AIDS TO REFLECTION IN THE FORMATION OF A MANLY CHARACTER, ON THE SEVERAL GROUNDS OF PRUDENCE, MORALITY, AND RELIGION. (continued 7)

Of poor Jacob Behmen I have delivered my sentiments at large in another work. Those who have condescended to look into his writings must know, that his characteristic errors are; first, the mistaking the accidents and peculiarities of his own over-wrought mind for realities and modes of thinking common to all minds: and secondly, the confusion of nature, that is, the active powers communicated to matter, with God the Creator. And if the same persons have done more than merely looked into the present volume, they must have seen, that to eradicate, and, if possible, to preclude both the one and the other stands prominent among its avowed objects.[156]

Of William Law's works I am acquainted with the "Serious Call;" and besides this I remember to have read a small tract on Prayer, if I mistake not, as I easily may, it being at least six-and-twenty years[157] since I saw it. He may in this or in other tracts have quoted the same passages from the fourth Gospel as I have done. But surely this affords no presumption that my conclusions are the same with his; still less, that they are drawn from the same premisses: and least of all, that they were adopted from his writings. Whether Law has used the phrase, assimilation by faith, I know not; but I know that I should expose myself to a just charge of an idle parade of my reading, if I recapitulated the tenth part of the authors, ancient, and modern, Romish and Reformed, from Law to Clemens Alexandrinus and Irenæus, in whose works the same phrase occurs in the same sense. And after all, on such a subject how worse than childish is the whole dispute!

Is the fourth Gospel authentic? And is the interpretation I have given, true or false? These are the only questions which a wise man would put, or a Christian be anxious to answer. I not only believe it to be the true sense of the texts; but I assert that it is the only true, rational, and even tolerable sense. And this position alone I conceive myself interested in defending. I have studied with an open and fearless spirit the attempts of sundry learned critics of the Continent, to invalidate the authenticity of this Gospel, before and since Eichhorn's Vindication. The result has been a clearer assurance and (as far as this was possible) a yet deeper conviction of the genuineness of all the writings, which the Church has attributed to this Apostle. That those, who have formed an opposite conclusion, should object to the use of expressions which they had ranked among the most obvious marks of spuriousness, follows as a matter of course. But that men, who with a clear and cloudless assent receive the sixth chapter of this Gospel as a faithful, nay, inspired record of an actual discourse, should take offence at the repetition of words which the Redeemer himself, in the perfect foreknowledge that they would confirm the disbelieving, alienate the unsteadfast, and transcend the present capacity even of his own Elect, had chosen as the most appropriate; and which, after the most decisive proofs, that they were misinterpreted by the greater number of his hearers, and not understood by any, he nevertheless repeated with stronger emphasis and without comment as the only appropriate symbols of the great truth he was declaring, and to realize which εγενετο σαρξ;[158] —that in their own discourses these men should hang back from all express reference to these words, as if they were afraid or ashamed of them, though the earliest recorded ceremonies and liturgical forms of the primitive Church are absolutely inexplicable, except in connexion with this discourse, and with the mysterious and spiritual, not allegorical and merely ethical, import of the same; and though this import is solemnly and in the most unequivocal terms asserted and taught by their own Church, even in her Catechism, or compendium of doctrines necessary for all her members;—this I may, perhaps, understand; but this I am not able to vindicate or excuse.

There is, however, one opprobrious phrase which it may be profitable for my younger readers that I should explain, namely, Mysticism. And for this purpose I will quote a sentence or two from a Dialogue which, had my prescribed limits permitted, I should have attached to the present work; but which with an Essay on the Church, as instituted by Christ, and as an establishment of the State, and a series of letters on the right and the superstitious use and estimation of the Bible, will appear in a small volume by themselves, should the reception given to the present volume encourage or permit the publication.[159]

MYSTICS AND MYSTICISM.

Antinöus.—"What do you call Mysticism? And do you use the word in a good or a bad sense?"

Nöus.—"In the latter only; as far, at least, as we are now concerned with it. When a man refers to inward feelings and experiences, of which mankind at large are not conscious, as evidences of the truth of any opinion—such a man I call a Mystic: and the grounding of any theory or belief on accidents and anomalies of individual sensations or fancies, and the use of peculiar terms invented, or perverted from their ordinary significations, for the purpose of expressing these idiosyncrasies and pretended facts of interior consciousness, I name Mysticism. Where the error consists simply in the Mystic's attaching to these anomalies of his individual temperament the character of reality, and in receiving them as permanent truths, having a subsistence in the Divine Mind, though revealed to himself alone; but entertains this persuasion without demanding or expecting the same faith in his neighbours—I should regard it as a species of enthusiasm, always indeed to be deprecated, but yet capable of co-existing with many excellent qualities both of head and heart. But when the Mystic by ambition or still meaner passions, or (as sometimes is the case) by an uneasy and self-doubting state of mind which seeks confirmation in outward sympathy, is led to impose his faith, as a duty, on mankind generally: and when with such views he asserts that the same experiences would be vouchsafed, the same truths revealed, to every man but for his secret wickedness and unholy will—such a Mystic is a Fanatic, and in certain states of the public mind a dangerous member of society. And most so in those ages and countries in which Fanatics of elder standing are allowed to persecute the fresh competitor. For under these predicaments, Mysticism, though originating in the singularities of an individual nature, and therefore essentially anomalous, is nevertheless highly contagious. It is apt to collect a swarm and cluster circum fana, around the new fane: and therefore merits the name of Fanaticism, or as the Germans say, Schwärmerey, that is, swarm-making."

