Chapter XVII: Preface (16)

How great the power of science has shown itself within the last century, and especially in our own age, is a frequent topic of remark. And at the same time the fact has not been overlooked, that this power has gradually assumed a more pernicious direction, or at least has become involved in a great and violent struggle, which as yet is undecided, between a destructive tendency of mind and the power of goodness and truth exerting itself in an effort of restoration. And it is, perhaps, only to the latter, in its conflict with the evil principle of unbelief and the denial of all that is divine, that the idea of a theocracy of science and such a higher power of truth is really applicable. For this alone seems likely to secure to it the victory in this contest, which, so far as numbers are concerned, is most unequal.

If, now, we turn our looks to a more distant point, and take into consideration the older Asiatic nations, though chiefly and in generally with respect to the religious aspect of their science and scientific monuments, here, more than elsewhere, we shall meet with much that corresponds with this idea, and has on its front a strong theocratical impress and signature. It will, therefore, pre-eminently serve to elucidate this idea. The whole edifice of scientific thought among the Hindoos, though in its form of sacred laws, systems, and authentic commentaries thereon--of history, legends and poetry, it is not less rich and diversified than the literature and philosophy of the Greeks, forms, nevertheless, a whole where every part is of one piece and one mold. In all its manifold forms, it rests and is supported on the same foundation, which is regarded and venerated as divine. And therein lies the secret of its incalculable power, to which it owes its unshaken stability through so many tens of centuries, as well as its great influence on the whole of Indian life, which has derived from it its unchanging form and duration, so that we might almost say, Here has science, or at least this elevated system of thought, become the animating principle of life and a second nature.

To the many and great errors which are mixed up with the Indian system of faith and thought, I am not disposed to ascribe this indestructible principle of vitality and permanent influence on life. At least, if something must be ascribed to this source, a vast deal more must be assigned to the influence of the truth that is also contained in it, and which, though variously adulterated and falsified, still, in its leading features, has been distinctly preserved from the sacred traditions of primeval times and the first progenitors of the nation. And yet even here, in this edifice, otherwise so uniform, many a book and many a system has been introduced from the opposition, even though the latter exerted its antagonistic principle far more weakly and far less pertinaciously here than among the Greeks, or on any other domain of the European mind. For it was chiefly in the southeastern peninsula that the founder of that purely intellectual and ideal, but yet demoniacal and therefore truly anti-Christian sect of philosophy and religion, who lived about as many centuries before the Christian epoch as Mohammed after it, and whose followers, numbering nearly a third of the whole population of the world, spread over the southeast of Asia, and Tartary, and China, found adherents in India. Still the old and proper India did not remain totally free from the pernicious tenets of Buddhism, which, of all religious or philosophical sects and errors, is the most fatal and destructive that ever has been or ever will be.

Let us now glance at the sacred writings of the Jews, though not, indeed, in so far as they are to be regarded as the divine law of faith for that nation, and for all others who should come in the future and latter times of Christianity (a law, we must observe, which is expressed in a language so thoroughly individual, and in so national a spirit, that it often becomes thereby highly obscure and difficult to understand), nor, indeed, generally in a theological light. For otherwise the example we have chosen for the illustration of the theocracy of science would be identical with the matter it was intended to illustrate. We must here consider it simply as the written record of the origin and descent of the nation, both in its legal and historical existence, combining therewith its distant promises and expectations of the future--in short, as the history, poetry, literature, political institutions and hopes of this singular people. Viewing it, then, in this light, merely in its human, national, and historical aspect, its firm and lasting impression on the Jewish mind, and its indestructible effects, which survive all the changes of time, form a most remarkable phenomenon. For by means of it this ancient people, so miraculously scattered among all the nations of the world, is to this day--three-and-thirty centuries from the original composition of its first sacred books--still one, amid all its dispersion, and, we might almost add, even in spite of its half unbelief in itself.

In modern history, which commences with the second epoch of revelation, the four holy Gospels, with various didactic epistles, and the great prophetic book at the close of all, forms the deep focus of illumination, to which, however, I do not now immediately refer, lest, as I observed in a former case, the illustration and the illustrated matter should prove identical. Out of this first germ of light, as it was carried forward in a living transmission through the first five or six centuries, was gradually raised an edifice of Christian science and thought. A new literature was formed in every branch of doctrine or history, of eloquence or controversy, which, composed in the two highly-cultivated languages of classical antiquity, has exercised the greatest possible influence not only on the succeeding generation, but on all subsequent times. Occasionally, no doubt, and especially in the earlier centuries, a deviation from, or, rather, opposition to, the prevailing system, whether as private opinion or positive error, intruded itself into the midst. Still, notwithstanding these little discords, scarce perceptible in the entire mass, the whole forms, as a system of thought, an intellectual power whose effects have been so great that its authors, or, rather, its spokesmen, have with perfect justice been styled the Fathers or the earthly creators and founders of the Church, _i.e._, of this new era and of the truth which is transmitted in it, without change, indeed, but with a stream which widens as it flows.

