Chapter IX: Part III (4)

It seems to be more than a mere verbal criticism, rather a fundamental one, that it is not "our states of consciousness" which "occur in succession"; but that the modifications in our consciousness so occur. Consciousness is _one_, and retains that oneness throughout all modifications. These occur in the unity, as items of experience affect it. Is this series of modifications "of consciousness infinite or finite"? To this question experience _can_ give no answer. All experiments are irrelevant; because these can only be after the faculty of consciousness is. They can go no further back than the _forms_ of the activity. These they may find, but they cannot account for. A law lies on all those powers by which an experiment may be made, which forever estops them from attaining to the substance of the power which lies back of the form. The eye cannot examine itself. The Sense, as mental capacity for the reception of impressions, cannot analyze its constituents. The Understanding, as connective faculty concluding in judgments, is impotent to discover why it must judge one way and not another. It is only when we ascend to the Reason that we reach the region of true knowledge. Here, overlooking, analyzing all the conduct of the lower powers, and holding the self right in the full blaze of the Eye of self, Man attains a true and fundamental _self-knowledge_. From this Mount of Vision we know that infinity and finiteness have no pertinence to modifications of consciousness, or in fact to any series. We attain to the further knowledge that this series is, _must be_, limited; because the constituted beings, in whom it in each case inheres, are limited, and had a beginning. It matters not now to inquire how a self-conscious person could be created. It is sufficient to know that one has been created. This fact involves the further fact that consciousness, as an actuality, began in the order of nature, after the being to whom it belongs as endowment, or, in other words, an organization must be, before the modifications which inhere in that organization can become. The attainment of this as necessary law is far more satisfactory than any experience could be, were it possible; for we can never know but that an experience may be modified; but a law given in the intuition is immutable. The fact, ascertained many pages back, that the subject and the object are identical under the final examination of the Reason, enables us to attain the present end of the chain. The question is one of fact, and is purely psychological. It cannot be passed upon, or in any way interfered with, by logical processes. It is only by examination, by seeing, that the truth can be known. Faraday ridiculed as preposterous the pretension that a vessel propelled by steam could cross the ocean, and demonstrated, to his entire satisfaction, the impossibility of the event. Yet the Savannah crossed, and laughed at him. Just so here, all arguing is folly. The question is one of fact in experience. And upon it the soul gives undoubted answer, as we have stated. Nor is it so difficult, as some would have us believe, to see how this may be. Consciousness is an indivisible unity, and, as we have before seen, may best be defined as the light in which the person intuits his own acts and activities. This unity is abiding, and is ground for the modifications. It is, then, _now_, and the person now knows what the present modification _is_. The person does not need to look to memory and learn what the former modification was. It immediately knows what the modification _is_ now. Thus a simple attainment of the psychological truth through a careful examination dispels as a morning mist the whole cloud of Mr. Spencer's difficulties. Well might President Hopkins say, "The only question is, what is it that consciousness gives? If we say that it does thus give both the subject and the object, that simple affirmation sweeps away in a moment the whole basis of the ideal and skeptical philosophy. It becomes as the spear of Ithuriel, and its simple touch will change what seemed whole continents of solid speculation into mere banks of German fog." We have learned, then, that it is not possible, or necessary, either to "perceive" or "conceive" the terminations of consciousness, because this involves the discovery, by _mechanical_ faculties, of their own being and state before they became activities on the one hand, which is a contradiction, and on the other an utter transcending of the sphere of their capability, the attempt to do which would be a greater folly than would be that of the hand to see Jupiter. But we have intuited the law, which declares the necessity of a beginning for us and all creatures; and we ever live in the light of the present end. When, then, Mr. Spencer says that "Consciousness implies perpetual change and the perpetual establishment of relations between its successive phases," we know that he has uttered a fundamental psychological error, in fact, that almost the opposite is the truth. Consciousness is the permanent, the abiding, the changeless. It is the light of the personal Eye. Into it all changes come; but they are only _incidental_. In the finite and partial person, they come, because such person _must grow_; and so, because of his partiality and incompleteness, they become necessary incidents; but let there be a Person having all knowledge, who therefore cannot learn, having all perfection, who therefore cannot change, and it is plain that these facts in no way interfere with his consciousness. All variety is immanent in its light, and no change can come into it because _there is no change to come_; but this Person sees _all_ his endowments _at once_, in the unity of this his light, just as we see _some_ of our endowments in the unity of this our light. The change is not in the consciousness, but in the objects which come into it. This view also disposes of the theory that "any mental affection must be known as like these foregoing ones or unlike those"; that, "if it is not thought of in connection with others--not distinguished or identified by comparison with others, it is not recognized--is not a state of consciousness at all." Such comparison we have found only incidental in consciousness, pertaining to things in the Sense and Understanding and not essential. Thus does a true psychology dissipate all these difficulties as a true cosmology explained the perplexities "of Motion and Rest."

