PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. (continued 3)

And as little ground is there to take exception or offense at modern astronomy, even on that side of it where difficulties were originally most felt and mooted. For Holy Writ was neither written exclusively nor designed pre-eminently for astronomers. In these matters, therefore, as in all others, it speaks the ordinary language which men employ among themselves in the business of daily life.

Now we know that in the pulse of the organic body its regular beating is occasionally interrupted by a hurried circulation or a momentary stoppage. Is it not in the same way possible that the pulsatory revolutions of the great planetary world do not observe, like a piece of dead clock-work, a mechanical uniformity, but are liable to many deviations and irregularities? If, then, a similar stoppage to that which sometimes occurs in the pulse of man, be here also supposable, as produced by a superior power and external influence, then in the case of such an extraordinary interruption, it is a matter of indifference whether it be said of this wonderful moment that the sun stood still, or (as seems to be the fact) that the earth was held in check and rested in its orbit. And, in like manner, for the changing phenomena of the astronomical day, the common expressions are equally true with the scientific, and equally significant. The sun’s rise, the morning dawn, is, for all men, a figure, or, rather, a fact of pregnant meaning, while the setting sun fills all hearts with a melancholy feeling of separation. Equally true, however, is it, and in a symbolical sense it conveys perhaps a still more serious meaning, when we say, in scientific language, “The earth must go down before the sun can rise;” or, “When the earth goes up, then is it night, and darkness diffuses itself over all.” Or if, perhaps, in the new and quickening spring, instead of the old phraseology, “The sun has returned, has come near to us again,” we were to say, “The earth, or at least our side of it, is again brought nearer to the sun,” would it not be as beautiful and significant a description? And happy, indeed, are those periods of the world wherein, to speak in a figurative but moral sense, that earth-soul which rules in the changes of time—the so-called public opinion, has declined toward, and approached more nearly to, its sun.

It is a remarkable, not to say wonderful, fact, that in ancient times the Pythagoreans held the same system of the universe which modern astronomy teaches, though, perhaps, they were not acquainted with the mathematic calculations of its distances. But still more surprising is it, that while they were thus perfectly acquainted with the number of the planets, and even arranged them in the same order that they are placed by modern astronomers, they admitted into their system two stars which we have not. One of these, as the sun of the gods [Geister-sonne],[23] they placed high above the visible sun. The latter, which they named the “counter-earth,” (αντἱχθν) was placed directly opposite to the real earth. It would seem, therefore, that they regarded these two bodies as the invisible centers of the whole sidereal universe, and, as it were, the choir-leaders or choragi of the apparently orderless and scattered host of heaven. Are these two stars now extinct? or is their light too pure and ethereal to penetrate our dense and thickened atmosphere; or, like so much besides, was it little else than a still surviving tradition from the primitive world? This, however, must ever remain conjectural. As for the fact itself, that the Pythagoreans did so teach, and understood by these names, not merely figurative symbols, but real stars, has been placed beyond doubt by modern investigations into the Pythagorean doctrines. At any rate, their knowledge of these stars must have been acquired by some other means than the telescope of modern astronomy, with which, in fact, they were not acquainted, and nothing but some new observation or phenomenon in the sidereal heavens can ever throw light on this matter. And who shall say that even our present astronomical science shall not advance still further, and that it has not closed too soon, and been in all too great a haste to sum up its doubtless most elaborate and complicated calculations?

Thus did the mind of man advance the first step toward the maturity of physical science, by attaining to a more comprehensive survey of the mundane system, and a more accurate knowledge of his own habitation, of this earthly planet. The next step in this sluggish progress was made by the chemical discoveries of modern times, and especially of the French chemists. In a merely negative point of view, these have been important, as establishing the fact that the old elements, water, for instance, and air, which had long been regarded as simple, are themselves decomposable into other constituents and aeriform parts. And, indeed, that such great powers of nature as these are, and must ever remain so long as the present constitution of the world shall last, could only subsist in the reciprocal dynamical relation of several conflicting forces, a profounder glance at nature would of itself have conjectured and presupposed. But in a positive sense, this second step has carried us very far toward the understanding of the hieroglyphics of nature. Those primary elements of things discovered and numbered by that chemical analysis which has subjected to its experiments almost every form and species of matter, constitute, as it were, the permanent material letters and consonants of the natural world around us. On the other hand, the vowels of human language are represented by the fundamental facts of the magnetism of the earth, together with the phenomena of electricity, the decomposition of light, and the chemical chain of the galvanic pile, in which the inner life of the terrestrial force, and of the eternally-moving atmosphere, as well as the soul whose pulse beats therein, finds an utterance, like a voice out of the lowest deep. And thus, by means of an alphabet of nature, which, however, is still most imperfect, we may hope to make a beginning, at least, and to decipher one or two entire words. But modern chemistry has made a more important advance toward a right understanding of nature as a whole. By analyzing and decomposing all solid bodies, as well as water itself, into different forms of a gaseous element, it has thereby destroyed forever that appearance of rigidity and petrifaction which the corporeal mass of visible and external nature presents to our observation. Every where we now meet with living elemental forces, hidden and shut up beneath this rigid exterior. The proportion of aqueous particles in the air is so great, that, if suddenly condensed, they would suffice for more than one flood. And a similar deluge of light would ensue, if all the luminous sparks which are latent in the darkness were simultaneously set free; and the whole globe itself would end in flame, were all the fiery elements that are at present dispersed throughout the world to be at once disengaged and kindled. The investigation of the salutary bonds which hold together these elementary forces in due equilibrium, controlling one by the other, and confining each within its prescribed limits, does not fall within the scope of our present inquiries, as neither does the question, whether these bonds be not of a higher kind than naturalists commonly suppose? More immediately connected with, as also more important for our general subject, is the result which chemical analysis has so indubitably established, that in the natural world every object consists of living forces, and that properly nothing is rigid and dead, but all replete with hidden life. This colossal mountain range of petrified mummies which forms nature on the whole—this pyramid of graves, piled one over the other, is therefore, it is true, a historical monument of the past—of all the bygone ages of the world in the advancing development of death; but nevertheless, there is therein a latent vitality. Beneath the vast tombstone of the visible world there slumbers a soul, not wholly alien, but more than half akin to our own. This planetary and sensible world, and the earth-soul imprisoned therein, is only apparently dead. Nature does but sleep, and will, perhaps, ere long awake again. Sleep generally is, if not the essence, yet, at least, an essential signature and characteristic of nature. Every natural object partakes of it more or less. Not the animals only, but the very plants sleep; while in the vicissitudes of the seasons, and of their influences on the productive surface of the earth, and, in truth, on the whole planet, a perpetual alternation is perceptible between an awakening of life and a state of slumbering repose. Whatever, consequently, partakes, and requires the refreshment of sleep, belongs, even on that account, to nature. Painters, indeed, have given us pictures of sleeping angels or genii; but the pure spirits sleep not, and stand, in truth, in no need of such rest, and their activity is not subject to this necessity of alternate repose.

The comparison of a sentence in the Mosaic history of the creation, with a passage in the Hindoo cosmogony, somewhat similar in kind, but most different in the application, will serve, perhaps, to place this fact in the clearest light. In the former it is said, “God rested on the seventh day.” Now, in this expression there is nothing to startle us. In explaining it, there is no need to have recourse to a figurative interpretation. It does not allude to God’s inmost nature (which admits not of such alternation of states or need of rest), but simply to His external operations. For in every case where an operation of the Deity takes place, whether in history or nature, an alternation between the first divine impulse, and a subsequent period of repose, is not only conceivable but actually noticeable. For the divine impulse or hand is, as it were, withdrawn, in order that this first impulse of the Creator may fully expand itself, and that the creature adopting it, may carry it out and develop his own energies in accordance therewith. But instead of this correct statement, we have, in the Hindoo cosmogony, that “Brahma sleeps.” While he thus slumbers, the whole creation, with its worlds and mundane developments, is said to collapse into naught. Here, then, a single word hurries us from the sure ground of truth and divine revelation into the shifting domain of mythology. Of Him indeed, who is higher than the angels and created spirits, it is no doubt assumed throughout the New Testament that, while on earth, He slept like other men. Once, too, it is expressly stated, that during a great storm, while His disciples were filled with alarm, He was asleep in the hinder part of the ship; but that when He awoke the winds ceased. But here, also, the case is different. While implying many a great object and instructive lesson besides, this passage, like several others, seems designed to prove that our Lord’s body was no mere phantom; but that He took upon Him a real human form, and was, in truth, a man who stood in need of sleep. And from this we may infer, that sleep is so indispensable a condition of natural existence, that even God Himself, as soon as He condescended to enter its limits by taking upon Him a human body, became subject to nature’s essential law of sleep.