We will return to the harmless species—the enthusiastic Mystics;—a species that may again be subdivided into two ranks. And it will not be other than germane to the subject, if I endeavour to describe them in a sort of allegory, or parable. Let us imagine a poor pilgrim benighted in a wilderness or desert, and pursuing his way in the starless dark with a lantern in his hand. Chance or his happy genius leads him to an Oasis or natural Garden, such as in the creations of my youthful fancy I supposed Enos[160] the Child of Cain to have found. And here, hungry and thirsty, the way-wearied man rests at a fountain; and the taper of his lantern throws its light on an over-shadowing tree, a boss of snow-white blossoms, through which the green and growing fruits peeped, and the ripe golden fruitage glowed. Deep, vivid, and faithful are the impressions, which the lovely Imagery comprised within the scanty circle of light, makes and leaves on his memory! But scarcely has he eaten of the fruits and drunk of the fountain, ere scared by the roar and howl from the desart he hurries forward: and as he passes with hasty steps through grove and glade, shadows and imperfect beholdings and vivid fragments of things distinctly seen blend with the past and present shapings of his brain. Fancy modifies sight. His dreams transfer their forms to real objects; and these lend a substance and an outness to his dreams. Apparitions greet him; and when at a distance from this enchanted land, and on a different track, the dawn of day discloses to him a caravan, a troop of his fellow-men, his memory, which is itself half fancy, is interpolated afresh by every attempt to recall, connect, and piece out his recollections. His narration is received as a madman's tale. He shrinks from the rude laugh and contemptuous sneer, and retires into himself. Yet the craving for sympathy, strong in proportion to the intensity of his convictions, impels him to unbosom himself to abstract auditors; and the poor Quietist becomes a Penman, and, all too poorly stocked for the writer's trade, he borrows his phrases and figures from the only writings to which he has had access, the sacred books of his religion. And thus I shadow out the enthusiast Mystic of the first sort; at the head of which stands the illuminated Teutonic theosopher and shoemaker, honest Jacob Behmen, born near Gorlitz, in Upper Lusatia, in the 17th of our Elizabeth's reign, and who died in the 22nd of her successor's.

To delineate a Mystic of the second and higher order, we need only endow our pilgrim with equal gifts of nature, but these developed and displayed by all the aids and arts of education and favourable fortune. He is on his way to the Mecca of his ancestral and national faith, with a well-guarded and numerous procession of merchants and fellow-pilgrims, on the established track. At the close of day the caravan has halted: the full moon rises on the desert: and he strays forth alone, out of sight but to no unsafe distance; and chance leads him too, to the same oasis or Islet of Verdure on the Sea of Sand. He wanders at leisure in its maze of beauty and sweetness, and thrids his way through the odorous and flowering thickets into open spots of greenery, and discovers statues and memorial characters, grottos, and refreshing caves. But the moonshine, the imaginative poesy of nature, spreads its soft shadowy charm over all, conceals distances, and magnifies heights, and modifies relations: and fills up vacuities with its own whiteness, counterfeiting substance; and where the dense shadows lie, makes solidity imitate hollowness; and gives to all objects a tender visionary hue and softening. Interpret the moonlight and the shadows as the peculiar genius and sensibility of the individual's own spirit: and here you have the other sort: a Mystic, an Enthusiast of a nobler breed—a Fenelon. But the residentiary, or the frequent visitor of the favoured spot, who has scanned its beauties by steady day-light, and mastered its true proportions and lineaments, he will discover that both pilgrims have indeed been there. He will know, that the delightful dream, which the latter tells, is a dream of truth; and that even in the bewildered tale of the former there is truth mingled with the dream.

