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Man becomes lost in the race; the individual in the

species.1

Tho' thou wert scattered to the wind,

Yet is there plenty of the kind.

Thus, Law is made a Juggernaut riding forth and demanding victims on his way.

But it may be said,-Does it not always find them? Granted: I mean the uniformity of the facts which it reguConfusion lates. But is it thus explained why this one or formity that should be the victims? This depends, it is cessity of replied, on special laws as distinct from general, with which we are not at present acquainted." But why, we answer, should necessity of action

with ne

operation.

1 Justin Martyr, Dial. c. Tryph., c. i., notices this view as current in the philosophy of the time, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἡμᾶς ἐπιχειροῦσι πείθειν ὡς τοῦ μὲν σύμπαντος καὶ αὐτῶν τῶν γενῶν καὶ εἰδῶν ἐπιμελεῖται Θεός, ἐμοῦ δὲ καὶ σοῦ οὐκ ἔτι καὶ τοῦ καθ ̓ ἕκαστα.

So careful of the type she seems,

So careless of the single life.

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Feuerbach, Essence of Christianity, p. 150, E. T., catches this vital difference in Christian teaching. Christianity cared nothing for the species, and had only the individual in its eye and mind." Compare Prof. Huxley, Lay Sermons, p. 158. Epicurus himself struggled hard against the doctrine of a physical necessity. Cf. ap. Diog. Laert. x. 133, 134, ἐπεὶ κρεῖττον ἦν τῷ περὶ Θεῶν μυθῷ κατακολουθεῖν ἢ τῇ τῶν φυσικῶν εἰμαρμένῃ δουλεύειν ὁ μὲν γὰρ ἐλπίδα παραιτήσεως ὑπογράφει Θεῶν διὰ τιμῆς, ἡ δὲ ἀπαραίτητον ἔχει τὴν ἀνάγκην.

2 "In a given state of society, a certain number of persons must put an end to their own life. This is the general law; and the special question as to who shall commit the crime depends of course upon special laws: which, however, in their total action, must obey the large social law to which they are all subordinate."-Buckle, H. C., I. 28. Mansel well points out that the uniformity represented by statistical averages is one which is observed in masses only, and not in individuals; and hence the law, if law it be, indicated is one which offers no bar to the existence of individual freedom exercised, like all human power, within limits.

design of

uniformity.

(and a latent necessity is certainly assumed) be any more admissible in respect of special than of general laws? No man when he has apprehended the conditions of his being thinks of contravening them. He feels that laws, as Butler long ago pointed out, imply penalties appointed by the Author of Nature for the well-being of mankind. Apparent He turns them, then, to His own purposes through natural the very circumstance of their fixedness without, however, losing the conviction that he is himself responsible for what he does. But responsibility is incompatible with constraint. The facts, then, seem to be these. A large proportion of mankind, submitted to certain tests, will act in a given way and in the same way. But all do not. And, what is more, in acting they are conscious that they might, and in particular cases ought, to act differently. This consciousness is itself a fact as patent as the uniformities of statistical averages, and points to something further, i. e. to freedom in acting. These, as facts, must first be admitted on positive grounds and then be scientifically ex

1 "Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus;

Another thing to fall.-Measure for Measure, act ii. sc. 1.

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Inclination, that is, is not constraint: it rather implies freedom. See Harless, System of Christian Ethics, pp. 20, 85, E. T.; Delitzsch, Bib. Psych., p. 194. 'Man," said Luther (Comm. on Gal.), “is not two beings opposed to each other, but is like the dawn of the morning, which is neither night nor day." This is the answer to the dilemma, that motives must either determine a man to act, or influence him to determine himself to act. See Hamilton's Reid, p. 608.

plained. If subordinated to physical laws and

method, they are not thereby rendered inconsistent Objection with every form of Christian theology." But it is

based on

the nature no such explanation to reply that consciousness is sciousness. no faculty, only a state or condition of mind, liable

of con

to occasional error; occasional, indeed, for if it be held a permanent delusion, the whole human race must needs have lain in darkness until now. Yet why, it has been justly asked, are we now to unclothe our minds of that large outfit of existing thoughts, desires, hopes, and fears, which make us (and have made us) what we are? Neither, again, can we admit the fact of this inward testimony of a soul, naturally Christian, without acknowledging further its cogency and truth. It Conscious would be as easy else to disprove on the same grounds the existence of an external world, of the whole fabric of Nature, and of those very laws the extent of which is the real and sole object of contention. Even if an act of consciousness involve an operation of inference, it is one of the same

ness ana

logous to

perception.