The important part which sleep plays, not only in nature, but also in man, her first-born son, appears from the earliest event that is recorded of his history, even in Paradise. God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and out of his opened side took of his vital substance to invest it with a bodily veil and shape, and to present it before him on his awaking as the gentle helpmeet of his existence. Extremely significant also is the difference in the accounts of man’s and of woman’s material formation. Man is formed of the dust of the earth, and therefore shortly after invested with the dominion of the whole earthly globe as the deputy and vicegerent of Him from whom cometh all lordship and authority. But woman is taken and created out of the bosom or heart of man. Would human wit have ever invented, or even conceived the possibility of this great marvel of creative omnipotence?

This was in Paradise—but with the loss of it man was deprived, in a great manner, of those higher powers of life and those secrets of nature which he had previously possessed and understood. For even in the body of his earthly tabernacle, which had fallen a prey to death, he had become deteriorated, and his organic constitution, as is expressly intimated, fell considerably lower in the scale of sensible existence, and sunk nearer to the level of the brute creation. On this account the cherubic sentinels, with the flaming sword, were placed at the gate of Paradise, that man might not stretch forth his hand to seize again the rights and privileges which he had formerly enjoyed. For now they would only have led to more mischievous abuse and deeper corruption. But since then, many great days of creation have come and gone. Again has the great relation between God and man been restored, and that also between man and the sensible world with the spirits and forces that rule therein, has changed and become new. And now that the beginning is made, and the foundation laid for the Redemption of the world, no man, no one at least who will loyally join the banner of the Redeemer, is forbidden, but every one has freely offered to him the divine, flaming, two-edged sword of the Spirit—or of the Word, and of the thoughts of the heart united to Him, enlightened by Him, and emanating from Him. This fact of itself furnishes at once the answer to the question concerning the secrets of nature, whether, since they are no longer to be kept close from man, impure and wicked hands may drag them to the light, or whether it be not better that they should be touched by the holy and conscientious alone, and faithfully guarded with a pious reserve and religious delicacy.

And here the very context suggests naturally the consideration of the last of the three steps which, following the course marked out for it by God, the human mind has at last made in very modern times toward a true physical science, and a right understanding of the most inmost secrets of nature. It consists in a closer observation and a commencing recognition of a sacred thread of ensouled life—of an internal soul-like link which holds together the whole frame of nature. The thing and force itself are as old as the world and every sphere of existence—all the leaves of tradition and history are full of its manifestations and effects. But the methodical observation and treatment of these phenomena (in which alone the true scientific character consists) dates its commencement within little more than half a century ago. To speak, therefore, agreeably to the measure of time in the slow development of science, it is of yesterday or the day before; and it is even on this account also that I have been constrained to count this third and last advance toward a higher science of nature, as nothing more than a half-step. For it is only a beginning which as yet has gained no firm footing in the minds of men, and, moreover, besides the right and direct road, it has already opened many by-paths of possible error. This only direct road, that higher standard of correct judgment which at the very commencement we alluded to as the guiding rule in these matters, must be sought by philosophy in that divine sword of the Spirit which pierces even to the marrow of life, dividing soul and spirit, and which also is a discerner of spirits. But, if another standard and a higher tribunal is to be set up, then I must leave it to others who, perhaps, know more about the matter than I do, and are better qualified to decide upon it. This spiritual warfare, at any rate, can not be much longer eluded or avoided. O that men would take therein Holy Writ exclusively for their guide! For it, indeed, regards the whole of life, and every important moment of it, as a conflict with invisible powers; as also it tacitly implies, or expressly intimates that the whole sensible world is to be looked upon as nothing else than an almost transparent, and, at all events, a very perishable veil of the spiritual world. To the leader of the rebel spirits the Bible ascribes so great an influence in creation, that it calls him the prince, nay, even the god of this world—the ruler of its principalities and powers. And in order that this might not be taken in a mere figurative sense, and be understood only of a race of men morally corrupt and depraved, these spiritual potentates are in other places expressly called the elementary powers of nature—powers of the air, which in this dark planetary world of ours is compounded of light and darkness, and ever struggling between life and death. The true key and explanation of the whole may, however, lie in the simple sentence—“Death came into the world by sin.” As, then, by the death of the first man, who was not created for, nor originally designed for death, death has passed upon the whole human race; so by the earlier fall of him, who had been the first and most glorious of created spirits, death passed upon the universe—that eternal death whose fire is unquenchable. Hence it is written: “Darkness was on the face of the deep, and the earth”—as the mere grave of that eternal death—“was without form and void;” but the “spirit of God moved on the face of the waters,” and therein lay the first germ of life for the new creation. We here see the difference between all heathen systems of natural philosophy and a divine knowledge of nature, i.e., one acquired in and by God, and also the key for a right understanding of the latter.

If now the dynamic play of the living forces of nature, which is unquestionably a living entity, and has a life in itself though not indeed of and from itself—if this dynamical alternation between life and death be regarded as a simple fact, and man is content to rest there, without seeking to explain it by a higher principle, then will he have ever the self-same One—an all-producing, all-absorbing, ruminating monster, whether we express it poetically, as in mythology, or in the scientific formularies of physiology. Quite different is it, however, if this great pyramid has been built upon the foundation of eternal death. Then is the whole creature of this earthly planet and sensible world merely a commencing life which, so long as the pyramid is still unfinished and incomplete, is, in parts, perpetually relapsing into death—into actual death, or at least into diseases and fractures of various kinds, which are only so many principia or germs of death. Then is nature itself nothing less than the ladder of resurrection, which, step by step, leads upward, or, rather, is carried from the abyss of eternal death up to the apex of light in the heavenly illumination. For, understanding it in this sense, it is impossible to think of nature without remembering at the same time the divine hand which has built this pyramid, and which, along this ladder, brings life out of death. This view, moreover, accounts for the fact, that a state of slumber is essential to nature, and furnishes an explanation why that perpetually-recurring collapse into sleep, which to us appears so near akin to death, should be nature’s proper character. And just as the consuming fire of death appears in the more highly-organized beings to be somewhat subdued and restrained—mitigated or exalted into the quickening warmth of life—so also sleep is only the more than half-enlightened brother of death. And indeed as such, and the lovely messenger of hope to immortal spirits, was he ever regarded and described by the ancients; but that which for them was little more than a beautiful image of poetry is for us the profoundest of truths.

An exalted view and understanding of nature consists, then, in its being contemplated not merely as a dynamical play of reciprocal forces, but historically in its course of development, as a commencing life, perpetually relapsing into death, ever disposed to sleep, and only painfully raising itself, or, rather, raised and lovingly guided through all the intermediate grades into the light. But beneath the huge tombstone of outward nature there sleeps a soul, not wholly alien, but half akin to ourselves—which is distracted between the troubled and painful reminiscence of eternal death, out of which it issued, and the flowers of light which are scattered here and there on this dark earth, as so many lovely suggesters of a heavenly hope. For this earthly nature, as Holy Writ testifies,[24] is, indeed, subject to nullity, yet, without its will, and without its fault: and consequently in hope of Him who has so subjected it, it looks forward in the expectation that it shall one day be free, and have a part in the general resurrection and consummate revelation of God’s glory, before which both nature and death shall stand amazed—and for this last day of a new creation it sighs anxiously, and yearns with the profoundest longing.

LECTURE V. OF THE SOUL OF MAN IN RELATION TO GOD.

A DIVINE science of nature—one, i.e., which is ever looking to and has its root in God, unlike the old heathen physiologies—sees something more in nature than a mere endless play of living forces and the alternations of dynamical action. Contemplating it rather as a whole, and in the connection of its several parts, it traces it from the first foundation on which it was originally raised, up to the final consummation which the Almighty has designed it to attain. Now, to such a mode of studying it, nature appears to be in its beginning, as it were, a bridge thrown across the abyss of eternal death and eternal nothingness. And in perfect agreement with this origin or foundation, it exhibits itself at the outset as a house of corruption, a character which, to a certain degree, it subsequently and long afterward retains. After a while, however, this house of corruption is transformed, by the omnipotence of the good Creator, into a laboratory of new life, and finally is raised into a ladder of resurrection, ascending, or, rather, is made to conduct, step by step, to the highest pitch of earthly glorification, in which nature, too, has a promise that she shall partake. This was the subject of the preceding Lecture, and it naturally enough suggests the further question, whether a similar scale of gradual exaltation exists for the human soul, which, even while it is in many respects akin to mother earth and to nature generally, is, nevertheless, far more excellent, and, by its innate dignity, claims to be regarded as the very head and crown of this earthly creation. The inquiry then, whether the soul of man, gradually rising out of the depths of this perishable existence and the bondage of corruption, up to God, can approach nearer to, and finally be totally identified with Him; or at least, whether it is capable of being united in a perfect and lasting harmony with the superior powers of a higher and a diviner region—this will form the theme of our present disquisition. In discussing it, however, our attention will be directed principally to its psychological aspect—its relation, i.e., to the theory of consciousness. For the moral examination of this subject, even if it be not allowable to assume that it, at all events, is well known, belongs to another department of inquiry.

