On the Philosophy of Discovery, Chapters Historical and Critical

In like manner the Moral Ideas exist in the Divine Mind in complete fulness and luminousness; and we are naturally led to believe and expect that they must be exemplified in the moral universe, as completely and universally as the physical laws are exemplified in the physical universe. Is this so? or under what conditions can we conceive this to be?

6. In answering this question, we must consider how far the moral, still more even than the physical Ideas of the Divine Mind, are elevated above our human Ideas; but yet not so far as to have no resemblance to our corresponding human Ideas; for if this were so, we could not reason about them at all.

In speaking of man's moral Ideas, Benevolence, Justice, and the like, we speak of them as belonging to man's Soul, rather than to his Mind, which we have commonly spoken of as the seat of his physical Ideas. A distinction is thus often made between the intellectual and the moral faculties of man; but on this distinction we here lay no stress. We may speak of man's Mind and Soul, meaning that part of his being in which are all his Ideas, intellectual and moral.

And now let us consider the question which has just been asked:—how we can conceive the Divine Benevolence and Justice to be completely and universally realized in the moral world, as the Ideas of Space, Time, &c. are in the physical world?

7. Our Ideas of Benevolence, Justice, and of other Virtues, may be elevated above their original narrowness, and purified from their original coarseness, by moral culture; as our Ideas of Force and Matter, of Substance and Elements, and the like, may be made clear and convincing by philosophical and scientific culture. This appears, in some degree, in the history of moral terms, as the progress of clearness and efficacy in the Idea of the material sciences appears in the history of the terms belonging to such sciences. Thus among the Romans, while they confined their kindly affections within their own class, a stranger was universally an enemy; peregrinus was synonymous with hostis. But at a later period, they regarded all men as having a claim on their kindness; and he who felt and acted on this claim was called humane. This meaning of the word humanity shows the progress (in their Ideas at least) of the virtue which the word humanity designates.

8. And as man can thus rise to a point of view where he sees that man is to be loved as man, so the humane and loving man inevitably assumes that God loves all men; and thus assumes that there is, or may be, a love of man in man's heart, which represents and resembles in kind, however remote in degree, the love of God to man.

But as in man's love of man there are very widely different stages, rising from the narrow love of a savage to his family or his tribe, to the widest and warmest feelings of the most enlightened and loving universal philanthropist;—so must we suppose that there are stages immeasurably wider by which God's love of man is more comprehensive and more tender than any love of man for man. The religious philosopher will fully assent to the expressions of this conviction delivered by pious men in all ages. "The eternal God is thy refuge, and beneath thee are the everlasting arms." "When my father and my mother forsake me the Lord taketh me up," is the expression of Divine Love, consistent with philosophy as well as with revelation. But as the Divine Love is more comprehensive and enduring than any human love, so is it in an immeasurably greater degree, more enlightened. It is not a love that seeks merely the pleasure and gratification of its object; that even an enlightened human love does not do. It seeks the good of its objects; and such a good as is the greatest good, to an Intelligence which can embrace all cases, causes, and contingencies. To our limited understanding, evil seems often to be inflicted, and the good of a part seems inconsistent with the good of another part. Our attempts to conceive a Supreme and complete Good provided for all the creatures which exist in the universe, baffle and perplex us, even more than our attempts to conceive infinite space, infinite time, and an infinite chain of causation. But as the most careful attention which we can give to the Ideas of Space, Time, and Causation convinces us that these Ideas are perfectly clear and complete in the Divine Mind, and that our perplexity and confusion on these subjects arise only from the vast distance between the Divine Mind and our human mind, so is it reasonable to suppose the same to be the source of the confusion which we experience when we attempt to determine what most conduces to the good of our fellow-creatures; and when, urged by love to them, we endeavour to promote this good. We can do little of what Infinite Love would do, yet are we not thereby dispensed from seeking in some degree to imitate the working of Divine Love. We can see but little of what Infinite Intelligence sees, and this should be one source of confidence and comfort, when we stumble upon perplexities produced by the seeming mixture of good and evil in the world.

