BOOK I.
PRELIMINARY VIEWS.
CHAP. I. On the Distinction between the Ethics of
Theology and the Objects of Theology
II On the Duty which is laid
upon Men by the Probability or even the Imagination of a God,
III.
Of the Metaphysics which have been resorted to on the side of Theism
DR.
CLARKE'S A PRIORI ARGUMENT ON THE BEING OF A GOD.
IV. Of the
Metaphysics which have been resorted to on the side of Theism
MR. HUME'S
OBJECTION TO THE A POSTERIORI ARGUMENT, GROUNDED ON THE ASSERTION THAT THE
WORLD IS A SINGULAR EFFECT.
V. On the Hypothesis that the World is
Eternal, .
BOOK II.
PROOFS FOR THE BEING OF A GOD IN THE
DISPOSITIONS OF MATTER.
CHAP. I. On the Distinction between
the Laws of Matter and the Dispositions of Matter
CHAP. II. Natural
and Geological Proofs for a Commencement of our present Terrestrial Economy,
III. On the Strength of the Evidences for a God in the Phenomena of
Visible and External Nature,
BOOK III
PROOFS FOR THE BEING AND CHARACTER OF
GOD IN TIlE CONSTITUTION OF THE HUMAN MIND.
CHAP. I. General
Considerations on the Evidence afforded by the Phenomena and Constitution of
the Human mind for the Being of a God,
II. On the Supremacy of
Conscience
III. On the inherent Pleasure of the Virtuous, and Misery
of the Vicious Affections
IV. The Power and Operation of Habit
BOOK I.
PRELIMINARY VIEWS.
CHAPTER I.
On
the Distinction between the Ethics of Theology and the Objects of
Theology.
1. OUR first remark on the science of Theology is, that the
objects of it, by their remoteness, and by their elevation, seem to be
inaccessible. The objects of the other sciences are either placed, as those of
matter, within the ken of our senses; or, as in the science of mind, they come
under a nearer and more direct recognition still, by the faculty of
consciousness. But no man hath seen God at any time. We "have neither heard His
voice nor seen His shape." And neither do the felt operations of our own busy
and ever-thinking spirits immediately announce themselves to be the stirrings
of the divinity within us. So that the knowledge of that Being, whose
existence, and whose character, and whose ways, it is the business of Theology
to investigate, and the high purpose of Theology to ascertain, stands
distinguished from all other knowledge by the peculiar avenues through which it
is conveyed to us. We feel Him not. We behold Him not. And however palpably He
may stand forth to our convictions, in the strength of those appropriate
evidences which it is the province of this science to unfold - certain it is,
that we can take no direct cognizance of Him by our faculties whether of
external or internal observation.
2. And while the spirituality of His
nature places Him beyond the reach of our direct cognizance, there are certain
other essential properties of His nature which place Him beyond the reach of
our possible comprehension. Let me instance the past eternity of the Godhead.
One might figure a futurity that never ceases to flow, and which has no
termination; but who can climb his ascending way among the obscurities of that
infinite which is behind him? Who can travel in thought along the track of
generations gone by, till he has overtaken the eternity which lies in that
direction? Who can look across the millions of ages which have elapsed, and
from an ulterior post of observation look again to another and another
succession of centuries; and at each further extremity in this series of
retrospects, stretch backward his regards on an antiquity as remote and
indefinite as ever? Could we by any number of successive strides over these
mighty intervals, at length reach the fountain-head of duration, our spirits
might be at rest. But to think of duration as having no fountain-head; to think
of time with no beginning; to uplift the imagination along the heights of an
antiquity which hath positively no summit; to soar these upward steeps till
dizzied by the altitude we can keep no longer on the wing; for the mind to make
these repeated flights from one pinnacle to another, and instead of scaling the
mysterious elevation, to lie baffled at its foot, or lose itself among the far,
the long-withdrawing recesses of that primeval distance, which at length merges
away into a fathomless unknown; this is an exercise utterly discomfiting to the
puny faculties of man.
We are called on to stir ourselves up that we may
take hold of God, but the "clouds and darkness which are round about. Him" seem
to repel. the enterprise as hopeless; and man, as if overborne by a sense of
littleness, feels as if nothing can be done but to make prostrate obeisance of
all his faculties before Him.
3. Or, if instead of viewing the Deity in
relation to time, we view Him in relation to space, we shall feel the mystery
of his being to be alike impracticable and impervious. But we shall not again
venture on aught so inconceivable, yet the reality of which so irresistibly
obtrudes itself upon the mind, as immensity without limits; nor shall we
presume one conjecture upon a question which we have no means of resolving,
whether the Universe have its terminating outskirts; and so, however stupendous
to our eye, shrink by its very finitude, to an atom, in the midst of that
unoccupied and unpeopled vastness by which it is surrounded. Let us satisfy
ourselves with a humbler flight. Let us carry the speculation no further than
our senses have carried it. Let us but take account of the suns and systems
which the telescope has unfolded; though for aught we know there might, beyond
the furthest range of this instrument, be myriads of remoter suns and remoter
systems. Let us, however, keep within the circle of our actual discoveries,
within the limits of that scene which we know to be peopled with realities; and
instead of trying to dilate our imagination to the infinity beyond it, let us
but think of God as sitting in state and in high sovereignty over millions of
other worlds beside our own.
If this Earth which we know and know so
imperfectly form so small a part of His works - what an emphasis it gives to
the lesson that we indeed know a very small part of his ways. "These are part
of his ways," said a holy man of old, "but how little a portion is heard of
Him." Here the revelations of Astronomy, in our modern day, accord with the
direct spiritual revelations of a former age. In this sentiment at least the
Patriarch and the Philosopher are at one ; and highest science meets and is in
harmony with deepest sacredness. So that we construct the same lesson, whether
we employ the element of space or the element of time. With the one the basis
of the argument is the ephemeral experience of our little day. With the other
the basis of the argument is the contracted observation of our little sphere.
