169 It is important to bear in mind that, from an admitted incompetency of our faculties to know the absolute, we cannot infer an impossibility of knowing its existence. To know that a thing is, and to know what it is, are two totally distinct degrees and sorts of knowledge. The moment this distinction is stated, every one sees its truth; but many persons omit stating it to themselves when they reason upon these difficult subjects.

Ravaisson, after giving a brief account of Herbert Spencer's opinion, goes on to say: "Comment il y a, au fond de toute connaissance, un absolu, auquel correspond, comme son opposÉ, le relatif, c'est ce qu'Établissait, il y a plus de vingt siÈcles, contre une doctrine dÉjÀ rÉgnante alors de relativitÉ et de mobilitÉ universelles, la dialectique platonicienne, qui fraya le chemin À la metaphysique. Elle faisait plus: elle montrait que par cet absolu seul les relations sont intelligibles, parce qu'il est la mesure par laquelle seule nous les estimons. La mÉtaphysique, entre les mains de son immortel fondateur, fit davantage encore: elle montra que cet absolu, par lequel l'intelligence mesure le relatif, est l'intelligence mÊme. C'est ce que redisait Leibniz, lorsque, À cette assertion, renouvelÉe de la scolastique par Locke, qu'il n'Était rien dans l'intelligence qui d'abord n'eÛt ÉtÉ dans le sens, il rÉpondait: "sauf l'intelligence," et que, avec Aristote, il montrait dans l'intelligence la mesure supÉrieure du sens."—Rapport, p. 66.

Ravaisson then gives interesting extracts from Sophie St. Germain, and proceeds to show how Comte, without admitting any self-contemplating intelligence, and thus inferring the possibility of an Absolute, did in fact pursue the idea of Unity, and extended this idea to the universe,—a principle which, if fully grasped, must be fatal to Positive views. "D'accord maintenant avec Platon, Aristote, Leibniz, il dÉclarait que l'ensemble Étant le resultat et l'expression d'une certaine unitÉ, À laquelle tout concourt et se co-ordonne et qui est le but oÙ tout marche, c'est dans cette unitÉ, c'est dans le but, c'est dans la fin ou cause finale qu'est le secret de l'organisme."—Rapport, p. 76.

A special interest attaches to the work of Ravaisson as an authoritative French rating of the philosophic exchange between England and France. It is almost unnecessary to refer for a less abstract account of these relations to the widely known writings of M. Taine.

170 It should have been stated in the text, as it was in the delivered lecture, that these questions were not forgotten by the eminent Professor. The passages referred to will be found in his eloquent address on the "Scientific use of the Imagination," p. 47, seq., or in his volume of collected Essays, p. 163, seq. The reader may observe that, both in Professor Tyndall's pages and two sentences back in this lecture, Development is spoken of as a process or law in operation. The various kinds of philosophy which may be engrafted on such a law are severally determined by whatever reply is given to the questions above suggested. It would seem inappropriate here to state the possible relations between a law of development and such consequent (or inconsequent) philosophies. Those who wish to consider them the writer may refer to his little volume entitled "Right and Wrong," for a brief discussion of this subject, and more particularly for the results to natural theology.

The following German sketch of an evolution-philosophy may not be without interest:—"VermÖge einer ewigen Kreisbewegung entstehen als Verdichtungen der Luft unzÄhlige Welten, himmlische Gottheiten, in deren Mittelpunkt die cylinderfÖrmige Erde ruht, unbewegt wegen des gleichen Abstandes von allen Punkten der Himmelskugel. Die Erde hat sich aus einem unsprÜnglich flÜssigen Zustande gebildet. Aus dem Feuchten sind unter dem Einfluss der WÄrme in stufenweise Entwickelung die lebenden Wesen hervorgegangen. Auch die Landthiere waren anfangs fischartig und haben erst mit der Abtrocknung der ErdoberflÄche ihre jetzige Gestalt gewonnen. Die Seele soll Anaximander als luftartig bezeichnet haben."

Anaximander of Miletus was born about B.C. 610. Consequently he ranks early among European theorizers on development. The extract is from Ueberweg's Grundriss, t. 1, p. 40. Cf. Plutarch de Placit. v. 19, and Sympos viii. qu. 8, with Euseb. PrÆp. Evang. i. 8.

171 The sight of a dualism apparently insoluble never fails to suggest some such questions as these: Was it always so? will it be so always? and were I at the centre of the universe, should I see it so now?