9. But when we ask the questions which have already been stated: Whether this Infinite Divine Love is realized in the world, and if so, How: I conceive that we are irresistibly impelled to reply to the former question, that it is: and we then turn to the latter. We are led to assume that there is in God an Infinite Love of man, a creature in a certain degree of a Divine nature. We must, as a consequence of this, assume that the Love of God to man, necessarily is, in the end, and on the whole, completely and fully realized in the history of the world. But what is the complete history of the world! Is it that which consists in the lives of men such as we see them between their birth and their death? If the minds or souls of men are alive after the death of the body, that future life, as well as this present life, belongs to the history of the world;—to that providential history, of which the totality, as we have said, must be governed by Infinite Divine Love. And in addition to all other reasons for believing that the minds and souls of men do thus survive their present life, is this:—that we thus can conceive, what otherwise it is difficult or impossible to conceive, the operation of Infinite Love in the whole of the history of mankind. If there be a Future State in which men's souls are still under the authority and direction of the Divine Governor of the world, all that is here wanting to complete the scheme of a perfect government of Intelligent Love may thus be applied: all seeming and partial evil may be absorbed and extinguished in an ultimate and universal good.

10. The Idea of Justice as belonging to God suggests to us some of the same kind of reflexions as those which we have made respecting the Divine Love. We believe God to be just: otherwise, as has been said, He would not be God. And as we thus, from the nature of our minds and souls, believe God to be just, we must, in this belief, understand Justice according to the Idea which we have of Justice; that is, in some measure, according to the Idea of Justice, as exemplified in human actions and feelings. It would be absurd to combine the two propositions, that we necessarily believe that God is just, and that by just, we mean something entirely different from the common meaning of the word.

But though the Divine Idea of Justice must necessarily, in some measure, coincide with our Idea of Justice, we must believe in this, as in other cases, that the Divine Idea is immeasurably more profound, comprehensive, and clear, than the human Idea. Even the human Idea of Justice is susceptible of many and large progressive steps, in the way of clearness, consistency, and comprehensiveness. In the moral history of man this Idea advances from the hard rigour of inflexible written Law to the equitable estimation of the real circumstances of each case; it advances also from the narrow Law of a single community to a larger Law, which includes and solves the conflicts of all such Laws. Further, the administration of human Law is always imperfect, often erroneous, in consequence of man's imperfect knowledge of the facts of each case, and still more, from his ignorance of the designs and feelings of the actors. If the Judge could see into the heart of the person accused, and could himself rise higher and higher in judicial wisdom, he might exemplify the Idea of Justice in a far higher degree than has ever yet been done.

11. But all such advance in the improvement of human Justice must still be supposed to stop immeasurably short of the Divine Justice, which must include a perfect knowledge of all men's actions, and all men's hearts and thoughts; and a universal application of the wisest and most comprehensive Laws. And the difference of the Divine and of the human Idea of Justice may, like the differences of other Divine and human Ideas, include the solution of all the perplexities in which we find ourselves involved when we would trace the Idea to all its consequences. The Divine Idea is immeasurably elevated above the human Idea; in the Divine Idea all inconsistency, defect, and incompleteness vanish, and Justice includes in its administration every man, without any admixture of injustice. This is what we must conceive of the Divine administration, since God is perfectly just.

12. But here, as before, we have another conclusion suggested to us. We are, by the considerations just now spoken of, led to believe that, in the Divine administration of the world is an administration of perfect Justice;—that is, such is the Divine Administration in the end and on the whole, taking into account the whole of the providential history of the world. But the course of the world, taking into account only what happens to man in this present life, is not, we may venture to say, a complete and entire administration of justice. It often happens that injustice is successful and triumphant, even in the end, so far as the end is seen here. It happens that wrong is done, and is not remedied or punished. It happens that blameless and virtuous men are subjected to pain, grief, violence, and oppression, and are not protected, extricated, or avenged. In the affairs of this world, the prevalence of injustice and wrong-doing is so apparent, as to be a common subject of complaint: and though the complaint may be exaggerated, and though a calm and comprehensive view may often discern compensating and remedial influences which are not visible at first sight, still we cannot regard the lot of happiness or misery which falls to each man in this world and this life as apportioned according to a scheme of perfect and universal justice, such as in our thoughts we cannot but require the Divine administration to be.