But the Source, the Spring-head, of the Charges which I anticipate, lies deep. Materialism, conscious and avowed Materialism, is in ill repute: and a confessed Materialist therefore a rare character. But if the faith be ascertained by the fruits: if the predominant, though most often unsuspected, persuasion is to be learnt from the influences, under which the thoughts and affections of the man move and take their direction; I must reverse the position. Only not all are Materialists. Except a few individuals, and those for the most part of a single sect: every one, who calls himself a Christian, holds himself to have a soul as well as a body. He distinguishes mind from matter, the subject of his consciousness from the objects of the same. The former is his mind: and he says, it is immaterial. But though subject and substance are words of kindred roots, nay, little less than equivalent terms, yet nevertheless it is exclusively to sensible objects, to bodies, to modifications of matter, that he habitually attaches the attributes of reality, of substance. Real and tangible, substantial and material, are synonyms for him. He never indeed asks himself, what he means by Mind? But if he did, and tasked himself to return an honest answer—as to what, at least, he had hitherto meant by it—he would find, that he had described it by negatives, as the opposite of bodies, for example, as a somewhat opposed to solidity, to visibility, and the like, as if you could abstract the capacity of a vessel, and conceive of it as a somewhat by itself, and then give to the emptiness the properties of containing, holding, being entered, and so forth. In short, though the proposition would perhaps be angrily denied in words, yet in fact he thinks of his mind, as a property, or accident of a something else, that he calls a soul or spirit: though the very same difficulties must recur, the moment he should attempt to establish the difference. For either this soul or spirit is nothing but a thinner body, a finer mass of matter: or the attribute of self-subsistency vanishes from the soul on the same grounds, on which it is refused to the mind.

I am persuaded, however, that the dogmatism of the Corpuscular School, though it still exerts an influence on men's notions and phrases, has received a mortal blow from the increasingly dynamic spirit of the physical sciences now highest in public estimation. And it may safely be predicted that the results will extend beyond the intention of those, who are gradually effecting this revolution. It is not chemistry alone that will be indebted to the genius of Davy, Oersted, and their compeers: and not as the founder of physiology and philosophic anatomy alone, will mankind love and revere the name of John Hunter. These men have not only taught, they have compelled us to admit, that the immediate objects of our senses, or rather the grounds of the visibility and tangibility of all objects of sense, bear the same relation and similar proportion to the intelligible object—that is, to the object which we actually mean when we say, "It is such or such a thing," or "I have seen this or that,"—as the paper, ink, and differently combined straight and curved lines of an edition of Homer bear to what we understand by the words Iliad and Odyssey. Nay, nothing would be more easy than so to construct the paper, ink, painted capitals, and the like, of a printed disquisition on the eye, or the muscles and cellular texture (the flesh) of the human body, as to bring together every one of the sensible and ponderable stuffs or elements, that are sensuously perceived in the eye itself, or in the flesh itself. Carbon and nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen, sulphur, phosphorus, and one or two metals and metallic bases, constitute the whole. It cannot be these, therefore, that we mean by an eye, by our body. But perhaps it may be a particular combination of these? But here comes a question: In this term do you or do you not include the principle, the operating cause, of the combination? If not, then detach this eye from the body. Look steadily at it—as it might lie on the marble slab of a dissecting room. Say it were the eye of a murderer, a Bellingham: or the eye of a murdered patriot, a Sidney!—Behold it, handle it, with its various accompaniments or constituent parts, of tendon, ligament, membrane, blood-vessel, gland, humours; its nerves of sense, of sensation, and of motion. Alas! all these names like that of the organ itself, are so many Anachronisms, figures of speech to express that which has been: as when the Guide points with his finger to a heap of stones, and tells the traveller, "That is Babylon, or Persepolis."—Is this cold jelly the light of the body? Is this the Micranthropos in the marvellous microcosm? Is this what you mean when you well define the eye as the telescope and the mirror of the soul, the seat and agent of an almost magical power?

Pursue the same inquisition with every other part of the body, whether integral or simply ingredient; and let a Berzelius or a Hatchett be your interpreter, and demonstrate to you what it is that in each actually meets your senses. And when you have heard the scanty catalogue, ask yourself if these are indeed the living flesh, the blood of life? Or not far rather—I speak of what, as a man of common sense, you really do, not what, as a philosopher, you ought to believe—is it not, I say, far rather the distinct and individualized agency that by the given combinations utters and bespeaks its presence? Justly and with strictest propriety of language may I say, speaks. It is to the coarseness of our senses, or rather to the defect and limitation of our percipient faculty, that the visible object appears the same even for a moment. The characters, which I am now shaping on this paper, abide. Not only the forms remain the same, but the particles of the colouring stuff are fixed, and, for an indefinite period at least, remain the same. But the particles that constitute the size, the visibility of an organic structure[162] are in perpetual flux. They are to the combining and constitutive power as the pulses of air to the voice of a discourser; or of one who sings a roundelay. The same words may be repeated; but in each second of time the articulated air hath passed away, and each act of articulation appropriates and gives momentary form to a new and other portion. As the column of blue smoke from a cottage chimney in the breathless summer noon, or the steadfast-seeming cloud on the edge-point of a hill in the driving air-current, which momently condensed and recomposed is the common phantom of a thousand successors;—such is the flesh, which our bodily eyes transmit to us; which our palates taste; which our hands touch.

