Note 103 — AIDS TO REFLECTION IN THE FORMATION OF A MANLY CHARACTER, ON THE SEVERAL GROUNDS OF PRUDENCE, MORALITY, AND RELIGION. (continued 5)

It has in its consequences proved no trifling evil to the Christian world, that Aristotle's Definitions of Nature are all grounded on the petty and rather rhetorical than philosophical Antithesis of Nature to Art—a conception inadequate to the demands even of his philosophy. Hence in the progress of his reasoning, he confounds the natura naturata (that is, the sum total of the facts and phænomena of the Senses) with an hypothetical natura naturans, a Goddess Nature, that has no better claim to a place in any sober system of Natural Philosophy than the Goddess Multitudo; yet to which Aristotle not rarely gives the name and attributes of the Supreme Being. The result was, that the idea of God thus identified with this hypothetical Nature becomes itself but an hypothesis, or at best but a precarious inference from incommensurate premises and on disputable principles: while in other passages, God is confounded with (and every where, in Aristotle's genuine works, included in) the Universe: which most grievous error it is the great and characteristic merit of Plato to have avoided and denounced.

[104] Take one passage among many from the posthumous Tracts (1660) of John Smith,[105] not the least star in that bright constellation of Cambridge men, the contemporaries of Jeremy Taylor. "While we reflect on our idea of Reason, we know that our Souls are not it, but only partake of it; and that we have it κατα μεθεξιν and not κατ᾽ ουσιην. Neither can it be called a Faculty, but far rather a Light, which we enjoy, but the Source of which is not in ourselves, nor rightly by any individual to be denominated mine." This pure, intelligence he then proceeds to contrast with the Discursive Faculty, that is, the Understanding.

[105] There is a Note on John Smith and his 'Select Discourses' in Coleridge's 'Literary Remains,' 1838, v. iii. pp. 415-19.—Ed.

[106] See Coleridge on Jeremy Taylor: 'Literary Remains,' 1838, v. iii. pp. 295-334, &c.—Ed.

[107] We have the assurance of Bishop Horsley, that the Church of England does not demand the literal understanding of the document contained in the second (from verse 8) and third Chapters of Genesis as a point of faith, or regard a different interpretation as affecting the orthodoxy of the interpreter; divines of the most unimpeachable orthodoxy, and the most averse to the allegorizing of Scripture history in general, having from the earliest ages of the Christian Church adopted or permitted it in this instance. And indeed no unprejudiced man can pretend to doubt, that if in any other work of Eastern origin he met with Trees of Life and of Knowledge; talking and conversable snakes:

Inque rei signum serpentem serpere jussum;