Now, on this head, the following remark immediately and naturally suggests itself to the reflecting mind. Unless the soul be at unity with itself it can not hope ever to be one with, or to attain to an harmonic relation with that Being, who, as he is the one source and principle of all and on whom all depends, is in himself a pure harmony. But so far is this condition from being fulfilled in the actual state of the human consciousness, that the latter appears rather to consist of pure and endless discord. Fourfold, I said, is man’s consciousness; and I called its four conflicting forces, viz., understanding and will, reason and fancy, its four poles, or chief branches, or even the four quarters of the internal world of thought. How seldom, however, do the understanding and will agree together. Does not each of them prefer to follow an independent course of its own? How seldom do men really and perseveringly will and desire what they clearly see and acknowledge and perfectly understand to be the best! And how often, on the other hand, do we understand little or nothing of that, which yet in the inmost recesses of our hearts, we most desire and wish, and most ardently and determinedly resolve upon! Reason and fancy, too, both in the inner thought and in outward life also, are, on the whole, in hostile conflict with each other. Reason would wish to suppress or at least to dispense altogether with fancy, while fancy, caring, for the most part, but little or nothing for the reason, goes its own way. The will, moreover, unceasingly distracted, is never even at peace with itself, while the reason, standing alone in the endless evolution of its own thought, entangles itself at last in a labyrinth of irreconcilable contradictions. The understanding, again, has so many grades and species, and divides itself among so many spheres and functions, that in this respect we might be justified in saying: This one understanding understands not the other, even though it be equally correct both in itself and in its mode of operation. And thus, too, in the individual: his understanding, the sum, i.e., of all that he understands, consists, for the most part, but of rags and fragments of truth, which often enough do not match very well, and seldom, if ever, admit of being made to blend harmoniously together. And so, too, is it in all that belongs to, and is under the influence of fancy. The subjective views, for instance, and conceits of man—the delusions of his senses, the rapidly changing meteors and unsubstantial phantoms of human passion, are things only too well known, self-evident, and universally acknowledged.

So profound, then, even in a psychological point of view, and apart from the multiplied phases which the moral aspect presents, appears the discord which reigns in our whole mind as at present constituted! Dissension seems to be interwoven into its fundamental fabric. Instead, therefore, of saying the human consciousness is fourfold, with equal, if not with greater correctness, we might and ought to say, it is divided, or, rather, split, into four or more pieces. It is common enough to speak of facts of consciousness. And yet how seldom among philosophers is any thing more meant by this expression than the mere thinking of thoughts, in the eternal repetition of the same empty process in which the thinking Ego thinks itself, and by means of which the Me is, as it were, seized in the very act, and then, as the first beginning, the imaginary Creator and Demiurge of the ideal world, this Me is hung out like a gilded pennon from the top of the whole artificial system.[25] The only fact of the consciousness that really deserves to be so named is its internal dissension. And this discord not only reveals itself in thought between the Me and Not Me, but pervades the whole and all its branches, or parts and forms, its species and spheres, in mind and soul, understanding and will, reason and fancy, which every where manifests itself, and of which the thousandfold material discords of man’s outer life is only the reflection—its natural consequence and further development. From this fact of the manifold and ever-varying dissension of the human consciousness an exposition of philosophy might not inappropriately set out, in order from this point to seek the solution of its peculiar problem, and the right road for the attainment of its end. For the problem of philosophy, as contemplated from this side, would consist in the restoration of that original, natural, and true state of the consciousness in which it was at unity and in harmony with itself. It is a leading error of philosophy that it views the present state of the human consciousness as even its right one, which requires only to be raised to a higher power in order to be cleansed from the taint of commonness of the ordinary way of thinking which clings to it among the ignorant and unphilosophical, and thereupon to be comprised in strangely artificial and seemingly most profound formulæ. But by such an involution to a higher power the error is not got rid of, but rather the evil itself is aggravated, since it is contained in the root itself, and is to be found in the inmost structure of the consciousness. Besides, it can not have been the original constitution of man’s mind to be thus a prey to manifold dissension, and split, as it were, into pieces and quartered. This discord is, undoubtedly, in the true meaning of the word, a fact, the only one which every individual can without hesitation vouch for on the immediate and independent testimony of his own experience. For the cause of this well-authenticated fact we have only to look to that event which revelation has made known, of which each man must perceive the sad traces within his own heart. It began with that eclipse of the soul which preceded and commenced the present state of man, and was occasioned by the intervention of a foreign body between it and the sun which gave it light. But if the soul, the thinking as well as the loving soul, be the center of consciousness, then, in this great and general darkening of the center, the entire sphere, in its whole essence and structure, must have been altered. And, consequently, in its philosophical aspect, and apart from all special moral depravity in the independent actions, evil habits and passions of individuals, the soul is no longer what it was originally, as created and designed by the Almighty.

Thus, then, the whole human consciousness is filled with unmitigated discord and division, not merely in its mixed rational and sensuous or terrestrial and spiritual nature, but thought itself is at issue with life. And, moreover, while in the thought the internal and the external, faith and science, are involved in a hostile contrariety, disturbing and destroying each other, so is it also in life with the finite and the infinite, the transitory and the imperishable. In such a state of things, therefore, and from this point of view, the problem of philosophy, as already remarked, can not well be any other than the restoration of the consciousness to its primary and true unity, so far as this is humanly possible. Now that this true and permanent unity, if it be at all attainable, must be looked for in God, is at all events an allowable hypothesis. For it will not be disputed, except by one who holds both this unity itself and its restitution to be absolutely impossible. But this is a point on which much may be advanced on both sides, and which, therefore, since mere disputing can avail nothing either one way or the other, can only be decided by the fact—the issue of the attempt. On this hypothesis, then, even philosophy must in every case take God for the basis of its speculations—set out from Him, and draw in every instance from this divine source. But then, considered from this point of view, and pursuing this route, it is no idle speculation and simple contemplation of the inner existence and thought alone—no dead science—but a vital effort and an effectual working of the thought for the restoration of a corrupt and degraded consciousness to its natural simplicity and original unity. And this is the way which we have marked out for the course of our speculations, or, rather, the end which we must strive, however imperfectly, yet at least to the best of our abilities, to attain to. And, accordingly, each of the four preceding Lectures, although in free sketchy outline, contains an attempt to put an end to and reconcile some particular schism among those which are the most marked and predominant in the consciousness, and which in essential points must disturb the whole of life. How far in these four introductory essays this problem has been satisfactorily or completely solved and happily settled, is a question which will be best and most fairly tested by the idea of philosophy, as having its true end and aim in the restoration of this corrupt consciousness to its sound state—to its original unity and full energy of life.

The discord between philosophy itself and life was the first that I attempted to get rid of. But now, if in the place of abstract thought and the dialectical reason, we are entitled to look to the thinking and loving soul for the true center of man’s consciousness, then the imaginary partition-wall between science and life at once crumbles away. Our second Lecture was occupied with the discord which subsists between the finite and the infinite—the eternal and the perishable; and, because this involved a problem which can only be solved by life and reality, I therefore confined myself to pointing out the way in which we may hope to discover their unity and equation. With this view, I attempted to establish a vivid conviction that there is a true enthusiasm wherein the illimitable feeling manifests itself as actual, and that even the earthly passion of love assumes, in the holy union of fidelity and wedlock, the stamp of the indissoluble and eternal, and becomes the source of many divine blessings, and of many moral ties, which are stronger, and furnish a firmer moral basis to society, than any general maxims, or than any ethical theory which is built upon such notional abstractions, far more than upon the pregnant results of the experience of life. And lastly, in pure longing, I pointed out an effort of man’s consciousness directing itself to an infinite, eternal, and divine object. But, as this longing can only evince its reality by the fruits it brings forth, I reserved, to a future opportunity, the more precise determination of this question. The theme of our third Lecture was the existence and the reconciliation of that schism which, both in thought and life, divides the internal and the external worlds. If all knowing be a mere process of the reason, then must this discord between the inner and the outer be forever irreconcilable, and we should be utterly at a loss to conceive how a foreign and alien body could ever have found entrance from without into our Me, and become an object of its cognition. But if every species of knowing be positive—if, also, the cognition of the spiritual and divine be nothing else than an internal and higher science of experience, then the idea of revelation furnishes at once the key to explain, while it establishes the possibility of a knowledge of the divine. And this remark admits, also, of application to nature itself, when we consider it in its totality and internal constitution, and speak of a knowledge of these things—of the vital force which rules in it, or its animating soul; for this, indeed, eludes our grasp, but yet speaks plainly to us—to him, at least, who is wise to understand nature’s language. For if, in attempting to understand nature, we isolate her, as it were, and exclude all reference to Him who gave her being, and has assigned, also, her limits and her end—if, in short, we disturb the two poles of a right understanding of nature, then, most assuredly, will the effort be fruitless, and all our labor unprofitable. Man, however, has gone still further, and by transferring the innate discord of his internal consciousness to outward objects, has forcibly rent asunder God and Nature—he has thus divorced the sensible world and its Maker, and set them in hostile array against each other, and thereby brought physical science in collision with the knowledge of divine things and with revelation. Our fourth Lecture, therefore, was consecrated to an attempt to effect here, also, a reconciliation, or, at least, to lay the first stone, and to mark out the road by which alone we could hope to arrive at so desirable a result: and this is a problem which is even the more important the truer it is, that this discord is not confined to science and the scientific domain, but extends, also, to real life, where these discrepant views and modes of thinking are arrayed against each other in so many hostile and conflicting parties. And although, as differing merely as to the form and direction of thought, they do not come forward in so distinct a shape, or under such characteristic names, as the parties in religion and politics, still this dissension is not, therefore, less real and universal, or its effects and influence less noticeable. Of these parties the first, and by far the most numerous, is the sect of the rationalists, who doubt indiscriminately of all things, and test every matter by the standard of their own skepticism. The second class is formed of the exclusive worshipers of nature, and has many members among scientific men; while, lastly, the third consists of those who derive, from the positive source of a divine decision, the law of their thinking and the standard of their judgment. Now, this last party, if it would only go a few steps farther, and draw still deeper from this source, would be able to assign its appropriate place and value to every potence and truth in the other species of thought and knowledge, and even thereby might qualify itself to dissolve and reconcile the all-pervading discord. But inasmuch as they do not adopt this conciliatory attitude toward natural, historical, and even artistic knowledge, so far as they are true, but, on the contrary, in a spirit of animosity, attempt to circumscribe and set negative limits to them, if not absolutely to reject them as worthless and profane—then, when they least wish it, they really sink into a party no less than the other two. And thus, while they might occupy a far higher position, they fall to the level of the rest, and contribute, on their part, an element to the intellectual strife, and tend to promote and perpetuate it. The three parties, then, which by their ruling ideas divide life and age, are the rational thinkers, the worshipers of nature, and those who, in all controverted questions, appeal absolutely to a higher and divine authority; for inasmuch as the sentence of the latter is only of a negative import, it is therefore insufficient to meet all the requisitions of life.