There are three possible ways of conceiving otherwise: 1, by reducing mind to matter; 2, by reducing matter to mind; 3, by comprehending both under a higher unity.

We need only write down these issues for common sense to perceive that Nos. 1 and 2 arise from, and end in one-sided speculation. A man who lives shut up amongst machinery is apt to think of his own mind as a machine. Great chemists have ere now taken the human stomach for a laboratory, and were slow in awakening to those physiological facts which put the vital processes of assimilation in a nobler and truer light. Comte began by reducing all sciences to mathematical elements. Afterwards he discovered that to explain a higher order of things by a lower is the essence of materialism.

To a meditative spirit, the inner world is nearer than the outer; and therefore the evidence of its reality is stronger by wanting the weakness of a second link. But active life brings home to us the existence of both; we suffer by defying or neglecting the laws of either; and pain and sorrow are often the advanced guard of much stern unyielding truth. In a world where we all endure the friction of things external, it is hard not to believe in objective as well subjective realities.

The truth is, that the primary question belongs to the practical reason, and can be settled by no other criterion. There is a philosophical maxim that we can never speak of the Divine univocally, but only by analogy, figure, or similitude; the cause being that all attributes belonging to the Infinite require words which, if taken literally, must land us in self-contradiction. How vivid an idea do we gain of Omniscience or Omnipotence by saying that it is "a circle of which the centre is everywhere, the circumference nowhere." And what signifies the obvious inconsistency? Deny the Infinite, try to find a place for its centre or circumference, and the inconsistency remains, together with a host of absurd consequences. When of two hypotheses both cannot, but one must be true, and either position lands us in logical inconsistency, it is easy to see that our theoretical understanding will never clear up the inexplicable issue. A rule by which we live and act becomes the surest touchstone of truth or falsehood.

Let us see whether the two worlds in which we live can be practically treated as one. Suppose a bivouac into which a shell descends, certain in another moment, by physical law, to explode. Is the moral law—the effort of this man or that man to escape—equally certain? Arguing abstractedly, most people would hold it so, yet we know that the fact lies otherwise. There is a fatalism among soldiers—"every bullet has its billet"—as there is among nurses who believe that every epidemic must kill its destined prey. One may have trained himself to wish for death, another is indifferent, a third so undecided that he leaves the event to a doctrine of chances, a fourth is simply capricious. Each by a course of life and action has made or modified his present moment for choice, and any one may or may not draw back from the coming peril. Had the falling shell been a splash from a carriage wheel, every man would have shrunk from it. The latter risk is too simple for human ponderings or human self-direction, and in such cases people act by a proximate straightforward instinct.

But on what principles must he who shrinks from either risk really proceed? He is sure that his own movements are in his own power and contingent. He is equally sure that the movements of shell or mud are absolutely determined in calculable curves, and not at all contingent. Acting on these two conjoint data, he succeeds in avoiding death or dirt; and, whatever theorists may write, he would have perilled his success by acting otherwise. Nay, what is much to our purpose, all theoretical men would themselves act upon the like assumption in all cases of practical consequence and emergency.

Suppose dualism banished from the world in fact as well as in theory, the problems of education ought to be as demonstrable as those of geometry or chemical experiment. The paths of men and of comets being equally calculable, because equally subject to uniform law, how comes it that biography and history abound in the records of grossly falsified predictions? Let the courses of nations be tabulated, and statesmanship is made easy. We must owe it to some egregious oversight that criminal punishments are not invariably deterrent. Perhaps the law of the strongest motive has been neglected; if so, re-enact the code of Draco, and virtue will become universal. Till then the supposition must continue only an unverified hypothesis.

If we go back to our starting-point, and ask, can the practical dualism be reduced to a higher unity? our answer must confess a present condition of ignorance. We are so far from knowing what constitutes the thing we call matter, or what the entity we feel within us—our soul or mind—really is, that we cannot tell how they act and react on each other. We fail in tracing our own sensations from their outward antecedents to their impression on our consciousness; and, vice versÂ, we cannot follow our energies from the springs of our volitions outward. While thus baffled, the longed-for unity floats before our inward eye like a dim vision of that intuitive faculty which pronounces subject and object to be ultimately identical, or as a revelation of that religious faith which accepts the incomprehensible, and reposes in the bosom of God.

