Part 9 (1/2)

thou n.o.blest denizen of earth; yea, how art thou cast down to the ground. But a little ago we believed thee a spiritual being; that thou hadst a nature too n.o.ble to rot with the beasts among the clods; that thou wast made fit to live with angels and thy Creator, G.o.d. But a little ago we believed thee possessed of a psychical life--a soul; that thou wouldst live forever beyond the stars; and that this soul's life was wholly occupied in the consideration of ”heavenly and divine things.” A little ago we believed in holiness, and that thou, consecrating thyself to pure and loving employments, shouldst become purer and more beautiful, n.o.bler and more lovely, until perfect love should cast out all fear, and thou shouldst then see G.o.d face to face, and rejoice in the sunlight of his smiling countenance. But all this is changed now. Our belief has been found to be a cheat, a bitter mockery to the soul. We have sat at the feet of the English sage, and learned how dismally different is our destiny. Painful is it, oh reader, to listen; and the words of our teacher sweep like a sirocco over the heart; yet we cannot choose but hear.

”The pyschical life”--the life of the soul, ”the immortal spark of fire,”--and the physical life ”are _equally_ definable as the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations.” We had supposed that intelligence in its highest forms was wholly occupied with the contemplation of G.o.d and his laws, and the great end of being, and all those tremendous questions which we had thought fitted to occupy the activities of a spiritual person. We are undeceived now. We find we have shot towards the pole opposite to the truth. Now ”we perceive that this which we call Intelligence shows itself when the external relations to which the internal ones are adjusted begin to be numerous, complex, and remote in time or s.p.a.ce; that _every advance in Intelligence essentially consists in the establishment of more varied, more complete, and more involved adjustments; and that even the highest achievements of science_ are resolvable into mental relations of coexistence and sequence, so coordinated as _exactly to tally_ with certain relations of coexistence and sequence that occur externally.” In such relations consists the life of the ”caterpillar.” In such relations, _only a little ”more complex,”_ consists the life of ”the sparrow.” Such relations only does ”the fowler” observe; such only does ”the chemist” know. This is the path by which we are led to the last, the highest ”truth” which man can attain. Thus do we learn ”that what we call _truth_, guiding us to successful action, and the consequent maintenance of life, is _simply_ the accurate correspondence of subjective to objective relations; while error, leading to failure and therefore towards death, is the absence of such accurate correspondence.” What a n.o.ble life, oh, reader, what an exalted destiny thine is here declared to be! The largest effort of thine intelligence, ”the highest achievement of science,” yea, the total object of the life of thy soul,--thy ”psychial” life,--is to attain such exceeding skill in the construction of a shelter, in the fitting of apparel, in the preparation of food, in a word, in securing ”the accurate correspondence of subjective to objective relations,” and thus in attaining the ”_truth_” which shall guide ”us to successful action and the consequent maintenance of life,” that we shall secure forever our animal existence on earth. Study patiently thy lesson, oh human animal! Con it o'er and o'er. Who knows but thou mayest yet attain to this acme of the perfection of thy nature, though it be far below what thou hadst once fondly expected,--mayest attain a perfect knowledge of the ”_truth_,” and a perfect skill in the application of that truth, _i.

