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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #65545 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/65545)
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-The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Making of a Man, by James Wideman Lee
-
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
-other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
-the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
-
-
-
-
-Title: The Making of a Man
-
-
-Author: James Wideman Lee
-
-
-
-Release Date: June 7, 2021 [eBook #65545]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-
-***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAKING OF A MAN***
-
-
-E-text prepared by MFR and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
-(http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by
-Internet Archive (https://archive.org)
-
-
-
-Note: Images of the original pages are available through
- Internet Archive. See
- https://archive.org/details/makingofman00leej
-
-
-
-
-
-THE MAKING OF A MAN
-
-by
-
-REV. J. W. LEE, D. D.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-New York
-Cassell Publishing Company
-104 & 106 Fourth Avenue
-
-Copyright, 1892, by
-Cassell Publishing Company.
-
-All rights reserved.
-
-The Mershon Company Press,
-Rahway, N. J.
-
-
-
-
-CONTENTS.
-
-
- PAGE
-
- INTRODUCTION, 3
-
- I. BREAD.
-
- THE PROVISION FOR THE PHYSICAL NATURE OF MAN, 39
-
- II. POWER.
-
- THE PROVISION FOR THE SOCIAL NATURE OF MAN, 83
-
- III. TRUTH.
-
- THE PROVISION FOR THE INTELLECTUAL NATURE OF MAN, 137
-
- IV. RIGHTEOUSNESS.
-
- THE PROVISION FOR THE MORAL NATURE OF MAN, 203
-
- V. BEAUTY.
-
- THE PROVISION FOR THE ÆSTHETIC NATURE OF MAN, 253
-
- VI. LOVE.
-
- THE PROVISION FOR THE SPIRITUAL NATURE OF MAN, 293
-
- VII. IMMORTALITY.
-
- THE PERMANENCE OF THE COMPLETED LIFE OF MAN, 335
-
-
-
-
-_INTRODUCTION._
-
-
- “My God, I heard this day
- That none doth build a stately habitation
- But he that means to dwell therein.
- What house more stately hath there been,
- Or can be, than is Man? to whose creation
- All things are in decay.
-
- “Man is all symmetry
- Full of proportions, one limb to another,
- And all to all the world besides;
- Each part may call the farthest brother,
- For head with foot hath private amity,
- And both with moons and tides.
-
- “For us the winds do blow,
- The earth doth rest, heaven move, and fountains flow:
- Nothing we see but means our good
- As our delight or as our treasure,
- The whole is either our cupboard of food,
- Or cabinet of pleasure.
-
- “Since then, my God, thou hast
- So brave a palace built. Oh, dwell in it,
- That it may dwell with thee at last!
- Till then afford us so much wit
- That as the world serves us, we may serve thee
- And both thy servants be.”
-
-
-
-
-
-NATURE AND MAN.
-
-
-The meaning of creation is not understood till dust stands erect in
-a living man. That a great purpose was present from the beginning,
-directing and controlling, there can be no doubt. It presided over the
-first nebulous mist that floated out to take form in the foundations of
-the earth. It measured and weighed the matter and force necessary to
-form the globe. It determined the elements required to do the work lying
-through the years before it. It assigned to them their laws, specific
-gravities and affinities, and appointed, beforehand, the combinations and
-collocations they were capable of making.
-
-But not till the atoms throbbed in a human brain and beat in a human
-heart, did the purpose, which had through the ages run, stand out,
-defined and justified. Then it was that the intention underneath the
-drift of the ages spelled itself out in the unity of thought, the freedom
-of choice, and the capacity for love, potential in the intellect, will,
-and heart of the first man. He was the realization of an ideal, which
-gave meaning to the long periods of preparation. As the final expression
-of the creative process, he was at once the interpreter and the
-interpretation of all that had gone before.
-
-
-I.
-
-Writers of a certain school have sought to minify man’s place in nature.
-They say, as Dr. Joseph Leconte well declares, that he is very closely
-connected with, and forms a most insignificant part of, nature—that
-he has no kingdom of his own, but belongs to the animal kingdom; that
-in the animal kingdom he has no department of his own, but belongs
-to the department of the vertebrates—along with birds, reptiles, and
-fishes; that in the department of the vertebrates he has no privileged
-class of his own, but belongs to the class of the mammals, along with
-four-footed beasts; that in the class of mammals he has no titled order
-of his own, but belongs to the order of primates, along with monkeys
-and baboons. His conscience is but the resultant of fear and instinct,
-slowly deposited through the years of his evolution. Its imperiousness
-is self-constituted. Its scepter it has usurped, and, from the
-exhalations of its own rising cowardice, it has woven the purple robes
-which constitute the badge of its authority. His morality consists of
-rules imposed by his own prudence, and which have no sanctions beyond
-the opinions of his class or tribe. His religion is determined by the
-physical conditions which surround his life—his geographical situation,
-the nature and configuration of his soil, his climate, and his food. Thus
-man is simply a natural product, while the civilization which he has
-produced is as much determined by the physical conditions surrounding his
-life, as the leaves and dates of the palm are determined by the physical
-conditions surrounding that tropical tree. The hopes and the trials, the
-courage and the sacrifice of the best men, as well as the ambitions and
-motives of the worst, are put on a level with the damps and winds. The
-one class is entitled to no more credit for what is noble and heroic,
-than is rain for nourishing the crops; while the other deserves no more
-rebuke for what is base and ignoble, than the lightning for striking
-the Church and killing the people. The love which expresses itself in
-monuments to commemorate the deeds of the good and the great, and the
-condemnation which lifts itself into jails to confine the criminal and
-the outlaw, have, in the last analysis, the same meaning. There is no
-sacred significance or obligations rooted in divine sanctions, in either
-the monuments or the jails. Both are but fickle phases of the passing
-spirit.
-
-The convictions of Moses, reproducing themselves in the government, laws,
-literature, morality, and religion of a great people, conserving them
-through the ages as examples of order and health, have no more meaning
-than the sap which rises in some monarch of the forest, to express
-itself in leaves and fruit. The conceptions of duty, which nerved the
-heart and inspired the courage of the Apostle Paul, leading him to plant
-churches in Asia Minor, to become the seeds of modern civilization,
-were as completely natural as the rising of the waters of some mountain
-spring, to flow over silver sands to the sea. The music of Beethoven,
-the visions of Raphael, were but as the vapor in the light of the
-morning sun, beautiful, perhaps, as the rainbow, but going out with the
-setting day. Whatever of emotion or conscience they embodied, signified
-no more than the colors of the peach bloom, or the notes of the falling
-cascade. However esteemed the valor that risked life to break the reign
-of oppression and murder, it was but a varying form of the heartless
-ambition that sought in strength to make it prevail. The patriotism of
-Leonidas, giving up his life to save his country, and the insane act of
-Nero, swathing Christians in tar to light his feast, were forward and
-reverse movements of the same human spirit; both natural, and both as
-unmoral as the electricity that now strikes to destroy, and now burns the
-malaria to save. No difference is made between poison in the fangs of
-snakes, and mercy in the hearts of men.
-
-Back of nature there is no purpose, and in its manifold combinations and
-adaptations there is no design. It is only a vast aggregate of unresting
-atoms, striking one upon another, and without intention and without
-purpose, forming pairs, clusters, and groups, and thus assuming the
-shapes we see. Why there happens to be order instead of chaos hangs on
-the uncertain turn of luck.
-
-
-II.
-
-If there is mind in the universe, and if there is purpose in the order
-and movements of the earth, then man is the culmination of that purpose,
-and with reference to him was the order constituted and the movements
-determined. If there is naught but matter and force, and these exist
-without any directing or co-ordinating mind, then all things are without
-intention and without reason. There is nothing good or bad. Nothing
-is right or wrong. All things are reduced to a meaningless level of
-indifference. But matter and force bear witness to mind. Matter is here
-we know; and matter has not only form, extension, impenetrability, for
-its qualities, but indestructibility. Take the matter that enters into
-the composition of the earth. The amount of it is fixed and definite. It
-may be expressed in pounds weight. Since the beginning, not an atom has
-been added to it, or taken from it. Its presence here is to be accounted
-for. It either determined its own existence, and the exact amount, in
-pounds weight of that existence, or it was determined by some principle
-or power outside of itself, or within itself, called mind. If it
-determined itself to be, then it is intelligent, for self-determination
-and self-action are the essential characteristics of mind. Then
-intelligence is retained by being transferred from something called mind
-to something called matter. But it has never been claimed that matter is
-intelligent. Then it is not self-active or self-determining, and waits on
-mind for its existence and its movements.
-
-Matter as plainly bears testimony of the existence of mind, as to the
-existence of itself. It is easier to believe that the earth has taken
-the globular form and the circular motion by the determinations of mind,
-than to believe that through its own determinations it has assumed a
-circumference of twenty-five thousand miles, and the regular task of
-wheeling on its axis every twenty-four hours.
-
-Not only is it impossible to account for the exact amount of matter
-making up the earth’s size and weight, without assuming the power of a
-co-ordinating, determining mind; but a still greater task is upon us,
-to account for the sixty odd original elements, out of which all things
-in nature are formed without mind. These elements differ in quantity,
-quality, specific gravity, and affinity. What determined their number,
-their tendencies, and affinities? Why something more than sixty; no
-more, no less? Why so much of some, so little of others? We must either
-conclude that they determined themselves—that they held a convention
-before they existed, and resolved upon taking form and motion, or else
-we must believe that they were determined by some power, other than
-themselves—by mind. If by their own motion, oxygen, and iron, and gold
-are what they are; then the elements have the power of self-action and
-self-determination, and are therefore intelligent.
-
-The collocations these elements form are more difficult still to be
-accounted for without the agency of mind. Figures piled up to the sun
-are not able to express the possible combinations they are capable of
-assuming. The possible combinations of even twenty-four letters of the
-alphabet could not be expressed in literature, filling the world with
-books. Much greater must be the number of combinations of the original
-elements—the alphabet of creation. It is to be remembered, too, that
-they disagree on more of their sides than they agree. They are by no
-means equally congenial. Friendships and unions between them are formed
-in accordance with the most exact rule and affinity. Does it not seem,
-then, that combinations formed by chance would be mutually incompatible,
-neutralizing, and destructive? Would they not forever ferment in
-ungoverned chaos? Yet we see them dwelling together in the utmost unity,
-like seeking like, and in the bonds of law and harmony, uniting in
-compound, mineral, vegetable, animal, and the body of man himself.
-
-Were there as many of the letter _a_, as there are atoms of oxygen; and
-as many of the letter _b_, as there are atoms of hydrogen; and were the
-letters of the alphabet to be increased in proportion to their use,
-until they should equal the atoms of all the elements which enter into
-the composition of the globe; how long would it take these letters,
-stirred by some force like the winds, to assume the form of such a poem
-as Paradise Lost? We cannot believe that all these letters, stirred by an
-unseen force through infinite ages, would ever form a sensible verse of
-poetry, or a rational verse of prose. It is as difficult to understand
-how the letters of the alphabet could ever get into the rhythm of
-Paradise Lost, without Milton’s mind, as to understand how unconscious
-elements took the form of mountain, sea, grove, and globe; round,
-articulate, and law abiding, without a great co-ordinating mind.
-
-The physical forces and energies bear indubitable testimony to the
-existence of mind, not only outside of themselves, but in themselves and
-through themselves. We have the force of gravitation, the power which
-bodies have of attracting one another in proportion to their mass, and
-inversely as the squares of their distance; in other words, that power
-which bodies have of getting up mutually aggregative motion, unless
-prevented by some other power of an opposite nature. A body suspended in
-the air is attracted toward the earth by the force of gravitation. A lump
-of sugar held over a cup of tea, attracts into itself the water of the
-tea cup. This is done by the force known as capillarity. A piece of iron
-left exposed attracts the particles of oxygen in the atmosphere. This
-is done by the force known as chemical affinity. Why do bodies attract
-one another in proportion to their mass and inversely as the squares of
-their distance? Why does a lump of sugar, held close over a cup of water,
-attract the particles of water into itself? Why does a piece of iron in
-the atmosphere attract to itself the oxygen? We are told it is because
-of gravitation, capillarity, and chemical affinity. How happens it that
-these forces have methods of action known as gravitation, capillarity,
-and chemical affinity? They either determined themselves to have them and
-to act in accordance with them, or else some power other than themselves
-determined these methods of action for them.
-
-The truth is, gravitation, capillarity, and chemical affinity are but
-terms we use to define the operations of mind. To name a force and to
-find the formula in accordance with which it works, is not to determine
-the origin of its source. And because we have, by observation and
-experiment, found out the methods and the measures of the mind’s working,
-is no good reason why we should read mind out of the process altogether.
-This is to mistake names for causes; and to suppose when one learns how a
-force acts, that he has also learned what it is that acts.
-
-A contemporary of Shakspere might have observed the poet so closely in
-his home at Stratford-upon-Avon, as to be able to give to the world a
-detailed and exact account of his habits of thought and hours of study;
-but this would not have kept the intelligent part of mankind from
-believing that a great mind had embodied itself in the immortal plays of
-Shakspere.
-
-Heat, electricity, light, and magnetism must also be expressions of mind,
-for the same reason that matter is an expression of mind. To believe
-them self-determined, is to believe them rational and intelligent. This
-has never been claimed, hence our only way of accounting for their
-existence is to regard them as the determinations of mind. We see them,
-day by day, lending themselves to the uses and devices of man’s thought,
-and expressions of thought they must be.
-
-
-III.
-
-This whole subject resolves itself into the question, Which is
-fundamental and prior, mind or matter? If mind is fundamental and prior,
-then there is design, intention, and purpose in nature. If matter is
-first and fundamental, there is no such thing as design, intention, or
-purpose anywhere. If mind is first and fundamental, then man is the end
-and aim of creation, for in him the mind that formed the earth finds a
-companion and an interpreter. If matter is first and fundamental, then
-the earth is as much for crocodiles and wolves, as for men, and the
-life of a human being is no better than that of a lizard. If matter is
-fundamental, it were better to be a crocodile or an elephant than to be
-a man, for they have more of the fundamental stuff of the universe in
-their bodies; and their brains generate none of that subtle something
-called _mind_, which perpetually asks questions that have no answer, and
-cherishes beliefs that have no foundation. If matter is fundamental, then
-we should trust our faculties, in proportion as they are animal, and deny
-them in proportion as they are mental. Then the Neros and the Caligulas
-were more rational in their sins, than the Luthers and the Wesleys in
-their virtues. By following their lusts, the former found pleasure, of a
-low order of course, but in the realm of the real; the latter, following
-their convictions, found pleasure, of a higher order it may be, but it
-was in a false and unreal domain. It were better to be true to the facts
-on the plain of the appetites, than to be the silly victims of fraud on
-the plain of the conscience and the affections. But it is impossible that
-men have been true as they have been degraded, and false as they have
-been pure. The design and purpose which has been apparent in nature, and
-which men have felt in conscience approving the right and condemning
-the wrong, must be there. To eliminate them, or to reason them away, is
-to bring mental confusion, and to take from the conviction and thought,
-which have made civilization, the principles on which they reposed, and
-by which they were inspired.
-
-
-IV.
-
-Man has no deeper and surer impression than that the world belongs to him
-and was made for him. It is deepened year by year, too, as he sees the
-relations he sustains to it increase. No more certainly are the walls,
-roof, and floor of a house related to the comfort and protection of the
-family, than are the elements, forces, and seasons of nature related to
-the well-being and civilization of man. Mountain and sky, meadow and
-forest, the past and the present are permeated with the thought, or idea,
-of man, whether in the first stages of progress, keeping beasts at bay
-with sling or stone, or at a more advanced period, tunneling the rivers
-and digging down the mountains. Young or old, child or man, nature stands
-ready to serve him. Water from her skies flows through his veins to and
-from his beating heart. Trees and shrubs and herbs minister to his
-pleasure and his ills. Rocks, and timber, and steel lend themselves to
-his service for house, hatchet, or chisel. When he ascends sufficiently
-in the grade of civilization to give expression to his conceptions of
-beauty, he finds the colors in the ores under his feet to embody his
-visions. Would he illuminate his humble home at night, there is the pine
-with its light-giving tar. Does he live amid the plains, where the pine
-does not grow, there is the ox with his tallow ready to be made into
-candles. Does he live on the coast, away from the ox or the pine, there
-is the whale with his oil. Does he want a better light than pine, or
-tallow, or oil can give, there are the coal beds, with their sunshine
-laid up for his use for thousands of ages. Does he wish to turn night
-into day, and make his streets glow with the radiance of the stars,
-there is electricity to be drawn from its wide, mysterious fields, to
-serve his growing desire. Would he cross the sea, the winds lie ready to
-fill his canvas and draw him from continent to continent. Are the winds
-too slow, there is the heat, stored in the mountains, ready to move his
-engine and drive his wheel. Does he wish to make himself ubiquitous, and
-send a message across the sea, before a ship could get out of port, there
-waits on him again the mysterious lightning.
-
-Nature teems with elements and forces to wait on man’s every thought, to
-gratify his every desire, and to respond to his every aspiration. With
-all her wealth she surrounds him, and in ten thousand ways invites him to
-use it. The naturalist Guyot said the hand of man prefigures his destiny
-as an intelligent worker. So the form of all continents and islands, the
-outlines of all seas and coasts, contain the idea of the human family. At
-a time, geologically about the same, the surface conditions of the earth
-were prepared for the advent of man. The great Himalaya Mountain range
-was lifted up to prepare an embosoming plain to serve as a cradle for the
-human race. The long chain of mountains running through the whole length
-of the North and South American continents was raised to prepare the way
-for civilization on this side of the sea. When the ocean beds were dug
-out and the waters called off from a part of the earth’s surface; when
-the mighty peaks and the majestic turrets of the mountain chains were
-lifted into the sky; when the encompassing atmosphere was filled with all
-life-replenishing elements and wrapped about all oceans and shores; when
-the poisonous forces destructive of man’s life were locked up in soils
-and rocks; when the meadows were sown with grasses, and the hospitable
-arms of the trees were loaded with fruit, then, upon the earth, adorned
-and ready for his coming, man appeared.
-
-
-V.
-
-Considered as an embodiment of thought, man is the only creature who can
-interpret Nature. The ideas and principles that fill his great books
-were gathered from a study of her secrets and processes. The first books
-on geology, giving the history of the earth, its upheavals, changes,
-and transformations, were written in the rocks, sands, coal-beds, and
-shells of the primal ages. The first books on chemistry were written in
-the shape, sizes, affinities, and specific gravities of the atoms which
-enter into the composition of all natural bodies. The first books on
-arithmetic, by the knowledge of which man learns to divide and conquer
-nature, were written in the qualitative relations and movements of
-matter. The first books on astronomy were written in the orbits and
-movements of the heavenly bodies. The first books on zoölogy were written
-in the structure and habits of the lower animals. The books that fill
-our libraries are but transcripts from the original volumes written in
-rocks, seas, flowers, and skies. Man is the only being who can read and
-transcribe these wonderful volumes. They lie unopened and unknown till
-his interest is provoked. Their language carries no meaning till he comes
-to find it and to ponder it. The herds that low amid the Alpine echoes
-see, as well as the distinguished Tyndall, the great glaciers, as they
-press with slow and measured pace down the mountain side; but their
-meaning, and the law by which they move, is not known till the man of
-science comes. To him, they speak in awful and majestic terms. To the
-sheep in the meadow, the grass means nothing but food; to man, however,
-every blade has a message, poetic and beautiful.
-
-Considered as a home, this world was made for man; in a thousand senses,
-it was not made for any other creature. It is the home of the oyster,
-but its wants are met by a little basin in the sea. It is the home of
-the elephant, but a few acres of Asiatic jungle furnish the food and the
-conditions necessary to its life. It is the home of the bird, but give it
-a tree and a worm, and a small circle of sky to fly around, and it needs
-no more. But man needs it all. For his hunger, the foods and the fruits
-of its continents, oceans, and skies. For his thirst, the waters of its
-thousand rills. For his shelter and protection, all its woods. For his
-thought, all its order and law. For his ills, the tender ministry of all
-its minerals and plants. He is related to it all, and to be completely
-furnished must be able to use it all.
-
-Considered as a place of discipline, the earth is for man, for he is the
-only creature helped and advanced by discipline. The beaver cuts his
-tree and builds his dam to-day just as the beaver did in the first year
-of his existence. He has had the discipline that comes through work,
-but it has not improved him nor elevated him. In order that the bee may
-live, he must gather his honey and build his cell. This is discipline.
-But he never improves. He never grows in culture or skill. The bee that
-built his cell in the trees of paradise, and gathered his honey from the
-flowers that grew in the garden of Eden, knew as well how to construct
-a cell according to mathematical principles, and to pack it with honey,
-as the Italian bee of the nineteenth century, who stores his honey in a
-painted gum prepared for him by man.
-
-Monkeys in South America cross rivers by twisting their tails, thus
-making bridges of themselves. This is discipline and exercise of a
-complex and marvelous sort, but they devise no new ways of building
-bridges. They do not increase in knowledge or skill by their work.
-That he may gain the means of subsistence, man is under the necessity
-of work too. But his work is to him a means of growth and knowledge.
-His work has helped him forward, and secured to him culture and skill.
-Suggestions come to him, as he fells the forest, as he plows the field,
-as he plants the seed, and as he rows his dug-out. These suggestions he
-turns to account. He builds them into better axes for cutting the trees,
-into better plow-stocks for breaking the land, and into better boats for
-crossing the sea.
-
-By turning the suggestions he has received into better methods, into
-improved tools and machinery, he has come from the dug-out to the ocean
-steamer; from the pack-mule to the palace car; from the scythe-blade to
-the mower and reaper; from the stone and sling to the improved army gun;
-from the spinning-wheel to the cotton-factory; and from the foaming steed
-of the flying messenger to the electric telegraph.
-
-Because of the growth and improvement he has received through work,
-the tom-tom has long given place to the piano, and the tent to the
-modern home. Through struggle with nature, he has been piqued into a
-determination to conquer her, to ferret out her secrets, and master her
-processes.
-
-The forces that oppose him he makes to serve him. The river current,
-which forbids him to cross, he utilizes to ferry him over. He sets his
-sail in the wind blowing eastward and avails himself of its power to
-carry him westward. The waves that rise to engulf him he turns into
-steam to outride them. The winds draw his water, the river saws his
-plank. The tail of the beaver is adjusted by nature to the mud he needs
-to cement his dam; his tooth is already adjusted to the hardness of the
-tree, so that he cuts it down by instinct and without thought. The eagle
-finds the air already under his wings when he would fly, and his talons
-already prepared to hold his food, or to grasp a limb in the forest. The
-fish finds itself in the beginning of its existence in an element ready
-to respond to its fins, and in the presence of food adapted to its life.
-The lower animals find themselves at the start in a world immediately
-adjusted to their needs, so that they have only to use their feet, their
-teeth, their horns, their claws, their wings, and their fins, to conquer
-their enemies and find their food. The animal is wholly governed by
-natural law, and hence has no history. He moves on nature’s level, and
-is adjusted to her plains, her forests, her seas, and her skies, without
-his thought or his device. Man is not related in the same outward,
-immediate way to clothing, food, and fuel. His understanding, it is true,
-corresponds to the scheme of nature, but he must grow into this by study,
-by insight, by hints, by the use of faculties the lower animals do not
-possess. As long as he remains on the plain of the tiger and panther, and
-emulates their stealthy step to creep upon his prey, or his human foe,
-like them, he has no history.
-
-The savage, perhaps, did master the mystery of the dug-out and the
-birch-bark canoe, but he had no place for his archives but a hole in
-the ground, and no experience but such as died with him. Man’s history
-begins with the attempt to conquer Nature. The contribution that Nature
-makes to human civilization is that she sets herself against his inward
-energies, as if to call them out. She puts limitations about him, that
-he may be prompted to rise above them. The fury and storm of the sea
-provokes his ingenuity to express itself in the steamship. The peril to
-life and fortune contained in the lightning’s flash, begets the steel rod
-that disarms it. The distance between the wheat that grows in one part
-of the globe and the need for bread in another, leads to the discovery
-of a method of transportation that obliterates it. Civilization is the
-expression that man has made of himself in his attempts, through thought
-and will, to effect the conquest of Nature. This witnesses to the
-peculiar and magnificent place which alone belongs to him in nature.
-
-It may be true that he has no kingdom of his own, no privileged class of
-his own, and no titled order of his own; but it can hardly be disputed
-that he has a history of his own. This history, written in the dim
-glories of vast empires, in the rush of splendid cities, in the age-long
-conflict between good and evil, in the undying creed of martyred faith,
-in the hope, fidelity, trial, agony, triumph, and self-sacrifice of the
-human race, bears witness to the fact, either that the earth was made for
-man, or else that he is the only creature upon it capable of subduing it,
-transforming it, recreating it, and appropriating it. If man is only a
-natural product, the powers have certainly been engaged in a marvelously
-intelligent and complicated sort of conspiracy to advance his interests
-and to serve his dominion.
-
-Nothing but what we have been accustomed to regard as design, intention,
-purpose, is sufficient to account for the fact, that the scheme of nature
-so completely corresponds to the understanding of man as to make it
-possible for him to command and claim all her possessions for his own.
-
-Men will never accept such a happy coincidence as the work of chance.
-They will, by the very structure of their minds, believe that the scheme
-and the understanding, which, through the process of struggle and trial,
-grows into it, were intended, by the Great Author of both, the one for
-the other.
-
-
-
-
-_BREAD._
-
-
- “The power that Greece had to throw out light is marvelous,
- even now that we have the example of France. Greece did not
- colonize without civilizing—an example that more than one
- modern nation might follow: to buy and sell is not all.
-
- “Tyre bought and sold: Berytus bought and sold: Sidon bought
- and sold: Sarepta bought and sold. Where are these cities?
- Athens taught; and she is to this hour one of the capitals of
- human thought.
-
- “The grass is growing on the six steps of the tribune where
- spoke Demosthenes: the Ceramicus is a ravine, half-choked with
- the marble dust which was once the palace of Cecrops: the Odeon
- of Herod Atticus, at the foot of the Acropolis, is now but a
- ruin on which falls at certain hours the imperfect shadow of
- the Parthenon: the temple of Theseus belongs to the swallows:
- the goats browse on the Pnyx. Still the Greek spirit lives:
- still Greece is queen: still Greece is goddess. A counting
- house passes away: a school remains.”
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER I.
-
-THE PROVISION FOR THE PHYSICAL NATURE OF MAN.
-
-
-In the form of bread, using the term in a wide generic sense, matter
-passes into the service of man on the plane of human life. By regular
-steps it is lifted and refined and adjusted to correspondence with human
-need and comfort. In its raw and individual state, it is controlled by
-physical force. From this crude condition it is carried by chemical
-force to the order of the mineral kingdom. From this plane, it passes
-up through the agency of vital force to the vegetable kingdom. Through
-the power of vital force of a higher kind, it is advanced to the animal
-kingdom. Here it is ready for man, and yields itself to the uses of
-his life. From the time that vital force enters the realm of nature, a
-process of assimilation begins. The plant assimilates the mineral, the
-animal assimilates the plant, and man assimilates the animal. Through
-regular gradations, matter passes up from the bottom of nature into
-the service of man, who stands at the top. With each move upward it
-gets associated with force of a higher kind. With each advance its
-range gets wider and its movements freer. In the form of bread, it is
-sufficiently refined and sublimated to be appropriated and utilized
-for food, for shelter, for raiment, by the immortal spirit of man. The
-necessity for food, for clothing, for shelter, creates commerce, and
-commerce accomplishes results far more important than the production and
-distribution of the temporal necessities of human life. It brings men
-together; it establishes relations. It is the wonderful institution
-which, early in the history of the race, began as a loom to catch up the
-separate threads of individual life, to weave them into that marvelous
-fabric called humanity. Ends of an infinitely higher order are realized
-by the production and exchange of the elements of trade, than the
-satisfying of hunger with bread, or the furnishing man with clothing and
-shelter. The higher ends are the essential and ordained ends. That we may
-understand what an important part the necessity for food has played in
-the progress of man, it will be well to consider the significance of the
-relations it first helped to establish.
-
-
-I.
-
-All power whatever, that distinguishes man from the brute, that in any
-respect contributes to his commercial, mental, moral, or human value,
-is due to union, relation, action and interaction among individuals.
-In nature we may find illustrations of this truth. Sound, electricity,
-heat, and light, are forms of force which owe their existence to action,
-relation, interaction among material particles. They would never arise
-in a universe of unrelated elements. Their difference is due, not to the
-vibration of different elements, but to different rates of vibration
-among the same elements. Consequent upon certain terms of formal and
-quiet social intercourse among the molecules, there is sound. When
-they intermingle more actively and intimately, there is electricity.
-With a slight change in the method, but no decrease in the velocity
-with which they move, there is heat. When they go at the top of their
-speed, waltzing and swinging corners at an unthinkable rate, there is
-light. From varying relations and actions among material particles, we
-get the music which charms us, the means of communication which unite
-us, the power to do work which serves us, and the beauty which refines
-us. The unceasing play of these simple unseen elements made the fame of
-Beethoven, who threw their vibrations into symphonies; and of Morse,
-who utilized their speed to carry the news; and of Watt, who hitched
-their radiations to the flying train; and of Daguerre, who put their
-undulations to painting pictures. All forms of physical force may be
-traced to the union, relation, and vibration of material particles.
-The distance from atoms to men is well-nigh infinite, but the points
-of resemblance between the genesis of physical force and the genesis
-of social force are sufficiently striking to make it permissible to
-trace the analogy between them. By social force is understood all those
-forms of energy which men find themselves to possess by virtue of their
-relations to one another in organized social life.
-
-Commerce insures the union, and brings about the relations that make this
-force possible. It furnishes the conditions without which it could not be.
-
-A self-contained, self-included, insulated person does carry within the
-depths of his being the organs of the civilized man, but they are as
-completely out of sight and out of use as the harvests that sleep within
-the kernels of the mummy wheat. If it were possible for an individual to
-come to years of maturity, out of relations with his fellows, he would be
-more destitute than a brute. Such an one, growing up in the woods or on
-an island, with no associates but the squirrels and the birds, would not
-have the personal furnishments of the monkey or the fox.
-
-We can understand, too, by considering what man owes to his relations,
-how widely and completely he is separated from the lower animals. A
-thousand blackbirds, living together in relation, are not different from
-a thousand blackbirds living apart and out of relation. A squirrel gains
-no element of squirrelhood by companionship, and loses no element of it
-in isolation. He may be taken from his nest as soon as he is born and
-never be permitted to see another squirrel, but he will be just as much
-of a squirrel, and know as well how to get the meat out of a nut, as if
-free in the forests with others of his kind. A mocking bird comes to the
-power of song as well in a cage, separated from other birds, as when fed
-and trained in the orchard by the mother-bird. The chords in his throat
-were set to music, and without teacher or praise, at a certain period of
-his growth, his song will ring through the house.
-
-The difference between a man brought up in some lone woods, out of all
-relation with men, and one brought up in a civilized community, is
-infinite. The lower animals get all they ever get by birth. No new
-gifts or powers come to them through companionship. They go unerringly
-to a certain destined end, whether they move in flocks or herds, or
-alone as individuals. Men, on the other hand, find themselves by coming
-together. Their organs sleep till waked by relation. By birth they can
-get nothing but the germs, the mere naked elements of what they are to
-become. Birth would be no blessing, but a deepening curse, but for what
-comes to the child through relation. Birthright alone is not worth a mess
-of pottage. Men often congratulate themselves on what they are pleased
-to term their individual rights and personal freedom. While men do have
-individual rights and personal freedom, it is always to be remembered
-that these belong to them because of the relations woven around them by
-the institutions of social life. The civilized man differs more from the
-savage, than the savage differs from the highest animal. Yet the lowest
-savage is infinitely removed from the highest animal, but solely in the
-possession of the germs of the attainments and the accomplishments which
-may be provoked and maintained by relation. Society alone furnishes the
-soil in which these germs can grow. The savage, alone in the woods,
-might secure for himself a covering of skins, but the cloth in which the
-civilized man clothes himself is possible only in social relations.
-
-With the commencement of human relations, the outlines of an absolutely
-new world come into view. Dim and vague at the outset, as the relations
-are simple and low. But as these increase in number, range, and degree,
-not only the outlines, but the far-reaching surface, the mountains, the
-rivers, the products, the sky, and the climate of a new world stand out
-clear, definite, and unmistakable. This new realm we name _civilization_.
-It is super-imposed upon the physical world, but is as distinct from it
-as thought from the molecules of the brain. Nature furnishes the basis,
-but social relations furnish the conditions of the human energy that has
-lifted itself into the mighty edifice we call civilization.
-
-All genera and species and families and individuals are so many forms
-in which the radiant energy of the sun has deposited itself. Playing
-with its heat and its light upon soil, sea, and sky, the sun has built
-the myriad organic forms we see. So all objects, interests, and laws
-embraced within the range of civilization are the forms in which social
-force, arising through relations, has deposited itself. Human language
-itself is an embodiment of social force. The grammars of different
-languages actually advertise the social status and condition of the
-peoples who used them. In the Chinese language we have no distinction
-as to parts of speech, thus showing that the national consciousness was
-arrested at the stage of paternalism in government. The ancient Romans
-put enormous stress upon the will. They formulated the laws by which men
-are still regulated in civilized social life. A hint of this we get in
-the Latin language, by the small use made of the pronoun. Ideas, too,
-are expressions of translated social energy. Nothing seems to be more
-insulated than the human brain, by the aid of which the mind does its
-thinking. Out of sight and out of touch, within the dark depths of its
-own mysterious home, it would appear to be shut up to absolute solitude.
-Here, at least, we would expect to find individual, independent work.
-But not so. No individual brain can think, only as it uses the brains of
-others in the process. Homer’s Iliad is a poetic formulation of what all
-Greece felt. The elements of myth, thought, passion, which it contains,
-were all in the contemporary Greek mind. In committing this poem to
-memory, the Greeks were but storing up their own thoughts.
-
-Hegel, in thinking out his remarkable system of philosophy, used the
-brains of all the men who had preceded him in the difficult work of
-solving the problems of existence. Darwin saw much in nature, because,
-through relation, he was able to look through the eyes of all naturalists.
-
-All values, whether in soil, waterfalls, precious stones, or money,
-are forms of social force. Land in a great city sells for two thousand
-dollars a front foot, because millions of people, drawn by the powers of
-commerce, have come into fellowship upon it. Robinson Crusoe would have
-given all the money he had on the ship for a loaf of bread. The heaps of
-gold and silver in Wall Street are so valuable, because seventy millions
-of people are circulating around them.
-
-Moral laws are social products. They are not empirical, but fundamental,
-eternal, and essential. They inhere in the constitution of man. But it
-is only through relation that man comes to the recognition of them,
-as binding for conduct. Light and heat have their laws, definite and
-unfailing, but if natural particles never vibrated at a rate sufficient
-to create these forces, the laws would not appear. They arise along with
-the forces, and the same conditions which give rise to the forces, give
-rise to the laws. So moral laws accompany a certain degree of attainment
-and culture, only possible through relation.
-
-Religion itself, the highest and most sacred deposit of human life, is
-a product of social force. Whether we regard it as “modes of emotion,”
-as Lecky; or the “recognition of all our duties as divine commands,” as
-Kant; or as “awe in the presence of the mystery of an inscrutable power
-in the universe,” as Spencer; or as “the infinite nature of duty,” as
-Mill; or as “the immediate feeling of the dependence of man on God,” as
-Schleiermacher, it never arises outside the range of relation. Still,
-religion is something constitutional, inalienable, divine; but man would
-never be thrilled by its hopes, or soothed by its peace, did he not
-stand in vital relation to his fellows. The elements and raw material
-of religion are eternally present, but relation calls into exercise the
-susceptibilities and faculties which appropriate these elements and raw
-material, turning them into hymns, theologies, prayers, sacrifices,
-liturgies, and ceremonies.
-
-Commerce, by bringing men together under the necessities of finding
-food, clothing, shelter, enables them to find their intellects and what
-they can know, their hearts and what they can love, and their wills and
-what they can do.
-
-Thus we trace the genesis of social force, with the expressions which
-it makes of itself, in property, literature, law, art, and religion,
-to mutual human relations, for the establishment of which, among men,
-Commerce seems to have been ordained. If men could, without trading, have
-found the means of subsistence, as do the foxes and the lions; then no
-relations in the high sense of the term would have been established among
-them; and like the foxes and the lions, they would have remained on the
-earth without progress and without history.
-
-The sun must be making tremendous drafts upon some unseen sources of
-power, to be able to make, throughout the solar realm, such ample
-expenditures of energy without bankruptcy.
-
-The location of the vast depositories of power, upon which he draws so
-liberally, we are not to inquire here. We do know that the force which
-builds the forest, flushes the meadows with green, braids the vines into
-festoons, and peoples the plant-world, comes from the sun. Wherever the
-materials which keep the sun’s fires burning come from, they must pass
-up to that center before they are available for service on this globe.
-The stamp and superscription of the sun must be upon them before they
-can take the form of grass, or leaf, or bird on the earth. In this sense
-stand human relations between the force contained in the individual,
-unrelated life, and the force which takes form in the objects of
-civilization. The crude and inarticulate force in the individuals of the
-tribe, or the nomads who only touch for war or passion, must be refined
-through moral, political, and spiritual relations before it is ready to
-take the form of poem, anthem, temple, or Plato.
-
-
-II.
-
-We wish to determine the principle in accordance with which the
-production and distribution of food, shelter, and clothing are to be
-regulated. These forms of value are embodiments of social energy,
-generated through relations formed above nature by intelligence and
-volition. In nature, then, we are not to find the law that is to regulate
-them.
-
-Bees build their cells, and birds their nests, and beavers their dams,
-not by intelligence and will, called into existence after birth through
-companionship, but by what is in-wrought into the very fibers of their
-being irrespective of companionship. Birds, bees, and beavers have been
-in the world thousands of years, yet the first bird, bee, or beaver
-ever created had as much sense as the last. A single bee has as much
-sense as all the bees in the world put together. Among all lower animals
-each individual inherits the sense of the species. Hence the law “of the
-struggle for existence,” resulting in “the survival of the fittest,”
-said to be a regulating principle in the plant and animal kingdoms, is
-not severe, regarded with reference to the individuals which inhabit
-them. But to regard the operations of this law as beneficent upon the
-plane of human life, as does Mr. Spencer, is altogether to overlook
-the obligations men are under to one another, because of their mutual
-relations. The life of each man, it must be remembered, in so far as it
-is above that of the unrelated savage, is contained in the life of every
-other man. In so far as it is comfortable, intelligent, and free, it has
-been brought to him, and made over to him by his fellow-man. The law
-which is to determine the regulation of the elements of commerce, which
-are but expressions of the energy arising through mutual human relations,
-must be as elevated as the relations which commerce begets, and which in
-turn make commerce possible.
-
-We must not go down among the tigers and the hyenas, who owe nothing but
-bare birth to companionship, where the principle of “the survival of
-the fittest in the struggle for existence” does prevail, to get the law
-which is to regulate the production and distribution of products possible
-only through companionship. Each individual, be he weak or strong, has
-contributed something to the social body. The strength of the one may
-have contributed courage, the weakness of the other may have called forth
-pity; but both pity and courage are virtues possible only in relation. A
-regulating principle that kills off the feeble ones, and drives the weak
-ones to the wall, may do for brutes, who owe nothing to relationships;
-but not for men, who owe everything to them. The attempt to regulate
-forms of value in accordance with the law of “the survival of the fittest
-in the struggle for existence” does not have sufficient regard for the
-contribution each individual has made, by the very fact of his existence,
-to make these values possible. The leading political economists of the
-times have come to see that the law of extreme individualism, of “every
-man for himself and the devil take the hindmost,” must be substituted by
-some more beneficent principle—by some law that pays more respect to the
-methods by which values have been created.
-
-The province of commerce, as an institution, is to bring men together,
-not merely that the boundaries of commerce may be extended and its
-volume increased, but that men may learn the mutual obligations they
-are under to one another, that their sympathy for one another may be
-enlarged, and that respect for one another may be engendered.
-
-It is only in an atmosphere of mutual trust, sympathy, and respect that
-men can grow.
-
-The need for bread, for protection, for raiment, prompts men to the
-exchange of products, that each may share into the work of all. But
-in the process of exchanging products, relations are established,
-through the influence and power of which an order of man comes the mere
-material comforts of life cannot supply. The significance of commerce,
-then, is not understood, if it is considered simply with reference to
-its immediate ends. These ends are met when men are supplied with the
-material comforts of life. Ends, however, are mediated through it of
-a kind different in order and degree. These we consider the essential
-and ultimate ends of the relations which are established through the
-exchange of products. What, then, is the ultimate end and object of human
-relations? It is man. Man come to himself, conscious of himself, in
-possession of himself. It is human life, enriched, perfected, completed.
-It is man, strong, free, holy. It is man, not lost in the social texture,
-nor swamped in the social organism; but, finding his individuality and
-his peculiar, natural, simple self through them. The marvelous fabric
-the social loom was set to weaving is man. The highest end of social
-relations is a self-conscious, self-determining man, thinking the true,
-willing the right, loving the good. These relations constitute the
-organism out of which alone he can be born into symmetrical, well rounded
-life.
-
-The lower animals come from natural birth into the world entire and
-complete. The young eaglet is correlated to the sky before he leaves the
-egg. But man moves on a plane lower than the brutes, if he is not caught
-at birth and carried by relation to his proper place. As man is the
-highest product of social relations, it follows that the highest product
-is the ultimate product.
-
-An apple tree may be used for fire wood, or sawn into planks, but apples
-are the ultimate reasons for the existence of the apple tree. Toward an
-apple the germ started when it burst the sod and stood a little sprig
-above the ground. Beyond the apple, the tree goes no further. It throws
-its roots into the earth and its branches into the atmosphere, and
-perpetually acts and reacts upon its environment, but all for the purpose
-of turning soil, and sunshine, and rain into apples.
-
-As we have seen, a part of the social energy arising through mutual
-human relations is to be converted into language, values, literature,
-morality, and religion, as a part of the capital invested in a sewing
-machine factory goes into tools. But man is greater than language,
-values, literature, morality, or religion; as the sewing machine is
-greater than the tools by which it is made. Human relations create
-language, values, art, morality, and religion, that they may be used to
-advance and perfect the main work they were ordained to perform, “the
-making of a man.”
-
-When the people of a nation come to regard the elements of wealth,
-literature, art, or even religion, as ends to be enjoyed rather than as
-means to make man, they have missed the purpose of creation, and wander
-amid the mazes of stupidity and blindness.
-
-As far as outward splendor and wealth were concerned, Babylon had no
-rival among the nations of ancient times. She was a vast and rich
-empire. She embraced the most fertile portion of the globe. She had a
-capital that eclipsed all others in magnificence. Her hanging gardens
-were the wonder of the world; but her people stood not upon their
-terraces to observe the stars, or to reach a higher civilization through
-the realization of the nobler ends of their being. These were used as
-places of revelry and sensual enjoyment. Thus the only work of art that
-made them famous was used to make them stupid and depraved. Of her wealth
-she made an end. Putting no estimate upon men, through the relations of
-whom her wealth was created, she found at last that among all her people
-she had produced no man amply endowed enough to give permanent mental
-setting to her civilization and her faith. Her heart throbs, whatever
-they were, got explained in no history, interpreted in no philosophy,
-and lived in no life. For knowledge of her, we are dependent upon her
-ruins, her pottery, her broken columns. Into oblivion has fallen all that
-bejeweled and pampered life that reveled in her palaces and amid her
-far-famed hanging gardens. Among none of her luxurious inhabitants did
-she develop a man to commit the keeping of her secrets and the record of
-her progress. Over her history has settled the stillness of the desert
-and the gloom of eternal night.
-
-On the other hand, how secure is the Greece, that flowered in her great
-men! It was in the two centuries between 500 and 300 B. C., when she
-emphasized men more than the things they created, that she produced the
-men who have been the teachers of the human race. She has been despoiled
-of her art treasures, her temples have fallen, her Parthenon is in ruins;
-but the two hundred years of her life, which she deposited in her great
-men, are immortal.
-
-No tooth of time, no war’s bloody hand, no devastation of the years, can
-take from her the glory which she lifted and locked in the genius of her
-generals, her statesmen, her orators, and her philosophers. Epaminondas
-and Pericles still fight for her, and guard with sleepless vigilance her
-fair name. Plato and Aristotle still interpret her problems of destiny.
-Sophocles and Pindar still sing her glory. Herodotus and Thucydides
-still keep the record of her victories. Demosthenes and Æschines still
-give imperishable expression to her conceptions of form and symmetry.
-She deposited her riches in the spirits of her great men, and they are
-forever secure. No thief can steal them, no rust can corrupt them. The
-unfolding centuries may look in upon them and enjoy them, but they cannot
-arrest them. The spirits of great men, like immortal ships, sail the
-ocean of time, bearing the treasures of the civilizations which gave them
-birth. They outride the fury of all the storms, and will sail on, till
-
- The stars grow old,
- The sun grows cold,
- And the leaves of the Judgment book unfold.
-
-But when Greece came to think more of the results than of the living
-men, she lost not only the power to produce the men, but the capacity
-to appreciate the results which had been created by them. Thinking more
-of the temple than the builder, she soon had no architect to conceive,
-and no son to understand the temple. Turning her national power into the
-spirits of her living men, she utilized the mountains and the mines in
-the service of beauty. But when life got cheaper than art, she no longer
-had power to create new art, or to protect from vandalism the old. By
-removing the emphasis from men to things, she descended from the Crœsus
-to the pauper of civilization.
-
-As long as Israel expended her national energy in the production of men,
-she had Moses, greater than the Tabernacle; David, greater than his harp;
-and Isaiah, greater than his song. But when the forms of her worship were
-emphasized beyond the spirits of her people she lost the devotion which
-created her church and the manhood that guided it. The men who formulated
-the laws that made Rome the mistress of the world, grew at a period when
-a Roman was the center of interest in the empire. But when her laws were
-stressed to the obliteration of her men, she had them still, without
-the ability to make more laws, or to execute the ones she had. Religion
-in India is emphasized more than character; hence her men are lost in
-a wanton and luxurious surrender to a modeless, transcendental, pure
-being, and she is practically without a history.
-
-
-III.
-
-The ultimate reasons, then, for the existence of social relations,
-brought about among human beings by exchange of products, is not the
-satisfaction of hunger, or the enrichment of individuals in material
-wealth, but the making of men. This being so, we are able to determine
-the law by which the production and distribution of commercial products
-are to be regulated. It must be a law that does not put the emphasis
-on the products, but upon the men who are to be elevated through their
-exchange. It must not be a law leaning to extreme individualism on the
-one side, or to extreme socialism on the other. It must have proper
-respect to the individual, and to the social organism to which he is
-indebted for whatever of power he possesses. That law has already
-been formulated for us. It is this: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as
-thyself.” This is the coordination of self-love and good-will. As has
-been well said, this saves for us the strength of private enterprise,
-and individual initiative, the vigor of the self-regarding motives; yet
-enthrones by their side as co-equal and co-regent powers, the principle
-of benevolence, the obligation to promote the common weal. Self-support,
-self-help, self-reliance, are still cardinal virtues, but philanthropy is
-given co-ordinate authority with them in the commercial world. This is
-the law most favorable to the growth of men.
-
-Under its benign reign, men can come to themselves. Through the operation
-of this law, there will be no curtailment of the volume or the extent of
-commerce; but the emphasis will be kept in the right place, and men will
-not be lost in the process of securing the elements of food and shelter.
-Commerce will be the means of mediating to men their higher nature.
-Surrounded by conditions engendered by the operation of a law like this,
-life will reach through relation higher and higher ranges of hope and
-insight. The elements of poems, symphonies, philosophies, temples, and
-pictures will flow in the blood.
-
-The fierce competition we see in the commercial world to-day is the
-attempt to re-enact, in business life, the principle of natural
-selection, or “the survival of the fittest in the struggle for
-existence.” This is the law of the jungle, but not of the social realm.
