necessarily mar their cogency or plausibility of proof. Reason is often pressed, But honest Instinct comes a volunteer.1 2 The standard of nature is the perfect and, therefore, the mature instance. The highest stage of civilization is, in the truest sense, a state of nature; nor are instincts confined or necessarily correspondent to the primeval beliefs of savages. There may be a rudimentary belief, natural and instinctive to human tribes, which, at any given stage, may not have yet emerged into a condition which can be pronounced as definitely apprehended. It must be remembered that results obtained through evolution, being strictly natural, may, in themselves, be regarded as instinctive. And, certainly, the belief in spiritual beings, the conviction of the existence of an all-seeing Deity, controlling the course of 1 "Les principes se sentent: les propositions se concluent."-Pascal, Pensées, II. 108. Instinct, says De Maistre, is like an Asymptote to Reason, ever approaching but never invading its domain. 2 "Num dubitas quin specimen naturæ capi debeat ex optimâ quâque naturâ?"-Cic., Tusc. Disp., I. xiv. Aeî σkomeîv év toîs katà púσw ἔχουσι μᾶλλον τὸ φύσει καὶ μὴ ἐν τοῖς διεφθαρμένοις.—Arist., Pol., I. v. 5, and N. Eth., IX. ix. 8. That which is the consummation in order of time or development is the original or end respectively in the order of Nature. 3 Mr. Herbert Spencer indeed holds that "fundamental moral intuitions have been and still are developing in our race." The abortion of this truth is to hold with Feuerbach that the Deity Himself is a creation of the human conscience; that man has made God in the likeness of man. Any way these intuitions must be regarded as facts; and, being parts of an organization, imply design. They are the "practical proofs" of Bishop Butler. On the whole question, see Comte, Phil. Pos., IV. 624. Waitz, Anthrop., I. 322; Tylor, H. Pr. Cult., I. 384. positive events, of a possible communion with Him as the aim and end of being, of a sense of duty and responsibility, of the existence, present and future, of the soul, and other similarly connected fundamental truths, are some of these. Even if origi- and have nally traceable to social tendencies and social racter of sympathies, or, which we cannot admit, to inherited facts. experiences of utility,' accumulated and transmitted, and thus not innate but acquired, they are not for that reason less natural. Such instincts may be termed derivative; but they still speak with the Nature voice of Nature and of Nature's God, and their testimony. utterance is this. They prove that community of feeling and nature with the Divine which is denied or ignored in the philosophy of Nescience, but is of the essence of the faith of Christ (τοῦ γὰρ καὶ γένος éoμév). For Christianity, it must ever be remembered, is no mere Monotheism ;3 it is rather, as 1 Mr. Spencer says, "Moral intuitions are the results of accumulated experiences of utility. Gradually organized and inherited, they have come to be quite independent of conscious experience." See Bain, Mental and M. S., p. 722. 2 See Darwin, Descent, II. 295, and J. S. Mill, Utilitarianism, p. 45. Exam. of Sir W. Hamilton, p. 167. The question whether we have, given in consciousness, an immediate intuition of God, is not essential ; we are at least conscious of truths which render the existence of God matter of inference. 3 As a form of Monotheism, Christianity might be nothing more than the outcome of the development of our race. Thus Mr. Tylor, Hist. Pr. C., II. 302, regards the religion of savages as a polytheism which culminates in the worship of one God. Humboldt in a fine passage shows that Monotheism alone is consistent with a view of the unities of Nature, of the order of the universe. "Es ist ein charakterisches Kennzeichen der Naturpoesie der Hebräer, dass als Reflex des Monothe of their raised by it has been called, Theanthropism, the taking of the manhood into God. Objection § 11. It is a difficulty more apparent than real, the Evolu- that a being apprehensive and recipient of will answered. should, if indeed it be so, be descended from pro tionists genitors without it. It is evident when we take into account the expansive force of mind and the vast differences which sever civilized from barbarous tribes, that, whatever his origin, man's capacity for improvement, or, as we should prefer to term it, renovation, is practically infinite. Nor is it easy to say where a difference of degree in respect of faculties may merge into one of kind. An illustration of this truth may be found in the longdelayed maturity of the more