Thus, then, have I led your consideration to four different points, in order to seize and exhibit, in as many different forms and spheres, this great fact of the dissension in man’s consciousness, as it exists at present. In a similar manner, too, a fourfold attempt has been made to remedy its hereditary disease, which has been inherent in it since the original darkening of the soul at the Fall, and, by appeasing the discord which, as it is all-pervading and universal, assumes manifold shapes and forms, to make the first step of return and approximation toward the original harmonic unity. Having considered the matter in these four special points of view, it will not, I hope, appear premature if I now propose the question in a more general point of view, which will embrace the whole human consciousness itself; but, at the same time, limit our consideration of it exclusively to its psychological aspect.

Now it is in nowise difficult to conceive of the human soul as much simpler than it is, and apart from that division of it into several faculties, which is at most, and properly, but an accident of its existence. One of the first among the modern philosophers of Germany, says somewhere of the soul, that the supposition of its existence is superfluous, and that it is a pure fiction.[A] But this statement was the result of his having abandoned in his system the true center of life and consciousness; whoever, on the contrary, adheres steadily thereto, will never concur in a position which simply, as contradicting the general feeling of human nature, requires no elaborate refutation. But as regards the two parts into which the soul is divided, viz., Reason and Fancy—these, at any rate, are no fiction, but exist really and truly within the consciousness, where, as in life itself, they often stand confronting each other in hostile array. This division can not well be called superfluous, but yet it does not admit of being considered absolutely necessary, and belonging to the soul’s original essence. If all thinking were a living cogitation—if the thinking and the loving soul had remained at unity in their true center, then the external methodical thought and the internal productive thinking, meditating, and invention, would not be separate and divorced—at least they would not come into hostile conflict with each other, but would rather be harmoniously combined in the living cogitation of the loving soul. The several forms, too, of a higher love and a higher endeavor, aye, every lawful earthly inclination, would be blended in this harmony of the soul, and no longer stand out as a separate and isolated faculty, occasionally conflicting with all the others. Even the conscience would no longer appear as a special act or function of the judgment, of a distinct and peculiar kind, but would be absorbed in the whole as a delicate internal sensibility and the pulse of the moral life.

As for sensation and memory, they are in any case but ministering faculties, which only appear distinct and independent under the influence of the prevailing tendency to separation and disunion, but on the supposition of a simpler and more harmonious consciousness, would be counted merely as bodily organs. If, then, the soul had not suffered an eclipse—if it had remained undisturbed in the clear light of God—then would man’s consciousness also have been much simpler than it now is, with all those several faculties which we at present find and distinguish in it. In such a case, it would consist only of understanding, soul, and will. For if, according to the three directions of its activity, any one should still be disposed to divide it into the thinking, the feeling, and the loving soul, still this would not be founded on any intrinsic strife or discord, but they would all combine harmoniously together, and in this harmonious combination be at unity among themselves. As for the distinction between understanding and will, that would still remain, since it is essential to mind or spirit, and may, in a certain sense, be ascribed even to the uncreated spirits. But in this garden of the soul of inward illumination—on this fruitful soil of harmonized thought and feeling—they would walk amicably together, and work in common, and would not, as hostile beings, turn aside in opposite directions, or as is mostly the case in actual life, be divided from each other by an impassable gulf, and never meet in friendly contact.

Thus nearly, or somewhat similarly, must we conceive of, and attempt to represent to ourselves, the human mind in its original state, before it was darkened, rent asunder, and condemned to lasting discord, but was as yet eminently simple and perfectly harmonious.

And now as regards understanding and will, as a division of powers essential to the mind or spirit, which, however, as such, is not necessarily inharmonious: the expression already touched upon of another of our modern German philosophers, will serve as a transition to and commencing point for my remarks. According to this memorable assertion with regard to the mind [geist], and which will serve as an appropriate pendent to that last quoted about the soul, the essence of mind or spirit in general consists in the negation of the opposite.[26] Now I can not stop at present to inquire what sense this would give, if applied to the uncreated spirit, and the Creator of all other spiritual beings. But as concerns created spirits: their essence, contrariwise, consists principally in an eternal affirmation. But this, however, they have not of and from themselves, but it is the affirmation of the one to which God has exclusively destined them. But it is not of themselves, but of God and His energy, of whom these created spirits are, as it were, but a ray—a spark of His light—therefore, in this ray, not only sight and understanding, but also thought and deed, will and execution, are simultaneous and identical. And it is in this respect that they are so totally different from men. Now this ray of light, imparted to them from God, is nothing less than the thought of their destination—of the purpose of their being—in a word, their mission, if we may speak after a human fashion, and in the prevailing phraseology. And, indeed, in all ancient languages, the pure created intelligences have these names from that mission which constitutes their essence; for their essence is even perfectly identical with this divine mission or inborn eternal affirmation. To the fallen spirits, on the other hand, the maxim above quoted applies truly enough: their essence consists, not in the divine affirmation, or the mission which they have abandoned, but rather in the eternal, though bootless, denial of their opposite, which is even nothing less than the divine order. For to their ambitious intellect and perverse wills, the latter, in all probability, appeared far too loving, and, therefore, unintelligible; while, to their censorious judgment, it seemed deficient in rigor of consequence, and not unconditional and absolute enough.

All that has hitherto been said reduces itself to the following result. As by the first obscuration and eclipse of the human soul the very body of man was deteriorated, and having been originally created with a capacity of immortality, fell a prey to death, and received the germs, or became liable to many diseases, as roots of death—which is not guilt itself, but the natural result of guilt—so in his consciousness there was then implanted, and has ever since been propagated, a germ of intellectual death, and manifold seeds of error, which, however, are not a new sin, but merely the natural consequences of the first sin and the original corruption of the soul. In four different forms, according to the four cardinal points and fundamental faculties of the human consciousness, does this inborn error and fruitful germ of erroneous and false thinking show and develop itself. We have already spoken of this futile idea of the deadness of all external life, which has taken such deep root in the center of all human thought—in the dead abstract notion and the empty formula, and which, clinging as an original taint to the human mind as at present constituted, renders it so difficult for all those who, not content with merely observing nature, wish really to understand it in its living operation, and, moreover, to imitate in thought its dynamical law, and the inner pulse of its vital forces. For in the abstract notion all this evaporates, and when confined within such dead formularies, the true life of nature quickly becomes extinct. This, therefore, is the primary source of error—the leading species of barren and futile thinking in the abstract understanding. But now this dead and lifeless cogitation of abstract ideas, with its processes of combining and inferring, or of analyzing and drawing distinctions, may be carried on into infinity, as being that wherein the essence or function of reason consists, and also as giving rise to interminable disputes and contradictions. Consequently this form of the reason, which is ever pursuing dialectical disputations, or else skeptically renouncing its own authority, even because it never allows itself to proceed in what alone is its legitimate course, becomes thereby a second source of error and false thinking among men. And, indeed, this erroneous procedure of the dialectical reason, which is incessantly working out or analyzing its abstract notions, is the effect of the present constitution of the human mind; so that no individual can in justice be blamed on its account, nor can its perverted conclusions and corrupting results be fairly imputed to ulterior views and principles of an immoral character.