-This is doubtless the law among trees, determining their number, variety,
-and structure; for one tree gains nothing from association with other
-trees. This law doubtless operates in the sea, among the fish, and in
-the sky among the birds, for fish and birds are what they are by birth
-and not by association. Mr. Spencer regards the operation of this law
-as beneficent. It kills off the unsuccessful members of society, it
-drives the weak ones to the wall. Those who survive in the struggle are
-the fittest. The Greeks, who put Socrates to death, were, according to
-this so-called beneficent principle, the fittest to survive. This law
-is regarded as beneficent as it operates among men to control their
-products, upon the supposition that man is an animal and a part and
-parcel of nature, as are the bears and the wolves. The things which
-elevate men and civilize them, however, do not come from nature, but
-are engendered through companionship and association. Hence, from the
-sense of obligation men are under to one another for the best and
-highest things of life, the law is to be deduced which is to regulate
-their commerce and to determine the character of their actions. This
-law is, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” Thus business looks
-to character. The discipline it insures is worth more than the money it
-brings. The highest product of trade is man himself. If in business such
-methods are practiced, if such aims are followed as destroy the man,
-however great the returns in money, it is a thousand fold worse than a
-failure. The man it was designed to make, it has destroyed.
-
-
-IV.
-
-The disposition to accumulate, which is right and praiseworthy, should
-always be modified by right knowledge of the uses of property, and the
-methods by which it is amassed. Nothing is more pitiable than for a
-person to have more property than he has manhood. This indicates that
-the stress has been on the wrong side of the wealth. Such a man is
-under the sad necessity of taking his significance from the money he
-has accumulated, rather than the noble elements of life he should have
-secured in the process of obtaining it. With such a man, the end of
-business has been lost. He has consumed the end in the means. Instead of
-turning the elements of trade into manhood, manhood has been lost amid
-the maze and chaos of things. The order of progress has been violated,
-and the man, instead of moving on through business cares to immortal
-character, turns back to the earth, and seeks to substitute the tendency
-to move from it, by the disposition to settle permanently upon it. The
-desire to get rich has grown so abnormal and perverted, that it seeks to
-satisfy itself by the abundance of mere things. There are a great number
-of mowers and reapers, engines and cotton-gins, hats and shoes, pins and
-buttons; but a man has been lost in the making of them. This is more
-than all the mowers and reapers, cotton-gins and steam engines, pins and
-buttons ever made are worth. It is not mete that men should be sacrificed
-to the beauty and perfection of machinery, or to things machinery turns
-out. It is not necessary either. What we gain is not worth what we give.
-The machinery should be so manipulated as to get the things, and at the
-same time secure the perfection of men through the process. It is not
-necessary for the painter to lose himself in his art, and sacrifice his
-manhood to make his vision glow on the canvas. A proper regard for the
-methods and uses of art will result in leaving in the living spirit a
-picture more perfect than any painted by the brush. John Bunyan did
-not lose his manhood in portraying the history of a human soul in its
-attempts to get from earth to heaven. While conducting his pilgrim
-safely through the sorrow and temptations of life, to a home in a better
-world, he opened the pearly gates to his own soul. His work transfigured
-his life, and was the means of sanctifying it. All business and all work
-should lift up, and not hold down; it should make free, and not enslave;
-it should ennoble and not degrade. It is as honorable to make shoes or
-anchors as to paint pictures or write books. The shoemaker should learn
-the secret through his work of finding the sandals of manhood for his
-own feet. The blacksmith should learn, through the making of anchors for
-the great ships, to find the anchor that is to hold his own soul to the
-truth, amid the storms of life.
-
-
-V.
-
-If through trade only the material result is sought, the ends it were
-intended to subserve are missed. Its bulk may be large, the machinery
-through which it is carried on manifold and complicated, but with the
-emphasis on the money side of it, no manhood will be reached through it.
-The man side of a button machine is infinitely more important than the
-button side. The buttons which fall on one side may conform precisely to
-an approved and an exquisite pattern, but if the person who stands on the
-other side does not, through the process of making buttons, get a man out
-of himself, the whole thing is a disastrous failure. Human spirits are
-too valuable to be used up in making buttons. More respect is to be had
-to the human side of the loom than to the cloth side. The most beautiful
-pattern of silk ever woven loses its power to please the eye when it is
-remembered that the soul of a woman has been drawn into its threads and
-colors. The sacrifice of individual life is impressive and noble, if the
-object for which it is made is worthy. This kind of sacrifice is not the
-means of losing life, but of gaining it. But no material result to be
-used up in the passing season of fashion is worth such costly sacrifice.
-
-Through forces we name capillarity, cohesion, and gravitation, matter
-accomplishes the purposes of thought. They are but manifestations of the
-power of mind working through them, to build up the mineral, vegetable,
-and animal kingdoms. They look beyond themselves. They work for higher
-ends. Thus all the industries we see in nature look to lifting and
-refining matter, and force high enough to serve the uses of human life.
-So the industries established on the plane of human life are to elevate
-man another step in the scale of being. Through sowing and reaping,
-through grinding and sawing, through spinning and weaving, through buying
-and selling, through building and furnishing, he is to be carried on in
-the march of progress.
-
-The history of the physical universe culminates in man, finds its
-interpreter and its interpretation in him. Never was the thought of him
-absent from her movements through Pliocene, Miocene, Eocene, Cretaceous,
-Jurassic, Triassic, Carboniferous, Devonian, Silurian, or Cambrian ages.
-In all her awful cosmic emotion to reach order and form, it was the
-anticipation of man that moved her, for he it is at last that comes of
-it. So, through all the course of her tumultuous history, nature was
-pregnant with man. The stars which sang together in the early morning of
-the world, caught the inspiration which gave melody to their song from
-the thought of him.
-
-Commerce, if it is to be permanent and healthy and progressive, must
-fall into line with the purpose nature was put upon its perilous course
-to subserve. Her countless forms of industry established by the law
-of supply and demand; her cars, rushing hither and thither all round
-the world; her great steamships on every sea; her great furnaces, whose
-chimneys lift themselves against the sky, must get their meaning and the
-reason for their existence from the fact that they are putting in their
-contribution to the making of a man. Her wheels are to fly, her spindles
-are to whirl, her paddles are to splash, and her hammers are to ring,
-making music amid it all, in anticipation of his increasing worth, his
-growing thought, his enlarging hope. Her countless wheels of industry
-will be throwing out axes, wagons, plow-stocks, hand-saws, and reapers
-as they fly; but these will be only so many means used to discipline
-the precious life committed for a while to her training. What chemical
-affinity did in lifting the original elements to the mineral kingdom,
-and what the animal did to lift the plant to the animal kingdom, so the
-trades and industries of commerce are to do in lifting human life from
-its individual, unrelated state to its social and fraternal state. The
-elements of commerce are to be the means to help human character out of
-human nature. Two kinds of raw material are to be refined. The iron in
-the mountain is to be turned into razor blades and caligraphs; the reeds
-in the swamps and the woods in the forests are to be turned into the
-notes of organ and piano; and in the process of refining these, man is to
-be disciplined in the use of himself, in the possession of himself, and
-in the command of himself.
-
-
-
-
-_POWER._
-
-
- “Excessive devotion to the material is the evil of our epoch;
- hence a certain sluggishness.
-
- “The great problem is to restore to the human mind something of
- the ideal. Whence shall we draw the ideal? Wherever it is to be
- found. The poets, the philosophers, the thinkers, are its urns.
-
- “The ideal is in Æschylus, in Isaiah, in Juvenal, in Alighieri,
- in Shakspere. Throw Æschylus, throw Isaiah, throw Juvenal,
- throw Dante, throw Shakspere into the deep soul of the human
- race.
-
- “Pour Job, Solomon, Pindar, Ezekiel, Sophocles, Euripides,
- Herodotus, Theocritus, Plautus, Lucretius, Virgil, Terence,
- Horace, Catulus, Tacitus, Saint Paul, Saint Augustine,
- Tertullian, Petrarch, Pascal, Milton, Descartes, Corneille, La
- Fontaine, Montesquieu, Diderot, Beaumarchais, Sedaine, André
- Chenier, Kant, Schiller—pour all these souls into man.”
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER II.
-
-THE PROVISION FOR THE SOCIAL NATURE OF MAN.
-
-
-I.
-
-Man has a body and a spirit. By the one, he is individual; by the other,
-he is social. As individual, he needs bread; as social, he needs power.
-As body, he is born from the loins; as spirit, he is born from the social
-organism. In the process of finding food, clothing, shelter, to meet the
-needs of himself as individual, he discovers that illimitable social
-side of himself the material necessities of life do not supply. Here he
-finds power, a more subtle and universal element, ready to serve his
-higher need. This is the provision for the social side of man’s nature;
-for, as individual, he does not need it, and could not appropriate and
-use it if he did. As an individual, he can only avail himself of the use
-of power, through the attempt of the social whole of which he forms a
-member. In the primitive, unrelated, unorganized state, man is satisfied
-if he can secure food to satisfy his hunger, and a cave to shelter him
-from the storm. He does not even utilize the winds to draw his boat,
-until, through interdependence and mutual relations, he has reached a
-high degree of social life. The servants of man, on his individual side,
-are the foods of the field, the waters of the spring, the woods of the
-forest, the fruits of the orchard, and the wool on the sheep’s back.
-The servants of man, on his social side, are the driving power of the
-winds, the transporting power of heat, and the thought-defying power of
-the lightning. As individual, he is a citizen of the community where he
-first sees the light. As social, he is a citizen of the world. Through
-his body, he is naturally related to his ancestors; through his spirit,
-he is related to the human race. The rude elements of food, clothing,
-and shelter, he might secure as individual; but power, which waits to
-serve his higher, nobler nature, he can only secure through society. As
-individual, he is narrow, meager, local. As social, he is broad, rich,
-universal. On his individual side, he is centripetal; on his social side,
-centrifugal. Self-centered, self-contained, and self-included, on the
-one side; while, upon the other, he is possessed of the conviction that
-private right must be subordinated to public good. Tethered to the earth
-on the one side, linked with the immensities on the other. On the one
-side, his outlook is hard and literal and low; on the other, he seeks,
-through intellect, to transcend the infinite in time and space and truth.
-On the side of himself, as individual, he knows no right or wrong. On
-the side of himself, as social, he recognizes the infinite in duty, and
-seeks harmony through the infinite in love.
-
-
-II.
-
-Yet this limited and unlimited self; transitory, perishable, and finite
-on the one side; everlasting, imperishable, and infinite on the other,
-are bound together in the same person. The fall of the one is accompanied
-by the descent of the other, and the rise of the one is accompanied by
-the ascent of the other. Their union involves perpetual conflict, and
-there waits on the turn of the battle, the depression of remorse, or the
-exultation of triumph.
-
-On the individual side of himself, man would take up with the present,
-the immediate, with that which allures the sense, and, with unholy
-incense, regales the imagination. On the social side of himself, he
-would despise the immediate, and give the casting vote in favor of the
-unbiased, immeasurable good. In such a being as man, conflict were
-inevitable. With a horizon measured by the edge of the plain where he
-stands on the one side, and a horizon melting into the infinite star
-depths on the other, it were but to be expected that a contest would
-arise between the larger and the lesser outlook. On the one side, he
-would possess the field, concentrate his attention upon its grasses and
-its fruits, and lose himself in its products. On the other, he would go
-forth to see where the stars are, to consider the sources of their light,
-and to travel with them along their silent paths. With a view measured by
-the hour that shuts him round on the one side, and with a view measured
-by the organic pulsations of the world on the other; the question would
-be, whether to give himself to the immediate pleasures of the hour; or to
-elongate the pendulum of his timepiece till it should embrace the ages,
-and regulate his life by an eternal measure. With appetites on one side,
-clamoring for the things in sight, and with conscience on the other,
-calling for harmony with things high and remote; the question would be,
-whether to give the consent of the will to the demand of the appetites,
-or to the appeal of the conscience.
-
-
-III.
-
-Knowing the side of himself of which a man takes counsel—the individual,
-or the social—you are prepared to fix his grade in the scale of being.
-The difference between Benedict Arnold and George Washington was just
-this: in the case of the one the individual side was dominant; in the
-case of the other the social side held sway. This is the difference
-between the miser, despised of all, and the philanthropist, honored of
-all. This is the difference between the debauche and the saint, between
-the man who lives for his God and his race, and the man who pours himself
-out on his lust and his passion. If the promptings of the individual
-side of man’s nature are to be distrusted and watched, while liberal and
-unstinted recognition is to be given to the social side, it is well to
-inquire into the meaning and office of this larger fact of his life.
-
-Let it be granted that on the individual side of himself man has no
-kingdom of his own, no department of his own, no privileged class of
-his own, and no titled order of his own. Let this side of him be left
-to the naturalist, to be classed with the vertebrates, the mammals, or
-the primates. But what conclusion are we to reach concerning the social
-side of himself, that has found embodiment in that vast and complicated
-movement we call civilization? Through this age-long historic process
-man has been seeking to realize the capacities of his larger nature. Like
-a magnificent temple, civilization has been rising through the centuries.
-Its walls have silently come up from the earth, like Solomon’s Temple,
-without clink of trowel or sound of hammer. It is built of granite, cut
-from the Gethsemanes of history. Leonidas and his brave three hundred at
-the pass of Thermopylæ carved some of the blocks of this great edifice,
-into whose walls men have gone down as the living stones. The brave
-Britons, at the waters of Solway, lifted to place some of the richly
-foliaged pillars that stand upon its floors. William the Silent, while
-organizing the forces and achieving the victories of the Netherlands,
-was at the same time turning some of its arches and resting in place
-some of its architraves. The Martyrs, who went to undying fame and
-honor through fires of Smithfield, furnish themes for the music which
-resounds through its corridors. It is the triumph of the social nature
-of man, and stands upon the soil which has been made by the crumbling
-dust of all generations of brave men. Its pinnacles and towers pierce
-the skies, and declare to the immeasurable heights, the force, the
-faith, the sentiment, and the love of man. It defies the elements of
-disintegration and change, and around the tops of its lofty pillars there
-cluster the buds of eternal spring. The gigantic trunks, whose arched
-branches support the roof of this great structure, express themselves in
-never withering flowers, and, where the boughs interlace at the summit of
-the arches, there comes the light of heaven to color and illumine. Yet
-within its doors we are in no forest of stone, where thoughts of men have
-been chiseled into semblance with the trees. Its foundations are built
-of convictions, its pillars of hope, its vaulting of lofty purpose,
-and its windows of faith. Its cement is the blood of suffering, and its
-decoration the loves of heroes. It is the edifice man has built in which
-to house the social side of his nature. It contains and will conserve all
-contributions ever made to human weal.
-
-In walking the streets of Rome, one has a strange and melancholy sense
-of the traditions and memories which cluster about every ruin and every
-spot. But around the myriad facts and forces of civilization there hang
-associations more pathetic still. Here we walk, not amid the ruins of
-the past, but amid the achievements, the victories, and the glories
-of the past. Achievements, victories, and glories not associated with
-broken columns, defaced monuments and moldering ruins, but with the laws
-and institutions of living men. We have here, in ten thousand embodied
-forms, the travails of the souls of our fathers. Their spirits live in
-the words we use, their consciences bind in the laws we observe, their
-visions bless in the pictures we see, and their devotion sanctifies in
-the religion we love. All the blood ever shed in sacrifice, all the
-eloquence that ever thrilled senates and peoples in defense of the right,
-all the protests ever in silence felt or in public uttered against the
-wrong, are here held in everlasting form.
-
-Are we to regard civilization, the manifold and complicated sum in
-which man’s social nature has expressed itself, as nothing more than
-a natural product? Are we to account for this by the same physical
-principles in accordance with which the bee builds his cell, the monkey
-hangs his bridge, and the beaver erects his dam? Does this stately
-projection of man’s social nature mean no more than some lofty Alpine
-Matterhorn, pushed into the heavens by the unconscious fires in the
-earth’s bosom? Is this only like some mighty Giants’ Causeway, lifted up
-by the same physical forces and by the same natural processes? If this
-is so, why is it that when we turn away from civilization as a whole,
-to view it in some of its national forms, we see the spiritual ups and
-downs of history in such striking contrast with the uniform face which
-nature wears? If the radiant civilization of Greece, that filled the
-earth with the eloquence of thought and the melody of song, with the
-Republic of Plato and the Ethics of Aristotle, that clothed itself in
-the Parthenon of Phidias and the Iliad of Homer, was as natural among
-the nations as the uprising of Gibraltar among the mountains, why is it
-that Gibraltar still stands as the solemn sentinel of the Ocean and the
-Sea, while the civilization of Greece is but a memory of the past? The
-same sky and earth, and Mar’s Hill are there. Around her classic coast
-there still murmurs the same heaving sea. But while ships may still
-sail to Gibraltar, never more can they draw up to the Piræus of worthy
-representatives of Plato and Aristotle. Not again do men, with noble
-brows, deep eyes, and never dying thought, look into the Ægean from that
-memorable meeting place of the world’s ships.
-
-If the history of Israel, from the time of Abraham to the coming of John
-the Baptist, was but a natural product, as easy to be accounted for as
-the mountains round about Jerusalem; why is it that the mountains still
-encompass the holy city; while we find no more men like Moses, David, and
-Isaiah to lead, to rule, and to prophesy? There are the same Judean hills
-and valleys. There rapidly flows the same historic Jordan. There grow the
-same grapes, the figs, and olives. There are the same holy mountains.
-There are the same dangerous rocks in the sea at Joppa. The physical
-conditions that made the corn and the honey and the cattle are there; and
-there still are found the corn, the honey, and the cattle. But no massive
-man like Moses ever more climbs Sinai to get law on tables of stone, or
-Pisgah, to see the promised land and die. No man after God’s own heart,
-like David, any more minds sheep, watches the stars, and writes poetry
-there. Never more do we find there a man like Isaiah, struggling on his
-knees in prayer that he may rise up to give his people the oracles of
-God. A shallow, degenerate and fickle people dwell amid the groves and
-the vines where once lived the great race which gave to men their ethics
-and the outlines of true religion.
-
-If the civilization of Rome, that reached such volume and force as to
-make her the mistress of the world, was as natural as the rising and
-falling of the tides, why is it that Rome is in ruins, while the tides
-continue to rise and fall? With no other aid than such as is afforded
-by natural law and physical force, we cannot solve this problem. Where
-monkeys grew once, monkeys grow to-day; where lions roamed once, lions
-roam to-day; where figs grew once, figs grow to-day. The same physical
-conditions, the same configuration of soil, the same degree of climate,
-produce uniform natural results from age to age. These may be counted
-on with the certainty of a coming eclipse, conditioned on varying
-conjunctions of the heavenly bodies. But we must pass from the level and
-range of soil, sky, climate, and physical conditions, to account for the
-fact that a country in one period of its history produces a Pericles,
-and, in another, a muddy-headed numskull; in one age an aristocracy of
-poets, artists, statesmen, philosophers, and orators; and in another, a
-listless swarm of stupid and secular cumberers of the ground.
-
-
-IV.
-
-The explanation of this question is to be found in the fact that man has
-a dual nature, a body and a spirit, by virtue of which he is individual
-and social. When the center of gravity is on the social side of human
-nature, the fortunes of man go up; when the center of gravity is on the
-individual side, the fortunes of man go down. On the individual side, he
-is the subject of physical law. On the social side, of moral law.
-
-That man was intended to express the force of his life through the social
-side of himself and in accordance with moral law, instead of through the
-individual side of himself and in accordance with physical law, is plain,
-from the fact that it is only when he gives social expression to his
-life that he reaches any degree of commanding and permanent influence.
-
-The unrivaled place which the Greece of Pericles holds in history is due
-to the fact that he lived at a time when the emphasis was altogether
-on the social side of her people. The individual side was completely
-subordinated to the life of the whole. It is doubtless true that she
-pressed a right to rule too far, and stressed the citizen too much, and
-considered the claims of the individual too little. A proper balance is
-to be preserved between the individual and the social man. But it is true
-that in merging the life of the individual into that of the state, Greece
-did prepare a soil compact and rich enough to grow the most ample harvest
-of literature, art, poetry, philosophy, and men, the world ever saw. As
-soon as the emphasis passed over from the social to the individual side,
-the process of pulverization began, and the continuities of thought
-and aspiration were broken up. National unity was dissolved, and the
-conditions of great men and great results were no longer present.
-
-The difference between the Greece of 300 B. C. and the Greece of to-day,
-is the difference between giving the national life a social and an
-individual expression. The Greece of 300 B. C. was a compact whole, made
-so by each man putting in his individual life as a contribution to the
-life of the state. The Greece of to-day is an aggregate of self-centered
-units, held together like so many potatoes in a basket, by outward force
-and barriers, rather than by loyalty, patriotism, fidelity, and the
-cling of man to man. In the Greece of 300 B. C. each man, while giving
-his individual life to his fellows, gathered into his own being all
-the life they had to give. Hence in Socrates we had a reproduction of
-all Greece. In Homer, all her poetic passion, and expression. In the
-orations of Demosthenes, all the aspirations of her heart and all her
-love of liberty. In the Greece of to-day, we have not the same intimacy
-of companionship, or the same network of relationships. Each man,
-thinking more of himself as individual than of himself as social, finds
-it no longer possible to make levies on the lives of his fellows, to
-think his thought, conceive his temple, deliver his oration, or write his
-poem. So it follows, they no longer think great thoughts, conceive great
-temples, deliver great orations, or write great poems. Each man, in the
-high sense, being a separate sand, they have a social soil as barren as a
-desert.
-
-Rome won her victories, wrote her laws, and laid the foundations of her
-world-wide empire, when her people gave social rather than individual
-expression to the force of their lives. A typical illustration we
-have of this in the fidelity of Regulus. A prisoner at Carthage, he is
-permitted to go to Rome to induce his countrymen to make peace with the
-Carthaginians. He pledged his word to return if he failed. On reaching
-Rome, however, instead of seeking to persuade his people to make peace,
-he appealed to them to continue the war. The social side of himself
-belonged to Rome; speaking through that, he called upon her to prosecute
-the war. The individual side of himself was personal; acting through
-that, he went back to Carthage in honor of his pledge, to be cruelly put
-to death by his captors. This single incident is sufficient to help us
-understand why, from her seven hills, Rome conquered and for a long time
-ruled the world. The individual was sunk in the _Roman_. Not, as in the
-case of Greece, that his personal identity might be swallowed up in the
-mass, but that he might find a personal identity as great as the empire,
-of whose social life he was the embodiment. Regulus was an epitome of
-Rome. In him was all her indomitable will, her moral sturdiness, her iron
-probity. In him she had a son, in the depth of whose spirit all the glory
-she had won in war, and all the control she had found in sacrifice, was
-safe. Regulus had the advantage of the Carthaginians, in that the larger,
-nobler side of himself was safe from their hate. The Roman, the social
-Regulus, was as eternal as the majesty, and fame, and mystery of the
-Roman empire.
-
-The doom of Rome, as a nation, was never sealed till the stress was
-removed from the social to the individual side of her people. She might
-have lived on among the nations, as fixed as her own eternal hills,
-if the temptations to self-indulgence and self-gratification had been
-resisted. Her downfall was not due to physical causes, but to her sins.
-Observance of the moral laws, which made her great, would have kept her
-great. When she threw her larger, social self into the fires of her
-individual lust and passion, she burned the foundations of her dominion,
-and a mighty wreck of shapeless ruins was all that was left of the once
-proud mistress of the world.
-
-
-V.
-
-What is the correlate to the social side of man’s nature? Where is the
-domain that matches it? Where is the vast realm, large enough to furnish
-sufficient scope for all the possibilities which seem to lie folded
-within it? A study of the eye reveals the fact that the light of the
-sun is necessary to furnish an element wide and ethereal enough for the
-exercise of its functions. By a study of the ear, we learn that it is
-related to sound with all its possibilities of harmony. The fin of the
-fish is related to the waters of the sea. The bird’s wing is a prophecy
-of the sky. The migrating instinct of the wild goose is related to the
-South, with its soft skies and balmy air.
-
-In the calculations of Adams, in England, and of Leverrier, in France,
-the perturbations of the planet Uranus were in correspondence with the
-planet Neptune.
-
-On the side of himself as individual, as we have seen, man is related to
-the earth with all it contains to satisfy the needs of the body. We wish
-also to determine the nature and dimensions of the sphere to which he is
-related as social.
-
-We have seen that, even within national boundaries, human life comes to
-be fertile in great men, great deeds, and great art, when the expression
-of it is social, rather than individual. With such disposition of her
-national life force, Greece reached an unparalleled height of grandeur
-and influence. But all outside of Greece were esteemed as barbarians. The
-barbarian hordes around her state were like so many walls, which kept
-the waves of national life from passing out into any world-wide sea.
-The limits were soon reached, then the waves receded, to be thrown back
-again in quick succession against the encompassing walls. Was this not in
-violation of the law and nature of the expression which the social side
-of man, by its very structure, is inclined to give of itself? Is it not,
-by its nature, disposed to pass out in accordance with moral laws, which
-have no boundaries and limits? And were not the walls they permitted
-their hate to build of the barbarians on the outside to arrest the
-outward flow of their national life, the evidence of a tacit treaty with
-their selfishness? Did these not, after all, bear witness to a hampered
-and halted surrender to the nobler side of their nature? Did they not
-show that the Greeks were only willing to give social expression to their
-national life, as far as the boundary lines of Achai? Too noble to permit
-the emphasis to rest on the individual side of her people, as separate
-members of the state, she lifted narrowness and selfishness into greater
-place by giving them national form.
-
-Too great of breadth to be individually selfish, she was not great
-enough to be nationally unselfish. The individual sides of themselves
-her people sacrificed on the altars of the state to her national unity,
-she transmuted into contempt and hatred of other nations. Selfishness
-only passed from the individual to the state. Retained by the state, it
-worked itself back into the individuals again, when the unity of the
-state was disintegrated. Do we not have in the limitations which Greece
-attempted to put on the expression which the social nature of man would
-give of itself, the real secret of their downfall? If, while giving
-even limited social expression to her national life, Greece developed a
-civilization so rich, how much greater might have been her contribution
-to human progress had not the seeds of disintegration been sown among her
-people through national enmity and hate. In the two hundred years which
-embraced the most fertile portion of her history she laid the foundation
-of thought. But it was only through thought that she sought to solve the
-problems of life and destiny.
-
-The social life of the Jews found only limited expression for itself.
-It was worked out into religious lines that were unlimited and all
-embracing, but this was in spite of their prejudices.
-
-Their compact social life, the vast depth and vigor of their social
-vitality, the tenacity with which they clung together, made it possible
-for them to lay the foundation of a religion and an ethics larger than
-they dreamed. Their scriptures, their prophets, and their saints were not
-possible in a soil less socially rich.
-
-Their devotion, their loyalty, their voluntary subordination of private
-to public interests, their religious fidelity fitted them to become the
-children of God. The summit of civilization they reached enabled them
-to see and to transcribe the outlines of the kingdom of heaven. They
-ascended high enough the mount of being to recognize the laws necessary
-to regulate human conduct. But they permitted their narrowness and
-prejudice to build of the Gentiles about them, walls to limit the outflow
-of their national life. Hate for the unfortunate people without, could
-not be without its influence on the lives of those within.
-
-The selfishness which, as a nation, they cherished toward other people,
-reproduced itself at length in their own lives. From the children of God
-they descended until they became the children of the devil. The visions
-of their nobler men were discounted and despised. The selfishness that
-put them against the Gentiles, finally put them against one another; and
-while they kept together in a certain sense, in spite of the upper and
-nether mill stones of history, it was rather in memory of what they had
-been, than of what they were.
-
-In the civilization of Rome, again, limitations were put on the
-expression of the social side of man’s nature. Within the precincts of
-Rome, under her eagles and within her roads, there was a sinking of the
-individual and an expression of the social side, that has been rarely
-equaled in history. It was this merging of the individual units into the
-social whole of Rome, that made it possible for her to formulate the
-legal measures and provisions which continue to protect human life and
-property. But sacrifice, companionship, social cohesion on the inside,
-could not, for many centuries, be accompanied with fierce opposition
-and cruel hate for others on the outside. It was inevitable that sooner
-or later the disposition on the outside would get distributed among the
-individuals on the inside.
-
-
-VI.
-
-The realm, then, to which man on the social side of himself is related,
-is larger than that encompassed by any national boundaries. The Greek,
-on the social side of himself, was larger than Achai, the Jew than
-Palestine, and the Roman than the Empire. The Greek developed thought,
-the Jew produced religion, and the Roman formulated law. But the larger
-side of man’s nature is not met by thought simply, or by religion simply,
-or by law simply, but by the combination of these in right proportions.
-
-Man, on the social side of himself, is correlated through reciprocal
-relations to the human race. To limit the social expression of man’s life
-is to contract its nature, and to violate the moral laws in accordance
-with which it must act. The understanding cannot rest in unrelated
-phenomena. Through science it reduces the forces of nature to one force,
-its energies to one energy, and its matter to its constituent elements.
-So the social nature must find harmony in the union and cohesion of
-scattered, separated human beings. It must have companionship, such as
-the relations of all men help to make. It must have a range as wide
-as the world. Because of the continuities of life and thought secured
-through universal social cohesion, it must be able to pass and repass
-through the length and breadth of human life. If man’s social nature is
-to find its correlate, the race must be so completely one, so compact
-and contiguous in the spirit of fraternity and good will, as to make it
-possible for each man to share in the work, thought, and virtue of all
-men. Individuals must be gathered into the network of social relations,
-so that, instead of separate and isolated units, they shall be known
-as farmers, merchants, blacksmiths, mechanics, shoemakers, lawyers,
-doctors, editors, and ministers. The calling of each must relate to the
-well-being of all. Every man must make for others and receive in return
-for the supply of his own wants something of all the others make. Into
-the multiplex flow of exchanges the shoemaker may put in simply one pair
-of shoes per day, as his personal contribution. To that extent he must
-be able to make levies on the contributions of all the rest. No one will
-be independent in an unrelated sense. All will be dependent, and each
-independent, through dependence on the rest. The race, as civil society,
-will be at work under all climes, and on all soils, producing the
-infinite variety of goods for the world’s market. By the specialization
-and division of labor, we will have great increase of skill and the
-multiplication of all products. People will be at work raising coffee
-and drugs in Brazil, tea in China, creating a myriad of manufactures
-in England, France, and Germany, growing fruits on the Mediterranean
-Islands; these then will be gathered by various means of transportation
-and loaded on ships and cars, to be carried to every place on earth; that
-everyone may have the whole earth to serve him, while on his part he
-renders service to all.
-
-
-VII.
-
-The universal organization of the human race into one social whole has
-been the grand, far-off event, toward which the whole creation and the
-whole process of history has moved. Toward this the race has been moving
-through all the fierce antagonisms and bloody wars of the past.
-
-Pestilences, which have decimated the ranks of men, and earthquakes,
-which have swallowed up great cities, have contributed toward this
-consummation.
-
-The genius of men like Alexander the Great has been used to break up the
-narrow and provincial groupings into which men had settled, that a way
-might be opened for the distribution of products and the circulation of
-ideas.
-
-In the early history of the race, the process of organization began.
-Every great man and every great movement helped toward its enlargement.
-Abraham, getting up from Ur of the Chaldees, and moving with his family
-and his herds across the plains of Syria, to plant a government in
-Palestine, widened its sphere. Phœnicia, the strongest maritime power of
-ancient times, while she had no motive but gain for crowding every port
-with her ships, and for turning the world into an exchange, did augment
-the knowledge of men and increase the relations of men. The Jews, by
-their compact, social organization, lifted their national life into a
-great civilization. This civilization they sought to make provincial;
-they sought to fence themselves off, with all they had accumulated of
-devotion and law and literature, from the rest of mankind. But their
-social pulverization, due to their sins, helped forward universal
-companionship. They moved out into other parts of the world. They
-settled along the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. They went into Asia
-Minor and back into Syria. They took up their abode in Alexandria and
-along the Mediterranean coast. Wherever they went, they carried their
-civilization; their synagogue, in which to teach their knowledge of the
-one God; their Moses, to guide by his law their conduct; and their David,
-to soothe, with his songs, their sorrow.
-
-The marvelous productions of Grecian thought and skill were kept, for
-a time, from the barbarians. They attempted a monopoly of beauty. But
-the breaking up of their Commonwealth hastened the coming of universal
-fraternity. They planted their civilization in Asia Minor. They went over
-to Syria, down to Alexandria, and around the Mediterranean Sea. Wherever
-they went they carried their language and their philosophy. The Romans
-broke down the walls between different tribes, and brought them under one
-law. They built roads into all parts of the civilized world, and thus
-prepared the first great highways of travel.
-
-Looking from this distance, back upon the movements of these great
-peoples, it seems as if they might have been, on set purpose, devising
-schemes and laying plans for bringing the world of mankind together.
-It really looks as if all peoples above the grade of the savage had
-been unconsciously and in spite of themselves working for the unity of
-the race. The very walls that have been raised to keep men apart have
-been battered down and used to make roads to bring them together. The
-mountains, that served as barriers to separate them, have been tunneled
-to unite them. The oceans, that seemed absolutely to insure isolation,
-are now the favorite means of communication. All inventions and
-discoveries have helped to the practical oneness of the race.
-
-The mariner’s compass, gunpowder, the printing press, the steam engine,
-the electric telegraph, the sewing machine, the spectroscope, the
-electric light, the telephone, with the phonograph and microphone, have
-wrought for this end. The discovery of the sun’s place in the heavens,
-and of the shape and movements of the earth; the discovery of America
-and of the law of gravitation; the discovery of the circulation of the
-blood and of the wonderful remedies in nature which relieve the ills of
-the body, have all reduced differences and augmented unity. Theologies,
-which have divided men into religious partisans, fomenting strife,
-and producing wars; which have separated men into parties bitter and
-revengeful; have grown kinder and humaner as the years have passed, and
-tend now to unite men, rather than to divide them. Philosophies, which
-kept men apart under the heads of nominalist and realist, sensationalist
-and idealist, are now deduced from a broader survey of the facts, and
-tend to harmony rather than conflict.
-
-From the beginning nature and human effort have wrought together for
-universal good will and social organization. Lapses have been frequent
-and the net gain of fraternity small, but from age to age, without
-cessation and without intermission, in volume and sweep, it has been
-increasing.
-
-
-VIII.
-
-Because of the limited knowledge men had of the uses of power in the
-past, the growth of universal social organization has been slow. Methods
-of intercommunication between nations wide apart were meager, hence the
-people in one division of the globe could know but little of the people
-who lived in another. Any part of the earth not understood was counted
-as desert, and any people not known were considered barbarian. But with
-the new uses and applications of power, all this is changed. The world
-now lies open to all. The antipodes are neighbors. By hitching the
-sun’s heat to the flying train, and the canvas to the favoring winds,
-and the lightning to human thought, all races on the globe stand face to
-face. The world is being encompassed, and no natural obstacles are now
-permitted to stand in the way of railway lines, or of submarine cables.
-All mountain chains are being tunneled, all chasms spanned, all oceans
-traversed, and all straits bridged. The continents of the earth are now
-connected by 125,000 miles of submarine electric cable, and countries
-are crossed by thousands of miles of railroad lines. With an abiding and
-irrepressible, even if unconscious sense, that on the social side of
-himself he is related to the whole human race, man has well-nigh subdued
-the earth, and removed the obstacles that opposed the realization of his
-larger nature. Already great enterprises are being contemplated, which
-look to the speedy removal of whatever remaining obstacles there are to
-world-wide companionship among men. Some of the great enterprises already
-projected which are to help toward universal brotherhood, have been noted
-by Mr. Charles Hallock. A railway is to be built from Joppa to Jerusalem
-in Palestine, and a bridge across the Straits of Dover near Folkestone.
-
-The Mombasa and Nyanza Railway in Africa is to connect the Nile with
-the interior lakes and with the coast. A railway is to be constructed
-across Siberia, from St. Petersburg to Behring Strait. Upon this side a
-railway is to be built across Alaska to Behring Strait, while Behring
-Strait is to be bridged or ferried. A canal is to be cut across the
-Isthmus of Corinth in Greece, to connect the Ægean Sea with the Gulf of
-Corinth. There is to be a ship canal around Niagara Falls, and a railroad
-from Quebec to Belle Isle in Labrador, with connecting ocean steamship
-lines to Medford in Wales. There is to be an ocean cable from Clew Bay,
-Ireland, to Greeny Island, Strait of Belle Isle, 1900 miles long. And
-a railroad from Winnipeg, Manitoba, to Hudson Bay, and steamship line
-thence to Liverpool.
-
-A railway is contemplated from Winnipeg to the Saskatchewan River, across
-the Northwest Territory. A tunnel is to be cut under the Hudson River
-at New York, and a tunnel under the St. Clair River, between Sarnia
-and Port Huron, Mich. That the Panama and Nicaragua canals have been
-projected and partially completed is known the world over. A tunnel is
-to be made through the Atlas Mountains in Russia, and the great Northern
-Railroad Company is to make one through the Rocky Mountains in Montana,
-and another is to be cut through the Sierras from Truckee River, Nevada,
-into California. There is to be a canal from Knoxville, Tenn., through
-Alabama to the Gulf of Mexico, and one from Chicago to the Mississippi
-River, which is to cost $25,000,000. A ship railway 60 miles long is
-to be completed from Georgian Bay to Lake Ontario, connecting the
-Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River, costing $12,000,000. A canal
-is contemplated from Chicago to the Gulf of Mexico, and also a ship
-railway around the Dalles of the Columbia River. There is to be a ship
-canal across New Jersey to the Atlantic Ocean, 60 miles long, and a ship
-railway to connect the Gulf of St Lawrence with the Bay of Fundy, 12
-miles long, to cost $12,000,000. There are to be steam lines from Tampa,
-Fla., to all parts of the West Indies, a longitudinal railway through the
-axis of North and South America, from Chicago to the Argentine Republic;
-steam lines from Vancouver in British Columbia, to Japan and Australia,
-and steam lines from New York to the Carribbees and the Windward Islands.
-There are to be steam lines from Scotland to the North Cape and the
-Antarctic Ocean; stated voyages between Sitka, Alaska, and Point Barrow
-in the Arctic Ocean, and steamboat navigation of all the great lakes and
-rivers of Siberia, British America, and Central Africa. Ports of entry
-are to be established in all countries to furnish terminal facilities for
-these far reaching lines of transportation.
-
-We are to have federation among the nations, as we now have it among the
-States of the American Union. The social cohesion, once national, is to
-be international. All are to think for each, and each is to think for
-all. All are to work for each, and each is to work for all. All are to
-plan for the good of each, and each is to plan for the good of all. Thus
-the inequalities of life are to be reduced, and the littleness of life
-is to be redressed.
-
-As all the power in the vine and its branches to make grapes is expended
-in the rounding and sweetening of each grape, so all the power in the
-social whole to make men will be reproduced in each man. All the justice
-in the race will regulate each man’s will, all the thought in the race
-will replenish each man’s mind, and all the love in the race will feed
-each man’s heart. Nothing less than this social whole, in which are
-bound together in one organic body the lives, the welfare, and the hopes
-of all, is the correlate of the social nature of man. Toward such a
-world-wide organism, each living in the whole and the whole living in
-each, his social nature reaches out and is never at home until it is
-found. Such universal brotherhood would be impossible without power in
-all its manifold forms. This serves the social body as bread serves the
-individual body. Power, as the servant of the social body, waits on each
-man through his relations with the social whole. A city builds gas works
-and finds it possible to let down the price in proportion to the number
-of those who use it. A railroad company can lower the rate on passengers
-and freight in proportion to the number of men who travel and the volume
-of freight transported. The price of a newspaper goes up or down as the
-number of subscribers increases or diminishes. Mr. Edison expects to get
-electricity from the disturbed conditions of the air, without the use of
-fuel. This will make the conditions of life easier by one-half; and then,
-as the number of people increases who avail themselves of the uses of
-power, the conditions of living will still be easier. Not only will the
-unity which comes through social organization lower the rate of insurance
-and the price of the necessities of life, but this increased force of
-the social whole will tend to the moral health of the people in the same
-degree. Health in one part of the body will be brought to bear to correct
-disease in another part. The conscience of the whole will be turned into
-the degraded sections of our great cities, and the sympathy and love of
-all will be called out to reclaim them. Starvation in one part of the
-globe will be met by the over-supply of bread in another. Oppression
-and tyranny in one nation will be opposed by the sense of fairness and
-overcome by the love of freedom in all the rest. As climatic conditions
-are made friendly to life by the circulation of oceanic and atmospheric
-currents, so moral health will be preserved by the circulation of the
-currents of conscience and justice.
-
-
-IX.
-
-The emphasis is to be kept on the social rather than the individual side
-of human nature; not that personality may be lost, but that it may be
-gained.
-
-The social mass that constricts and squeezes the single life until the
-virility of self-assertion and the right of private initiative are
-destroyed, is no improvement on Bedouin isolation. The latter brutalizes
-life, while the former eviscerates it. The eye does not lose its capacity
-for sight, and its place of peculiar responsibility by being brought
-into reciprocal relations along with other organs in the same body. It
-would have no meaning and no power of vision apart from relations with
-other organs. The ear is not discounted, nor are its wonderful functions
-belittled amid the manifold members which work together in the same human
-frame. Its position of honor is secured to it by the organic relations
-it sustains to the other members. The foot, the hand, and the tongue find
-themselves and their uses as they unite together in one living whole. The
-lone Bedouin, with no laws and no relations, seems to have all liberty,
-but in reality he has none. He is as completely without meaning as
-would be the finger separated from the hand. The man of whom nature is
-a prophecy is not the being in the woods whose home is a cave and whose
-food is wild meat; but it is the man in society, whose home all woods
-and metals and stones have helped to build, and whose food all soils and
-skies and seas have helped to produce.
-
-The emphasis is to be kept on the social side of human nature, because it
-is through that side of himself that man is to pass into the world-wide
-work and the glorious destiny for which he is fitted. Through that side
-of himself he moves out into order, and strength, and freedom. All men
-whose names are cherished in history, passed into place, influence, and
-honor through the social side of human nature.
-
-In passing through the social side of himself, the life man finds is a
-million times larger and richer than the life he loses. That men might
-find the life that belonged to them, the only life worth living, the
-tendency from the first has been toward the solidarity of the race. The
-relations growing out of such solidarity are constitutive of the being of
-each man. The important properties of an acid cannot be known, when it is
-considered out of relation with an alkali. What a thing is for another,
-that it is in itself. So what a man is through relations with others,
-that he is in himself. But what he is in himself cannot be known until he
-comes into relations with others.
-
-Solidarity is not to swamp single lives, but single lives are to come
-to all that is peculiar and high in themselves through solidarity. The
-universe is to preserve relations with each private spirit. By the
-organization of men into one social whole, provision is made for each
-man to participate in the life of humanity. It is intended that all the
-oceans of life shall reach, through their waves, the shores of each man’s
-being, and leave deposits of all their wealth in each man’s spirit. When
-we speak of the horse, the eagle, the whale, it is understood that we are
-using generic terms, and are intended to refer to no particular horse or
-eagle or whale. Yet in each horse the species is reproduced, and in each
-eagle the species is epitomized, and in each whale the whole whale type
-is summarized. This is done in the case of the lower animals, without
-their thought or volition. No universal relations are necessary among
-whales, for each whale to have within itself all the peculiarities and
-furnishments possessed by all whales. The species are to be realized in
-each man, too; but this is to be accomplished through social relations
-among all men. All the men in the world must touch each man, to call
-forth the capacities which lie folded within his life. Humanity, as
-parcelled out in nations, generations, epochs, must lift itself into the
-being of each man; as the ocean, parcelled out in Atlantics, Pacifics,
-Indians, Arctics, Antarctics, lifts itself into each wave.
-
-Power, parcelled out in gravitation, heat, and electricity surrounding
-the globe; advertised in every apple’s fall, declared in every flash from
-the clouds, and present in every sunbeam; stands ready to make universal
-brotherhood, not simply an ideal, running through the dreams of poets and
-prophets, but an actual fact. The recognition of power, as the provision
-made for the social nature of man, is enabling us to realize the dreams
-of prophets and poets.
-
-
-
-
-_TRUTH._
-
-
- “A century is a formula; an epoch is an expressed thought.
- One such thought-expressed civilization passes to another.
- The centuries are the phrases of civilization; what she says
- here she does not repeat there. But these mysterious phrases
- are linked together: logic—the logos—is within them, and their
- series constitutes progress. In all these, phrase expressions
- of a single thought, the divine thought, we are slowly
- deciphering the word _fraternity_.
-
- “All light is at some point condensed into a flame; likewise
- every epoch is condensed in a man. The man dead, the epoch is
- concluded: God turns over the leaf. Dante dead, a period is
- placed at the end of the thirteenth century: John Huss may
- come. Shakspere dead, a period is placed at the end of the
- sixteenth century. After this part, who contains and epitomizes
- all philosophy, may come the philosophers—Pascal, Descartes,
- Molière, Le Sage, Montesquieu, Diderot, Beaumarchais.”
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER III.
-
-THE PROVISION FOR THE INTELLECTUAL NATURE OF MAN.
-
-
-Truth and reality stand for the same thing. Reality is truth out of the
-mind, and truth is reality in the mind. Reality is objective truth, and
-truth is subjective reality. But all reality is in relation to mind;
-objective reality to the divine mind, and subjective reality to the
-human mind. Objective reality is the realized thought of God; subjective
-reality is the realized thought of man. The correspondence of thoughts to
-things is called scientific truth. Objective reality is truth, because it
-corresponds to the thought of God. Knowledge in the human mind is truth
-when it corresponds to objective reality or the expressed thought of
-God. When words and conduct correspond to knowledge, we have truth in the
-domain of morals.
-
-In saying that objective reality is the realized thought of God, we
-denote its unity. This is not to destroy the particulars of which it is
-composed, or to swamp their individuality in an inarticulate mass, but
-simply to indicate their oneness.
-
-When the observer looks out into the universe, which includes and shuts
-him round, he is impressed by the infinite varieties and diversities
-which everywhere meet his gaze. No two things are alike. No two leaves,
-no two drops of water, no two snowflakes, no two apples, no two faces.
-Every particular thing seems to be persistently determined to differ,
-in some respect at least, from everything else. The history of true
-knowledge begins, however, with the observation of resemblance and
-similarity—just beneath the surface of difference and variety. The
-lightning that appears on the bosom of the cloud, like the writing of
-some awful fiend, is seen to be the same with the gentle sparks emitted
-when a tag of silken ribbon is drawn briskly between the fingers. The
-power that pulls the ball to the ground is seen to be the same as that
-which keeps the sun in his place.
-
-The plant lifts itself up as but a sum of organized varieties; but every
-part, corolla, petal, and stamen, is known to be only modified leaf.
-Keeping to their silent and lonely rounds since the dawn of time, are the
-stars in the heavens, differing in color, orbit, and size, but we now
-know that to understand the elements of which they are composed, we have
-only to lift our foot and see what the constituent parts of the earth
-beneath it are. Were objective reality one amorphous mass, it would not
-be intelligible. It is one and many, particular and universal, singular
-and manifold, concrete and discrete. All things cohere in a centrality
-that includes and commands them.
-
-So true is it that unity underlies all difference, that no single variety
-can be understood, only as it is considered in relation with the whole of
-which it forms a part.
-
-No one could ever get a correct notion of a particular star by directing
-his entire attention to the study of that star. To understand it, he
-must study it through the system of which it forms a member, and in
-connection with all laws and forces related to it. Oxygen separate and
-distinct from other elements has no meaning. It gets its definition and
-significance from the things to which it is related. What it is for rocks
-and water and trees and globes, that it is in itself. But it must be seen
-in connection with these before we can know what it is in itself. What
-an acid is for an alkali and for other things, that it is in itself.
-Alone, out of relation, we could know absolutely nothing of it. Society
-is the organism that reveals to each person the nature of his own life.
-Out of contact and touch with other human beings, no one would ever know
-anything concerning himself.
-
-Objective reality embraces manifold variety, but it is the unity that
-presides over it that makes it intelligible. Difference provokes
-questions and unity answers them.
-
-In calling objective reality truth, we tacitly assume the laws and
-relations constitutive of it. We could not speak of the truth of the
-globe, had there been no method in its formation, no order in its
-development, no system in its parts, and no relations between its
-constituent elements. To speak of the truth of it, is to imply the
-thought of it, the intelligibility of it. Were it not the expression of
-mind, man’s reason could find no truth in it. Scholars have been able,
-after long and painstaking study, to understand the meaning of Egyptian
-and Assyrian hieroglyphics, but they never could have found thought in
-them, had they contained no thought. The original elements which make
-up the matter of the globe, have come into such relations with one
-another as that they make up the soil, rocks, water, trees, and animals
-we see. Thought, then, is the result of the internal relations of the
-particles which compose it. These internal relations, too, constitute its
-intelligibility. The globe that wheels on its axis is objective. This
-may be taken into the mind, and by its synthesizing, organizing activity
-converted into a subjective globe. The difference between the objective
-and the subjective globe will be, that one will be thought and the other
-will be thing. But the same internal relations found in the objective
-globe will be preserved in the subjective, and the transcript of the
-globe that is held in thought will be truth in exact proportion as it
-corresponds to the material globe that rolls out of the mind. That an
-objective globe, which is a thing, may become a subjective globe, which
-is a thought and not a thing, implies that there is something in common
-between thoughts and things; that is, the mind, by its constitution,
-is capable of apprehending and taking into itself the constitution and
-relations of things. This is its capacity for truth, and shows that truth
-is not foreign to it, but one with itself.