But perhaps the material particles possess this combining power by inherent reciprocal attractions, repulsions, and elective affinities; and are themselves the joint artists of their own combinations? I will not reply, though well I might, that this would be to solve one problem by another, and merely to shift the mystery. It will be sufficient to remind the thoughtful querist, that ever herein consists the essential difference, the contra-distinction, of an organ from a machine; that not only the characteristic shape is evolved from the invisible central power, but the material mass itself is acquired by assimilation. The germinal power of the plant transmutes the fixed air and the elementary base of water into grass or leaves; and on these the organific principle in the ox or the elephant exercises an alchemy still more stupendous. As the unseen agency weaves its magic eddies, the foliage becomes indifferently the bone and its marrow, the pulpy brain, or the solid ivory. That what you see is blood, is flesh, is itself the work, or shall I say, the translucence, of the invisible Energy, which soon surrenders or abandons them to inferior powers (for there is no pause nor chasm in the activities of Nature), which repeat a similar metamorphosis according to their kind;—these are not fancies, conjectures, or even hypotheses, but facts; to deny which is impossible, not to reflect on which is ignominious. And we need only reflect on them with a calm and silent spirit to learn the utter emptiness and unmeaningness of the vaunted Mechanico-corpuscular Philosophy, with both its twins, Materialism on the one hand, and Idealism, rightlier named Subjective Idolism, on the other: the one obtruding on us a World of Spectres and Apparitions; the other a mazy Dream!

Let the Mechanic or Corpuscular Scheme, which in its absoluteness and strict consistency was first introduced by Des Cartes, be judged by the results. By its fruits shall it be known.

In order to submit the various phenomena of moving bodies to geometrical construction, we are under the necessity of abstracting from corporeal substance all its positive properties, and obliged to consider bodies as differing from equal portions of space[163] only by figure and mobility. And as a fiction of science, it would be difficult to overvalue this invention. It possesses the same merits in relation to Geometry that the atomic theory has in relation to algebraic calculus. But in contempt of common sense, and in direct opposition to the express declarations of the inspired historian (Genesis i.) and to the tone and spirit of the Scriptures throughout, Des Cartes propounded it as truth of fact: and instead of a World created and filled with productive forces by the Almighty Fiat, left a lifeless Machine whirled about by the dust of its own Grinding: as if Death could come from the living Fountain of Life; Nothingness and Phantom from the Plenitude of Reality! the Absoluteness of Creative Will!

Holy! Holy! Holy! let me be deemed mad by all men, if such be thy ordinance: but, O! from such madness save and preserve me, my God!

When, however, after a short interval, the genius of Kepler, expanded and organized in the soul of Newton, and there (if I may hazard so bold an expression) refining itself into an almost celestial clearness, had expelled the Cartesian vortices;[164] then the necessity of an active power, of positive forces present in the material universe, forced itself on the conviction. For as a Law without a Law-giver is a mere abstraction; so a Law without an Agent to realize it, a Constitution without an abiding Executive, is, in fact, not a Law but an Idea. In the profound emblem of the great tragic poet, it is the powerless Prometheus fixed on a barren Rock. And what was the result? How was this necessity provided for? God himself—my hand trembles as I write! Rather, then, let me employ the word, which the religious feeling, in its perplexity suggested as the substitute—the Deity itself was declared to be the real agent, the actual gravitating power! The law and the law-giver were identified. God (says Dr. Priestley) not only does, but is every thing. Jupiter est quodcunque vides. And thus a system, which commenced by excluding all life and immanent activity from the visible universe and evacuating the natural world of all nature, ended by substituting the Deity, and reducing the Creator to a mere anima mundi: a scheme that has no advantage over Spinosism but its inconsistency, which does indeed make it suit a certain Order of intellects, who, like the pleuronectæ (or flat fish) in ichthyology which have both eyes on the same side, never see but half of a subject at one time, and forgetting the one before they get to the other are sure not to detect any inconsistency between them.

And what has been the consequence? An increasing unwillingness to contemplate the Supreme Being in his personal attributes: and thence a distaste to all the peculiar doctrines of the Christian Faith, the Trinity, the Incarnation of the Son of God, and Redemption. The young and ardent, ever too apt to mistake the inward triumph in the detection of error for a positive love of truth, are among the first and most frequent victims to this epidemic fastidium. Alas! even the sincerest seekers after light are not safe from the contagion. Some have I known, constitutionally religious—I speak feelingly; for I speak of that which for a brief period was my own state—who under this unhealthful influence have been so estranged from the heavenly Father, the Living God, as even to shrink from the personal pronouns as applied to the Deity. But many do I know, and yearly meet with, in whom a false and sickly taste co-operates with the prevailing fashion: many, who find the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, far too real, too substantial; who feel it more in harmony with their indefinite sensations

and (to use the language, but not the sense or purpose of the great poet of our age) would fain substitute for the Jehovah of their Bible

And this from having been educated to understand the Divine Omnipresence in any sense rather than the alone safe and legitimate one, the presence of all things to God!