13. Here then we are again led to the same conviction by regarding the Divine administration of the world as the realization of the Divine Justice, to which we were before led by regarding it as the realization of the Divine Love. Since the Idea is not fully or completely realized in man's life in this present world, this present world cannot be the whole of the Divine Administration. To complete the realization of the Idea of Justice, as an element of the Divine Administration, there must be a life of man after his life in this present world. If man's mind and soul, the part of him which is susceptible of happiness and misery, survive this present life, and be still subject to the Divine Administration, the Idea of Divine Justice may still be completely realized, notwithstanding all that here looks like injustice or defective justice; and it belongs to the Idea of Justice to remedy and compensate, not to prevent wrong. And thus by this supposition of a Future State of man's existence, we are enabled to conceive that, in the whole of the Divine Government of the universe, all seeming injustice and wrong may be finally corrected and rectified, in an ultimate and universal establishment of a reign of perfect Righteousness.

14. Admitting the view thus presented, we may again discern a remarkable analogy between what we have called our physical Ideas (those of Space, Time, Cause, Substance, and the like), and our moral Ideas, (those of Benevolence, Justice, &c.). In both classes we must suppose that our human Ideas represent, though very incompletely and at an immeasurable distance, the Divine Ideas. Even our physical Ideas, when pursued to their consequences, are involved in a perplexity and confusion from which the Divine Ideas are free. Our Ideas of Benevolence and Justice are still more full of imperfections and inconsistency, when we would frame them into a complete scheme, and yet from such imperfections and inconsistency we must suppose that the Divine Benevolence and Justice are exempt. Our physical Ideas we find in every case exactly exemplified and realized in the universe, and we account for this by considering that they are the Divine Ideas, on which the universe is constituted. Our moral Ideas, the Ideas of Benevolence and Justice in particular, must also be realized in the universe, as a scheme of Divine Government. But they are not realized in the world as constituted of man living this present life. The Divine Scheme of the world, therefore, extends beyond this present life of man. If we could include in our survey the future life as well as the present life of man, and the future course of the Divine Government, we should have a scheme of the Moral Government of the universe, in which the Ideas of Perfect Benevolence and Perfect Justice are as completely and universally exemplified and realized, as the Ideas of Space, Time, Cause, Substance, and the like, are in the physical universe.

15. There is one other remark bearing upon this analogy, which seems to deserve our attention. As I have said in the last chapter, the scheme of the world, as governed by our physical Ideas, seems to point to a Beginning of the world, or at least of the present course of the world: and if we suppose a Beginning, our thoughts naturally turn to an End. But if our physical Ideas point to a Beginning and suggest an End, do our Ideas of Divine Benevolence and Justice in any way lend themselves to this suggestion?—Perhaps we might venture to say that in some degree they do, even to the eye of a mere philosophical reason. Perhaps our reason alone might suggest that there is a progression in the human race, in various moral attributes—in art, in civilization, and even in humanity and in justice, which implies a beginning. And that at any rate there is nothing inconsistent with our Idea of the Divine Government in the supposition that the history of this world has a Beginning, a Middle and an End.

16. If therefore there should be conveyed to us by some channel especially appropriated to the communication and development of moral and religious Ideas, the knowledge that the world, as a scheme of Divine Government, has a Beginning, a Middle, and an End, of a Kind, or at least, invested with circumstances quite different from any which our physical Ideas can disclose to us, there would be, in such a belief, nothing at all inconsistent with the analogies which our philosophy—the philosophy of our Ideas illustrated by the whole progress of science—has impressed upon us. On the grounds of this philosophy, we need find no difficulty in believing that as the visible universe exhibits the operation of the Divine Ideas of Space, Time, Cause, Substance, and the like, and discloses to us traces of a Beginning of the present mode of operation, so the moral universe exhibits to us the operation of the Divine Benevolence and Justice; and that these Divine attributes wrought in a special and peculiar manner in the Beginning; interposed in a peculiar and special manner in the Middle; and will again act in a peculiar and special manner in the End of the world. And thus the conditions of the physical universe, and the Government of the Moral world, are both, though in different ways, a part of the work which God is carrying on from the Beginning of things to the End—opus quod Deus operator a principio usque ad finem.