172 Since Comte's time it has been shown that mental development is no very difficult process, provided we assume that several principles which consciousness distinguishes and sometimes places in antagonism, may be treated as equivalents, and be resolved into each other interchangeably. For example, we have been apt to reverence those who suffered the loss of all things rather than accept the Expedient as the Right, and who died resolute in disallowing the rule of policy to be pleaded in foro conscientiÆ. We have also in common parlance asserted a distinction between these two principles, while holding that the one claims the other for its assured attendant. Honesty, we said, is the best policy; and we never meant thereby that thorough policy is the best policy. What we did mean was that a regard to expediency fails of the success which a straightforward observance of right deserves, and will at last obtain. But to make mental development easy, antitheses must appear fluent, the noble be convertible with the useful, the human with the merely animal. Thus, when Comte adored Clotilde, and Dante immortalized Beatrice, they rehearsed for a millionth time the loves of preadamite plants. Coleridge used to maintain that the test of a philosophy was its ultimate coincidence with common sense. In the theories under consideration, right is philosophically resolved into the greater happiness of the greater number, and this equivalent exactly coincides with the common sense of starving thinkers who are possessed by a fixed idea that the happiness of the impoverished many is promoted by an opportune pillage of the wealthy few.

It is less easy to verify mental development than to theorize upon it, yet verification may not be impossible! If disbelief in a future life, denial of responsibility, duty, and morality, as opposed to expediency, make sufficient way in the world, and if practice harmonize with speculation, progress may become more evidently regress, and Man be proved a brute animal at last. The promising events in France are patent to every one; a less known, but still more encouraging fact, which we learn on scientific authority, is that certain Basuto tribes have lately adopted the (to them) novel custom of cannibalism.

Pending the hoped-for verification, if an identity of human with animal nature be accepted as provisionally true, it may be as well to anticipate a few of its logical consequences. Eating the flesh of our instinctive congeners ought positively to be discountenanced; or, as men and women are simply animal, all carnivorous human beings should on compulsion become cannibals. Despotism being the form of government adopted by us with general applause, as regards the animal kingdom, it cannot be too soon transferred to our own mismanaged nationalities. In a word, our practices in reference to men, women, beasts, fishes, birds, and reptiles, ought to be made uniform. Above all, the new school-boards should be charged with the education of our poor relations, and the linguistic professors of Oxford and Cambridge be instructed to use every effort for the promotion of a universal language. Charity may be thought by some to begin at home, therefore a commencement may be made with the domesticated irrationals, finches spaniels, cats, hackneys, sheep, mules, all asses, all pigs, and all monkey favourites. It is just possible that volatile creatures unaccustomed to habits of reflection (some tribes of light-minded birds, for example) may find abstract ideas and declarative sentences a little difficult. Yet, after all, it need not be such a long step in the case of contemplative owls; and we may then apply the old proverb, "Il n'y a que le premier pas qui coÛte." At all events, the "Simious process," so successful in our world of fashion, will be likely to suffice with every well-disposed chimpanzee; the circle of knowledge will continually widen until the world of animals becomes identified with the world of man. Then, but not till then, the astonished psychologist may cease his useless labours, and record the inauguration of a new era by acknowledging

or, still more conclusively,

173 In an answer to this lecture by "Julian," it is replied that "Belief is the easiest thing possible for weak and ignorant minds." But Julian by belief means acquiescence; and every church-goer is aware that the worthlessness of mere acquiescence is constantly being urged upon them from the pulpit. It holds the same relation to faith that respectability—i.e., acquiescence in the ordinary standard of morality—holds to holiness. The subject is too difficult to be discussed adequately in a note; but in my first Bampton Lecture I have shown how belief, though gained by a struggle, is equally possible for the unlearned and the learned, but in every case it has to be won by an effort (Mal. xi. 12).

174 "Julian" asserts that there ought not to be any difficulty. "There ought not to be the least shadow of doubt whether a given book is from God or not" (p. 5): "If the handwriting of Jehovah in the Scriptures be doubtful, it cannot be divine." But, as Bishop Butler has shown in his "Analogy," there are no difficulties, as regards Revelation, different in kind from those which we daily encounter in common life. "Julian's" easy assertions involve a tremendous difficulty; for what he virtually affirms is that God ought to have acted, in matters of religion, in an entirely different way from that in which He has acted in the ordinary constitution of this world. The whole question turns upon something quite as much out of "Julian's" depth as it is out of mine; namely, what was God's purpose in creating man. By the study of "the constitution and course of nature," and of what is said in Holy Scripture, I arrive at the conclusion that God has, for some wise purpose, been pleased to place man here in a state of discipline. Such a state implies the existence of difficulties; the greatness and degree of these difficulties we can know solely by experience, being able only to guess at the reasons which have made a state of probation necessary for us. But the difficulties must not be insuperable; for if they were, then this present state would be a discipline no longer.