In considering the imagination as a source of error, we have no need to select the instance of a fancy satanically inflamed to passion, or satanically deluded, or even one of a purely materialistic bias and leaning. For fancy, even in its greatest exaltation and purest form, is at best but a subjective view and mode of cogitative apprehension, and, consequently, as such, is ever a fruitful parent of delusion. How very rarely an imagination is to be found which is not predominantly subjective, is shown precisely in the very highest grade of its development—in the creations of imitative art. Of the exalted geniuses who in single ages and nations have distinguished themselves from the great mass, and attained to that rare eminence—the reputation of the true artist; out of this short list of great names, how few can be selected of whose productions it can be truly said and boasted—Here in this picture we have something more than a mere general view, or the peculiar fantasy of an individual; here life and nature stand before us in their full truth and objective reality, and speak to us in that universal language, which is intelligible to men of all countries and all times! And the same remark applies to the whole domain of scientific thought in general; but especially to physical and historical science.

In like manner, in the sphere of the will, it is not merely immoral volitions, which, as such, must ever be false and wrong, that are exclusively the source of erroneous thought. The spring of those errors which we are at present considering lies in the very form of the will itself, i.e., in the absolute willing, even though its object and end be, in themselves, perfectly legitimate and unexceptionable. That this absolute willing—or, to speak more humanly, and in ordinary language, self-will and obstinacy—is a fundamental and hereditary failing of the human character, as at present constituted, which shows itself in the very youngest children, with the first dawn of reason, and requires to be most watchfully checked, is but too well known to every teacher and every mother. But not in infancy only, but also in the most important and comprehensive relations of life—nay, even in the history of the world—this same absolute willing proves the most pernicious of all the sources of error and corruption in the soul and life of man, even when its object is not unmitigatedly bad, or when, perhaps, it may even deserve to be called great and noble. It is through this absolute willing that the sovereign with unlimited authority, even though he be gifted with a strong and comprehensive intellect, and possessed of many estimable qualities and moral virtues, becomes, nevertheless, the oppressor of his people and the merciless tyrant. Through it, also, in states which are not monarchical, but where the supreme authority is divided among several estates, views and principles which, calmly considered and duly limited by opposing principles, are true and beneficial, by being advanced absolutely, and without qualification, are converted into so many violent factions, which, distracting the minds of men and inflaming their passions, produce a wide-spread and fearful anarchy.

The dead abstract notions of the intellect, the dialectical disputes of the reason, the purely subjective and one-sided apprehension of objects by a deluded fancy, and the absolute will, are the four sources of human error. Considered apart from the aberrations of passion, special faults of character, and prejudices of education, as well as the false notions and wrong judgments to which the latter give rise—these four are the springs from which flows all the error of the soul which makes itself the center of the terrestrial reality, and which, springing out of this soil, is nourished and propagated by it. To what, then, are we to look to dispel these manifold delusions but to a closer and more intimate union of the soul with God as the source of life and truth?

What, let us therefore ask, is the organ by which such closer union with and immediate cognition of God is to be effected? Plainly not the understanding, even though as the cognitive sense of a revelation of spirit, and of the spirit of revelation, it carries us through the first steps toward a right understanding of ourselves and the Creator. For so long as we confine ourselves to the understanding, which, at most, is but a preparatory and auxiliary faculty, we shall only make an approximation. It is only when the divine idea, passing beyond the understanding—the mere surface, as it were, of our consciousness—penetrates into the very center of our being, and strikes root there, that it is possible, with a view to this end, to draw immediately from the primary source of all life. Now, the organ which essentially co-operates in this work is the will, which, in such co-operation however, divests itself entirely of its absoluteness. On this account I called the will the sense for God, or the sense which is appropriated to the perception of Deity.

But before I proceed in my attempt to define and elucidate the nature of this reciprocal action, and show how it is possible or generally conceivable, it will be necessary to premise one essential remark. I have already attempted to discover and establish a special and characteristic mark for every sphere of life, and its highest and lowest grades. Thus, the proper and distinctive signature of nature, and all that belongs to it, is a state of slumber or sleep; the characteristic property of man, which distinguishes him from all other intellectual beings, is fancy; while the essential property of the pure created spirits is the stamp of eternity which is impressed on all their operations, by means of which they perform, with untiring energies, their allotted duties, without the alternation of repose or the necessity of sleep, and by reason of which they remain forever what they once begin to be. Applying the same line of thought to a higher region, I would now attempt to discover there some characteristic sign, by observing which man may, perhaps, be able to find his true position. Proceeding, then, in this line of thought, and preserving a due regard to the weakness of the human capacity, I would observe as follows. The characteristic, not, indeed, of the divine essence—for that is too great for man’s powers of apprehension—but of the divine operations and His influence on the creation and all created beings, consists in His incredible condescension toward these His creatures, and especially toward man. Incredible, however, it may, nay, must and ought to be called, inasmuch as it transcends every notion, nay, all belief, even the most confiding and childlike, and the more it is contemplated, appears the more inconceivable and amazing. Only it admits of question, whether the expression be sufficiently simple and appropriate, and, consequently, well-chosen; for the fact itself of this divine condescension is affirmed in every line and word of revelation. And by revelation I mean not merely the written revelation, but every manifestation more or less distinct of God, and His divine operations and providence—history, nature, and life. Now, on no one point are the voices of all, who on such a matter can be regarded as authorities, so perfectly concordant and unanimous, as on this wonderful attribute of the Godhead, which, on the supposition that the belief in one living God is universal, may be considered as placed beyond doubt or question.

In order to demonstrate how essential is the co-operation of the will to that living intercommunion with God, which is something more than a mere understanding, we advance the following assumptions. Supposing that in the incredible condescension of His love, God has made Himself known to a man, just as in the first books of our Holy Scripture He is described as conversing with Moses, and as familiarly as one friend talks to another; supposing also that He revealed to him all the secret things of heaven and earth without reserve; that He at the same time laid open to him His will and hidden counsels, and that not summarily and in a general way, but definitely and in detail—expressly making known to him His gracious purposes, both in what He at present requires of him and designs for him hereafter; that He has also pointed out to man the means which will enable him to accomplish His will, and, moreover, has added the highest possible promises for his encouragement; supposing all this, is it not evident that it nevertheless could not help or profit man unless he consented to receive it? The whole divine communication would be in vain if man obstinately continued in his old Egoism, mixed and compounded of evil habits, fears, and sensual desires, and, unable to tear himself away, still clung close to the narrow limits of self and his own Me.

Now it is nothing but this intrinsic consent and concurrence in the will of God, this calm affirmation of it, that can help man, who is now left to his own free determination even as regards the Deity, and that can lead him to God. On this account I called the will, rather than the understanding, man’s sense for the divine. But all that is here required is the internal assent, and not the power of actual performance; for that varies even according to the standard of nature, or rather of that which is imparted to him from above, since of himself man has no capacity for that which is higher and more excellent, nothing being man’s own but his will. Now this internal assent and submission of man’s own will to the divine is clearly inconceivable where it has not, to a certain degree, withdrawn from the sensible world which surrounds him with so many ties and allurements, and where it has not loosened and set itself free from the narrow domain of self to which his Ego so closely clings.

Here, then, naturally arises the question, how far a renunciation of the world and self-sacrifice, on which even the Platonic philosophy so greatly insisted, is necessary, if we would advance one degree, or at least one step, nearer to God, as the supreme good and all-perfect Being, and what are its true and proper limits? In obedience to this idea of the renunciation of the world as indispensable to communion with God, the Hindoo fakir will sit for thirty years in one spot, with his eyes fixed immutably in the same direction, so that he not only surpasses all the limits of human nature, but also erases and extinguishes all traces of it in himself. Or perhaps, in spite of the simple principle and rule of sound reason, that man, as he is not the author of his own being, has no right to terminate it, he follows a false idea of self-sacrifice, and mounts the flaming pile in order to be the sooner united to the Deity. In the fundamental idea of these extravagances there is doubtless a germ of beauty and of truth, though in the perverse application and gigantic scale of exaggeration that we meet with it among the primeval nations of Asia, it is distorted into monstrous falsehood. A simple illustration, taken from the different ages of man’s life, will perhaps serve to set in a clear light the point on which every thing turns in this matter of the assent of the human to the divine will, and to determine the sense and the degree in which man ought not to give himself up entirely to the world, or to revolve closely round the center of self, if he would yield a sincere and hearty submission to a higher voice and that guiding hand which conducts the education of the whole human race, and watches with equal care the development of individuals and of ages. The child may and must play, for such exercise is wholesome and even necessary for the free expansion of its bodily powers; but at its mother’s call, for to the child hers is the higher voice, it ought to leave its play. Youth, again, ought to be merry and enjoy the verdant spring; but when honor and duty summon to earnest action, then must he be ready to lay aside all light-hearted amusement for sterner avocations; or to take another view of the youthful temperament, should its joyousness touch too rudely, not to say overstep, the bounds of morality, then at the first hint of warning it must abandon its treacherous pleasures. The full-grown man, too, having to make his way in the world and to fight with fortune in the hard struggle of life, has little leisure for idle feelings and meditations; only he must not renounce all higher and nobler sentiments, nor dismiss from his mind the thought of the Godhead and the divine (which indeed for its mere preservation requires no outward ordinance or loss of time), as belonging to the boy, and suitable only for the unripe years of youth. Or to regard life under its passive aspect, let us think of the happy wife by the side of a husband she loves, and living only in her children, and possessing of worldly good as much as she wishes or requires: suddenly, by one of those changes and chances which prevail in this transitory life, she is bereaved of all—the partner of her joys and cares, the children of her bosom, and perhaps, too, of her rank and consideration, while beneath the repeated strokes of affliction her very health sinks. Who would check her tears or blame her natural sorrow if she feels and tells her woes? No one: for holier eyes than man’s look upon her with compassion. One thing, however, may fairly and reasonably be expected of her—that she do not give way entirely to despair, nor murmur against Providence. More, therefore, than man requires of man in the ordinary relations of life, God requires not of the human will; and on that alone does He make any requisition, in respect to that free assent and internal concurrence which alone can bind us in personal union with the Godhead, and bring us near to Him; a consummation which no mere intellectual apprehension of all possible revelations, whether written on the pages of inspiration, or on the open tablets of nature, or engraven on the imperishable annals of history, is sufficient to bring about.