-
-The sides and angles of a right angle triangle have certain relations
-to one another. The square described on the hypotenuse of such an angle
-is equal to the squares described on the other two sides. This may be
-demonstrated on a piece of blank paper, or the mind may conceive a right
-angle triangle, and prove the proposition without making any marks at
-all. The constitutional relations which were in the nature of a right
-angle triangle are the same, whether it be drawn on paper or conceived
-by the imagination. The relations of the triangle make it intelligible,
-because they constitute its truth.
-
-
-I.
-
-To truth the intellect is related, as is the eye to light, and the ear
-to sound. If the eye were destroyed, the sun would not cease to shine.
-His light would still come upon hill and plain to feed the flowers and to
-disclose their beauty, but without the organ of vision no creature in the
-universe would be able to see the things which his light reveals. The ear
-does not create sound. Let it be forever sealed, and the Niagaras would
-still continue to fall and the thunders to shake the heavens, but they
-would not be heard. The intellect does not create truth, but it is the
-only faculty with which man is endowed by which he is able to discover it.
-
-It was the error of the idealists that they made the order, laws, and
-relations of things as so many principles projected out of the observer’s
-own mind into the universe about him. What he seemed to see in things,
-were but modifications of his own mental states. The only order things
-had was in the observer’s own mind. It was regarded not only as the pivot
-upon which the universe turned, but also as the creative principle from
-which the universe took form. Apparently this was a great gain to mind,
-but it was at the expense of any real world for the mind to contemplate.
-It seemed to win a victory for the intelligence absolute and entire,
-but it was by shutting it up to its own shadowy abstractions, and
-abandoning it in a shoreless and bottomless void to its own vain musings.
-The personal pronoun _I_ was extended perpendicularly and horizontally,
-till topways and sideways the whole of space and time was filled with
-it. No solid earth, no burning sun, no rolling orbs were left. A great,
-illimitable, irresponsible ego became the sole occupant of all that is.
-
-This extreme idealism is in direct contrast to the realism of the early
-thinkers. They taught that things depended on man neither for their
-existence nor their intelligibility. That each thing carried the real
-intelligible essence as an ultimate fact in itself. Thought in man was
-but the reflection of this intelligible essence in the thing, as the
-light in the mirror is but the reflection of the light of the lamp.
-
-Of the two systems, extreme idealism is preferable to extreme realism.
-All mind and no matter, is better than all matter and no mind. Thought
-with no place to stand, is better than a place to stand and no thought.
-The eye with nothing to see, is better than something to see and no eye.
-
-The solution which realism gave of the problem of existence, left no
-place for mind, the solution which idealism gave of it left no place for
-matter. But both the external world, upon which realism was founded,
-and the intelligence, upon which idealism was founded, are expressions
-of mind. The one as intelligible content, the other as combining active
-capacity and the intelligibility of the content, exactly corresponds to
-the active grasp of the capacity.
-
-
-II.
-
-But it must be remembered that the intellect which is the organ of truth,
-and objective reality which is abstract truth, do not come together to
-form knowledge in any accidental way.
-
-A basket may be said to have capacity for holding potatoes, and potatoes
-may lend themselves as content to fill up the basket. But the union of
-potatoes and basket; the one as content, the other as capacity, is only
-mechanical. The basket would serve as well to hold onions, or muskadines,
-or chinquepins, as potatoes, and the potatoes could be carried as well in
-a wooden box or in a tin pan, as in a basket. No necessity inheres in the
-nature of a basket to contain potatoes, and no necessity is in the nature
-of potatoes to get into a basket. Truth and the intellect, however, are
-intended the one for the other. Truth is correlated to the intellect as
-the bird’s wing is to the atmosphere. Nothing can take hold of the truth
-but the intellect, and nothing can satisfy and furnish the intellect but
-truth.
-
-Abstract truth, or objective reality, is converted by the combining
-organizing activity of the mind into knowledge, and when this knowledge
-corresponds to the reality it is truth in the realm of thought.
-
-Before knowledge is possible, then, there must be an intelligence capable
-of knowing, and an object capable of being known.
-
-How the intelligence and the knowable object get together to form
-knowledge is the most important question in philosophy. Upon the right
-settlement of it, everything depends. This has been the point about which
-the battle of thought, in modern times, has been most fiercely waged. If
-the mind firmly grasps the meaning of this problem and settles it right,
-it is almost sure to think right on other questions. If it is wrong here,
-it is sure to be wrong everywhere else. Mistake here is as fatal to the
-correct solution of the question we are considering, as would be the
-mistake that two and two make five to the correct solution of a sum in
-arithmetic.
-
-
-III.
-
-The distance of a question from ordinary thought does not render it
-any the less important, even for ordinary thinking. How the knowing
-intelligence and the knowable object get together to form knowledge is
-the most important problem to-day before the human mind. If writers
-would only take their bearings from the only rational solution that can
-be given to it, they would find half the books they are writing on the
-inspiration of the Scriptures, the existence of God, the divinity of
-Jesus Christ, agnosticism and materialism, unnecessary.
-
-Agnosticism and materialism pass away with a correct theory of knowing.
-Labor and painstaking thought are involved in the task of getting a
-right theory of knowledge, but agnosticism and materialism are in line
-with ignorance and indolence.
-
-So, while few men ever ask themselves how the knowing intelligence and
-the knowable object get together to form knowledge, millions of men are
-affected, even in their practical life, by the answer which is given to
-the question. Someone has said that not more than six men in any one age
-ever read Plato or understand him. Yet for the six men Plato comes down
-through the ages. The six men who understand him translate him into the
-vernacular of the one hundred men who live on the next plane of thought
-below them.
-
-The one hundred translate him into the common language of one thousand
-below them. These, in turn, translate Plato into the ordinary thought
-of the millions below them. So it happens at length that Plato gets so
-universally known, that not a laborer in the field but wears his hat
-after one style, rather than another, because Plato wrote.
-
-Doubtless it would have been considered a very unimportant question two
-hundred years ago, as to whether heat were an igneous fluid or a mode of
-motion. Perhaps not more than two or three men wrestled with the question
-for centuries before it was settled. By the masses of the people they
-were regarded as wasting their time in vain and idle speculation. By an
-experiment made by Count Rumford, it was put beyond the possibility of
-doubt that heat was not an igneous fluid, but a mode of motion. Was this
-a question that concerned the multitudes, that two or three men spent a
-hundred years talking about and torturing their brains to understand?
-There is not a single human being in the civilized world to-day whose
-interests and welfare have not been touched by the settlement of it.
-There are millions of peasants in Russia who never heard of Count
-Rumford, or of an igneous fluid, or of caloric, who have this present
-year been fed by flour sent them by the western millers and transported
-on the strength of the conclusion that heat is not an igneous fluid,
-but a mode of motion. Every steam-car that crosses the continent, and
-every steamboat that crosses the ocean, moves in the wake of this same
-conclusion. At first we see some algebraic formulas, an array of curves
-and figures, that practical people said had nothing to do with everyday
-life. After a while we see the abstract conclusions reached by aid of the
-algebraic signs, and settled by the test of experiment, translated into
-steam engines, and transporting even the peasants of India and Mexico
-from one end of the country to the other. We see the abstract conclusions
-of the few thinkers turned into steam to spin the people’s clothes and
-grind the people’s bread.
-
-In 1632 there was born at Wrington, Somersetshire, England, a boy,
-who was educated at the University of Oxford. In the esteem of his
-contemporaries he devoted his time to the consideration of subjects of
-no practical value. In the course of events he put the results of his
-study into a book known as “The Essay on the Human Understanding.” Few
-people read it. But the few who did read it started the ideas of it
-to circulating. They were translated into French and Latin, and were
-soon potent influences in the intellectual life of Europe. Were they
-practical and did they concern the ordinary affairs of men? They created
-the Encyclopedists of France. These learned men were the authors of the
-radical opinions which cut the people from the moorings of traditional
-and age-long thought. The fire and the blood of the Revolution were the
-legitimate expressions of the speculative essay of John Locke that not
-one in ten thousand ever read. The persons whose heads were cut off in
-the Reign of Terror must have thought the ideas exceedingly practical
-that led to the destruction of social and political institutions, that
-took form in a movement which respected neither law nor property nor
-life. The speculative opinions of John Locke not only helped to create
-the French Revolution, but they led to the idealism of Bishop Berkeley,
-and this in turn to the skeptical philosophy of David Hume. The modern
-successors of Hume are John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Leslie
-Stephen, Frederic Harrison, and Professor Huxley, whose contributions
-have been given to the popular reviews, and which have been read by all
-intelligent people. Every man in Europe and America has been influenced
-both in conduct and character by the speculative “Essay on the Human
-Understanding.”
-
-Locke’s speculative philosophy passed through Berkeley to Hume, and
-through Hume reached Kant, the great German thinker, and resulted in the
-“Critique of Pure Reason.” This led to Fichte and Schelling, and finally
-to Hegel. This led to Heidelberg and the Tübingen school, to Bauer and
-Dewette, to extreme idealism and rationalism, translated into books and
-reviews and newspapers, and read by all the people, affecting their
-thought and life.
-
-Even people who never read, who never open a book or a newspaper, have
-been influenced by the subtle piece of speculative reasoning given to
-the world by the great sensational philosopher of England. The spirit
-of utilitarianism and secularism prevalent throughout the world at the
-present time is easily traceable to it.
-
-
-IV.
-
-Before we can possibly know that truth is the provision for the
-intellectual nature of man, we must determine whether the knowing
-faculties, which he finds himself to possess, are capable of grasping
-truth and turning it into knowledge. The fight of skepticism in modern
-times has been made upon the knowing faculties. It is useless to
-talk about the existence of God, the inspiration of the Scriptures,
-the divinity of Christ, or the immortality of the soul, if the human
-intellect is, by its limitations, denied the possibility of knowing
-anything whatsoever concerning these things. It is a waste of time for me
-to attempt to dip water out of the ocean with a bucket with no bottom to
-it. What is the relation of the intelligence to the outer world? Does the
-outside world create knowledge in the mind by the impressions it makes
-upon it, or does the mind bring something to the outside world which
-converts this raw material into knowledge? Is knowledge a reflection of
-the outer, or a creation of the inner? Does nature work it in us, or is
-there some spontaneous, creative, organizing, mental activity within us
-that takes the material presented by nature, turning it into a rational
-system of knowledge? What is the relation between the being that knows
-and the object known? How much of the creative factor of knowledge
-does nature supply? How much does man supply? Can a man with deranged
-faculties get order out of a rational world? Can a man of sane mind get
-order out of an irrational world? If there is to be a rational system of
-knowledge built up in the mind, must there not be reason in the thinker
-and reason in the outside world, coming into organic relations, the one
-with the other? As to how we regard this question will determine how we
-regard truth, and whether or not it is possible for us to know it.
-
-
-V.
-
-The human mind has never been able to resist the conviction that there is
-such a thing as truth. Though baffled and defeated a thousand times, in
-every age, in its attempt to formulate truth, it has never been able to
-consent to give up the search for it. Interest in truth has kept alive
-and fostered the belief that the mind has power to understand it. The
-mind’s passion for truth has deepened its confidence in the faculties
-with which it is ever trying to discover it. The everlasting longing to
-know truth has been taken as implicit capacity to find it. Philosophic
-systems have been only so many devices and creations of the mind with
-which to take hold of truth. The methods proposed, in the first stages
-of philosophic thinking, for getting at the truth were crude, as the
-first instruments devised for cultivating the soil and getting out of
-it what there was in it for food, were crude. Thales, Pythagoras, and
-Anaximander first attempted to penetrate objective reality, to know its
-cause, to bring its multiplicity to unity, and to reduce its variety
-to law. The ever-changing phenomena by which they were surrounded
-necessarily eluded the meager theories with which they attempted to
-reduce them to order. They prepared the way, however, for systems which
-accommodated a greater number of facts. They made possible Plato and
-Aristotle, who, with hypotheses more complicated and more consonant
-with the reality they sought to grasp, found truth enough to keep the
-human race thinking for two thousand years. The blocks of truth they
-quarried from the mines of objective reality were used to carry up the
-theological and speculative temples of the Middle Ages.
-
-After the failure of scholasticism, which denotes a period in human
-thought rather than a particular system of philosophy, Lord Bacon
-proposed the method of material induction to bring the mind into
-relations of knowledge with truth. He emphasized the study of the outward
-facts, their classification and organization. In his esteem, truth was to
-be reached by the consideration of actual, tangible things. Man was the
-interpreter of nature, and not necessarily its interpretation.
-
-Truth in the mind was the image of objective truth. It differed from
-truth out of the mind, as the direct from the reflected ray. He failed
-from lack of adequate recognition of one of the important factors in the
-problem of truth. Descartes’ method was more successful, because larger
-and completer recognition was taken of man.
-
-He began by doubting everything that could be doubted. Heir to the
-beliefs of all the ages, he determined to summon these, one by one,
-before the bar of reason, and force them to show cause for their
-existence. Everyone was to be called into court and put out that could
-be doubted. The existence of a God was called up and doubted, condemned,
-and put out. The existence of an external world was called up, doubted,
-condemned, and put out. In the same summary and shorthand way, man and
-mind were doubted and put out. All positive beliefs were doubted. After
-his process of elimination, he found himself without God, without man,
-without mind, without a permanent external world. All that remained after
-emptying himself of all mental furnishments and beliefs was the fact
-that he doubted. But he could not doubt without thinking. In the very
-act of doubting, he thought. If one thinks, he must think something.
-The nearest something to the thinking subject is his own personal being.
-So he thought himself and concluded, “I think, therefore, I am.” But he
-was not always; he began to be. So he must think of a being that caused
-him. The being that caused him must himself be uncaused. Moreover, there
-could not be an uncaused cause, without an effect. Creation, then, with
-which he stood face to face, was the effect of the great first cause.
-Thus Descartes’ method, based upon the thought underlying doubt, led
-him, necessarily, to himself, the object of his thought; and to God,
-the cause of himself; and to creation, the effect of the great first
-cause or God. Through his process of coming at the problem, he was able,
-rationally, to believe in the existence of himself, the outer world,
-and God, the cause of both. Descartes, as a thinker, was affirmative,
-positive, constructive. He only doubted down to the point where he could
-doubt no longer, that he might have a sure foundation upon which to
-build. His contribution gave fresh courage and inspiration to the human
-mind. He failed to determine the boundary line between the self and the
-not-self, between mind and matter, between the thinker and the creation
-with which he stood face to face. This was the work Spinoza proposed for
-himself, and in the celebrated Ethics, published to the world at the
-peril of his life and soul, imagined the task mathematically performed.
-The two poles of Descartes’ philosophy, the self and the not-self, he
-united in Descartes’ cause, and named the whole sum substance. The self
-and the not-self reappeared as attributes of substance, which Spinoza
-named thought and extension. All the phenomena in the universe, mental
-or material, were but modes of the infinite substance. The result of
-his thinking was pure pantheism. He reached a sort of mechanical unity,
-but he left no place for the affirmation of distinctions. His Ethics was
-large enough to accommodate everything, but in such a way as to preserve
-the individuality of nothing. A thought is valuable in proportion to its
-capacity to take hold of things as they are. The old opinion that heat
-was caloric, served as a working hypothesis for the mind a long time.
-In the view of those who held it, it was satisfactory and adequate. But
-it never really got hold of heat, because it contradicted the nature of
-heat. The astronomers thought, for a long time, that they had come into
-relations of knowledge with the stars through the Ptolemaic conception
-of the heavenly bodies. They were mistaken, however. Their theory did
-not fit the real celestial order at all. As a work of genius, Spinoza’s
-Ethics is one of the most remarkable productions ever formulated by
-the human intellect, but it conducted the mind away from truth, rather
-than into relations with it. Locke began his work as a philosopher, as
-Descartes began his, by looking into his own mind. Descartes began by
-casting out everything that could be doubted. Locke began by making an
-inventory of what his mind contained. Descartes wanted to find out how
-much he could know, as measured by what remained after throwing out
-everything that could be doubted. Locke sought to see how little he could
-know, by putting the sensations and impressions he found in his mind on
-the witness stand, and getting them to tell how they came to be there,
-and where they came from. Descartes began by a study of the intelligence,
-the instrument of knowledge. Locke began by a study of the facts which,
-by some means or other, had found their way into his intelligence.
-Descartes got rid of every belief that could be doubted. Locke ran every
-idea out of his mind that had been imported from the outside world, in
-order that he might see if the mind had any constitutional power to
-produce any. Descartes, having dislodged all inherited beliefs, such as
-took for granted the existence of God, man, mind, and outer world, found
-some mental laws, capabilities, and tendencies left, which compelled a
-man, if he thought at all, to think in a given way; and if he thought on
-given lines, to think to a given conclusion. Not being able to get these
-laws out of the mind, he called them innate ideas. They were in the mind
-by structure and constitution.
-
-After Locke had carefully examined the contents of his mind, he declared
-they were all imported from an outside realm. Nothing he found in the
-mind was indigenous to the soil. When all foreign importations were
-removed, nothing remained but an empty vessel. The mind was nothing but
-a receptacle, into which the senses dumped such objects as they happened
-to find lying round loose in the outside world. It had no more power
-to understand or turn into thought what was brought in than a piece of
-white paper had to read and interpret what was written upon it; or than
-a kettle to recognize the liquid making up its contents as water. It is
-like a table of wax; any sort of letters may be graven upon it, but the
-table cannot read them.
-
-Locke proposed to find out what the mind could know by counting and
-tabulating the things he found in his own intelligence. This is very
-much like trying to understand the nature of light, by considering the
-blue things and green things and red things the light discloses. All
-bodies, it is said, which the light enables us to see, attract each other
-in proportion to their mass, and inversely as the squares of their
-distance. The law of gravity, which regulates the bodies light reveals
-to us, is not the law of light. We can never understand the nature of
-light, or the laws of light, by the study of things which light enables
-us to see. If all knowledge is but the sum of the impressions which the
-external world has made on the mind, then the cause of knowledge is
-matter, and knowledge is but the image or reflection of material things.
-Knowledge, then, would sustain the same relation to the outside world,
-that the shadow of a tree does to the tree. One would come as near
-lifting up the tree by its own shadow as lifting up the truth by Locke’s
-system of sensational philosophy.
-
-Impressions are simple, atomic. They come into the mind, one after
-another. They cohere in no unity. They are held together by no necessary
-relation. They are separate, one from the other. If there is no primary,
-innate faculty; no abiding and indwelling mental activity, that lies
-behind, and determines and co-ordinates the objects which nature supplies
-through the senses, converting them into rational, orderly knowledge,
-then we can never get hold of truth. We are shut up to hopeless ignorance.
-
-
-VI.
-
-Berkeley, in order to escape the materialism to which Locke’s philosophy
-led, accepted his theory of knowledge, but destroyed his outward,
-material world. In his view, there was no matter, nothing but ideas.
-The impressions conveyed through the senses into our minds are but
-reflections of the ideas of God.
-
-In Hume, the empirical theory of knowing found a disciple who did not
-hesitate to affirm all that was involved in it. Locke said there was an
-outward world, and knowledge was its image. Berkeley said there was no
-material world; that knowledge was the reflection of God’s ideas. Hume
-said there was neither outer world nor inner; that there was nothing but
-impressions, sensations, ideas, in perpetual flow and flux. He claimed
-that all ideas which could not be resolved into impressions were false.
-He declared we could have no ideas of substance, because, if perceived by
-the eye, it must be a color; if by the ear, a sound; if by the palate,
-a taste. And because we could not think of substance as a color or a
-sound or a taste, we could therefore have no idea of it whatever. Belief
-in a permanent external world was rendered irrational by his theory
-of knowledge. Nothing is more vital and irrepressible than belief in
-one’s own existence, but even this could not be retained in accordance
-with the teachings of Hume’s philosophy. “Whence,” says he, “could
-the impression of the idea of self be derived? What impression could
-create this idea? This question it is impossible to answer without a
-manifest contradiction and absurdity, and yet it is a question that must
-necessarily be answered. For my part, when I enter most intimately into
-what I call myself, I always stumble upon some perception or other; heat
-or cold, light or shade, pain or pleasure. I cannot catch myself at any
-time without a perception, or observe anything but a perception. When
-my perceptions are removed at any time, as by sound sleep, so long am I
-insensible of myself, and may be said truly not to exist.”
-
-The sensational philosophy which promised so much, which appeared so
-eminently practical, that took to itself such an air of common sense as
-it got about obliterating innate ideas, was seen at length to be utterly
-impotent. It corresponded with absolutely nothing in heaven or in earth.
-The very impressions it admitted, passed through it like drops of water
-out of a fisherman’s net. Where the impressions came from or where they
-went to, it furnished no means of knowing. God and world and cause and
-law and self might be, but the human mind could never know whether they
-were or not. The human observer stood before a procession of images,
-sensations, perceptions going by like an unending circus troupe.
-
-In Hume may be traced the entire breakdown of empirical philosophy as
-a method for getting at the truth. He recognized this himself. “When I
-turn my eye inward,” he says, “I find nothing but doubt and ignorance.”
-“The understanding, when it acts alone, and according to its most general
-principles, entirely subverts itself, and leaves not the lowest degree of
-evidence in any proposition, either in philosophy or common life.” “We
-have, therefore, no choice left, but betwixt a false reason and none at
-all.”
-
-
-VII.
-
-The most remarkable thing in the whole search for truth, is that anybody
-after Hume should have attempted to find it with Hume’s principles. Yet
-the two best known writers who have lived in England since Hume’s day,
-have rested their dogmatic doctrines on the foundations laid by the
-sensational philosophers. Hume’s impressions and ideas became John Stuart
-Mill’s permanent possibilities of sensation and feeling, and Herbert
-Spencer’s vivid and faint manifestations of the unknowable. In our time
-Herbert Spencer has undertaken the herculean task of explaining matter
-and mind, time and space, society and morals; of showing what they
-are and what they are not, by the same principles which Hume himself
-demonstrated to be incapable of explaining anything. Spencer’s units of
-knowledge are vivid and faint manifestations of the Unknown. How the
-unknowable remains unknown, after vividly and faintly manifesting itself,
-we are not told. Mr. Spencer’s vivid and faint manifestations of the
-unknown are old acquaintances with new names.
-
-Locke knew them as impressions and sensations. Berkeley recognized them
-as ideas of sense and imagination. John Stuart Mill was on speaking
-terms with them as permanent possibilities of sensation and feeling. Mr.
-Spencer gives them another baptism and another name. He calls them vivid
-and faint manifestations of the unknowable. While they have been changed
-in name, however, it must not be supposed that they have undergone any
-change in nature or character. They stand apart, the one from the other,
-just the same as ever. They are just as foreign to the mind, where they
-vividly and faintly manifest themselves, as were the impressions of John
-Locke. They flare and flicker, rise and fall, like the jack-o’-lantern
-lights of legend and tale. One light is not of a piece with any other
-light. The lights follow one another in such quick succession, first
-vivid, then faint, that one cannot tell from the momentary flames and
-flashes what is intended to be advertised. That something is trying, by
-various pyrotechnic displays, to get itself revealed seems to be evident.
-But there is such hurry on the part of the something that makes the
-manifestations, such a disorderly whirl and changing of lights, that the
-observer is totally bewildered; and, being under the necessity of making
-some account to himself as to their meaning, concludes that they are
-vivid and faint illuminations of the unknowable. Hume’s procession of
-sensations and ideas has by Spencer been converted into the fire-works
-of the unknowable. With Hume’s physiological theory, the mind could know
-nothing but its own sensations. Spencer’s vivid and faint manifestations
-of the unknowable are equally as incapable of furnishing any rational
-basis for belief in mind or matter, law or cause, self or God. To ask the
-human mind to believe the encyclopedic, dogmatic system of philosophy he
-addressed to it, after insisting that all our knowledge is but the sum
-of vivid and faint manifestations of the unknowable, is as irrational as
-trying to build a cathedral on a London fog bank. Underneath every one of
-Spencer’s general terms, the indestructibility of matter, the continuity
-of motion, the persistence of force, there is nothing but sensations,
-vivid or faint manifestations of the unknown.
-
-“The doctrine of the indestructibility of matter,” he says, “has now
-become a commonplace.” “Matter never either comes into existence,
-or ceases to exist.” How are we to know this, with minds incapable
-of any other knowledge except such as is made up of vivid and
-faint manifestations of the unknown? Who ever had a sensation or a
-manifestation of the indestructibility of matter? This is an idea
-involving all past time and all future time, and all the laws and forces
-by which matter is regulated and conserved. How could an image of the
-indestructibility of matter be photographed on the sensitive plate of
-the mind? To do this it would be necessary to compress all past time and
-all future time into one moment, and all matter into one single square
-inch or square yard of space, so that the impression of it could be
-made. To believe in the indestructibility of matter, with Mr. Spencer’s
-theory of the mind’s capacity to know, is delirium and insanity. It is
-to believe in something that the mind, by its very nature, cannot even
-get an impression of. It is believing that the ocean can be carried in
-a thimble without any bottom. Any man who should utter this publicly,
-and sincerely, would be put in the insane asylum. He says again, “the
-very nature of the intelligence negatives the supposition that motion
-can be conceived (much less known) either to commence or to cease.” The
-nature of the intelligence is such that all the knowledge it possesses
-is made up of sensations and manifestations of the unknown. How can the
-continuity of motion be conceived? To do this, we must have a conception
-of all past time and all future time. It is an idea as transcendent as
-the idea of God.
-
-Mr. Spencer claims that the power the universe manifests to us is utterly
-inscrutable; that space and time are wholly incomprehensible; that
-matter, in its ultimate nature, is as absolutely incomprehensible as
-space and time; that all efforts to understand the essential nature of
-motion do but bring us to alternative absurdities of thought; that it is
-impossible to form any idea of force in itself, and equally impossible to
-comprehend either its mode of exercise or its law of variation; that we
-are unable to believe or to conceive that the duration of consciousness
-is infinite, and equally unable to know it as finite, or to conceive
-it as finite; and that the personality of which we are each conscious,
-and of which the existence is to each a fact beyond all others the
-most certain, yet is a thing which cannot truthfully be known at all:
-knowledge of it is forbidden by the very nature of thought. All this is
-perfectly consistent with his theory of knowledge. This is the point to
-which David Hume, his master, conducted the human mind in its search
-for truth. But Spencer is not logical; he had a theory of being that
-contradicted his theory of knowing. So he reasons first one way and then
-another. He says, elsewhere in his First Principles, that common sense
-asserts the existence of a reality; that objective science proves that
-this reality cannot be what we think it; that subjective science shows
-why we cannot think of it as it is, and yet are compelled to think of it
-as existing; and that in this assertion of a reality utterly inscrutable
-in nature, religion finds an assertion essentially coinciding with her
-own. That we are compelled to regard every phenomenon as a manifestation
-of some power by which we are acted upon. That though omnipresence is
-unthinkable, yet as experience discloses no bounds to the diffusion
-of phenomena, we are unable to think of limits to the presence of
-this power, while the criticisms of science teach us that this power
-is incomprehensible. Analyzing the above declarations, we find that
-Mr. Spencer knows there is an ultimate reality. Then it has being. It
-acts upon us. Then it has the attribute of action. All phenomena are
-manifestations of it. Then it has power. All phenomena are manifestations
-of an inscrutable power, by which we are acted upon. Then it has causal
-energy. We are unable to think of limits to the presence of this power.
-Then it is omnipresent. So the unknowable, inscrutable something has
-being, power, activity, causal energy, and omnipresence. But how are we
-to grasp these universal, transcendental attributes of the unknowable,
-with an intelligence incapable of receiving anything but simple,
-separate, unrelated, broken impressions and manifestations? It takes as
-much mind to believe in the unknowable, with the attributes of power,
-activity, being, causal energy, and omnipresence, as to believe in a
-self-existent God, with the attributes of power, wisdom, justice, truth,
-and love.
-
-Spencer’s theory of knowing is destructive, while his theory of being is
-constructive and transcendental.
-
-
-VIII.
-
-The intelligence, as the organ of truth, must be large enough to find
-truth and contain truth. No sane man would undertake to dig down a
-mountain with a toothpick. Mr. Spencer devoted page after page to the
-discussion of cause, time, space, force, and ultimate reality, while
-holding a theory of knowledge that made the very thought of these
-inconceivable. The very things that he labeled as knowable contained a
-substrate the mind could never get at. Knowable things, then, could not
-be known as they were; hence if they were known at all, must be known
-as they were not, which made the mind’s knowledge error. All who accept
-Mr. Spencer’s theory of knowledge are shut up to absolute ignorance or
-absolute error. If we are to know the truth of reality, of mind, of
-external existence, we must have knowing faculties up to the style of the
-truth we are to know. If we are to know light, we must have eyes capable
-of taking in the light, of analyzing it, and turning it into vision. The
-disposition to limit our power to know, by telling us, on the strength
-of Mansel and Hamilton and Kant, that all our knowledge is relative, is
-innocent enough when stripped of its seeming wisdom. It is true that we
-can know no more than our knowing faculties permit us.
-
-We cannot know more than we can know. We are not absolute and omniscient
-as to our capacity to know. All we can see is what we can see with our
-eyes. We cannot see with our fingers or with the back of our heads. All
-we can hear is what we can hear with our ears. We have no other organs
-with which to hear. All sounds that vibrate at the rate of sixteen times
-to the second up to thirty-eight thousand times to the second, we can
-hear. Whatsoever sounds vibrate at a lower rate than sixteen times to
-the second or at a higher rate than thirty-eight thousand times to the
-second, we cannot hear, because such sounds are not related to the ear.
-But the eye, being adjusted to and related to much finer wave lengths
-than the ear, can see waves that vibrate up as high as seven hundred
-and twenty-seven trillion times to the second. The eye cannot see waves
-shorter than seven hundred and twenty-seven trillion vibrations to the
-second, because such waves are not adjusted to the eye. The waves the ear
-cannot hear are not sound waves. The waves the eye cannot see are not
-light waves. There are no sound waves in the universe the ear cannot
-hear, provided they are near enough to come into contact with it. There
-are no light waves in the universe that the eye cannot turn into vision,
-if they strike the retina. Are we going to fall out with the eye, and
-discredit the beauty it does see, because it is not as large as the rim
-of immensity, and cannot see everything disclosed by the light of suns
-and stars at once? Are we to hold the ear in contempt after it takes in
-the harmonies of Beethoven and Mozart, because it cannot hear all the
-music the stars are making as they move through the heavens?
-
-Whatever is real and true the mind can know, because the mind is
-correlated to the real and the true. It cannot know what is unreal and
-untrue. It cannot know that two and two make five, because that is unreal
-and untrue. It cannot know that a crooked line is the shortest distance
-between two points, because that is unknowable. It cannot know that it
-is more rational to tell a lie than to tell the truth, because that is
-unknowable and untrue. There is much that is unknowable, but whatever
-is, we may be sure is irrational and unreal. Whatever is true in being,
-cause, time, space, mind, matter, force, motion may be known. The finite
-mind cannot know it at once, and can never, throughout all infinite time,
-directly take it into the intelligence; but it is knowable, because
-the underlying, fundamental, prior thing in the universe is mind, the
-mind of the absolute and eternal One. All things are set in order and
-reason. The external universe is the expression of mind, and is therefore
-intelligible. The human intelligence is the expression of the same
-mind, and is therefore capable of grasping and turning into thought the
-intelligible order without.
-
-According to the theory of Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Mill, and Spencer,
-any knowledge whatsoever is impossible. If the knowing subject and the
-knowable object, the two factors of knowledge, can only come together in
-a mechanical way, as basket and potatoes, kettle and water, paper and
-letters, then the very conditions of knowledge are denied, and we are
-shut up to blank, square ignorance.
-
-Things come together to form knowledge, as things come together to form
-a tree, and not as house, calico, pins, lace, shoes, and blankets come
-together to form a store. An acorn is a living something. It is not a
-tree, but within itself are the germs of a tree. When grown, it may be
-said to have forms, as root, trunk, and branches. These were potentially
-and ideally contained in the acorn. But their realization and active
-expression involved a process, in which the ideal forms, tendencies, and
-forces contained in germ in the acorn met and united with the elements
-of the outside world. Suppose we consider the acorn the subject, and the
-particles in soil and rain and atmosphere capable of making a tree as
-the object. What happens when an oak with all its beauty stands out upon
-the hillside? This subject and object have come together in unity, in an
-organism. Suppose Locke should have undertaken the work of understanding
-how a tree came to be, instead of how knowledge came to be. We will say
-he began by analyzing a full grown tree. After thorough examination of
-its contents, he finds that all the parts of the tree, carbon, water,
-etc., are found outside of it in the external world.
-
-He finds that the tree is composed of various atoms, all of which may
-be found in the soil and in the atmosphere. He concludes, then, that
-these atoms from soil and atmosphere, began to move up to and down to
-the acorn. The acorn, passive meanwhile, lets them fall on it. So, of
-their own free will and accord, the atoms kept piling themselves upon
-the acorn, until in the process of a hundred years there was a tree.
-Now a brick column might be carried up after this fashion, but not a
-tree. The prior and fundamental thing in an oak tree is the acorn. It
-contains an active, organizing life principle. Falling into the soil,
-this folded life power begins to stir. It lays hold upon the elements
-about it, digests them, assimilates them, and turns them into an oak. The
-mind is to the raw material of knowledge, what the acorn is to the raw
-material of oak. Through the senses the raw material is conveyed into
-the mind. It is then appropriated, assimilated, digested, and turned
-into knowledge. The active, organizing, combining power that turns the
-raw material presented by the senses into knowledge, does not come from
-the outside world. It is constitutional, fundamental, original. Just as
-the organic forces of the plant take up the elements from the outside
-environment upon which it subsists, so the synthesizing, living power of
-the mind takes the matter of sensation and turns it into the whole called
-knowledge. Knowledge is a unifying process. It combines the manifold into
-one. It reduces multiplicity to unity. All that is real and all that is
-true in the heavens above or in the earth below, in mind or in matter,
-in time or in space, in man or in external world, are capable of being
-reduced to unity in knowledge.
-
-Knowledge is the subjective unity in the finite mind that corresponds
-to the objective unity that lies within the infinite mind. Nothing less
-than a universal synthesis satisfies the finite mind, because it is a
-copy of the infinite mind. The finite self-consciousness is a copy of
-the infinite self-consciousness. The infinite mind knows all things at
-once; the finite mind comes to knowledge through a gradual process. It
-can never, through all eternity, know all the infinite mind knows, but it
-can eternally advance in knowledge, and comfort itself at every stage of
-the process with the thought that nothing in the mind of the infinite and
-absolute one is foreign to it, or in contradiction with its capacity to
-know. In thinking, the finite mind is at home in its father’s realm, and
-because this realm stretches out illimitably every way should not oppress
-us or discourage us. For this the finite mind can know, that throughout
-the limitless domain of God there is order and truth and reality.
-
-Thus standing face to face with truth, and being endowed with
-intellectual capacities capable of recognizing it, grasping it, in its
-unity and in its particulars, it is proper to inquire the object and
-the purpose of it. It is the revelation which the infinite mind has made
-to the finite. It is the language of God, in which he has embodied his
-thought. It is the word of the universal spirit. Man is a spirit, and
-he is to grow and come to the full realization of himself by partaking
-of the word of God. Truth has been revealed for no other purpose than
-to make men. Sir William Hamilton represents truth as game, and the
-method of getting truth to a chase. He says the exercise of our powers
-involved in the process of getting truth is better than the game we seek.
-Lessings says, “If the Almighty, holding in one hand truth, and in the
-other search after truth, presented them to me and asked me which I would
-choose, with all humility, but without hesitation, I should say, give me
-search after truth.”
-
-Mallbranche says: “If I held truth captive, like a bird in my hand, I
-would let it go again, that I might chase and capture it.” Müller says:
-“Truth is the property of God alone. Search after truth belongs to man.”
-Such sentiments indicate that the men who uttered them had no correct
-idea of the real nature of truth, or of man’s intellectual nature, the
-necessary food of which is truth. It is true that the search after truth
-gives exercise and pleasure to the intellectual faculties, as search
-after bread gives exercise and health to the physical powers. But an
-eternal search for bread is not sufficient to keep man’s body robust and
-strong. The very condition upon which he will be able to keep up the
-search for it is, that he regularly and steadily partake of it. A tree,
-had it intelligence and emotion, would, doubtless, enjoy wrestling with
-the storms, and throwing its roots into the earth and its branches into
-the heavens, making levies upon earth and sky for its own nourishment;
-but if it did not constantly turn the elements it found into its trunk
-and branches, it would not be able to wrestle long with the storms, or
-forage long upon the earth and sky.
-
-To claim that the intellectual faculties are always to search for truth,
-and that the search is better than the truth, is tacitly to assume that
-truth is not for them; or, if for them, and should ever be found, would
-be as useless as a poor, tired, half-dead fox overtaken by the hunters in
-the chase. Searching for truth is doing; partaking of truth is being. The
-search gives agility and skill; the partaking of truth gives wealth of
-character. To hunt game with no other object than that which comes from
-the sport of the chase is degrading. To shoot birds only for the purpose
-of seeing them fall is mean and wicked. So, to search for truth with no
-other purpose than that which comes from the exercise of the search, is
-unworthy the intellect that was given, not only to find truth, but to
-grow rich and God-like by partaking of the truth.
-
-Man’s need for bread, we saw, led to the establishment of commerce, and
-commerce did far more than secure to man food and clothing and shelter.
-It brought men together and discovered themselves to themselves. Power
-lent itself to the uses of man’s social nature, awakened and developed
-by commerce, and made it possible for men to come into relations with
-one another, not simply in states and nations, but on all the earth. The
-need for bread helped to the formation of society, the nature of power
-and the applications to which it lent itself widened the social domain
-into a universal brotherhood, to which man, as a spirit, was correlated.
-But many saw bread only in its relations to hunger, and power only in
-its relations to wealth and worldly dominion. So, many see in truth no
-purpose except the practical and material ends to which it can be put.
-In the esteem of the utilitarians, it was well enough that learned men
-consecrated their genius and their industry to the study of the subtle
-subject of heat. It was well that they discovered the real nature of
-heat, and saw that it was not caloric, but a mode of motion. Because
-this opened the way for our railroads and steamboats and quick methods
-of transportation, which have contributed so much to the world’s wealth.
-It was well that the impracticable and theoretical men, who had nothing
-better to do, spent ages studying the nature of electricity, and finally
-discovered that there were certain metals for which it had affinity,
-and that it had speed equal to thought itself. For these studies have
-enabled the practical and substantial men to order their corn and meat
-by telegraph, and the practical housewives to order their roast beef by
-telephone. It is well that people who had no practical turn of mind spent
-years in considering the structure of the human frame, and the plants and
-minerals capable of ministering to it, for in this way the doctors have
-got ideas by which they are enabled to keep us practical men alive, so
-that we can trade longer, and build more factories and eat more victuals.
-
-Now it is true that the knowledge the intelligence comes to by insight
-into the relations and nature and truth of things, can be turned to
-practical account. But the truth the mind finds by study was not
-primarily intended to open the way for steam cars and telegraphs and the
-production of wealth. These things are incidental. Truth is the provision
-God has made for the intellect. The knowledge of the stars has helped man
-to sail the sea and to take his bearings on any part of its surface. But
-the practical account to which this knowledge has been turned is not to
-be compared, in value, to the effect it was intended to have on the human
-mind, strengthening it, ennobling it, and harmonizing it with the divine
-mind.
-
-
-
-
-_RIGHTEOUSNESS._
-
-
- “While smitten with the fatal wanness of approaching doom, the
- flamboyant pleiad of the men of violence descends the steep
- slope to the gulf of devouring time: lo! at the other extremity
- of space, when the last cloud has but now faded in the deep
- sky of the future, azure forevermore, rises resplendent the
- sacred galaxy of the true stars—Orpheus, Hermes, Job, Homer,
- Æschylus, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Hippocrates, Phidias, Socrates,
- Sophocles, Plato, Aristotle, Archimedes, Euclid, Pythagoras,
- Lucretius, Plautus, Juvenal, Tacitus, Saint Paul, John of
- Patmos, Tertullian, Pelagius, Dante, Gutenberg, Joan of Arc,
- Christopher Columbus, Luther, Michael Angelo, Copernicus,
- Galileo, Rabelais, Calderon, Cervantes, Shakspere, Rembrandt,
- Kepler, Milton, Molière, Newton, Descartes, Kant, Piranesi,
- Beccari, Diderot, Beethoven, Fulton, Montgolfier, Washington:
- and the marvelous constellations, brighter from moment to
- moment, radiant as a tiara of celestial diamonds, shine in the
- clear horizon, and, as it rises, blends, with the boundless
- dawn of Jesus Christ.”
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IV.
-
-THE PROVISION FOR THE MORAL NATURE OF MAN.
-
-
-Two elements are essential to the process of thinking, the intellect and
-the truth. One is within, the other is without. The one is subjective,
-the other is objective. Two elements are also essential to the process
-of volition, the will and the right. The one within, the other without.
-The one subjective, the other objective. Before sight is possible, there
-must be an eye and there must be light. The one is within, the other is
-without. The one is subjective, the other is objective. Before hearing,
-there must be an ear and there must be sound. The one is within, the
-other is without. The one is subjective, the other is objective. Before
-breathing there must be lungs and there must be atmosphere. The one
-is within, the other is without. The one is subjective, the other is
-objective.
-
-No definition of man is large enough to accommodate the facts of his
-nature, that does not embrace what he is without as well as what he is
-within, what he is objectively as well as what he is subjectively. It
-must not only embrace the intellect, but the truth which it thinks; not
-only the will, but the right which corresponds to it; not only the eye,
-but the light which gives it meaning; not only the ear, but the sound
-which matches it; not only the lungs, but the atmosphere to which they
-are correlated. Human nature is dually constituted, so that the larger
-half of itself is outside of itself.
-
-Illustrations of the same duality of constitution may be found on a
-limited scale in the organic and in the inorganic worlds. The greater
-half of the oak is not in the life germ of the acorn, but in the elements
-of the soil and the sky which environ it. The larger part of the fish is
-in the ocean which surrounds it. Most of the fuel which makes the heat in
-the grate is not in the carbon of the coal, but in the oxygen of the air
-which fills the room.
-
-
-I.
-
-The possession of a will and the capacity for choice make man a moral
-being. Man’s will is bounded on every side by the laws of God. These laws
-are only another name for God’s will. Man is made in God’s image and has
-a will, as far as it goes, just like God’s will.
-
-By choosing to act and to move along the lines of law which gather from
-every whither about his will, he finds he can go somewhere, that he can
-leave the narrow, provincial, and local neighborhood of ease and sense
-and subjection, and find his life in that broad realm of freedom, that
-belongs to him as a thinking and willing being.
-
-At the termini of some railroads there are huge contrivances called
-turntables. They are constructed of immense timbers and balanced on
-pivots. They are large enough to accommodate the full length of a steam
-engine. Iron rails are laid across these tables, of the same size and
-the same distance apart as the rails which make up the lines of the main
-track. When the train comes in from the far interior, the engine is run
-out on one of these tables and turned round, so that the headlight faces
-the main track again. Before the engine is ready to leave the short
-track, however, the rails on the turntable must exactly correspond to
-the rails on the main road. Then the engineer pulls the throttle, and
-the great locomotive rolls past the circumference of its pivoted and
-temporary resting place into commerce with the railways of the globe.
-Imagine railway lines coming together about such a revolving table from
-all the earth, so that an engine could pass from this circular platform
-toward any quarter of the globe, the only condition being that the short
-track on the table correspond to the rails of the long track on which it
-was proposed for the engine to run, and you have an illustration, which
-in some degree helps us to understand the relation of man’s will to the
-laws of God.
-
-Should the engineer undertake to get the engine from the table without
-reference to the lines upon which it was intended to run, we know very
-well what the consequences would be. He would not go far, and even
-the little distance he should manage to make would be attended with
-tremendous bumping and friction. All movement would be in the direction
-of chaos and confusion. However great the expenditure of energy, no
-point would be reached, and the end of the undertaking would be waste
-and failure. If, on the other hand, we should imagine an engine on such
-a revolving plane, capable of making fifty miles an hour, with no tracks
-leaving it, we know it could not go anywhere, and besides there would be
-no reason for its being. It would be without meaning. Before the distance
-between one point and another can be passed by a train, two things are
-necessary, an engine and a railroad. The one may be called subjective,
-the other objective. The one implies the other. They are the necessary
-elements of transportation. As long as the train keeps to the iron rails
-laid for it, it moves without friction. It is only when the subjective
-element jumps the track and essays to determine its own objective
-direction, that trouble comes. Then it is that cars are ditched and
-people killed or crippled. The laws of God run to and fro throughout the
-whole earth. They cross and recross every realm. They pass through every
-domain, physical, mental, and moral. They go straight through matter
-and straight through mind. They lead under the sea and over the sea and
-through the sea. Down through the earth and up through the air they may
-be noted, embracing with their invisible tracks every square inch of soil
-and sky. They insure the order of the universe, visible and invisible,
-tangible and intangible. They reach from globe to globe and make possible
-the commerce of the spheres. They run out into the infinitely great and
-back into the infinitely small, and bind in unity the atoms and the stars.
-
-When man, by the aid of his reason, discovers the truth of things, which
-is the provision for his intellect, these laws appear as provision for
-his will.
-
-So truth and law, reality and righteousness, expressions of the thought
-and will of God, are the everlasting facts to which man is to adjust his
-intellect and will, if he is to cross the oceans, travel the continents,
-and claim the possessions which in the universe belong to him. If he
-misreads the facts, he will of course misread the laws which govern the
-facts, and will thus be unable to get facts or laws to serve him. But
-clearly seeing the truth of things, he is able to avail himself of the
-laws of things. As long as he only saw things in the lump, and looked
-upon the world as so much air and earth and fire and water, he missed the
-subtle laws which regulate the atomic and molecular structure of bodies,
-and failed to make them his servants. When, by the aid of observation
-and experiment, he reduced the earth to its ultimate particles and came
-to such knowledge of it as corresponded to the facts of it; when he
-came to see the laws and drift of things, the tendencies and affinities
-of things; he had only to put the productions of his will in line with
-the way things were going, to have them serve him. Seeing that forces
-have power to do work in proportion to their energy of position, and
-applying this insight to the river with forty feet fall, he builds his
-mill beside it and thus utilizes it to grind his wheat. Seeing what
-soil and sunlight and rain can do when they combine to unwrap the life
-in a seed, he commits his wheat to their benevolent tendencies and gets
-a harvest of twenty bushels for every one he seems to lose. He studies
-fire. He sees it wrap in flame and level in an hour fortunes it took a
-lifetime to accumulate. He learns what a furious and awful force it
-is. He gets insight into its real nature. He gets knowledge of it that
-corresponds to the reality of it. He sees that it is only a flaming and
-lurid method of movement. With the truth of it he gets the law of it.
-So by the aid of volition, put forth in accordance with intelligence,
-he contrives a machine corresponding to the laws of heat, as a mode of
-motion. In this way he utilizes the heat that burned up his cities, to
-transport him in ease and comfort over the country. He studies the stars
-until his knowledge of them corresponds to them as they are; along with
-this knowledge, he comes to an understanding of their laws, their uniform
-methods of action. Then he builds his great ships and commits them to the
-wild and storm-tossed sea, sure that his power to guide them will never
-fail as long as law and order remain in the heavens.
-
-That there is a natural order, with certain inhering laws, men readily
-accept. That this order has the consistency of being developed in one
-way; that there is a dip to things that must be followed; that there is
-a clew, in accordance with which things may be worked; that there is
-a trend, drift, and law of things that must be accepted and followed;
-all this, men readily assent to. They do not attempt to farm the Sahara
-Desert, for they know the conditions of harvests are not there. They do
-not put out orange groves in Minnesota, nor plant cotton in Canada, nor
-sow rice in British Columbia. They do not expect the soil that spews up
-the ice to produce watermelons at the same time. They do not pretend to
-navigate ships over the continents, and to lay their railway lines on the
-surface of the sea. They fix their telegraph wires to poles by means of
-little glass contrivances, and never attempt to send electricity through
-the grape vine. Natural laws they know inhere in the facts of nature,
-and are not read into earth and rock and river and atmosphere. They know
-that necessary laws reside in the facts of condition, and that they must
-study these laws to know the line of practical work they require. In
-building a house of stone they know it is necessary to defer to the law
-of gravity, that this law cannot be ignored or set aside, so they carry
-up the edifice in such conformity to rule and line as that the center
-of gravity falls in a line inside the base. They might prefer a house
-built with reference to a different order of things, one in which the
-center of gravity would fall in a line outside the base. But it is very
-well understood among men that the law of gravity must be respected.