17. We are led by such analogies as I have been adducing to believe that the whole course of events in which the minds and souls of men survive the present life, and are hereafter subjected to the Divine government in such a way as to complete all that is here deficient in the world's history, is a scheme of perfect Benevolence and Justice. Now, can we discern in man's mind or soul itself any indication of a destiny like this? Are there in us any powers and faculties which seem as if they were destined to immortality? If there be, we have in such faculties a strong confirmation of that belief in the future life of man which has already been suggested to us as necessary to render the Divine government conceivable.

18. According to our philosophy there are powers and faculties which do thus seem fitted to endure, and not fitted to terminate and be extinguished. The Ideas which we have in our minds—the physical Ideas, as we have called them, according to which the universe is constituted,—agree, as far as they go, with the Ideas of the Divine Mind, seen in the constitution of the universe. But these Divine Ideas are eternal and imperishable: we therefore naturally conclude that the human mind which includes such elements, is also eternal and imperishable. Since the mind can take hold of eternal truths, it must be itself eternal. Since it is, to a certain extent, the image of God in its faculties, it cannot ever cease to be the image of God. When it has arrived at a stage in which it sees several aspects of the universe in the same form in which they present themselves to the Divine Mind, we cannot suppose that the Author of the human mind will allow it and all its intellectual light to be extinguished.

19. And our conviction that this extinction of the human mind cannot take place becomes stronger still, when we consider that the mind, however imperfect and scanty its discernment of truth may be, is still capable of a vast, and even of an unlimited progress in the pursuit and apprehension of truth. The mind is capable of accepting and appropriating, through the action of its own Ideas, every step in science which has ever been made—every step which shall hereafter be made. Can we suppose that this vast and boundless capacity exists for a few years only, is unfolded only into a few of its simplest consequences, and is then consigned to annihilation? Can we suppose that the wonderful powers which carry man on, generation by generation, from the contemplation of one great and striking truth to another, are buried with each generation? May we not rather suppose that that mind, which is capable of indefinite progression, is allowed to exist in an infinite duration, during which such progression may take place?

20. I propose this argument as a ground of hope and satisfactory reflexion to those who love to dwell on the natural arguments for the Immortality of the Soul. I do not attempt to follow it into detail. I know too well how little such a cause can gain by obstinate and complicated argumentation, to attempt to urge the argument in that manner: and probably different persons, among those who accept the argument as valid, would give different answers to many questions of detail, which naturally arise out of the acceptance of this argument. I will not here attempt to solve, or even to propound these questions. My main purpose in offering these views and this argument at all, is to give some satisfaction to those who would think it a sad and blank result of this long survey of the nature and progress of science in which we have been so long engaged (through this series of works), that it should in no way lead to a recognition of the Author of that world about which our Science is, and to the high and consolatory hopes which lift man beyond this world. No survey of the universe can be at all satisfactory to thoughtful men, which has not a theological bearing; nor can any view of man's powers and means of knowing be congenial to such men, which does not recognize an infinite destination for the mind which has an infinite capacity; an eternal being of the Faculty which can take a steady hold of eternal being.

21. And as we may derive such a conviction from our physical Ideas, so too may we no less from our moral Ideas. Our minds apprehend Space and Time and Force and the like, as Ideas which are not dependent on the body; and hence we believe that our minds shall not perish with our bodies. And in the same manner our souls conceive pure Benevolence and perfect Justice, which go beyond the conditions of this mortal life; and hence we believe that our souls have to do with a life beyond this mortal life.