I have chosen all these examples from well-known matters, in order to direct your attention to the fact that the idea we have advanced of a theocracy of science, or a divine power of truth therein, does not depend for its final triumph and the total extinction of error on any individual force of genius, however great, but on a common and joint operation of a system of forces--on a vast and comprehensive edifice of thought, various indeed in its composition and mental character and form of expression, but still perfectly harmonizing as a whole. One thing, however, is indispensable--a divine tendency must predominate in it. The foundation on which it rests and is supported must be divine. The one ray of light, even though in itself it be ever so pure and bright, and truly deserve to be termed divine--one stroke of the sword, though ever so sharply and keenly struck--the one confining limit, though set up and maintained by ever so comprehensive an intelligence (which term I use to convey something more than mere _prudence_)--all these will avail nothing against this new flood of error and infidelity, and of Godless ideas--thoughts, that is, which are entirely without God, and making no reference to Him, proceed from impious and demoniacal delusion. Against the inroad of atheism, which is threatening life on all sides, the divine might or theocracy of true science can alone furnish a defense. It can only raise a new ark to save the age from perishing in the flood of spiritual wickedness. But with this view the most essential point is the building of a consistent and compact whole, while those who wish to co-operate in the good work must, like the builder of the ancient ark, have their regards turned chiefly to the future, looking far beyond the present, and its minute and frequently most trifling controversies.

This true theocracy of science, resting on a divine tendency in man, which, though it is inborn, is seldom found pure, and still more rarely retains its purity to the end, must look to the state to secure its external stability and unimpeded action. To this end it is necessary, however, that the state should understand and recognize its own divine foundation, and look to that heavenly grace and strength which religion alone vouchsafes to it as the true source of its vitality and permanence. Individuals can at most do nothing more than co-operate in bringing about this desirable consummation. They must not attempt to go beyond the true relation of this co-operative character. The moving power must come from above; it must proceed from the fountain of all goodness and all truth.

Philosophically viewed, indeed, science and its divine tendency rests on the good and genuine aspirations of the human consciousness. And it is only by the restoration of man’s mind to the perfection in which it originally came from the Creator’s hands that science can attain to its perfect state. Now that the consciousness in its present state is imperfect--or, rather, that as compared with its condition when, in the first fresh energy of life and in full and unimpeded action, it came immediately from the Creator, it is no longer uncorrupt, unconfused, or unimpaired, as it was almost our opening remark, so it has been kept in view throughout the present series of Lectures. The most natural conclusion of our labors, therefore, is to consider the possibility of restoring it to its original divine perfection, as being the only method which can secure to science a stable foundation and enable its Godward tendency to attain its proper end.

In a cold, dead, and abstract understanding--in a passionately blind and absolute will--in a reason which loses itself in dialectical disputes or amuses itself with dynamical theories, and, consequently, never reaches its true object--in a fancy which is ever longing after and pursuing its own imaginations, living on and lost in a dreamy and imaginary world of its own--in these severally faulty forms of the human consciousness, as corrupted by the influence of sin, and the consequences of the Fall (even though the objects of this vitiated thought and will may, in themselves, appear perfectly innocent, indifferent, unselfish, and even intellectual), lies the original fountain of all perverted and deadly thinking. The soul, in the center of this fourfold source of false cogitation and false volition, is torn and distracted many ways, impeded, and, as it were, crippled and deadened. But still it remains eternal and immortal. Accordingly, the soul must be the point from which the restoration and reawakening of life must proceed. But this restoration of the human consciousness to perfection is to be called divine, on this account, because it can only be reached by the soul attaching itself exclusively to what we formerly called the second new and divine starting-point of human existence. For the more that the soul, created for immortality and loving, and in love embracing that which is in itself immortal, adopts this great and new word for man, this second beginning in God, and is impregnated with it, in the same degree do reason and fancy cease to be at issue with each other and to be independent, isolated, and clashing faculties; and, finally, they become altogether merged in the one thinking and loving soul. Then, too, does the soul cease to be dead, cold, and abstract, and becomes, instead, a living and wakeful spirit, _i.e._, one which in its new life works freely and energetically. And the will, too, is no longer blind, no longer passionately absolute; but, restored to sight, becomes one with the internal sense, as the third member of the human consciousness. And by this union the will is, as it were, fully armed and equipped. For the external sense, which hitherto has been thoroughly passive, as soon as the will is restored to sight, assumes by its means an active and living operation; and the inner moral sense, which before was merely subjective, acquires a power of external discernment.