Take another step and we can answer the question "What is this that thinks?" It is a spiritual person. What, then, is a spiritual person? A substance--a kind of force--the nature of which we need inquire about no further than to know that it is suitable to the use which is made of it, which is organized, according to a set of constituting laws, into such spiritual person. The substance without the laws would be simple substance, and nothing more. The laws without the substance would be only laws, and could give no being having no ground in which to inhere. But the substance as ground and the complete set of laws as inhering in the ground, and being its organization when combined, become a spiritual person who thinks. The _ego_, that is the sense of personality, is only one of the forms of activity of this being, and therefore cannot be said to think. The pages now before us are all vitiated by the theory that "successive impressions and ideas constitute consciousness." Once attain to the true psychology of the person, and learn that consciousness is as stated above,--an abiding light into which modifications come,--and there arises no difficulty in believing in the reality of self, and in entirely justifying that belief by Reason. Yea, more, from such a standpoint it is utter unreason, the height of folly, to doubt for an instant, for immanent and central in the light of Reason lies the solemn fact of man's selfhood. We arrive, then, directly at Mr. Spencer's conclusion, that "Clearly, a true cognition of self implies a state in which the knowing and the known are one--in which subject and object are identified," and we _know_ that such a state is an actuality. Mr. Mansel may hold that such an assertion is the annihilation of both, but he is wholly wrong. The Savannah has crossed the Atlantic.

We attain, then, exactly the opposite result from Mr. Spencer. We have seen that "Ultimate Scientific Ideas are all" presentative "of realities" which can "be comprehended." We have, indeed, found it to be true, that, "after no matter how great a progress in the colligation of facts and the establishment of generalizations ever wider and wider,--after the merging of limited and derivative truths in truths that are larger and deeper, has been carried no matter how far,--the fundamental truth remains as much beyond reach as ever." But having learned this, we do not arrive at the conclusion that "the explanation of that which is explicable does but bring out into greater clearness the inexplicableness of that which remains behind." On the other hand we know that such a conclusion is erroneous, and _that the method by which it is reached is a false method, and utterly irrelevant to the object sought_. Could this lesson but be thoroughly learned, Mr. Spencer's work, and our work, would not have been in vain. Only by a method differing from this IN KIND--a method in which there is no "colligation of facts," and no "generalizations" concluded therefrom, but a simple, direct insight into Pure Truth--can "the fundamental truth" be known; and thus it may be known by every human soul. "_God made man in his own image._" In our scheme there is ample room for the man of Science, with the eye of Sense, to run through the Universe, and gather facts. With telescope and microscope, he may pursue them, and capture innumerable multitudes of them. But having done this, we count it folly to attempt to generalize truth therefrom. But holding up the facts in the clear light of Reason, and searching them through and through, we _see_ in them the immutable principle, known by a spontaneous, immediate, intuitive knowledge to be immutable, and thus we "_know the truth_."

"THE RELATIVITY OF ALL KNOWLEDGE."

In the opening of this chapter, Mr. Spencer states the result, which, in his opinion, philosophy has attained as follows: "All possible conceptions have been one by one tried and found wanting; and so the entire field of speculation has been gradually exhausted without positive result; the only result arrived at being the negative one above stated--that the reality existing behind all appearances is, and must ever be, unknown." He then sets down a considerable list of names of philosophers, who are claimed by Sir William Hamilton as supporters of that position. Such a parade of names may be grateful to the feelings of the Limitists, but it is no support to their cause. The questions at issue are of such a nature that no array of dignities, of learning, of profound _opinions_, can have a feather's weight in the decision. For instance, take Problem XLVII, of the first book of Euclid. What weight have human opinion with reference to its validity? Though a thousand mathematicians should deny its truth, it would be just as convincing as now; and when a thousand mathematicians assert its truth, they add no item to the vividness of the conviction. The school-boy, who never heard of one of them, when he first reads it, knows it must be so, and that this is an inevitable necessity, beyond the possibility of any power or will to change. On principles simple, fixed, and final, just like those of mathematics, seen by the same Eye and known with the same intellectual certainty, and by logical processes just as pure, conclusive, _demonstrative_ as those of geometry, _and by such alone_, can the questions now before us be settled. But though names and opinions have no weight in the final decision, though a demonstration is demanded and must be given, still it is interesting to note the absence of two names, representatives of a class, which must ever awaken, among the devout and pure-hearted, attention and love, and whose teachings, however unnoticed by Mr. Spencer, are a leaven working in the minds and hearts of men, which develop with continually increasing distinctness the solemn and sublime truth, that the human mind is capable of absolute knowledge. Plato, with serious, yea, sad countenance, the butt of jeer and scoff from the wits and comedians of his day, went about teaching those who hung upon his lips, that in every human soul were Ideas which God had implanted, and which were final truth. And Jesus Christ, with a countenance more beautifully serious, more sweetly sad, said to those Jews which believed on him, "If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; _and ye shall know the truth_, and the truth shall make you free." It may seem to men who grope about in the dismal cavern of the animal nature--the Sense and Understanding--wise to refuse the light, and reject the truths of the Pure Reason and the God-man, and to call the motley conglomeration of facts which they gather, but cannot explain, philosophy; but no soul which craves "the Higher Life" will, can be satisfied with such attainments. It yearns for, it cries after, yea, with ceaseless iteration it urges its supplication for the highest truth; and it shall attain to it, because God, in giving the tongue to cry, gave also the Eye to see. The Spiritual person in man, made in the very image of God, can never be satisfied till, stripped of the weight of the animal nature, it sees with its own Eye the Pure Reason, God as the Highest Truth. And to bring it by culture, by every possible manifestation of his wondrous nature, up to this high Mount of Vision, is one object of God in his system of the Universe.