e._ in ”the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations”; and so be guided ”to successful action, and the consequent maintenance of life,” whereby thou shalt elude forever that merciless hunter who pursues thee,--the grim man-stalker, the skeleton Death. But when bending all thy energies, yea, all the powers of thy soul, to this task, thou mayest recur at some unfortunate moment to the dreams and aspirations which have hitherto lain like golden sunlight on thy pathway. Let no vain regret for what seemed thy n.o.bler destiny ever sadden thy day, or deepen the darkness of thy night. True, thou didst deem thyself capable of something higher than ”the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations”; didst often occupy thyself with contemplating those ”things which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard”; didst deem thyself a son of G.o.d, and ”a joint-heir with Jesus Christ,” ”of things incorruptible and undefiled, and which fade not away, eternal in the heavens”; didst sometimes seem to see, with faith's triumphant gaze, those glorious scenes which thou wouldst traverse when in the spirit-land thou shouldst lead a pure spiritual life with other spirits, where all earthliness had been stripped off, all tears had been wiped away, and perfect holiness was thine through all eternity. But all these visions were only dreams; they wholly deluded thee. We have learned from the lips of this latest English sage that thy G.o.d is thy belly, and that thou must mind earthly things, so as to keep up ”the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations.” Such being thy lot, and to fulfil such a lot being ”the highest achievement of science,” permit not thyself to be disturbed by those old-fas.h.i.+oned and sometimes troublesome notions that ”_truth_” and those ”achievements” pertained to a spiritual person in spiritual relations to G.o.d as the moral Governor of the Universe; that man was bound to know the truth and obey it; that his ”errors” were violations of perfect law,--the truth he knew,--were _crimes_ against Him who is ”of too pure eyes to behold iniquity, and cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance”; that for these crimes there impended a just penalty--an appalling punishment; and that the only real ”failure” was the failure to repent of and forsake the crimes, and thus escape the penalty. Far other is the fact, as thou wilt learn from this wise man's book. As he teaches us, the only ”error” we can make, is, to miss in maintaining perfectly ”the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations,”--is to eat too much roast beef and plum-pudding at dinner, or to wear too scanty or too thick clothing, or to expose one's self imprudently in a storm, or by some other carelessness which may produce ”the absence of such accurate correspondence” as shall secure unending life, and so lead to his only ”failure”--the advance ”towards death.” When, then, oh reader! by some unfortunate mischance, some ”error” into which thine ignorance hath led thee, thou hast rendered thy ”failure” inevitable, and art surely descending ”towards death,” hesitate not to sing with heedless hilarity the old Epicurean song, ”Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.”

Sing and be gay The livelong day, Thinking no whit of to-morrow.

Enjoy while you may All pleasure and play, For after death is no sorrow.

Thou hast committed thine only ”error” in not maintaining ”the accurate correspondence”; thou hast fallen upon thine only ”failure,” the inevitable advance ”towards death.” Than death no greater evil can befall thee, and that is already sure. Then let ”dance and song,” and ”women and wine,” bestow some s.n.a.t.c.hes of pleasure upon thy fleeting days.

Delightful philosophy, is it not, reader? Poor unfortunate man, and especially poor, befooled, cheated, hopeless Christian man, who has these many years cherished those vain, deceitful dreams of which we spoke a little ago! To be brought down from such lofty aspirations; to be made to know that he is only an animal; that ”Life in all its manifestations, inclusive of Intelligence in its highest forms, consists in the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations.” Do you not join with me in pitying him?

And such is the philosophy which is heralded to us from over the sea as the newly found and wonderful truth, which is to satisfy the hungering soul of man and still its persistent cry for bread. And this is the teacher, mocking that painful cry with such chaff, whom newspaper after newspaper, and periodical after periodical on this side the water, even to those we love best and cherish most, have p.r.o.nounced one of the profoundest essayists of the day. Perhaps he can give us some sage remarks upon ”laughter,” as it is observed in the human animal, and on that point compare therewith other animals. But, speaking in all sincerity after the manner of the Book of Common Prayer, we can but say, ”From all such philosophers and philosophies, good Lord deliver us.”

Few, perhaps none of our readers, will desire to see a denial in terms of such a theory. When a man, aspiring to be a philosopher, advances the doctrine that not only is ”Life in its simplest form”--the animal life--”the correspondence of certain inner physico-chemical actions with certain outer physico-chemical actions,” but that ”_each advance to a higher form of Life_ consists in a better preservation of this primary correspondence”; and when, proceeding further, and to be explicit, he a.s.serts that not only ”the physical,” _but also ”the psychical life_ are _equally_” but ”the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations”; and when, still further to insult man, and to utter his insult in the most positive, extreme, and unmistakable terms, he a.s.serts ”that even the highest achievements of science are resolvable into mental relations of coexistence and sequence, so coordinated as exactly to tally with certain relations of coexistence and sequence that occur externally,”--that is, that the highest science is the attainment of a perfect cuisine; in a word, when a human being in this nineteenth century offers to his fellows as the loftiest attainment of philosophy the tenet that the highest form of life cognizable by man is an animal life, and that man can have no other knowledge of himself than as an animal, of a little higher grade, it is true, than other animals, but not different in kind, then the healthy soul, when such a doctrine is presented to it, will reject it as instantaneously as a healthy stomach rejects a roll of tobacco.