-Even anarchists and nihilists, who seem to have irrepressible antipathy
-for all ancient orders and laws and establishments, do condescend
-sufficiently to respect the time-honored, even if slightly belated, laws
-of gravity.
-
-
-II.
-
-The time was when men accepted the existence of a moral order with the
-same implicit, unquestioned confidence, that all men to-day accept
-the existence of a natural order. In Homer’s Themistes we have an
-illustration of this confidence. The very word by which the decision of
-a judge is described attributes it to Themis, the invisible embodiment
-of justice. Thus the judge is but the channel through which the decision
-passes from the unseen moral order into the Greek court of justice. The
-judge is not respected because he has authority to make the decision, but
-because his vocation makes him the vehicle through which the decision of
-a higher power is rendered. Moses said to the people of Israel, “Thou
-shalt not lie,” “Thou shalt not steal,” “Thou shalt not commit adultery,”
-but these were not his words simply, but the words through which a
-moral order was interpreted. The solemn and awful import given to these
-commands did not arise from the vehicle through which they passed into
-the Hebrew social order, but from the fact that they inhered in the very
-constitution of man as a social being, and when they were uttered, they
-were felt to come from the God who fashioned man’s life and set him in
-communities and states. They had the same sort of authority in the moral
-realm that the declarations of Newton, concerning the power of gravity,
-had in the natural. Newton did not conceive in his own brain the laws of
-gravity, he saw them and formulated them. Nor did Moses create the Ten
-Commandments, he saw them and interpreted them. The laws of gravity were
-transcripts from the will of God concerning matter, the Ten Commandments
-were transcripts from the will of God concerning men. When natural
-bodies come together, it would be found that they always attracted each
-other in proportion to their mass and inversely as the squares of their
-distance. When men come together, it would always be found, that if they
-were to live together in harmony and health; if they were to advance and
-get above the planes of the brutes and the savages; they must abstain
-from lying, and stealing, and adultery, and thus be truthful, and honest,
-and virtuous.
-
-The laws of gravity were not arbitrary rules, ordained to oppress suns
-and systems without rhyme or reason. Order of some sort had to be
-preserved among the millions of blazing, rolling worlds. Nor were the Ten
-Commandments arbitrary lines of conduct imposed upon men at the pleasure
-of a great, omnipotent tyrant. Men could not live apart, out of touch and
-contact with one another. Thus living, they were lower than the beasts
-that perish. They could not live together without rules of some sort
-to regulate their lives. And laws which looked to the preservation of
-truthfulness, honesty, and virtue, were thought better than laws which
-looked to the production of lying, dishonesty, and adultery.
-
-Because of the impetus given to the studies of material science within
-recent years, by the discoveries of scholars, the attention of men has
-been directed to the objects of the natural world and the laws which
-regulate them. Discoveries into the nature of heat, light, etc., has had
-the same effect upon the human mind that the discoveries of the gold
-fields in the West had upon the people of America in the early days.
-People abandoned fields and shops and stores and went in search for
-gold. The attention of the civilized world has in this generation been
-directed to the consideration of outward facts. There has been promise
-here of earthly fortune. Conviction as to the existence of a moral order
-with its rewards and penalties is not so deep and abiding as it once was
-among English speaking people. But it is well to remember that the moral
-laws of the universe have not in the meantime been suspended, because
-men have not seen proper to consider them and to act with reference to
-them. They are just as real and as unfailing as ever. When accepted and
-followed, their presence is seen in health, in political stability, in
-intellectual progress. When ignored and forgotten, their presence is seen
-in disease, in political corruption, in mental stupidity, in sham and
-emptiness. In one way or another they always manage to get in their work.
-They never sleep, they never tire, they are eternally present to bless
-or to curse, to lift up or to cast down. They get round to every man’s
-home, and sooner or later to every man’s life, bearing honor or dishonor,
-legitimate reward or righteous infamy. They are not to be bribed,
-whitewashed, or bulldozed; they come clean, unvarnished, and unveneered
-to posit their labels on every man’s character; and whatever is read on
-the label, absolutely defines the content. Irrespective of money, titles,
-place, or rank, they come. The president in his seat, the judge on his
-bench, the preacher in his pulpit, cannot escape. If the president gets
-labeled pigmy, pigmy he is. If the judge gets classified fraud, fraud he
-is. If the preacher gets down as trimmer and sham, trimmer and sham he is.
-
-
-III.
-
-How are we to find moral laws? Just as we find natural laws. When we find
-the truth of natural bodies, reason sees the laws which inhere in them,
-and prudence dictates such action on our part as these laws require.
-When we come to truth, on the moral plane, or to such knowledge of the
-facts as corresponds to the truth, reason, unless perverted, sees the
-laws that reside in them, and conscience dictates that these laws should
-be obeyed. Conscience unerringly and infallibly approves the right. By
-the aid of the light which is thrown upon it when the intellect comes
-into relations of knowledge with moral truth, it recognizes the laws the
-will ought to follow. These laws make up a part of the truth. Before
-the right can be recognized, the truth must be seen. When that which
-the intelligence takes for truth is not the truth, the conscience will
-recognize laws for the will to follow that do not correspond to the laws
-of God. It has often happened that what the intelligence took for truth
-did not correspond to objective reality, and hence was not the truth;
-hence the conscience has often approved and suggested lines of action
-that were at variance with that which was essentially and eternally
-right. Those who followed the dictates of conscience, however, under
-such conditions, did, under the circumstances, right. To have refused to
-follow conscience would have increased their confusion. A man in the bog,
-with the certainty of death before him, ought to follow the guide that
-appears, even though he should not know how to lead him out of the swamp.
-Conscience never fails to come as near recognizing the right as the
-intellect comes to discovering the truth. When that which the intellect
-apprehends as truth corresponds to objective reality, we may be sure that
-the laws which inhere in it, and which conscience suggests as the ones
-the will ought to follow, correspond to the laws of God. One’s conscience
-may lead him wrong, but only when the intellect has led him wrong. St.
-Paul’s conscience led him wrong when it impelled him to persecute the
-Christians of the early church, but it was because that which he held for
-truth did not tally with the outward facts, and hence was not the truth.
-Had the supposed truth which he held while persecuting the Christians
-been real truth, then in persecuting the Christians he would have done
-right. The reversal of conscience resulted from the incoming of new
-truth, or such knowledge as was sustained by the outward facts. The
-conscience of the Hindoo mother that leads her to throw her child into
-the River Ganges is as good as the conscience of the Christian mother
-that leads her to carry her child to the Sunday school. The trouble with
-the Hindoo mother is not with her conscience, but with her religious
-knowledge; it does not correspond to the facts of the order of the moral
-and spiritual universe. We are to determine the value of the affirmations
-of conscience by determining the value of the knowledge out of which
-those affirmations grow. Knowledge is valuable in proportion to its
-correspondence with that which is real. As often as the intellect grasps
-the truth, the conscience will suggest the right that accompanies it.
-There is no truth of a moral nature that has not its attendant right.
-
-
-IV.
-
-We know the moral truth as we know material truth, through its relations.
-Relation makes the difference between chaos and cosmos. To define any
-natural object is to place it in its relations. We could not define
-oxygen without naming the elements to which it is related. To take it
-out of relation is to take from it any meaning. Error is wrong relation.
-When the mind assigns a place to an object other than that which really
-belongs to it, in the order of which it forms a part, we call this
-error. If, seeing the parts of a house scattered over a field by a
-storm, we should confound a sleeper with a rafter, we should take it from
-its proper place and take away its meaning as a part of the building. All
-of our knowledge is of relations and not of sensations, as Hume taught.
-Sensations set the mind to classifying and comparing, and the knowledge
-it comes to is of relations. Take the sensations the mind has when a
-red object is presented to the eye. Does not the mind begin at once to
-distinguish this sensation as one of redness from other sensations that
-are of different colors?
-
-Is not its reality as a particular color constituted for us by its
-relation to colors, by its place in the scale of colors? If there was but
-one color, and that color the one we now know as red, how could we know
-it as such? How could we call it red unless to distinguish it from some
-other color with which we, for the time being, compared it or contrasted
-it? So true is it that reality is constituted for us by the sum of its
-relations, that if the relations of things are maintained, no increase
-or diminution of the quantity of things related will be detected in our
-knowledge of them. If the earth were compressed into a sphere no larger
-than a marble, no one could know it if the relations among the objects
-which make it up were the same.
-
-Again, the earth might be enlarged until it should be a billion times
-larger than what it is; yet this could not be known as long as men and
-gates and spoons and saucers and houses and cuff-buttons were enlarged
-in the same proportion. The leaf of a man’s dining table might be ten
-miles square, and the ball of butter on his table as big as the Stone
-Mountain in Georgia; yet if cook, and cat, and stove, and water-bucket
-were increased in the same ratio, he would not recognize any difference.
-
-
-V.
-
-We enter the world of humanity, which is the realm of morality, through
-the family. Here we open our eyes to the light, and here we have the
-first intimations of truth, which is provision for the intellect, and of
-righteousness, which is provision for the will. The truth of the family
-is the sum of the relations which subsist among the members of it. The
-family consists, we will say, of father and mother, and children. Here
-is a man and a woman, then, bound together by the relation of marriage.
-The children are related to the parents as offspring. The children are
-related to one another as brothers and sisters. Altogether they are
-one and they are many. There is unity and there is difference. In the
-relations implied in the names husband and wife, father and mother,
-parents and children, brothers and sisters, we have the truth of the
-family. We know the family and can only know the family through these
-relations. Take the relations away, and you take the family away. There
-cannot be a husband without a wife, a father without a mother, parents
-without children, and children without a father and a mother. Abiding in
-these relations, which make up the truth of the family, wrapt up with
-them and growing out of them, are the laws of right which the will is
-to obey. The relation of marriage is accompanied by certain obligations
-and duties which husband and wife are to observe. These obligations
-and duties are divine laws, because marriage is a divine relation. The
-relations involved in the term parents, are attended by certain necessary
-laws the father and the mother are to observe with reference to children.
-The names of child, brother, sister, imply relations that in turn imply
-laws the child is to follow with reference to parents, and brothers and
-sisters are to regard with reference to one another. These laws, which
-grow out of the relations which constitute the family, are not arbitrary,
-artificial, or accidental. They have not been formed by the opinions of
-men, nor formulated in the legislative assemblies of men. Legislative
-bodies have, perhaps, confirmed them and reproduced them in statutes,
-but this was not to create, but to transcribe what was already present.
-The laws with reference to which the members of a family find themselves
-placed are as essential and constitutional as the laws governing natural
-objects, which we define when we say bodies attract each other in
-proportion to their mass and inversely as the squares of their distance.
-These are subtle and invisible principles which cannot be read out of
-rocks and logs and moons and suns. Displace rocks and logs and suns and
-moons, and the apparent power of these laws would not be seen, but upon
-the appearance of the natural objects, they would be immediately grasped
-and dominated by the power of the laws.
-
-We pass from the family into the school. Here again we find laws already
-laid for the will to follow. They grow out of the truth, constitutive
-of the school, and this truth is made up of the relations subsisting
-among the members of the school. There are teachers, whose duty it is to
-control and to instruct. There are children, whose duty it is to learn
-and obey. The school is an institution, the object of which is to lead
-young minds into a knowledge of the earth, its continents, seas, rivers,
-and mountains; into a knowledge of language, its structure, uses, and
-the meaning of its terms; into a knowledge of humanity, its races,
-governments, and religions. If children are to share in the benefits of
-the object for which the school is established, they must observe the
-laws which inhere in the very constitution of it.
-
-They must obey the teacher, they must study the books, they must be
-polite, forbearing and kind to one another. It often happens that a child
-enters the school and refuses to follow the laws that reside in the
-structure and purpose of the school. He is willful and conceited, and
-thinks his own way better than the necessary and essential way ordained
-for him. He has the same sort of experience the engineer has who attempts
-to run his engine from the turntable, without reference to the railway
-lines laid for it. There is friction and trouble. Various methods of
-punishment are resorted to with the view to get his will to move along
-the lines laid for it. If rebuke and punishment fail, then he is turned
-out, to attempt the stupid and insane experiment of getting himself
-through the world without reference to the laws fixed for his will to
-obey. Of course he does not go far. He turns up sooner or later in the
-jail, the hospital, the penitentiary, or the poorhouse.
-
-Leaving the school, we find ourselves citizens of the state, members
-of society. But we do not go into society like an ax-man in a frontier
-forest to clear a place for his house, his fence, and his field. Methods
-of conduct are already prescribed, lines of action are already fixed, and
-the laws which claim our obedience are already formulated. Society is an
-organism of mutually dependent members; the object of it is the equity
-of all, the welfare of all, and the liberty of all. Equity, liberty,
-welfare do not come by accident. Men cannot reach them out of touch and
-contact with one another. They are only possible to men living together,
-and only possible in conformity with certain conditions, and in the
-observance of certain laws. These laws lie folded in the nature of men as
-social beings. They are fundamental, and Aristotle saw them when he said,
-“man is by nature a political animal.” The germs of government and law
-are in the depths of every man’s being, as the germs of the oak are in
-the acorn. Wise men, living in society, have seen the truth of society,
-made up of the relations subsisting among people living together.
-Accompanying these relations, and counterparts of them, they have
-discovered the laws necessary to insure the equity, liberty, and welfare
-of all. These laws have been embodied in constitutions, enactments, and
-statutes. To carry out these laws and to make them prevail, certain
-institutions have been established, a body of men whose duty it is to
-execute the laws, a Judiciary, whose duty it is to interpret and expound
-the laws, and a legislative body, whose duty it is to repeal old laws
-that did not work well, and to frame new laws to meet the exigencies of
-new conditions. To protect the rights of all, certain penalties have
-been made to accompany the violations of laws. To make these penalties
-real, and to inflict them upon the proper parties, courts and jails and
-penitentiaries have been established.
-
-So we see, as the acorn cannot grow without appropriating the elements
-already prepared for it in the soil and the sky; and as the carbon cannot
-burn without laying hold of the oxygen already existing for it in the
-atmosphere of the room; and as the fish cannot swim without utilizing
-the water already adjusted to its fins; so man cannot fill out the
-possibilities of his being without obeying the laws he finds already
-ordained for his will, when he comes into the world. These laws converge
-about his will in the home where he first sees the light, and are always
-deducible from the particular relations in which, at any time, his moral
-life is placed. They are as real as the laws of heat and motion and
-gravity. They run out from the home through the school, and from the
-school through all the continents of the social realm. They grow out of
-the truth of the facts of the family, the school, and society. They are
-as fundamental, necessary, and divine as the family, the school, and
-society. By observing them, man is able to turn into his character the
-tenderness of the home, the learning of the school, and the resources of
-society.
-
-
-VI.
-
-The authority of the laws which govern society is not found in the fact
-that the laws have been made by the will of the majority, or the will of
-the minority, or by the will of a king, or by the wills of any or all
-of the people; but because they are founded in the constitution of human
-nature. The basis for the constitution of human nature is the mind of
-God, who created man in his own image. Social laws have authority, then,
-because they are consonant with the nature of man, and have their source
-in the will of God.
-
-It is easy to show, however, from the records of history, that nations
-have often lived under laws imposed upon them that contradicted every
-principle of human nature. Men were accustomed once to find the laws
-of society as well as the laws of nature, not from the study of men,
-or from the study of the objects of nature, but in the depths of their
-own imaginations. In former times men met in convention and council and
-determined by resolution the shape of the earth and the sun’s method of
-movement. They also subjected themselves to the criticism of posterity
-by cutting the heads of the people off who did not agree with them. But
-it gradually dawned on the human mind that to find out for certain the
-shape of the earth it might be well to devote a little study to the earth
-itself. Thus it happened that in the course of events men ceased to read
-laws into God’s material universe from the boundless realms of their
-fancy and conceit, and fell upon the more rational habit of taking the
-laws that were already there. Herein is the difference between mediæval
-and modern times.
-
-The disposition to read laws into nature, without reference to the
-facts of nature, was in line with the programme to read laws into the
-social realm without reference to the facts of human nature. The laws of
-astronomy to-day are such as have been found by a study of the stars. The
-laws of chemistry are such as have been found by a study of the atomic
-structures of bodies. One might fall out now with the celestial laws of
-Ptolemy, and head a movement to set them aside. But it is not rational
-to fall out with the astronomical laws of Norman Lockyer, for that is to
-buck against the sun, and to make faces at the stars. Lockyer’s laws came
-straight to him from the skies, and find their value and verification in
-the close calculation of every steamer that sails on the wide, restless
-sea. The laws of civilized nations to-day are such as have been found
-by a study of the facts of human nature. To quarrel with them is to set
-one’s self against the way man is built. It would not do to say that the
-social laws of civilized peoples to-day are exact transcripts from the
-will of God concerning the conduct of social life. Men do not now, and
-perhaps will not for a long time, read aright the facts of human nature.
-One thing is certain, however: in the making of laws among civilized,
-republican peoples, reference is had to the facts of human nature, and
-not to the fancy of those who wish to govern. It cannot be disputed that
-the right facts are considered from which to make deductions. This means
-a complete change of front in the modern world over the ages past. There
-are doubtless many minor laws on the statute books of the liberal and
-progressive nations of the earth to-day which are not in accordance with
-the nature of man; but it seems that any rational person is compelled
-to admit that the great legal trunk-lines conform to the essential laws
-of human nature. Take the Constitution of the United States. Some one
-has said that the apple from which Newton deduced the laws of gravity
-was two thousand years falling. He would have been nearer the truth if
-he had said six thousand years. The Constitution of the United States
-is as clearly a deduction from the facts of human nature, as were the
-laws of gravity from a study of falling bodies. The convention that met
-in Philadelphia to frame the Constitution of the United States, in 1787,
-was called to order on the top of the centuries. The members had such
-advantage of position as made it possible for them to look all down the
-ages. They were in a position to see all sides of human nature, under all
-forms of government.
-
-In the preamble to the Constitution, they specified certain objects for
-which, in their esteem, this government should be formed—union, domestic
-tranquillity, justice, liberty, welfare. Any government constituted by
-a document like that has for the basis of its existence the facts of
-human nature, as really as the law of gravity has for the basis of its
-existence the facts of the stars.
-
-
-VII.
-
-If it is necessary that man grasp the truth of things before he can
-determine the laws of things, we cannot fail to see how important it is
-that he have a proper theory of knowledge.
-
-Man’s idea of law will correspond to his theory of knowledge. When the
-French people accepted Locke’s theory of knowing they immediately applied
-it to the laws, establishments, and institutions of the nation. They
-concluded logically, if all knowledge is of sensations, then there can
-be no authority for the belief in God, the immortality of the soul, or
-the divinity of law. These are universal and transcendent facts, but
-the mind has no capacity to know universal or transcendent facts. So
-society was to be dissolved into its constituent atoms, in order that
-individuals could arrange their lives on a universal, go-as-you-please
-principle. All existing laws and institutions were to be obliterated.
-Everything that was up was to be put down. There are to-day, scattered
-through the civilized states of Europe and in some parts of the United
-States, men who want to emancipate the people from the dominion of all
-authority. All this grows out of the fashionable and sensational theory
-of knowledge taught first by John Locke and David Hume, and within recent
-years by John Stuart Mill and Herbert Spencer. Here is the source of
-anarchy. There is not an influential anarchist in the world, but is one
-upon the basis of the physiological theory of knowledge. There is no
-objective reality, but such as is composed of material atoms. These have
-got their arrangement and collocations without the agency of any great
-co-ordinating mind. They come together in pairs and clusters and groups,
-by the aid of no power but such as issues from the unknowable. A man
-is no more a criminal for killing people than is the Mississippi River
-for overflowing its banks and drowning people. Men are mere products of
-nature, and their thoughts are only secretions of the brain. Laws and
-institutions are just the brain deposits of animals we call men, as dams
-across rivers and cells in gums are the deposits of the brains of beavers
-and bees.
-
-In a document found on the person of a recent anarchist arrested by the
-authorities in England, it is asserted that the purpose of the anarchists
-is to put down all political, religious, and military authority; to burn
-all churches, palaces, soldier-barracks, fortresses, provisions, and to
-destroy all that has lived till now by business-work without contributing
-to it. From such documents we are to understand that the anarchists take
-it for granted that all laws and institutions among civilized peoples
-have been imposed arbitrarily by those who govern upon those who are
-governed; that the parties to be governed have as much right to ignore
-them as the governing parties had to make them; that there is in the
-universe no moral order to which the political and social orders among
-men correspond; that every man has the privilege of setting up his own
-order; that every engineer has the right to ignore the rails laid for the
-flanges of his wheels on the long roads leading out from the turntable,
-and the inestimable subjective liberty of pulling open the throttle
-valve and running out into the country according to his own sweet will.
-Suppose all the anarchists in the world should be sent to some great
-island so that they could test their own theories, would they not be
-under the necessity of founding some sort of a government? They would
-have to construct roads, devise ways and means for lights, water, and
-for protection against individual violence. Would they not have to bind
-themselves together by some kind of social contract, or compact? If a
-number of men should unite themselves into a syndicate for the purpose of
-building houses without reference to the laws of gravity, if they should
-declare it as their set purpose to so build houses as that the center
-of gravity should fall in a line outside the base, the whole company
-would be tried for lunacy and confined in the insane asylum. So the most
-summary and straightforward methods should be adopted for ridding society
-of all that class of men who propose to manage human affairs without
-reference to the facts of man’s nature and the laws of the universe. It
-is a question whether they should be put into an insane asylum or into
-a jail, for it is hard to determine which they have the most of: insane
-stupidity or insane meanness.
-
-Society has made great advances, but every increment of progress has been
-along the lines of the eternal laws of the universe. Those laws were here
-before man appeared upon the stage of action; they will be here when he
-is gone. Men may doctor themselves with error about truth, and error
-about right, until they come to be great imbeciles; but the truth and the
-right will remain clear and immortal for the intellect and the will of
-the wise and the good.
-
-
-VIII.
-
-It is important, as never before, for those who see the truth and
-recognize the right to declare the same with all authority. It is said
-that the Emperor Henry IV. stood shivering two whole days and nights
-in the snows of the courtyard of Canossa Castle, suing piteously for
-permission to throw himself, in agonized submission, at the feet of
-Hildebrand. That he was shunned by his subjects more absolutely
-because of the ban that was upon him than he would have been had he
-been afflicted with the smallpox. This incident illustrates for us the
-authority wielded by the Church of the Middle Ages. The Church was then
-felt to be in touch with tremendous power. Its fulminations carried
-terror to the hearts of kings and subjects. What the Church declared
-should be done, or should be left undone, the people felt could only be
-disregarded at the peril of all hope for time and eternity. It not only
-declared the duties men were under the necessity of observing in order to
-save their souls, but the kind of thoughts men were under the necessity
-of thinking concerning the shape of the earth, the movements of the
-stars, and the structure of the human body, in order to save themselves
-from the odium of heresy. The Church reigned without a rival in all the
-civilized world. She was not expected to give any reason for her actions
-or her utterances. When she determined what the order of the solar system
-was, the brains of men were compelled, without question, to acquiesce.
-Even to doubt was to deny the faith. The Church dictated the policy of
-the stars without being at the trouble of studying the stars; and no
-other sidereal opinions were tolerated but such as she formulated and
-published.
-
-But the minds of scholars and students, in different parts of Europe,
-began to reach other conclusions concerning the nature and order
-of things than such as had been ecclesiastically settled for them.
-Copernicus saw that the heavenly bodies did not move in accordance with
-the teachings of the Church. And when the Venetian scholars looked
-through the telescope of Galileo at Padua, and saw Jupiter and his
-satellites, a central sun and revolving planets, the authority of the
-Church on the subject of astronomy was gone. In this way the Church has
-been forced to give up one position after another. The people, seeing she
-had no foundation for the opinions she held concerning nature, began to
-question the value of her opinions concerning God, and heaven and hell,
-and right and wrong.
-
-Now the Church must regain her note of authority. She must do this by
-seeing what the laws are which grow out of the facts of condition. The
-laws of the family are to be deduced from the truths of relation which
-constitute the family. These will be seen to coincide with the old laws
-uttered from Sinai. The laws of society are to be deduced from the truths
-of relation which constitute society. These, it will be seen, are summed
-up as was said of old in the formula, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor
-as thyself.” When men get through framing laws for the regulation of
-human conduct, from a study of the facts of human nature, they will
-find to their amazement that they have reinstated the Ten Commandments,
-and that Sinai is not a burnt out volcano. They will find that the Ten
-Commandments are still the foundations of social health, and harmony,
-and progress. God wrote them for Moses on tables of stone because he had
-already written them in the nature of man. The laws of gravity can no
-more be read out of the world of space than the Eternal Decalogue can be
-read out of the world of human life. So the man of law should speak with
-the same authority as the man of science, without apology and without
-misgivings.
-
-
-
-
-_BEAUTY._
-
-
- “If the endeavor to analyze the world is a trifle, it is
- because the world is such. The sum of things can have no second
- intention, nor can it be characterized by any trait that is
- not included in itself. Some things are sweet, but what is our
- sense which perceives them; some things are good, but what is
- our conscience which judges them; some things are true, but
- what is our intellect which argues them; some things are deep,
- but what is our reason which fathoms them? Everyone who thinks
- deeply, must have reflected that, if the purposes and results
- of man’s practice are vanity, so also must be those of his
- speculation. Goethe said, that there was no refuge from virtues
- that were not our own, but in loving them; and Ecclesiastes,
- that there was none from the vanity of life, but in fearing and
- obeying God. So, also, from the vanity of speculation there
- is no refuge but in acquiescing in its relative nature, and
- accepting truth for what it is.”
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER V.
-
-THE PROVISION FOR THE ÆSTHETIC NATURE OF MAN.
-
-
-The glory of the mind is the possession of two eyes, the eye of sense
-and the eye of reason. Through the one, it looks out upon the world of
-matter and fact. Through the other, it beholds the world of idea and
-relation. The world of matter and fact, seen through the eye of sense, is
-lifted and transfigured and multiplied a thousandfold when contemplated
-through the eye of reason. When the literal world is transferred to the
-ideal world, it takes on hues and dimensions in accordance with the
-universal and illimitable nature of man. The world which the sense sees,
-and the world which the reason sees, are both real, and through the mind
-commerce is kept up between them. Along this mental highway facts make
-a pilgrimage to the holy land of reason; there they are changed into
-ideas. Stars are turned into astronomy, atoms into chemistry, rocks into
-geology, plants into botany, colors into beauty and sounds into harmony.
-
-Over the same royal road, ideas pass to the world of sense. There they
-are changed again into facts. Ideas of beauty, distilled in the alembic
-of the imagination from the seven prismatic colors, are turned into
-painting, and Raphael’s “Transfiguration” blesses the world. Ideas of
-harmony, formed by the power of the imagination from the notes of the
-musical scale, are turned into song, and Handel’s “Messiah” agitates
-the thoughts and feelings of men with the melody of the skies. Ideas of
-form, deduced from the contemplation of the shapes of things, are turned
-into sculpture, and Michael Angelo’s “Moses” augments the world’s fund
-of conviction and courage. By changing facts into ideas, the mind gives
-us science. By changing ideas back to facts, it gives us art. Without
-science, life would be without bread; without art, it would be without
-ideals.
-
-Science ministers to the body, art to the spirit. Men who go from things
-to ideas are practical; those who go from ideas back to things are the
-seers. Practical men conserve, but never venture. Seers throw the light
-of their genius into the dark beyond, disclosing new worlds for men. They
-are the leaders, they are in the vanguard of human progress.
-
-By the possession of two eyes, the eye of sense and the eye of reason,
-man is placed into relation with two worlds.
-
-The world he sees by the eye of sense is meager, limited,
-poverty-stricken. There are only a few houses in it, a little clump
-of trees, a little patch of meadow, a horizon hounded by the curl of
-his cabin smoke. The world he sees by the eye of reason stretches far
-down into the twilight of the past, embracing all ages, all stages of
-progress, all empires and republics, all literature and peoples.
-
-Through the eye of sense, he sees a world of hard limitation and fact.
-Through the eye of reason, a universe of ideas, visions, relations.
-Through the eye of sense, he sees a candle, with its flickering and
-passing flame. Through the eye of reason, he sees a kingdom of light,
-with truth and beauty, and love billowing away to infinity.
-
-Through the eye of sense he sees a little mountain spring rise from the
-ground, to lose itself in the deepening shadows of the trees. Through the
-eye of reason he sees a river, clear as crystal, flowing forever from
-under the throne of God. A few violets and buttercups, covering with
-their blue and their beauty a little strip of meadow, he sees through
-the eye of sense. The hills of day, numberless and immeasurable, covered
-with flowers, whose leaves never wither and whose beauty never fades, he
-sees through the eye of reason.
-
-It is the conceit of those whose habit of mind is to look through the
-eye of sense alone, that they see more in the actual tangible world than
-those who are accustomed to look through the eye of reason as well as
-through the eye of sense. There never was a greater mistake. Those who
-see most in the world of mountain and sea and sky, are those who look
-most through the eye of reason into the world of idea, principle, and
-relation. Adams in England, and Leverrier in France, discovered Neptune,
-not by sweeping the heavens with their telescopes, but by careful
-ciphering in their studies. “Mr. Turner,” said a friend to him one day,
-“I never see in nature the glows and colors you put into your pictures.”
-“Ah! don’t you wish you could, though,” was the painter’s reply. In an
-apple’s fall Newton sees the law of gravitation. Goethe sees in the
-sections of a deer’s skull the spinal column modified. Emerson sings:
-
- “Let me go where’er I will,
- I hear a sky-born music still.
- ’Tis not in the stars alone,
- Nor in the cups of budding flowers,
- Nor in the red-breast’s yellow tone,
- Nor in the bow that smiles in showers;
- But in the mud and scum of things,
- There always, always something sings.”
-
-Humboldt habitually dwelt in the realm of principles and ideas. He spent
-only five years in America, and it took twelve quartos, and sixteen
-folios, and half a dozen helpers, and many years to put on record what he
-saw.
-
- “The poem hangs on the berry bush,
- When comes the poet’s eye,
- And the street is one long masquerade
- When Shakspere passes by.”
-
-
-I.
-
-Yet the mind must first see through the eye of sense, before it is
-capable of seeing through the eye of reason. The universe, that really
-belongs to the mind, the eye of sense never sees, but it sees something
-that suggests it. Through the eye of sense man takes in a few colors, but
-these suggest to Rubens the magnificent visions which illuminate the art
-galleries of Europe. Through the sense man hears a few notes, but these
-are taken and multiplied into the symphonies of Beethoven.
-
-Through the eye of sense, Columbus sees a few pieces of driftwood brought
-to the shore by the waves of the ever-restless sea; but these help him,
-through the eye of reason, to see a new world with its virgin forests,
-its wide-reaching plains and its majestic mountain ranges. Agassiz sees
-through the eye of sense an indentation on a rock in the State of Maine.
-This gives him a suggestion which helps him to see, through the eye of
-reason, the icebergs and the glaciers, which, in the early ages, ground
-their way to the south. The man of science sees through the eye of sense,
-only a bit of chalk; but from this a suggestion comes to him, which
-enables him to see through the eye of reason the oozy bed upon which
-the submarine cable rests; and the life that sported in the vast oceans
-when the Dover Cliffs were being formed. Through the eye of sense Cuvier
-sees an immense tooth, larger than any known at the present. Through the
-eye of reason he sees the huge animal in whose jaw it was set. Upon the
-comprehensive, active power of reason, man relies to determine for him
-the elements good for food, the power which serves his social nature, the
-truth which furnishes his intellect, the right which matches his will,
-and the beauty which corresponds with his æsthetic nature.
-
-The universe lends itself in its totality to the scale and the dip of
-the particular capacity or power through which man, for the time being,
-seeks to appropriate it. It stands before the sense of hunger in terms
-of bread. It stands before the social nature in terms of power. It
-stands before the intellect in terms of truth. It stands before the
-will in terms of law. It stands before the æsthetic nature in terms of
-beauty. The person who has related himself to the world through all
-the powers of his nature, finds it capable, by turns, of feeding every
-faculty with which he is endowed. The universe is now all bread, now all
-power, now all truth, now all law, and now all beauty. It will be any
-or all of these, according to the side, or sides, of himself through
-which he addresses it. One of the great discoveries of modern times is
-the correlation of forces. The persistent force may express itself in
-heat, or light, or electricity, or magnetism. These are only different
-forms of the same thing, and any one may pass to any of the others. In
-the world, as a whole, we find the sense of correlation inheres, as it
-relates itself to the different faculties man has for taking hold of it.
-As the correlate of hunger, it is all bread; as the correlate of the
-social nature, it is all power; as the correlate of the intellect, it
-is all truth; as the correlate of the will, it is all law, and as the
-correlate of the æsthetic sense, it is all beauty. Objective reality is
-addressed to the many sides of human life, in order that the whole of it
-may be used up for the purpose of making a man. It is all to be drawn
-into manhood. As all rivers meet in the ocean, and all colors meet in the
-white ray of light; so objective reality, in all that it is for food, for
-power, for truth, for right, for beauty; is to meet in human life, for
-nutriment, for furnishment, and for the completion of manhood. If you
-want to know what the objective self of the fish is, look at the ocean.
-If you want to know what the objective self of the eagle is, look at the
-sky. If you want to know what the objective self of the elephant is,
-look at the Asiatic jungle. If you want to know what the objective self
-of man is, look at the conditions of food, power, truth, law, and beauty
-which environ him. The fish gets the water, the bird gets the air, and
-the elephant gets the jungle; but man, with a nature illimitable, with
-capacities inexhaustible, with hunger deep as truth, with aspirations
-as wide as right, and with an ideal as unfathomable as beauty, is the
-child of the eternal God, and is to get the fullness of his nature in
-nothing less than the entire expression which God has made of himself in
-objective reality.
-
-
-II.
-
-All truth, as we have before stated, which man has tried to express, is
-but a transcript of divine truth. The truth of astronomy is a transcript
-from the reality of the stars. The truth of botany is a transcript
-from the reality of plants. The truth of geology is a transcript from
-the reality of the earth’s structure. All right, which man has sought
-to embody in statutes, in constitutions, in enactments, is but a
-transcript from the will of God. So all beauty, which man has attempted
-to symbolize, is contained in the nature of things, and has its source
-in God. The beauty man has seen has taken in the process of history many
-forms. It is seen in architecture, sculpture, poetry, painting, and
-music. These are different forms of the same thing. As the persistent
-physical force expresses itself in heat, light, electricity, and
-magnetism, so genius is the persistent mental force which expresses
-itself in art. Sometimes the persistent mental force comes to such unity
-and fullness in some massive soul that from him it goes out into all
-the fine arts. Michael Angelo was by turns poet, painter, sculptor, and
-architect. Had he lived in Germany in the time of Beethoven he would have
-added to his other accomplishments that of music. The noblest specimens
-of music are only great cathedrals constructed out of sound, as Michael
-Angelo’s “Moses” was a great epic poem wrought in stone.
-
-We wish to consider beauty in its relation to the æsthetic sense, in two
-aspects of itself.
-
-The most important forms of beauty have as the physical conditions of
-their existence light and sound, and as the ideal conditions of their
-existence space and time. The names man gives to these forms of beauty,
-when he expresses them, or re-expresses them, are painting and music. For
-no element of man’s nature has more marvelous provision been made than
-for the æsthetic element. The objective conditions of the beauty, which
-correspond to the subjective æsthetic sense, are contained in sound and
-light. Sound and light are the invisible physical forces which play upon
-the objects of nature, and call from them the responses of melody and
-vision which the æsthetic nature appropriates for ecstasy and delight.
-
-Capacity for sound is lodged in well-nigh all created objects. Minerals,
-woods, gases, and liquids even, contain the notes of the musical scale.
-Builders of pianos, harps, put no notes in the elements they use in the
-construction of these instruments. They simply comply with conditions
-necessary to bring them out. The music we get out of wood and steel and
-brass, as we find them arranged in the piano, the organ, the harp, by
-striking them at regular intervals, is the melody breathed into them when
-they were created. Beethoven, Handel, and Mozart created no music. Their
-genius was manifested simply in the power to bring out of forest and mine
-and cane-brake what God put into them.
-
-As to what note a body shall give up under tension and pressure, is owing
-to its ultimate structure, and the elements which compose it; and also
-the note latent in the object by which it is struck, or pressed. Sing
-into a piano and the same notes respond which are used in the execution
-of the song. A storm, howling through a forest, makes a loud noise, but
-no music. Its notes do not synchronize with those contained in the limbs
-and leaves of the trees. But when the low, sad murmur of the evening
-winds gently strike the needles of the long-leaf pine there is music. The
-notes of the one are related to the notes of the other.
-
-As all things have capacity for sound, so well-nigh all created things
-have capacity for color. The color which an object takes on in the
-presence of light is determined also by its ultimate structure and the
-elements which constitute it. Nearly every object absorbs a portion of
-the light and throws back to the eye of the beholder a portion. Bodies
-absorb those rays which are synchronous with their constituent elements.
-When the particles which compose a body are not capable of vibrating at
-the rate of any portion of the light particles, then they are all thrown
-back, and the body is pronounced white. It is to be observed that no body
-has color or sound of its own, but only the capacity for these. The note
-of a body is discovered by striking it, and its color by stimulating it
-with a light ray.
-
-Another interesting fact is to be noted here—that is the analogy
-between sound and light, or music and painting. The difference between
-a sound wave and a light wave is only a difference of length. The
-principles underlying them are the same, and the methods by which they
-are produced are the same. Sound waves, to be heard, must vibrate at
-least as often as sixteen beats to the second. Light waves, in order
-to pass through the organ of vision, and reach the retina of the eye,
-must not vibrate at a less rate than four hundred trillions of times to
-the second. The difference between the eye and the ear is, one is more
-refined than the other. A painting is a silent piece of music, and a
-piece of music is an audible picture. The notes of the musical scale and
-the colors of the prismatic scale are analogous. The distance between
-C and A of the musical scale is the same as the distance between red
-and orange of the prismatic scale. The notes of the one scale may be
-translated into the colors of the other. Harmony of colors in a silk
-dress, would, if translated into their analogous notes, produce a piece
-of music that would be equally as pleasing to the ear as the colors are
-to the eye. Painting is only a more refined form of music. This is not
-fancy; it is mathematics and science. All things about us are capable
-of music, silent or audible. Notes belonging to some part of a great
-song are lodged in all created objects. Things are not measured off in
-continents, oceans, islands, mountains, forests, and mines only, but also
-in octaves. The music of the spheres is no longer a dream of the poets,
-but in accordance with exact science. The material system into which we
-are born is capable, then, not only of furnishing us food to eat and
-clothes to wear, but music and painting for the sense of the beautiful.
-A mere utilitarian, bread-and-butter philosophy does not exhaust the
-possibilities of even the material world. In its very construction
-respect to man’s higher nature was had, as well as to his lower. By
-so much as music and harmony of color surpass in their subtlety and
-refinement the coarser elements necessary to sustain the lower nature;
-by so much has God emphasized the value of the higher nature. Had God
-intended his children for no higher plane than that upon which the
-animals live, and no greater future for them than that which belongs to
-“the beasts that perish,” doubtless the beauty would have been left out.
-Men have been told, by one having authority, not to cast their pearls
-before swine. The beauty that was flung at the feet of man contained a
-message to a side of himself keyed to a radiant and imperishable realm.
-
-Who does not feel, under the charm of music, or the influence of a great
-painting, reasons for high living which no words can express? The tear
-which often gathers in the eye of the most abandoned, hardened man, under
-the power of song, bespeaks the fact that chords have been touched which
-vibrate responsive to no earthly interest or relation.
-
-
-III.
-
-The melody in sound and the harmony in color are correlated to the
-æsthetic nature of man through the ear and the eye. In the ear is found
-the musical scale, and in the eye the prismatic scale.
-
-Notes are in the ear which correspond with the C D E F G A B of the
-musical scale, and parts are in the eye which correspond to the red,
-orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet of the prismatic scale.
-It is only through D in the ear that D out of the ear can be heard, and
-it is with C in the ear that C out of the ear is heard.
-
-If there were no notes in the ear except D, and all other notes in
-nature were destroyed, the ear could hear no notes at all. A hears A,
-and B hears B, and C hears C. What A hears, B does not hear, and what C
-hears, A does not hear. What is true of the ear is true of the eye. The
-parts of the eye with which red is seen are not the parts with which
-green is seen. Red in the eye sees red out of the eye. Blue in the eye
-sees blue out of the eye, and green in the eye sees green out of the eye.
-If there was in the prismatic scale located in the eye only the part
-with which blue is seen, no color in the world would be visible except
-the blue. The notes latent in all natural objects are addressed to the
-æsthetic sense, through the corresponding notes latent in the ear; and
-the seven colors, capacity for which is latent in all earthly objects,
-address themselves to the æsthetic nature through the corresponding
-capacities for color contained in the eye. That man is related to
-the kingdom of beauty in a sense which marks him off from the animals
-below him, is proven by the fact that he can take the elements of this
-kingdom into his imagination and send them back to the realms of sense,
-in oratorios and paintings. The masters have given all history ideal
-and permanent setting by means of sound and light. Man cannot only see
-the truth, but repeat it; not only recognize the right, but conform to
-it, and not only appreciate beauty, but express it. In this he has the
-evidence of his kinship with the author of the true, the good, and the
-beautiful. The lower animals, as far as we know, may be thrilled with
-that which is beautiful; we do know they never repeat the beautiful. In
-the art galleries and conservatories of the world all the past is brought
-to life again and stands before the eye and the ear, under the ideal
-forms of time and space. Moses is not only immortal in the laws which he
-wrote, and in the race which he civilized, but, through Michael Angelo’s
-genius, he has been made eternal in the kingdom of beauty.
-
-Thus, through his æsthetic side, man not only receives, but he gives.
-The melody of sound and the harmony of color not only come to him, but
-go from him; and from him, too, charged and shot through with all the
-suffering, temptation, sin, and sacrifice he has known.
-
-
-IV.
-
-The empirical philosophy, which reduces knowledge to sensations and
-morality to laws imposed by prudence, and man himself to the same
-plane of life occupied by the lower animals, invades the domain of
-æsthetics, and makes of beauty a mere matter of individual feeling, local
-convention, and arbitrary fashion. This philosophy of the dirt denies
-to mind any inherent, creative activity, in the region of knowledge,
-morals, or art. Now, it is doubtless true, that food and power and beauty
-of color and tone are addressed to the lower animals; sufficiently,
-at least, for them to get the means of subsistence, and some low sort
-of pleasure from them. They do this, however, not by reason, but by
-instinct. The bee is determined by its nature to build his cell in
-accordance with mathematical principles, and to store it with honey from
-the leaves and the flowers. The bee does this as naturally as water runs
-down-hill. There is no calculation in it, and the bee does not recognize
-itself in the process of this work.
-
-The bird may be determined in the selection of its mate by brilliant
-plumage, or joyous song, but this it does just as a rock turned loose
-from the top of a house falls to the ground. The evidence of a combining,
-mental activity in man, to which things in the outside world are
-addressed, in a peculiar and distinct sense, is found in the fact that
-man not only receives the things that come to him, but sends them from
-him in the forms of his own thought.
-
-The bee appropriates the honeydew that covers the surface of the leaves,
-stores it in his cell, and eats it in the winter; but who ever knew bees
-to plant out trees in order that there might be leaves from which to
-secure honeydew? Man finds the bananas that grow in the tropics, and the
-berries that grow in the temperate zones, and eats them; but he sees how
-bananas and berries grow, and so clears fields and hedges, to insure a
-more abundant crop.
-
-The monkey hears the thunder and sees the lightning as well as the man,
-but man investigates the nature of lightning; he sees the principle
-underlying its weird movements, the things for which it has affinity.
-So he contrives various methods for utilizing it. The mind within him
-being the same in kind as the mind which sends the lightning, he sees how
-lightning is sent, and sends it. He not only sees thunder-storms, but
-how they are made. So the professor creates them in glass jars for the
-benefit of his class.
-
-Nature presents herself to man under uniform methods of action.
-Everywhere is regularity and orderliness. He reproduces this order in
-political and social life. The laws without him kindle into expression
-the moral magazine of volition within him.
-
-Nature presents herself to man as unity. This implies mind. Unity is
-impossible without mind. The mind underneath the unity, without him,
-speaks to the mind within him. Then by his own mind he recreates the
-universe in literature.
-
-He hears the cawing of rooks, the cooing of doves, the purling of brooks,
-and the roar of tempests. These, with all other sounds in nature, are
-caught and combined in the marvelous creation of Mozart and Beethoven.
-
-Much is said by the learned men who are ever seeking to minify man’s
-place in nature, about the reason and memory, and intelligence, and
-even conscience of the lower animals. It is almost enough to make one
-wish he were a dog or a horse when he reads how much sense and how much
-conscience dogs and horses have. Not much weight, however, will ever be
-given to these long treatises on the intelligence of the lower animals,
-until some bee shall give us a book on mathematics, or until some horse
-shall tell through one of our agricultural journals the best time to sow
-clover; or some dog shall give us the philosophy of the chase. We see the
-capacity of the human mind in Shakspere’s plays. So one picture painted
-by a cat, one poem written by a mule, one philosophical dissertation
-composed by an owl, or one cocoanut plantation planted by the monkeys,
-would establish beyond question that the high claims made for the mental
-capabilities of these humble members of the animal creation are justified.
-
-Man grows wheat by the use of the mind within him, which sees how the
-mind without him has made the growth of wheat possible. Man utilizes
-power, by the use of the mind within him, which recognizes how power
-is produced and controlled by the mind without him. Man sees truth,
-because the mind within him is like the mind without him, which expresses
-itself in truth. Man sees law, because the mind within him is like the
-mind without him which ordained law. So man sees beauty, because the
-mind within him is like the mind without him, which expresses itself in
-beauty. Food, and truth, and law, and beauty, cannot be reproduced by
-man, except by the laws of mind acting in him as the laws of mind do
-without him.
-
-
-V.
-
-What is the use of beauty? Like truth and law, it looks beyond itself.
-It is to help realize the purpose for which the earth was created, the
-purpose which finds its consummation in a perfect man.
-
-Beauty comes to man, bearing intimations of his high origin and also
-of his glorious destiny. Under the magic spell which beauty throws
-around him, he forgets for the time being his limitations, his fears,
-his doubts. He is lifted into a realm of universal freedom, where all
-difficulties disappear, where all conflicts are eliminated. The æsthetic
-nature is not at all seclusive and aristocratic. It receives the melody,
-and symmetry, and harmony which reason finds in the tones, and forms, and
-colors of the outside world, and turns over to it. These rich gifts are
-then shared with all other human powers and faculties. Hunger is served
-with food set in painted china. Around the table, where man satisfies
-his appetite, pictures are hung, and the beef market and the mill are
-built and arranged in accordance with the dictates of symmetry and taste.
-The college, where truth is taught, and the courthouse, where law is
-administered, are invested with all the beauty of the architect’s genius.
-Thus beauty, high, heaven-born, and refreshing, is drawn into all the
-relations, and thrown around all the institutions of life. It reduces
-friction, redresses littleness, and adds to life good cheer and depth.
-It smoothes the rough places, rounds the sharp corners, and hangs the bow
-of hope on the dark cloud of coming trial.
-
-The æsthetic sense, nurtured on beauty, keeps before the minds of men
-and nations a proper ideal of life. When the ideal held before the mind
-at one period of advancement is reached, the æsthetic sense has already
-lifted another and a nobler, as far ahead of the actual as the first.
-In presenting to the living spirit ideals always in advance of actual
-attainment, the æsthetic nature opens the unending path of progress. It
-is incorrect to suppose that the ideal is worked out only in painting,
-symphony, or cathedral. Its presence is manifest in the useful, as well
-as the fine arts. The ideal often gets itself translated into the heel
-of a shoe, into the crown of a hat, into the wheel of a wagon, into the
-fence around the field, and into the structure of the mower and the
-reaper. It curves in the arches of bridges, echoes in the sound of the
-hammer, and breaks over the hills in the whistle of the engine.