The teaching of the Word--that august personage, "who came forth from God, and went to God," has been alluded to above. It deserves more than an allusion, more than any notice which can be given it here. It is astonishing, though perhaps not wholly unaccountable, that the writings of the apostles John and Paul have received so little attention from the metaphysicians of the world, as declarations of metaphysical truths. Even the most devout students of them do not seem to have appreciated their inestimable value in this regard. The reason for this undoubtedly is, that their transcendent importance as declarations of religious truth has shone with such dazzling effulgence upon the eyes of those who have loved them, that the lesser, but harmoniously combining beams of a true spiritual philosophy have been unnoticed in the glory of the nobler light. It will not, therefore, we trust, be deemed irreverent to say that, laying aside all questions of the Divinity of Christ, or of the inspiration of the Bible, and considering the writings of John and Paul merely as human productions, written at some time nobody knows when, and by some men nobody knows who, they are the most wonderful revelations, the profoundest metaphysical treatises the world has ever seen. In them the highest truths, those most difficult of attainment by processes of reflection, are stated in simple, clear language, and _they answer exactly to the teachings of the Reason_. Upon this, President Hopkins says: "The identity which we found in the last lecture between the teaching of the constitution of man and the law of God, was not sought. The result was reached because the analysis would go there. I was myself surprised at the exactness of the coincidence." Nor is this coincidence to be observed simply in the statement of the moral law. In all questions pertaining to man's nature and state, the two will be found in exact accord. No law is affirmed by either, but is accorded to by the other. In fine, whoever wrote the Book must have had an accurate and exhaustive knowledge of Man, about whom he wrote. Without any reference then to their religious bearings, but simply as expositions of metaphysical truths, the writings of the two authors named deserve our most careful attention. What we seek for are laws, final, fixed laws, which are seen by a direct intuition to be such; and these writings are of great value, because they cultivate and assist the Reason in its search for these highest Truths.

One need have no hesitation, then, in rejecting the authority of Mr. Spencer's names, aye, even if they were a thousand more. We seek for, and can obtain, that which he cannot give us--a demonstration; which he cannot give us because he denies the very existence of that faculty by which alone a demonstration is possible. As his empiricism is worthless, so is his rationality. No "deduction" from any "_product_ of thought, or process of thought," is in any way applicable to the question in hand. Intuitions are the mental actions needed. Light is neither product nor process. We pass over, then, his whole illustration of the partridge. It proves nothing. He leads us through an interminable series of questions to no goal; and says there is none. He gives the soul a stone, when it cries for bread. One sentence of his is doubtless true. "Manifestly, as the _most_ general cognition at which we arrive cannot be reduced to a more general one, it cannot be understood." Of course not. When the Understanding has attained to the last generalization _by these very terms_, it cannot go any farther. But by no means does his conclusion follow, that "Of necessity, therefore, explanation must eventually bring us down to the inexplicable. The deepest truth which we can get at must be unaccountable. Comprehension must become something other than comprehension, before the ultimate fact can be comprehended." How shall we account for the last generalization, and show this conclusion to be false? Thus. Hitherto there have been, properly speaking, no comprehensions, only perceptions in the Sense and connections in the Understanding. "The sense _distinguishes_ quality and _conjoins_ quantity; the understanding _connects_ phenomena; the reason _comprehends_ the whole operation of both." The Reason, then, overseeing the operations of the lower faculties, and possessing within itself the _a priori_ laws in accordance with which they are, _sees_ directly and immediately why they are, and thus comprehends and accounts for them. It sees that there is an end to every process of generalization; and it then sees, what the Understanding could never guess, that _after_--in the order of our procedure--the last generalization there is an eternal truth, in accordance with which process and conclusion were and must be. There remains, then, no inexplicable, for the final truth is seen and known in its very self.