he would want no other proofs that it was an allegory he was reading, and intended to be understood as such. Nor, if we suppose him conversant with Oriental works of any thing like the same antiquity, could it surprise him to find events of true history in connexion with, or historical personages among the actors and interlocutors of, the parable. In the temple-language of Egypt the serpent was the symbol of the understanding in its twofold function, namely as the faculty of means to proximate or medial, ends, analogous to the instinct of the more intelligent animals, ant, bee, beaver, and the like, and opposed to the practical reason, as the determinant of the ultimate end; and again, it typifies the understanding as the discursive and logical faculty possessed individually by each individual—the λογος εν ἑκαστω, in distinction from the νους, that is, intuitive reason, the source of ideas and ABSOLUTE Truths, and the principle of the necessary and the universal in our affirmations and conclusions. Without or in contra-vention to the reason (i.e. the spiritual mind of St. Paul, and the light that lighteth every man of St. John) this understanding (φρονημα σαρκος, or carnal mind) becomes the sophistic principle, the wily tempter to evil by counterfeit good; the pander and advocate of the passions and appetites; ever in league with, and always first applying to, the Desire, as the inferior nature in man, the woman in our humanity; and through the Desire prevailing on the Will (the Man-hood, Virtus) against the command of the universal reason, and against the light of reason in the Will itself. This essential inherence of an intelligential principle (φως νοερον) in the Will (αρχη φελητικη) or rather the Will itself thus considered, the Greeks expressed by an appropriate word βουλη. This, but little differing from Origen's interpretation or hypothesis, is supported and confirmed by the very old tradition of the homo androgynus, that is, that the original man, the individual first created, was bi-sexual: a chimæra, of which and of many other mythological traditions the most probable explanation is, that they were originally symbolical glyphs or sculptures, and afterwards translated into words, yet literally, that is into the common names of the several figures and images composing the symbol, while the symbolic meaning was left to be deciphered as before, and sacred to the initiate. As to the abstruseness and subtlety of the conceptions, this is so far from being an objection to this oldest gloss on this venerable relic of Semitic, not impossibly ante-diluvian, philosophy, that to those who have carried their researches farthest back into Greek, Egyptian, Persian, and Indian antiquity, it will seem a strong confirmation. Or if I chose to address the sceptic in the language of the day, I might remind him, that as alchemy went before chemistry, and astrology before astronomy, so in all countries of civilized man have metaphysics outrun common sense. Fortunately for us that they have so! For from all we know of the unmetaphysical tribes of New Holland and elsewhere, a common sense not preceded by metaphysics is no very enviable possession. O be not cheated, my youthful reader, by this shallow prate! The creed of true common sense is composed of the results of scientific meditation, observation, and experiment, as far as they are generally intelligible. It differs therefore in different countries and in every different age of the same country. The common sense of a people is the moveable index of its average judgment and information. Without metaphysics science could have had no language, and common sense no materials.

But to return to my subject. It cannot be denied, that the Mosaic Narrative thus interpreted gives a just and faithful exposition of the birth and parentage and successive moments of phænomenal sin (peccatum phænomenon; crimen primarium et commune), that is, of sin as it reveals itself in time, and is an immediate object of consciousness. And in this sense most truly does the Apostle assert, that in Adam we all fell. The first human sinner is the adequate representative of all his successors. And with no less truth may it be said, that it is the same Adam that falls in every man, and from the same reluctance to abandon the too dear and undivorceable Eve: and the same Eve tempted by the same serpentine and perverted understanding, which, framed originally to be the interpreter of the reason and the ministering angel of the Spirit, is henceforth sentenced and bound over to the service of the Animal Nature, its needs and its cravings, dependent on the senses for all its materials, with the World of Sense for its appointed sphere: Upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. I have shown elsewhere, that as the Instinct of the mere intelligence differs in degree not in kind, and circumstantially, not essentially, from the vis vitæ, or vital power in the assimilative and digestive functions of the stomach and other organs of nutrition, even so the Understanding, in itself and distinct from the Reason and Conscience, differs in degree only from the Instinct in the animal. It is still but a beast of the field, though more subtle than any beast of the field, and therefore in its corruption and perversion cursed above any—a pregnant word! of which, if the reader wants an exposition or paraphrase, he may find one more than two thousand years old among the fragments of the poet Menander. (See Cumberland's Observer, No. CL. vol. iii. p. 289 290.) This is the Understanding which in its every thought is to be brought under obedience to Faith; which it can scarcely fail to be, if only it be first subjected to the Reason, of which spiritual Faith is even the blossoming and the fructifying process. For it is indifferent whether I say that Faith is the interpenetration of the Reason and the Will, or that it is at once the Assurance and the Commencement of the approaching Union between the Reason and the intelligible realities, the living and substantial truths, that are even in this life its most proper objects.