-
-The progress of beauty in modern times has not been in the direction of
-form or coloring or symmetry, simply, but toward wider distribution. In
-early times, its ministry was to kings and scholars; it has advanced by
-expanding. The pyramid of Gizeh, the most expensive monument ever seen,
-was reared to perpetuate the memory of a great Egyptian king. A country
-was drained of revenue and of life to regale the pride of one man. The
-Parthenon ministered to a few great men in Greece. The cathedrals of the
-middle ages blest and helped a wider circle. But it was left to the time
-which is ours to build churches and chapels, as broad in their aims and
-ministry as the life of humanity. The early poetry concerned itself about
-the wars of gods and the contentions of kings. But as the sacredness of
-human life came to be seen more and more, did it tend to catch within the
-sweep of its rhythm the incidents and traditions and loves of the common
-people. The ideal in our day is being worked out in fields of waving
-grain, into the cattle upon the hills, into the homes of the people. It
-is being turned into orchards and vineyards. It is being traced in vines
-and flowers over the poor man’s cottage. The ideals were once housed
-and confined in the museums; now they are being turned out into the
-street. It was once the custom to bring Venus and Diana, by the aid of
-the chisel, from rough marble. The tendency now is to put the beauty of
-Venus and the enterprise of Diana into the spirits of our women. Sublime
-conceptions were once mainly realized in temples and cathedrals, but now
-we would see them distributed into dwellings for families, into schools
-for children, and into churches for the true worship of God. We would see
-them in bridges spanning all the rivers, in mills grinding the people’s
-bread, in factories spinning their clothes, and in railroads transporting
-their products. We would see them lifted into an asylum for the blind,
-a shelter for the orphan, and a home for the aged and infirm. We would
-hear them in the whirl of the spindle, in the ring of the hammer, in the
-splash of the paddle, and in the sound of the flying train. We would
-hear them in the steady march of progress, and in the pulse-beats of
-the happy plowman. Beauty is to be used to stimulate human courage, to
-embellish human spirit, and to enlarge human thought. Life’s shadows are
-to be chased by the light of eternity’s day, and its tumult hushed by
-the repose of eternity’s harmony. The æsthetic element in man’s nature
-was appointed to receive the beauty provided for it. But it was to be
-God’s almoner; having received it, also freely to give it. Thus it was
-to be the power whose function should be to put the whole of life into
-terms of harmony. Bernard Palissy put his ideal into a white enamel for
-his pottery; Columbus worked his ideal into a new world; Morse left his
-in the electric telegraph; Cyrus W. Field turned his into the submarine
-cable; and Thomas A. Edison has given his to the world in the telephone.
-It is not to be inferred, however, that those who work their ideals
-out in the useful arts contribute more to the making of men than those
-who express their ideals in poetry, painting, sculpture, or music. The
-tendency of beauty to get down into the ordinary work and relations of
-life is an intimation that all life should be beautiful in itself, and
-in all expressions which it makes of itself. The æsthetic sense is the
-badge of man’s royalty. A tutor was once employed to teach the son of
-a king. The young prince was sometimes disobedient. But in the esteem
-of the tutor, it was not quite proper to whip the son of a king with a
-common switch. So to the lapel of the boy’s coat the teacher pinned a
-piece of purple ribbon. When the young prince manifested a disposition
-to defy authority, the instructor pointed with the end of the rod to the
-purple ribbon on his coat. This was an appeal to his royal blood.
-
-Not a flower gathers on the limbs of a rose bush but addresses the high
-and purple nature of everyone who beholds it. In Mexico, where the
-average of life is so low, the flowers which grow in such profusion are
-about all that is left to keep the people reminded that they are the
-children of God, the author of all beauty. The highest evidence of the
-remaining worth of the Mexican people is found in the fact that they
-love flowers with a deep and unfailing passion.
-
-
-VI.
-
-Beauty is to feed enthusiasm. Tones and colors are to be used to jostle
-the elements of mind, and will, and emotion into harmony with the high
-and holy life of our Father who art in Heaven. Beauty is to nerve the
-soldier for the battle, the martyr for the stake, and the hero for his
-work. There is a height of development to which the human spirit aspires,
-that the logical understanding is unable to reach. Here, then, where
-truth in logical form fails, beauty comes, and helps the human spirit to
-disentangle itself from the sphere of contradictions and antagonisms.
-
-Truth and right command the spirit by an external necessity; beauty
-moves it by an internal necessity and starts it to vibrating in the very
-centers of its being, in consonance with itself. Beauty lifts it to a
-pinnacle where the horizon quadrates with its irrepressible longings; and
-where the whole of life is rounded into an orb from which all strife is
-eliminated, and all discord extracted. Men seek artificial stimulants and
-narcotics, because of the abiding conviction they have, that their lives
-were keyed to some ideal realm of unity and freedom.
-
-What intoxicants do to the detriment of the spirit, beauty accomplishes
-to its health and vigor. It is carried by beauty into no land of
-vague dream, and unreal delirium, but into a radiant region where the
-environing conditions exactly match its undying hopes.
-
-
-
-
-_LOVE._
-
-
- “There are indeed men whose souls are like the sea. Those
- billows that ebb and flood, that inexorable going and
- coming, that noise of all the winds, that blackness and
- that translucency, that vegetation peculiar to the deep,
- that democracy of clouds in full hurricane, those eagles
- flecked with foam, those wonderful star-risings reflected in
- mysterious agitation by millions of luminous wavetops, confused
- heads of the multitudinous sea—the errant lightnings, which
- seem to watch; those prodigious sobbings, those half-seen
- monsters, those nights of darkness broken by howlings, those
- furies, those frenzies, those torments, those rocks, those
- shipwrecks, those fleets crushing each other; then that charm,
- that mildness, those festivals, those gay white sails, those
- fishing boats, those songs amid the uproar, those shining
- ports, those mists rising from the shore; those wraths and
- those appeasements, that all in one, the unforeseen amid
- the changeless, the vast marvel of inexhaustibly varied
- monotony—all this may exist in a mind, and that mind is called
- genius, and you have Æschylus, you have Isaiah, you have Dante,
- you have Michael Angelo, you have Shakspere.”
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VI.
-
-THE PROVISION FOR THE SPIRITUAL NATURE OF MAN.
-
-
-In speaking of the spiritual nature of man, reference is not had to a
-side or faculty or power of himself, but to his real, essential life. Man
-is a spirit. All faculties and powers exist for him as such. The hunger,
-and the food provided for it, are to serve man as spirit. The social
-element, and the power provided for it, are to serve him as spirit. The
-intellect and truth, the will and right, the æsthetic sense and beauty,
-are all to serve him as spirit. The correlate of man as spirit, on one
-side of himself, we have seen to be the life of humanity—the correlate of
-man as spirit, on the other side of himself, is the life of God. Man’s
-spiritual nature is mediated to him on one side by the family, by the
-school, by the institutions of the state, by the establishments of trade,
-by the newspaper, by literature, by art, by history. Man’s spiritual
-nature is mediated to him on the other side by love, embodied in the one
-Mediator between God and man.
-
-The mud-philosophy of Locke, and Hume, and Mill, and Spencer dissolves
-spirit, because it dissolves the idea of a mind, an ego, or an external
-world. If the mind can know nothing but a succession of things in time,
-if nothing but a constant flow and flux of sensations; of course it
-cannot know itself, only as a sensation in the perpetual procession
-of sensations always passing by. But how is it possible for the mind
-to know a succession of things in time, and a procession of things in
-space, unless it is itself out of and apart from the succession and the
-procession. One sensation, say of the self, in a flow of sensations,
-could not know itself as a part of such a flow, without knowing itself
-as related to a before and an after in the process. To know even a
-procession of sensations, we must have a spirit that stands still and
-does not pass on with the procession. The spirit, then, must be out
-of time to know succession, and out of space to know procession, and
-self-conscious, so as to distinguish itself from the succession and the
-procession. The human spirit is something in the midst of time, yet
-passes not with the tides of time. It is to the succession of things
-ever passing through it, and to the procession of sensations ever
-passing before it, like some mighty Teneriffe with its peak of Teyde in
-the midst of the sea, pushing its proud head up 12,000 feet above the
-sea, and contrasting with its ever changing waves, the immutability of
-eternity. Man, as a spirit, is after God, the most universal of all
-facts. He is illimitable in more ways than space, remaining when all the
-events of time have passed, and with a nature dipping into the eternal
-spirit of God. The respect in which man is made in the image of God,
-is, that he is endowed with self-consciousness, and self-determination.
-Self-consciousness and self-determination are the universal forms of
-spiritual activity. Man, as a self-conscious and self-determining spirit,
-is not independent. He must find his true self beyond himself. He is
-dependent upon the absolute self-consciousness and self-determination of
-God. He is the child of God, and as there cannot be an absolute without
-a relative, he is the relativity of the absolute. God’s nature is the
-ground of man’s nature, and in God he is mirrored to himself.
-
-In God man lives and moves and has his being. In finding God, man finds
-himself. In the revelation of God is the revelation of man. God is a
-spirit and man is a spirit; but man, as a relative spirit, comes to
-himself in God, the absolute spirit; as the life-germ of the acorn comes
-to itself in the natural conditions of soil and sky which environ it.
-
-
-I.
-
-As man is essentially spirit, he can never come to unity, only as he
-comes to it in himself as a spirit. As long as he abandons himself
-to mere bread, or power, or knowledge, or law, or beauty, there is
-contradiction. Not in any one of these can he find full-orbed life.
-These all bring nutriment to him, as a spirit, from the several spheres
-to which they are variously correlated. But provision is made not only
-for the sides and faculties of himself, but for the essential nature
-of himself. We have seen how hunger was met by bread, the needs of
-the social nature by power, intellect by truth, will by law, and the
-æsthetic sense by beauty; but here we come to life, and find that love,
-timeless and illimitable love, alone corresponds to it. But love can only
-find its embodiment and its expression in life. Therefore, love has taken
-the form of life to meet the needs of man as a spirit.
-
-We do not propose to discuss this subject dogmatically. The writer
-believes in dogmatism; but in this work the attempt has been to treat
-man, and the things provided for him, scientifically. We have taken
-nothing for granted, and have intended to say nothing but what was
-warranted by the facts. That man is a spirit, and related to an unseen
-realm, is attested by the fact that all round this world temples and
-mosques, and synagogues and churches lift themselves sublimely, or
-modestly, to the sky. That there is something in man that seeks provision
-from beyond the range of sense and sight, no one in his senses can deny.
-This deep and fundamental and irrepressible need of man’s nature finds
-its correlate in love. Speaking out of the depths of his life, it is an
-everlasting call for sympathy, for reconciliation, for pardon, for peace.
-Love gives sympathy, insures reconciliation, grants pardon, and secures
-peace. But love can only come from the unseen and eternal in the form of
-life. Let us see how the love expressed in the life and sacrifice and
-death of Jesus Christ, as the embodiment of divine love, is set over
-against the spiritual nature of man, as its correlate; as completely as
-bread is set over against hunger, or the truth against the intellect, or
-as beauty is set over against the æsthetic sense. We believe this is so
-in the nature of things, and will finally be taught as truth, as absolute
-and unfailing as the multiplication table. Men will come to it, after
-a while, not only as a dogmatic doctrine taught by the churches, but
-also as absolute doctrine, taught by the constitution and needs of human
-nature. The time will come when to doubt this will not simply be to write
-one’s self down as mean, but as mentally unbalanced. If Jesus Christ, as
-love, is the correlate of the spiritual needs of the human race, then his
-life is peculiar and unique. It cannot be classed with any other life.
-It cannot be measured by any rule used to measure other things or other
-lives. We propose to test this life by a principle said, by scientific
-men, to have universal application in this time.
-
-
-II.
-
-The doctrine of the correlation, equivalence, persistence,
-transmutability and indestructibility of force, or the conservation of
-energy has had vast influence upon the thought and life of our time.
-It has furnished a new opening through which to behold the nature of
-things. It has given to men a new working hypothesis and richer views and
-conceptions of the universe and its author.
-
-The tremendous advancement made in the material civilization of the
-present is due more to this than any other scientific doctrine or
-principle. According to Professor Balfour Stewart, there are eight
-forms of energy or force. The energy of visible motion, visible energy
-of position, heat motion, molecular separation, atomic or chemical
-separation, electrical separation, electricity in motion, and radiant
-energy. Now taking this earth as a complete whole, containing within
-itself all these forms of energy, and so isolated from the rest of the
-universe as to receive nothing from it and to add nothing to it, then the
-principle of the correlation of forces asserts that the sum of all these
-forces is constant.
-
-“This does not assert that each is constant in itself, or any other of
-the forms of force enumerated, for in truth they are always changing
-about into each other—now some visible energy being changed into heat
-or electricity, and heat or electricity being changed back again into
-visible energy; but it only means that the sum of all the energies taken
-together is constant. There are eight variable quantities, and it is
-only asserted that their sum is constant, not by any means that they are
-constant themselves.”
-
-For the purpose of elucidating our principle in the realm of nature, we
-will consider it as it applies to some of the useful forces whose effects
-we can measure and whose origin we can trace and determine.
-
-There is the force of conserved fuel. Away back in the carboniferous
-period of the world’s history, there grew immense forests, which in
-succeeding ages were turned under the earth, and, in the process of the
-years, were changed into coal and oil and gas. These have been treasured
-for untold ages in the mountains and in the bowels of the earth. Now they
-are brought forth by the applied intelligence of man, to turn his wheel,
-draw his car, cook his food, propel his plow, and to light his home and
-his street. The force in one ton of coal is capable of accomplishing more
-work in a few hours than one man could in a lifetime. All this force, as
-well as that contained in the growing forests of to-day, originated in
-the sun.
-
-There is the conserved force of food. This is found primarily in the
-grass, the wheat, the rice, the fruit, which grow in our fields and
-orchards. The lower animals feed on these, and through the process of
-digestion and assimilation, they are transmuted into blood and bone and
-muscle—thus furnishing man, who stands at the top and the end of the
-creative process, with a more refined higher form of food. But whether
-in the shape of grass, rice, wheat, or in the more refined form of
-animal flesh, these various elements of food are only so much transmuted
-sunshine. Before they ever adorned the surface of our fields, or moved
-in the lowing herd over the meadow, they were held in solution in the
-sunshine. The food, the fuel, and the animal life of our earth are all
-traceable to the sun.
-
-There is the conserved force of flowing water. This turns the wheel,
-spins the thread, gins the cotton, weaves the cloth, and grinds the corn.
-All the force that water possesses for the performance of work, comes
-from the sun. The warm rays of the sun, coming down on southern seas and
-rivers, causes the waters thereof to evaporate, and then it is carried
-on the wings of north-bound winds to a colder clime. There the diffused
-waters gather themselves into clouds and fall in rain to flow down
-the rivers, thus exchanging their energy of position, which they have
-obtained from the sun, for the actual energy of the turning wheel.
-
-There is also the conserved force of moving winds. By the aid of this
-ships spread their sails, and pass from continent to continent with the
-products of the earth. Again all the force the winds possess for the
-accomplishment of work comes from the sun. The rays of the sun come
-down with great intensity upon certain parts of the earth and heat the
-atmosphere. Into these heated places come the winds from colder regions.
-Thus currents and counter-currents are created. By putting the wheel
-of the windmill into these currents this force is converted into the
-ground wheat and the drawn water. Thus all the different forms of force
-displayed in the growing forests, the waving harvest fields, the flying
-birds, the lowing herds, the rushing railway train, the whir of the
-spindle, the ring of the hammer, and the pulsating blood come directly
-from the sun. The force, too, seen in all these physical, vegetable,
-animal, commercial realms, is the exact equivalent of what was poured
-into them from the sun. The earth contains no other force capital than
-what was paid over to it by the sun. It has issued no currency of its
-own, not even enough to run a watch, or to send the blood once around the
-body, or even to transport a piece of bread to a starving man. All the
-force our earth possesses is borrowed, and if we were to cease to borrow,
-we would be bankrupt in a single day. We are to remember, too, that by
-so much force as the sun has parted with to our earth, and to other
-worlds which look to it for supplies, by so much has its own force been
-decreased. If we knew how much force the sun had in the beginning, and
-would subtract from this amount all that it has given away to the present
-time, we might be able to form some estimate of its assets to-day.
-
-We know not what the sun’s resources are. We know not by what methods
-it has been replenishing its supplies of light and heat for ages past;
-whether by chemical combination, meteoric impact, or condensation; we
-only know by so much as it has in the ages past parted with, by so much
-less force it has to-day. That it has been able to supply our world and
-others like it, however, with heat and light and physical life for ages,
-is not at all strange when we remember what an immense ball of fire the
-sun is. It has a diameter of a million miles, in round numbers. Storms,
-which travel across our world at the rate of sixty miles an hour, would
-move across the surface of the sun at the rate of twenty thousand miles
-an hour. The flames of a burning forest, which on our world would rise
-one hundred feet in the air, on the sun would rise to the height of two
-hundred thousand miles. The sun, too, has enough force on hand to supply
-our earth and others with heat for untold ages yet to come, but unless
-its supply is replenished, the time will come when it will be bankrupt
-and nothing but a burnt out char in the heavens. This is so, because the
-sun is the center of that great natural realm, the universal law of which
-is the law of exclusiveness.
-
-In accordance with this law what the sun has in the way of force the
-other planets do not have, and what other planets obtain from the sun
-that body has forever lost. This is only another name for the law of the
-correlation of forces. This law applies not only to the force of the sun,
-but to all forces on this earth which come from that body. What one
-tree gathers into itself is at the expense of the general fund of force
-which goes to make trees. What one bird takes into his body is at the
-expense of all force which goes to make birds. What one man takes into
-his physical frame is at the expense of the general fund of force which
-goes to make human bodies. Whatever amount of force is contained in the
-cloud, in conserved water to turn the wheel, or in conserved electricity
-to carry the message, is at the expense of the general fund of force.
-
-According to the doctrine of the correlation of forces, the rising up of
-force in one place involves the subsidence of force in another place. The
-amount rising up, too, is the exact equivalent of the amount subsiding.
-When a rock falls from a church steeple the earth rises as much to meet
-the rock, in proportion to its mass, as the rock falls to meet the earth,
-in proportion to its mass. When a man shoots a rifle ball from a gun, as
-much force goes back against his shoulder as goes out through the muzzle
-of the gun. What the gun lacks in velocity it makes up in mass, and what
-the ball lacks in mass it makes up in velocity. When a pine tree is cut
-down and split into small pieces and put into an engine, just the same
-amount of heat is gathered from it that was garnered from the sun in the
-fifty years of its growth. This heat is also converted into an equivalent
-of steam, and this steam into an equivalent amount of mechanical motion.
-The sunshine, the pine tree, the heat, the steam, the mechanical
-motion, are only different forms of the same thing. Scientists of the
-materialistic school claim that this law holds good not only in the realm
-of the natural world, but in the mental and moral, as well. Prof. Thomas
-H. Huxley said, in a celebrated address in this country once, that a
-speech was only so much transmuted mutton. According to Prof. Alexander
-Bain, there are five chief powers, or forces in nature: one mechanical or
-molar, the momentum of moving matter; the others, molecular, are embodied
-in the molecules, also supposed in motion—these are light, heat, chemical
-force, electricity. One member of vital energies, the nerve force, allied
-to electricity, fully deserves to rank in the correlation. According to
-this same distinguished authority, mind is only a refined and sublimated
-form of physical force. In this view the great poems, paintings, and
-literature of the world would be only so much transmuted sunshine—a
-higher form of the same force we see manifested in the flying railway
-train. In the one case the solidified sunshine contained in the coal is
-transmuted through the furnace of the engine into mechanical motion; in
-the other, the heat contained in food is transmuted through the human
-brain into literature and art. Perhaps it might not be at wide variance
-from the truth to assume that the force, mental or otherwise, expended
-by men who spend their lives under the dominion of the natural law of
-exclusiveness, may be accounted for in accordance with the doctrine of
-the correlation of forces. Even mind, when earthly and low, is subject to
-the bearing of the law of sin and death, which is the scriptural name for
-the law of exclusiveness.
-
-
-III.
-
-It might be plausibly contended that the religious movement of the
-prophet Mohammed could be accounted for in accordance with the doctrine
-of the correlation of forces. It is to be remembered that the personality
-of Mohammed is no more the equivalent of the vast movement which
-has existed and exists to-day under his name, than the acorn is the
-quantitative equivalent of the immense oak tree which has grown from it.
-The acorn, plus all the oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and other
-forces of sky and earth which it caught and organized, is the equivalent
-of the oak tree. The soil and the sky contain oaks in solution. Through
-acorns these are precipitated into trees.
-
-The mental, political, and social atmosphere of Turkey contained the
-Mohammedan movement in solution before Mohammed was born. Through him it
-was precipitated into Koran, mosque, prayer, and worship.
-
-Mohammed relied for success upon the methods with which men ordinarily
-succeed. He appealed to men’s love of fame, of pleasure, of conquest, of
-power, of riches. He simply organized the latent aspirations, and hopes,
-and fears of his countrymen into a great kingdom, essentially secular
-and sensual.
-
-In accordance with the principle of the correlation of forces, it might
-be possible to account for the success of Buddha, Confucius, Cæsar,
-and Bonaparte. What we wish now, is to apply this doctrine, which the
-materialists claim is capable of measuring everything, from an atom to
-Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” to the life and work of Christ. Granting, as we
-must, that all physical force may be estimated by it, and even that the
-work and thought of men, in so far as they live under the natural law of
-selfishness or exclusiveness, may be estimated by it.
-
-What we desire to inquire is, if the life and work of Christ form no
-exception to its operation, as ordinarily regarded. Can we, in accordance
-with this principle, account for the life and influence of Christ on the
-assumption that he was only a man? Has no more force issued from the
-person of Christ than subsided when only a man named Jesus was crucified?
-
-We have seen how the forms of physical force in the shape of fuel, food,
-moving waters, and winds may be traced directly to the sun. Let us
-also consider some of the forms of spiritual force which are traceable
-directly to the life of Christ, and inquire if they may be accounted for
-as the force which comes from the sun may be, by the principle of the
-convertibility of force.
-
-
-IV.
-
-There is the conserved spiritual force of Christian literature. This is
-stored up in the Bibles of the world, in commentaries upon its text, in
-expositions of its principles, in books illustrating its meaning. If all
-the Bibles of the world, books written about the Bible—in favor of it or
-against it—and all the books which have been inspired by some truth or
-precept taught in the Bible, and all the books which owe their existence
-directly or indirectly to the Bible, were burned up, Christendom would
-be well-nigh without literature. All Bibles and all books and literature
-which have grown out of the Bible owe their existence directly to Christ.
-They have come as straight from him as the coal in the mountain has
-come from the sun. Much force has been expended in the writing of all
-these books and in printing them, binding them, circulating them. They
-represent millions of dollars, ages of painful, patient thought. Into
-them a marvelous amount of force has lifted itself—physical force, money
-force, thought force. We are to find its equivalent. All the force that
-has arisen in Christian literature has subsided at some point, and the
-amount that subsided is the exact equivalent of that which has arisen. It
-must be remembered, too, that distinctly Christian literature has not
-made its way in the world, as have the writings of Homer and Plato, by
-their affinity with man’s fancy. The wonderful interest which has ever
-centered around the Bible is totally different in kind and degree from
-that which centers around the works of Shakspere. Whatever there is of
-literary merit, of philosophic thought, or of poetic depth in the Bible
-is incidental.
-
-There is the conserved spiritual force of Christian art. The masterpieces
-in painting, sculpture, music, poetry, and architecture are Christian.
-The inspiration which produced Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” Handel’s
-“Messiah,” Powers’ “Eve,” and St. Peter’s at Rome, has all come from
-Christ. In the conception and production of these an immense amount of
-the most subtle, refined force has been expended.
-
-There is the conserved force of Christian money. This has taken the form
-of church buildings, buildings for education, for orphans, for the sick,
-for the wretched and the poor. There is not a great city in the world
-to-day without a Christian church edifice. They are the expressions of
-a great force, of which we are seeking to find the equivalent. They owe
-their existence directly to the person of Christ. The millions of money
-which have been spent in their erection have been because of love to
-him. They are as directly related to him as the oak tree is to the sun.
-If all these churches were burned down to-day, men would begin at once
-the erection of better ones to take their places. The conserved force of
-Christian money, then, which tends to lift itself into church edifices,
-is not exhausted in those which already stand upon the earth; but just as
-much as has lifted itself into brick and marble, and window, and dome,
-and pinnacle is ready to take the same forms if the necessity for them
-were laid upon the Christian world.
-
-There is the conserved force of Christian home life. The force here
-referred to is not manifest in the life itself, but in the form which
-family life has taken in the Christian world. There is hardly a home
-in Christendom to-day, but has been formed directly or indirectly with
-reference to Christ. Into those places where character is formed, where
-revolutions are started, where Wesleys and Gladstones are developed,
-where eternal issues pend, Christ has come quietly and silently to
-regulate, to dominate and control. To thus influence, regulate, and
-vitally touch homes, to thus determine their form, appointment, and
-character, requires a great deal of force.
-
-There is the conserved force implied in the inception and perpetuation
-of the Christian Calendar. Infidels, materialists, and atheists, in
-dating their letters, pay tribute to the character of Christ in the fact
-that they recognize he has ushered in a new era. Christ has claimed and
-held through nearly two thousand years one day out of every week to be
-devoted to his service. The day upon which he was born is celebrated in
-the hearts of men and in the arts of men. To change the world’s calendar,
-to inaugurate and make permanent a new date, to impel the world to set
-apart a day for his worship, to furnish the world with new festivals and
-holidays, has required, certainly, a vast amount of force. This we are to
-trace and determine, and we are also to find its equivalent.
-
-There is the conserved Christian force implied in the fact that Christ
-has won the hearts of men. To win the disinterested love of one man takes
-much force, more than most men have. To win the love of a state takes
-more. But to win and to hold, through the perturbations and revolutions
-of kingdoms and republics, the undying love of the best and purest men
-on earth requires an infinite amount of force. This point in Christ’s
-character greatly impressed the first Napoleon. Said he, “I know men.
-Christ is not a man. I have seen the time when I could inspire thousands
-to die for me, but it took the inspiration of my presence and the power
-of my word. Since I am away from men, a prisoner on Helena, no one will
-die for me. Christ, on the other hand, has been away from the world
-nearly two thousand years, and yet there are millions who would die for
-him. I tell you, Christ is not a man. I know men.”
-
-
-V.
-
-It would be impossible to recount all the institutions, books,
-civilizations, laws, discoveries, inventions, homes and hearts, into
-which the force of Christ’s life has for the past nineteen hundred
-years been lifting itself. As the sun expresses itself in the meadow,
-and lifts itself into the trees of the forests, so Christ has been
-embodying himself in the institutions, homes, and thoughts of men. The
-scientists say all force can be accounted for. When force has risen up
-at one point it has subsided at another: the amount rising up being
-the exact equivalent of that subsiding. Upon this principle we are
-seeking to account for all this force that, coming from Christ, has
-expressed itself in the domestic, social, political, and ecclesiastical
-institutions of men. More has risen than can be computed by human
-arithmetic, or compassed by human imagination, or comprehended by human
-thought. Where did it come from? Where did it subside? At what point
-did it disappear to rise again in such overwhelming volume, and such
-sweeping and far-reaching influence? We go back through eighteen hundred
-years. We are standing in Jerusalem. We hear conflicting reports of a
-strange, daring young man. At length he is pointed out to us. There is
-nothing remarkable about his appearance. He is a Jew. He was born among
-the poor. He is not noted for culture. He has no social position. He has
-no money. He has no political power or prestige. He has no army at his
-command. He has no philosophical system. He is connected with no academy.
-He is only thirty-three years old. His words are contained in no books.
-They are simply in the memory of his disciples. He is misunderstood. His
-own disciples do not know what to make of him. Finally he is arrested,
-and tried, and condemned, and crucified. He dies between two thieves,
-scorned, scoffed, buffeted, and friendless. Keep in mind the principle
-we are considering. All force can be measured. No more force rises up
-than subsides. Action and reaction are equal. We are seeking to account,
-in accordance with this principle, for the vast amount of force Christ
-has poured into the institutions and thoughts of humanity. Is this young
-man’s life, seemingly so insignificant and weak, the exact equivalent
-of all the churches, schools, colleges, arts, literature, homes,
-governments, sacrifice, heroism, good works, martyrdom, patience, love,
-and hope that have by general consent resulted from his existence in the
-world? If so, was he only a man? Multiply thirty-three years by poverty,
-toil, contempt, sorrow, and crucifixion, and you have one product.
-Multiply nineteen hundred years by millions of churches, schools, and
-homes; by millions of books, paintings, and poems; by social position,
-wealth, and power; by success, triumph, and conquest; by love, mercy,
-and truth; by a hold upon humanity unequaled, and by an influence on
-home and thought unrivaled, and you have another product. The question
-is: does one of these products seem to be the equivalent of the other?
-Does not the outcome surpass by an infinite degree the income? Is not
-the evolution out of all proportion to the involution? Has not a great
-deal more force risen up than seemingly subsided? Is there not much more
-power seemingly on this side the Cross than there was on the other?
-Manifestly and clearly Christ’s life and work cannot be accounted for by
-the principle of the correlation of forces.
-
-Mohammed’s success and disciples we can understand. He succeeded by the
-ordinary methods by which men succeed. He appealed to men’s love of
-fame, conquest, wealth, power, pleasure. He offered men, as a reward for
-their fealty to him, a great earthly kingdom, and such a heaven beyond
-the grave as would regale the senses, please the fancy, and gratify the
-appetites. He simply organized and applied the latent earthly forces
-already existing in his countrymen. His success is in line with that
-of Cæsar and Bonaparte. The kingdom which he proposed to establish was
-merely an earthly, sensual kingdom. His methods were carnal, the motives
-to which he appealed were sensual, and the hopes which he inspired were
-carnal. Christ, on the other hand, condemned men’s love of conquest,
-power, fame, riches, and pleasure. He made the conditions of discipleship
-to consist in the denial of self and in the relinquishment of all
-earthly hopes, gratifications, and prospects. “If you find your life in
-my kingdom,” said he, “you must lose it in this.” He proposed to build
-up a kingdom as wide as the world, and as lasting as eternity, without
-adopting a single method or utilizing any of the means ordinarily relied
-on for success. Not only did he propose a new kingdom, but to populate it
-with new men, motives, hopes, conceptions, and opinions. Hence, to come
-into his kingdom, men were to be made over. They were to die to self, to
-the world, to pleasure. So Christ’s work and influence in the world not
-only forms an exception to the principle of the correlation of forces,
-but here we have an unparalleled amount of force rising up when, to all
-human appearances, none subsided at all.
-
-
-VI.
-
-A poor young carpenter dies. He goes down in ignominy. Amid the jeers
-and contempt of the multitude, he goes down into the grave. But from
-that moment, commotion begins. Forgiveness of sin in the name of Christ
-is preached; disciples are won; books are written; civilizations are
-touched; movements are inaugurated; persecutions, bloody and relentless,
-are waged. The fires of hate are kindled; storms from all round the
-social, political, and religious sky gather, and howl, and empty their
-fury upon the new movement. Nothing impedes it; fire cannot hinder it;
-persecution intensifies it; death does not alarm it. Now, we submit, does
-not such a movement, starting from such a source, and moving out with
-such vigor, and becoming intenser and deeper as it is extended, form a
-remarkable and singular exception to the principle we are considering?
-Is there any rule among men by which it may be estimated and classified
-and labeled? Can any human, or logical, or philosophical formula or
-principle measure the multiform and widely diversified facts in this
-case? Does it not form an exception to all rules and human methods of
-measurements? Do we not augment the difficulties of accounting for the
-work of Christ by minifying him, and calling him a mere man? Is not the
-easier way to account for Christ’s work, to accord to him all that he
-claims for himself and all that his disciples claimed for him. He said,
-“All power is given to me in heaven and in earth.” If we accept this as
-true, we can account for his work. But in this view, we will see that
-his life was divine and one with the Father of us all. Then we will see
-that he was the Son of God, the Word made flesh, the incarnation of the
-divine mind and wisdom and power. It is impossible to account for the
-life and work of Christ by the principles with which physical force and
-merely human force and thought are measured. The sun is the center of the
-system of nature, a system destined to end. Any system, the center of
-which is gradually losing its force, cannot last. Christ is the center of
-a spiritual system totally different from the system of nature. By all
-the force the sun parts with to the worlds about it, by so much less has
-it. It is gradually losing itself, to find itself no more forever. Christ
-is pouring his force into the system of which he is the center, but by
-such a process he is not losing his force, but increasing it. By losing
-himself he finds himself. The universal law of the system of which he is
-the center, is the law of communion. The force he gives away comes back
-to him augmented by the personality of all who partake of it. Instead of
-becoming poorer by giving, he becomes richer. This great truth St. Paul
-saw when he said: “All things are yours, whether Paul, or Apollos, or
-Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to
-come, all are yours, and ye are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s.”
-
-
-VII.
-
-One life has appeared among men, then, that was all love. Jesus Christ
-is the only original, absolutely unselfish life that has been lived on
-earth. The saints have found the secret, and strength, and inspiration of
-their unselfishness and love in him. The love which matches and meets the
-illimitable nature of the human spirit is embodied in a life that cannot
-be measured by the ordinary rules and standards of men. The object of
-which hunger is the subject, is bread; the object of which intellect is
-the subject, is truth; the object of which will is the subject, is law;
-the object of which the æsthetic sense is the subject, is beauty; the
-object of which the spiritual nature is the subject, is Jesus Christ. The
-spirit of man which has for its correlate in time, the race, has for its
-correlate in eternity, the life of one in which is summed up all power,
-all truth, all law, all beauty, and all love. As the embodiment of love
-the human spirit finds in Christ the climate and the conditions exactly
-adapted to its own realization. The plan and pattern, the invisible
-framework and ideal of every man’s life is Christian. To be an oak is to
-be a perfect acorn, to be an apple is to be a complete flower, to be a
-Christian is to be a complete man.
-
-
-
-
-_IMMORTALITY._
-
-
- “How does the rivulet find its way?
- How does the floweret know its day
- And open its cup to catch the ray?
-
- “I see the germ to the sunlight reach,
- And the nestling knows the old bird’s speech.
- I do not know who is there to teach.
-
- “I see the hare through the thicket glide,
- And the stars through the trackless spaces ride.
- I do not see who is there to guide.
-
- “He is eyes for all, who is eyes for the mole,
- See motion goes to the rightful goal.
- O God! I can trust for the human soul.”
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VII.
-
-THE PERMANENCE OF THE COMPLETED LIFE OF MAN.
-
-
-Back of the movement which began in creation and culminated in man, we
-posited the mind of a self-conscious, self-determining, self-active,
-personal God. Necessity was upon us to assume a first principle of some
-kind, and it seemed proper to have one large enough to account for the
-facts we were about to consider. The first principle Thales set up was
-water. In water he saw the origin of all and the end of all. But all that
-came out of water must, in the end, find its death in water. With nothing
-but a vast ocean to start with, we shall find, at the conclusion, nothing
-more articulate and rational than an infinite expanse of water to end
-with.
-
-Herbert Spencer, “the heir of all the ages in the foremost files of
-time,” took as the starting point of his philosophy the unknowable. In
-the selection of a first principle, however, we think Thales, though the
-first philosopher who ever lived, had the advantage of him.
-
-Water is a definite and positive somewhat; the unknowable is an
-indefinite and inarticulate vacuity. With water for a first principle,
-the prospect is certain destruction in a general deluge. With the
-unknowable for a first principle, the prospect is sure imbecility in
-universal ignorance. It is better to be drowned in water than to have
-the light of intelligence put out in everlasting night. Mr. Spencer’s
-unknowable was a convenient receptacle into which to dump difficulties
-and troublesome problems; but, as a working hypothesis, it was not
-sufficient even to build the universe Mr. Spencer saw. In the process
-of constructing his system, Mr. Spencer gave to his unknowable nearly
-all the attributes which theologians give to a personal God. As we
-have already seen, when Mr. Spencer got through with drawing from his
-unknowable all that he had to have to give his system the order and show
-of reason, it was found that the unknowable part of the unknowable had
-about been scattered in the light of knowledge. For this same unknowable
-was found to have Being, Power, Activity, Causal Energy, and Omnipresence
-for attributes. Nothing more can come out of a first principle than what
-is contained in it. Out of water, nothing but water comes, and out of the
-unknowable, nothing but the unknowable comes. One can posit an acorn,
-under certain conditions of soil and sky, and get an oak; but the germ of
-the oak must be in the acorn, and the nutriment of the oak must be in the
-conditions before any oak can come out. It is the old truism, that “out
-of nothing, nothing comes.” No one ever attempts to account for anything
-without a first principle. The test of the reality and value of a first
-principle will be determined solely by its capacity to account for the
-facts which come out of it. It is because the unknowable fails to account
-for the facts of nature, and for self-consciousness, self-determination,
-and self-activity in man, who stands as the complete consummation and
-realization of nature, that it is not accepted as an adequate first
-principle.
-
-Matthew Arnold, in order to escape the objections which he had to
-taking a self-conscious, self-determining, personal God for a first
-principle, substituted “The Stream of Tendency, not ourselves, that
-makes for righteousness.” But this sentence, when analyzed, reveals the
-fact that Matthew Arnold’s Stream has about the same essential elements
-the theologian supposes to reside in God. A stream has a source, a
-direction, and an end. Here, then, we have cause, means, and ultimate
-object. It is also said that the stream makes for something; here is
-self-determination. It is said to make for righteousness; here is the
-attribute of Justice, and justice can only be predicated of a person.
-
-Given nature, with its elements, laws, and unity, and man as the being
-in whom the whole of nature is summed up, with self-consciousness,
-self-determination, and self-activity; the only first principle
-sufficient to account for the facts is a self-conscious,
-self-determining, self-active personal God. It is only such a first
-principle that is large enough to account for the number, and order, and
-drift, and collocations of the facts; and to such a first principle the
-number, and order, and drift, and collocations of the facts may be traced.
-
-If we see red and violet and blue colors appearing in the carpet on
-one side of the loom, we are warranted in assuming that red and violet
-and blue threads are entering the carpet on the other side of the loom.
-Nature is a marvelous loom. At first there are simple elements, then
-there are compounds, then there are plants, then there are animals. At
-last all the elements, as so many strands, with their manifold hues and
-variegated colors, appear in the life of man. Man is the harbor where
-all the freight, started on its stormy course at creation, comes to
-shore. Its matter takes majestic form in his body, its power lends itself
-as wind to his sail, as heat to his engine, as light to his street:
-its truth is arranged by the intellect into literature and science:
-its law is formulated into statutes, enactments, and constitutions:
-its beauty is built into oratorios and spread in radiant visions: its
-love is accepted and turned into tenderness, and sacrifice, and hope.
-Infinite personality at the beginning, self-conscious, self-determining,
-and self-active. Finite personality at the conclusion, self-conscious,
-self-determining, and self-active.
-
-If you call the process evolution, then no more has been evolved than
-was involved. If you prefer direct creation, then nothing is seen in the
-creature that was not built into him by the Creator. Either way, if a
-self-conscious, self-determining, and self-active man appears on one side
-of nature, a self-conscious, self-determining, and self-active personal
-God is, we may know, on the other.
-
-
-I.
-
-The importance of a correct first principle, and of a right idea of the
-nature of that first principle, cannot be urged too strongly. In the
-right solution of the question we are considering, everything depends on
-it. If we start with water, as Thales did, we will be forced to conclude
-that individual lives, like bubbles, will eventually fall back and mingle
-with the waves of the sea.
-
-If we start with the unknowable, as Spencer did, we shall be led to see
-that human spirits will lose themselves at death, as candles lose their
-light when the wicks are consumed.
-
-It is not left us, however, arbitrarily to assume such a first principle
-as comports with the particular theory of life it is our purpose to
-establish. The first principle that corresponds to reality is already
-implicit in the facts, the origin, and purpose, and end of which we
-wish to know. The law of gravity is implicit in falling bodies, and in
-the revolving stars. The sunbeam is implicit in the growing tree. All
-that happens when one posits a first principle that is not implicit in
-the facts he is considering, is that his first principle will fail to
-account for the facts. Matthew Arnold had a perfect right to assume as
-a first principle, “The Stream of Tendency, not ourselves, that makes
-for righteousness.” This looked poetic and impersonal, and in his esteem
-served him as a working hypothesis.
-
-It never seemed to occur to him that his principle implied the same
-elements and attributes the theologians regarded as uniting in God;
-the elements and attributes he was so anxious to get rid of. Herbert
-Spencer, with a theory to work out, and a particular system to buttress
-and bolster, devised and adopted a first principle that seemed to promise
-most to his peculiar views. This he had a right to do. But he had no
-right to take as a first principle the unknowable, with which to destroy
-the Christian’s God; and just as soon as he had accomplished this to his
-entire satisfaction, to turn deliberately and take nearly every attribute
-of the Christian’s God to bestow upon his unknowable. It is hardly to be
-supposed that Mr. Spencer, with malice aforethought planned the death
-of God in order to steal his attributes. The more charitable view is to
-suppose that at the outset his intention was to erect an absolutely new
-philosophic edifice, upon a new and original foundation. To do this, it
-was necessary to clear the ground of everything in sight. So in a high
-moment of philosophic self-confidence, he determined on the obliteration
-of all previous and time-honored first principles, that he might posit
-one of his own making and to his own liking.
-
-This was the destructive stage of his mental movement, and it did not
-occur to him that many of the elements he was clearing away in such
-wholesale fashion would be necessary to carry up his new philosophic
-temple. When he got through with the period of preparation, he had
-nothing to start with but a plain, simple, empty, unknowable. But it
-soon became evident that the unknowable must have some content, in order
-to support a decent and orderly structure. At this point he took the
-attributes of the Christian’s God, Being, Power, Activity, Causal Energy,
-Omnipresence, and filled up his empty unknowable with them. Then he
-proceeded with his work.
-
-
-II.
-
-In starting with a self-conscious, self-determining and personal God,
-then, as a first principle that accommodates and insures the immortality
-of the individual spirit, we are only beginning with what is implicit
-in the facts of nature and human life. Let it be clearly apprehended
-that the ground of the self-conscious, self-determining, personal God
-is thought. That the fundamental and first thing in this universe is
-mind. That the being of God is secondary to the mind, or thought of God.
-God has being, because he has thought, and not thought, because he has
-being. The trouble with the pantheistic system of Spinoza was that he
-looked upon God, first as infinite substance or being, while thought was
-only one of the modes of this being, and extension was the other. The
-root of all doubt and skepticism is to be traced to a confused notion of
-the nature of God. Many speak of God as the Supreme Being, and advertise
-by their language that in their esteem God is diffused nebulosity, or
-universally extended externality. There never was a skeptic in the world
-who had come to the rational and tenable position, that God is primarily,
-and fundamentally, and essentially thought. We may properly speak of
-his being, his wisdom, his justice, his truth, his love; but these are
-different determinations of his thought. God’s being is the externality
-of his thought. His wisdom is his thought devising means to ends. His
-justice is his thought balancing and regulating. His truth is his thought
-in realization. His love is his thought in sacrifice. “In the beginning
-was the Word.” A word is an expressed thought. “The Word was with God.”
-The realized thought or word was with God, the Eternal Thinker, or
-Thought. “God said, Let there be light, and there was light.” Light was
-thus the expression of thought. Nearly all materialism and pantheism
-look upon things as an emanation from something. Vapor emanates from the
-surface of a river, and is only the river in diffusion. But the universe
-does not emanate from God; it is the direct creation and expression of
-his thought. Potentially the universe was always in the thought of God.
-
-
-III.
-
-We have dwelt at length on the self-consciousness and self-determination
-of God, as these unite in him as an absolute personality, for the
-reason that the immortality of the human spirit finds its condition
-and its security here. If God is a person, and self-conscious,
-self-determining, and self-active, man is immortal, for in him the
-elements which constitute the essential nature of God appear. Man is
-a person and a spirit, made in the likeness and image of God. He is,
-therefore, as imperishable and indestructible as God is. He has thought
-and is therefore self-conscious; he has a will, and is therefore
-self-determining; he has power, and is therefore self-active; he
-maintains his identity through change, and is therefore a person. But
-the finite person finds his life through the infinite Person. He finds
-his knowledge by partaking of truth, the realized thought of God; he
-finds his freedom by the observance of law, the expressed will of God;
-he finds his peace by partaking of the life that was in Christ, the
-manifested love of God. As the fundamental and prior thing in the being
-of God is thought, so the fundamental and prior thing in the being of
-man is thought. His progress in the practical matters of life will be in
-proportion to his thought. His political status will be in proportion
-to his thought; his religious attainment will be in proportion to his
-thought. Schleiermacher said “Feeling is the source of religion—a feeling
-of dependence.” But one cannot have a feeling of dependence without
-having the thought of dependence. One cannot feel that he depends unless
-he thinks of himself as dependent. Matthew Arnold said that religion
-was morality touched by emotion. But there cannot be morality without
-the thought of some rule by which conduct ought to be guided. Even the
-African savage, who worships a snake, thinks there is something in the
-snake entitled to his adoration. Thought is the clearest self-explication
-of the human spirit. In thought it comes to itself and knows itself.
-Take thought out of the spirit of man, and you take out its essential
-nature. Its immortality, even were it possible, would then not be worth
-contending for. One had as well be blotted out, as to lose the only
-element of his spirit by which he is able to recognize himself as such.
-Looking upon thought as the center and kernel of the human spirit,
-we see that to deny the immortality of the human spirit is to assume
-that thought is destructible; and this is a flat contradiction, for
-destruction has no meaning, except in relation to thought. It is of the
-very nature of thought to be eternal. No thought ever dies, or can die.
-All the determinations of God’s thought are eternal. The mind of God
-has within it all determinations of thought; those past, those present,
-and those to come. Some of these determinations of the divine thought
-have taken the form of objects in the inorganic world, some have taken
-the form of objects in the vegetable kingdom, and some have taken the
-form of objects in the animal kingdom. The determinations of thought, of
-which inorganic things, trees, and animals were the expressions, are all
-eternal.
-
-It is of the nature of the things in which the determinations of thought
-took form to change and pass away. But the ideal patterns, of which they
-were only the temporary forms, are held in the mind of God forever. The
-house which expresses the architect’s ideal may be blown away, or burned
-up, but the ideal in the thought of the architect cannot be blown away or
-burned up. Now in man the determination of God’s thought is not expressed
-in a thing, but in a thought. Man, as God’s child, inherits, or comes
-through creation into the possession of thought, of mind, so that he is
-able to set up thinking—in his own behalf, and by the self-determining,
-self-conscious, and self-active power of his own mind. God as thought is
-his own object and his own subject, and man as thought is his own object
-and his own subject. God has set him up to housekeeping in the republic
-of thought.
-
-In the changes which take place in material objects, there is
-preservation of the species, but the loss of the individual. The object
-is an element and not a self. When it changes, it is by something
-external to itself, and in changing, realizes its nature. It is
-indifferent to change, as there is no central self that retains its
-essential identity in the midst of all change. The tree belongs to
-a higher order of existence than a rock. It is the expression of
-unconscious life. The animal belongs to a still higher plane than the
-tree. Besides appropriating food from its environment, as does the tree,
-it takes in the images of things, and lives a low order of sentient life.
-But in order that animals may take in the images of things through the
-senses, the things must be present before them. When the thing is gone,
-the image fades. The objects which stand around man in his environment
-pass into his consciousness through the senses. But when the environment
-changes and the objects are taken away, the impressions made by the
-objects remain. In this way man re-creates the universe for his own
-thought. The gurgling of brooks, the murmur of the sea, the sighing of
-the winds, the cooing of doves, he hears just as the animal does. But
-away from brooks, and seas, and winds, and doves, Beethoven throws into
-one of his symphonies all the notes that were ever on sea or land. He
-has within him the same kind of mind that expressed itself in all the
-notes of music, and he not only hears these notes, but he re-combines and
-reorganizes them in his great compositions.
-
-
-IV.
-
-The spirit of man is simple. It is an ultimate and indivisible unity.
-Death divides, breaks up, and disintegrates. The nature of the human
-spirit is such, however, that it cannot be divided, broken up, or
-disintegrated. We see it maintain its identity through the storms and
-mutations of eighty years. All things change about it. The very body
-that constitutes its temporary abiding place is torn down and rebuilt
-many times in the course of a long life. It advances in knowledge and
-experience; grows larger and richer in hope and love, but all its
-accumulations of thought and increasing wealth of life are stored in the
-same self-conscious, self-determining, personal spirit. In the evening of
-life the old man sits in the midst of his grandchildren and recounts the
-scenes of his boyhood days. All the waves of time contained within the
-sweep of three score years and ten have left their labels of drift and
-storm on the shores of his life. But they have not worn, or wasted, or
-altered his spirit.