The passages quoted at this point from Hamilton and Mansel have been heretofore examined, and need no further notice. We will pass on then to his subsequent reflections upon them. It is worthy of remark, as a general criticism upon these comments, that there is scarcely one, if there is a single expression in the remainder of this chapter, which does not refer to the animal nature and its functions. The illustrations are from the material world, and the terms and expressions are suited thereto. With reference to objects in the Sense, and connections in the Understanding, the "fundamental condition of thought," which Mr. Spencer supplies, is unquestionably valuable. There is "likeness" as well as "relation, plurality, and difference." But observe that both these laws alike are pertinent only to the Sense and Understanding, that they belong to _things in nature_, and consequently have no pertinence to the questions now before us. We are discussing _ideas_, not _things_; and those are simple, and can only be seen, while these are complex, and may be perceived, distinguished, and conceived. If any one shall doubt that Mr. Spencer is wholly occupied with things in nature, it would seem that after having read p. 80, he could doubt no longer. "Animals," "species or genus," "mammals, birds, reptiles, or fishes," are objects by which he illustrates his subject. And one is forced to exclaim, "How can he speak of such things when they have nothing to do with the matter in hand? What have God and infinity and absoluteness to do with 'mammals, birds, reptiles, or fishes'? If we can know only these, why speak of those?" It would seem that the instant they are thus set together and contrasted, the soul must cry out with an irrepressible cry, "It is by an utterly different faculty, and in entirely other modes, that I dwell upon God and the questions concerning him. These modes of the animal nature, by which I know 'mammals,' are different in kind from those of the spiritual person, by which I know God and the eternal truth." And when this distinction becomes clearly appreciated and fixed in one's mind, and the query arises, how could a man so confound the two, and make utter confusion of the subject, as the Limitists have done, he can hardly refrain from quoting Romans I. 20 _et seq._ against them.

Let us observe now Mr. Spencer's corollary. "A cognition of the Real as distinguished from the Phenomenal must, if it exists, conform to this law of cognition in general. The First Cause, the Infinite, the Absolute, to be known at all, must be classed. To be positively thought of, it must be thought of as such or such--as of this or that kind." To begin with the law which is here asserted, is _not_ a "general" law, and so does not lie upon all cognition. It is only a special law, and lies only upon a particular kind of cognition. This has been already abundantly shown; yet we reproduce one line of proof. No mathematical law comes under his law of cognition; neither can he, nor any other Limitist, make it appear that it does so come. His law is law only for things in nature, and not for principles. Since then all ideas are known in themselves--are _self-evident_, and since God, infinity, and absoluteness are ideas, they are known in themselves, and need not be classed. So his corollary falls to the ground. Can we have any "sensible experience" of God? Most certainly not. Yet we can have just as much a sensible experience of him as of any other person--of parent, wife, or child. Did you ever see a person--a soul? No. Can you see--"have sensible experience of"--a soul? No. What is it, then, that we have such experience of? Plainly the body--that material frame through which the soul manifests itself. The Universe is that material system through which God manifests himself to those spiritual persons whom he has made; and that manifestation is the same in kind as that of a created soul through the body which is given it. It follows then,--and not only from this, but it may be shown by further illustration,--that every other person is just as really inscrutable to us as God is; and further, that, if we can study and comprehend the soul of our wife or child, we can with equal certainty study, and to some extent comprehend, the soul of God. Or, in other words, if man is only an animal nature, having a Sense and Understanding, all personality is an insoluble mystery; all spiritual persons are alike utterly inscrutable. And this is so, because, upon the hypothesis taken, man is destitute of any faculty which can catch a glimpse of such object. A Sense and Understanding can no more see, or in any possible manner take cognizance of, a spiritual person than a man born blind can see the sun. Again, we say he is destitute of the faculty. Will Mr. Spencer deny the fact of the idea of personality? Will he assert that man has no such notion? Let him once admit that he has, and in that admission is involved the admission of the reality of that faculty by which we know God, for the faculty which cognizes personality, and cognizes God, is one and the same.

Although we do not like certain of Mr. Spencer's terms, yet, to please him, we will use them. Some conclusions, then, may be expressed thus: God as the Deity cannot be "classed"; he is unique. This is involved in the very terms by which we designate him. Yet we cognize him, but this is by an immediate intuition, in which we know him as he is in himself. "We shall see him as he is," says the apostle; and some foretastes of that transcendent revelation are vouchsafed us here on earth. But the infinite Person, _as person_, must be "assimilated" with other persons. Yet his infinity and absoluteness, _as such_, cannot be "grouped." And yet again, _as qualities_, they can be "grouped" with other qualities. Unquestionably between the Creator, _as such_, and the created, _as such_, "there must be a distinction transcending any of the distinctions existing between different divisions of the created." God as self-existent differs in kind from man as dependent, and this difference continues irrevocable; while that same God and that same man are _alike_ in kind _as persons_. This is true, because all spiritual persons are composite beings; and while the essential elements of a spiritual person are common to created persons and the uncreated Person, there are _other_ characteristics, _not essential_ to personality, which belong some to the created, and some to the uncreated, and differentiate them. Or, in other words, God as person, and man as person, are alike. Yet they are diverse in kind, and so diverse in kind that it is out of the range of possibility for that diversity to be removed. How can this be explained? Evidently thus. There are _qualities_ transfusing the personality which cannot be interchangeable, and which constitute the diversity. Personality is _form_ of being. Qualities transfuse the form. Absoluteness and infinity are qualities which belong to one Person, and are such that they thereby exclude the possibility of their belonging to any other person; and so they constitute that one to whom they belong, unique and supreme. Dependence and partiality are also qualities of a spiritual person, but are qualities of the created spiritual person, and are such as must always subordinate that person to the other. In each instance it is, "_in the nature of things_," impossible for either to pass over and become the other. Each is what he is by the terms of his being, and must stay so.