So much and nothing more is required for this essential concurrence of the human will with the divine, in the general relations of life. But, in the case of any special vocation and profession—if, for instance, a man feels himself disposed to become a minister of the revealed Word, an instrument and messenger of the divine communications—then, no doubt, higher and sterner requisitions must come into consideration. To men of native courage, what vocation can be more universal than that of a soldier and defender of his country? but does not it require, besides undaunted courage and contempt of death, the patient and enduring fortitude which bears up under countless hardships and privations? What vocation, again, can be simpler and more fully founded in nature, than that of the softer sex to become a mother? but how many sufferings, and fears, and dangers, compass it about, and how infinite are the great and little anxieties to which a mother’s love—that purest and truest of all earthly affections—is exposed? And it is even herein that human love most betrays its weakness; it may suffice for some one determinate direction, some transitory period of life, for some single effort of magnanimity or self-sacrifice, but it rarely survives the changes of time and fortune, and its faith and ardor too often are extinguished amid the petty trials of every-day life, and its numberless cares and anxieties.

And as with the love, so also is it with the faith of men: it enters not sufficiently into minutiæ; it is not personal enough, nor sufficiently childlike and confiding; it is not made to refer enough to ourselves. Most men, indeed, have only too high an opinion of their own worth—an overweening confidence in their own powers; at least, the opposite fault of extreme diffidence is a rare exception. But yet, it is true, men generally take far too low an estimate of their true vocation and proper destiny; they believe not in its high dignity; and as viewed in its place among the vast universe, they hold it and themselves as comparatively insignificant. But this is a total misconception. Every man is an individual entity—an inner world of his own, full of life—a true microcosm (as has already been said in a different sense) in the eye of God and in the scheme of creation: every man has a vocation of his own, and an appropriate destiny. Could men’s eyes be but once opened to see it, how would they be amazed at the infinity which they have neglected, and might have attained to, and which generally in the world remains neglected and unattained. But of the many thousands whom this remark concerns, how very few ever attain to a clear cognition of their real destination! And the reason of this is simply the fact, that the faith of men is all too weak, and, above all, that it is too vaguely general, too superficial, too little searching or profound—not sufficiently personal and childlike.

A childlike faith, and a love that endureth unto the end—these are the true bonds to hold the soul of man in intimate union with God. But it is in hope, such as is at present found among men, that the chief defect lies; for hope ought to be strong and heroic, otherwise it is not that which the name expresses. Few men, perhaps, are entirely devoid of faith and love, only they are not sufficiently carried into the details and trifles of life, as human wants require; for it is exactly to these that all that is divine in men’s thoughts and deeds ought to be directed. In hope, on the contrary, the inner man must raise himself and ascend up to God: it must, therefore, be strong and energetic, if it is to be efficacious. On this account we might well expect it to be far more rare, comparatively, than faith and love, considered according to the human scale of reasoning; on the other hand, probably, there are many men who, internally, are almost totally destitute of hope.

The longing after the eternal and divine, which has been already described, is the seeking of God; but this calm, inward assent of the will, whenever, with a childlike faith and enduring love, and in steadfast hope, it is carried through and maintained with unwavering fidelity throughout life, is the actual finding of Him within us, and a constant adherence to Him when once we have found Him. As the root and principle of all that is best and noblest in man, this divine longing can not be too highly estimated, and nowhere is it so inimitably described, and its excellence so fully acknowledged, as in Holy Writ itself. A remarkable instance of it is the fact that a prophet who was set apart and called by God Himself to his office, and was for that purpose endued with miraculous gifts, is expressly called in Holy Writ the man of longings.[27] And yet this longing is nothing but the source, the first root, from which springs that triple flower in the lovely symbol of faith, hope, and charity, which afterward, spreading over every grade and sphere of moral and intellectual existence, expands into the richest and most manifold fruits.

Now, it is very possible in some serious and intellectual work to feel a pleasure in this triple union of holy thoughts and sentiments, as with any deeply-significant picture in general, without duly entering the while into its precise requisitions and profound meaning. But from one particular end of a philosophy of life, i.e., of a thorough knowledge of the human consciousness, the psychological aspect of the subject assumes a peculiar importance, and essentially demands our attention. With this view, I venture to assert that the human consciousness, which otherwise and in itself is entirely a prey to discord, and split into irreconcilable contraries, is, by faith, hope, and love, redeemed from this dissension—is raised from its innate law, of an erring and dead thought, and of an absolute will, which is no less dead and null, being restored gradually to a perfect state of unison and harmony. Under the influence of faith—and by this term I understand, not the cold and heartless repetition of a customary formulary, but a living and personal faith in a living and personal God and Savior—under the influence of such a faith, the living spirit of truth steps into that place of the consciousness which before was usurped by the mere abstract thinking of a degraded understanding. And whenever, on the other hand, a refined goodness and love have in patient endurance become the soul of existence, there is no room for the stormy obstinacy or passionate wildness of an absolute will. Even in the will itself all is now life; discord is banished from it, and all the threatening elements of strife are forever appeased. And in that trusting confidence with which the loving soul leans upon God—in the strong godlike hope which takes its stand upon the Eternal, the reason, with its ordering, regulating, and methodical processes, and the fancy, with its dreams of the infinite, are again completely reconciled, and thereby the harmony of the human consciousness restored. Fancy, I remarked formerly, is the characteristic property of man, as distinguished by it from other spiritual intelligences; for reason, as a mere faculty of negation, affords only a negative distinction of his nature as compared with irrational creatures. But now, in a more comprehensive view, and, at the same time, with profounder significance and greater truth of description, we may say of man, in the same sense and in the same relation, hope forms his characteristic property and his inmost essence.

Here, then, in this holy hope, is longing, that marvelous flower of the soul, expanded into its perfect and noblest fruit. If, in judging of the three, man looks to the end to which he is to attain—if, in thought, he places himself at this point of view, then assuredly will love appear the highest and the best; for hope ceases when fulfillment comes in, and sight enters into the place of faith, but love abideth forever.[28] As long, however, as man has not yet attained unto that which is perfect, and is still in pursuit of it, hope must be regarded as the greatest, for it is even the true vital flame of faith, as well as of love, and of all higher existence.

This divine hope is even the fruit-bearing principle and the fructification of the immortal soul by the Holy Spirit of Eternal Truth—the luminous center and focus of grace, where the dark and discordant soul is illuminated and restored to unison with itself and with God.

LECTURE VI. OF THE WISDOM OF THE DIVINE ORDER OF THINGS IN NATURE, AND OF THE RELATION OF NATURE TO THE OTHER LIFE AND TO THE INVISIBLE WORLD.

THE highest and loftiest language would fail us were it our purpose to speak of the inmost essence of the Godhead, since He is that which no thought or conception can comprehend, and which no words are sufficient completely to describe or adequately to express. On the other hand, when we reflect on God’s work in creation, and of His superintending providence which rules the course of this earthly world, our thoughts can not be simple enough, nor, to judge by that principle of the divine condescension which formed the nucleus of our remarks in the last Lecture, too familiar or affectionate. In a general way this is commonly enough admitted, but practically it is neglected. Men do not clearly present to their minds all that is involved in it, and the remote consequences to which it leads. And so, in spite of their better convictions, they insensibly adopt a high-sounding and solemn strain, when the tone of a childlike reverence is alone the suitable and appropriate style for expressing the relation between the benignant Creator and His creatures, and man especially, as simply and as naturally as it is in reality.

I said as naturally, because it is implied in the very nature of things that if God did originally create free beings like men, He would give them all things needful, keep them constantly in His regard, and every where lend them a helping and directing hand. But from time to time He might, it is not inconsistent to suppose, withdraw, as it were, His guidance; for otherwise they would cease to be free beings. In this respect the divine Providence may be likened to a mother teaching her child to walk. Having chosen a clear spot, free from all things likely to hurt the infant in its fall, she places it firmly on its feet. For a little while she holds and supports it, and then, going back a few steps, she waits for its love to set its little limbs in motion and to follow her. But how watchful is her eye, how outstretched her arms to catch her babe the instant it begins to totter! Such nearly, and equally simple, is the relation of God to man; and not to individuals only, but also to the whole human race. For in the divine education and higher guidance of mankind we may trace the same degrees and natural gradation of developments as form the basis of the education of individuals, and may also be observed in all the processes of nature.

Now we take it for granted that God has willed the creation not only of free and pure spirits, but also of the natural world; for that He has so willed is a fact that, as it were, stares us in the face. If, then, along with the free spirits He has also created a nature, i.e., a living reproductive power, capable of and designed to develop and propagate itself, it is plain that we can not and ought not to think of such a nature as independent and self-subsisting. For, first of all, it had not its beginning in itself. Moreover, it would move as a blind force, and as such manifest itself only in destruction and desolation, if its Maker had not originally fixed and assigned to it the end toward which all its efforts were ultimately to be directed. Nature, indeed, is not free like man; but still it is not a piece of dead clock-work, which, when it is once wound up, works on mechanically till it has run itself down again. There is life in it. And if a few abstract but superficial thinkers have failed to discern, or even ventured expressly to deny this truth, the general feeling of mankind, on the other hand, bears witness to it. Yes, man feels that there is life rustling in the tree, as with its many arms and branches, its leaves and flowers, it moves backward and forward in the free air; and that, as compared with the clock, with all its ingenious but dead mechanism, it is even a living thing. And what the common feeling of mankind thus instinctively assumes is confirmed by the profounder investigations of physical science. Thus we know that even plants sleep, and they, too, as much as animals, though after a different sort, have a true impregnation and propagation. And is not nature, on the whole, a life-tree, as it were, whose leaves and flowers are perpetually expanding themselves and seeking nourishment from the balsamic air of heaven, while, as the sap rises from the deep-hidden root into the mighty stem, the branches stir and move, and invisible forces sweep to and fro in its waving crown. Most shallow and superficial, in truth, is that physical science which would consider the system of nature, with all the marvels of beauty and majesty wherewith its Maker has adorned it, as nothing more than a piece of lifeless clock-work. In such a system the all-mighty Creator must appear at best but a great mechanical artist who has at his command infinite resources; or, if we may be allowed so absurd an expression, as the fittest to expose the absurdity of those who would regard the divine work, both in its whole and in its parts, as dead, an omnipotent clockmaker. If, however, to meet the needs of man’s limited capacity, we must, when speaking of the Creator, employ such trifling and childish similes, then of all human avocations and pursuits that of the gardener will serve best to illustrate the divine operations in nature. All-mighty and omniscient, however, He has Himself created the trees and flowers that He cultivates, has Himself made the good soil in which they grow, and brings down from heaven the balmy spring, the dews and rain, and the sunshine that quicken and mature them into life and beauty.

If, then, there be life in nature, as, indeed, observation teaches, and the general feeling of man avouches, it must also possess a vital development, which in its movements observes a uniform course and intrinsic law. In truth, the Creator has not reserved to himself the beginning and the end alone, and left the rest to follow its own course; but in the middle, and at every point, also, of its progress, the Omnipotent Will can intervene at pleasure. If He pleases He can instantaneously stop this vital development, and suddenly make the course of nature stand still; or, in a moment, give life and movement to what before stood motionless and inanimate. Generally speaking, it is in the divine power to suspend the laws of nature, to interfere directly with them, and, as it were, to intercalate among them some higher and immediate operation of His power, as an exception to their uniform development. For, as in the social frame of civil life, the author and giver of the laws may occasionally set them aside, or, in their administration, allow certain special cases of exception, even so is it, also, with nature’s Lawgiver.

Now, this immediate operation, and occasional interference of Supreme Power with the order of nature, is exactly what constitutes the idea of miracle. The general possibility of miracles is a principle which man’s sound and unsophisticated reason has never allowed him to deny. But, on the other hand, it is evidently essential to their very idea that they should be thought of simply as deviations from the usual course of nature’s operations; if they were not exceptions to the laws of nature, then were they no miracles. Such miraculous exceptions, however, it may be observed, need not invariably to be contrary to the course of nature, though above nature, and far transcending its ordinary standard, they always are. Exceptions, therefore, they are; but such, at the same time, as do not permanently disturb the natural course and flow of the vital development, which, on the whole, continues unchanged. For it is only agreeable with Creative wisdom to maintain the world so long as the present state of things subsists, and the final consummation has not yet arrived, in the order originally prescribed to it by His omnipotence.

To this an objection might be made in the opposite sense. Taken then in their principle, the laws of nature, no less than those exceptions to them which are usually called miracles, are one and the same; they are alike from the Creator of all—and the laws themselves, therefore, are equally miraculous. This remark is quite true; but it only teaches us that we ought not to be too ready to see a miracle in every extraordinary event. But still, there will ever remain an essential difference between an immediate operation of omnipotence and the Creator’s original production of a living force, implanting in this creature an inner law, and thereupon leaving to it the further evolution of its powers in the course marked out for and assigned to it.

Now, if such a creature, like this terrestrial nature, be of a mixed constitution, composed of a principle of destruction as well as of a principle of productive development and progression—if its life be a constant struggle with death, then it is manifest that only by the same hand which first formed it, gave it laws, and prescribed its order, can its wise and divine economy be preserved, and the permanence of the organic evolution of its whole system be secured, and the outbursts of elementary dissolution, which are perpetually menacing it, held in check and averted. If this restraint be once relaxed, if the destructive energy of the wild elements be once let loose, and free scope given to their fury—and this globe presents the manifest traces of one such catastrophe, at least—then this, too, must be regarded as an exception, and is only explicable by the higher principle of divine permission. Viewed, however, as the retribution of divine justice on a guilty world, it forms an exception and a miracle of a peculiar kind, and must be distinguished from those other extraordinary operations properly called miracles, wherein, with some saving or quickening purpose, the Almighty, as it were, raises nature above herself, and takes her out of her usual course.

In this way, then, we ought unquestionably to refer every thing in the world to its author and preserver, whether it be conformable to the usual course and order of nature, or, as an extraordinary phenomenon, bespeak a higher and more immediate operation of divinity. But, at the same time, we must never forget that nature itself is a living force endowed with a capacity of self-development. Nature, indeed, is not free in the same sense that man is, possessed and conscious of a power of self-determination and choice; but as all life contains in itself the germ of a free movement and expansion, and while it expands itself a hidden and slumbering consciousness begins to stir and awake, so also in nature, an initiatory or preparatory grade of it, if not fully out-spoken, is at least indicated. In this respect it may be regarded as the vestibule of that temple of freedom which in man, the crowning work of this earthly creation, and made after the divine image and likeness, stands forth in its full dimensions and proportions. Considered from another point of view, the sensible world may be looked upon as a veil thrown over the spiritual world—the light-flowing and almost transparent robe, and, as it were, in all its parts the significant costume of the invisible powers. But in no point of view can we rightly consider nature as properly self-subsisting, or independent of its Creator, and, therefore, in no case as isolated by itself and apart from all reference to a superior being. Rather is it a living force, and one, too, doubly significant, both from within and from without; to which property an allusion is contained in the simile already employed, of a book written both on the inside and the outside. These two ideas, then, of the free will of man and of the living development of nature, must be taken as the basis, and serve as the fixed point of every attempt to ascertain the divine order in nature. On this account we have placed them in the foreground of the present Lecture, which will, in the main, be consecrated to such an investigation.

If, now, this demonstration of a divine order in nature seem to contain nothing less than a kind of Theodicée[29] (so far as man can establish a justification of God’s ways), I, for my part, must confess that I would much rather have before my eyes a Theodicée for the feelings, conceived in the very spirit of love, than any purely rational theory. For such theories, founded in general on far-fetched hypotheses, subtilly introduce into nature numberless divine purposes and designs, of which, however, we are able neither clearly to understand, much less to prove that they were intended by the everlasting counsels, or even that such vestiges of a divine purpose are really discernible in the universe. In this province of speculation we must not be too rigorous in our determinations, and especially we must guard against systematizing. But, above all, we can not be too watchful against the fault which so many reasoners fall into, of transferring into the realm of nature, or of God, that logical necessary connection which is a part of and connatural with our rational constitution, and an indispensable aid to our limited intellectual powers. Such a way of thinking would inevitably lead us to that most mistaken notion of a blind fate—the phantom of destiny.

On the other hand, how many are the questioning feelings and perplexities which arise in the human heart at the sight of certain natural objects. And these even, because they are far from amounting to doubts and objections, or at least from assuming a definite expression or a scientific dignity, seem, on that account, only the more loudly to demand an answer. The mournful cry of some helpless and innocent animal when killed by man—or in a different category—the hissing of the venomous serpent; the lothsome mass of maggots in the putrid corpse: all these are but so many dumb exclamations which, as it were, do but keep back the question, Are, then, these the productions of the all-perfect Being—of the Supreme Intelligence?