Be it, however, that the number of such men is comparatively small! And be it (as in fact it often is) but a brief stage, a transitional state, in the process of intellectual Growth! Yet among a numerous and increasing class of the higher and middle ranks, there is an inward withdrawing from the Life and Personal Being of God, a turning of the thoughts exclusively to the so-called physical attributes, to the Omnipresence in the counterfeit form of ubiquity, to the Immensity, the Infinity, the Immutability;—the attributes of space with a notion of Power as their substratum, a Fate, in short, not a Moral Creator and Governor! Let intelligence be imagined, and wherein does the conception of God differ essentially from that of Gravitation (conceived as the cause of Gravity) in the understanding of those, who represent the Deity not only as a necessary but as a necessitated Being; those, for whom justice is but a scheme of general laws; and holiness, and the divine hatred of sin, yea and sin itself, are words without meaning or accommodations to a rude and barbarous race? Hence, I more than fear, the prevailing taste for books of Natural Theology, Physico-Theology, Demonstrations of God from Nature, Evidences of Christianity, and the like. Evidences of Christianity! I am weary of the word. Make a man feel the want of it; rouse him, if you can, to the self-knowledge of his need only the express declaration of Christ himself: No man cometh to me, unless the Father leadeth him. Whatever more is desirable—I speak now with reference to Christians generally, and not to professed students of theology—may, in my judgment, be far more safely and profitably taught, without controversy or the supposition of infidel antagonists, in the form of Ecclesiastical history.

The last fruit of the mechanico-corpuscular philosophy, say rather of the mode and direction of feeling and thinking produced by it on the educated class of society; or that result, which as more immediately connected with my present theme I have reserved for the last—is the habit of attaching all our conceptions and feelings, and of applying all the words and phrases expressing reality, to the objects of the senses: more accurately speaking, to the images and sensations by which their presence is made known to us. Now I do not hesitate to assert, that it was one of the great purposes of Christianity, and included in the process of our Redemption, to rouse and emancipate the soul from this debasing slavery to the outward senses, to awaken the mind to the true criteria of reality, namely, Permanence, Power, Will manifested in Act, and Truth operating as Life. My words, said Christ, are spirit: and they (that is, the spiritual powers expressed by them) are truth; that is, very Being. For this end our Lord, who came from heaven to take captivity captive, chose the words and names, that designate the familiar yet most important objects of sense, the nearest and most concerning things and incidents of corporeal nature:—Water, Flesh, Blood, Birth, Bread! But he used them in senses, that could not without absurdity be supposed to respect the mere phænomena, water, flesh, and the like, in senses that by no possibility could apply to the colour, figure, specific mode of touch or taste produced on ourselves, and by which we are made aware of the presence of the things, and understand them—res, quæ sub apparitionibus istis statuendæ sunt. And this awful recalling of the drowsed soul from the dreams and phantom world of sensuality to actual reality,—how has it been evaded! These words, that were Spirit! these Mysteries, which even the Apostles must wait for the Paraclete, in order to comprehend,—these spiritual things which can only be spiritually discerned,—were mere metaphors, figures of speech, oriental hyperboles! "All this means only Morality!" Ah! how far nearer to the truth would these men have been, had they said that Morality means all this!

The effect, however, has been most injurious to the best interests of our Universities, to our incomparably constituted Church, and even to our national character. The few who have read my two Lay Sermons are no strangers to my opinions on this head; and in my Treatise on the Church and Churches, I shall, if Providence vouchsafe, submit them to the Public, with their grounds and historic evidences in a more systematic form.

I have, I am aware, in this present work furnished occasion for a charge of having expressed myself with slight and irreverence of celebrated Names, especially of the late Dr. Paley. O, if I were fond and ambitious of literary honour, of public applause, how well content should I be to excite but one third of the admiration which, in my inmost being, I feel for the head and heart of Paley! And how gladly would I surrender all hope of contemporary praise, could I even approach to the incomparable grace, propriety, and persuasive facility of his writings! But on this very account I believe myself bound in conscience to throw the whole force of my intellect in the way of this triumphal car, on which the tutelary genius of modern Idolatry is borne, even at the risk of being crushed under the wheels! I have at this moment before my eyes the eighteenth of his Posthumous Discourses: the amount of which is briefly this,—that all the words and passages in the New Testament which express and contain the peculiar doctrines of Christianity, the paramount objects of the Christian Revelation, all those which speak so strongly of the value, benefit, and efficacy, of the death of Christ, assuredly mean something; but what they mean, nobody, it seems can tell! But doubtless we shall discover it, and be convinced that there is a substantial sense belonging to these words—in a future state! Is there an enigma, or an absurdity, in the Koran or the Vedas which might not be defended on the same pretence? A similar impression, I confess, was left on my mind by Dr. Magee's statement or exposition (ad normam Grotianam) of the doctrine of Redemption; and deeply did it disappoint the high expectations, sadly did it chill the fervid sympathy, which his introductory chapter, his manly and masterly disquisition on the sacrificial rites of Paganism, had raised in my mind.

And yet I cannot read the pages of Paley, here referred to, aloud, without the liveliest sense, how plausible and popular they will sound to the great majority of readers. Thousands of sober, and in their way pious, Christians, will echo the words, together with Magee's kindred interpretation of the death of Christ, and adopt the doctrine for their Make-faith; and why? It is feeble. And whatever is feeble is always plausible: for it favours mental indolence. It is feeble: and feebleness, in the disguise of confessing and condescending strength, is always popular. It flatters the reader by removing the apprehended distance between him and the superior author; and it flatters him still more by enabling him to transfer to himself, and to appropriate, this superiority; and thus to make his very weakness the mark and evidence of his strength. Ay, quoth the rational Christian—or with a sighing, self-soothing sound between an Ay and an Ah!—I am content to think, with the great Dr. Paley, and the learned Archbishop of Dublin——

Man of Sense! Dr. Paley was a great man, and Dr. Magee is a learned and exemplary prelate; but You do not think at all!

With regard to the convictions avowed and enforced in my own Work, I will continue my address to the man of sense in the words of an old philosopher:—Tu vero crassis auribus et obstinato corde respuis quæ forsitan vere perhibeantur. Minus hercule calles, pravissimis opinionibus ea putari mendacia, quæ vel auditu nova, vel visu rudia, vel certe supra captum cogitationis (extemporaneæ tuæ) ardua videantur: quæ si paulo accuratius exploraris, non modo compertu evidentia, sed etiam factu facilia, senties.[165]

In compliance with the suggestion of a judicious friend, the celebrated conclusion of the fourth Book of Paley's Moral and Political Philosophy, referred to in p. 230 of this volume, is here transprinted for the convenience of the reader:—

"Had Jesus Christ delivered no other declaration than the following—'The hour is coming, in the which all that are in the grave shall hear his voice, and shall come forth: they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation:'—he had pronounced a message of inestimable importance, and well worthy of that splendid apparatus of prophecy and miracles with which his mission was introduced and attested: a message in which the wisest of mankind would rejoice to find an answer to their doubts, and rest to their inquiries.—It is idle to say, that a future state had been discovered already:—it had been discovered as the Copernican system was;—it was one guess among many. He alone discovers, who proves; and no man can prove this point, but the teacher who testifies by miracles that his doctrine comes from God."

Pædianus says of Virgil,—Usque adeo expers invidiæ, ut siquid erudite dictum inspiceret alterius, non minus gauderet ac si suum esset. My own heart assures me, that this is less than the truth: that Virgil would have read a beautiful passage in the work of another with a higher and purer delight than in a work of his own, because free from the apprehension of his judgment being warped by self-love, and without that repressive modesty akin to shame, which in a delicate mind holds in check a man's own secret thoughts and feelings, when they respect himself. The cordial admiration with which I peruse the preceding passage, as a master-piece of composition, would, could I convey it, serve as a measure of the vital importance I attach to the convictions which impelled me to animadvert on the same passage as doctrine.

APPENDIX A.

a synoptical summary of the scheme of the argument to prove the diversity in kind[166] of the reason and the understanding. see p. 143.

The Position to be proved is the difference in kind of the Understanding from the Reason.

The Axiom, on which the Proof rests, is: Subjects, which require essentially different General Definitions, differ in kind and not merely in degree. For difference in degree forms the ground of specific definitions, but not of generic or general.

Now Reason is considered either in relation to the Will and Moral Being, when it is termed the[167] Practical Reason = A: or relatively, to the intellective and Sciential Faculties, when it is termed Theoretic or Speculative Reason = a. In order therefore to be compared with the Reason; the Understanding must in like manner be distinguished into the Understanding as a Principle of Action, in which relation I call it the Adaptive Power, or the faculty of selecting and adapting Means and Medial of proximate ends = B: and the Understanding, as a mode and faculty of thought, when it is called Reflection = b. Accordingly, I give the General Definitions of these four: that is, I describe each severally by its essential characters: and I find, that the definition of A differs toto genere from that of B, and the definition of a from that of b.