They both alike serve to distance man from the infinite the everlasting God.
4. But it will somewhat dissipate this felt obscurity of the science,
and give more of distinctness and definiteness to the whole of this
transcendental contemplation - if we distinguish aright between the Ethics of
Theology, and the Objects of Theology.
5. To understand this
distinction let us conceive some certain relation between two individual men -
as that for example of a benefactor to a dependant, or of one who has conferred
a kindness to another who has received it. There is a moral or ethical
propriety that springs out of this relation. It is that of gratitude from the
latter of these individuals to the former of them. Gratitude is the incumbent
virtue in such a case, and a benefactor is the object of that virtue.
6. Now to make one feel the truth of the ethical principle, it matters
not whether he has seen many or few benefactors in the course of his
experience. Nay, it matters not whether there are many or few benefactors in
the world. The moral propriety of gratitude is that which attaches to the
relation between a benefactor and a dependant; and it equally remains so
whether the relation be seldom or often exemplified. Nay, gratitude would be
the appropriate virtue of this relation, although actually it were never
exemplified at all. The ethical principle of the virtuousness of gratitude does
not depend on the existent reality of an object for this virtue. Let a
benefactor really exist; and then gratitude is due to him. Or let a benefactor
only be supposed to exist; and then we affirm with as great readiness that
gratitude would be due to him. The incumbent morality is alike recognised -
whether we behold a real object, or only figure to ourselves a hypothetical
one. The morality, in fact, does not depend for its rightness on any such
contingency, as the actual and substantive existence of a proper object to
which it may be rendered. The virtuousness of gratitude would remain a category
in ethical science; although,. never once exemplified in the living world of
realities, we derived our only notion of it from the possibilities which were
contemplated in an ideal world of relations.
7. It is thus that whether
much or little conversant with the objects of a virtue, there may of the virtue
itself be a clear and vivid apprehension. A peasant, all whose experience is
limited to the homestead of his own little walk, can recognise, the
virtuousness of gratitude and justice and truth with as great correctness, and
feel them too with as great intenseness, as the man of various and ample
intercourse, who has traversed a thousand times wider sphere in human society.
By enlarging the field of observation we may extend our acquaintance with the
objects of moral science; but this does not appear at all indispensable to our
acquaintance with the Ethics of the science. To appreciate aright the moral
propriety which belongs to any given relation, we do not need to multiply the
exemplifications or the cases of it. The one is not a thing of observation as
the other is, and therefore not a thing to which the Baconian or inductive
method of investigation is in the same manner applicable. Our knowledge of the
objects belongs to the Philosophy of Facts. Our knowledge of the Ethics belongs
to another and a distinct Philosophy.
8. There has been too much
arrogated for the philosophy of Lord Bacon in our day. "
Quid est?" is
the only question to the solution of which it is applicable. It is by
observation that we ascertain what are the objects in Nature; and what are, or
have been, the events in the history of Nature. But there is another question
wholly distinct from this, "
Quid oportet ?" to the solution of which we
are guided by another light than that of experience. This question lies without
the domain of the Inductive Philosophy, and the science to whose cognisance it
belongs shines upon us by the light of its own immediate evidence. There may
have been a just and a luminous Ethics, even when the lessons of the
experimental philosophy were most disregarded; and, on the other hand, it is
the office of this philosophy to rectify and extend physical, but not to
rectify and extend moral science.
9. On this subject there is an
instructive analogy taken from another science, and which illustrates still
more the distinction now stated between the objects and the ethics of Moral
Philosophy that is, the distinction between the mathematics and the objects of
Natural Philosophy.
10. The objects of Natural Philosophy are the facts
or data of the science. The knowledge of these is only to be obtained by
observation. Jupiter placed at a certain distance from the sun, and moving in a
certain direction, and with a certain velocity, is an object. His satellites,
with their positions and their motions, are also so many objects. Any piece of
matter, including those attributes which it is the part of Natural Philosophy
to take cognizance of, such as weight, and magnitude, and movement, and
situation, is an object of this science. Altogether they form what may be
called the individual and existent realities of the science. And Lord Bacon has
done well in having demonstrated that for the knowledge of these we must give
ourselves up exclusively to the informations of experience; that is, to obtain
a knowledge of the visible properties of material things we must look at them,
or of their tangible properties we must handle them, or of their weights or
motions or distances we must measure them.
11. Thus far, then, do the
applications of the Baconian Philosophy go, and no farther. After that the
facts or objects of the science have in this way been ascertained, we perceive
certain mathematical relations between the objects from which we can derive
truths and properties innumerable. But it is not experience now which lights us
on from one truth or property to another. The objects or data of the science
are ascertained by the evidence of observation; but the mathematics of the
science proceed on an evidence of their own, and land us in sound and stable
mathematical conclusions, whether the data at the outset of the reasoning be
real or hypothetical. The moral proprieties founded on equity between man and
man would remain like so many fixtures in ethical science, though the whole
species were swept away, and no man could be found to exemplify our
conclusions. The mathematical properties founded on an equality between line
and line would in like manner abide as eternal truths in geometry, although
matter were swept away from the universe, and there remained no bodies whose
position or whose distances had to be reasoned on.