This is the end of perfection. And it is only on this road of a divine restoration of the human consciousness, according to its established law of progress, that the divine tendency of science can attain to perfection. With the attainment of this end an entirely new era will commence. But the intricacy of the problem which our own age has to solve arises simply from this circumstance, that a truly new era and a false one are engaged in mortal conflict. The former can only spring up and flourish when the latter decays and is got rid of. To this end the present false spirit of the age, which is but a perversion of the true cosmopolitan spirit, must die the death. And this must be brought to pass by the sword of the Word or of eternal truth, which pierces even to the joints and marrow, and divides asunder soul and spirit. For the immortal, God-created, and God-devoted soul requires to be separated and detached from the so-called spirit of the age, which is mixed up and compounded of so many dim, false, imperfect, and evil spirits. And the spirit of the age must itself be entirely converted and be brought to a knowledge and open confession of its error, and when once whatever in it is totally dead has been adjudged to eternal death, it will itself be renovated and purified in the fiery floods of the truly new times.

In this divine restoration, however, of the human consciousness, or theocracy, man’s part must be wholly passive. It is enough if he does not hinder or retard it; for in a certain sense he can at least co-operate in bringing it to pass. Even that final consummation toward which that true new era, which as yet is entirely hidden and, as it were, choked by the false, longs and yearns--that peace of God, of which the highest and best religious peace is but a foreboding symbol, and, as it were, the first weak grade, or step, can not be brought about by human art and power. It is not by any diplomatic courtesy, which in this case would be highly culpable--not by any amalgamation, which in the present sphere is contradictory to every notion of right, that that peace can be brought about, in which, according to no vain or unmeaning promise, there is to be one fold and one Shepherd. Its accomplishment must be reserved entirely to Him who, from all eternity has been, and still is, the good Shepherd of all His creatures.

Here, then, at this point, having, by means of the idea of a restoration of the human consciousness to its original divine perfection, arrived at a close, I will pause a few moments to take once more a rapid survey of, and to throw a clearer light on, my past labors. And herein I shall purposely refer to the division of philosophy, and the designations of its several parts usually given in the schools. The first five Lectures treated of the human soul in the wide extent of its original relation, not only to life but also to nature and to God, and formed consequently of psychology, though in a wider sense than the science which is usually occupied with this subject. The three next, as discussing the divine order of things, contained a species of natural theology, though treated of in a perfectly living method and relation, and entering historically into individual, no less than universal, life. Of the last seven Lectures the first three were devoted to the investigation of truth. We here examined its fundamental principle of the unity of the highest science and divine faith, the discrimination of truth in the struggle between faith and skepticism, and the final conclusion in the unity of this higher science and faith with the true life and its influence therein. This higher logic, in so far as it considers the true essence of things, might even be designated an ontology. And, indeed, since it derives every thing from a divine principle, it might not inaptly be called an applied or mixed theology, in the same sense as this designation is employed in the mathematical sciences, viz., as the first part of such an applied theology. In this sense the second part thereof would be formed by the metaphysics of life, as the science of that which is above nature, whose province it is to indicate all higher and supernatural principles in the whole sphere of existence and the actual world, so far as it is given to man to know them. Employing the old phraseology and division of the schools, we might term this a cosmology, in a moral and intellectual sense, and with a regard to what human philosophy can attain to. The symbolical energy of the divine communication in religion, the divine foundation of the state, the Godward tendency of science, and the restoration of the consciousness by God, form, as it were, the four poles or summits of all these principles, which transcend and overpass the merely natural.

Concerning the accomplishment of perfection in man’s divinely-restored consciousness, and also in the whole of existence, or in nature itself, a few words yet remain to be added. And thus this last section, considered as a cosmology, is based on a divine principle, so far as this is attainable by man.

Now, the first consequence of the perfection of the human consciousness, as accomplished by God, will be the restoration of the divine image and likeness in man. The soul, now purified and made complete again, becomes once more spiritually fruitful, and in this internal productiveness, which even the pure spirits do not possess, is rendered similar, though at an infinite distance and in a very secondary sense, to the Creator in His productive energy. The livingly operative spirit in the creature is like to that in the being who is increate and from all eternity, while the livingly active sense, as the third member or element in the perfected consciousness, is similar and correspondent to the divine operating word. And lastly, in this livingly quickened and completely restored consciousness, man reassumes his original true and distinct relation to nature. By the soul, first of all, he is reunited to God; in his spirit, now restored to true life, he enters into a living and clear communion with all other kindred spirits; and by his will, now clearly seeing and working in God, he assumes once more his original relation to nature as her first-born son and her legitimate lord.