-
-A rock wears away, or is crumbled to dust, when it is a rock no longer.
-A tree is cut down and split into cord wood and burned in the engine,
-and it is a tree no longer. In the furnace it is turned back into its
-original elements. In the fire it is altered or othered. The other of a
-tree is oxygen, hydrogen, etc. The bird in the thicket is shot by the
-heartless sportsman. It falls to the ground and its little heart ceases
-to beat. Soon its body is changed back into earth and air. The other of
-a bird is not a bird, but the particles which were organized under the
-process of natural law to form its body. The images which fell on its
-vision in the grove, faded away when the objects which caused them were
-removed. The sounds which came to its ears from here and there in the
-forest passed from its sense when the air that caused them ceased to
-vibrate. In the bird there was no inner self, abiding, self-conscious,
-determining, and active, that was capable of grasping and holding and
-recreating the visions and the notes which came to it. It may have
-had a sort of sentient consciousness, but it was not much above the
-consciousness of the sea, which holds the images of the stars in its
-dark blue waves, as long as they stand above it.
-
-By comparing man with the classes of individuals below him, we may see
-the respects in which he rises infinitely above them. And we may see,
-too, by this comparison, that immortality is not something to which
-man is to come beyond death, but something that he has already in the
-very constitution of the personal spirit. The same may be said of man’s
-body, that is said of the bodies of trees and birds, its other is the
-original elements which compose it. The life in a tree cannot other
-itself, because it is not conscious. The life in a bird cannot other
-itself because its consciousness is not self-consciousness. But in man’s
-body there resides a spirit that can other itself. Man, as a personal
-spirit, can project himself out of himself, and reason with himself and
-commune with himself. The self he projects out of himself is another
-self, but not a different self. The other of man’s spirit, then, is not
-something else, but it is the same spirit. Man is subject and object,
-active and passive, determiner and determined. Man, as subject, may
-externalize himself, and thus make of himself his own object, and by this
-self-separation enrich himself and advance within himself. Beethoven, as
-a thinking subject, objectified his thought in the symphonies, and thus
-regaled and thrilled his own spirit. By putting his own thought into the
-form of sound waves, it came back to him in the rain, and storm, and
-thunder, and sigh, and murmur of music. As a thinking subject Raphael
-objectified his own thought in the transfiguration, and thus had it
-come back to him in a vision as immortal as the spirit that created it.
-Michael Angelo objectified his own thought in the Last Judgment, and by
-this self-separation of his spirit, advertised its indestructibility.
-Homer, as a thinking subject, objectified his thought into the Iliad.
-This great epic poem has already lived, even on this side of the grave,
-where the order is change and decay, nearly three thousand years. Are we
-to conclude that a personal spirit that could deposit itself in numbers
-never to die, was itself subject to dissolution? This would be to have an
-effect greater than the cause. The sunbeam may deposit itself in a tree,
-and thus secure to itself life in embodied form for hundreds of years.
-But in order that this may be, the sun must send his beams to warm and
-nourish the tree all the days of its life. The Iliad has lived, however,
-nearly three thousand years, without the daily ministrations of Homer’s
-spirit. For a bubble on the sea of life to lift itself into imperishable
-form and then fall back to mingle with the waves and the waters, is to
-contradict the principle of the correlation of forces, which declares
-that action and reaction must always be equal. The expression a spirit
-makes of itself cannot be more enduring than the spirit itself.
-
- “The ship may sink and I may drink
- A hasty death in the bitter sea;
- But all that I leave in the ocean grave
- May be slipped and spared, and no loss to me.
-
- “What care I, though falls the sky,
- And the shriveled earth to a cinder turn?
- No fires of doom can ever consume
- What never was made nor meant to burn.
-
- “Let go the breath! There is no death
- For the living soul, nor loss nor harm.
- Nor of the clod is the life of God;
- Let it mount, as it will, from form to form.”
-
-When a train of cars stops suddenly at the depot, the energy that caused
-it to fly along the track is not lost, it is only transformed. When a
-tree is cut down, the energy that expressed itself in its trunk and
-branches is not lost, it will only take other forms. When a horse dies,
-the energy of which its life was the expression is not lost, it is
-transformed. When a tree or a horse passes from the living world into the
-world of inorganic things, the exact amount of energy in the body of the
-living tree or horse takes other forms. The amount on the side of death
-is equal to the amount on the side of life. If we consider man only as a
-physical organism, the same may be said of him. The amount transformed
-into earth and air, will be the equivalent of the organized fund of
-bone, and sinew, and muscle, turned over to death. If we thus estimate
-man, however, as we do a tree or a horse, have we taken into account the
-entire sum of assets that were in his possession during life? What of
-his thought, affection, and volition? When Kepler died, what became of
-the intelligence that discovered the “Three Laws,” which constitute the
-arches of the sublime bridge that spans the vast chasm between Ptolemaic
-and modern astronomy? When Laplace died, what became of the spirit that
-solved the problems of the Mécanique Céleste, by the aid of which the
-irregularities of the heavenly bodies were reduced to order? When Adams
-died, what became of the massive spirit that built in the depths of his
-own study the planet Neptune, with no other raw material to work from
-than the perturbations of Uranus? When Moses died, what became of the
-affection that expressed itself in the training and civilization of a
-race? When Jesus Christ died, what became of the love that sacrificed
-itself for a sinful world?
-
-When we begin to talk about human life, we find all that has made
-civilization is not physical. In the death of human beings, the energies
-of thought, and affection, and volition are not represented in the
-transformations which take place with reference to their bodies. Yet all
-the energies man has put forth that give any evidence of his record on
-the earth are such as come from thought, and affection, and volition. As
-these energies are not transformed at death, as are the forces of the
-body, they must continue. For to suppose they ceased at death would be to
-break the law of the correlation and the conservation of forces. If they
-are not transformed at death, along with the forces of the body, they
-must reside in another than the material world, and must not, therefore,
-be subject to its changes.
-
-
-V.
-
-The personal spirit, by its very nature, and tendencies, and
-possibilities, seems to be addressed to another than the tangible, local,
-and physical realm in which it finds itself while residing in the body.
-An irrepressible and wide-reaching something in the spirit of each man
-seems to impel him to triumph over space, and time, and change. In the
-accumulation of property, he would own the whole world. A very small
-portion of land would be adequate to his physical needs. But he would
-add acre to acre, till his private domain compassed the surface of the
-whole earth. Alexander, weeping because there was not another world he
-could get to conquer, advertises the immensity and illimitability of the
-human spirit. By the aid of instruments by which man has augmented and
-lengthened his power of vision, he has come upon stars rolling in the
-immensity of space to the circle of the thirteenth magnitude. He has not
-been content to look upon the stars in the vast depths of space, but he
-has photographed them, so as to behold their faces in his study. Back
-beyond the dim dawn of time, commensurate with the appearance of human
-life on earth, he has gone, to return with the chemical, physical, and
-stratigraphical history of the globe. By the aid of steam, he has made
-himself a cosmopolite, and through the application of electricity, he has
-made himself ubiquitous. Must we not posit a spirit correlated to the
-universal to account for this disposition to compass all things, to know
-all things, and to be everywhere? The tendency of the human spirit to
-compass and possess universality is seen, too, by its capacity to create
-language, in which it embodies all things and through which it expresses
-its thought of all things. If there had to be separate words for all
-individual things any but the most limited knowledge would be impossible,
-and such knowledge alone there would be if man was shut up to atomic
-sensations for the data of knowledge. But the mind, by its creative,
-combining power, and its active spontaneous insight, forms words which
-represent not only individual things, but classes and species of things.
-Man devises the word _oak_, and lets it stand for all the oaks in the
-world. He creates the word _humanity_, and puts into it the whole human
-race. He coins the word _vegetable_, and uses it to define the whole
-kingdom of plants. Thus he not only goes over the world and sees it
-directly, but he produces language manifold and complicated, and elastic
-enough to accommodate and contain the world, with all that is in it. This
-makes it possible for him to go round the world and see all its wonders,
-without leaving the place of his birth.
-
-He not only builds for himself the universe in language, so that he can
-contemplate its moons, and measure its suns, and sail its oceans, and
-climb its mountains in the silent precincts of his study, but he avails
-himself of sound and light, also, to give expression to universal ideas.
-He takes a few notes, and so combines and mixes them as to be able to
-touch all the chords of the universal human heart in one song. Michael
-Angelo put all the theology of all the books into the Last Judgment.
-
-Throughout the length and breadth of nature, there is economy of faculty
-and resource until we come to man. The fish has not a gill nor a fin too
-many, and there is not in the water where he lives any surplus or margin
-upon which he does not make levies for his life.
-
-The wings and tail and bones of the bird are all necessary to his poise
-and circle in the sky. The same economy is found in the atmosphere
-through which the bird flies. It is none too heavy and none too light.
-But when we come to man, we find that margin and surplus is the rule.
-He has a surplus of faculty and a surplus of resource, a surplus of
-endowment and a surplus of environment. He finds it necessary to make
-levies on hardly any of himself to get along in this world, at least as
-far as his natural wants are concerned. What would be the use for a
-carpenter to have all the tools necessary to build St. Peter’s at Rome,
-if his only work was to put up a tent for a week’s camping excursion in
-the woods? Why have an engine with a million horse power to run a flutter
-mill?
-
-With the animal there is changing endowment and changing environment.
-Limitations are clear and distinct within and without. But with man
-there is infinite environment. Within he has a self-determining spirit,
-subject and object, bound together in a simple and indissoluble unity.
-Surrounding this spirit, infinite in structure and capacity, is infinite
-truth, infinite law, and infinite love. Even Herbert Spencer said
-“Perfect correspondence would be perfect life. Were there no changes in
-the environment but such as the organism had adapted changes to meet, and
-were it never to fail in the efficiency with which it met them, there
-would be eternal existence, and eternal knowledge.” In the personal
-spirit and the elements which surround it, we have the two eternal terms
-of eternal correspondence. A self-determining spirit is essentially,
-structurally, and constitutionally imperishable. It others itself only
-through its own act. And the other of itself is itself. It is its own
-subject and its own object. When it goes out of itself, it is itself
-that goes out. It is a complete circle, an absolute and indestructible
-individuation. It is the final expression of God’s creative power.
-Through all the revolutions and mutations of time, this was the destined
-goal. The destruction of a human spirit would register the death of
-God. It is the direct expression of the spirit of God, and bears his
-own likeness and image, and has for the guarantee of its permanence the
-person of the eternal God himself.
-
-
-VI.
-
-Rev. Edward White of England, Dr. E. Petavel of France, and Dr. Lyman
-Abbott of America, have denied what Dr. Abbott is pleased to call
-facultative immortality. Immortality, in their esteem, is an importation
-from without. It is the claim of Locke, and Hume, and Mill, and Spencer,
-that knowledge is an importation from the realm of sensation. Their
-war was upon the knowing faculties. From the domain of philosophy
-the conflict has passed up to the plane of religion, and we now have
-the attack made upon the self-determining spirit. In the sensational
-philosophy, we have seen all things dissolved. It not only makes it
-impossible to rationally believe in God, but also in mind, and self,
-and external world. The sensational philosophy got the object of
-knowledge by a process that destroyed the subject of knowledge, so this
-irrational theory of Dr. Lyman Abbot would secure the object of life by
-the destruction of the subject of life. We know that the raw material of
-knowledge is found in the objective world, but unless the mind has the
-inherent combining, active power to take this raw material and organize
-it into an orderly system, then the individual can never know anything.
-There being in the mind no master of ceremonies, no director and referee,
-the tramp and vagabond sensations may wander in and wander out at their
-sweet will. They would come in with their own opinions and go out with
-their own opinions. There being no head of the house within, the tramps
-could have it all their own way.
-
-Knowledge, beginning out of the mind, would have its cause and end out of
-the mind. Beginning with matter, knowledge could be resolved back into
-matter.
-
-We believe the life in which the human spirit is to realize its nature
-fully and harmoniously was embodied in Jesus Christ, who was the word
-made flesh.
-
-But it is because the spirit of man is essentially indestructible, that
-it has power to take hold of this life and assimilate it. If it refuses
-this divine embodiment of life, it brings disorder, and confusion, and
-everlasting sorrow to itself, but not destruction. The self-determining
-spirit is in its structure and constitution up to the style of life
-offered it in the Son of Man and the Son of God. In finding the life that
-was in Christ, it finds its own life, and enters the path of everlasting
-progress.
-
-
-
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-<h1 class="pgx" title="">The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Making of a Man, by James Wideman Lee</h1>
-<p>This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
-and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
-restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
-under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
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-located in the United States, you'll have to check the laws of the
-country where you are located before using this ebook.</p>
-<p>Title: The Making of a Man</p>
-<p>Author: James Wideman Lee</p>
-<p>Release Date: June 7, 2021 [eBook #65545]</p>
-<p>Language: English</p>
-<p>Character set encoding: UTF-8</p>
-<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAKING OF A MAN***</p>
-<h4 class="pgx" title="">E-text prepared by MFR<br />
- and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br />
- (https://www.pgdp.net)<br />
- from page images generously made available by<br />
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-<p>&nbsp;</p>
-<p>&nbsp;</p>
-<table border="0" style="background-color: #ccccff; max-width: 80%; margin: 0 auto;" cellpadding="10">
- <tr>
- <td valign="top">
- Note:
- </td>
- <td>
- Images of the original pages are available through
- Internet Archive. See
- https://archive.org/details/makingofman00leej
- </td>
- </tr>
-</table>
-<p>&nbsp;</p>
-<hr class="pgx" />
-<p>&nbsp;</p>
-<p>&nbsp;</p>
-<p>&nbsp;</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_i"></a>[i]</span></p>
-
-<h1>THE MAKING OF A MAN.</h1>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_ii"></a>[ii]</span></p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_iii"></a>[iii]</span></p>
-
-<p class="titlepage larger">THE<br />
-<span class="larger">MAKING OF A MAN</span></p>
-
-<p class="titlepage"><span class="smaller">BY</span><br />
-<span class="smcap">Rev. J. W. LEE, D. D.</span></p>
-
-<p class="titlepage">NEW YORK<br />
-CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY<br />
-<span class="smcap">104 &amp; 106 Fourth Avenue</span></p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_iv"></a>[iv]</span></p>
-
-<p class="titlepage smaller"><span class="smcap">Copyright, 1892, by<br />
-CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY.</span></p>
-
-<p class="center smaller"><i>All rights reserved.</i></p>
-
-<p class="titlepage smaller">THE MERSHON COMPANY PRESS,<br />
-RAHWAY, N. J.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_v"></a>[v]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak">CONTENTS.</h2>
-
-</div>
-
-<table summary="Contents">
- <tr>
- <td></td>
- <td class="tdpg smaller">PAGE</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td><span class="smcap">Introduction</span>,</td>
- <td class="tdpg"><a href="#INTRODUCTION">3</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdc" colspan="2">I. BREAD.</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td><span class="smcap">The Provision for the Physical Nature of Man</span>,</td>
- <td class="tdpg"><a href="#BREAD">39</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdc" colspan="2">II. POWER.</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td><span class="smcap">The Provision for the Social Nature of Man</span>,</td>
- <td class="tdpg"><a href="#POWER">83</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdc" colspan="2">III. TRUTH.</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td><span class="smcap">The Provision for the Intellectual Nature of Man</span>,</td>
- <td class="tdpg"><a href="#TRUTH">137</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdc" colspan="2">IV. RIGHTEOUSNESS.</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td><span class="smcap">The Provision for the Moral Nature of Man</span>,</td>
- <td class="tdpg"><a href="#RIGHTEOUSNESS">203</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdc" colspan="2">V. BEAUTY.</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td><span class="smcap">The Provision for the Æsthetic Nature of Man</span>,</td>
- <td class="tdpg"><a href="#BEAUTY">253</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdc" colspan="2">VI. LOVE.</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td><span class="smcap">The Provision for the Spiritual Nature of Man</span>,</td>
- <td class="tdpg"><a href="#LOVE">293</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdc" colspan="2">VII. IMMORTALITY.</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td><span class="smcap">The Permanence of the Completed Life of Man</span>,</td>
- <td class="tdpg"><a href="#IMMORTALITY">335</a></td>
- </tr>
-</table>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_vi"></a>[vi]</span></p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_1"></a>[1]</span></p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_2"></a>[2]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="INTRODUCTION"><i>INTRODUCTION.</i></h2>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="blockquote">
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">“My God, I heard this day</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">That none doth build a stately habitation</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">But he that means to dwell therein.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">What house more stately hath there been,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Or can be, than is Man? to whose creation</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">All things are in decay.</div>
- </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">“Man is all symmetry</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Full of proportions, one limb to another,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And all to all the world besides;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Each part may call the farthest brother,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">For head with foot hath private amity,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And both with moons and tides.</div>
- </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">“For us the winds do blow,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">The earth doth rest, heaven move, and fountains flow:</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Nothing we see but means our good</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">As our delight or as our treasure,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">The whole is either our cupboard of food,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Or cabinet of pleasure.</div>
- </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">“Since then, my God, thou hast</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">So brave a palace built. Oh, dwell in it,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">That it may dwell with thee at last!</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Till then afford us so much wit</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">That as the world serves us, we may serve thee</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And both thy servants be.”</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_3"></a>[3]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="NATURE_AND_MAN">NATURE AND MAN.</h2>
-
-</div>
-
-<p>The meaning of creation is not understood
-till dust stands erect in a living man.
-That a great purpose was present from the
-beginning, directing and controlling, there
-can be no doubt. It presided over the
-first nebulous mist that floated out to take
-form in the foundations of the earth. It
-measured and weighed the matter and
-force necessary to form the globe. It determined
-the elements required to do the
-work lying through the years before it. It
-assigned to them their laws, specific gravities
-and affinities, and appointed, beforehand,
-the combinations and collocations
-they were capable of making.</p>
-
-<p>But not till the atoms throbbed in a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_4"></a>[4]</span>
-human brain and beat in a human heart,
-did the purpose, which had through the
-ages run, stand out, defined and justified.
-Then it was that the intention underneath
-the drift of the ages spelled itself out in
-the unity of thought, the freedom of choice,
-and the capacity for love, potential in the
-intellect, will, and heart of the first man.
-He was the realization of an ideal, which
-gave meaning to the long periods of preparation.
-As the final expression of the
-creative process, he was at once the interpreter
-and the interpretation of all that
-had gone before.</p>
-
-<h3>I.</h3>
-
-<p>Writers of a certain school have sought
-to minify man’s place in nature. They say,
-as Dr. Joseph Leconte well declares, that
-he is very closely connected with, and forms
-a most insignificant part of, nature—that he<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_5"></a>[5]</span>
-has no kingdom of his own, but belongs to
-the animal kingdom; that in the animal kingdom
-he has no department of his own, but
-belongs to the department of the vertebrates—along
-with birds, reptiles, and fishes;
-that in the department of the vertebrates
-he has no privileged class of his own, but
-belongs to the class of the mammals, along
-with four-footed beasts; that in the class
-of mammals he has no titled order of his
-own, but belongs to the order of primates,
-along with monkeys and baboons. His
-conscience is but the resultant of fear and
-instinct, slowly deposited through the years
-of his evolution. Its imperiousness is self-constituted.
-Its scepter it has usurped,
-and, from the exhalations of its own rising
-cowardice, it has woven the purple robes
-which constitute the badge of its authority.
-His morality consists of rules imposed by
-his own prudence, and which have no sanctions
-beyond the opinions of his class or tribe.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_6"></a>[6]</span>
-His religion is determined by the physical
-conditions which surround his life—his
-geographical situation, the nature and configuration
-of his soil, his climate, and his
-food. Thus man is simply a natural product,
-while the civilization which he has
-produced is as much determined by the
-physical conditions surrounding his life, as
-the leaves and dates of the palm are determined
-by the physical conditions surrounding
-that tropical tree. The hopes and the
-trials, the courage and the sacrifice of the
-best men, as well as the ambitions and motives
-of the worst, are put on a level with
-the damps and winds. The one class is entitled
-to no more credit for what is noble
-and heroic, than is rain for nourishing the
-crops; while the other deserves no more
-rebuke for what is base and ignoble, than
-the lightning for striking the Church and
-killing the people. The love which expresses
-itself in monuments to commemorate<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_7"></a>[7]</span>
-the deeds of the good and the great,
-and the condemnation which lifts itself into
-jails to confine the criminal and the outlaw,
-have, in the last analysis, the same meaning.
-There is no sacred significance or obligations
-rooted in divine sanctions, in either
-the monuments or the jails. Both are but
-fickle phases of the passing spirit.</p>
-
-<p>The convictions of Moses, reproducing
-themselves in the government, laws, literature,
-morality, and religion of a great people,
-conserving them through the ages as
-examples of order and health, have no more
-meaning than the sap which rises in some
-monarch of the forest, to express itself in
-leaves and fruit. The conceptions of duty,
-which nerved the heart and inspired the
-courage of the Apostle Paul, leading him
-to plant churches in Asia Minor, to become
-the seeds of modern civilization, were as
-completely natural as the rising of the
-waters of some mountain spring, to flow<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_8"></a>[8]</span>
-over silver sands to the sea. The music of
-Beethoven, the visions of Raphael, were but
-as the vapor in the light of the morning
-sun, beautiful, perhaps, as the rainbow, but
-going out with the setting day. Whatever
-of emotion or conscience they embodied,
-signified no more than the colors of the
-peach bloom, or the notes of the falling
-cascade. However esteemed the valor
-that risked life to break the reign of
-oppression and murder, it was but a varying
-form of the heartless ambition that
-sought in strength to make it prevail.
-The patriotism of Leonidas, giving up his
-life to save his country, and the insane act
-of Nero, swathing Christians in tar to light
-his feast, were forward and reverse movements
-of the same human spirit; both
-natural, and both as unmoral as the electricity
-that now strikes to destroy, and now
-burns the malaria to save. No difference
-is made between poison in the fangs of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_9"></a>[9]</span>
-snakes, and mercy in the hearts of
-men.</p>
-
-<p>Back of nature there is no purpose, and
-in its manifold combinations and adaptations
-there is no design. It is only a vast
-aggregate of unresting atoms, striking one
-upon another, and without intention and
-without purpose, forming pairs, clusters,
-and groups, and thus assuming the shapes
-we see. Why there happens to be order
-instead of chaos hangs on the uncertain
-turn of luck.</p>
-
-<h3>II.</h3>
-
-<p>If there is mind in the universe, and if
-there is purpose in the order and movements
-of the earth, then man is the culmination
-of that purpose, and with reference
-to him was the order constituted and the
-movements determined. If there is naught
-but matter and force, and these exist without
-any directing or co-ordinating mind,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_10"></a>[10]</span>
-then all things are without intention and
-without reason. There is nothing good or
-bad. Nothing is right or wrong. All
-things are reduced to a meaningless level
-of indifference. But matter and force bear
-witness to mind. Matter is here we know;
-and matter has not only form, extension,
-impenetrability, for its qualities, but indestructibility.
-Take the matter that enters
-into the composition of the earth. The
-amount of it is fixed and definite. It may
-be expressed in pounds weight. Since the
-beginning, not an atom has been added to
-it, or taken from it. Its presence here is to
-be accounted for. It either determined its
-own existence, and the exact amount, in
-pounds weight of that existence, or it was
-determined by some principle or power
-outside of itself, or within itself, called
-mind. If it determined itself to be,
-then it is intelligent, for self-determination
-and self-action are the essential characteristics<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_11"></a>[11]</span>
-of mind. Then intelligence is retained
-by being transferred from something
-called mind to something called matter.
-But it has never been claimed that matter
-is intelligent. Then it is not self-active
-or self-determining, and waits on mind for
-its existence and its movements.</p>
-
-<p>Matter as plainly bears testimony of the
-existence of mind, as to the existence of itself.
-It is easier to believe that the earth
-has taken the globular form and the circular
-motion by the determinations of
-mind, than to believe that through its own
-determinations it has assumed a circumference
-of twenty-five thousand miles, and
-the regular task of wheeling on its axis
-every twenty-four hours.</p>
-
-<p>Not only is it impossible to account for
-the exact amount of matter making up the
-earth’s size and weight, without assuming
-the power of a co-ordinating, determining
-mind; but a still greater task is upon us,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_12"></a>[12]</span>
-to account for the sixty odd original elements,
-out of which all things in nature
-are formed without mind. These elements
-differ in quantity, quality, specific
-gravity, and affinity. What determined
-their number, their tendencies, and affinities?
-Why something more than sixty;
-no more, no less? Why so much of some,
-so little of others? We must either conclude
-that they determined themselves—that
-they held a convention before they
-existed, and resolved upon taking form
-and motion, or else we must believe that
-they were determined by some power,
-other than themselves—by mind. If by
-their own motion, oxygen, and iron, and
-gold are what they are; then the elements
-have the power of self-action and self-determination,
-and are therefore intelligent.</p>
-
-<p>The collocations these elements form
-are more difficult still to be accounted for<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_13"></a>[13]</span>
-without the agency of mind. Figures
-piled up to the sun are not able to express
-the possible combinations they are capable
-of assuming. The possible combinations
-of even twenty-four letters of the alphabet
-could not be expressed in literature, filling
-the world with books. Much greater
-must be the number of combinations of
-the original elements—the alphabet of
-creation. It is to be remembered, too, that
-they disagree on more of their sides than
-they agree. They are by no means
-equally congenial. Friendships and unions
-between them are formed in accordance
-with the most exact rule and affinity.
-Does it not seem, then, that combinations
-formed by chance would be mutually
-incompatible, neutralizing, and destructive?
-Would they not forever ferment
-in ungoverned chaos? Yet we see them
-dwelling together in the utmost unity, like
-seeking like, and in the bonds of law and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_14"></a>[14]</span>
-harmony, uniting in compound, mineral,
-vegetable, animal, and the body of man
-himself.</p>
-
-<p>Were there as many of the letter <i>a</i>, as
-there are atoms of oxygen; and as many
-of the letter <i>b</i>, as there are atoms of hydrogen;
-and were the letters of the alphabet
-to be increased in proportion to their use,
-until they should equal the atoms of all
-the elements which enter into the composition
-of the globe; how long would it take
-these letters, stirred by some force like the
-winds, to assume the form of such a poem
-as Paradise Lost? We cannot believe that
-all these letters, stirred by an unseen force
-through infinite ages, would ever form a
-sensible verse of poetry, or a rational verse
-of prose. It is as difficult to understand
-how the letters of the alphabet could ever
-get into the rhythm of Paradise Lost, without
-Milton’s mind, as to understand how
-unconscious elements took the form of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_15"></a>[15]</span>
-mountain, sea, grove, and globe; round,
-articulate, and law abiding, without a great
-co-ordinating mind.</p>
-
-<p>The physical forces and energies bear
-indubitable testimony to the existence of
-mind, not only outside of themselves, but
-in themselves and through themselves.
-We have the force of gravitation, the
-power which bodies have of attracting one
-another in proportion to their mass, and
-inversely as the squares of their distance;
-in other words, that power which bodies
-have of getting up mutually aggregative
-motion, unless prevented by some other
-power of an opposite nature. A body suspended
-in the air is attracted toward the
-earth by the force of gravitation. A
-lump of sugar held over a cup of tea,
-attracts into itself the water of the tea
-cup. This is done by the force known as
-capillarity. A piece of iron left exposed
-attracts the particles of oxygen in the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_16"></a>[16]</span>
-atmosphere. This is done by the force
-known as chemical affinity. Why do bodies
-attract one another in proportion to
-their mass and inversely as the squares of
-their distance? Why does a lump of sugar,
-held close over a cup of water, attract the
-particles of water into itself? Why does
-a piece of iron in the atmosphere attract to
-itself the oxygen? We are told it is because
-of gravitation, capillarity, and chemical
-affinity. How happens it that these
-forces have methods of action known as
-gravitation, capillarity, and chemical affinity?
-They either determined themselves
-to have them and to act in accordance with
-them, or else some power other than themselves
-determined these methods of action
-for them.</p>
-
-<p>The truth is, gravitation, capillarity, and
-chemical affinity are but terms we use to
-define the operations of mind. To name a
-force and to find the formula in accordance<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_17"></a>[17]</span>
-with which it works, is not to determine
-the origin of its source. And because we
-have, by observation and experiment, found
-out the methods and the measures of the
-mind’s working, is no good reason why we
-should read mind out of the process altogether.
-This is to mistake names for
-causes; and to suppose when one learns
-how a force acts, that he has also learned
-what it is that acts.</p>
-
-<p>A contemporary of Shakspere might
-have observed the poet so closely in his
-home at Stratford-upon-Avon, as to be able
-to give to the world a detailed and exact
-account of his habits of thought and
-hours of study; but this would not have
-kept the intelligent part of mankind from
-believing that a great mind had embodied
-itself in the immortal plays of Shakspere.</p>
-
-<p>Heat, electricity, light, and magnetism
-must also be expressions of mind, for the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_18"></a>[18]</span>
-same reason that matter is an expression of
-mind. To believe them self-determined, is
-to believe them rational and intelligent.
-This has never been claimed, hence our
-only way of accounting for their existence
-is to regard them as the determinations of
-mind. We see them, day by day, lending
-themselves to the uses and devices of man’s
-thought, and expressions of thought they
-must be.</p>
-
-<h3>III.</h3>
-
-<p>This whole subject resolves itself into
-the question, Which is fundamental and
-prior, mind or matter? If mind is fundamental
-and prior, then there is design,
-intention, and purpose in nature. If
-matter is first and fundamental, there
-is no such thing as design, intention,
-or purpose anywhere. If mind is first
-and fundamental, then man is the
-end and aim of creation, for in him the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_19"></a>[19]</span>
-mind that formed the earth finds a companion
-and an interpreter. If matter is first
-and fundamental, then the earth is as much
-for crocodiles and wolves, as for men, and
-the life of a human being is no better than
-that of a lizard. If matter is fundamental,
-it were better to be a crocodile or an elephant
-than to be a man, for they have
-more of the fundamental stuff of the universe
-in their bodies; and their brains
-generate none of that subtle something
-called <i>mind</i>, which perpetually asks questions
-that have no answer, and cherishes
-beliefs that have no foundation. If matter
-is fundamental, then we should trust our
-faculties, in proportion as they are animal,
-and deny them in proportion as they are
-mental. Then the Neros and the Caligulas
-were more rational in their sins, than the
-Luthers and the Wesleys in their virtues.
-By following their lusts, the former found
-pleasure, of a low order of course, but in<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_20"></a>[20]</span>
-the realm of the real; the latter, following
-their convictions, found pleasure, of a
-higher order it may be, but it was in a
-false and unreal domain. It were better to
-be true to the facts on the plain of the appetites,
-than to be the silly victims of
-fraud on the plain of the conscience and
-the affections. But it is impossible that
-men have been true as they have been degraded,
-and false as they have been pure.
-The design and purpose which has been
-apparent in nature, and which men have
-felt in conscience approving the right and
-condemning the wrong, must be there. To
-eliminate them, or to reason them away, is
-to bring mental confusion, and to take
-from the conviction and thought, which
-have made civilization, the principles on
-which they reposed, and by which they
-were inspired.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_21"></a>[21]</span></p>
-
-<h3>IV.</h3>
-
-<p>Man has no deeper and surer impression
-than that the world belongs to him
-and was made for him. It is deepened
-year by year, too, as he sees the relations
-he sustains to it increase. No
-more certainly are the walls, roof, and floor
-of a house related to the comfort and protection
-of the family, than are the elements,
-forces, and seasons of nature related to the
-well-being and civilization of man. Mountain
-and sky, meadow and forest, the past
-and the present are permeated with the
-thought, or idea, of man, whether in the
-first stages of progress, keeping beasts at
-bay with sling or stone, or at a more advanced
-period, tunneling the rivers and
-digging down the mountains. Young or
-old, child or man, nature stands ready to
-serve him. Water from her skies flows
-through his veins to and from his beating<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_22"></a>[22]</span>
-heart. Trees and shrubs and herbs minister
-to his pleasure and his ills. Rocks, and
-timber, and steel lend themselves to his
-service for house, hatchet, or chisel. When
-he ascends sufficiently in the grade of civilization
-to give expression to his conceptions
-of beauty, he finds the colors in the
-ores under his feet to embody his visions.
-Would he illuminate his humble home at
-night, there is the pine with its light-giving
-tar. Does he live amid the plains, where
-the pine does not grow, there is the ox
-with his tallow ready to be made into candles.
-Does he live on the coast, away
-from the ox or the pine, there is the whale
-with his oil. Does he want a better light
-than pine, or tallow, or oil can give, there
-are the coal beds, with their sunshine laid
-up for his use for thousands of ages. Does
-he wish to turn night into day, and make
-his streets glow with the radiance of the
-stars, there is electricity to be drawn from<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_23"></a>[23]</span>
-its wide, mysterious fields, to serve his
-growing desire. Would he cross the sea,
-the winds lie ready to fill his canvas and
-draw him from continent to continent.
-Are the winds too slow, there is the heat,
-stored in the mountains, ready to move his
-engine and drive his wheel. Does he wish
-to make himself ubiquitous, and send a
-message across the sea, before a ship could
-get out of port, there waits on him again
-the mysterious lightning.</p>
-
-<p>Nature teems with elements and forces
-to wait on man’s every thought, to gratify
-his every desire, and to respond to his
-every aspiration. With all her wealth she
-surrounds him, and in ten thousand ways
-invites him to use it. The naturalist
-Guyot said the hand of man prefigures his
-destiny as an intelligent worker. So the
-form of all continents and islands, the outlines
-of all seas and coasts, contain the
-idea of the human family. At a time,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_24"></a>[24]</span>
-geologically about the same, the surface
-conditions of the earth were prepared for
-the advent of man. The great Himalaya
-Mountain range was lifted up to prepare
-an embosoming plain to serve as a cradle
-for the human race. The long chain of
-mountains running through the whole
-length of the North and South American
-continents was raised to prepare the way
-for civilization on this side of the sea.
-When the ocean beds were dug out and
-the waters called off from a part of the
-earth’s surface; when the mighty peaks
-and the majestic turrets of the mountain
-chains were lifted into the sky; when the
-encompassing atmosphere was filled with
-all life-replenishing elements and wrapped
-about all oceans and shores; when the
-poisonous forces destructive of man’s life
-were locked up in soils and rocks; when
-the meadows were sown with grasses, and
-the hospitable arms of the trees were<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_25"></a>[25]</span>
-loaded with fruit, then, upon the earth,
-adorned and ready for his coming, man appeared.</p>
-
-<h3>V.</h3>
-
-<p>Considered as an embodiment of
-thought, man is the only creature who can
-interpret Nature. The ideas and principles
-that fill his great books were gathered
-from a study of her secrets and processes.
-The first books on geology, giving the history
-of the earth, its upheavals, changes,
-and transformations, were written in the
-rocks, sands, coal-beds, and shells of the
-primal ages. The first books on chemistry
-were written in the shape, sizes, affinities,
-and specific gravities of the atoms which
-enter into the composition of all natural
-bodies. The first books on arithmetic, by
-the knowledge of which man learns to
-divide and conquer nature, were written in
-the qualitative relations and movements of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_26"></a>[26]</span>
-matter. The first books on astronomy
-were written in the orbits and movements
-of the heavenly bodies. The first books on
-zoölogy were written in the structure and
-habits of the lower animals. The books
-that fill our libraries are but transcripts
-from the original volumes written in rocks,
-seas, flowers, and skies. Man is the only
-being who can read and transcribe these
-wonderful volumes. They lie unopened
-and unknown till his interest is provoked.
-Their language carries no meaning till
-he comes to find it and to ponder it. The
-herds that low amid the Alpine echoes
-see, as well as the distinguished Tyndall,
-the great glaciers, as they press with
-slow and measured pace down the mountain
-side; but their meaning, and the law
-by which they move, is not known till the
-man of science comes. To him, they speak
-in awful and majestic terms. To the
-sheep in the meadow, the grass means<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_27"></a>[27]</span>
-nothing but food; to man, however, every
-blade has a message, poetic and beautiful.</p>
-
-<p>Considered as a home, this world was
-made for man; in a thousand senses, it was
-not made for any other creature. It is the
-home of the oyster, but its wants are met
-by a little basin in the sea. It is the home
-of the elephant, but a few acres of Asiatic
-jungle furnish the food and the conditions
-necessary to its life. It is the home of the
-bird, but give it a tree and a worm, and a
-small circle of sky to fly around, and it
-needs no more. But man needs it all.
-For his hunger, the foods and the fruits of
-its continents, oceans, and skies. For his
-thirst, the waters of its thousand rills. For
-his shelter and protection, all its woods.
-For his thought, all its order and law.
-For his ills, the tender ministry of all its
-minerals and plants. He is related to it
-all, and to be completely furnished must
-be able to use it all.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_28"></a>[28]</span></p>
-
-<p>Considered as a place of discipline, the
-earth is for man, for he is the only creature
-helped and advanced by discipline. The
-beaver cuts his tree and builds his dam
-to-day just as the beaver did in the first
-year of his existence. He has had the discipline
-that comes through work, but it has
-not improved him nor elevated him. In
-order that the bee may live, he must gather
-his honey and build his cell. This is discipline.
-But he never improves. He
-never grows in culture or skill. The bee
-that built his cell in the trees of paradise,
-and gathered his honey from the flowers
-that grew in the garden of Eden, knew as
-well how to construct a cell according to
-mathematical principles, and to pack it with
-honey, as the Italian bee of the nineteenth
-century, who stores his honey in a painted
-gum prepared for him by man.</p>
-
-<p>Monkeys in South America cross rivers
-by twisting their tails, thus making bridges<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_29"></a>[29]</span>
-of themselves. This is discipline and exercise
-of a complex and marvelous sort, but
-they devise no new ways of building
-bridges. They do not increase in knowledge
-or skill by their work. That he may
-gain the means of subsistence, man is under
-the necessity of work too. But his work
-is to him a means of growth and knowledge.
-His work has helped him forward,
-and secured to him culture and skill.
-Suggestions come to him, as he fells the
-forest, as he plows the field, as he plants
-the seed, and as he rows his dug-out.
-These suggestions he turns to account. He
-builds them into better axes for cutting the
-trees, into better plow-stocks for breaking
-the land, and into better boats for crossing
-the sea.</p>
-
-<p>By turning the suggestions he has received
-into better methods, into improved
-tools and machinery, he has come from the
-dug-out to the ocean steamer; from the pack-mule<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_30"></a>[30]</span>
-to the palace car; from the scythe-blade
-to the mower and reaper; from the
-stone and sling to the improved army gun;
-from the spinning-wheel to the cotton-factory;
-and from the foaming steed of the
-flying messenger to the electric telegraph.</p>
-
-<p>Because of the growth and improvement
-he has received through work, the tom-tom
-has long given place to the piano, and
-the tent to the modern home. Through
-struggle with nature, he has been piqued
-into a determination to conquer her, to ferret
-out her secrets, and master her processes.</p>
-
-<p>The forces that oppose him he makes to
-serve him. The river current, which forbids
-him to cross, he utilizes to ferry him
-over. He sets his sail in the wind blowing
-eastward and avails himself of its power to
-carry him westward. The waves that rise
-to engulf him he turns into steam to outride
-them. The winds draw his water, the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_31"></a>[31]</span>
-river saws his plank. The tail of the beaver
-is adjusted by nature to the mud he needs
-to cement his dam; his tooth is already adjusted
-to the hardness of the tree, so that
-he cuts it down by instinct and without
-thought. The eagle finds the air already
-under his wings when he would fly, and his
-talons already prepared to hold his food, or
-to grasp a limb in the forest. The fish
-finds itself in the beginning of its existence
-in an element ready to respond to its fins,
-and in the presence of food adapted to its
-life. The lower animals find themselves at
-the start in a world immediately adjusted to
-their needs, so that they have only to use
-their feet, their teeth, their horns, their claws,
-their wings, and their fins, to conquer their
-enemies and find their food. The animal is
-wholly governed by natural law, and hence
-has no history. He moves on nature’s
-level, and is adjusted to her plains, her
-forests, her seas, and her skies, without his<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_32"></a>[32]</span>
-thought or his device. Man is not related
-in the same outward, immediate way to
-clothing, food, and fuel. His understanding,
-it is true, corresponds to the scheme of
-nature, but he must grow into this by
-study, by insight, by hints, by the use of
-faculties the lower animals do not possess.
-As long as he remains on the plain
-of the tiger and panther, and emulates their
-stealthy step to creep upon his prey, or his
-human foe, like them, he has no history.</p>
-
-<p>The savage, perhaps, did master the mystery
-of the dug-out and the birch-bark
-canoe, but he had no place for his archives
-but a hole in the ground, and no experience
-but such as died with him. Man’s history
-begins with the attempt to conquer Nature.
-The contribution that Nature makes to
-human civilization is that she sets herself
-against his inward energies, as if to call
-them out. She puts limitations about him,
-that he may be prompted to rise above<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_33"></a>[33]</span>
-them. The fury and storm of the sea provokes
-his ingenuity to express itself in the
-steamship. The peril to life and fortune
-contained in the lightning’s flash, begets
-the steel rod that disarms it. The distance
-between the wheat that grows in one part
-of the globe and the need for bread in another,
-leads to the discovery of a method
-of transportation that obliterates it. Civilization
-is the expression that man has made
-of himself in his attempts, through thought
-and will, to effect the conquest of Nature.
-This witnesses to the peculiar and magnificent
-place which alone belongs to him
-in nature.</p>
-
-<p>It may be true that he has no kingdom
-of his own, no privileged class of his own,
-and no titled order of his own; but it can
-hardly be disputed that he has a history of
-his own. This history, written in the dim
-glories of vast empires, in the rush of splendid
-cities, in the age-long conflict between<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_34"></a>[34]</span>
-good and evil, in the undying creed of
-martyred faith, in the hope, fidelity, trial,
-agony, triumph, and self-sacrifice of the
-human race, bears witness to the fact, either
-that the earth was made for man, or else
-that he is the only creature upon it capable
-of subduing it, transforming it, recreating
-it, and appropriating it. If man is only a
-natural product, the powers have certainly
-been engaged in a marvelously intelligent
-and complicated sort of conspiracy to advance
-his interests and to serve his dominion.</p>
-
-<p>Nothing but what we have been accustomed
-to regard as design, intention, purpose,
-is sufficient to account for the fact,
-that the scheme of nature so completely
-corresponds to the understanding of man
-as to make it possible for him to command
-and claim all her possessions for his own.</p>
-
-<p>Men will never accept such a happy
-coincidence as the work of chance. They<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_35"></a>[35]</span>
-will, by the very structure of their minds,
-believe that the scheme and the understanding,
-which, through the process of
-struggle and trial, grows into it, were intended,
-by the Great Author of both, the
-one for the other.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_36"></a>[36]</span></p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_37"></a>[37]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="BREAD"><i>BREAD.</i></h2>
-
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_38"></a>[38]</span></p>
-
-<div class="blockquote">
-
-<p>“The power that Greece had to throw out light is
-marvelous, even now that we have the example of
-France. Greece did not colonize without civilizing—an
-example that more than one modern nation might
-follow: to buy and sell is not all.</p>
-
-<p>“Tyre bought and sold: Berytus bought and sold:
-Sidon bought and sold: Sarepta bought and sold.
-Where are these cities? Athens taught; and she is
-to this hour one of the capitals of human thought.</p>
-
-<p>“The grass is growing on the six steps of the tribune
-where spoke Demosthenes: the Ceramicus is a ravine,
-half-choked with the marble dust which was once
-the palace of Cecrops: the Odeon of Herod Atticus,
-at the foot of the Acropolis, is now but a ruin on
-which falls at certain hours the imperfect shadow of
-the Parthenon: the temple of Theseus belongs to the
-swallows: the goats browse on the Pnyx. Still the
-Greek spirit lives: still Greece is queen: still Greece
-is goddess. A counting house passes away: a school
-remains.”</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_39"></a>[39]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I.<br />
-<span class="smaller">THE PROVISION FOR THE PHYSICAL NATURE OF MAN.</span></h2>
-
-</div>
-
-<p>In the form of bread, using the term in
-a wide generic sense, matter passes into
-the service of man on the plane of human
-life. By regular steps it is lifted and refined
-and adjusted to correspondence with
-human need and comfort. In its raw and
-individual state, it is controlled by physical
-force. From this crude condition it is
-carried by chemical force to the order of
-the mineral kingdom. From this plane, it
-passes up through the agency of vital force
-to the vegetable kingdom. Through the
-power of vital force of a higher kind, it is
-advanced to the animal kingdom. Here it
-is ready for man, and yields itself to the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_40"></a>[40]</span>
-uses of his life. From the time that vital
-force enters the realm of nature, a process
-of assimilation begins. The plant assimilates
-the mineral, the animal assimilates the
-plant, and man assimilates the animal.
-Through regular gradations, matter passes
-up from the bottom of nature into the
-service of man, who stands at the top.
-With each move upward it gets associated
-with force of a higher kind. With each
-advance its range gets wider and its movements
-freer. In the form of bread, it is
-sufficiently refined and sublimated to be
-appropriated and utilized for food,
-for shelter, for raiment, by the immortal
-spirit of man. The necessity for food, for
-clothing, for shelter, creates commerce, and
-commerce accomplishes results far more
-important than the production and distribution
-of the temporal necessities of human
-life. It brings men together; it establishes
-relations. It is the wonderful institution<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_41"></a>[41]</span>
-which, early in the history of the race, began
-as a loom to catch up the separate threads
-of individual life, to weave them into that
-marvelous fabric called humanity. Ends of
-an infinitely higher order are realized by the
-production and exchange of the elements
-of trade, than the satisfying of hunger with
-bread, or the furnishing man with clothing
-and shelter. The higher ends are the
-essential and ordained ends. That we
-may understand what an important part the
-necessity for food has played in the progress
-of man, it will be well to consider the significance
-of the relations it first helped to
-establish.</p>
-
-<h3>I.</h3>
-
-<p>All power whatever, that distinguishes
-man from the brute, that in any respect
-contributes to his commercial, mental,
-moral, or human value, is due to union,
-relation, action and interaction among individuals.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_42"></a>[42]</span>
-In nature we may find illustrations
-of this truth. Sound, electricity,
-heat, and light, are forms of force which owe
-their existence to action, relation, interaction
-among material particles. They would
-never arise in a universe of unrelated
-elements. Their difference is due, not to
-the vibration of different elements, but to
-different rates of vibration among the same
-elements. Consequent upon certain terms
-of formal and quiet social intercourse among
-the molecules, there is sound. When they
-intermingle more actively and intimately,
-there is electricity. With a slight change
-in the method, but no decrease in the
-velocity with which they move, there is heat.
-When they go at the top of their speed,
-waltzing and swinging corners at an unthinkable
-rate, there is light. From varying
-relations and actions among material
-particles, we get the music which charms
-us, the means of communication which<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_43"></a>[43]</span>
-unite us, the power to do work
-which serves us, and the beauty which
-refines us. The unceasing play of these
-simple unseen elements made the fame of
-Beethoven, who threw their vibrations into
-symphonies; and of Morse, who utilized
-their speed to carry the news; and of Watt,
-who hitched their radiations to the flying
-train; and of Daguerre, who put their
-undulations to painting pictures. All
-forms of physical force may be traced to
-the union, relation, and vibration of material
-particles. The distance from atoms to
-men is well-nigh infinite, but the points of
-resemblance between the genesis of physical
-force and the genesis of social force are
-sufficiently striking to make it permissible
-to trace the analogy between them. By
-social force is understood all those forms
-of energy which men find themselves to
-possess by virtue of their relations to one
-another in organized social life.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_44"></a>[44]</span></p>
-
-<p>Commerce insures the union, and brings
-about the relations that make this force
-possible. It furnishes the conditions without
-which it could not be.</p>
-
-<p>A self-contained, self-included, insulated
-person does carry within the depths of
-his being the organs of the civilized man,
-but they are as completely out of sight and
-out of use as the harvests that sleep within
-the kernels of the mummy wheat. If it
-were possible for an individual to come to
-years of maturity, out of relations with his
-fellows, he would be more destitute than a
-brute. Such an one, growing up in the
-woods or on an island, with no associates
-but the squirrels and the birds, would not
-have the personal furnishments of the
-monkey or the fox.</p>
-
-<p>We can understand, too, by considering
-what man owes to his relations, how widely
-and completely he is separated from the
-lower animals. A thousand blackbirds,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_45"></a>[45]</span>
-living together in relation, are not different
-from a thousand blackbirds living apart
-and out of relation. A squirrel gains no
-element of squirrelhood by companionship,
-and loses no element of it in isolation.