It has been already said
that we do not need to extend the domain of observation in order to have a
clear and a right notion of the moral proprieties; and it may now be said that
we do not need to extend the domain of observation in order to have a clear and
a right notion of the mathematical properties. If straight lines be drawn
between the centres of the earth and the sun and Jupiter, they would constitute
a triangle, the investigation of whose properties might elicit much impotant
truth on the relations of these three bodies. But all that is purely
mathematical in the truth would remain, although it were not exemplified, or
although these three bodies had no existence. Nay, the triangle might serve as
an exemplar of an infinity of triangles, which required only a corresponding
infinity of objects, in order that the general and abstract truth might become
the symbol or representative of an endless host of applicable and actually
existent truths. For the objects of both sciences you must have inductive or
observational evidence; but by a moral light in the one science, and a
mathematical light in the other, we arrive at the ethics of the first science,
at the mathematics of the second, without the aid of the inductive philosophy.
12. It is interesting to note if aught may have fallen from Lord Bacon
himself upon this subject. In his English treatise on "the advancement of
learning," he says, "that in mathematics I can report no deficience." So that
this great author of the experimental method by which to arrive at a true
philosophy of facts, had no improvement to propose on the methods of
mathematical investigation. And in his more extended Latin treatise on the same
subject, entitled, "
De augmentis scientiarum," where he takes so
comprehensive a view of all the possible objects of human knowledge, he says,
speaking of geometry and arithmetic, "which two arts have certainly been
investigated and handled with much acuteness and industry; notwithstanding
which, however, nothing has been added to the labours of Euclid in geometry by
those who have followed him, that is worthy of so long a series of ages."
13. The proper discrimination then to be made in natural philosophy, is
between the facts or data of the science, and the relations that by means of
mathematics might be educed from these data. The former are ascertained by
observation - after which no further aid is required from observation, while we
prosecute that reasoning which often brings the most weighty and important
discoveries in its train. It is well to consider how much can be achieved by
rnathematics in this process, and how distinct its part is from that of wide
and distant observation; insomuch. that by the light which it strikes out in
the little chamber of one's own thoughts, we are enabled to proceed from one
doctrine and discovery to another. From three distant points in the firmament,
a triangle may be formed to which the very mathematics are applicable that we
employ upon a triangle constructed upon paper by our own fingers. Whether they
be the positions and the distances that lie within the compass of a diagram, or
the positions and distances that obtain in wide immensity, it is one and the
same geometry which, from a few simple and ascertained data, guides the
inquirer to the various and important relations of both. After that observation
hath its office, and made over to mathematics the materials which it hath
gathered - this latter science the way to discoveries and applications and
without one look more upon the heavens, with nought but the student's
concentrated regard on the lines and the symbols that lie in little room upon
his table, might the whole mysand mechanism of the heavens be unravelled.
14. Let those things, then, be rightly distinguished which are distinct
from one another. They were not the objects of the science which gave the
observer his mathematics. These objects were only addressed to his previous and
independent mathematics; and he, in virtue of his mathematics, was enabled
rightly to estimate many important relations which subsisted between the
objects. Nay, it is conceivable that the objects might have remained for ever
obscure and unknown to him. He, in this case, would have wanted an application
which he now has for his mathematics - but the mathematics themselves would
have been still as much within his reach or his power of acquisition as before.
His mathematical nature, if we may so speak- would have been entire
notwithstanding and he have had as clear a sense of the mathematical relations,
and as prompt and powerful a faculty of prosecuting these to their results.
Things might have been so constituted, as that every star in the firmament
should have been beyond the discernment of our naked eye; or what is still more
conceivable, the lucky invention might never have been made by which the
wonders of a remoter heavens have been laid open to our view. But still they
were neither the informations of the eye nor of the telescope which furnished
man with his geometry; they only furnished him with data for his geometry. And
thus, while the objects of astronomy are brought to him by a light from afar -
-there enters, as a constituent part of the science, the mathematics of
astronomy, immediately seen by him in the light of his own spirit, and to
master the lessons of which he needs not so much as one excursion of thought
beyond the precincts of his own little home.
15. Now, what is true of
the mathematical may be also true of the moral relations. We may have the
faculty of perceiving these relations whether they be occupied by actually
existent objects or not; or although we should be in ignorance of the objects.
On the imagination that one of the inhabitants of the planet Jupiter had the
mysterious knowledge of all my movements, and a mysterious power of guidance
and protection over me; that he eyed me with constant benevolence, and ever
acted the part of my friend and my guardian - I could immediately pronounce on
the gratitude and the kind regard that were due from me back again: And should
the imagination become a reality, and be authentically made known to me as
such, I have a moral nature, a law. within my heart, which already tells me how
I should respond to this cornmunication. The instance is extravagant; but it
enables us at once to perceive what that is which must be fetched to us from
without, and what that is which we have to meet it from within. The objects are
either made known by observation; or, if they exist without the limits of
observation, they are made known by the credible report or revelation of
others. But when thus made known, they may meet with a prior and a ready made
Ethics in ourselves. The objects may be placed beyond the limits of human
experience; but though the knowledge of their existence must therefore be
brought to us from afar, a sense of the correspondent moralities which are due
to them may arise spontaneously in our bosoms. After the mind has gotten, in
whatever way, its information of their reality then within the little cell of
its own feelings and its own thoughts, there may be a light which manifests the
appropriate ethics for the most distant beings in the universe.
16. We
are thus enabled to bestow a certain amount of elucidation on a question which
falls most properly to be discussed at the outset of Natural Theology. On this
distinction between the ethics of the science and the objects of the science,
we can proceed at least a certain way in assigning their respective provinces
to the light of nature and the light of revelation. But for this purpose let us
shortly recur again to the illustration that may be taken from the science of
astronomy.
17. Natural Philosophy has two great departments - one of
them celestial, the other terrestrial; and it may he thought a very
transcendental movement on the part of an inquirer, a movement altogether
per saltum, when he passes from the one to the other. Now this is true; but
only should it be remarked in as far as it regards the objects of the science.