I have thus put the reader in possession of my own opinions respecting the narrative in Gen. ii. and iii. Εστιν ουν δη, ὡς εμοιγε δοκει, ἱερος μυθος, αληθεστατον και αρχαιτατον φιλοσοφημα, ευσεβεσι μεν σεβασμα, συνετοις τε φωναν· ες δε το παν ἑρμηνεως χατιζει. Or I might ask with Augustine, Why not both? Why not at once symbol and history? or rather how should it be otherwise? Must not of necessity the first man be a Symbol of Mankind, in the fullest force of the word, Symbol, rightly defined—that is, a sign included in the idea, which it represents;—an actual part chosen to represent the whole, as a lip with a chin prominent is a symbol of man; or a lower form or species used as the representative of a higher in the same kind: thus Magnetism is the Symbol of Vegetation, and of the vegetative and reproductive power in animals; the Instinct of the ant-tribe, or the bee, is a symbol of the human understanding. And this definition of the word is of great practical importance, inasmuch as the symbolical is hereby distinguished toto genere from the allegoric and metaphorical. But, perhaps, parables, allegories, and allegorical or typical applications, are incompatible with inspired Scripture! The writings of St. Paul are sufficient proof of the contrary. Yet I readily acknowledge, that allegorical applications are one thing, and allegorical interpretation another: and that where there is no ground for supposing such a sense to have entered into the intent and purpose of the sacred penman, they are not to be commended. So far, indeed, am I from entertaining any predilection for them, or any favourable opinion of the Rabbinical commentators and traditionists, from whom the fashion was derived, that in carrying it as far as our own Church has carried it, I follow her judgment, not my own. But in the first place, I know but one other part of the Scriptures not universally held to be parabolical, which, not without the sanction of great authorities, I am disposed to regard as an Apologue or Parable, namely, the book of Jonah; the reasons for believing the Jewish nation collectively to be therein impersonated, seeming to me unanswerable. Secondly, as to the Chapters now in question—that such interpretation is at least tolerated by our Church, I have the word of one of her most zealous champions. And lastly it is my deliberate and conscientious conviction, that the proofs of such having been the intention of the inspired writer or compiler of the book of Genesis, lie on the face of the narrative itself.

[108] Rom. v. 14. Who were they, who had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression; and over whom, notwithstanding, death reigned?

[109] Slightly altered from Jeremy Taylor's 'Deus Justificatus; or a Vindication of the Glory of the Divine Attributes in the Question of Original Sin, Against the Presbyterian way of Understanding it.' See Heber's edition of Taylor's works, 1822, v. ix. pp. 315-16.—Ed.

[110] This sense of the word is implied even in its metaphorical or figurative use. Thus we may say of a river that it originates in such or such a fountain; but the water of a canal is derived from such or such a river. The Power which we call Nature, may be thus defined: A Power subject to the Law of Continuity (lex continui; nam in naturâ non datur saltus) which law the human understanding, by a necessity arising out of its own constitution, can conceive only under the form of Cause and Effect. That this form (or law) of Cause and Effect is (relatively to the world without, or to things as they subsist independently of our perceptions) only a form or mode of thinking; that it is a law inherent in the Understanding itself (just as the symmetry of the miscellaneous objects seen by the kaleidoscope inheres in, or results from, the mechanism of the kaleidoscope itself)—this becomes evident as soon as we attempt to apply the pre-conception directly to any operation of nature. For in this case we are forced to represent the cause as being at the same instant the effect, and vice versâ the effect as being the cause—a relation which we seek to express by the terms Action and Re-action; but for which the term Reciprocal Action or the law of Reciprocity (Wechselwirkung) would be both more accurate and more expressive.

These are truths which can scarcely be too frequently impressed on the mind that is in earnest in the wish to reflect aright. Nature is a line in constant and continuous evolution. Its beginning is lost in the super-natural: and for our understanding, therefore, it must appear as a continuous line without beginning or end. But where there is no discontinuity there can be no origination, and every appearance of origination in nature is but a shadow of our own casting. It is a reflection from our own Will or Spirit. Herein, indeed, the Will consists. This is the essential character by which will is opposed to Nature, as Spirit, and raised above Nature, as self-determining Spirit—this namely, that it is a power of originating an act or state.