But nature, as the creature that groaneth and travaileth in pain together, waiteth in earnest expectation for its perfection and restoration. And this is the only view of it that is either founded in truth or really Christian. And in this idea of creation groaning and travailing in pain lies a fullness of prophetic intimations for nature. While she seems on the whole to be deeply slumbering, this alone excites a hope of a great and general awakening; whereas it is scarcely a generation and a half, or two at most, since physical science first began to awaken out of the grave of its own dead notions, when in nature itself, no less than in the science of it, all seemed sunk in death.

We need not, therefore, be surprised if this Christian view of nature and a dynamical physiology evince so little of agreement. For the latter invariably regards the system of nature as something absolute and as perfect and complete in itself; but this it evidently is not. And indeed many an eloquent theological essay on the proofs of design in nature and on its indications of the goodness of the Creator, sets out on a similarly defective hypothesis, that nature, in its present condition, is exactly the same as God originally created it. But this is directly contradicted by the promise so expressly and distinctly made to the last times, of “new heavens and a new earth.” For this not merely implies, but rather asserts, that nature stands in need of a grand renovation, which it transcends the ordinary course of its proper powers of development to accomplish, and which, consequently, is only conceivable as brought about by the immediate operation of divine power, or of a celestial theocracy for this purpose, in the time of the universal regeneration.

We are far more ready and disposed to assign to the powers of evil a greater influence and a wider field of operation in the world of man than in the system of nature. But it is, perhaps, more conformable to truth to see in the present condition of the latter a state of truce with the evil and destructive powers which formerly raged more fiercely--an interval during which the conflict is confined within certain limits, rather than as a complete and perfect peace. Its external influences, as they affect man, must not be taken for the standard in this case; for they may be merely accidental; just as the ordinary inundations belong to the economy of the balance of the elementary forces of nature, and as the storms and tempests, which occasionally are fearfully destructive, are, nevertheless, it is clear, a process necessary for the purification and salubrity of the atmosphere. But, on the other hand, many facts of medical experience and peculiar phenomena of disease, or even births of faulty or defective organization--as well as the lothsome generation of insects in the atmosphere or on the surface of the earth, and many diseased states in both--when viewed simply and elementarily, and apart from the usual principle of epidemic contagion, appear to point rather to some intrinsical evil and originally wild demoniacal character in the sphere of nature, even though they only occur as exceptions to these general laws. How deadly even sidereal influences may prove is at least established by the fact of lunacy. In those fields of celestial light, too, and those brilliant hosts of heaven, which, as nature’s more retiring and lovelier charms, become visible only by night, and display themselves to the calm and tranquil soul, all is not in such perfect unison and harmony as the first impression would lead us to suppose. A note of discord arises from the irregular orbits of those eccentrically revolving stars, which, though rare in their appearance, seem to be pretty numerous--exercising either a watery or an arid influence on the terrestrial atmosphere, and whose paths astronomy has indeed calculated, though her calculations have not always been verified. All our knowledge, too, and recorded observations of the rest of nature, _i.e._, in this sense of the earth itself, does not go beyond the surface--consequently to only one portion of it; and yet perhaps that internal part, which is hidden from us, is the very one that is most deeply significant, and more nearly akin to the eternal. Nature, in her interior and reality, may perhaps possess little resemblance to what we see of her externally. At every step we stumble on some new proof of our ignorance, and much also that gives an intimation of a new and unknown world.

Nature in general may, for us, be compared to a towering pyramid of hieroglyphics heaped together at random, from which, with our utmost pains, we can scarcely succeed in bringing together and deciphering two or three at most, while we have not the key for interpreting the meaning and order of the whole; for we must not, as under a very erroneous idea is often done, seek this in nature itself, but entirely in its divine principle; for in this must all that is unintelligible find its solution. Now, in that one part of nature which we are best acquainted with, its surface--after that law of sexual distinction which reigns not only in the animal but also in the vegetable world, and which, moreover, in a certain sense prevails in the very atmosphere and its elementary organs of life--no other law of nature is so universal as that of death. But if it be true that through that spirit and power of evil who first revolted from God, death came into the world, and also into nature, then must the earthly and now natural death have proceeded from the author of eternal death.

Very questionable, in this case, would it appear to be, whether the first and original creations of nature were other than immortal. If He whose essence is omnipotence thinks hieroglyphics, then are they living creatures; and can we, judging of Him in Himself, and His proper nature, suppose that He would conceive of or create aught else than what is eternal and immortal? The old curse still hangs over nature, wherein the first author and inventor of death has contrived to root himself so deeply. And that malediction was not removed by the first man; on the contrary, it was deepened and confirmed by him. And even at the divine renewal of the human race, the same anathema was again pronounced upon the natural tree of an earthly life, condemning it to wither still more and more under the baneful dominion of death. The victory over death is only to be gained together with the perfection of man. And then shall follow a theocracy and divine renovation of nature, under which all that is therein shall again become immortal. A perfect harmony shall thereby be restored to the whole of creation.

END OF PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE.

PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE.