Chapter IV: Beliefs of Reason (2)

And our ultimate appeal--as for example concerning the subject next discussed in this chapter--is, he observes, to an instinctive operation of the mind which obliges us to accept and act upon what we cannot explain. Writing in his own person, Mr. Hume observes, "As nature has taught us the use of our limbs, without giving us the knowledge of the muscles and nerves by which they are actuated, so has she implanted in us an instinct, which carries forward the thought in a correspondent course to that which she has established among external objects; though we are ignorant of those powers and forces on which this regular course and succession of objects totally depends."--_Inquiry concerning the Human Understanding._ Section V., end. Compare footnote [d]. to this chapter, p. 269 _post_.

[ad] The word Belief has been used in a variety of senses by modern writers of differing views from Jacobi to Sir. W. Hamilton, from Dr. Newman to Mr. Herbert Spencer.

"This word," Mr. Spencer says, "is habitually applied to dicta of consciousness for which no proof can be assigned: both those which are unprovable because they underlie all proof, and those which are unprovable because of the absence of evidence." And again; "we commonly say we 'believe' a thing for which we can assign some preponderating evidence, or concerning which we have received some indefinable impression.... And it is the peculiarity of these beliefs, as contrasted with cognitions, that their connexions with antecedent states of consciousness may be easily severed, instead of being difficult to sever. But unhappily, the word 'belief' is also applied to each of those temporarily or permanently indissoluble connexions in consciousness, for the acceptance of which the only warrant is that it cannot be got rid of.... Thus the two opposite poles of knowledge go under the same name; and by the reverse connotations of this name, as used for the most coherent and least coherent relations of thought, profound misconceptions have been generated."

Mr. Spencer made these remarks at separate intervals of time, and has repeated them in 1874 (_Essays_, III. 259-60). It would therefore appear that he thinks little has recently been done to discriminate the significations of so ambiguous a term.

This chapter endeavours to investigate a small number of the genus "Beliefs" to which the _differentia_ "Of Reason" has been added by way of distinction. It also attempts to offer a contribution towards the useful work of explaining their specific validity, and if its argument be correct, they constitute a very important definable species of the Genus, carrying with them a persuasion pre-eminently their own.

On his page 260, last referred to, Mr. Spencer remarks,--"that the belief which the moral and religious feelings are said to yield of a personal God, is not one of the beliefs which are unprovable because they underlie all proof"--and adds that works on Natural Theology treat that Belief as _inferential_.

The view taken of this moral and religious belief in the present Essay, is that it is in its own nature _both_ primary and inferential. The former of these aspects is the one now under discussion.

[154] Compare Fowler's Inductive Logic, p. 29. [Since the reference was made, Mr. Fowler has become Professor of Logic in the University of Oxford.]

[155] Mr. Fowler, in the little volume just referred to, describes another "Theory of the Origin of Universal Beliefs," as follows:--"It would admit that all beliefs alike are ultimately derived from experience, and still it would freely adopt the language that there are some beliefs which are 'native to the human mind.' The word 'experience' as ordinarily employed by psychologists, includes not only the experience of the individual, but the recorded experience of mankind. On the theory, however, of which we are now speaking, it has a still more extended meaning; it includes experience, or to speak more strictly, a peculiar facility for forming certain experiences, _transmitted_ by hereditary descent from generation to generation. While some ideas occur only to particular individuals, at particular times, there are others which, from the frequency and constancy with which they are obtruded upon men's minds at all times and under all circumstances, become, after an accumulated experience of many generations, _connatural_, as it were, to the human mind. We assume them, often unconsciously, in our special perceptions, and when the propositions, which embody them, are propounded to us, we find it impossible, on reflection, to doubt their truth. It is by personal experience of external objects and their relations that each man recognises them, but the _tendency_ to recognise them is transmitted, like the physical or mental peculiarities of race, from preceding generations, and is anterior to any special experience whatever on the part of the individual. This theory, to which much of modern speculation appears to be converging, is advocated with great ability in the works of Mr. Herbert Spencer." _Inductive Logic_, p. 31.

This account of our Belief in the Inductive Principle agrees, in effect, with the opinion of those who hold that our acceptance of its truth resembles our acceptance of Mathematical Truths in _two_ very important respects: (1) Its _Certitude_. To use Dr. Whewell's words; "We are as certain of it as of the truths of arithmetic and geometry. We cannot doubt that it must apply to all events past and future, in every part of the universe, just as truly as to those occurrences which we have ourselves observed. _What_ causes produce what effects;--what is the cause of any particular event;--what will be the effect of any peculiar process;--these are points on which experience may enlighten us. Observation and experience may be requisite, to enable us to judge respecting such matters. But that every event has _some_ cause, Experience cannot prove any more than she can disprove. She can add nothing to the evidence of the truth, however often she may exemplify it. This doctrine, then, cannot have been acquired by her teaching," Whewell's _Hist. of Scientific Ideas_, B. III. Cap. ii.

(2) In the fact of its being _intuitive_; that is, as Mr. Fowler says, "connatural," or "native to the human mind."

Whether we can trace the process through which it became one of the mental possessions characteristic of Mankind is a further question, and a very curious one. The subjects of improvement by education, and of the transmission of improvements thus acquired among men and the lower animals, belong in part to our next Chapter;--they are, of course, deeply interesting to every philanthropist, every promoter of true progress and wholesome civilization.

[156] Galen remarks upon the immediate activity of animal instinct prior to example or habituation. Most Naturalists know his experiment of hatching three different sorts of eggs together. He was much struck to see the young aquatic bird, reptile, and eaglet, betake themselves at once, each to his vocation. Some persons referred these instincts to the influence of organs fitted for definite uses, yet, observes Galen, the young calf will butt before he has got horns. A good deal might be added to Galen's rejoinder. Animals seem often to work without fitness of organization,--or one might almost say in defiance of their organs. "There is nothing," says Sir C. Bell, "in the configuration of the black bear, particularly adapted for his catching fish; yet he will sit, on his hinder extremities, by the side of a stream, morning or evening, on the watch, like a practised fisher, and so perfectly motionless as to deceive the eye of the Indian, who mistakes him for the burnt trunk of a tree; when he sees his opportunity favourable, he will thrust out his fore-paw, and seize a fish with incredible celerity. The exterior organ is not, in this instance, the cause of the habit or of the propensity; and if we thus see the instinct bestowed without the appropriate organ, may we not the more readily believe, in other examples, when the two are conjoined, that the habit exists with the instrument, although not through it?" (_Bridgewater Treatise_, Chap. x. p. 250.)--In Captain Cook's third voyage there is another anecdote of bears equally curious. "The wild deer (barein) are far too swift for those lumbering sportsmen; so the bear perceives them at a distance by the scent; and, as they herd in low grounds, when he approaches them, he gets upon the adjoining eminence, from whence he rolls down pieces of rock; nor does he quit his ambush, and pursue, until he finds that some have been maimed." (Vol. 3, p. 306.)

In such cases as these, there is a manifest want of correspondence between animal organisms and animal instincts, which many naturalists consider essentially interdependent. Yet on their mutual action and reaction some have founded a theory of evolution.

[157] "We have in the Veda the invocation _Dya[=u]s pítar_, the Greek [Greek: Zeu pater], the Latin _Jupiter_; and that means in all the three languages what it meant before these three languages were torn asunder--it means Heaven-Father. These two words are not mere words; they are to my mind the oldest poem, the oldest prayer of mankind, or at least of that pure branch of it to which we belong--and I am as firmly convinced that this prayer was uttered, that this name was given to the unknown God before Sanskrit was Sanskrit, and Greek was Greek, as when I see the Lord's Prayer in the languages of Polynesia and Melanesia, I feel certain that it was first uttered in the language of Jerusalem." Professor Max Müller's _Science of Religion_. New Ed. p. 172.

[158] This then would seem to be an instance of wide spread "moral regression."

[ae] Our deep-rooted tendency to trust human testimony may yield a very curious example of the difficulties presented by the whole class of pre-rational beliefs. Mr. J. Mill in accordance with his system of foregone Associations "resolves" this case as follows (_Analysis_ I. p. 385-6): "Belief in testimony is but a case of the anticipation of the future from the past; and belief in the uniformity of the laws of nature is but another name for the same thing.... The testimony uniformly calls up the idea of the reality of the event, so closely, that I cannot disjoin them. But the idea, irresistibly forced upon me, of a real event, is Belief."