The objects of the celestial lie in a far more elevated region than the objects
of the terrestrial; and it may certainly be called a transcendental movement,
when, instead of viewing with the telescope some lofty peak that is sustained
however on the world's surface, we view therewith the planet that floats in the
firmament and at an inconceivably greater distance away from it. There is a
movement
per saltum when we pass from the facts and data of the one
department, to the facts and data of the other. But There is no such movement
when we pass from the mathematics of the one department to the mathematics of
the other. There is, no doubt, in one respect, a very wide transition; when
instead of a triangle, whose baseline is taken by a pair of compasses from the
Gunter scale, or even measured by a chain on the surface of the earth, we are
called to investigate the relations of a triangle whose base-line is the
diameter of the earth,. or perhaps the diameter of the earth's orbit. There is
doubtless a very wide transition from the objects of the terrestrial to those
of the celestial physics; when, instead of three indivisible points on the
parchment that lies before us, or three signposts of observation that wave on
mountain-tops within sight of each other, we have three planetary bodies that,
huge though they be in themselves, shrink into atoms when compared with the
mighty spaces that lie between them. The fields of observation are wholly
different; but it is by the very same trigonometry that we achieve the
computation of the resulting triangles. And we again repeat that, sublime as
the ascent may be from the facts or data of the one computation to those of the
other, there is no gigantic or impracticable stride in their mathematics, -
that if able to trace certain curves in the page which lies before us, we are
further able to scan the cycles of astronomy - that, widely apart as are the
revelations of this wondrous science from the conceptions of our first and
ordinary experience, yet grant but the facts, and it is by the dint of a
familiar and ordinary mathematics, that the mind can ascend to them. It is thus
that though in person we never stepped beyond the humble glen of our nativity,
we may have that within the depository of our thoughts, which guides us to the
certainties that be on the outskirts of creation. Within the little home of our
bosom, there lie such principles and powers, as without one mile of locomotion
are of as great avail, as if we could have traversed the infinities of space
with the plumb-line in our hand, or carried the torch of discovery round the
universe. It does look a marvel and a mystery, how man is able to climb the
steep and lofty ascent from the terrestrial to the celestial in Natural
Philosophy. But it helps to resolve the mystery, when we thus advert to the
distinction between the facts or objects of the science, and the mathematics of
the science. It at least tells us what that is, wherein the transition from the
one department to the other lies; and gives us to understand that, could we in
any way ascertain by observation, certain of the motions and magnitudes that
belong to the upper regions of astronomy, there is an instrument within our
reach, by which we may come to the accurate determination of its laws.
18. And as with Natural, so with Moral, Philosophy. The former hath its
objects, whose properties are found by observation; and these objects have
their mathematical relations, most of which are found without observation, by
an abstract and solitary exercise of mind on the data which have been
previously ascertained. There is a great difference between the terrestrial and
the celestial physics, in regard to the way by which we arrive at the data. On
the one field they are near at hand; and at all events do not lie beyond the
confines of the globe which we inhabit. On the other field they have place and
occupancy at an exceeding distance away from us. The eye in quest of them must
lift itself above all earthly objects; and often beyond the ken of our natural
vision, they would have been for ever unknown - had not the telescope, that
powerful instrument of revelation, fetched them to the men of our world, from
those far and hidden obscurities in which they had lain for ages. But whatever
the difference may be between the terrestrial and the celestial physics, in
regard to the way by which we arrive at their data - there is no such
difference in regard to the way through which, by a mathematical process of
reasoning, truths are educed from these data. It matters not whether they be
the elements of some terrestrial survey, or the observed elements of some
distant planet that have been committed to a formula, and made over to the
investigations of the analyst. It was indeed a far loftier flight, when in the
capacity of an observer, he passed from the stations and the objects of a
landscape below to those of the upper firmament But there was no transition, at
all corresponding to this - when passing from the mathematics of the one
contemplation to the mathematics of the other. Even at the time when he labours
to determine the form or the periods of some heavenly orbit,, his mind is only
in contact with the symbols of that formula; or with the lines and spaces of
that little diagram, which is before eyes. It is enough that the triangle which
comprehends any portion however small of his paper, hath the same relations and
properties with the triangle, which comprehends any portion however large of
immensity. It is enough that what is predicated of the line which extends but a
few inches may also be predicated of the same line when prolonged to the
outskirts of creation. And thus it is, that after observation hath done its
work and collected what may be styled the facts of Astronomy, there is a
capability in the human spirit, and upon no other materials than what may lie
within the compass of a table, to unravel the principles of its wondrous
mechanism - and in the little chamber of thought, to elaborate a doctrine which
shall truly represent the universe and is realized in its most distant
processes.
19. Now whence were the mathematics by which he made an
achievement so marvellous - whence were these mathematics derived? For our
purpose it is a sufficient answer to this question that he had not to go abroad
for them. They may have enabled him to scan the cycles of heaven - but most
certainly heaven's lofty concave is not the page from which his geometry was
drawn. To obtain the necessary mathematics he has not to travel beyond the
limits of his own humble apartment - and though in person he may have never
wandered from the secluded valley that bounds his habitation, yet, such is the
power of this home instrument, that it can carry him in thought through the
remotest provinces of nature, and give him the intellectual mastery over them.
He needs not have gone half-a-mile in quest of those conceptions which lie in
little room within the receptacle of his bosom. There may have been some
obscurely initial or rudimental business of observation at the outset of his
mental history, ere his notions of a hue or a number or a quantity were
settled; but it is an observation that might have all been carried on within a
cell or a hermitage: And the important thing to be remarked is, that these
notions, of homeward growth and origin though they be, are available on the
field of the celestial as well as on that of the terrestrial Physics - and that
when once by observation the respective data of each are ascertained, the same
mathematics are applicable to both.