The sufferings of animals are indeed a theme for man to reflect upon; and I, for my part, can not concur with him who would regard this as a topic unworthy of his thoughts, and expel from the human bosom all sympathy with the animal creation. The consideration, however, of this subject, naturally enough gives rise to the question as to the soul of animals. Now, it certainly would do no discredit to philosophy, if it should succeed in giving a satisfactory answer to this question, and enable us to follow a middle course; as remote from the exaggerated assumptions of ancient nations with regard to animal existence, on the one hand, as on the other, from the unfeeling conclusions of modern science, which refuses to regard or to sympathize with any pains, and absolutely is unable to conceive the sufferings of any being which does not possess the character of rationality exactly in the same manner and degree as man. As greatly, on the other side, does the Hindoo theology err. Its dogma of the metempsychosis not only ascribes an immortal soul to animals, but it also further teaches that human souls are imprisoned in animal bodies, as the penalty of a guilt incurred in a previous state of existence. Beautiful, however, as is the compassionate sympathy with the sufferings of the brute creation, which this theory has occasioned, and confirmed by the sanction of a religious duty, still the assumption on which it is founded is wholly arbitrary, and the extension of the immortality of the soul to these creatures of our globe is an unwarrantable exaggeration, and has no foundation in observed phenomena. Moreover, the hypothesis of such a migratory state of departed souls is inconsistent with every notion of the divine government of the world; inasmuch as such a temporary punishment can produce no salutary effect, either of purification or of preparation, and consequently would be wholly motiveless and absurd.

Very questionable, moreover, does it seem, whether, with propriety, an individual soul can be attributed to animals. With those that are most closely domesticated with man, there does undoubtedly arise, as it were, by a sort of mental contagion, the appearance of individuality and difference of character, just as the artistic structures of certain species form a kind of analogy to human reason, and as the melodious intonations and feelings of some others seemed to me entitled, in a similar sense, to be termed reverberations of fancy. In all those kinds, however, which remain undisturbed in their natural state, the whole species possesses the same character, and have, consequently, the same common soul.[30] The species itself is only an individual; and, consequently, the several species must be considered as so many living forms of the general organic force of animated nature, since an immortality of individual souls can, in the case of animals, neither be assumed nor allowed to be assumable.

Among those perplexities, or, as I termed them, questioning feelings about nature and its animating principle, I turn now to the consideration of the last instance, that of the maggots of putrefaction. Is not this one of the clearest possible proofs that all nature is animated?[31] So much so, and so eminently is this the case, that even in death and corruption, in foulness and disease, it still livingly operates and produces life—the lowest grade, undoubtedly, of life—or, if any so prefers to call it, a false life—but still a life. Now, can such morbid productions of nature, the worms, e.g. [entozoa], which in certain diseases are engendered in the bowels, be regarded as real creatures? Naught are they but the dissolving and crumbling matter of life, which even in dissolution is still living.[32] And this fact is not confined merely to organic corruption and disease. Even the element—the fresh water from the spring—is full of life, and it is the more so the clearer and the better it is and the purer from the microscopic animalculæ, which swarm in it more and more the longer it stagnates and becomes foul, until at last, as frequently happens when it has been kept long on shipboard, with the growing foulness of the water they increase in size, and swim about as worms of visible magnitude. Many other instances might be adduced in proof of this origination of worms and vermin out of corruption, and testifying to it as a general principle of nature. And are not those swarms of locusts which in Asiatic countries are a general plague of the lands over which they sweep with their thick and dark migratory hordes, a sickly proof that the atmosphere that has engendered them is passing, or has already fallen into corruption beneath the influence of some other contagious element?

That the air and atmosphere of our globe is in the highest degree full of life, I may, I think, take here for granted and generally admitted. It is, however, of a mixed kind and quality, combining the refreshing and balsamic breath of spring with the parching simoons of the desert, and where the healthy odors fluctuate in chaotic struggle with the most deadly vapors. What else, in general, is the wide-spread and spreading pestilence, but a living propagation of foulness, corruption, and death? Are not many poisons, especially animal poisons, in a true sense, living forces?

Now, may we not give a further extension to this mode of view, and apply the fact of a diseased propagation of a false life, as in the worms of putrefaction, to other unsightly productions of nature. May we not, for instance, consider serpents and snakes as the entozoa or intestinal worms of the earth? That the evil spirits are not without some influence on our terrestrial habitation, and that in many places their malignant influence is distinctly traceable is, at all events, undeniable. And accordingly, some have supposed the monkey tribe not to be an original creation of the Deity, but a satanic device and malicious parody upon man, as the envied favorite of God. That the “Prince of this world”—which expression, in its latter half, is surely not to be understood exclusively of man’s fallen race, but very evidently and expressively alludes to the existing fabric of nature and the corrupted world of sense—that the Prince of this world can exercise a certain degree of pernicious influence on the productive energies of the natural system in its present corrupt and vitiated condition, and that also, there is in nature itself a power to produce evil, are facts which do not admit of denial, and are noways inconsistent with revelation. Only we must not suppose that this baneful influence is not confined within certain limits. He to whom the Prince of this world, no less than the world itself, is subject, has, in His infinite wisdom, set a definite limit both of quantity and duration to this pernicious influence, as, in general, He does to every permission of evil.

At all events we must not for one moment suppose that in the book of nature we have a pure and uncorrupt text of God, and such as it originally came from the hands of its Author. It is of the highest consequence, for a due and right appreciation of the divine economy in nature, that we give full consideration to this fact. On this account it is important to keep in mind the distinction implied in that expression already quoted from the Mosaic history—“Let the earth bring forth.” For, according to this, it does not seem indispensably necessary to ascribe immediately to the good and wise Creator every thing that the earth brought forth; no, nor every thing that is produced by a nature now so imperfect—so diseased, too, in many parts—and visibly constrained to submit to hostile and foreign influences.

Many writers who, with the best intentions, undertake the task of indicating the divine wisdom in the existing order of things, and of defending the ways of Providence against the objections of human presumption and conceit, generally err by taking too narrow a view of their subject, and rigorously insisting on some one general principle, which, by means of very hazardous assertions, they succeed in finding in the whole and every part of the system of the universe. They leave out of sight altogether that Mosaic distinction already alluded to, which in appearance indeed is trifling enough, but yet in reality most essentially important. Consequently, the good work which they take in hand, instead of producing that general concurrence and conviction that it otherwise might, gives rise rather to fresh doubts and objections. The best solution of all such doubts—the most satisfactory answer to all such or similar questions or questioning feelings—lies in the final cause of the present constitution of things, considered as a whole and in general, and judged of from a regard to its triple character and triple destination. Now, according to this triple principle, we have, as already shown, to regard the present system of nature as being primarily a tombstone raised by Almighty benevolence—a bridge of safety thrown across the gulf of eternal death—a bridge, however, which we must not think of as quite so simple, broad, and straight as a bridge made by human hands, but an animated and ensouled bridge of life, and multiform, with many arms and branches, and presenting in some parts nothing more than a narrow footing, where the first false stop precipitates into the abyss beneath. But secondarily, according to this view, nature is grounded on and devoted to progress; a wonderful laboratory of manifold, diversified, and universal reproduction; and lastly, a glorious scale of resurrection, ascending up to the last and highest summit of terrestrial transfiguration. Now this laboratory lies in the hidden womb of nature, while in the noble outward structure of its organic formations this gradational scale manifests itself with a warning, a prognostication of the height of excellence to which it eventually leads. But now, if nature—as, judging from its original design, we may and must assume—were a Paradise for the blessed spirits of the previous creation, for the first-born sons of light, then most assuredly has it not continued so, any more than the first man has remained in the garden of Eden. No doubt, over a few favored spots of the existing globe, a rich fullness of ravishing beauty still hovers, awakening in the heart, as it were, the fleeting images of Paradisaical innocence—dying strains of a primal harmony—mournful reminiscences of the happy infancy of creation. For the powers of darkness and hostile spirits broke in upon the fair beauty of primeval nature, and laid it waste and wild. The garden of the earth in which the first man was placed, “to dress it and to keep it,” is, no doubt, called Paradise; and assuredly it was infinitely more beautiful, more wonderful, purer, and fuller of life, than the loveliest scenery which meets the eye in the fairest spots of the earth, and seems to be of an almost celestial beauty. But this is said only of the immediate inclosure, the immediate habitation of our first parent; the spot chosen and blessed by God—the garden watered and surrounded by the four streams. All the rest of nature, the whole of the world besides, must have ceased at that time to be a Paradise; for, otherwise, whence could the serpent have come? So that even according to the simple sense of the expression, “that old serpent,” he was already there, in the midst of the natural world. And was it not probably a part of the destination of man—at least, in its natural aspect—that, setting out from this divine starting-point of a Paradise prepared for and given to him, he was to go forth and convert the rest of the world into a similar Eden?