On this explanation Mr. Bain remarks, "The belief in Testimony is derived from the primary credulity of the mind, in certain instances left intact under the wear and tear of adverse experience. Hardly any fact of the human mind is better attested than the primitive disposition to receive all testimony with unflinching credence. It never occurs to the child to question any statement made to it, until some positive force on the side of scepticism has been developed. Gradually we find that certain testimonies are inconsistent with fact; we have, therefore, to go through a long education in discriminating the good testimonies from the bad. To the one class, we adhere with the primitive force of conviction that in the other class has been shaken and worn away by the shocks of repeated contradictions."

It seems quite possible that our "primary credulity" may be one example of a wider spread feeling of reliance engendered in part by affection and dependence. Its force varies considerably in various minds. Women whose lives have been happy and free from disappointment retain much of this primary intuitive belief to the end of their days. Among men, the trust in Testimony becomes controlled by their power of balancing probabilities; a faculty in which the very credulous and also the very sceptical are often observed to be deficient. The disappointed of both sexes proverbially incline to Scepticism.

[159] _Metaph._ I. 44.

[160] Acts xvii. 27, 28. Romans i. 32; ii. 14 seq.

[161] Most persons have read with delight the observations on Insect Architecture from Huber downwards. Birds are generally well watched and well reported. Many Naturalists have written on these subjects, from a hope of creating in the minds of men some softer interest for their humble companions. Mr. Jesse naïvely prefaces a collection of anecdotes, by saying that, of all the nations in Europe, our own countrymen are perhaps the least inclined to treat the brute creation with tenderness.

Wilson long ago observed that the nest building of birds was not always the same in the same species. The older birds built the better nests.

M. Pouchet of Rouen proved that when the new streets of that city were erected, the window-swallows altered their nests and substantially improved them. A short account of his observations will be found in Wallace's _Contributions_, 228 A. Mr. Wallace adds several instances of bad nest building, especially by pigeons, rooks, and window-swallows, a circumstance also noticed by White of Selborne.

Amongst the most remarkable bird-families with special ideas of construction, are the mound-builders, and bower birds of Australia, described by Mr. Gould. The former hatch their eggs in hillocks contrived to retain during the night, amid their warm vegetable linings, the solar heat of each successive day. The nests of one family are about a yard high and three wide. In another family, mounds of five yards in height and twelve in girth seem not uncommon; and the circumference of one mound in particular measured full fifty yards. These larger mounds are the work of many birds, through many years, and their firm sides are covered by ancient forest growth.

The bower birds construct over-arching alleys of curved branches, decorated with pretty grasses, gay feathers, shells and bones, particularly near the entrances. These bowers seem to be used as meeting and recreation places for both sexes. They vary to some extent amongst the different species of this singular tribe.

There can be no doubt of the power of adaptation among animals;--and those who study them most are least surprised at its extent. Horses will learn to go up and down stairs, cats to undo door latches; and one pony mentioned by Jesse used to unfasten the stable door, open and rob the corn chest. Still more curious, is the American bird called _neuntödter_, which catches grasshoppers and spears them upon twigs, not for the shamble-purposes of the butcher bird, but simply as baits to catch and eat the smaller birds attracted by the spoil.

Schleiden (_Plant_ 232), tells a most singular story of a Kangaroo who tried to drown his pursuer, and shewed considerable craft in the way he set about the drowning. After knocking the hunter backwards into a pond, the "old man" (Australian for Kangaroo) kept pushing the poor fellow's head under water every time he raised it up. If Kangaroo had never drowned a human being before, he must have proceeded by analogy, and argued, as some Naturalists do, from the brute to the man. A dog, mentioned by Jesse, endeavoured to save his drowning master's life by the reverse process to Kangaroo's, and would not let the beloved head disappear under water for many a wintry hour after life had been extinguished. (_Country Life_, p. 119.)

A person reflecting on these and similar facts, does not feel much surprised at Aristotle's appreciation of animal intelligence, (_e. g._, _Historiæ_ viii. 1, 2,) "[Greek: hôs gar en anthrôpô technê kai sophia kai synesis, houtôs eniois tôn zôôn esti tis hetera toiautê physikê dynamis.]" The animal power of adaptation, travelling beyond the routine of instinctive action, probably struck the philosopher very strongly.

[162] These barricades are curiously galleried and casemated, like the defences of a fortress. The best account of them is given by the accurate and interesting Huber.

[163] In Aristotle's Introduction to Physical Science, he remarks that Sense grasps at Wholes, so that in a certain way, the general may seem to take precedence with us of the particular. Language is a proof of this--Children's talk is apt to run in concretes;--every man or woman is a father or mother to them. See _Phys. Ausc._ I. 1, with Pacius' note. The old commentator unties a knot which some moderns appear to have tied fast again.

_Addition._ Aristotle's illustration, it is alleged (_e. g._ by Dr. Whewell), goes in the wrong direction; fathers and mothers are less comprehensive terms than men and women; the truth seems to be that children fail to perceive the differences between parents and other human beings;--therefore they call men and women, parents. Pacius says:--"Nunc igitur totum esse nobis notius, probat à signo, id est, argumento sumto ab infantibus, qui initiò non distinguunt patrem ab aliis viris, nec matrem ab aliis mulieribus: postea verò distinguunt: nempe, quia ab initio habuerunt cognitionem magis confusam, neque cognoverunt proprietates parentis, sed tantum eum noverunt sub ratione universali, quatenus est homo, ideoque non potuerunt eum ab aliis hominibus sejungere. Postea verò progredientes ad cognitionem magis particularem, possunt patrem ab aliis discernere." Ed. 1608, p. 346.

[af] It is quite conceivable that the presence of Reason may from its first dawn, give rise to a very wide difference between the highest animal instincts, and the lowest instinctive impulses of Man. The discussion would be far too extensive for these pages; but it is obvious that such a difference might clearly account for much that is obscure in the twilight territory of Mind.

Hume, however, appears to have thought otherwise, as may be perceived in the Conclusion of his _Reason of Animals_. From his mention of "experimental reasoning" and the instances adduced, he would seem to attribute our Inductive process to a _simple_ instinct. He writes thus:--"Though animals learn many parts of their knowledge from observation, there are also many parts of it which they derive from the original hand of Nature, which much exceed the share of capacity they possess on ordinary occasions, and in which they improve little or nothing, by the longest practice and experience. These we denominate INSTINCTS, and are so apt to admire as something very extraordinary and inexplicable by all the disquisitions of human understanding. But our wonder will perhaps cease or diminish when we consider that the experimental reasoning itself, which we possess in common with beasts, and on which the whole conduct of life depends, is nothing but a species of instinct or mechanical power, that acts in us unknown to ourselves, and in its chief operations is not directed by any such relations or comparison of ideas as are the proper objects of our intellectual faculties. Though the instinct be different, yet still it is an instinct, which teaches a man to avoid the fire, as much as that which teaches a bird, with such exactness, the art of incubation, and the whole economy and order of its nursery." Compare foot-note (a) to this chapter, p. 255 _ante_.

[ag] "Wisdom is Alchemy. Else it could not be Wisdom. This is its unfailing characteristic, that it 'finds good in everything,' that it renders all things more precious. In this respect also does it renew the spirit of childhood within us: while foolishness hardens our hearts and narrows our thoughts, it makes us feel a childlike curiosity and a childlike interest about all things. When our view is confined to ourselves, nothing is of value, except what ministers in one way or other to our own personal gratification: but in proportion as it widens, our sympathies increase and multiply: and when we have learnt to look on all things as God's works, then, as His works, they are all endeared to us.

"Hence nothing can be further from true wisdom, than the mask of it assumed by men of the world, who affect a cold indifference about whatever does not belong to their own immediate circle of interests or pleasures." _Guesses at Truth_, 2nd Ed. 2nd Series, p. 200.

[164] "Try to conceive a man without the ideas of God, eternity, freedom, will, absolute truth, of the good, the true, the beautiful, the infinite. An animal endowed with a memory of appearances and of facts might remain. But the man will have vanished, and you have instead a creature, _more subtle than any beast of the field_, but likewise _cursed above every beast of the field; upon the belly must it go, and dust must it eat all the days of its life_. But I recal myself from a train of thoughts little likely to find favour in this age of sense and selfishness." Coleridge, _Church and State_. Note p. 50, Ed. 1839.

[165] Some people we may remark are unable to see any difference between sentiments and sentimentalities.