But from all this it by no means follows that the dependent spiritual person can have no knowledge of the independent spiritual Person. On the other hand, it is the high glory of the independent spiritual Person, that he can create another being "in his own image," to whom he can communicate a knowledge of himself. "Like as a father pitieth his children, so Jehovah pitieth them that fear him." Out of the fact of his Father-hood and our childhood, comes that solemn, and, to the loving soul, joyful fact, that he teaches us the highest knowledge just as really as our earthly parents teach us earthly knowledge. This he could not do if we had not the capacity to receive the knowledge; and we could not have had the capacity, except he had been able, in "the nature of things," and willing to bestow it upon us. While, then, God as "the Unconditioned cannot be classed," and so as unconditioned we do not know him "as of such or such kind," after the manner of the Understanding, yet we may, do, "see him as he is," do know that he is, and is unconditioned, through the insight of the Reason, the eye of the spiritual person, and what it is to be unconditioned.

We now reach a passage which has filled us with unqualified amazement. As much as we had familiarized ourselves with the materialistic teachings of the Limitists, we confess that we were utterly unprepared to meet, even in Mr. Spencer's writings, a theory of man so ineffably degrading, and uttered with so calm and naive an unconsciousness of the degradation it involved, as the following. Although for want of room his illustrations are omitted, it is believed that the following extracts give a fair and ample presentation of his doctrine.

"All vital actions, considered not separately but in their ensemble, have for their final purpose the balancing of certain outer processes by certain inner processes.

"There are unceasing external forces, tending to bring the matter of which organic bodies consist, into that state of stable equilibrium displayed by inorganic bodies; there are internal forces by which this tendency is constantly antagonized; and the perpetual changes which constitute Life may be regarded as incidental to the maintenance of the antagonism....

"When we contemplate the lower kinds of life, we see that the correspondences thus maintained are direct and simple; as in a plant, the vitality of which mainly consists in osmotic and chemical actions responding to the coexistence of light, heat, water, and carbonic acid around it. But in animals, and especially in the higher orders of them, the correspondences become extremely complex. Materials for growth and repair not being, like those which plants require, everywhere present, but being widely dispersed and under special forms, have to be formed, to be secured, and to be reduced to a fit state for assimilation....

"What is that process by which food when swallowed is reduced to a fit form for assimilation, but a set of mechanical and chemical actions responding to the mechanical and chemical actions which distinguish the food? Whence it becomes manifest, that, while Life in its simplest form is the correspondence of certain inner physico-chemical actions with certain outer physico-chemical actions, each advance to a higher form of Life consists in a better preservation of this primary correspondence by the establishment of other correspondences. Divesting this conception of all superfluities, and reducing it to its most abstract shape, we see that Life is definable as the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations. And when we so define it, we discover that the physical and the psychial life are equally comprehended by the definition. We perceive that this, which we call intelligence, shows itself when the external relations to which the internal ones are adjusted begin to be numerous, complex, and remote in time and space; that every advance in Intelligence essentially consists in the establishment of more varied, more complete, and more involved adjustments; and that even the highest achievements of science are resolvable into mental relations of coexistence and sequence, so cooerdinated as exactly to tally with certain relations of coexistence and sequence that occur externally....

"And lastly let it be noted that what we call _truth_, guiding us to successful action and the consequent maintenance of life, is simply the accurate correspondence of subjective to objective relations; while _error_, leading to failure and therefore towards death, is the absence of such accurate correspondence.

"If, then, Life in all its manifestations, inclusive of Intelligence in its highest forms, consists in the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations, the necessarily relative character of our knowledge becomes obvious. The simplest cognition being the establishment of some connection between subjective states, answering to some connection between objective agencies; and each successively more complex cognition being the establishment of some more involved connection of such states, answering to some more involved connection of such agencies; it is clear that the process, no matter how far it be carried, can never bring within the reach of Intelligence either the states themselves or the agencies themselves."