Now subjects that require essentially different definitions do themselves differ in kind. But Understanding and Reason require essentially different definitions. Therefore Understanding and Reason differ in kind.

APPENDIX B.

ON INSTINCT:

By Professor J. H. Green.

[This is the discourse an early report of which was the foundation of Coleridge's remarks upon instinct, &c., which appear at pp. 160-164. It was first added as an Appendix to the "Aids to Reflection," in the edition of 1843; being extracted from an Appendix to Professor Green's "Vital Dynamics"[168] 1840, where it appears at pp. 88-96. It was then given without the Professor's introductory words, which we now add.—Ed.]

The following remarks on the import of instinct are those to which Coleridge refers in the "Aids to Reflection" (p. 177, last edition[169]) as in accordance with his view of the understanding, differing in degree from instinct, and in kind from reason; and whatever merit they possess must have been derived from his instructive conversation. They are here inserted in the hope that they may interest the reader in connexion both with the passages of the preceding discourse, and with the writings of Coleridge on this important subject.

What is Instinct? As I am not quite of Bonnet's opinion "that philosophers will in vain torment themselves to define instinct, until they have spent some time in the head of the animal without actually being that animal," I shall endeavour to explain the use of the term. I shall not think it necessary to controvert the opinions which have been offered on this subject, whether the ancient doctrine of Descartes, who supposed that animals were mere machines; or the modern one of Lamarck, who attributes instincts to habits impressed upon the organs of animals, by the constant efflux of the nervous fluid to these organs, to which it has been determined in their efforts to perform certain actions, to which their necessities have given birth. And it will be here premature to offer any refutation of the opinions of those who contend for the identity of this faculty with reason, and maintain that all the actions of animals are the result of invention and experience;—an opinion maintained with considerable plausibility by Dr. Darwin.

Perhaps the most ready and certain mode of coming to a conclusion in this intricate enquiry will be by the apparently circuitous route of determining first, what we do not mean by the word. Now we certainly do not mean, in the use of the term, any act of the vital power in the production or maintenance of an organ: nobody thinks of saying that the teeth grow by instinct, or that when the muscles are increased in vigour and size in consequence of exercise, it is from such a cause or principle. Neither do we attribute instinct to the direct functions of the organs in providing for the continuance and sustentation of the whole co-organized body. No one talks of the liver secreting bile, or of the heart acting for the propulsion of the blood, by instinct. Some, indeed, have maintained that breathing, even voiding the excrement and urine, are instinctive operations; but surely these, as well as the former, are automatic, or at least are the necessary result of the organization of the parts in and by which the actions are produced. These instances seem to be, if I may so say, below instinct. But again, we do not attribute instinct to any actions preceded by a will conscious of its whole purpose, calculating its effects, and predetermining its consequences, nor to any exercise of the intellectual powers, of which the whole scope, aim, and end are intellectual. In other terms, no man, who values his words, will talk of the instinct of a Howard, or of the instinctive operations of a Newton or Leibnitz, in those sublime efforts, which ennoble and cast a lustre, not less on the individuals than on the whole human race.

To what kind or mode of action shall we then look for the legitimate application of the term? In answer to this query, we may, I think, without fear of the consequences, put the following cases as exemplifying and justifying the use of the term Instinct in an appropriate sense. First: when there appears an action, not included either in the mere functions of life, acting within the sphere of its own organismus; nor yet an action attributable to the intelligent will or reason; yet, at the same time, not referable to any particular organ,—we then declare the presence of an Instinct. We might illustrate this in the instance of a bull-calf butting before he has horns, in which the action can have no reference to its internal economy, to the presence of a particular organ, or to an intelligent will. Secondly, likewise (if it be not indeed included in the first), we attribute Instinct where the organ is present; if only the act is equally anterior to all possible experience on the part of the individual agent, as for instance, when the beaver employs its tail for the construction of its dwelling; the tailor-bird its bill for the formation of its pensile habitation; the spider its spinning organ for fabricating its artfully woven nets, or the viper its poison fang for its defence. And lastly, generally, where there is an act of the whole body as one animal, not referable to a will conscious of its purpose, nor to its mechanism, nor to a habit derived from experience, nor previous frequent use. Here with most satisfaction, and without doubt of the propriety of the word, we declare an Instinct; as examples of which, we may adduce the migratory habits of birds; the social instincts of the bees, the construction of their habitations, composed of cells formed with geometrical precision, adapted in capacity to different orders of the society, and forming storehouses for containing a supply of provisions;—not to mention similar instances in wasps, ants, termites; and the endless contrivances for protecting the future progeny.