20. And it is just so in Moral
Philosophy. This science hath its objects that are ascertained by observation -
and, apart from these, it hath its Ethics, in virtue of which it can assign the
moral relations that subsist between these objects. The facts of the science
are just as distinct from the ethics of the science, as the facts of Natural
Philosophy are from the mathematics of Natural Philosophy. By observation we
can know of certain particulars in the state, or of certain passages in the
history of two human beings - and, not by means of any further observation, but
by certain ethical principles and by these alone, we can pronounce moral
relationship that is between them, and on. the proprieties of that
relationship. .Let us but know of any two men, that the one is a friendly and
disinterested benefactor, and that other is a dependant on his liberalities -
or of one that he is the generous lender, and of the that he is the debtor who
had promised and is now in circumstances to repay - or of the one that he is an
injured party, and of the other that he is now a prostrate offender honestly
offering every reparation, and pouring out from the sincerity of a contrite
bosom the acknowledgments and the vows of a deep-felt repentance: these are the
facts of so many distinct cases presented to view either by our own observation
or by the credible testimony of others; and it is not by means of any further
observation, it is not by the aid of any additional facts that we learn what be
the moralities which belong to each of them. Observation, whether in Natural or
in Moral Philosophy, furnishes only the data. It is by a mathematics in the one
case, and by an ethics in the other that we draw our conclusions from these
data. The gratitude that we should render to a benefactor, the fidelity that we
should observe with a creditor, the forgiveness that we should award to a
penitent: these are not the lessons of observation any more than the axioms or
the demonstrated truths of geometry. And as in Natural Philosophy we should
distinguish between the facts of every question and its mathematics; so is
there a similar distinction to be observed between the facts and the ethics of
every question in Moral Philosophy
21. This helps us to understand what
the precise nature of the transition is, when we pass from to celestial moral
science. We pass to other data; but we have the same ethics - just as when in
physical science we elevate our regards from the earth we tread upon to the
sublime movements of astronomy, we pass to other data but have the same
mathematics. He who can resolve a triangle whose angles are indivisible points
on the parchment that lies before him, can resolve a triangle whose angles are
planets in the firmament - and all that he requires to know are the facts or
the objects of the celestial physics, to make his mathematics as available in
that Natural Philosophy whose field is the heavens, as he may have already made
them in that Natural Philosophy whose field is this lower world. In like manner
he who can assign the proprieties of that relation which subsists between a
dependent family and their earthly benefactor, can assign the proprieties of
that relation which subsists between our whole species and their heavenly
Benefactor. For this purpose he has no new ethics to learn; and all that he
requires to know are the facts or the objects of this higher relationship - to
make the ethics which he already has as available in that Moral Philosophy
whose field is the heaven above, as he has already made them in that Moral
Philosophy trhose field is the earth below. 22. The celestial physics form a
more transcendental theme than the, terrestrial. But this character of the more
transcendental lies only in the facts, and not at all in the mathematics. And
so the celestial in Moral Philosophy is a more transcendental theme than the
terrestrial - but this too lies only in the facts, and not at all in the
ethics. To obtain the facts and data of the former science, a new and peculiar
mode of discovery was struck out. The telescope was invented. Many of the
objects were beyond the reach of our natural vision; and nature was provided
with an assistance - else there had been much of the celestial physics that
would have remained for ever unknown. The same may, perhaps, hold of the
celestial ethics also. Perhaps, there are many of its data that never could
have been ascertained but by a peculiar mode of discovery.
22. Perhaps
the unaided faculties of man were incompetent to the task - and what the
telescope hath done for us in respect of the material heavens, a living
messenger may have done for us in repect of their moral and spiritual economy.
It is a very wide transition when we pass from Those distances in a terrestrial
survey which can be measured by the chain, or at the farther extremities of
which we can descry some floating signal that has been erected by human hands -
when we from these through the mighty voids of immensity; and across that
interval which separates the rolling worlds from each other, can now by the aid
of the telescope look on moons and planets that eye had not seen, nor ear heard
of, neither had it entered into the heart of man to conceive. And it is also a
wide transition when we pass from the terrestrial to the celestial objects of
Moral Philosophy - from the living society around us, to the Great Unseen who
is above us; and of whom perhaps we could not have known save by the voice of a
messenger from the pavilion of his special residsnce, who in reference to the
celestial ethics, hath done what the telescope hath done in reference to the
celestial mechanics, hath brought out from the obscurity in which for ages they
had lain, objects of which the world was before unconscious; but to which when
made known she is already furnished with a morality by which she can respond to
them - even as when the new facts of astronomy were presented to her view, she
already had the mathematics by which she could draw from them the just and
important applications. The telescope gave her no geometry, though it gave her
the data of many a geometrical exercise. And thus it is that a teacher from
heaven, even though he should confine himself to the revelation of such facts
and objects as had been before wrapt from human eye in the depths of their own
mysteriousness - though he should simply lift the veil from that which was
before unseen; or by the notices that he brought with him from the Upper
Sanctuary, should bring forward into view a spiritual landscape, which- by its
remoteness, was dim at least, if not altogether invisible - though he should
not. be the expounder of any new morality at all, might be the expounder of
facts that would meet and call forth a doctrine, or a previous discernment of
morality, which had been already in the world.
23. And thus as the
movement from the terrestrial tothe celestial is, in.Natural so is it also in
Moral Pbilosophy. By this movement we look at other thing and perhaps do so by
other instruments of vision. In the latter, more particularly, instead of our
fellow men, with whom we can hold immediate converse by the organs of sense,
the great object is a Being whom no man hath seen at any time; but whom we
either see by reflection from the mirror of His own workmanship, or sce by
revelation brought down to our earthly dwelling places through a direct embassy
from heaven.