-He may be taken from his nest as soon as
-he is born and never be permitted to see
-another squirrel, but he will be just as
-much of a squirrel, and know as well how
-to get the meat out of a nut, as if free in
-the forests with others of his kind. A
-mocking bird comes to the power of song as
-well in a cage, separated from other birds,
-as when fed and trained in the orchard by
-the mother-bird. The chords in his throat
-were set to music, and without teacher or
-praise, at a certain period of his growth,
-his song will ring through the house.</p>
-
-<p>The difference between a man brought up
-in some lone woods, out of all relation with
-men, and one brought up in a civilized
-community, is infinite. The lower animals<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_46"></a>[46]</span>
-get all they ever get by birth. No new
-gifts or powers come to them through companionship.
-They go unerringly to a
-certain destined end, whether they move
-in flocks or herds, or alone as individuals.
-Men, on the other hand, find themselves by
-coming together. Their organs sleep till
-waked by relation. By birth they can get
-nothing but the germs, the mere naked
-elements of what they are to become.
-Birth would be no blessing, but a deepening
-curse, but for what comes to the child
-through relation. Birthright alone is not
-worth a mess of pottage. Men often congratulate
-themselves on what they are
-pleased to term their individual rights and
-personal freedom. While men do have
-individual rights and personal freedom,
-it is always to be remembered that these
-belong to them because of the relations
-woven around them by the institutions
-of social life. The civilized man differs<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_47"></a>[47]</span>
-more from the savage, than the savage
-differs from the highest animal. Yet
-the lowest savage is infinitely removed
-from the highest animal, but solely in the
-possession of the germs of the attainments
-and the accomplishments which may be
-provoked and maintained by relation.
-Society alone furnishes the soil in which
-these germs can grow. The savage, alone in
-the woods, might secure for himself a covering
-of skins, but the cloth in which the
-civilized man clothes himself is possible
-only in social relations.</p>
-
-<p>With the commencement of human
-relations, the outlines of an absolutely
-new world come into view. Dim and
-vague at the outset, as the relations are
-simple and low. But as these increase in
-number, range, and degree, not only the
-outlines, but the far-reaching surface, the
-mountains, the rivers, the products, the
-sky, and the climate of a new world stand<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_48"></a>[48]</span>
-out clear, definite, and unmistakable.
-This new realm we name <i>civilization</i>. It
-is super-imposed upon the physical world,
-but is as distinct from it as thought from
-the molecules of the brain. Nature furnishes
-the basis, but social relations furnish
-the conditions of the human energy
-that has lifted itself into the mighty edifice
-we call civilization.</p>
-
-<p>All genera and species and families and
-individuals are so many forms in which
-the radiant energy of the sun has deposited
-itself. Playing with its heat and
-its light upon soil, sea, and sky, the sun
-has built the myriad organic forms we see.
-So all objects, interests, and laws embraced
-within the range of civilization are the
-forms in which social force, arising through
-relations, has deposited itself. Human
-language itself is an embodiment of social
-force. The grammars of different languages
-actually advertise the social status<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_49"></a>[49]</span>
-and condition of the peoples who used
-them. In the Chinese language we have
-no distinction as to parts of speech, thus
-showing that the national consciousness
-was arrested at the stage of paternalism in
-government. The ancient Romans put
-enormous stress upon the will. They formulated
-the laws by which men are still
-regulated in civilized social life. A hint
-of this we get in the Latin language, by
-the small use made of the pronoun. Ideas,
-too, are expressions of translated social
-energy. Nothing seems to be more insulated
-than the human brain, by the aid of
-which the mind does its thinking. Out of
-sight and out of touch, within the dark
-depths of its own mysterious home, it
-would appear to be shut up to absolute
-solitude. Here, at least, we would expect
-to find individual, independent work. But
-not so. No individual brain can think,
-only as it uses the brains of others in the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_50"></a>[50]</span>
-process. Homer’s Iliad is a poetic formulation
-of what all Greece felt. The elements
-of myth, thought, passion, which it
-contains, were all in the contemporary
-Greek mind. In committing this poem to
-memory, the Greeks were but storing up
-their own thoughts.</p>
-
-<p>Hegel, in thinking out his remarkable
-system of philosophy, used the brains
-of all the men who had preceded him in
-the difficult work of solving the problems
-of existence. Darwin saw much in nature,
-because, through relation, he was able to
-look through the eyes of all naturalists.</p>
-
-<p>All values, whether in soil, waterfalls,
-precious stones, or money, are forms of
-social force. Land in a great city sells for
-two thousand dollars a front foot, because
-millions of people, drawn by the powers
-of commerce, have come into fellowship
-upon it. Robinson Crusoe would have
-given all the money he had on the ship<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_51"></a>[51]</span>
-for a loaf of bread. The heaps of gold
-and silver in Wall Street are so valuable,
-because seventy millions of people are
-circulating around them.</p>
-
-<p>Moral laws are social products. They
-are not empirical, but fundamental, eternal,
-and essential. They inhere in the constitution
-of man. But it is only through
-relation that man comes to the recognition
-of them, as binding for conduct. Light
-and heat have their laws, definite and unfailing,
-but if natural particles never
-vibrated at a rate sufficient to create these
-forces, the laws would not appear. They
-arise along with the forces, and the same
-conditions which give rise to the forces,
-give rise to the laws. So moral laws
-accompany a certain degree of attainment
-and culture, only possible through relation.</p>
-
-<p>Religion itself, the highest and most
-sacred deposit of human life, is a product<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_52"></a>[52]</span>
-of social force. Whether we regard it as
-“modes of emotion,” as Lecky; or the
-“recognition of all our duties as divine
-commands,” as Kant; or as “awe in the
-presence of the mystery of an inscrutable
-power in the universe,” as Spencer; or as
-“the infinite nature of duty,” as Mill; or
-as “the immediate feeling of the dependence
-of man on God,” as Schleiermacher,
-it never arises outside the range of relation.
-Still, religion is something constitutional,
-inalienable, divine; but man would
-never be thrilled by its hopes, or soothed
-by its peace, did he not stand in vital relation
-to his fellows. The elements and raw
-material of religion are eternally present,
-but relation calls into exercise the susceptibilities
-and faculties which appropriate
-these elements and raw material, turning
-them into hymns, theologies, prayers, sacrifices,
-liturgies, and ceremonies.</p>
-
-<p>Commerce, by bringing men together<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_53"></a>[53]</span>
-under the necessities of finding food, clothing,
-shelter, enables them to find their intellects
-and what they can know, their
-hearts and what they can love, and their
-wills and what they can do.</p>
-
-<p>Thus we trace the genesis of social force,
-with the expressions which it makes of
-itself, in property, literature, law, art, and
-religion, to mutual human relations, for
-the establishment of which, among men,
-Commerce seems to have been ordained.
-If men could, without trading, have found
-the means of subsistence, as do the foxes
-and the lions; then no relations in the high
-sense of the term would have been established
-among them; and like the foxes and
-the lions, they would have remained on
-the earth without progress and without
-history.</p>
-
-<p>The sun must be making tremendous
-drafts upon some unseen sources of power,
-to be able to make, throughout the solar<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_54"></a>[54]</span>
-realm, such ample expenditures of energy
-without bankruptcy.</p>
-
-<p>The location of the vast depositories of
-power, upon which he draws so liberally,
-we are not to inquire here. We do know
-that the force which builds the forest,
-flushes the meadows with green, braids the
-vines into festoons, and peoples the plant-world,
-comes from the sun. Wherever the
-materials which keep the sun’s fires burning
-come from, they must pass up to that
-center before they are available for service
-on this globe. The stamp and superscription
-of the sun must be upon them before
-they can take the form of grass, or leaf, or
-bird on the earth. In this sense stand
-human relations between the force contained
-in the individual, unrelated life, and
-the force which takes form in the objects
-of civilization. The crude and inarticulate
-force in the individuals of the tribe, or the
-nomads who only touch for war or passion,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_55"></a>[55]</span>
-must be refined through moral, political,
-and spiritual relations before it is ready to
-take the form of poem, anthem, temple, or
-Plato.</p>
-
-<h3>II.</h3>
-
-<p>We wish to determine the principle in
-accordance with which the production and
-distribution of food, shelter, and clothing
-are to be regulated. These forms of value
-are embodiments of social energy, generated
-through relations formed above nature
-by intelligence and volition. In nature,
-then, we are not to find the law that is to
-regulate them.</p>
-
-<p>Bees build their cells, and birds their nests,
-and beavers their dams, not by intelligence
-and will, called into existence after birth
-through companionship, but by what is in-wrought
-into the very fibers of their being
-irrespective of companionship. Birds, bees,
-and beavers have been in the world<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_56"></a>[56]</span>
-thousands of years, yet the first bird, bee,
-or beaver ever created had as much sense
-as the last. A single bee has as much sense
-as all the bees in the world put together.
-Among all lower animals each individual
-inherits the sense of the species. Hence
-the law “of the struggle for existence,” resulting
-in “the survival of the fittest,” said
-to be a regulating principle in the plant
-and animal kingdoms, is not severe, regarded
-with reference to the individuals
-which inhabit them. But to regard the
-operations of this law as beneficent upon
-the plane of human life, as does Mr. Spencer,
-is altogether to overlook the obligations
-men are under to one another, because
-of their mutual relations. The life of
-each man, it must be remembered, in so far
-as it is above that of the unrelated savage,
-is contained in the life of every other man.
-In so far as it is comfortable, intelligent,
-and free, it has been brought to him, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_57"></a>[57]</span>
-made over to him by his fellow-man. The
-law which is to determine the regulation of
-the elements of commerce, which are but
-expressions of the energy arising through
-mutual human relations, must be as elevated
-as the relations which commerce begets,
-and which in turn make commerce
-possible.</p>
-
-<p>We must not go down among the tigers
-and the hyenas, who owe nothing but bare
-birth to companionship, where the principle
-of “the survival of the fittest in the
-struggle for existence” does prevail, to get
-the law which is to regulate the production
-and distribution of products possible only
-through companionship. Each individual,
-be he weak or strong, has contributed
-something to the social body. The strength
-of the one may have contributed courage,
-the weakness of the other may have called
-forth pity; but both pity and courage are
-virtues possible only in relation. A regulating<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_58"></a>[58]</span>
-principle that kills off the feeble
-ones, and drives the weak ones to the wall,
-may do for brutes, who owe nothing to relationships;
-but not for men, who owe
-everything to them. The attempt to regulate
-forms of value in accordance with the
-law of “the survival of the fittest in the
-struggle for existence” does not have sufficient
-regard for the contribution each individual
-has made, by the very fact of his
-existence, to make these values possible.
-The leading political economists of the
-times have come to see that the law of
-extreme individualism, of “every man for
-himself and the devil take the hindmost,”
-must be substituted by some more beneficent
-principle—by some law that pays
-more respect to the methods by which
-values have been created.</p>
-
-<p>The province of commerce, as an institution,
-is to bring men together, not merely
-that the boundaries of commerce may be<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_59"></a>[59]</span>
-extended and its volume increased, but that
-men may learn the mutual obligations they
-are under to one another, that their sympathy
-for one another may be enlarged,
-and that respect for one another may be
-engendered.</p>
-
-<p>It is only in an atmosphere of mutual
-trust, sympathy, and respect that men can
-grow.</p>
-
-<p>The need for bread, for protection, for
-raiment, prompts men to the exchange of
-products, that each may share into the work
-of all. But in the process of exchanging
-products, relations are established, through
-the influence and power of which an order
-of man comes the mere material comforts
-of life cannot supply. The significance of
-commerce, then, is not understood, if it is
-considered simply with reference to its
-immediate ends. These ends are met when
-men are supplied with the material comforts
-of life. Ends, however, are mediated<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_60"></a>[60]</span>
-through it of a kind different in order and
-degree. These we consider the essential
-and ultimate ends of the relations which
-are established through the exchange of
-products. What, then, is the ultimate end
-and object of human relations? It is man.
-Man come to himself, conscious of himself,
-in possession of himself. It is human life,
-enriched, perfected, completed. It is man,
-strong, free, holy. It is man, not lost in the
-social texture, nor swamped in the social
-organism; but, finding his individuality
-and his peculiar, natural, simple self
-through them. The marvelous fabric the
-social loom was set to weaving is man.
-The highest end of social relations is a self-conscious,
-self-determining man, thinking
-the true, willing the right, loving the good.
-These relations constitute the organism out
-of which alone he can be born into symmetrical,
-well rounded life.</p>
-
-<p>The lower animals come from natural<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_61"></a>[61]</span>
-birth into the world entire and complete.
-The young eaglet is correlated to the sky
-before he leaves the egg. But man moves
-on a plane lower than the brutes, if he is
-not caught at birth and carried by relation
-to his proper place. As man is the highest
-product of social relations, it follows that
-the highest product is the ultimate product.</p>
-
-<p>An apple tree may be used for fire wood,
-or sawn into planks, but apples are the ultimate
-reasons for the existence of the apple
-tree. Toward an apple the germ started
-when it burst the sod and stood a little
-sprig above the ground. Beyond the
-apple, the tree goes no further. It throws
-its roots into the earth and its branches
-into the atmosphere, and perpetually acts
-and reacts upon its environment, but all
-for the purpose of turning soil, and sunshine,
-and rain into apples.</p>
-
-<p>As we have seen, a part of the social
-energy arising through mutual human relations<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_62"></a>[62]</span>
-is to be converted into language,
-values, literature, morality, and religion, as
-a part of the capital invested in a sewing
-machine factory goes into tools. But man
-is greater than language, values, literature,
-morality, or religion; as the sewing machine
-is greater than the tools by which it is
-made. Human relations create language,
-values, art, morality, and religion, that they
-may be used to advance and perfect the
-main work they were ordained to perform,
-“the making of a man.”</p>
-
-<p>When the people of a nation come to regard
-the elements of wealth, literature, art,
-or even religion, as ends to be enjoyed
-rather than as means to make man, they
-have missed the purpose of creation, and
-wander amid the mazes of stupidity and
-blindness.</p>
-
-<p>As far as outward splendor and wealth
-were concerned, Babylon had no rival
-among the nations of ancient times. She<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_63"></a>[63]</span>
-was a vast and rich empire. She embraced
-the most fertile portion of the
-globe. She had a capital that eclipsed all
-others in magnificence. Her hanging gardens
-were the wonder of the world; but
-her people stood not upon their terraces to
-observe the stars, or to reach a higher civilization
-through the realization of the
-nobler ends of their being. These were
-used as places of revelry and sensual enjoyment.
-Thus the only work of art that
-made them famous was used to make them
-stupid and depraved. Of her wealth she
-made an end. Putting no estimate upon
-men, through the relations of whom her
-wealth was created, she found at last that
-among all her people she had produced no
-man amply endowed enough to give permanent
-mental setting to her civilization
-and her faith. Her heart throbs, whatever
-they were, got explained in no history, interpreted
-in no philosophy, and lived in no<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_64"></a>[64]</span>
-life. For knowledge of her, we are dependent
-upon her ruins, her pottery, her
-broken columns. Into oblivion has fallen
-all that bejeweled and pampered life that
-reveled in her palaces and amid her far-famed
-hanging gardens. Among none of
-her luxurious inhabitants did she develop
-a man to commit the keeping of her
-secrets and the record of her progress.
-Over her history has settled the stillness
-of the desert and the gloom of eternal
-night.</p>
-
-<p>On the other hand, how secure is the
-Greece, that flowered in her great men! It
-was in the two centuries between 500 and
-300 <span class="allsmcap">B. C.</span>, when she emphasized men more
-than the things they created, that she produced
-the men who have been the teachers
-of the human race. She has been despoiled
-of her art treasures, her temples
-have fallen, her Parthenon is in ruins; but
-the two hundred years of her life, which<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_65"></a>[65]</span>
-she deposited in her great men, are immortal.</p>
-
-<p>No tooth of time, no war’s bloody hand,
-no devastation of the years, can take from
-her the glory which she lifted and locked
-in the genius of her generals, her statesmen,
-her orators, and her philosophers. Epaminondas
-and Pericles still fight for her, and
-guard with sleepless vigilance her fair
-name. Plato and Aristotle still interpret
-her problems of destiny. Sophocles and
-Pindar still sing her glory. Herodotus and
-Thucydides still keep the record of her
-victories. Demosthenes and Æschines still
-give imperishable expression to her conceptions
-of form and symmetry. She deposited
-her riches in the spirits of her
-great men, and they are forever secure. No
-thief can steal them, no rust can corrupt
-them. The unfolding centuries may look
-in upon them and enjoy them, but they
-cannot arrest them. The spirits of great<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_66"></a>[66]</span>
-men, like immortal ships, sail the ocean of
-time, bearing the treasures of the civilizations
-which gave them birth. They outride
-the fury of all the storms, and will
-sail on, till</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent10">The stars grow old,</div>
- <div class="verse indent10">The sun grows cold,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And the leaves of the Judgment book unfold.</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>But when Greece came to think more of
-the results than of the living men, she lost
-not only the power to produce the men,
-but the capacity to appreciate the results
-which had been created by them. Thinking
-more of the temple than the builder,
-she soon had no architect to conceive,
-and no son to understand the temple.
-Turning her national power into the
-spirits of her living men, she utilized the
-mountains and the mines in the service of
-beauty. But when life got cheaper than
-art, she no longer had power to create new
-art, or to protect from vandalism the old.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_67"></a>[67]</span>
-By removing the emphasis from men to
-things, she descended from the Crœsus to
-the pauper of civilization.</p>
-
-<p>As long as Israel expended her national
-energy in the production of men, she had
-Moses, greater than the Tabernacle;
-David, greater than his harp; and Isaiah,
-greater than his song. But when the
-forms of her worship were emphasized
-beyond the spirits of her people she lost
-the devotion which created her church and
-the manhood that guided it. The men
-who formulated the laws that made Rome
-the mistress of the world, grew at a period
-when a Roman was the center of interest
-in the empire. But when her laws were
-stressed to the obliteration of her men, she
-had them still, without the ability to make
-more laws, or to execute the ones she had.
-Religion in India is emphasized more than
-character; hence her men are lost in a
-wanton and luxurious surrender to a modeless,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_68"></a>[68]</span>
-transcendental, pure being, and she is
-practically without a history.</p>
-
-<h3>III.</h3>
-
-<p>The ultimate reasons, then, for the existence
-of social relations, brought about
-among human beings by exchange of products,
-is not the satisfaction of hunger, or
-the enrichment of individuals in material
-wealth, but the making of men. This being
-so, we are able to determine the law
-by which the production and distribution
-of commercial products are to be regulated.
-It must be a law that does not put the
-emphasis on the products, but upon the
-men who are to be elevated through their
-exchange. It must not be a law leaning
-to extreme individualism on the one side,
-or to extreme socialism on the other. It
-must have proper respect to the individual,
-and to the social organism to which he is
-indebted for whatever of power he possesses.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_69"></a>[69]</span>
-That law has already been formulated
-for us. It is this: “Thou shalt love
-thy neighbor as thyself.” This is the coordination
-of self-love and good-will. As
-has been well said, this saves for us the
-strength of private enterprise, and individual
-initiative, the vigor of the self-regarding
-motives; yet enthrones by their side as co-equal
-and co-regent powers, the principle of
-benevolence, the obligation to promote the
-common weal. Self-support, self-help, self-reliance,
-are still cardinal virtues, but philanthropy
-is given co-ordinate authority
-with them in the commercial world. This
-is the law most favorable to the growth of
-men.</p>
-
-<p>Under its benign reign, men can come
-to themselves. Through the operation of
-this law, there will be no curtailment of
-the volume or the extent of commerce;
-but the emphasis will be kept in the right
-place, and men will not be lost in the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_70"></a>[70]</span>
-process of securing the elements of food
-and shelter. Commerce will be the means
-of mediating to men their higher nature.
-Surrounded by conditions engendered by
-the operation of a law like this, life will
-reach through relation higher and higher
-ranges of hope and insight. The elements
-of poems, symphonies, philosophies, temples,
-and pictures will flow in the blood.</p>
-
-<p>The fierce competition we see in the
-commercial world to-day is the attempt to
-re-enact, in business life, the principle of
-natural selection, or “the survival of the
-fittest in the struggle for existence.” This
-is the law of the jungle, but not of the
-social realm. This is doubtless the law
-among trees, determining their number,
-variety, and structure; for one tree gains
-nothing from association with other trees.
-This law doubtless operates in the sea,
-among the fish, and in the sky among the
-birds, for fish and birds are what they are<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_71"></a>[71]</span>
-by birth and not by association. Mr.
-Spencer regards the operation of this law
-as beneficent. It kills off the unsuccessful
-members of society, it drives the weak
-ones to the wall. Those who survive in the
-struggle are the fittest. The Greeks, who
-put Socrates to death, were, according to this
-so-called beneficent principle, the fittest to
-survive. This law is regarded as beneficent
-as it operates among men to control their
-products, upon the supposition that man is
-an animal and a part and parcel of nature, as
-are the bears and the wolves. The things
-which elevate men and civilize them, however,
-do not come from nature, but are
-engendered through companionship and
-association. Hence, from the sense of
-obligation men are under to one another
-for the best and highest things of life, the
-law is to be deduced which is to regulate
-their commerce and to determine the
-character of their actions. This law is,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_72"></a>[72]</span>
-“Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”
-Thus business looks to character. The
-discipline it insures is worth more than
-the money it brings. The highest product
-of trade is man himself. If in business
-such methods are practiced, if such aims
-are followed as destroy the man, however
-great the returns in money, it is a thousand
-fold worse than a failure. The
-man it was designed to make, it has
-destroyed.</p>
-
-<h3>IV.</h3>
-
-<p>The disposition to accumulate, which
-is right and praiseworthy, should always
-be modified by right knowledge of the
-uses of property, and the methods by
-which it is amassed. Nothing is more
-pitiable than for a person to have more
-property than he has manhood. This
-indicates that the stress has been on the
-wrong side of the wealth. Such a man is<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_73"></a>[73]</span>
-under the sad necessity of taking his significance
-from the money he has accumulated,
-rather than the noble elements of
-life he should have secured in the process
-of obtaining it. With such a man,
-the end of business has been lost. He has
-consumed the end in the means. Instead
-of turning the elements of trade into
-manhood, manhood has been lost amid
-the maze and chaos of things. The order
-of progress has been violated, and the
-man, instead of moving on through business
-cares to immortal character, turns
-back to the earth, and seeks to substitute
-the tendency to move from it, by the disposition
-to settle permanently upon it.
-The desire to get rich has grown so abnormal
-and perverted, that it seeks to
-satisfy itself by the abundance of mere
-things. There are a great number of
-mowers and reapers, engines and cotton-gins,
-hats and shoes, pins and buttons;<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_74"></a>[74]</span>
-but a man has been lost in the making
-of them. This is more than all the
-mowers and reapers, cotton-gins and
-steam engines, pins and buttons ever
-made are worth. It is not mete that
-men should be sacrificed to the beauty
-and perfection of machinery, or to things
-machinery turns out. It is not necessary
-either. What we gain is not worth what we
-give. The machinery should be so manipulated
-as to get the things, and at the
-same time secure the perfection of men
-through the process. It is not necessary
-for the painter to lose himself in his art,
-and sacrifice his manhood to make his
-vision glow on the canvas. A proper
-regard for the methods and uses of art
-will result in leaving in the living spirit
-a picture more perfect than any painted
-by the brush. John Bunyan did not lose
-his manhood in portraying the history
-of a human soul in its attempts to get<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_75"></a>[75]</span>
-from earth to heaven. While conducting
-his pilgrim safely through the sorrow and
-temptations of life, to a home in a better
-world, he opened the pearly gates to his
-own soul. His work transfigured his
-life, and was the means of sanctifying it.
-All business and all work should lift up,
-and not hold down; it should make free,
-and not enslave; it should ennoble and not
-degrade. It is as honorable to make shoes
-or anchors as to paint pictures or write
-books. The shoemaker should learn the
-secret through his work of finding the
-sandals of manhood for his own feet.
-The blacksmith should learn, through the
-making of anchors for the great ships, to
-find the anchor that is to hold his own
-soul to the truth, amid the storms of life.</p>
-
-<h3>V.</h3>
-
-<p>If through trade only the material result
-is sought, the ends it were intended to subserve<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_76"></a>[76]</span>
-are missed. Its bulk may be large,
-the machinery through which it is carried
-on manifold and complicated, but with the
-emphasis on the money side of it, no manhood
-will be reached through it. The man
-side of a button machine is infinitely more
-important than the button side. The buttons
-which fall on one side may conform
-precisely to an approved and an exquisite
-pattern, but if the person who stands on
-the other side does not, through the process
-of making buttons, get a man out of
-himself, the whole thing is a disastrous
-failure. Human spirits are too valuable to
-be used up in making buttons. More respect
-is to be had to the human side of the
-loom than to the cloth side. The most
-beautiful pattern of silk ever woven loses
-its power to please the eye when it is remembered
-that the soul of a woman has
-been drawn into its threads and colors.
-The sacrifice of individual life is impressive<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_77"></a>[77]</span>
-and noble, if the object for which it is
-made is worthy. This kind of sacrifice is
-not the means of losing life, but of gaining
-it. But no material result to be used up
-in the passing season of fashion is worth
-such costly sacrifice.</p>
-
-<p>Through forces we name capillarity, cohesion,
-and gravitation, matter accomplishes
-the purposes of thought. They are but
-manifestations of the power of mind working
-through them, to build up the mineral,
-vegetable, and animal kingdoms. They look
-beyond themselves. They work for higher
-ends. Thus all the industries we see in
-nature look to lifting and refining matter,
-and force high enough to serve the uses of
-human life. So the industries established
-on the plane of human life are to elevate
-man another step in the scale of being.
-Through sowing and reaping, through
-grinding and sawing, through spinning
-and weaving, through buying and selling,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_78"></a>[78]</span>
-through building and furnishing, he is to
-be carried on in the march of progress.</p>
-
-<p>The history of the physical universe culminates
-in man, finds its interpreter and
-its interpretation in him. Never was the
-thought of him absent from her movements
-through Pliocene, Miocene, Eocene, Cretaceous,
-Jurassic, Triassic, Carboniferous, Devonian,
-Silurian, or Cambrian ages. In all
-her awful cosmic emotion to reach order
-and form, it was the anticipation of man
-that moved her, for he it is at last that
-comes of it. So, through all the course of
-her tumultuous history, nature was pregnant
-with man. The stars which sang together
-in the early morning of the world,
-caught the inspiration which gave melody
-to their song from the thought of him.</p>
-
-<p>Commerce, if it is to be permanent and
-healthy and progressive, must fall into line
-with the purpose nature was put upon its
-perilous course to subserve. Her countless<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_79"></a>[79]</span>
-forms of industry established by the law
-of supply and demand; her cars, rushing
-hither and thither all round the world; her
-great steamships on every sea; her great
-furnaces, whose chimneys lift themselves
-against the sky, must get their meaning
-and the reason for their existence from the
-fact that they are putting in their contribution
-to the making of a man. Her
-wheels are to fly, her spindles are to whirl,
-her paddles are to splash, and her hammers
-are to ring, making music amid it all, in
-anticipation of his increasing worth, his
-growing thought, his enlarging hope. Her
-countless wheels of industry will be throwing
-out axes, wagons, plow-stocks, hand-saws,
-and reapers as they fly; but these will
-be only so many means used to discipline
-the precious life committed for a while to
-her training. What chemical affinity did
-in lifting the original elements to the
-mineral kingdom, and what the animal<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_80"></a>[80]</span>
-did to lift the plant to the animal kingdom,
-so the trades and industries of commerce
-are to do in lifting human life from
-its individual, unrelated state to its social
-and fraternal state. The elements of commerce
-are to be the means to help human
-character out of human nature. Two kinds
-of raw material are to be refined. The iron
-in the mountain is to be turned into razor
-blades and caligraphs; the reeds in the
-swamps and the woods in the forests are to
-be turned into the notes of organ and piano;
-and in the process of refining these, man is
-to be disciplined in the use of himself, in
-the possession of himself, and in the command
-of himself.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_81"></a>[81]</span></p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_82"></a>[82]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="POWER"><i>POWER.</i></h2>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="blockquote">
-
-<p>“Excessive devotion to the material is the evil of
-our epoch; hence a certain sluggishness.</p>
-
-<p>“The great problem is to restore to the human
-mind something of the ideal. Whence shall we draw
-the ideal? Wherever it is to be found. The poets,
-the philosophers, the thinkers, are its urns.</p>
-
-<p>“The ideal is in Æschylus, in Isaiah, in Juvenal,
-in Alighieri, in Shakspere. Throw Æschylus, throw
-Isaiah, throw Juvenal, throw Dante, throw Shakspere
-into the deep soul of the human race.</p>
-
-<p>“Pour Job, Solomon, Pindar, Ezekiel, Sophocles,
-Euripides, Herodotus, Theocritus, Plautus, Lucretius,
-Virgil, Terence, Horace, Catulus, Tacitus, Saint Paul,
-Saint Augustine, Tertullian, Petrarch, Pascal, Milton,
-Descartes, Corneille, La Fontaine, Montesquieu,
-Diderot, Beaumarchais, Sedaine, André Chenier,
-Kant, Schiller—pour all these souls into man.”</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_83"></a>[83]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II.<br />
-<span class="smaller">THE PROVISION FOR THE SOCIAL NATURE OF MAN.</span></h2>
-
-</div>
-
-<h3>I.</h3>
-
-<p>Man has a body and a spirit. By the
-one, he is individual; by the other, he is
-social. As individual, he needs bread; as
-social, he needs power. As body, he is born
-from the loins; as spirit, he is born from
-the social organism. In the process of finding
-food, clothing, shelter, to meet the needs
-of himself as individual, he discovers that
-illimitable social side of himself the material
-necessities of life do not supply.
-Here he finds power, a more subtle and universal
-element, ready to serve his higher
-need. This is the provision for the social
-side of man’s nature; for, as individual, he
-does not need it, and could not appropriate<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_84"></a>[84]</span>
-and use it if he did. As an individual, he
-can only avail himself of the use of power,
-through the attempt of the social whole of
-which he forms a member. In the primitive,
-unrelated, unorganized state, man is
-satisfied if he can secure food to satisfy his
-hunger, and a cave to shelter him from the
-storm. He does not even utilize the winds
-to draw his boat, until, through interdependence
-and mutual relations, he has
-reached a high degree of social life. The
-servants of man, on his individual side, are
-the foods of the field, the waters of the
-spring, the woods of the forest, the fruits of
-the orchard, and the wool on the sheep’s
-back. The servants of man, on his social
-side, are the driving power of the winds,
-the transporting power of heat, and the
-thought-defying power of the lightning.
-As individual, he is a citizen of the community
-where he first sees the light. As
-social, he is a citizen of the world. Through<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_85"></a>[85]</span>
-his body, he is naturally related to his ancestors;
-through his spirit, he is related to
-the human race. The rude elements of
-food, clothing, and shelter, he might secure
-as individual; but power, which waits to
-serve his higher, nobler nature, he can only
-secure through society. As individual, he
-is narrow, meager, local. As social, he is
-broad, rich, universal. On his individual
-side, he is centripetal; on his social side, centrifugal.
-Self-centered, self-contained, and
-self-included, on the one side; while, upon
-the other, he is possessed of the conviction
-that private right must be subordinated to
-public good. Tethered to the earth on the
-one side, linked with the immensities on the
-other. On the one side, his outlook is hard
-and literal and low; on the other, he seeks,
-through intellect, to transcend the infinite
-in time and space and truth. On the side
-of himself, as individual, he knows no right
-or wrong. On the side of himself, as social,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_86"></a>[86]</span>
-he recognizes the infinite in duty, and seeks
-harmony through the infinite in love.</p>
-
-<h3>II.</h3>
-
-<p>Yet this limited and unlimited self; transitory,
-perishable, and finite on the one side;
-everlasting, imperishable, and infinite on
-the other, are bound together in the same
-person. The fall of the one is accompanied
-by the descent of the other, and the rise
-of the one is accompanied by the ascent of
-the other. Their union involves perpetual
-conflict, and there waits on the turn of the
-battle, the depression of remorse, or the
-exultation of triumph.</p>
-
-<p>On the individual side of himself, man
-would take up with the present, the immediate,
-with that which allures the sense,
-and, with unholy incense, regales the imagination.
-On the social side of himself,
-he would despise the immediate, and give
-the casting vote in favor of the unbiased,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_87"></a>[87]</span>
-immeasurable good. In such a being as
-man, conflict were inevitable. With a
-horizon measured by the edge of the plain
-where he stands on the one side, and a horizon
-melting into the infinite star depths on
-the other, it were but to be expected that a
-contest would arise between the larger
-and the lesser outlook. On the one side,
-he would possess the field, concentrate his
-attention upon its grasses and its fruits,
-and lose himself in its products. On the
-other, he would go forth to see where the
-stars are, to consider the sources of their
-light, and to travel with them along their
-silent paths. With a view measured by
-the hour that shuts him round on the one
-side, and with a view measured by the
-organic pulsations of the world on the
-other; the question would be, whether to
-give himself to the immediate pleasures of
-the hour; or to elongate the pendulum of
-his timepiece till it should embrace the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_88"></a>[88]</span>
-ages, and regulate his life by an eternal
-measure. With appetites on one side,
-clamoring for the things in sight, and with
-conscience on the other, calling for harmony
-with things high and remote; the
-question would be, whether to give the
-consent of the will to the demand of the
-appetites, or to the appeal of the conscience.</p>
-
-<h3>III.</h3>
-
-<p>Knowing the side of himself of which a
-man takes counsel—the individual, or the
-social—you are prepared to fix his grade
-in the scale of being. The difference between
-Benedict Arnold and George Washington
-was just this: in the case of the one
-the individual side was dominant; in the
-case of the other the social side held sway.
-This is the difference between the miser,
-despised of all, and the philanthropist,
-honored of all. This is the difference between<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_89"></a>[89]</span>
-the debauche and the saint, between
-the man who lives for his God and his
-race, and the man who pours himself out
-on his lust and his passion. If the
-promptings of the individual side of man’s
-nature are to be distrusted and watched,
-while liberal and unstinted recognition is
-to be given to the social side, it is well to
-inquire into the meaning and office of this
-larger fact of his life.</p>
-
-<p>Let it be granted that on the individual
-side of himself man has no kingdom of his
-own, no department of his own, no privileged
-class of his own, and no titled order
-of his own. Let this side of him be
-left to the naturalist, to be classed
-with the vertebrates, the mammals, or the
-primates. But what conclusion are we to
-reach concerning the social side of himself,
-that has found embodiment in that vast
-and complicated movement we call civilization?
-Through this age-long historic process<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_90"></a>[90]</span>
-man has been seeking to realize the
-capacities of his larger nature. Like a
-magnificent temple, civilization has been
-rising through the centuries. Its walls
-have silently come up from the earth, like
-Solomon’s Temple, without clink of trowel
-or sound of hammer. It is built of granite,
-cut from the Gethsemanes of history.
-Leonidas and his brave three hundred at
-the pass of Thermopylæ carved some of
-the blocks of this great edifice, into whose
-walls men have gone down as the living
-stones. The brave Britons, at the waters
-of Solway, lifted to place some of the
-richly foliaged pillars that stand upon its
-floors. William the Silent, while organizing
-the forces and achieving the victories
-of the Netherlands, was at the same time
-turning some of its arches and resting in
-place some of its architraves. The
-Martyrs, who went to undying fame and
-honor through fires of Smithfield, furnish<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_91"></a>[91]</span>
-themes for the music which resounds
-through its corridors. It is the triumph
-of the social nature of man, and stands
-upon the soil which has been made by the
-crumbling dust of all generations of brave
-men. Its pinnacles and towers pierce the
-skies, and declare to the immeasurable
-heights, the force, the faith, the sentiment,
-and the love of man. It defies the elements
-of disintegration and change, and
-around the tops of its lofty pillars there
-cluster the buds of eternal spring. The
-gigantic trunks, whose arched branches
-support the roof of this great structure,
-express themselves in never withering
-flowers, and, where the boughs interlace at
-the summit of the arches, there comes the
-light of heaven to color and illumine.
-Yet within its doors we are in no forest of
-stone, where thoughts of men have been
-chiseled into semblance with the trees.
-Its foundations are built of convictions, its<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_92"></a>[92]</span>
-pillars of hope, its vaulting of lofty purpose,
-and its windows of faith. Its
-cement is the blood of suffering, and its
-decoration the loves of heroes. It is the
-edifice man has built in which to house
-the social side of his nature. It contains
-and will conserve all contributions ever
-made to human weal.</p>
-
-<p>In walking the streets of Rome, one has
-a strange and melancholy sense of the traditions
-and memories which cluster about
-every ruin and every spot. But around
-the myriad facts and forces of civilization
-there hang associations more pathetic still.
-Here we walk, not amid the ruins of the
-past, but amid the achievements, the victories,
-and the glories of the past. Achievements,
-victories, and glories not associated
-with broken columns, defaced monuments
-and moldering ruins, but with the laws
-and institutions of living men. We have
-here, in ten thousand embodied forms, the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_93"></a>[93]</span>
-travails of the souls of our fathers. Their
-spirits live in the words we use, their consciences
-bind in the laws we observe, their
-visions bless in the pictures we see, and
-their devotion sanctifies in the religion we
-love. All the blood ever shed in sacrifice,
-all the eloquence that ever thrilled senates
-and peoples in defense of the right, all the
-protests ever in silence felt or in public uttered
-against the wrong, are here held in
-everlasting form.</p>
-
-<p>Are we to regard civilization, the manifold
-and complicated sum in which man’s
-social nature has expressed itself, as nothing
-more than a natural product? Are we
-to account for this by the same physical
-principles in accordance with which the bee
-builds his cell, the monkey hangs his
-bridge, and the beaver erects his dam?
-Does this stately projection of man’s social
-nature mean no more than some lofty Alpine
-Matterhorn, pushed into the heavens<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_94"></a>[94]</span>
-by the unconscious fires in the earth’s
-bosom? Is this only like some mighty
-Giants’ Causeway, lifted up by the same
-physical forces and by the same natural
-processes? If this is so, why is it that when
-we turn away from civilization as a whole,
-to view it in some of its national forms, we
-see the spiritual ups and downs of history
-in such striking contrast with the uniform
-face which nature wears? If the radiant
-civilization of Greece, that filled the earth
-with the eloquence of thought and the
-melody of song, with the Republic of Plato
-and the Ethics of Aristotle, that clothed
-itself in the Parthenon of Phidias and the
-Iliad of Homer, was as natural among the
-nations as the uprising of Gibraltar among
-the mountains, why is it that Gibraltar still
-stands as the solemn sentinel of the Ocean
-and the Sea, while the civilization of
-Greece is but a memory of the past? The
-same sky and earth, and Mar’s Hill are<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_95"></a>[95]</span>
-there. Around her classic coast there still
-murmurs the same heaving sea. But while
-ships may still sail to Gibraltar, never more
-can they draw up to the Piræus of worthy
-representatives of Plato and Aristotle.
-Not again do men, with noble brows, deep
-eyes, and never dying thought, look into
-the Ægean from that memorable meeting
-place of the world’s ships.</p>
-
-<p>If the history of Israel, from the time of
-Abraham to the coming of John the Baptist,
-was but a natural product, as easy to
-be accounted for as the mountains round
-about Jerusalem; why is it that the mountains
-still encompass the holy city; while
-we find no more men like Moses, David,
-and Isaiah to lead, to rule, and to prophesy?
-There are the same Judean hills and valleys.
-There rapidly flows the same historic
-Jordan. There grow the same grapes,
-the figs, and olives. There are the same
-holy mountains. There are the same dangerous<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_96"></a>[96]</span>
-rocks in the sea at Joppa. The physical
-conditions that made the corn and the
-honey and the cattle are there; and there
-still are found the corn, the honey, and the
-cattle. But no massive man like Moses
-ever more climbs Sinai to get law on tables
-of stone, or Pisgah, to see the promised
-land and die. No man after God’s own
-heart, like David, any more minds sheep,
-watches the stars, and writes poetry there.
-Never more do we find there a man like
-Isaiah, struggling on his knees in prayer
-that he may rise up to give his people the
-oracles of God. A shallow, degenerate
-and fickle people dwell amid the groves
-and the vines where once lived the great
-race which gave to men their ethics and
-the outlines of true religion.</p>
-
-<p>If the civilization of Rome, that reached
-such volume and force as to make her the
-mistress of the world, was as natural as
-the rising and falling of the tides, why is it<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_97"></a>[97]</span>
-that Rome is in ruins, while the tides continue
-to rise and fall? With no other aid
-than such as is afforded by natural law
-and physical force, we cannot solve this
-problem. Where monkeys grew once,
-monkeys grow to-day; where lions roamed
-once, lions roam to-day; where figs grew
-once, figs grow to-day. The same physical
-conditions, the same configuration of soil,
-the same degree of climate, produce uniform
-natural results from age to age.
-These may be counted on with the certainty
-of a coming eclipse, conditioned on
-varying conjunctions of the heavenly
-bodies. But we must pass from the level
-and range of soil, sky, climate, and physical
-conditions, to account for the fact that a
-country in one period of its history produces
-a Pericles, and, in another, a
-muddy-headed numskull; in one age an
-aristocracy of poets, artists, statesmen,
-philosophers, and orators; and in another,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_98"></a>[98]</span>
-a listless swarm of stupid and secular cumberers
-of the ground.</p>
-
-<h3>IV.</h3>
-
-<p>The explanation of this question is to be
-found in the fact that man has a dual nature,
-a body and a spirit, by virtue of which
-he is individual and social. When the
-center of gravity is on the social side of
-human nature, the fortunes of man go up;
-when the center of gravity is on the individual
-side, the fortunes of man go down.
-On the individual side, he is the subject of
-physical law. On the social side, of moral
-law.</p>
-
-<p>That man was intended to express the
-force of his life through the social side of
-himself and in accordance with moral law,
-instead of through the individual side of
-himself and in accordance with physical
-law, is plain, from the fact that it is only
-when he gives social expression to his life<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_99"></a>[99]</span>
-that he reaches any degree of commanding
-and permanent influence.</p>
-
-<p>The unrivaled place which the Greece
-of Pericles holds in history is due to the
-fact that he lived at a time when the
-emphasis was altogether on the social side
-of her people. The individual side was
-completely subordinated to the life of the
-whole. It is doubtless true that she
-pressed a right to rule too far, and stressed
-the citizen too much, and considered the
-claims of the individual too little. A
-proper balance is to be preserved between
-the individual and the social man. But it
-is true that in merging the life of the individual
-into that of the state, Greece did
-prepare a soil compact and rich enough to
-grow the most ample harvest of literature,
-art, poetry, philosophy, and men, the world
-ever saw. As soon as the emphasis passed
-over from the social to the individual side,
-the process of pulverization began, and the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_100"></a>[100]</span>
-continuities of thought and aspiration
-were broken up. National unity was
-dissolved, and the conditions of great men
-and great results were no longer present.</p>
-
-<p>The difference between the Greece of
-300 <span class="allsmcap">B. C.</span> and the Greece of to-day, is the
-difference between giving the national life
-a social and an individual expression.
-The Greece of 300 <span class="allsmcap">B. C.</span> was a compact
-whole, made so by each man putting in
-his individual life as a contribution to the
-life of the state. The Greece of to-day is
-an aggregate of self-centered units, held
-together like so many potatoes in a basket,
-by outward force and barriers, rather than
-by loyalty, patriotism, fidelity, and the
-cling of man to man. In the Greece of
-300 <span class="allsmcap">B. C.</span> each man, while giving his individual
-life to his fellows, gathered into
-his own being all the life they had to give.
-Hence in Socrates we had a reproduction
-of all Greece. In Homer, all her poetic<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_101"></a>[101]</span>
-passion, and expression. In the orations of
-Demosthenes, all the aspirations of her
-heart and all her love of liberty. In the
-Greece of to-day, we have not the same
-intimacy of companionship, or the same
-network of relationships. Each man,
-thinking more of himself as individual
-than of himself as social, finds it no longer
-possible to make levies on the lives of his
-fellows, to think his thought, conceive his
-temple, deliver his oration, or write his
-poem. So it follows, they no longer think
-great thoughts, conceive great temples,
-deliver great orations, or write great
-poems. Each man, in the high sense,
-being a separate sand, they have a social
-soil as barren as a desert.</p>
-
-<p>Rome won her victories, wrote her laws,
-and laid the foundations of her world-wide
-empire, when her people gave social rather
-than individual expression to the force
-of their lives. A typical illustration we<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_102"></a>[102]</span>
-have of this in the fidelity of Regulus.
-A prisoner at Carthage, he is permitted to
-go to Rome to induce his countrymen to
-make peace with the Carthaginians. He
-pledged his word to return if he failed.
-On reaching Rome, however, instead of
-seeking to persuade his people to make
-peace, he appealed to them to continue
-the war. The social side of himself belonged
-to Rome; speaking through that,
-he called upon her to prosecute the war.
-The individual side of himself was personal;
-acting through that, he went back
-to Carthage in honor of his pledge, to be
-cruelly put to death by his captors. This
-single incident is sufficient to help us
-understand why, from her seven hills,
-Rome conquered and for a long time ruled
-the world. The individual was sunk in
-the <i>Roman</i>. Not, as in the case of Greece,
-that his personal identity might be swallowed
-up in the mass, but that he might<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_103"></a>[103]</span>
-find a personal identity as great as the
-empire, of whose social life he was the
-embodiment. Regulus was an epitome of
-Rome. In him was all her indomitable
-will, her moral sturdiness, her iron probity.
-In him she had a son, in the depth
-of whose spirit all the glory she had won
-in war, and all the control she had found
-in sacrifice, was safe. Regulus had the
-advantage of the Carthaginians, in that
-the larger, nobler side of himself was safe
-from their hate. The Roman, the social
-Regulus, was as eternal as the majesty,
-and fame, and mystery of the Roman
-empire.</p>
-
-<p>The doom of Rome, as a nation, was
-never sealed till the stress was removed
-from the social to the individual side of her
-people. She might have lived on among
-the nations, as fixed as her own eternal hills,
-if the temptations to self-indulgence and
-self-gratification had been resisted. Her<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_104"></a>[104]</span>
-downfall was not due to physical causes,
-but to her sins. Observance of the moral
-laws, which made her great, would have
-kept her great. When she threw her
-larger, social self into the fires of her individual
-lust and passion, she burned the
-foundations of her dominion, and a mighty
-wreck of shapeless ruins was all that was
-left of the once proud mistress of the
-world.</p>
-
-<h3>V.</h3>
-
-<p>What is the correlate to the social side
-of man’s nature? Where is the domain
-that matches it? Where is the vast realm,
-large enough to furnish sufficient scope for
-all the possibilities which seem to lie folded
-within it? A study of the eye reveals the
-fact that the light of the sun is necessary
-to furnish an element wide and ethereal
-enough for the exercise of its functions.
-By a study of the ear, we learn
-that it is related to sound with all its possibilities<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_105"></a>[105]</span>
-of harmony. The fin of the fish
-is related to the waters of the sea. The
-bird’s wing is a prophecy of the sky. The
-migrating instinct of the wild goose is related
-to the South, with its soft skies and
-balmy air.</p>
-
-<p>In the calculations of Adams, in England,
-and of Leverrier, in France, the perturbations
-of the planet Uranus were
-in correspondence with the planet Neptune.</p>
-
-<p>On the side of himself as individual, as
-we have seen, man is related to the earth
-with all it contains to satisfy the needs of
-the body. We wish also to determine the
-nature and dimensions of the sphere to
-which he is related as social.</p>
-
-<p>We have seen that, even within national
-boundaries, human life comes to be fertile
-in great men, great deeds, and great art,
-when the expression of it is social, rather
-than individual. With such disposition of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_106"></a>[106]</span>
-her national life force, Greece reached an
-unparalleled height of grandeur and influence.
-But all outside of Greece were
-esteemed as barbarians. The barbarian
-hordes around her state were like so many
-walls, which kept the waves of national
-life from passing out into any world-wide
-sea. The limits were soon reached, then
-the waves receded, to be thrown back
-again in quick succession against the encompassing
-walls. Was this not in violation
-of the law and nature of the expression
-which the social side of man, by its very
-structure, is inclined to give of itself? Is
-it not, by its nature, disposed to pass out in
-accordance with moral laws, which have no
-boundaries and limits? And were not the
-walls they permitted their hate to build of
-the barbarians on the outside to arrest the
-outward flow of their national life, the evidence
-of a tacit treaty with their selfishness?