175 Mr. Darwin, in his "Descent of Man" (i. 201–206), enumerates the several stages through which man is supposed to have passed, of which the first stage is an imaginary "group of animals, resembling in many respects the larvÆ of our present Ascidians, which diverged into two great branches—the one retrograding in development, and producing the present class of Ascidians, the other rising to the Vertebrata." He further describes these Ascidians as "hardly appearing like animals, and consisting of a simple, tough, leathery sack, with two small projecting orifices." I must own that in Mr. Darwin's book I can find no proof either of the degradation of the present race of Ascidians or of the development of their cousins, whom Mr. Darwin has summoned into existence to serve his purpose, into apes. The work is full of interesting facts and ingenious speculations, but the speculations can scarcely be said to have consistency enough to merit the name even of a theory.

176 If this struggle existed, it seems unaccountable that we do not find creatures in every stage of evolution. We must suppose that these Ascidian larvÆ existed by millions—at all events, many thousand species of animals exist, all according to this theory, evolved from them; and, as many have failed and become our present Ascidians, and others were content to remain as they were, the number of possible starters in this race must have been vast. Reasonably, then, we should expect to find creatures in every stage of progress, and at the head numbers pressing closely on man. Instead of this, we find an empty space between each several order, and that between man and the animal second in the race is enormous. "The difference between the mind of the lowest man and that of the highest animal is immense" (Darwin, i. 104).

177 A monkey must walk, and does so quite as frequently as man, but he walks very ill. "The gorilla runs with a sidelong shambling gait, but more commonly progresses by resting on its bent hands. The long-armed apes occasionally use their arms like crutches: ... yet they move awkwardly, and much less securely than man" (Darwin, i. 143). Now the theory of revolution would require that, before men and monkeys separated from some common ancestor, their configuration was the same. How and when did the hands become feet, or, vice versÂ, the feet hands?

178 I do not think that "Julian" can have observed this note. For he retorts upon me that dogs, monkeys, and jackdaws have a conscience, and that what I deduce from it as regards men, would justify a similar conclusion as regards cats and dogs. But I had already pointed out that whatever appearance of the higher moral qualities is to be observed in animals is apparently the result of contact with man. It is part of the present constitution of things that certain animals have been domesticated, and over these the "dominion" given to man (Gen. i. 28) is very large. I cannot see how any animal could be domesticated if it were quite incapable of quasi-moral qualities. I see then no difficulty in a domestic animal having a sort of conscience: without it a dog could scarcely be faithful. And note, too, that this rudimentary conscience in a dog implies responsibility in it quite as much as man's more perfect conscience does in man. The dog's responsibility is to his master; to whom is his master responsible? Still, as regards these rudiments of conscience, I cannot see any real proof for more than a very curious influence of man's qualities upon those of animals brought into contact with him. With Mr. Darwin (i. 89) I hold that "man only can with certainty be ranked as a moral being;" and that as regards conscience "man differs profoundly from the lower animals" (ib.) I do not hold, however, as "Julian" imagines, that conscience is an unerring guide. The exact contrary is implied in Matt. vi. 23. Conscience needs more than itself to guide men aright.

179 "Julian" considers that I must be "one of those who believe a stop occurs in the middle of the second verse of Gen. i., which severs the preadamite world from the world as it now is." I answer that I am one of those who know a little Hebrew, and I am therefore aware that the verb rendered was in verse 2 is not a copula, but means continued existence. As regards the geologic notions ascribed to me by "Julian," I can only express my regret that scientific men should persist in ascribing to theologians mere nonsense. Nothing is easier than to slay men of straw, but is it worth the trouble? I would recommend him to read a discussion upon the Mosaic record in the last chapter of [Mr. Capes'] "Reasons of Returning to the Church of England." He would then see that the opinions of theologians are not so puerile as he supposes.

180 The publishers have asked me whether I have any remarks to make on "Julian's" Reply. A few lines will be sufficient for all I have to say.

"Julian" quotes (page 16) a sentence within inverted commas, as mine, which the reader will in vain search for in my Lecture.

He, on page 17, attributes to me, for the purpose of exciting ridicule, a statement which I never dreamed of making. Yet he adds: "The words are Dr. Stoughton's, and you may read them for sixpence."

He concedes the point maintained in the first twenty-six pages of my Lecture, by remarking: "We do not say that miracles are improbable or impossible."