24. And if on earth gratitude to a human benefactor is not
unknown, and it.be the universal sense of the species that there is virtue in
the emotion - if truth, and goodness, and purity, when seen in a fellow mortal,
draw an homage from the heart of every observer - if within the bounds of our
world, the obligations of honour and humanity, and justice, are felt among
those who live upon it; then let a new object be set forth to us from heaven,
or perhaps an object seen but darkly before and now set forth in brighter
manifestation - let Him be made known as the God whose hands did frame and
fashion us, and whose right hand upholds us continually - let some new light be
thrown upon His character and ways; some new and before unheard demonstration
given of a holiness that can descend to no compromise with sin, and yet of a
love that by all the sin of His creatures is unquenchable - let Him now stand
out in the lustre of His high attributes, with each shedding a glory upon the
other, yet mercy rejoicing over them all - let this Being, at once so lovely
and so venerable, be expounded to our view, as the Father of the human family,
and as sending abroad upon that world which He hath so plenteously adorned, a
voice of general invitation,, that his wandering children might again return to
his forgiveness, and He again be securely seated in the confidence and
affection of them all - it needs not that there be superadded to our existing
Ethics, some new principle, in order that we may be qualified to meet this new
revelation which is addressed to us. From the nature of man as he is already
constituted, there might I go back a moral echo to Him who thus speaketh to
them from heaven; and they might only need to look upon the now manifested
Deity, that their hearts may feel the love, or their consciences may attest the
obedience which are due to Him.
25. And there is nought to baffle our
ethics in the infinity of God, or in the distance at which He stands from us.
Only grant Him to be our benefactor and our owner; and on this relation alone
do we confidently found our obligations, both of gratitude and of service. Just
as there is nothing, either in the mighty distance or overbearing magnitude of
the sun, that baffles our mathematics The magnitude of quantity does not affect
the relations of qualitity. It only gives a larger result to the calculation.
And the same is true of the moral relations. Though the being who is the object
of them, be exalted to the uttermost - though the beneficence which he has
rendered outweigh indefinitely all that ever was conferred upon us by our
fellow-men, there is nothing in this to disturb the conclusion that we owe him
a return. It only enhances the conclusion. It only swells proportionally the
amount of the return - and instead of some partial offering, it points to the
dedication of all our powers, and the consecration of all our habits, as the
alone adequate expressions of our loyalty. In ascending from the terrestrial to
the celestial ethics, we come in view of more elevated gifts, and a more
elevated giver - but the relation between the two elements, of goodwill on the
one hand and of gratitude on the other, subsists as before-and the only effect
of this ascent upon the morality of the question, is, that we are led thereby
to infer the obligation of a still more sacred regard, and still more duteous
and devoted obedience.
26. Observation may have been the original
source of all our mathematics. My acquiescence in the axioms of Euclid may have
been the fruit of which I have had with the external of my senses; and but for
the exercise of the eye or, of the feelings on visible or tangible objects, I
might never have obtained the conception of lines, or of figures bounded by
lines. This may be true; and yet it is not less true that every essential or
elementary idea of the mathematics may be acquired in early life, and with a
very limited range of observation; and that we do not need to widen or extend
this range - nay, that without the aid of one additional fact or experience, it
is possible for the spirit of man to pass onward from the first principles of
the science, and traverse all the fields both of geometry and analysis that
have yet been explored. More particularly - with that little of observation,
which for aught we know might have been necessary ere we could conceive aright
of one triangle with that, and no more, might we master the many thousand
properties of each individual in that infinity of triangles that could be
furnished by the points innumerable of space - and so, while passing from one
truth to another in the little diagram that is before me-, I may in fact, and
without one particle of more light being borrowed from observation, be storing
up in my mind the truths of a high and distant astronomy. And, in like manner,
observation it may be contended is the original source of all our ethics,
though I should rather say that it supplied the occasional cause for the
development of our ethical faculties. But in either way, I must perhaps have
seen an exemplification of kindness from one being to another, ere I could
understand that gratitude was the emotion which ought to be rendered back
again. But after having once gotten my conception and my belief of the virtue
of this peculiar relationship - this will serve me for all the cases of
Beneficence that shall ever afterwards come within my knowledge. The moral will
admit of as wide and as confident an application as the mathematical - and only
grant me to have ethics enough for perceiving that when between two -
fellow-men there is good-will on the one side, there ought to be gratitude on
the other-and then simply with the information that God exists, and that He is
a God of kindness, the very ethics which told me what I owe to a beneficent
neighbour also tells me what I owe to a beneficent Deity.
27. We may
thus learn what is the precise ascent whieh we make, in passing from the
terrestrial to the celestial in Moral Philosophy. Let us distinguish between
the objects of the science and the ethics of the science - and take notice that
these two things stand related to each other, as do the objects of Natural
Philosophy to the mathematics of Natural Philosophy. It is well to understand
that a revelation of new facts might of itself suffice for this transition from
the lower to the higher department of the subject - and that we do not need to
go in quest of new principles. We may perhaps feel relieved from the
apprehension of some great and impracticable mystery in this progress-and, at
all events, it is most desirable that we conceive what be the actual
stepping-stones.by which accomplished. In Natural Philosophy the revelations of
the telescope have been super-added to the conceptions of the naked eye - and
by this what was before seen has been made more distinct, and there has been
brought forth to notice what before was wholly invisible. Perhaps, too, in
Moral Philosophy, a science which in its most comprehensive sense embraces all
the discoverable relations of the moral world, some new and revelation hath
been super-added to the powers and the perceptions of Nature-and by which, we
both see brighter what before was seen but dimly, and there may have further
been made known to us what to the unaided mind of man is wholly undiscoverable.
But still they might mainly be the peculiar facts or peculiar data which
constitute the peculiarities of the celestial and distinguish it from the
terrestrial of Moral Philosophy. It is in the facts and not in the ethics that
the peculiarity lies.