A young friend or, as he was pleased to describe himself, a pupil of mine, who is beginning to learn to think, asked me to explain by an instance what is meant by "originating an act or state." My answer was—This morning I awoke with a dull pain, which I knew from experience the getting up would remove; and yet by adding to the drowsiness and by weakening or depressing the volition (voluntas sensorialis seu mechanica) the very pain seemed to hold me back, to fix me (as it were) to the bed. After a peevish ineffectual quarrel with this painful disinclination, I said to myself: Let me count twenty, and the moment I come to nineteen I will leap out of bed. So said, and so done. Now should you ever find yourself in the same or in a similar state, and should attend to the goings-on within you, you will learn what I mean by originating an act. At the same time you will see that it belongs exclusively to the Will (arbitrium); that there is nothing analogous to it in outward experiences; and that I had, therefore, no way of explaining it but by referring you to an act of your own, and to the peculiar self-consciousness preceding and accompanying it. As we know what Life is by Being, so we know what Will is by Acting. That in willing (replied my young friend) we appear to ourselves to constitute an actual Beginning and that this seems unique, and without any example in our sensible experience, or in the phænomena of nature, is an undeniable fact. But may it not be an illusion arising from our ignorance of the antecedent causes? You may suppose this (I rejoined):—that the soul of every man should impose a Lie on itself; and that this Lie, and the acting on the faith of its being the most important of all truths and the most real of all realities, should form the main contra-distinctive character of Humanity, and the only basis of that distinction between Things and Persons on which our whole moral and criminal Law is grounded;—you may suppose this; I cannot, as I could in the case of an arithmetical or geometrical proposition, render it impossible for you to suppose it. Whether you can reconcile such a supposition with the belief of an all-wise Creator, is another question. But, taken singly, it is doubtless in your power to suppose this. Were it not, the belief of the contrary would be no subject of a command, no part of a moral or religious duty. You would not, however, suppose it without a reason. But all the pretexts that ever have been or ever can be offered for this supposition, are built on certain notions of the Understanding that have been generalized from conceptions; which conceptions, again, are themselves generalized or abstracted from objects of sense. Neither the one nor the other, therefore, have any force except in application to objects of sense and within the sphere of sensible Experience. What but absurdity can follow, if you decide on Spirit by the laws of Matter? if you judge that which, if it be at all, must be super-sensual, by that faculty of your mind, the very definition of which is "the faculty judging according to sense"? These then are unworthy the name of reasons: they are only pretexts. But without reason to contradict your own consciousness in defiance of your own conscience, is contrary to reason. Such and such writers, you say, have made a great sensation. If so, I am sorry for it; but the fact I take to be this. From a variety of causes the more austere Sciences have fallen into discredit, and impostors have taken advantage of the general ignorance to give a sort of mysterious and terrific importance to a parcel of trashy sophistry, the authors of which would not have employed themselves more irrationally in submitting the works of Raffaelle or Titian to canons of criticism deduced from the sense of smell. Nay, less so. For here the objects and the organs are only disparate: while in the other case they are absolutely diverse. I conclude this note by reminding the reader, that my first object is to make myself understood. When he is in full possession of my meaning, then let him consider whether it deserves to be received as the truth. Had it been my immediate purpose to make him believe me as well as understand me, I should have thought it necessary to warn him that a finite Will does indeed originate an act, and may originate a state of being; but yet only in and for the Agent himself. A finite Will constitutes a true Beginning; but with regard to the series of motions and chants by which the free act is manifested and made effectual, the finite Will gives a beginning only by co-incidence with that absolute Will, which is at the same time Infinite Power! Such is the language of Religion, and of Philosophy too in the last instance. But I express the same truth in ordinary language when I say, that a finite Will, or the Will of a finite free-agent, acts outwardly by confluence with the laws of nature.

[111] It may conduce to the readier comprehension of this point if I say, that the equivoque consists in confounding the almost technical sense of the noun substantive, right, (a sense most often determined by the genitive case following, as the right of property, the right of husbands to chastise their wives, and so forth) with the popular sense of the adjective, right: though this likewise has, if not a double sense, yet a double application;—the first, when it is used to express the fitness of a mean to a relative end, for example, "the right way to obtain the right distance at which a picture should be examined," and the like; and the other, when it expresses a perfect conformity and commensurateness with the immutable idea of equity, or perfect rectitude. Hence the close connexion between the words righteousness and godliness, that is, godlikeness.