Or, to condense Mr. Spencer's whole teaching into a few plain every-day words, Man is an animal, and only an animal, differing nowhat from the dog and chimpanzee, except in the fact that his life "consists in the establishment of more varied, more complete, and more involved adjustments," than the life of said dog and chimpanzee. Mark particularly the sententious diction of this newly arisen sage. Forget not one syllable of the profound and most important knowledge he would impart. "Life in all its manifestations, inclusive of Intelligence in its highest forms, consists in the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations." See, there is not a limit, not a qualification to the assertion! Now turn back a page or two, reader, if thou hast this wonderful philosophy by thee, and gazing, as into a cage in a menagerie, see the being its author would teach thee that thou art. From the highest to the lowest forms, life is one. In its lower forms, life is a set of "direct and simple" "correspondences." "But in animals, _and especially in the higher orders of them_," and, of course, most especially in the human animal as the highest order, "the correspondences become extremely complex." As much as to say, reader, you are not exactly a plant, nor are you yet of quite so low a type as the chimpanzee aforesaid; but the difference is no serious matter. You do not differ half as much from the chimpanzee as the chimpanzee does from the forest he roves in. All the difference there is between you and him is, that the machinery by which "the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations" is carried on, is more "complex" in you than in the chimpanzee. He roams the forest, inhabits some cave or hollow tree, and lives on the food which nature spontaneously offers to his hairy hand. You cut down the forest, construct a house, and live on the food which some degree of skill has prepared. He constructs no clothing, nor any covering to shield him from the inclemency of the weather, but is satisfied with tawny, shaggy covering, which nature has provided. You on the contrary are destitute of such a covering, and rob the sheep, and kill the silk-worm, to supply the lack. But in all this there is no _difference in kind_. The mechanism by which life is sustained in you is more "complex," it is true, than that by which life is sustained in him; there arise, therefore, larger needs, and the corresponding "intelligence" to supply those needs. But sweet thought, cheering thought, oh how it supports the soul! Your life in its highest form is only this animal life,--is only the constructive force by which that "extremely complex" machinery carries on "the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations." All other notions of life are "superfluities."

Reader, in view of the teaching of this new and widely heralded sage, how many "superfluities" must you and I strip off from our "conception" of life! And with what bitter disappointment and deep sadness should we take up our lamentation for man, and say: How art thou fallen, oh man! thou noblest denizen of earth; yea, how art thou cast down to the ground. But a little ago we believed thee a spiritual being; that thou hadst a nature too noble to rot with the beasts among the clods; that thou wast made fit to live with angels and thy Creator, God. But a little ago we believed thee possessed of a psychical life--a soul; that thou wouldst live forever beyond the stars; and that this soul's life was wholly occupied in the consideration of "heavenly and divine things." A little ago we believed in holiness, and that thou, consecrating thyself to pure and loving employments, shouldst become purer and more beautiful, nobler and more lovely, until perfect love should cast out all fear, and thou shouldst then see God face to face, and rejoice in the sunlight of his smiling countenance. But all this is changed now. Our belief has been found to be a cheat, a bitter mockery to the soul. We have sat at the feet of the English sage, and learned how dismally different is our destiny. Painful is it, oh reader, to listen; and the words of our teacher sweep like a sirocco over the heart; yet we cannot choose but hear.

"The pyschical life"--the life of the soul, "the immortal spark of fire,"--and the physical life "are _equally_ definable as the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations." We had supposed that intelligence in its highest forms was wholly occupied with the contemplation of God and his laws, and the great end of being, and all those tremendous questions which we had thought fitted to occupy the activities of a spiritual person. We are undeceived now. We find we have shot towards the pole opposite to the truth. Now "we perceive that this which we call Intelligence shows itself when the external relations to which the internal ones are adjusted begin to be numerous, complex, and remote in time or space; that _every advance in Intelligence essentially consists in the establishment of more varied, more complete, and more involved adjustments; and that even the highest achievements of science_ are resolvable into mental relations of coexistence and sequence, so cooerdinated as _exactly to tally_ with certain relations of coexistence and sequence that occur externally." In such relations consists the life of the "caterpillar." In such relations, _only a little "more complex,"_ consists the life of "the sparrow." Such relations only does "the fowler" observe; such only does "the chemist" know. This is the path by which we are led to the last, the highest "truth" which man can attain. Thus do we learn "that what we call _truth_, guiding us to successful action, and the consequent maintenance of life, is _simply_ the accurate correspondence of subjective to objective relations; while error, leading to failure and therefore towards death, is the absence of such accurate correspondence." What a noble life, oh, reader, what an exalted destiny thine is here declared to be! The largest effort of thine intelligence, "the highest achievement of science," yea, the total object of the life of thy soul,--thy "psychial" life,--is to attain such exceeding skill in the construction of a shelter, in the fitting of apparel, in the preparation of food, in a word, in securing "the accurate correspondence of subjective to objective relations," and thus in attaining the "_truth_" which shall guide "us to successful action and the consequent maintenance of life," that we shall secure forever our animal existence on earth. Study patiently thy lesson, oh human animal! Con it o'er and o'er. Who knows but thou mayest yet attain to this acme of the perfection of thy nature, though it be far below what thou hadst once fondly expected,--mayest attain a perfect knowledge of the "_truth_," and a perfect skill in the application of that truth, _i. e._ in "the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations"; and so be guided "to successful action, and the consequent maintenance of life," whereby thou shalt elude forever that merciless hunter who pursues thee,--the grim man-stalker, the skeleton Death. But when bending all thy energies, yea, all the powers of thy soul, to this task, thou mayest recur at some unfortunate moment to the dreams and aspirations which have hitherto lain like golden sunlight on thy pathway. Let no vain regret for what seemed thy nobler destiny ever sadden thy day, or deepen the darkness of thy night. True, thou didst deem thyself capable of something higher than "the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations"; didst often occupy thyself with contemplating those "things which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard"; didst deem thyself a son of God, and "a joint-heir with Jesus Christ," "of things incorruptible and undefiled, and which fade not away, eternal in the heavens"; didst sometimes seem to see, with faith's triumphant gaze, those glorious scenes which thou wouldst traverse when in the spirit-land thou shouldst lead a pure spiritual life with other spirits, where all earthliness had been stripped off, all tears had been wiped away, and perfect holiness was thine through all eternity. But all these visions were only dreams; they wholly deluded thee. We have learned from the lips of this latest English sage that thy god is thy belly, and that thou must mind earthly things, so as to keep up "the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations." Such being thy lot, and to fulfil such a lot being "the highest achievement of science," permit not thyself to be disturbed by those old-fashioned and sometimes troublesome notions that "_truth_" and those "achievements" pertained to a spiritual person in spiritual relations to God as the moral Governor of the Universe; that man was bound to know the truth and obey it; that his "errors" were violations of perfect law,--the truth he knew,--were _crimes_ against Him who is "of too pure eyes to behold iniquity, and cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance"; that for these crimes there impended a just penalty--an appalling punishment; and that the only real "failure" was the failure to repent of and forsake the crimes, and thus escape the penalty. Far other is the fact, as thou wilt learn from this wise man's book. As he teaches us, the only "error" we can make, is, to miss in maintaining perfectly "the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations,"--is to eat too much roast beef and plum-pudding at dinner, or to wear too scanty or too thick clothing, or to expose one's self imprudently in a storm, or by some other carelessness which may produce "the absence of such accurate correspondence" as shall secure unending life, and so lead to his only "failure"--the advance "towards death." When, then, oh reader! by some unfortunate mischance, some "error" into which thine ignorance hath led thee, thou hast rendered thy "failure" inevitable, and art surely descending "towards death," hesitate not to sing with heedless hilarity the old Epicurean song, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die."