28. The question then is - " What are the facts,
and how are they accredited ?" We already have an ethics suited to all the
objects that we actually know - and that could be adapted to more objects on
the moment of their being proposed to us. By the mathematics now in our
possession, we could assign orbits corresponding to every possible law of
attraction in astronomy. There is only one such law ascertained by observation;
and the mathematical result of it is - the elliptic course of every planet that
is within the reach of our instruments. Could we be made to know of the fact,
that there is a gravitation of another rate in distant places of the universe,
we are already furnished with the mathematics that would assign the path and
periodical velocity of all the projectiles which are under it. Should a new
satellite of Jupiter be discovered, the mathematics are at hand by which to
assign the path that he ought to follow - and, to extend this I remark from the
physical to the moral world, should I be authentically made sure of the fact
that there is a mystic influence between some certain inhabitant of that planet
and myself, that in his breast there is a sympathy towards me, and in his hands
a power over me - that he hath an eye upon all my movements, and by the charm
of some talisman in his possession, can read all the feelings.and fluctuations
of my bosom - that, withal, he is my watchful and unwearied friend, and that
every opportune suggestion, whether of comfort in distress or of counsel in the
midst of my perplexities, is but the secret whisper of his voice - this were a
fact utterly beyond the range of all our present experience, yet if only
ascertained to be a fact not beyond the range of our present and existing
ethics-and the gratitude I should owe to this beneficent though unseen guardian
of my walk is as sure a dictate of our known and established morality, as is
the gratitude that I owe to the nurse who tended my infancy, or to the patron
who led me step by step along the bright prosperity of my manhood.
29.
To ascertain then whether there be indeed a celestial ethics we haye to go in
quest of facts, and not of principles. We have no new system of morality to
devise. There are present capacities of. moral judgment and emotion within our
heart; and for the development of which the world that is immediately around us
is crowded with the objects to which they respond. The question is, whether
there are not such objects also out of our world - and which when so addrest to
our understanding :that we perceive their reality, do not furthermore so
address our sense of duty, as to convince us of a something which we ought to
feel, or of a something which we ought to do.
30. We are aware, that
along with the total degeneracy of man, there has been a total darkness
ascribed to him; but we feel quite assured that in the vagueness and vehemence
wherewith this charge has been preferred, the distinction between the objects
and the ethics of Theology has not been enough adverted to. There is no such
blindness in respect to moral distinctions that there is in respect to objects
placed beyond the domain of observation, and holding substantive existence in a
spiritual and unseen world. It is true that there is diversity of moral
sentiment among men - .and that, along with the general recognition of one and
the same morals in the various ages and countries of the world, there have been
certain special and important modifications. These have so far been well
accounted for by Dr. Thomas Brown in one of his Lectures upon this subject-and
what he has said on the effect of passion in so blinding for a time the mind
that is under its influence as to obscure its perceptions of moral truth, may
apply to whole generations of men unbridled in revenge or immersed in the
depths of sensuality. Even the worst of these, however, will pronounce aright
on the great majority of ethical questions - and should the power of profligacy
or passion be from any cause suspended, if solemnized or arrested by the
revelation of new objects from heaven, or (even without the intervention of
aught so striking as this) if but withdrawn for a season from those influences
which darken the understanding only because they deprave the affections, it is
wonderful with how much truth of sentiment virtue is appreciated and the homage
to virtue is felt. A thousand evidences of this could be extracted, not from
the light and licentious but certainly from the grave and didactic authorship
both of Greece and Rome. while beyond the limits of Christendom, all those
peculiar revelations of the Gospel which relate either to past events or to
existent objects are almost wholly unknown - we are persuaded that bosoms may
be found which would do the homage of acknowledgement at least, if not of
obedience, to its truth and its purity.and its kindness and its generous
self-devotion all the world over.
31. On this distinction between the
objects and the ethics of Theology we should not have expatiated so long had we
not been persuaded of the important uses to which it may be turned in
estimating the legitimacy and the weight of various sorts of evidence for the
truth of religion; and, more especially, in helping us to mark the respective
provinces which belong to the light of nature and to the light of revelation.
We sometimes hear of the application of the Baconian Philosophy to the
Christian argument; and it is our belief that this philosophy so revered in
modern times, and the experimental seience of our day stands indebted for its
present stability and gigantic elevation, does admit of most wholesome and
beneficial application to the question. between infidels ,and believers. But
then we must so discriminate as to assign those places in the controversy where
the Philosophy of Bacon is, and those where it is not applicable. It is of
paramount authority on the question of facts or objects. On the question of
ethics again, it is not more admissible than on the question of mathematics.
And by thus confining it within its appropriate limits, we not only make a
sounder application of it-but an application of it that we shall find to be
greatly more serviceable to the cause.
32. Our first inference from
this argument is, that even though the objects of Theology lay under total
obscuration from our species - though a screen utterly impervious were placed
between the mental eye of us creatures here below, and those invisible beings
by whom heaven is occupied - still we might have an ethics in reserve, which on
the screen being in any way withdrawn, will justly and vividly respond to the
objects that are on the other side of it. There might be a mathematics without
Astronomy, but of which instant application can be made, on the existent
objects of Astronomy being unveiled. And there may be a morals without
Theology, that, on the simple presentation of its objects, would at once
recognise the duteous regards and proprieties which belong to them. We often
hear, in the general, of the darkness of nature. But a darkness in regard to
the ethics might not be at all in the same proportion or degree as a darkness
in regard to the objects of Theology. We can imagine the latter to be a total
darkness, while the former is only a twilight obscurity; or may even but need a
revelation of the appropriate facts to be excited into full illumination. There
may be moral light along with the .ignorance of all supernal objects, in which
case there can be no supernal application. But yet, in reference to the near
and palpable and besetting objects of a sublunary scene, this same light might
be of most useful avail in the business of human society. It is thus that we
understand the Apostle when speaking of the work of the law being written in
the hearts of the Gentiles, and of their being a law unto themselves. It at
least furnished as much light to the conscience as that they could accuse or
else excuse each other. In. this passage he concedes to nature the knowledge,
if not of the objects of Theology at least of the ethics. There might need
perhaps to be a revelation ere any moral aspiration can be felt towards God -
but without such a revelation, and without any regard being had to a God, there
might be a reciprocal play of the moral feelings among men, a standard of
equity and moral judgment, a common principle of reference, alike indicated in
their expressions of mutual esteem and mutual recrimination.