With what a sense of relief does one turn from a system of philosophy which, when stripped of its garb of well-chosen words and large sounding, plausible phrases, appears in such vile shape and hideous proportions, to the teachings of that pure and n.o.ble instructor of our youth, that man who, by his gentle, benignant mien, so beautifully ill.u.s.trates the spirit and life of the Apostle John,--Rev. Mark Hopkins, D. D., President of Williams College. No one who has read his ”Lectures on Moral Science,” and no lover of truth should fail to do so, will desire an apology for inserting the following extract, wherein is presented a theory upon which the soul of man can rest, as at home the soldier rests, who has just been released from the Libby or Salisbury charnel-house.

”And here, again, we have three great forces with their products. These are the vegetable, the animal, and the rational life.

”Of these, vegetable life is the lowest. Its products are as strictly conditional for animal life as chemical affinity is for vegetable, for the animal is nourished by nothing that has not been previously elaborated by the vegetable. 'The profit of the earth is for all; the king himself is served by the field.'

”Again, we have the animal and sensitive life, capable of enjoyment and suffering, and having the instincts necessary to its preservation.

_This_, as man is now const.i.tuted, _is conditional for his rational life_. The rational has its roots in that, and manifests itself only through the organization which that builds up.

”_We have, then, finally and highest of all, this rational and moral life, by which man is made in the image of G.o.d._ In man, as thus const.i.tuted, we first find a being who is capable of choosing his own end, or, rather, of choosing or rejecting the end indicated by his whole nature. This is moral freedom, _and in this is the precise point of transition from all that is below to that which is highest_. For everything below man the end is necessitated. Whatever choice there may be in the agency of animals of means for the attainment of their end,--and they have one somewhat wide,--they have none in respect to the end itself. This, for our purpose, and for all purposes, is the characteristic distinction, so long sought, between man and the brute.

Man determines his own end; the end of the brute is necessitated. Up to man everything is driven to its end by a force working from without or from behind; but for him the pillar of cloud and of fire puts itself in front, and he follows it or not, as he chooses.

”In the above cases it will be seen that the process is one of the addition of new forces, with a constant limitation of the field within which the forces act.... It is to be noticed, however, that while the field of each added and superior force is narrowed, yet nothing is dropped. Each lower force shoots through, and combines itself with all that is higher. Because he is rational, man is not the less subject to gravitation and cohesion and chemical affinity. He has also the organic life that belongs to the animal. In him none of these are dropped; _but the rational life is united with and superinduced upon all these_, so that man is not only a microcosm, but is the natural head and ruler of the world. He partakes of all that is below him, _and becomes man by the addition of something higher_.... Here, then, is our model and law. Have we a lower sensitive and animal nature? Let that nature be cherished and expanded by all its innocent and legitimate enjoyments, for it is an end. But--and here we find the limit--let it be cherished _only as subservient to the higher intellectual life_, for it is also a means.”

The italics are ours.

Satisfactory, true, and self-sustained as is this theory,--and it is one which like a granite Gothic spire lifts itself high and calm into the atmosphere, standing firm and immovable in its own clear and self-evident truth, unshaken by a thousand a.s.saulting materialistic storms,--we would b.u.t.tress it with the utterances of other of the earth's n.o.ble ones; and this we do not because it is in any degree needful, but because our mind loves to linger round the theme, and to gather the concurrent thought of various rarely endowed minds upon this subject. Exactly in point is the following--one of many pa.s.sages which might be selected from the works of that profoundest of English metaphysicians and theologians, S. T. Coleridge:--

”And here let me observe that the difficulty and delicacy of this investigation are greatly increased by our not considering the understanding (even our own) in itself, and as it would be were it not accompanied with and modified by the cooperation of the will, the moral feeling, and that faculty, perhaps best distinguished by the name of Reason, of determining that which is universal and necessary, of fixing laws and principles whether speculative or practical, and of contemplating a final purpose or end. This intelligent will--having a self-conscious purpose, under the guidance and light of the reason, by which its acts are made to bear as a whole upon some end in and for itself, and to which the understanding is subservient as an organ or the faculty of selecting and appropriating the means--seems best to account for that progressiveness of the human race, _which so evidently marks an insurmountable distinction and impa.s.sable barrier between man and the inferior animals, but which would be inexplicable, were there no other difference than in the degree of their intellectual faculties_.”--_Works_, Vol. I. p. 371. The italics are ours.

The attention of the reader may with profit be also directed to the words of another metaphysician, who has been much longer known, and has enjoyed a wider fame than either of those just mentioned; and whose teachings, however little weight they may seem to have with Mr. Spencer, have been these many years, and still are received and studied with profound respect and loving carefulness by mult.i.tudes of persons. We refer to the apostle Paul, ”There is, therefore, now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit.” That is, who do not walk after the law of the animal nature, but who do walk after the law of the spiritual person, for it is of this great psychological distinction that the apostle so fully and continually speaks. ”For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the spirit, the things of the spirit. For the minding of the flesh is death, but the minding of the spirit is life and peace; because the minding of the flesh as enmity against G.o.d, for it is not subject to the law of G.o.d, neither indeed can be.” _Romans_ VIII. 1, 5, 6, 7. This I say, then, ”Walk in the spirit and fulfil not the l.u.s.t of the flesh. For the flesh l.u.s.teth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other.”--_Galatians_ V. 16, 17.

Upon these pa.s.sages it should be remarked, by way of explanation, that our translators in writing the word spirit with a capital, and thus intimating that it is the Holy Spirit of G.o.d which is meant, have led their readers astray. The apostle's repeated use of that term, in contrasting the flesh with the spirit, appears decisive of the fact that he is contrasting, in all such pa.s.sages, the animal nature with the spiritual person. But if any one is startled by this position and thinks to reject it, let him bear in mind that the law of the spiritual person in man and of the Holy Spirit of G.o.d is _identical_.

The reader will hardly desire from us what his own mind will have already accomplished--the construction in our own terms, and the contrasting of the system above embodied with that presented by Mr.

Spencer. The human being, Man, is a twofold being, ”flesh” and ”spirit,”

an animal nature and a spiritual person. In the animal nature are the Sense and the Understanding. In the spiritual person are the Reason, the spiritual Sensibilities, and the Will. The animal nature is common to man and the brutes. The spiritual person is common to man and G.o.d. It is manifest, then, that there is ”an insurmountable distinction and impa.s.sable barrier” not only ”between man and the inferior animals,” but between man as spiritual person, and man as animal nature, and that this is a greater distinction than any other in the Universe, except that which exists between the Creator and the created. What relation, then, do these so widely diverse natures bear to each other? Evidently that which President Hopkins has a.s.signed. ”Because he is rational, man is not the less subject to gravitation and cohesion and chemical affinity.

He has also the organic life that belongs to the plant, and the sensitive and instinctive life that belongs to the animal.” Thus far his life ”is the correspondence of certain inner physico-chemical actions with certain outer physico-chemical actions,”--undoubtedly ”consists in the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations”; and being the highest order of animal, his life ”consists in the establishment of more varied, more complete, and more involved adjustments” than that of any other animal. What, then, is this life for? ”This, as man is now const.i.tuted, is _conditional for his rational life_.” ”The rational life is united with and _superinduced upon all these_.” As G.o.d made man, and in the natural order, the ”flesh,” the animal life, is wholly subordinate to the ”spirit,” the spiritual life.

And the spirit, or spiritual person of which Paul writes so much,--does this also, this ”Intelligence in its highest form,” consist ”in the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations”? Are the words of the apostle a cheat, a lie, when he says, ”For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die; but if ye through the spirit”--_i. e._ by living with the help of the Holy Spirit, in accordance with the law of the spiritual person--”do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live?”

And are Mr. Spencer's words, in which he teaches exactly the opposite doctrine, true? wherein he says: ”And lastly let it be noted that what we call truth,” &c., (see _ante_, p. 168,) wherein he teaches that ”if ye live after the flesh,” if you are guided by ”_truth_,” if you are able perfectly to maintain ”the accurate correspondence of subjective to objective relations,” ”ye shall not surely die,” you will attain to what is _successful action_, the preservation of ”life,” of ”the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations,” of the animal life, and thus your bodies will live forever--the highest good for man; but if you ”mortify the deeds of the body,” if you pay little heed to ”the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations,”

you will meet with ”_error_, leading to failure and therefore towards death,”--the death of the body, the highest evil which can befall man,--and so ”ye shall” not ”live.” Proceeding in the direction already taken, we find that in his normal condition the spiritual person would not be chiefly, much less exclusively, occupied with attending to ”the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations,” but would only regard these in so far as is necessary to preserve the body as the ground through which, in accordance with the present dispensation of G.o.d's providence, that person may exert himself and employ his energies upon those objects which belong to his peculiar sphere, even the laws and duties of spiritual beings. The person would indeed employ his superior faculties to a.s.sist the lower nature in the preservation of its animal life, but this only as a means. G.o.d has ordained that through this means that person shall develop and manifest himself; yet the life, continuance in being, of the soul, is in no way dependent on this means.

Strip away the whole animal nature, take from man his body, his Sense and Understanding, leave him--as he would then be--with no possible medium of communication with the Universe, and he, the I am, the spiritual person, would remain intact, as active as ever. He would have lost none of his capacity to see laws and appreciate their force; he would feel the _bindingness_ of obligation just as before; and finally, he would be just as able as in the earlier state to make a choice of an ultimate end, though he would be unable to make a single motion towards putting that choice into effect. The spiritual person, then, being such that he has in himself no element of decomposition, has no need, for the preservation of his own existence, to be continually occupied with efforts to maintain ”the accurate correspondence of subjective to objective relations.” Yet activity is his law, and, moreover, an activity having objects which accord with this his indestructible nature. With what then will such a being naturally occupy himself? There is for him no danger of decay. He possesses within himself the laws and ideals of his action. As such, and created, he is near of kin to that august Being in whoso image he was created. His laws are the created person's laws. The end of the Creator should be that also of the created. But G.o.d is infinite, while the soul starts a babe, an undeveloped germ, and must begin to learn at the alphabet of knowledge.

What n.o.bler, what more sublime and satisfactory occupation could this being, endowed with the faculties of a G.o.d, find, than to employ all his power in the contemplation of the eternal laws of the Universe, _i. e._ to the acquisition of an intimate acquaintance with himself and G.o.d; and to bend all his energies to the realization by his own efforts of that part in the Universe which G.o.d had a.s.signed him, _i. e._, to accord his will entirely with G.o.d's will. This course of life, a spiritual person standing in his normal relation to an animal nature, would pursue as spontaneously as if it were the law of his being. But this which we have portrayed is not the course which human beings do pursue. By no means.

One great evil, at least, that ”the Fall” brought upon the race of man, is, that human beings are born into the world with the spiritual person all submerged by the animal nature; or, to use Paul's figure, the spirit is enslaved by the flesh; and such is the extent of this that many, perhaps most, men are born and grow up and die, and never know that they have any souls; and finally there arise, as there have arisen through all the ages, just such philosophers as Sir William Hamilton and Mr.

Spencer, who in substance deny that men are spiritual persons at all, who say that the highest knowledge is a generalization in the Understanding, a form of a knowledge common to man and the brutes, and that ”the highest achievements of science are resolvable into mental relations of coexistence and sequence, so coordinated as exactly to tally with certain relations of coexistence and sequence that occur externally.” It is this evil, organic in man, that Paul portrays so vividly; and it is against men who teach such doctrines that he thunders his maledictions.