Sing and be gay
The livelong day,
Thinking no whit of to-morrow.
Enjoy while you may
All pleasure and play,
For after death is no sorrow.

Thou hast committed thine only "error" in not maintaining "the accurate correspondence"; thou hast fallen upon thine only "failure," the inevitable advance "towards death." Than death no greater evil can befall thee, and that is already sure. Then let "dance and song," and "women and wine," bestow some snatches of pleasure upon thy fleeting days.

Delightful philosophy, is it not, reader? Poor unfortunate man, and especially poor, befooled, cheated, hopeless Christian man, who has these many years cherished those vain, deceitful dreams of which we spoke a little ago! To be brought down from such lofty aspirations; to be made to know that he is only an animal; that "Life in all its manifestations, inclusive of Intelligence in its highest forms, consists in the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations." Do you not join with me in pitying him?

And such is the philosophy which is heralded to us from over the sea as the newly found and wonderful truth, which is to satisfy the hungering soul of man and still its persistent cry for bread. And this is the teacher, mocking that painful cry with such chaff, whom newspaper after newspaper, and periodical after periodical on this side the water, even to those we love best and cherish most, have pronounced one of the profoundest essayists of the day. Perhaps he can give us some sage remarks upon "laughter," as it is observed in the human animal, and on that point compare therewith other animals. But, speaking in all sincerity after the manner of the Book of Common Prayer, we can but say, "From all such philosophers and philosophies, good Lord deliver us."

Few, perhaps none of our readers, will desire to see a denial in terms of such a theory. When a man, aspiring to be a philosopher, advances the doctrine that not only is "Life in its simplest form"--the animal life--"the correspondence of certain inner physico-chemical actions with certain outer physico-chemical actions," but that "_each advance to a higher form of Life_ consists in a better preservation of this primary correspondence"; and when, proceeding further, and to be explicit, he asserts that not only "the physical," _but also "the psychical life_ are _equally_" but "the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations"; and when, still further to insult man, and to utter his insult in the most positive, extreme, and unmistakable terms, he asserts "that even the highest achievements of science are resolvable into mental relations of coexistence and sequence, so cooerdinated as exactly to tally with certain relations of coexistence and sequence that occur externally,"--that is, that the highest science is the attainment of a perfect cuisine; in a word, when a human being in this nineteenth century offers to his fellows as the loftiest attainment of philosophy the tenet that the highest form of life cognizable by man is an animal life, and that man can have no other knowledge of himself than as an animal, of a little higher grade, it is true, than other animals, but not different in kind, then the healthy soul, when such a doctrine is presented to it, will reject it as instantaneously as a healthy stomach rejects a roll of tobacco.

With what a sense of relief does one turn from a system of philosophy which, when stripped of its garb of well-chosen words and large sounding, plausible phrases, appears in such vile shape and hideous proportions, to the teachings of that pure and noble instructor of our youth, that man who, by his gentle, benignant mien, so beautifully illustrates the spirit and life of the Apostle John,--Rev. Mark Hopkins, D. D., President of Williams College. No one who has read his "Lectures on Moral Science," and no lover of truth should fail to do so, will desire an apology for inserting the following extract, wherein is presented a theory upon which the soul of man can rest, as at home the soldier rests, who has just been released from the Libby or Salisbury charnel-house.