complex and highly endowed embryos, which yet recall, in various stages of growth and infancy, the rudimentary phases of specific evolution. If the sense of personality, of responsibility and moral consciousness be our guarantee of the soul's reality, it may afford some clue to the point of transition from animal to human existence in the higher and truer sense. Doubtless "there is a natural body, and there is a spiritual." Howbeit "that was not first which is ismus, sie stets das Ganze des Weltalls in seiner Einheit umfasst sowohl das Erdenleben, als die leuchtenden Himmelsräume. Sie weilt seltener bei dem Einzelnen der Erscheinung, sondern erfreut sich der Anschauung grosser Massen. Man möchte sagen, dass in dem einzigen 104. Psalm das Bild des ganzen Kosmos dargelegt ist," &c. On Christianity as wholly depending on the doctrine of the Incarnation, see Dorner, Doct. of Person of Christ, I. 2, sub init., and Dr. Westcott in his able critique of Comte on Christianity, Cont. Rev., VI. 418. of man animal spiritual." We may have "borne the image of the heavenly." It is probably through the Relation medium of sensation that we learn to distinguish to the our separate personality. Yet it is a knowledge world. too wonderful and excellent for the mere brute: he cannot attain to it. The moral qualities which he displays are probably derived from his intercourse with man, and admit of very limited culture. So with the sense of immortality, of freedom, and responsible activity. Part of the native generic consciousness of our race, this may yet be developed slowly, partially, precariously. Still the fact of such development remains with its attendant consequences; for which the same evidence exists as determines the reality of all our knowledge. § 12. The old familiar generalization that there Admitted is no effect without a cause has been so far ex- of the 1 "Take an example of a dog, and mark what a generosity and courage he will put on when he finds himself maintained by a man, who to him is instead of a God or melior natura; which courage is manifestly such as that creature without that confidence of a better nature than his own, could never attain."-Bacon, Essay on Atheism. Augustine, Civ. Dei, XI. xxvii., remarks, "Verumtamen inest sensibus irrationalium animantium etsi scientia nullo modo, at certe quædam scientiæ similitudo." 2 See Mr. Picton's able speculations in New Theories and Old Faith, Lect. II., &c. The "survival of the fittest," in spite of Mr. Spencer's answer to Mr. Martineau (Cont. Rev., XX. 147), implies to my mind pre-arrangement and a directive Will. The benevolence of the originating Mind requires a distinct proof. 3 Of this Leibnitz, Théod., I. § 44, remarks: "Sans ce grand principe nous ne pourrions jamais prouver l'existence de Dieu." An illustration of his method will be found in his Confessio Naturæ contra Atheistas (Works, pp. 45, 46, ed. Erdmann), and Théodicée, I. § 7. Dien est la première raison des choses, &c. uniformity course of Nature. Leads to the acknow. tended in experience as to receive the addition, and one which is itself uniform. Thus if Physical Science should ever ultimately resolve the bulk of natural facts into forces, compounds into substances, organic structures into inorganic, or inorganic into organic, vital into material, or material into vital; these forces, we may presume, will be found to be qualified; for else they would be incapable of differentiation. Or if ultimately resoluble into a single force, this must, so far as we can conceive, be itself qualified, to be what it is.1 Eternal form must still divide But as that which is itself the origin of movement to all other things, must be either self-caused, of a First that is, can in no manner be itself an effect; or ledgment Cause. 2 must be in its operation eternal a parte ante; it is necessary to determine the alternative. It is not enough to say with one of its most distinguished teachers that "the positive philosophy does not busy itself with the beginnings of the universe, it the universe had a beginning." Or, again, with 3 1 "Cette idée de l'espèce qui serait inhérente au germe, c'est un principe qui dépasse toutes les données du matérialisme."-Janet, Le Mat. Contemporain, p. 115. 2 Comp. Arist., Metaph., XI. vi. vii.; Phys., VIII.; Plato, Phaedrus p. 245. Compare Sir W. Hamilton's argument, Lect. I. 60, to show that philosophy, as the knowledge of effects in their causes, tends not to a plurality of ultimate causes, but towards one. Comte views the resolution of laws or forces into unity as chimerical. 3 Littré, Paroles de Phil. Pos., p. 53. |