It is more difficult to speak of man's indefinite moral progression even than of his indefinite intellectual progression. Yet in every path of moral speculation we have such a progression suggested to us. We may begin, for instance, with the ordinary feelings and affections of our daily nature:—Love, Hate, Scorn. But when we would elevate the Soul in our imagination, we ascend above these ordinary affections, and take the repulsive and hostile ones as fitted only to balance their own influences. And thus the poet, speaking of a morally poetical nature, describes it:

The Poet in a golden clime was born,With golden stars above.He felt the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn,The love of love.

But the loftier moralist can rise higher than this, and can, and will, reject altogether Hate and Scorn from his view of man's better nature. His description would rather be—

The good man in a loving clime was born,With loving stars above.He felt sorrow for hate, pity for scorn,And love of love.

He would, in his conception of such a character, ascribe to it all the virtues which result from the control and extinction of these repulsive and hostile affections:—the virtues of magnanimity, forgivingness, unselfishness, self-devotion, tenderness, sweetness. And these we can conceive in a higher and higher degree, in proportion as our own hearts become tender, forgiving, pure and unselfish. And though in every human stage of such a moral proficiency, we must suppose that there is still some struggle with the remaining vestiges of our unkind, unjust, angry and selfish affections, we can see no limit to the extent to which this struggle may be successful; no limit to the degree in which these traces of the evil of our nature may be worn out by an enduring practice and habit of our better nature. And when we contemplate a human character which has, through a long course of years, and through many trials and conflicts, made a large progress in this career of melioration, and is still capable, if time be given, of further progress towards moral perfection, is it not reasonable to suppose that He who formed man capable of such progress, and who, as we must needs believe, looks with approval on such progress where made, will not allow the progress to stop when it has gone on to the end of man's short earthly life? Is it not rather reasonable to suppose that the pure and elevated and all-embracing affection, extinguishing all vices and including all virtues, to which the good man thus tends, shall continue to prevail in him as a permanent and ever-during condition, in a life after this?

But can man raise himself to such a stage of moral progress, by his own efforts? Such a progress is an approximation towards the perfection of moral Ideas, and therefore an approximation towards the image of God, in whom that perfection resides: is it not then reasonable to suppose that man needs a Divine Influence to enable him to reach this kind of moral completeness? And is it not also reasonable to suppose that, as he needs such aid, in order that the Idea of his moral progress may be realized, so he will receive such aid from the Divine Power which realizes the Idea of Divine Love in the world; and to do so, must realize it in those human souls which are most fitted for such a purpose?

But these questions remind me how difficult, and indeed, how impossible it is to follow such trains of reflexion by the light of philosophy alone. To answer such questions, we need, not Religious Philosophy only, but Religion: and as I do not here venture beyond the domain of philosophy, I must, however abruptly, conclude.

THE END

APPENDIX

Appendix AOF THE PLATONIC THEORY OF IDEAS(Cam. Phil. Soc. Nov. 10, 1856.)

Though Plato has, in recent times, had many readers and admirers among our English scholars, there has been an air of unreality and inconsistency about the commendation which most of these professed adherents have given to his doctrines. This appears to be no captious criticism, for instance, when those who speak of him as immeasurably superior in argument to his opponents, do not venture to produce his arguments in a definite form as able to bear the tug of modern controversy;—when they use his own Greek phrases as essential to the exposition of his doctrines, and speak as if these phrases could not be adequately rendered in English;—and when they assent to those among the systems of philosophy of modern times which are the most clearly opposed to the system of Plato. It seems not unreasonable to require, on the contrary, that if Plato is to supply a philosophy for us, it must be a philosophy which can be expressed in our own language;—that his system, if we hold it to be well founded, shall compel us to deny the opposite systems, modern as well as ancient;—and that, so far as we hold Plato's doctrines to be satisfactorily established, we should be able to produce the arguments for them, and to refute the arguments against them. These seem reasonable requirements of the adherents of any philosophy, and therefore, of Plato's.