33.. This,
we think, should be quite obvious to at all acquainted with the literature and
history of ancient times. It is true that ere all the phenomena even of pagan
conscience and sensibility can be explained, we must admit the knowledge, or at
least the imagination of certain objects in Theology: But it is also true that
apart Theology altogether, with no other objects in the view of the mind than
those which are supplied within the limits of our visible world and by the
fellows of our species, there was a general sense of the right and the wrong -
an occasional exempliflcation of high and heroic virtue with the plaudits of
its accompanying admiration on the one hand - or, along with execrable villany,
the prompt indignancy of human hearts, and execration of human tongues upon the
other. We are not pleading for the practical strength of morality in those
days, - though we might quote the self- devotion of Regulus, the continence of
Scipio, and other noble sacrifices at the shrine of principle.or patriotism. It
is enough for our object which is to prove, not the power of morality, but
merely the sense and recognition of it - that the nobility of these instances
was felt, that the homage of public acclamation was rendered to them, that
historians eulogized and poets sung the honours of illustrious virtue. We are
not contending for such a moral nature as could achieve the practice, but for
such a moral nature as could discern the principles of righteousness.. In short
there was a natural ethics among men, a capacity both of feeling and of
perceiving the moral distinction between good and evil. The works of Horace and
Juvenal and above all of Cicero abundantly attest this. - nor are we aware of
aught more splendid and even importantly true in the whole authorship of Moral
Science than a passage from the last of these writers which is a testimony of a
heathen to the law within the breast-and armed too with such power of
enforcement, that, apart from the retributions of a reigning and a living
judge, man cannot offer violation to its authority without at the same time
suffering the greatest of all penalties in the violence which he thereby offers
to his own nature.
34. But though we have thus separated between the
Ontology and the Deontology of the question, between man's knowledge of
existences and his knowledge of duties, between the light by which he views the
being of a God and the light by which he views the services and affections that
we owe to Him - let it not be imagined that in conceding to nature the faculty
of perceiving virtue, we concede to her such a possession of virtue, as at all
to mitigate that charge of total and unexcepted depravity Scriptures have
preferred against her. And neither let it be imagined that we even accredit her
with such an unclouded perception of Ethics; as to leave nothing for revelation
to do, but to superadd the knowledge of objects - so that on the simple
information of what is truth, we could instantly and decisively follow it up
with the conclusion of what is duty. We believe that Christianity not only
addresses to the mind of her disciples objects which were before unknown, but
quickens and enlightens them in the sense of what is right and wrong - making
their moral discernment more clear, and their moral sensibility more tender.
But remember that Christianity herself presupposes this moral sense in nature -
not however so as to alleviate the imputation of nature's worthlessness, but
really and in effect to enhance it. Had nature been endowed with no such sense,
all responsibility would have been taken away from her. Where there is no law
there is no transgression; and it is just because men in all ages and in all
countries are a law unto themselves, that the sweeping condemnation of
Scripture can be carried universally round among the sons and daughters of our
species.
35. This distinction in fact between the ethics and the
objects of Theology will help us to defend aright the great Bible position of
the depravity of our nature. It will lead us to perceive that there may be a
morality without godliness, even as there may be a mathematics without
astronomy. If we make proper discrimination we shall acknowledge how possible
it is that there may be integrity and humanity in our doings with each other -
while the great unseen Being with whom we have most emphatically to do, is
forgotten and disowned by us. We shall at length understand how along with the
play and reciprocation of many terrestrial moralities in our lower world - we
may be dead, and just from our heedlessness of the objects, to all those
celestial moralities by which we are fitted for a higher and a better world. We
shall cease from a treacherous complacency in the generosity or uprightness of
nature; and no longer be deceived, by the existence of social virtue upon
earth, into the imagination of our most distant claim to that heaven, from the
elevation and the sacredness of which all the children of humanity have so
immeasurably fallen.
36. So far from the degree of natural light which
have contended for being any extenuation of human depravity, it forms the very
argument on which the Apostle concluded that all, both Jews and Gentiles, were
under sin. His inference from universal possession of a conscience among men is
"sothat they are without excuse." It is not they are blind that they are
chargeable - because they to a certain extent see that their sin remaineth with
them. We indeed think that the view which we have given may to the defence of
Orthodoxy, when the man's conscience and the natural virtues are pled in
mitigation of that deep and terrible wickedness which is ascribed to him in the
Bible. For it suggests this reply - There may mathematics without astronomy -
there may an Ethics without Theology. Even though the phenomena of the visible
heavens are within the reach of human observation - yet, if we will not study
them, we may still have a terrestrial geometry; but a celestial, we altogether
want, nay have wilfully put away from us. And so also, we may be capable of
certain guesses and discoveries respecting God - yet, if we will not prosecute
them,. we may still have a terrestrial morals, and yet be in a state of
practical atheism. The face of human society may occasionally brighten with the
patriotism and the generosity and the honour which reciprocate from one to
another amongst the members of the human family - and yet all rnay be immersed
in deepest unconcern about their common Father who is in heaven - all may be
living without God in the world.
End of Chapter One.
More will be
posted upon request.