[166] It was by a reverse procedure that Kant shewed his greatness. He kept the two fields of thought apart, and applied to each a criticism unsparing, but appropriate. Nothing could be more decisive than the result, though darkened in some degree by the critic's peculiar technicalities. Moral truth was placed upon the most sublime of elevations. Speculative reason could never rise beyond the limits of conditioned truth; any attempt to extend its sphere issued in antinomy or blank negation. It left the human mind apparently oscillating between Idealism and limited Insight. But to this must be added a most important point too commonly forgotten. Though Speculative reason does not demonstrably prove, it renders _conceivable_ by us those highest of all Ideas which our Practical reason shews to be necessarily and unquestionably _certain_ for every one of us. Moral Truth thus opens to Man's eye a clear vista into the Timeless and the Absolute, to an immortal life beyond the grave, and to God the Sovereign both of Nature and of Man. It tells us the secret of true Causation, and with it of all that is most worth living for, the intrinsically greatest and Best of Humanity. And it binds every human being, as by golden links, to that ever present Divine throne, the shrine and oracle set up within his own breast. We ought always to remember that upon those grand truths which if practically certain cannot be ultimately false, Kant staked his all. They were the crown alike of his labours and his life.

_Addition._--By these remarks the present writer does not intend subscribing to all the Kantian conclusions respecting pure Speculative Reason, much less to those that have been asserted by many of Kant's disciples. Difference of opinion on such conclusions cannot, however, effect an honest appreciation of the clear and elevated principles maintained by Kant on the subject of independent Morality, as contradistinguished from the scheme which used to be termed Selfish, but is now commonly called Utilitarian.--See pp. 93-6 _ante_.

[ah] "Thousands of years it may be before Homer and the Veda ... Dyaus did not mean the blue sky, nor was it simply the sky personified; it was meant for something else.... We shall have to learn the same lesson again and again in the Science of Religion, viz. that the place whereon we stand is holy ground. Thousands of years have passed since the Aryan nations separated to travel to the North and the South, the West and the East: they have each formed their languages, they have each founded empires and philosophies, they have each built temples and razed them to the ground; they have all grown older, and it may be wiser and better; but when they search for a name for what is most exalted and yet most dear to every one of us, when they wish to express both awe and love, the infinite and the finite, they can but do what their old fathers did when gazing up to the eternal sky, and feeling the presence of a Being as far as far and as near as near can be: they can but combine the self-same words, and utter once more the primeval Aryan prayer, Heaven-Father, in that form which will endure for ever, 'Our Father which art in Heaven.'"--Max Müller, _Lectures on the Science of Religion_, pp. 171-2, 3.

[167] Compare the Indian phrase "the magical illusions of reality, the so-called Mâyâ of creation." Max Müller's _Sanskrit Literature_, p. 19. Also Ritter's _Gesch. der Philosophie_, I. 101 seq., and the account in both of the philosophy of Quietism. The attractive side of it is given by Max Müller, pp. 18, 19, and 29. The National results are elegantly painted, pp. 30, 31. He concludes: "It might therefore be justly said that India has no place in the political history of the world.... India has moved in such a small and degraded circle of political existence that it remained almost invisible to the eyes of other nations."

Few feelings are more deeply rooted, as in our individual, so in our collective human nature, than this same conclusion. Quietism culminates when Action appears useless because of a conceived Necessity or Unreality of Nature:--"Life is but a Dream--Let all sit still and fold their hands to slumber."

[168] Speculatively considered, what can the weapon commonly called argument do against Idealism? Both sides allow that man can neither cause nor annihilate sensible impressions. But they are supposably ideal phrases of susceptibility, which may be explained in more ways than one. On the inability of most men--(particularly Scotchmen,) to comprehend Berkeley's position, see _Fraser's Ed._, IV. 366, 7, 8, note. It gave rise to notably absurd rejoinders: "With the witty Voltaire ten thousand cannon balls, and ten thousand dead men, were ten thousand ideas, according to Berkeley. There is as much subtlety of thought, and more humour, in the Irish story of Berkeley's visit to Swift on a rainy day, when, by the Dean's orders, he was left to stand before the unopened door, because, if his philosophy was true, he could as easily enter with the door shut as open."

[169] "We cannot possibly identify the perception of _expanded colour_, which is all that originally constitutes seeing, with the perception of _felt resistance_, which is all that originally constitutes touching. Coloured extension is antithetical to felt extension. In fact, we do not see, we never saw, and we never can see the orange of mere touch; we do not touch, we never touched, and we never can touch the orange of mere sight." _Ibid._ p. 394.