Although I distinctly explain that my argument in the remainder of the Lecture is confined to the miracles ascribed to Christ, "Julian" simply indulges in an attack on the authenticity and genuineness of the Pentateuch. He concludes by saying: "The New Testament stands on no better foundation, although we need not enter on that question now." Most people will think this was the very question on which "Julian" ought to have entered, in answer to a Lecture on "The Miraculous Evidences of Christianity."

Exception has been taken to what I have said respecting remarkable coincidences between natural events and historical facts (p. 200). Some of my remarks, as the foot-note indicates, were suggested by one of the most thoughtful of modern Continental divines. I therefore subjoin the following passage:—

"There is a mysterious harmony between the natural and the moral, between facts of nature and facts of history, manifest in what we call the 'wonderful' (mirabile), as distinct from what is properly called the 'miraculous' (miraculum). While the miracle, properly speaking, implies a violation of the laws of nature, the wonderful, which is closely connected with it, is such a coincidence and working together of nature and history as reveals a supernatural result to the religious perceptions, while the natural explanation still holds good for the understanding. The march of Napoleon into Russia, pregnant with results, and the severe winter; the invincible Armada of Philip the Second, and the sudden storm (afffavit deus et dissiparit eos), serve as examples of the 'wonderful' in the sense referred to. There is in these things a surprising and unaccountable harmony of nature and history, and yet all is natural; no law is broken, but the coincidence is inexplicable. Wonders such as these continually present themselves to us, both in the world at large and in the lives of individuals. There is, generally speaking, an unaccountable power of nature which plays its part in the historical and moral complications of human life; and it cannot escape the notice of the careful observer that wonderful coincidences often occur, which to reason may appear only as an extraordinary, inexplicable chance; to the poet as a profound play of the spirit of the world, and an active presence of a divine phantasy in the world's progress;—combinations which lie beyond the range of rational computation, and which, like genii, scorn the narrow laws of human knowledge;—but in which the Christian discerns the finger of God. But he who truly recognizes the finger of God in these strange coincidences must be led on to a recognition of the actually miraculous. The wonderful is only the half-developed, unperfected miracle. The wonderful possesses that ambiguous character, half chance, half providence, half natural, half divine, just because the coincidence of the holy and the natural is external only; and faith must still demand a relation wherein nature and freedom—separate in the usual course of events—shall not only seek one another in wonderful configurations, shall not only approach one another, but be immediately and essentially united; faith must still long for an unequivocal sign, of which it can say, Here is God, and not nature. This sign is given in the sacred history of Christ; a sign which is spoken against, and which is set for the fall of many, and for the rising again of many."—Martensen's "Christian Dogmatics," p. 222.

181 The following quotation from Mr. Lecky, who is a witness of the most unexceptionable character, sets forth in a striking light the solitary grandeur of the character of Christ as it has been depicted in the Gospels. "It was reserved for Christianity to present to the world an ideal character which throughout all the changes of eighteen centuries has inspired the hearts of men with an impassioned love; has shown itself capable of acting on all ages, nations, temperaments, and conditions; has not only been the highest pattern of virtue, but the strongest incentive to its practice; and has exercised so deep an influence that it may be truly said that the simple record of three short years of active life has done more to regenerate and to soften mankind than all the disquisitions of philosophers, and all the exhortations of moralists. This has, indeed, been the well-spring of whatever is best and purest in the Christian life. Amid all the sins and failings, amid all the priestcraft and persecution and fanaticism that has defaced the Church, it has preserved in the example and character of its Founder an enduring principle of regeneration."—Lecky's "History of Morals," vol. ii., p. 9.

Mr. Lecky distinctly admits that it is an historical fact that the Christ of the Gospels has exerted a power compared with which that of all characters, whether real or mythical, has been inconsiderable. A true philosophy must account for this unique power possessed by Jesus Christ. If the character is a fiction, why is it that it has exerted an influence compared with which all other fictions have been feebleness? If Jesus Christ was a great man only, why "has He done more to regenerate mankind than all the disquisitions of philosophers, and all the exhortations of moralists"? Why has He left immeasurably behind Him all other great men who have ever lived? The historical truth of the Divine character portrayed in the Gospels adequately accounts for this mighty influence. Nothing else does. A character which leaves every other human character indefinitely behind it, must belong to the supernatural, not to the natural, order of things. It is a moral and spiritual miracle. To suppose that such a character has been generated by the slow and gradual action of natural laws, contradicts alike the acts of history and the principles of philosophy. Nature recognizes no mighty leaps in her order of production.