There are some good remarks on Buckle's interpretation (I. 38) of the views of Kant upon Free Will, in Lange, Gesch. des Materialismus, pp. 478-81.

2 Compare Huxley in his essay on Descartes, Lay S., pp. 374, 375. 3 Buckle (u. s., I. 15), who is really following the guidance of Bayle in his strictures on the Cartesian doctrine. Leibnitz, though unwilling to rest man's independence on a sentiment, justly claims it as the result of a minute investigation of the elements of consciousness. Non enim et sentire intelligere est, et intelligere sentire est ? asks Tertullian (Anim., c. xviii.).

* J. H. Newman, Grammar of Assent, p. 419.

kind with perception, and no further liable than it to disproof or mistrust.

A condi

proposi

§ 17. Nor, lastly, is this view of free agency, tioned will that in the practical exercise of it we are always no barren guided by motives, consciously or unconsciously, tion. which yet do not necessitate conduct, "a barren proposition," incapable of translation into action.' To regulate the conditions of society in the most favourable manner; to teach that the individual is no mere slave of circumstances; that the knowledge of the risks of temptation entails the duty of keeping clear of unwholesome tendencies to action and of bearing ourselves firmly and manfully when Its resultsubmitted to them, thus "redeeming the time be- sibilities. cause the days are evil," this is a task worthy alike of the statesman and the philanthropist, and is the proper duty of the clergyman, the tutor, and the schoolmaster. A barren proposition! Then let Moral reReligion indeed cease her office and the faith of MaterialChrist its professions. What need of exhortation Positivist where there is no choice? Or of atonement where there can be no sin? Or of promises which have

1 "If any one says that we have this power of acting without motives, but that in the practical exercise of the power we are always guided by motives, either conscious or unconscious if any one says this, he asserts a barren proposition."-Buckle, I. 18, n. Holy Scripture, while it nowhere speaks of man as free, says everywhere that he can choose (Cf. Is. vii. 15); thus making self-determination the property of human nature. See Delitzsch, Bibl. Psych., p. 192.

2 It may, perhaps, be contended that in practice the morality of necessity does not enfeeble the claims of duty, because the Predestinarian schools have always been rigorists. This may be explained to some

ing respon

sults of the

istic or

view.

no real hold in the heart or soul of man? What need to discuss the permanence of a belief which can be the fruit but of hypocrisy or ignorance? But what, on the other hand, is to be thought of a philosophy, the boasted result of science, which, extinguishing motive, abolishes the reasons of action, and filches together with these the very savour of human existence; which annihilates duty, makes benevolence impossible, the enthusiasm of humanity absurd; which degrades the immortal spirit, the "blessed part" of man, to the level of Protean matter and the dominion of brute forces;2

extent by prudential considerations; but hardly by any logical connection. This is discussed in Merivale's Conv. of N. Nations, pp. 167– 171.

1 The philosophical error of Positivism is to ignore the free play of individual action as beneficial to human progress. Hence, perhaps, Comte's well-known aversion to Protestantism. This is, indeed, but one form of his disinclination to recognize Causation as open to the reach of man's faculties. The result is undoubtedly to measure all knowledge by the Laws of Phenomena. On this subject the reader is referred to Mill's Logic, Book III., v. § 9, and on the materialistic tendencies of Positivism to Mr. Lecky, Hist. Rationalism, II. p. 408, together with Mill, A. Comte and Positiv., p. 15, &c. It is, indeed, denied by M. Littré, Principes, pp. 38, 39.

"Positivism, allowing spirit no place in its system, denies immortality to man, but confers it on humanity."-Mr. A. Fairbairn on Belief in Immortality (Cont. Rev., XX. 28). Compare Mill, Comte and Pos., pp. 135, 152. Prof. Huxley, Lay S., p. 191, quotes a beautiful but melancholy passage from M. Comte, attesting the unsatisfactory results of so baseless a fabric of belief as that of Positivism. "La philosophie est une tentative incessante de l'esprit humain pour arriver au repos. Mais elle se trouve incessamment aussi dérangée par les progrès continus de la science. De là vient pour le philosophe l'obligation de refaire chaque soir la synthèse de ses conceptions; et un jour viendra où l'homme raisonnable ne fera plus d'autre prière du soir."

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