I should be tempted to subjoin a few words on a predominating doctrine closely connected with the present argument—the Paleyan principle of General Consequences; but the inadequacy of this Principle as a criterion of Right and Wrong, and above all its utter unfitness as a Moral Guide have been elsewhere so fully stated ('The Friend,' vol. ii. Essay xi.[112]), that even in again referring to the subject, I must shelter myself under Seneca's rule, that what we cannot too frequently think of, we cannot too often be made to recollect. It is, however, of immediate importance to the point in discussion, that the reader should be made to see how altogether incompatible the principle of judging by General Consequences is with the Idea of an Eternal, Omnipresent, and Omniscient Being;—that he should be made aware of the absurdity of attributing any form of Generalization to the All-perfect Mind. To generalize is a faculty and function of the human understanding, and from the imperfection and limitation of the understanding are the use and the necessity of generalizing derived. Generalization is a Substitute for Intuition, for the power of intuitive (that is, immediate) knowledge. As a substitute, it is a gift of inestimable value to a finite intelligence, such as man in his present state is endowed with and capable of exercising; but yet a substitute only, and an imperfect one to boot. To attribute it to God is the grossest anthropomorphism: and grosser instances of anthropomorphism than are to be found in the controversial writings on Original Sin and Vicarious Satisfaction, the records of superstition do not supply.

[112] Essay xv. p. 204, Bohn's edition.—Ed.

[113] I have since this page was written, met with several passages in the Treatise on Repentance, the Holy Living and Dying, and the Worthy Communicant, in which the Bishop asserts without scruple the impossibility of total obedience; and on the same grounds as I have given. [See Taylor's 'Doctrine and Practice of Repentance,' c. I. sec. ii., "On the Possibility or Impossibility of Keeping the Precepts of the Gospel;" Heber's ed. of the 'Works,' v. 8, p. 265.—Ed.]

[114] Availing himself of the equivocal sense and (I most readily admit) the injudicious use, of the word "free" in the—even on this account—faulty phrase, "free only to sin," Taylor treats the notion of a power in the Will of determining itself to evil without an equal power of determining itself to good, as a "foolery." I would this had been the only instance in his "Deus Justificatus" of that inconsiderate contempt so frequent in the polemic treatises of minor divines, who will have ideas of reason, spiritual truths that can only be spiritually discerned, translated for them into adequate conceptions of the understanding. The great articles of Corruption and Redemption are propounded to us as spiritual mysteries; and every interpretation, that pretends to explain them into comprehensible notions, does by its very success furnish presumptive proof of its failure. The acuteness and logical dexterity, with which Taylor has brought out the falsehood or semblance of falsehood in the Calvinistic scheme, are truly admirable. Had he next concentered his thoughts in tranquil meditation, and asked himself: What then is the truth? If a Will be at all, what must a will be?—he might, I think, have seen that a nature in a Will implies already a corruption of that Will; that a nature is as inconsistent with freedom as free choice with an incapacity of choosing aught but evil. And lastly, a free power in a nature to fulfil a law above nature!—I, who love and honour this good and great man with all the reverence that can dwell "on this side idolatry," dare not retort on this assertion the charge of foolery; but I find it a paradox as startling to my reason as any of the hard sayings of the Dort divines were to his understanding.

[115] Vol. ix. pp. 5, 6, Heber's edit. ['Doctrine and Practice of Repentance,' c. vi. sec. I.—Ed.]

[116] This passage appears as here in the first edition of the 'Aids,' 1825.—Ed.

[117] The same, slightly different, appears in Coleridge's 'Literary Remains,' 1838, v. iii., p. 328.—Ed.

[118] If the Law worked on the Will, it would be the working of an extrinsic and alien force, and, as St. Paul profoundly argues, would prove the Will sinful.

[119] For a specimen of these Rabbinical dotages I refer, not to the writings of mystics and enthusiasts, but to the shrewd and witty Dr. South, one of whose most elaborate sermons stands prominent among the many splendid extravaganzas on this subject.