to some observations on this important fallacy, (as I conceive,) which I have appended to the paper I have read, and, with your leave, I will finish with them." They a.s.sented, and I proceeded.
It is very common for philosophers, spiritual and otherwise, to be guilty of two opposite errors, both exposed in the first book of the Novum Organum. One is, that of supposing the phenomena which they have to a.n.a.lyze more simple, more capable of being reduced to some one principle, than is really the case; the other, that of introducing a c.u.mbrous complexity of operations unknown to nature.
It is unnecessary here to adduce examples of the last; quite as frequently, at least, man apt to be guilty of the first. He imagines that complex and generally deeply convoluted phenomena he is called to investigate are capable of being more summarily a.n.a.lyzed than they can be. The ends to be answered in nature by the same set of instruments are in many cases so various, and in some respects so limit and traverse one another, that though the same multiplicity of ends is attained more completely, and in higher aggregate perfection, than by any device which man"s ingenuity could subst.i.tute for them, yet those instruments are necessarily very complex at the best. Look, for example, at the system of organs by which, variously employed, we utter the infinite variety of articulate sounds, perform the most necessary of all vital functions (that of respiration), masticate solid food, and swallow fluids. The miracle is, that any one set of organs in any conceivable juxtaposition should suffice to discharge with such amazing facility and rapidity these different and rapidly alternated functions; yet I suppose few who have studied anatomy will deny, that, though relatively to the variety of purposes it has to perform the apparatus is very simple, it is absolutely very complex; and that its parts play into one another with great facility indeed, but with endless intricacy.
To apply these observations to my special object. To one who attentively studies man"s immaterial anatomy, much the same complexity is, I think, apparent; the philosopher is too apt to a.s.sume it to be much more simple than it is. It is the very error, as I conceive, into which some of you modern "spiritualists" fall when considering the phenomena of our religious nature. You do not sufficiently regard man as a complicated unity; you represent, if you do not suppose, the several capacities of his nature,--the different parts of it, sensational, emotional, intellectual, moral, spiritual,--as set off from one another by a sharper boundary line than nature acknowledges. They all work for immediate ends, indeed; but they all also work for, with, and upon each other, for other ends than their own. Yet, as they all exist in one indivisible mind, or rather const.i.tute it, they form one most intricate machine: and it can rarely happen that the particular phenomena of our interior nature we happen to be investigating do not involve many others. Throughout his book on the "Soul," we find Mr. Newman employing expressions (though I admit there are others which contradict them) which imply that the phenomena of religion, of what he calls "spiritual insight," may be viewed in clearer distinction from those of the intellect, than, as I conceive, they ever can be; and that a much clearer separation can be effected between them than nature has made possible. To hear him sometimes speak, one would imagine that the logical, the moral, and the spiritual are held together by no vital bond of connection; nay, from some expressions, one would think that the "logical" faculty had nothing to do with religion, if it is not to be supposed rather to stand in the way of it; that the "intellect" and the "spiritual faculty" may each retire to its "vacant interlunar cave," and never trouble its head about what the other is doing. Thus he says in one place, "All the grounds of Belief proposed to the mere understanding have nothing to do with Faith at all." (Soul, p. 223.) In another, "The processes of thought have nothing to quicken the conscience or affect the soul." (ibid. p. 245) "How, then, can the state of the soul be tested by the conclusion to which the intellect is led?" (ibid. p. 245.) And accordingly you see he everywhere affirms that we ought not to have any better or worse opinion of any man for his "intellectual creed"; and that "religious progress" cannot be "antic.i.p.ated" till intellectual "creeds are destroyed." (Phases, p. 222.)
Here one would imagine that the intellectual, moral, and spiritual had even less to do with the production of each other"s results than matter and mind reciprocally have with theirs. These last, we see, in a thousand cases act and react upon one another; and modify each other"s peculiar products and operations in a most important manner. How much more reasonably may we infer that the elementary faculties of the same indivisible mind will not discharge their functions without important reciprocal action; that in no case can we have the process pure and simple as the result of the operation of a single faculty!
If it were not so, I see not how we are to perform any of the functions of a spiritual nature, even as defined by you and your favorite writers; unless, indeed, you would equip the soul with an entire Sunday suit of separate capacities of reasoning, remembering, imagining, hoping, rejoicing, and so on, to be expressly used by the "soul" alone when engaged in her spiritual functions; quite different from that old, threadbare, much-worn suit of faculties, having similar functions indeed, but exercised on other objects.
What can be more obvious (and it must be admitted that the most fanatical "spiritualist" employs expressions, and, what is more, uses methods, which imply it) than that, whether we have a distinct religious faculty or whether it be the result of the action of many faculties, the functions of our "spiritual" nature are performed by the instrumentality, and involve the intervention, of the very same much-abused faculties which enable us to perform any other function. It is one and the same indivisible mind which is the subject of religious thought and emotion, and of any other thought and emotion. Religious truth, like any other truth, is embraced by the understanding--as indeed it would be a queer kind of truth that is not is stated in propositions, yields inferences, is adorned by eloquence is ill.u.s.trated by the imagination, and is thus, as well from its intrinsic claims, rendered powerful over the emotions, the affections, and the will. In brief, when the soul apprehends, reasons, remembers, rejoices, hopes, fears, spiritually, it surely does not perform these functions by totally different faculties from these by which similar things are done on other occasions. All experience and consciousness are against the supposition. In religion, men"s minds are employed on more sublime and elevated themes indeed, but the operations themselves are essentially of the same nature as in other cases. Hence we see the dependence of the true development of religion on the just and harmonious action of all our faculties.
They march together; and it is the glorious prerogative of true religion that it makes them do so; that all the elements of our nature, being indissolubly connected, and perpetually acting and reacting on one another, should aid one another and attain a more just conjoint action. If there be acceptable faith, it presupposes belief of the truth, as well as love of it in the heart; if there be holy habit, it implies just knowledge of duty; if there be spiritual emotion awakened, it will still be in accordance with the laws which ordinarily produce it; that is, because that which should produce it is perceived by the senses or the intellect, is recalled by the memory, is vivified by the imagination. If faith and hope and love often kindle into activity, and hallow these instruments by which and through which they act, it is not the less true, that, apart from these,--as const.i.tuting the same indivisible mind--faith and hope and love cannot exist: and not only so; but when faith is languid, and hope faint, and love expiring, these faculties themselves shall often in their turn initiate the process which shall revive them all; some outward object, some incident of life, some "magic word," some glorious image, some stalwart truth, suddenly and energetically stated, shall, through the medium of the senses, the imagination, or the intellect, set the soul once more in a blaze, and revive the emotions which it is at other times only their office to express. A sanctified intellect, a hallowed imagination, devout affections, have a reciprocal tendency to stimulate each other. In whatever faculty of our nature the stimulus may be felt,--in the intellect or the imagination,--it is thence propagated through the mysterious net-work of the soul to the emotions, the affections, the conscience, the will: or, conversely, these last may commence the movement and propagate it in reverse order. Each may become in turn a centre of influence; but so indivisible is the soul and mind of man, so indissolubly bound together the elements which const.i.tute them, that the influence once commenced never stops where it began, but acts upon them all. The ripple, as that of a stone dropped into still water, no matter where, may be fainter and fainter the farther from the spot where the commotion began, but it will stop only with the bank. Ordinarily many functions of the mind are involved in each, and sometimes all in one.
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