But if it be admitted that we have rightly stated the application of the term, what, we may ask, is contained in the examples adduced, or what inferences are we to make as to the nature of Instinct itself, as a source and principle of action? We shall, perhaps, best aid ourselves in the enquiry by an example, and let us take a very familiar one of a caterpillar taking its food. The caterpillar seeks at once the plant which furnishes the appropriate aliment, and this even as soon as it creeps from the ovum; and the food being taken into the stomach, the nutritious part is separated from the innutritious, and is disposed of for the support of the animal. The question then is, what is contained in this instance of instinct? In the first place what does the vital power in the stomach do, if we generalize the account of the process, or express it in its most general terms? Manifestly it selects and applies appropriate means to an immediate end, prescribed by the constitution;—first, of the particular organ, and then of the whole body or organismus. This we have admitted is not instinct. But what does the caterpillar do? Does it not also select and apply appropriate means to an immediate end, prescribed by its particular organization and constitution? But there is something more; it does this according to circumstances;—and this we call Instinct. But may there not be still something more involved? What shall we say of Hüber's humble-bees? A dozen of these were put under a bell glass along with a comb of about ten silken cocoons, so unequal in height as not to be capable of standing steadily. To remedy this, two or three of the humble-bees got upon the comb, stretched themselves over its edge, and with their heads downwards, fixed their forefeet on the table on which the comb stood, and so with their hindfeet kept the comb from falling. When these were weary others took their places. In this constrained and painful posture, fresh bees relieving their comrades at intervals, and each working in its turn, did these affectionate little insects support the comb for nearly three days; at the end of which time they had prepared sufficient wax to build pillars with it. And what is still further curious, the first pillars having got displaced, the bees had again recourse to the same manœuvre. What then is involved in this case? Evidently the same selection and appropriation of means to an immediate end as before; but observe! according to varying circumstances.

And here we are puzzled;—for this becomes Understanding. At least no naturalist, however predetermined to contrast and oppose Instinct to Understanding, but ends at last in facts in which he himself can make out no difference. But are we hence to conclude that the instinct is the same, and identical with the human understanding? Certainly not;—though the difference is not in the essential of the definition, but in an addition to, or modification of, that which is essentially the same in both. In such cases, namely, as that which we have last adduced, in which instinct assumes the semblance of understanding, the act indicative of instinct is not clearly prescribed by the constitution or laws of the animal's peculiar organization, but arises out of the constitution and previous circumstances of the animal, and those habits, wants, and that predetermined sphere of action and operation which belong to the race, and beyond the limits of which it does not pass. If this be the case, I may venture to assert that I have determined an appropriate sense for instinct:—namely, that it is a Power of selecting and applying appropriate means to an immediate end, according to circumstances, and the changes of circumstances, these being variable and varying; but yet so as to be referable to the general habits, arising out of the constitution and previous circumstances of the animal considered not as an individual, but as a race.

We may here, perhaps, most fitly explain the error of those who contend for the identity of Reason and Instinct, and believe that the actions of animals are the result of invention and experience. They have, no doubt, been deceived, in their investigation of Instinct, by an efficient cause simulating a final cause; and the defect in their reasoning has arisen in consequence of observing in the instinctive operations of animals the adaptation of means to a relative end, from the assumption of a deliberate purpose. To this freedom or choice in action and purpose, instinct, in any appropriate sense of the word, cannot apply, and to justify and explain its introduction, we must have recourse to other and higher faculties than any manifested in the operations of instinct. It is evident, namely, in turning our attention to the distinguishing character of human actions, that there is, as in the inferior animals, a selection and appropriation of means to ends—but it is (not only according to circumstances, not only according to varying circumstances, but it is) according to varying Purposes. But this is an attribute of the intelligent will, and no longer even mere understanding.

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 co-operation 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.

Man doubtless has his instincts, even in common with the inferior animals, and many of these are the germs of some of the best feelings of his nature. What, amongst many, might I present as a better illustration, or more beautiful instance, than the storgè or maternal instinct? But man's instincts are elevated and ennobled by the moral ends and purposes of his being. He is not destined to be the slave of blind impulses, a vessel purposeless, unmeant. He is constituted by his moral and intelligent will, to be the first freed being, the master-work and the end of nature; but this freedom and high office can only co-exist with fealty and devotion to the service of truth and virtue. And though we may even be permitted to use the term Instinct, in order to designate those high impulses, which in the minority of man's rational being, shape his acts unconsciously to ultimate ends, and which in constituting the very character and impress of the humanity reveal the guidance of Providence; yet the convenience of the phrase, and the want of any other distinctive appellation for an influence de supra, working unconsciously in and on the whole human race, should not induce us to forget that the term instinct is only strictly applicable to the Adaptive Power, as the faculty, even in its highest proper form, of selecting and adapting appropriate means to proximate ends according to varying circumstances,—a faculty which however, only differs from human understanding in consequence of the latter being enlightened by reason,—and that the principles which actuate man as ultimate ends, and are designed for his conscious possession and guidance, are best and most properly named Ideas.