"And here, again, we have three great forces with their products. These are the vegetable, the animal, and the rational life.

"Of these, vegetable life is the lowest. Its products are as strictly conditional for animal life as chemical affinity is for vegetable, for the animal is nourished by nothing that has not been previously elaborated by the vegetable. 'The profit of the earth is for all; the king himself is served by the field.'

"Again, we have the animal and sensitive life, capable of enjoyment and suffering, and having the instincts necessary to its preservation. _This_, as man is now constituted, _is conditional for his rational life_. The rational has its roots in that, and manifests itself only through the organization which that builds up.

"_We have, then, finally and highest of all, this rational and moral life, by which man is made in the image of God._ In man, as thus constituted, we first find a being who is capable of choosing his own end, or, rather, of choosing or rejecting the end indicated by his whole nature. This is moral freedom, _and in this is the precise point of transition from all that is below to that which is highest_. For everything below man the end is necessitated. Whatever choice there may be in the agency of animals of means for the attainment of their end,--and they have one somewhat wide,--they have none in respect to the end itself. This, for our purpose, and for all purposes, is the characteristic distinction, so long sought, between man and the brute. Man determines his own end; the end of the brute is necessitated. Up to man everything is driven to its end by a force working from without or from behind; but for him the pillar of cloud and of fire puts itself in front, and he follows it or not, as he chooses.

"In the above cases it will be seen that the process is one of the addition of new forces, with a constant limitation of the field within which the forces act.... It is to be noticed, however, that while the field of each added and superior force is narrowed, yet nothing is dropped. Each lower force shoots through, and combines itself with all that is higher. Because he is rational, man is not the less subject to gravitation and cohesion and chemical affinity. He has also the organic life that belongs to the animal. In him none of these are dropped; _but the rational life is united with and superinduced upon all these_, so that man is not only a microcosm, but is the natural head and ruler of the world. He partakes of all that is below him, _and becomes man by the addition of something higher_.... Here, then, is our model and law. Have we a lower sensitive and animal nature? Let that nature be cherished and expanded by all its innocent and legitimate enjoyments, for it is an end. But--and here we find the limit--let it be cherished _only as subservient to the higher intellectual life_, for it is also a means." The italics are ours.

Satisfactory, true, and self-sustained as is this theory,--and it is one which like a granite Gothic spire lifts itself high and calm into the atmosphere, standing firm and immovable in its own clear and self-evident truth, unshaken by a thousand assaulting materialistic storms,--we would buttress it with the utterances of other of the earth's noble ones; and this we do not because it is in any degree needful, but because our mind loves to linger round the theme, and to gather the concurrent thought of various rarely endowed minds upon this subject. Exactly in point is the following--one of many passages which might be selected from the works of that profoundest of English metaphysicians and theologians, S. T. Coleridge:--

"And here let me observe that the difficulty and delicacy of this investigation are greatly increased by our not considering the understanding (even our own) in itself, and as it would be were it not accompanied with and modified by the cooeperation of the will, the moral feeling, and that faculty, perhaps best distinguished by the name of Reason, of determining that which is universal and necessary, of fixing laws and principles whether speculative or practical, and of contemplating a final purpose or end. This intelligent will--having a self-conscious purpose, under the guidance and light of the reason, by which its acts are made to bear as a whole upon some end in and for itself, and to which the understanding is subservient as an organ or the faculty of selecting and appropriating the means--seems best to account for that progressiveness of the human race, _which so evidently marks an insurmountable distinction and impassable barrier between man and the inferior animals, but which would be inexplicable, were there no other difference than in the degree of their intellectual faculties_."--_Works_, Vol. I. p. 371. The italics are ours.

The attention of the reader may with profit be also directed to the words of another metaphysician, who has been much longer known, and has enjoyed a wider fame than either of those just mentioned; and whose teachings, however little weight they may seem to have with Mr. Spencer, have been these many years, and still are received and studied with profound respect and loving carefulness by multitudes of persons. We refer to the apostle Paul, "There is, therefore, now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit." That is, who do not walk after the law of the animal nature, but who do walk after the law of the spiritual person, for it is of this great psychological distinction that the apostle so fully and continually speaks. "For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the spirit, the things of the spirit. For the minding of the flesh is death, but the minding of the spirit is life and peace; because the minding of the flesh as enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." _Romans_ VIII. 1, 5, 6, 7. This I say, then, "Walk in the spirit and fulfil not the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other."--_Galatians_ V. 16, 17.

Upon these passages it should be remarked, by way of explanation, that our translators in writing the word spirit with a capital, and thus intimating that it is the Holy Spirit of God which is meant, have led their readers astray. The apostle's repeated use of that term, in contrasting the flesh with the spirit, appears decisive of the fact that he is contrasting, in all such passages, the animal nature with the spiritual person. But if any one is startled by this position and thinks to reject it, let him bear in mind that the law of the spiritual person in man and of the Holy Spirit of God is _identical_.