[170]

"From floating elements in chaos hurl'd,
Self-form'd of atoms, sprang the infant world:
No great _First Cause_ inspired the happy plot,
But all was matter--and no matter what.
Atoms, attracted by some law occult,
Settling in spheres, the globe was the result:
Pure child of _Chance_, which still directs the ball,
As rotatory atoms rise or fall.
In ether launch'd, the peopled bubble floats,
A mass of particles, and confluent motes,

"So nicely poised, that if one atom flings
Its weight away, aloft the planet springs,
And wings its course through realms of boundless space,
Outstripping comets in eccentric race.
Add but one atom more, it sinks outright
Down to the realms of Tartarus and night."

"_Rejected Addresses_," pp. 115, 116.

[171] "What are the core and essence of this hypothesis? Strip it naked and you stand face to face with the notion that not alone the more ignoble forms of animalcular or animal life, not alone the nobler forms of the horse and lion, not alone the exquisite and wonderful mechanism of the human body, but that the human mind itself--emotion, intellect, will, and all their phenomena--were once latent in a fiery cloud. Surely the mere statement of such a notion is more than a refutation." Tyndall, _Fragments of Science_, p. 163.

[172] Mr. Mill speaks thus of the Design argument. "It is the best; and besides, it is by far the most persuasive. It would be difficult to find a stronger argument in favour of Theism, than that the eye must have been made by one who sees, and the ear by one who hears." Mill _On Hamilton_, p. 551.

[173] So in Thomson's Hymn:--

"Thy beauty walks, Thy tenderness and love.
Wide flush the fields; the softening air is balm;
Echo the mountains round; the forest smiles;
And every sense, and every heart, is joy."

[ai] "The idea of God, beyond all question or comparison, is the one great seminal principle; inasmuch as it combines and comprehends all the faculties of our nature, converging in it as their common centre; brings the reason to sanction the aspirations of the imagination; impregnates law with the vitality and attractiveness of the affections; and establishes the natural legitimate subordination of the body to the will, and of both to the _vis logica_ or reason, by involving the necessary and entire dependence of the created on the creator." _Guesses at Truth._ 1st Ed., pp. 122, 3.

[aj] Perhaps every cynic delighting in those records should be asked to define what he means by Savagery. Of savages there are evidently many sorts, _e. g._:--

(1) The children of our race;--a condition not beautiful, yet not without hope.

(2) Semi-civilized tribes, generally addicted to "fire-water" and other vices of civilization, without possession of its better things.

(3) Barbarian princedoms, grown decrepit by reason of wars, caste domination, or a sensual and effete culture.

(4) There are also a few wholly uncultured folk, who are more of gentlemen and ladies than our highly civilized peoples;--more truthful, honourable, and courteous;--while,

(5) Not a few are savages indeed!

These strictures serve as a reminder to add that by Theism is here intended the belief in a Supreme Being, the Father of Spirits, to Whom we shall give solemn account. But it is _not_ meant to include some civilized superstitions, by means of which many men degrade and torment their fellows. Of such men we say, They too are savages indeed!

[174] _Reid's Works_, p. 751.

[175] _Reid's Works_, p. 743.

[176] _Metaph._ II. p. 530.

[177] _The Friend_, vol iii. p. 214. Ed. 1844.

[ak] The portrait of a lonely thinker searching out God has been painted in lively colours, as follows:--"O my friend, you would do me most grievous wrong, if you thought my heart empty of those feelings which make man the standing miracle of Nature. If your child fell into the river, would you stop to tell or think how you loved it, how dear and winsome and precious it was to you, how blank your home and bruised your heart would be without it? Or would you plunge into the stream in utter recklessness of your life, bear it swiftly out of the devouring flood, and then in silence strain the rescued little one to your bosom? Characters differ. It is mine to act, as well as to feel. What, do you imagine, prompts a thinker to give his days and nights to the rescue of man's faith in God, his heart-trust and moral inspiration and spiritual joy, when all these are put in jeopardy by the increase of a knowledge that is but half comprehended, even by those who in their own special lines are nobly increasing it? What lies back of the intense activity of his brain, as he toils over problems that wring the beads from his brow, gives up to the lonely pursuit of truth the hours that might be fertile of the prizes clutched after by the crowd, and turns his back on prizes that even he holds dear? What but a mighty hunger for God can explain this weary, unending search for Him? What else can explain the unthanked effort to make plain a path to Him that no man wants to travel?" American _Index_, Jan. 15, 1874.

[178] Butler's Sermons, p. 184 seq.

[179] _The Soul, her Sorrows and her Aspirations_, pp. 103, 104.