-Did these not, after all, bear witness<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_107"></a>[107]</span>
-to a hampered and halted surrender to the
-nobler side of their nature? Did they not
-show that the Greeks were only willing to
-give social expression to their national life,
-as far as the boundary lines of Achai? Too
-noble to permit the emphasis to rest on the
-individual side of her people, as separate
-members of the state, she lifted narrowness
-and selfishness into greater place by giving
-them national form.</p>
-
-<p>Too great of breadth to be individually
-selfish, she was not great enough to be
-nationally unselfish. The individual sides
-of themselves her people sacrificed on the
-altars of the state to her national unity,
-she transmuted into contempt and hatred
-of other nations. Selfishness only passed
-from the individual to the state. Retained
-by the state, it worked itself back into the
-individuals again, when the unity of the
-state was disintegrated. Do we not have
-in the limitations which Greece attempted<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_108"></a>[108]</span>
-to put on the expression which the social
-nature of man would give of itself, the real
-secret of their downfall? If, while giving
-even limited social expression to her
-national life, Greece developed a civilization
-so rich, how much greater might have been
-her contribution to human progress had not
-the seeds of disintegration been sown among
-her people through national enmity and
-hate. In the two hundred years which
-embraced the most fertile portion of her
-history she laid the foundation of thought.
-But it was only through thought that she
-sought to solve the problems of life and
-destiny.</p>
-
-<p>The social life of the Jews found only
-limited expression for itself. It was worked
-out into religious lines that were unlimited
-and all embracing, but this was in spite of
-their prejudices.</p>
-
-<p>Their compact social life, the vast depth
-and vigor of their social vitality, the tenacity<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_109"></a>[109]</span>
-with which they clung together, made it
-possible for them to lay the foundation of
-a religion and an ethics larger than they
-dreamed. Their scriptures, their prophets,
-and their saints were not possible in a soil
-less socially rich.</p>
-
-<p>Their devotion, their loyalty, their
-voluntary subordination of private to public
-interests, their religious fidelity fitted them
-to become the children of God. The summit
-of civilization they reached enabled
-them to see and to transcribe the outlines
-of the kingdom of heaven. They ascended
-high enough the mount of being to recognize
-the laws necessary to regulate human
-conduct. But they permitted their narrowness
-and prejudice to build of the Gentiles
-about them, walls to limit the outflow of
-their national life. Hate for the unfortunate
-people without, could not be without its
-influence on the lives of those within.</p>
-
-<p>The selfishness which, as a nation, they<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_110"></a>[110]</span>
-cherished toward other people, reproduced
-itself at length in their own lives. From
-the children of God they descended until
-they became the children of the devil.
-The visions of their nobler men were
-discounted and despised. The selfishness
-that put them against the Gentiles, finally
-put them against one another; and while
-they kept together in a certain sense, in
-spite of the upper and nether mill stones
-of history, it was rather in memory of what
-they had been, than of what they were.</p>
-
-<p>In the civilization of Rome, again, limitations
-were put on the expression of the
-social side of man’s nature. Within the
-precincts of Rome, under her eagles and
-within her roads, there was a sinking of
-the individual and an expression of the social
-side, that has been rarely equaled in
-history. It was this merging of the individual
-units into the social whole of Rome,
-that made it possible for her to formulate<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_111"></a>[111]</span>
-the legal measures and provisions which continue
-to protect human life and property.
-But sacrifice, companionship, social cohesion
-on the inside, could not, for many centuries,
-be accompanied with fierce opposition and
-cruel hate for others on the outside. It
-was inevitable that sooner or later the disposition
-on the outside would get distributed
-among the individuals on the inside.</p>
-
-<h3>VI.</h3>
-
-<p>The realm, then, to which man on the
-social side of himself is related, is larger
-than that encompassed by any national
-boundaries. The Greek, on the social side
-of himself, was larger than Achai, the Jew
-than Palestine, and the Roman than the
-Empire. The Greek developed thought,
-the Jew produced religion, and the Roman
-formulated law. But the larger side of
-man’s nature is not met by thought simply,
-or by religion simply, or by law simply,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_112"></a>[112]</span>
-but by the combination of these in right
-proportions.</p>
-
-<p>Man, on the social side of himself, is correlated
-through reciprocal relations to the
-human race. To limit the social expression
-of man’s life is to contract its nature,
-and to violate the moral laws in accordance
-with which it must act. The understanding
-cannot rest in unrelated phenomena.
-Through science it reduces the
-forces of nature to one force, its energies to
-one energy, and its matter to its constituent
-elements. So the social nature must find
-harmony in the union and cohesion of scattered,
-separated human beings. It must
-have companionship, such as the relations
-of all men help to make. It must have a
-range as wide as the world. Because of
-the continuities of life and thought secured
-through universal social cohesion, it must
-be able to pass and repass through the
-length and breadth of human life. If<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_113"></a>[113]</span>
-man’s social nature is to find its correlate,
-the race must be so completely one, so
-compact and contiguous in the spirit of
-fraternity and good will, as to make it
-possible for each man to share in the
-work, thought, and virtue of all men. Individuals
-must be gathered into the network
-of social relations, so that, instead of
-separate and isolated units, they shall be
-known as farmers, merchants, blacksmiths,
-mechanics, shoemakers, lawyers, doctors,
-editors, and ministers. The calling of each
-must relate to the well-being of all. Every
-man must make for others and receive in
-return for the supply of his own wants
-something of all the others make. Into
-the multiplex flow of exchanges the shoemaker
-may put in simply one pair of shoes
-per day, as his personal contribution. To
-that extent he must be able to make levies
-on the contributions of all the rest. No
-one will be independent in an unrelated<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_114"></a>[114]</span>
-sense. All will be dependent, and each
-independent, through dependence on the
-rest. The race, as civil society, will be at
-work under all climes, and on all soils, producing
-the infinite variety of goods for the
-world’s market. By the specialization and
-division of labor, we will have great increase
-of skill and the multiplication of all
-products. People will be at work raising
-coffee and drugs in Brazil, tea in China,
-creating a myriad of manufactures in England,
-France, and Germany, growing fruits
-on the Mediterranean Islands; these then
-will be gathered by various means of transportation
-and loaded on ships and cars, to
-be carried to every place on earth; that
-everyone may have the whole earth to
-serve him, while on his part he renders
-service to all.</p>
-
-<h3>VII.</h3>
-
-<p>The universal organization of the human
-race into one social whole has been the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_115"></a>[115]</span>
-grand, far-off event, toward which the
-whole creation and the whole process of
-history has moved. Toward this the race
-has been moving through all the fierce antagonisms
-and bloody wars of the past.</p>
-
-<p>Pestilences, which have decimated the
-ranks of men, and earthquakes, which have
-swallowed up great cities, have contributed
-toward this consummation.</p>
-
-<p>The genius of men like Alexander the
-Great has been used to break up the narrow
-and provincial groupings into which
-men had settled, that a way might be
-opened for the distribution of products
-and the circulation of ideas.</p>
-
-<p>In the early history of the race, the
-process of organization began. Every
-great man and every great movement
-helped toward its enlargement. Abraham,
-getting up from Ur of the Chaldees, and
-moving with his family and his herds across
-the plains of Syria, to plant a government<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_116"></a>[116]</span>
-in Palestine, widened its sphere. Phœnicia,
-the strongest maritime power of ancient
-times, while she had no motive but gain for
-crowding every port with her ships, and
-for turning the world into an exchange,
-did augment the knowledge of men and increase
-the relations of men. The Jews, by
-their compact, social organization, lifted
-their national life into a great civilization.
-This civilization they sought to make provincial;
-they sought to fence themselves
-off, with all they had accumulated of devotion
-and law and literature, from the rest
-of mankind. But their social pulverization,
-due to their sins, helped forward universal
-companionship. They moved out
-into other parts of the world. They settled
-along the Black Sea and the Caspian
-Sea. They went into Asia Minor and back
-into Syria. They took up their abode in
-Alexandria and along the Mediterranean
-coast. Wherever they went, they carried<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_117"></a>[117]</span>
-their civilization; their synagogue, in which
-to teach their knowledge of the one God;
-their Moses, to guide by his law their conduct;
-and their David, to soothe, with his
-songs, their sorrow.</p>
-
-<p>The marvelous productions of Grecian
-thought and skill were kept, for a time,
-from the barbarians. They attempted a
-monopoly of beauty. But the breaking up
-of their Commonwealth hastened the coming
-of universal fraternity. They planted
-their civilization in Asia Minor. They
-went over to Syria, down to Alexandria,
-and around the Mediterranean Sea. Wherever
-they went they carried their language
-and their philosophy. The Romans broke
-down the walls between different tribes,
-and brought them under one law. They
-built roads into all parts of the civilized
-world, and thus prepared the first great
-highways of travel.</p>
-
-<p>Looking from this distance, back upon<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_118"></a>[118]</span>
-the movements of these great peoples, it
-seems as if they might have been, on set
-purpose, devising schemes and laying plans
-for bringing the world of mankind together.
-It really looks as if all peoples
-above the grade of the savage had been
-unconsciously and in spite of themselves
-working for the unity of the race. The
-very walls that have been raised to keep
-men apart have been battered down and
-used to make roads to bring them together.
-The mountains, that served as barriers to
-separate them, have been tunneled to unite
-them. The oceans, that seemed absolutely
-to insure isolation, are now the favorite
-means of communication. All inventions
-and discoveries have helped to the practical
-oneness of the race.</p>
-
-<p>The mariner’s compass, gunpowder, the
-printing press, the steam engine, the electric
-telegraph, the sewing machine, the
-spectroscope, the electric light, the telephone,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_119"></a>[119]</span>
-with the phonograph and microphone,
-have wrought for this end. The
-discovery of the sun’s place in the heavens,
-and of the shape and movements of the
-earth; the discovery of America and of
-the law of gravitation; the discovery of
-the circulation of the blood and of the
-wonderful remedies in nature which relieve
-the ills of the body, have all reduced differences
-and augmented unity. Theologies,
-which have divided men into religious
-partisans, fomenting strife, and producing
-wars; which have separated men into
-parties bitter and revengeful; have grown
-kinder and humaner as the years have
-passed, and tend now to unite men, rather
-than to divide them. Philosophies, which
-kept men apart under the heads of nominalist
-and realist, sensationalist and idealist,
-are now deduced from a broader
-survey of the facts, and tend to harmony
-rather than conflict.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_120"></a>[120]</span></p>
-
-<p>From the beginning nature and human
-effort have wrought together for universal
-good will and social organization. Lapses
-have been frequent and the net gain of
-fraternity small, but from age to age, without
-cessation and without intermission, in
-volume and sweep, it has been increasing.</p>
-
-<h3>VIII.</h3>
-
-<p>Because of the limited knowledge men
-had of the uses of power in the past, the
-growth of universal social organization
-has been slow. Methods of intercommunication
-between nations wide apart were
-meager, hence the people in one division
-of the globe could know but little of the
-people who lived in another. Any part of
-the earth not understood was counted as
-desert, and any people not known were
-considered barbarian. But with the new
-uses and applications of power, all this is
-changed. The world now lies open to all.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_121"></a>[121]</span>
-The antipodes are neighbors. By hitching
-the sun’s heat to the flying train, and the
-canvas to the favoring winds, and the
-lightning to human thought, all races on
-the globe stand face to face. The world is
-being encompassed, and no natural obstacles
-are now permitted to stand in the way
-of railway lines, or of submarine cables.
-All mountain chains are being tunneled,
-all chasms spanned, all oceans traversed,
-and all straits bridged. The continents
-of the earth are now connected by 125,000
-miles of submarine electric cable, and
-countries are crossed by thousands of miles
-of railroad lines. With an abiding and irrepressible,
-even if unconscious sense, that
-on the social side of himself he is related
-to the whole human race, man has well-nigh
-subdued the earth, and removed the
-obstacles that opposed the realization of
-his larger nature. Already great enterprises
-are being contemplated, which look<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_122"></a>[122]</span>
-to the speedy removal of whatever remaining
-obstacles there are to world-wide companionship
-among men. Some of the
-great enterprises already projected which
-are to help toward universal brotherhood,
-have been noted by Mr. Charles Hallock.
-A railway is to be built from Joppa to Jerusalem
-in Palestine, and a bridge across
-the Straits of Dover near Folkestone.</p>
-
-<p>The Mombasa and Nyanza Railway in
-Africa is to connect the Nile with the
-interior lakes and with the coast. A railway
-is to be constructed across Siberia,
-from St. Petersburg to Behring Strait.
-Upon this side a railway is to be built
-across Alaska to Behring Strait, while
-Behring Strait is to be bridged or ferried.
-A canal is to be cut across the Isthmus of
-Corinth in Greece, to connect the Ægean
-Sea with the Gulf of Corinth. There is to
-be a ship canal around Niagara Falls, and
-a railroad from Quebec to Belle Isle in<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_123"></a>[123]</span>
-Labrador, with connecting ocean steamship
-lines to Medford in Wales. There is
-to be an ocean cable from Clew Bay, Ireland,
-to Greeny Island, Strait of Belle Isle,
-1900 miles long. And a railroad from
-Winnipeg, Manitoba, to Hudson Bay, and
-steamship line thence to Liverpool.</p>
-
-<p>A railway is contemplated from Winnipeg
-to the Saskatchewan River, across the
-Northwest Territory. A tunnel is to be
-cut under the Hudson River at New York,
-and a tunnel under the St. Clair River,
-between Sarnia and Port Huron, Mich.
-That the Panama and Nicaragua canals
-have been projected and partially completed
-is known the world over. A tunnel is to
-be made through the Atlas Mountains in
-Russia, and the great Northern Railroad
-Company is to make one through the Rocky
-Mountains in Montana, and another is to be
-cut through the Sierras from Truckee River,
-Nevada, into California. There is to be a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_124"></a>[124]</span>
-canal from Knoxville, Tenn., through Alabama
-to the Gulf of Mexico, and one from
-Chicago to the Mississippi River, which is
-to cost $25,000,000. A ship railway 60
-miles long is to be completed from Georgian
-Bay to Lake Ontario, connecting the
-Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River,
-costing $12,000,000. A canal is contemplated
-from Chicago to the Gulf of Mexico,
-and also a ship railway around the Dalles
-of the Columbia River. There is to be a
-ship canal across New Jersey to the Atlantic
-Ocean, 60 miles long, and a ship railway
-to connect the Gulf of St Lawrence
-with the Bay of Fundy, 12 miles long, to
-cost $12,000,000. There are to be steam
-lines from Tampa, Fla., to all parts of
-the West Indies, a longitudinal railway
-through the axis of North and South
-America, from Chicago to the Argentine
-Republic; steam lines from Vancouver in
-British Columbia, to Japan and Australia,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_125"></a>[125]</span>
-and steam lines from New York to the
-Carribbees and the Windward Islands.
-There are to be steam lines from Scotland
-to the North Cape and the Antarctic
-Ocean; stated voyages between Sitka,
-Alaska, and Point Barrow in the Arctic
-Ocean, and steamboat navigation of all
-the great lakes and rivers of Siberia,
-British America, and Central Africa.
-Ports of entry are to be established in
-all countries to furnish terminal facilities
-for these far reaching lines of transportation.</p>
-
-<p>We are to have federation among the
-nations, as we now have it among the
-States of the American Union. The social
-cohesion, once national, is to be international.
-All are to think for each, and each
-is to think for all. All are to work for
-each, and each is to work for all. All are
-to plan for the good of each, and each is to
-plan for the good of all. Thus the inequalities<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_126"></a>[126]</span>
-of life are to be reduced, and the littleness
-of life is to be redressed.</p>
-
-<p>As all the power in the vine and its
-branches to make grapes is expended in
-the rounding and sweetening of each grape,
-so all the power in the social whole to
-make men will be reproduced in each man.
-All the justice in the race will regulate
-each man’s will, all the thought in the race
-will replenish each man’s mind, and all the
-love in the race will feed each man’s heart.
-Nothing less than this social whole, in
-which are bound together in one organic
-body the lives, the welfare, and the hopes
-of all, is the correlate of the social nature
-of man. Toward such a world-wide organism,
-each living in the whole and the whole
-living in each, his social nature reaches out
-and is never at home until it is found.
-Such universal brotherhood would be impossible
-without power in all its manifold
-forms. This serves the social body as<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_127"></a>[127]</span>
-bread serves the individual body. Power,
-as the servant of the social body, waits on
-each man through his relations with the
-social whole. A city builds gas works and
-finds it possible to let down the price in
-proportion to the number of those who use
-it. A railroad company can lower the rate
-on passengers and freight in proportion to
-the number of men who travel and the
-volume of freight transported. The price
-of a newspaper goes up or down as the
-number of subscribers increases or diminishes.
-Mr. Edison expects to get electricity
-from the disturbed conditions of the air,
-without the use of fuel. This will make
-the conditions of life easier by one-half;
-and then, as the number of people increases
-who avail themselves of the uses of power,
-the conditions of living will still be easier.
-Not only will the unity which comes
-through social organization lower the rate
-of insurance and the price of the necessities<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_128"></a>[128]</span>
-of life, but this increased force of the
-social whole will tend to the moral health
-of the people in the same degree. Health
-in one part of the body will be brought to
-bear to correct disease in another part.
-The conscience of the whole will be turned
-into the degraded sections of our great
-cities, and the sympathy and love of all
-will be called out to reclaim them. Starvation
-in one part of the globe will be met
-by the over-supply of bread in another.
-Oppression and tyranny in one nation will
-be opposed by the sense of fairness and
-overcome by the love of freedom in all the
-rest. As climatic conditions are made
-friendly to life by the circulation of
-oceanic and atmospheric currents, so moral
-health will be preserved by the circulation
-of the currents of conscience and
-justice.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_129"></a>[129]</span></p>
-
-<h3>IX.</h3>
-
-<p>The emphasis is to be kept on the social
-rather than the individual side of human
-nature; not that personality may be lost,
-but that it may be gained.</p>
-
-<p>The social mass that constricts and
-squeezes the single life until the virility of
-self-assertion and the right of private initiative
-are destroyed, is no improvement on
-Bedouin isolation. The latter brutalizes
-life, while the former eviscerates it. The
-eye does not lose its capacity for sight,
-and its place of peculiar responsibility by
-being brought into reciprocal relations
-along with other organs in the same body.
-It would have no meaning and no power
-of vision apart from relations with other
-organs. The ear is not discounted, nor are
-its wonderful functions belittled amid the
-manifold members which work together in
-the same human frame. Its position of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_130"></a>[130]</span>
-honor is secured to it by the organic relations
-it sustains to the other members.
-The foot, the hand, and the tongue find
-themselves and their uses as they unite
-together in one living whole. The lone
-Bedouin, with no laws and no relations,
-seems to have all liberty, but in reality he
-has none. He is as completely without
-meaning as would be the finger separated
-from the hand. The man of whom nature
-is a prophecy is not the being in the woods
-whose home is a cave and whose food is
-wild meat; but it is the man in society,
-whose home all woods and metals and
-stones have helped to build, and whose food
-all soils and skies and seas have helped to
-produce.</p>
-
-<p>The emphasis is to be kept on the social
-side of human nature, because it is through
-that side of himself that man is to pass into
-the world-wide work and the glorious
-destiny for which he is fitted. Through<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_131"></a>[131]</span>
-that side of himself he moves out into order,
-and strength, and freedom. All men whose
-names are cherished in history, passed into
-place, influence, and honor through the
-social side of human nature.</p>
-
-<p>In passing through the social side of
-himself, the life man finds is a million times
-larger and richer than the life he loses.
-That men might find the life that belonged
-to them, the only life worth living, the
-tendency from the first has been toward
-the solidarity of the race. The relations
-growing out of such solidarity are constitutive
-of the being of each man. The important
-properties of an acid cannot be
-known, when it is considered out of relation
-with an alkali. What a thing is for
-another, that it is in itself. So what a
-man is through relations with others, that
-he is in himself. But what he is in himself
-cannot be known until he comes into relations
-with others.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_132"></a>[132]</span></p>
-
-<p>Solidarity is not to swamp single lives,
-but single lives are to come to all that is
-peculiar and high in themselves through
-solidarity. The universe is to preserve
-relations with each private spirit. By the
-organization of men into one social whole,
-provision is made for each man to participate
-in the life of humanity. It is intended
-that all the oceans of life shall reach,
-through their waves, the shores of each
-man’s being, and leave deposits of all their
-wealth in each man’s spirit. When we speak
-of the horse, the eagle, the whale, it is understood
-that we are using generic terms, and
-are intended to refer to no particular horse
-or eagle or whale. Yet in each horse the
-species is reproduced, and in each eagle
-the species is epitomized, and in each whale
-the whole whale type is summarized. This
-is done in the case of the lower animals,
-without their thought or volition. No
-universal relations are necessary among<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_133"></a>[133]</span>
-whales, for each whale to have within itself
-all the peculiarities and furnishments
-possessed by all whales. The species are
-to be realized in each man, too; but this is
-to be accomplished through social relations
-among all men. All the men in the world
-must touch each man, to call forth the
-capacities which lie folded within his life.
-Humanity, as parcelled out in nations,
-generations, epochs, must lift itself into
-the being of each man; as the ocean, parcelled
-out in Atlantics, Pacifics, Indians,
-Arctics, Antarctics, lifts itself into each
-wave.</p>
-
-<p>Power, parcelled out in gravitation, heat,
-and electricity surrounding the globe; advertised
-in every apple’s fall, declared in
-every flash from the clouds, and present in
-every sunbeam; stands ready to make
-universal brotherhood, not simply an ideal,
-running through the dreams of poets and
-prophets, but an actual fact. The recognition<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_134"></a>[134]</span>
-of power, as the provision made
-for the social nature of man, is enabling
-us to realize the dreams of prophets and
-poets.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_135"></a>[135]</span></p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_136"></a>[136]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="TRUTH"><i>TRUTH.</i></h2>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="blockquote">
-
-<p>“A century is a formula; an epoch is an expressed
-thought. One such thought-expressed civilization
-passes to another. The centuries are the phrases of
-civilization; what she says here she does not repeat
-there. But these mysterious phrases are linked together:
-logic—the logos—is within them, and their
-series constitutes progress. In all these, phrase expressions
-of a single thought, the divine thought, we
-are slowly deciphering the word <i>fraternity</i>.</p>
-
-<p>“All light is at some point condensed into a flame;
-likewise every epoch is condensed in a man. The
-man dead, the epoch is concluded: God turns over
-the leaf. Dante dead, a period is placed at the end
-of the thirteenth century: John Huss may come.
-Shakspere dead, a period is placed at the end of the
-sixteenth century. After this part, who contains
-and epitomizes all philosophy, may come the philosophers—Pascal,
-Descartes, Molière, Le Sage, Montesquieu,
-Diderot, Beaumarchais.”</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_137"></a>[137]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III.<br />
-<span class="smaller">THE PROVISION FOR THE INTELLECTUAL NATURE OF MAN.</span></h2>
-
-</div>
-
-<p>Truth and reality stand for the same
-thing. Reality is truth out of the mind,
-and truth is reality in the mind. Reality
-is objective truth, and truth is subjective
-reality. But all reality is in relation to
-mind; objective reality to the divine mind,
-and subjective reality to the human
-mind. Objective reality is the realized
-thought of God; subjective reality is the
-realized thought of man. The correspondence
-of thoughts to things is called scientific
-truth. Objective reality is truth,
-because it corresponds to the thought of
-God. Knowledge in the human mind is
-truth when it corresponds to objective reality<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_138"></a>[138]</span>
-or the expressed thought of God.
-When words and conduct correspond to
-knowledge, we have truth in the domain of
-morals.</p>
-
-<p>In saying that objective reality is the
-realized thought of God, we denote its
-unity. This is not to destroy the particulars
-of which it is composed, or to swamp
-their individuality in an inarticulate mass,
-but simply to indicate their oneness.</p>
-
-<p>When the observer looks out into the
-universe, which includes and shuts him
-round, he is impressed by the infinite varieties
-and diversities which everywhere meet
-his gaze. No two things are alike. No
-two leaves, no two drops of water, no two
-snowflakes, no two apples, no two faces.
-Every particular thing seems to be persistently
-determined to differ, in some respect
-at least, from everything else. The history
-of true knowledge begins, however, with
-the observation of resemblance and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_139"></a>[139]</span>
-similarity—just beneath the surface of difference
-and variety. The lightning that
-appears on the bosom of the cloud, like the
-writing of some awful fiend, is seen to be
-the same with the gentle sparks emitted
-when a tag of silken ribbon is drawn
-briskly between the fingers. The power
-that pulls the ball to the ground is seen to
-be the same as that which keeps the sun
-in his place.</p>
-
-<p>The plant lifts itself up as but a sum of
-organized varieties; but every part, corolla,
-petal, and stamen, is known to be only
-modified leaf. Keeping to their silent and
-lonely rounds since the dawn of time, are
-the stars in the heavens, differing in color,
-orbit, and size, but we now know that to
-understand the elements of which they are
-composed, we have only to lift our foot
-and see what the constituent parts of the
-earth beneath it are. Were objective reality
-one amorphous mass, it would not be<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_140"></a>[140]</span>
-intelligible. It is one and many, particular
-and universal, singular and manifold, concrete
-and discrete. All things cohere in
-a centrality that includes and commands
-them.</p>
-
-<p>So true is it that unity underlies all difference,
-that no single variety can be understood,
-only as it is considered in relation
-with the whole of which it forms a part.</p>
-
-<p>No one could ever get a correct notion of
-a particular star by directing his entire attention
-to the study of that star. To
-understand it, he must study it through the
-system of which it forms a member, and in
-connection with all laws and forces related
-to it. Oxygen separate and distinct from
-other elements has no meaning. It gets its
-definition and significance from the things
-to which it is related. What it is for
-rocks and water and trees and globes, that
-it is in itself. But it must be seen in connection
-with these before we can know<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_141"></a>[141]</span>
-what it is in itself. What an acid is for
-an alkali and for other things, that it is in
-itself. Alone, out of relation, we could
-know absolutely nothing of it. Society is
-the organism that reveals to each person
-the nature of his own life. Out of contact
-and touch with other human beings, no
-one would ever know anything concerning
-himself.</p>
-
-<p>Objective reality embraces manifold
-variety, but it is the unity that presides
-over it that makes it intelligible. Difference
-provokes questions and unity
-answers them.</p>
-
-<p>In calling objective reality truth, we
-tacitly assume the laws and relations constitutive
-of it. We could not speak of
-the truth of the globe, had there been no
-method in its formation, no order in its
-development, no system in its parts, and
-no relations between its constituent elements.
-To speak of the truth of it, is to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_142"></a>[142]</span>
-imply the thought of it, the intelligibility
-of it. Were it not the expression of mind,
-man’s reason could find no truth in it.
-Scholars have been able, after long and
-painstaking study, to understand the
-meaning of Egyptian and Assyrian hieroglyphics,
-but they never could have found
-thought in them, had they contained no
-thought. The original elements which
-make up the matter of the globe, have
-come into such relations with one another
-as that they make up the soil, rocks, water,
-trees, and animals we see. Thought, then,
-is the result of the internal relations of
-the particles which compose it. These
-internal relations, too, constitute its intelligibility.
-The globe that wheels on its
-axis is objective. This may be taken into
-the mind, and by its synthesizing, organizing
-activity converted into a subjective
-globe. The difference between
-the objective and the subjective globe<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_143"></a>[143]</span>
-will be, that one will be thought
-and the other will be thing. But the
-same internal relations found in the objective
-globe will be preserved in the
-subjective, and the transcript of the globe
-that is held in thought will be truth in
-exact proportion as it corresponds to the
-material globe that rolls out of the mind.
-That an objective globe, which is a thing,
-may become a subjective globe, which is a
-thought and not a thing, implies that there
-is something in common between thoughts
-and things; that is, the mind, by its constitution,
-is capable of apprehending and
-taking into itself the constitution and
-relations of things. This is its capacity
-for truth, and shows that truth is not
-foreign to it, but one with itself.</p>
-
-<p>The sides and angles of a right angle
-triangle have certain relations to one another.
-The square described on the
-hypotenuse of such an angle is equal to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_144"></a>[144]</span>
-the squares described on the other two
-sides. This may be demonstrated on a
-piece of blank paper, or the mind may conceive
-a right angle triangle, and prove the
-proposition without making any marks at
-all. The constitutional relations which
-were in the nature of a right angle triangle
-are the same, whether it be drawn
-on paper or conceived by the imagination.
-The relations of the triangle make it
-intelligible, because they constitute its
-truth.</p>
-
-<h3>I.</h3>
-
-<p>To truth the intellect is related, as is the
-eye to light, and the ear to sound. If the
-eye were destroyed, the sun would not
-cease to shine. His light would still come
-upon hill and plain to feed the flowers and
-to disclose their beauty, but without the
-organ of vision no creature in the universe
-would be able to see the things which his
-light reveals. The ear does not create<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_145"></a>[145]</span>
-sound. Let it be forever sealed, and the
-Niagaras would still continue to fall and
-the thunders to shake the heavens, but
-they would not be heard. The intellect
-does not create truth, but it is the only
-faculty with which man is endowed by
-which he is able to discover it.</p>
-
-<p>It was the error of the idealists that they
-made the order, laws, and relations of things
-as so many principles projected out of the
-observer’s own mind into the universe
-about him. What he seemed to see in
-things, were but modifications of his own
-mental states. The only order things had
-was in the observer’s own mind. It was
-regarded not only as the pivot upon which
-the universe turned, but also as the creative
-principle from which the universe
-took form. Apparently this was a great
-gain to mind, but it was at the expense of
-any real world for the mind to contemplate.
-It seemed to win a victory for the intelligence<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_146"></a>[146]</span>
-absolute and entire, but it was by
-shutting it up to its own shadowy abstractions,
-and abandoning it in a shoreless and
-bottomless void to its own vain musings.
-The personal pronoun <i>I</i> was extended perpendicularly
-and horizontally, till topways
-and sideways the whole of space and time
-was filled with it. No solid earth, no burning
-sun, no rolling orbs were left. A great,
-illimitable, irresponsible ego became the
-sole occupant of all that is.</p>
-
-<p>This extreme idealism is in direct contrast
-to the realism of the early thinkers.
-They taught that things depended on man
-neither for their existence nor their intelligibility.
-That each thing carried the real
-intelligible essence as an ultimate fact in
-itself. Thought in man was but the reflection
-of this intelligible essence in the thing,
-as the light in the mirror is but the reflection
-of the light of the lamp.</p>
-
-<p>Of the two systems, extreme idealism is<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_147"></a>[147]</span>
-preferable to extreme realism. All mind
-and no matter, is better than all matter and
-no mind. Thought with no place to stand,
-is better than a place to stand and no
-thought. The eye with nothing to see, is
-better than something to see and no eye.</p>
-
-<p>The solution which realism gave of the
-problem of existence, left no place for
-mind, the solution which idealism gave of
-it left no place for matter. But both the
-external world, upon which realism was
-founded, and the intelligence, upon which
-idealism was founded, are expressions of
-mind. The one as intelligible content, the
-other as combining active capacity and the
-intelligibility of the content, exactly corresponds
-to the active grasp of the capacity.</p>
-
-<h3>II.</h3>
-
-<p>But it must be remembered that the intellect
-which is the organ of truth, and
-objective reality which is abstract truth, do<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_148"></a>[148]</span>
-not come together to form knowledge in
-any accidental way.</p>
-
-<p>A basket may be said to have capacity
-for holding potatoes, and potatoes may lend
-themselves as content to fill up the basket.
-But the union of potatoes and basket; the
-one as content, the other as capacity, is
-only mechanical. The basket would serve
-as well to hold onions, or muskadines, or
-chinquepins, as potatoes, and the potatoes
-could be carried as well in a wooden box
-or in a tin pan, as in a basket. No necessity
-inheres in the nature of a basket to
-contain potatoes, and no necessity is in the
-nature of potatoes to get into a basket.
-Truth and the intellect, however, are intended
-the one for the other. Truth is
-correlated to the intellect as the bird’s wing
-is to the atmosphere. Nothing can take
-hold of the truth but the intellect, and nothing
-can satisfy and furnish the intellect but
-truth.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_149"></a>[149]</span></p>
-
-<p>Abstract truth, or objective reality, is
-converted by the combining organizing activity
-of the mind into knowledge, and
-when this knowledge corresponds to the
-reality it is truth in the realm of
-thought.</p>
-
-<p>Before knowledge is possible, then, there
-must be an intelligence capable of knowing,
-and an object capable of being known.</p>
-
-<p>How the intelligence and the knowable
-object get together to form knowledge is
-the most important question in philosophy.
-Upon the right settlement of it, everything
-depends. This has been the point about
-which the battle of thought, in modern
-times, has been most fiercely waged. If
-the mind firmly grasps the meaning of this
-problem and settles it right, it is almost
-sure to think right on other questions. If
-it is wrong here, it is sure to be wrong everywhere
-else. Mistake here is as fatal to the
-correct solution of the question we are considering,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_150"></a>[150]</span>
-as would be the mistake that two
-and two make five to the correct solution of
-a sum in arithmetic.</p>
-
-<h3>III.</h3>
-
-<p>The distance of a question from ordinary
-thought does not render it any the less important,
-even for ordinary thinking. How
-the knowing intelligence and the knowable
-object get together to form knowledge is
-the most important problem to-day before
-the human mind. If writers would only
-take their bearings from the only rational
-solution that can be given to it, they would
-find half the books they are writing on the
-inspiration of the Scriptures, the existence
-of God, the divinity of Jesus Christ,
-agnosticism and materialism, unnecessary.</p>
-
-<p>Agnosticism and materialism pass away
-with a correct theory of knowing. Labor
-and painstaking thought are involved in<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_151"></a>[151]</span>
-the task of getting a right theory of knowledge,
-but agnosticism and materialism are
-in line with ignorance and indolence.</p>
-
-<p>So, while few men ever ask themselves
-how the knowing intelligence and the knowable
-object get together to form knowledge,
-millions of men are affected, even in their
-practical life, by the answer which is given
-to the question. Someone has said that not
-more than six men in any one age ever read
-Plato or understand him. Yet for the six
-men Plato comes down through the ages.
-The six men who understand him translate
-him into the vernacular of the one hundred
-men who live on the next plane of thought
-below them.</p>
-
-<p>The one hundred translate him into the
-common language of one thousand below
-them. These, in turn, translate Plato into
-the ordinary thought of the millions below
-them. So it happens at length that Plato
-gets so universally known, that not a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_152"></a>[152]</span>
-laborer in the field but wears his hat after
-one style, rather than another, because
-Plato wrote.</p>
-
-<p>Doubtless it would have been considered
-a very unimportant question two hundred
-years ago, as to whether heat were an
-igneous fluid or a mode of motion. Perhaps
-not more than two or three men
-wrestled with the question for centuries
-before it was settled. By the masses of
-the people they were regarded as wasting
-their time in vain and idle speculation.
-By an experiment made by Count Rumford,
-it was put beyond the possibility of
-doubt that heat was not an igneous fluid,
-but a mode of motion. Was this a question
-that concerned the multitudes, that
-two or three men spent a hundred years
-talking about and torturing their brains to
-understand? There is not a single human
-being in the civilized world to-day whose
-interests and welfare have not been touched<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_153"></a>[153]</span>
-by the settlement of it. There are millions
-of peasants in Russia who never heard of
-Count Rumford, or of an igneous fluid, or
-of caloric, who have this present year been
-fed by flour sent them by the western
-millers and transported on the strength of
-the conclusion that heat is not an igneous
-fluid, but a mode of motion. Every steam-car
-that crosses the continent, and every
-steamboat that crosses the ocean, moves in
-the wake of this same conclusion. At first
-we see some algebraic formulas, an array of
-curves and figures, that practical people
-said had nothing to do with everyday life.
-After a while we see the abstract conclusions
-reached by aid of the algebraic
-signs, and settled by the test of experiment,
-translated into steam engines, and transporting
-even the peasants of India and
-Mexico from one end of the country to the
-other. We see the abstract conclusions
-of the few thinkers turned into steam to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_154"></a>[154]</span>
-spin the people’s clothes and grind the
-people’s bread.</p>
-
-<p>In 1632 there was born at Wrington,
-Somersetshire, England, a boy, who was
-educated at the University of Oxford. In
-the esteem of his contemporaries he devoted
-his time to the consideration of subjects
-of no practical value. In the course
-of events he put the results of his study
-into a book known as “The Essay on the
-Human Understanding.” Few people read
-it. But the few who did read it started the
-ideas of it to circulating. They were translated
-into French and Latin, and were soon
-potent influences in the intellectual life of
-Europe. Were they practical and did they
-concern the ordinary affairs of men? They
-created the Encyclopedists of France.
-These learned men were the authors of the
-radical opinions which cut the people from
-the moorings of traditional and age-long
-thought. The fire and the blood of the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_155"></a>[155]</span>
-Revolution were the legitimate expressions
-of the speculative essay of John Locke that
-not one in ten thousand ever read. The
-persons whose heads were cut off in the
-Reign of Terror must have thought the
-ideas exceedingly practical that led to the
-destruction of social and political institutions,
-that took form in a movement which
-respected neither law nor property nor life.
-The speculative opinions of John Locke
-not only helped to create the French Revolution,
-but they led to the idealism of
-Bishop Berkeley, and this in turn to the
-skeptical philosophy of David Hume. The
-modern successors of Hume are John Stuart
-Mill, Herbert Spencer, Leslie Stephen,
-Frederic Harrison, and Professor Huxley,
-whose contributions have been given to the
-popular reviews, and which have been read
-by all intelligent people. Every man in
-Europe and America has been influenced
-both in conduct and character by the speculative<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_156"></a>[156]</span>
-“Essay on the Human Understanding.”</p>
-
-<p>Locke’s speculative philosophy passed
-through Berkeley to Hume, and through
-Hume reached Kant, the great German
-thinker, and resulted in the “Critique of
-Pure Reason.” This led to Fichte and
-Schelling, and finally to Hegel. This led
-to Heidelberg and the Tübingen school, to
-Bauer and Dewette, to extreme idealism
-and rationalism, translated into books and
-reviews and newspapers, and read by all
-the people, affecting their thought and life.</p>
-
-<p>Even people who never read, who never
-open a book or a newspaper, have been
-influenced by the subtle piece of speculative
-reasoning given to the world by the
-great sensational philosopher of England.
-The spirit of utilitarianism and secularism
-prevalent throughout the world at the
-present time is easily traceable to it.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_157"></a>[157]</span></p>
-
-<h3>IV.</h3>
-
-<p>Before we can possibly know that truth
-is the provision for the intellectual nature
-of man, we must determine whether the
-knowing faculties, which he finds himself
-to possess, are capable of grasping truth
-and turning it into knowledge. The fight
-of skepticism in modern times has been
-made upon the knowing faculties. It is
-useless to talk about the existence of God,
-the inspiration of the Scriptures, the divinity
-of Christ, or the immortality of the soul,
-if the human intellect is, by its limitations,
-denied the possibility of knowing anything
-whatsoever concerning these things. It is
-a waste of time for me to attempt to dip
-water out of the ocean with a bucket with
-no bottom to it. What is the relation of
-the intelligence to the outer world? Does
-the outside world create knowledge in the
-mind by the impressions it makes upon it,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_158"></a>[158]</span>
-or does the mind bring something to the
-outside world which converts this raw material
-into knowledge? Is knowledge a reflection
-of the outer, or a creation of the
-inner? Does nature work it in us, or is
-there some spontaneous, creative, organizing,
-mental activity within us that takes
-the material presented by nature, turning
-it into a rational system of knowledge?
-What is the relation between the being
-that knows and the object known? How
-much of the creative factor of knowledge
-does nature supply? How much does man
-supply? Can a man with deranged faculties
-get order out of a rational world? Can
-a man of sane mind get order out of an
-irrational world? If there is to be a rational
-system of knowledge built up in the
-mind, must there not be reason in the
-thinker and reason in the outside world,
-coming into organic relations, the one with
-the other? As to how we regard this<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_159"></a>[159]</span>
-question will determine how we regard
-truth, and whether or not it is possible for
-us to know it.</p>
-
-<h3>V.</h3>
-
-<p>The human mind has never been able to
-resist the conviction that there is such a
-thing as truth. Though baffled and defeated
-a thousand times, in every age, in its
-attempt to formulate truth, it has never
-been able to consent to give up the search
-for it. Interest in truth has kept alive and
-fostered the belief that the mind has power
-to understand it. The mind’s passion for
-truth has deepened its confidence in the
-faculties with which it is ever trying to discover
-it. The everlasting longing to know
-truth has been taken as implicit capacity to
-find it. Philosophic systems have been
-only so many devices and creations of the
-mind with which to take hold of truth.
-The methods proposed, in the first stages<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_160"></a>[160]</span>
-of philosophic thinking, for getting at the
-truth were crude, as the first instruments
-devised for cultivating the soil and getting
-out of it what there was in it for food,
-were crude. Thales, Pythagoras, and
-Anaximander first attempted to penetrate
-objective reality, to know its cause, to
-bring its multiplicity to unity, and to reduce
-its variety to law. The ever-changing
-phenomena by which they were surrounded
-necessarily eluded the meager theories with
-which they attempted to reduce them to
-order. They prepared the way, however,
-for systems which accommodated a greater
-number of facts. They made possible Plato
-and Aristotle, who, with hypotheses more
-complicated and more consonant with the
-reality they sought to grasp, found truth
-enough to keep the human race thinking
-for two thousand years. The blocks of
-truth they quarried from the mines of objective
-reality were used to carry up the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_161"></a>[161]</span>
-theological and speculative temples of the
-Middle Ages.</p>
-
-<p>After the failure of scholasticism, which
-denotes a period in human thought rather
-than a particular system of philosophy,
-Lord Bacon proposed the method of material
-induction to bring the mind into
-relations of knowledge with truth. He
-emphasized the study of the outward facts,
-their classification and organization. In
-his esteem, truth was to be reached by the
-consideration of actual, tangible things.
-Man was the interpreter of nature, and not
-necessarily its interpretation.</p>
-
-<p>Truth in the mind was the image of
-objective truth. It differed from truth out
-of the mind, as the direct from the reflected
-ray. He failed from lack of adequate
-recognition of one of the important factors
-in the problem of truth. Descartes’ method
-was more successful, because larger and
-completer recognition was taken of man.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_162"></a>[162]</span></p>
-
-<p>He began by doubting everything that
-could be doubted. Heir to the beliefs of
-all the ages, he determined to summon
-these, one by one, before the bar of reason,
-and force them to show cause for their
-existence. Everyone was to be called into
-court and put out that could be doubted.
-The existence of a God was called up and
-doubted, condemned, and put out. The
-existence of an external world was called
-up, doubted, condemned, and put out. In
-the same summary and shorthand way,
-man and mind were doubted and put out.
-All positive beliefs were doubted. After
-his process of elimination, he found himself
-without God, without man, without mind,
-without a permanent external world. All
-that remained after emptying himself of all
-mental furnishments and beliefs was the
-fact that he doubted. But he could not
-doubt without thinking. In the very act
-of doubting, he thought. If one thinks,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_163"></a>[163]</span>
-he must think something. The nearest
-something to the thinking subject is his
-own personal being. So he thought himself
-and concluded, “I think, therefore, I
-am.” But he was not always; he began
-to be. So he must think of a being
-that caused him. The being that caused
-him must himself be uncaused. Moreover,
-there could not be an uncaused
-cause, without an effect. Creation, then,
-with which he stood face to face, was the
-effect of the great first cause. Thus Descartes’
-method, based upon the thought
-underlying doubt, led him, necessarily, to
-himself, the object of his thought; and to
-God, the cause of himself; and to creation,
-the effect of the great first cause or God.
-Through his process of coming at the problem,
-he was able, rationally, to believe in
-the existence of himself, the outer world,
-and God, the cause of both. Descartes, as
-a thinker, was affirmative, positive, constructive.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_164"></a>[164]</span>
-He only doubted down to the
-point where he could doubt no longer, that
-he might have a sure foundation upon which
-to build. His contribution gave fresh courage
-and inspiration to the human mind.
-He failed to determine the boundary
-line between the self and the not-self,
-between mind and matter, between the
-thinker and the creation with which he
-stood face to face. This was the work
-Spinoza proposed for himself, and in the
-celebrated Ethics, published to the world
-at the peril of his life and soul, imagined
-the task mathematically performed. The
-two poles of Descartes’ philosophy, the self
-and the not-self, he united in Descartes’ cause,
-and named the whole sum substance. The
-self and the not-self reappeared as attributes
-of substance, which Spinoza named thought
-and extension. All the phenomena in the
-universe, mental or material, were but
-modes of the infinite substance. The<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_165"></a>[165]</span>
-result of his thinking was pure pantheism.
-He reached a sort of mechanical unity, but
-he left no place for the affirmation of distinctions.
-His Ethics was large enough to
-accommodate everything, but in such a way
-as to preserve the individuality of nothing.
-A thought is valuable in proportion to its
-capacity to take hold of things as they are.
-The old opinion that heat was caloric,
-served as a working hypothesis for the mind
-a long time. In the view of those who
-held it, it was satisfactory and adequate.
-But it never really got hold of heat, because
-it contradicted the nature of heat.
-The astronomers thought, for a long time,
-that they had come into relations of knowledge
-with the stars through the Ptolemaic
-conception of the heavenly bodies. They
-were mistaken, however. Their theory did
-not fit the real celestial order at all. As a
-work of genius, Spinoza’s Ethics is one of
-the most remarkable productions ever formulated<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_166"></a>[166]</span>
-by the human intellect, but it conducted
-the mind away from truth, rather
-than into relations with it. Locke began
-his work as a philosopher, as Descartes
-began his, by looking into his own mind.
-Descartes began by casting out everything
-that could be doubted. Locke began by
-making an inventory of what his mind contained.
-Descartes wanted to find out how
-much he could know, as measured by what
-remained after throwing out everything
-that could be doubted. Locke sought to
-see how little he could know, by putting
-the sensations and impressions he found in
-his mind on the witness stand, and getting
-them to tell how they came to be there,
-and where they came from. Descartes
-began by a study of the intelligence, the
-instrument of knowledge. Locke began by
-a study of the facts which, by some means
-or other, had found their way into his
-intelligence. Descartes got rid of every<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_167"></a>[167]</span>
-belief that could be doubted. Locke ran
-every idea out of his mind that had been
-imported from the outside world, in order
-that he might see if the mind had any constitutional
-power to produce any. Descartes,
-having dislodged all inherited beliefs,
-such as took for granted the existence of
-God, man, mind, and outer world, found
-some mental laws, capabilities, and tendencies
-left, which compelled a man, if he
-thought at all, to think in a given way;
-and if he thought on given lines, to think
-to a given conclusion. Not being able to
-get these laws out of the mind, he called
-them innate ideas. They were in the
-mind by structure and constitution.</p>
-
-<p>After Locke had carefully examined
-the contents of his mind, he declared
-they were all imported from an outside
-realm. Nothing he found in the mind
-was indigenous to the soil. When all
-foreign importations were removed, nothing<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_168"></a>[168]</span>
-remained but an empty vessel. The
-mind was nothing but a receptacle, into
-which the senses dumped such objects as
-they happened to find lying round loose
-in the outside world. It had no more
-power to understand or turn into thought
-what was brought in than a piece of white
-paper had to read and interpret what was
-written upon it; or than a kettle to recognize
-the liquid making up its contents as
-water. It is like a table of wax; any sort
-of letters may be graven upon it, but the
-table cannot read them.</p>
-
-<p>Locke proposed to find out what the
-mind could know by counting and tabulating
-the things he found in his own intelligence.
-This is very much like trying to
-understand the nature of light, by considering
-the blue things and green things and
-red things the light discloses. All bodies,
-it is said, which the light enables us to
-see, attract each other in proportion to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_169"></a>[169]</span>
-their mass, and inversely as the squares of
-their distance. The law of gravity, which
-regulates the bodies light reveals to us, is
-not the law of light. We can never understand
-the nature of light, or the laws of
-light, by the study of things which light
-enables us to see. If all knowledge is but
-the sum of the impressions which the external
-world has made on the mind, then
-the cause of knowledge is matter, and
-knowledge is but the image or reflection
-of material things. Knowledge, then,
-would sustain the same relation to the outside
-world, that the shadow of a tree does
-to the tree. One would come as near
-lifting up the tree by its own shadow as
-lifting up the truth by Locke’s system of
-sensational philosophy.</p>
-
-<p>Impressions are simple, atomic. They
-come into the mind, one after another.
-They cohere in no unity. They are held
-together by no necessary relation. They<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_170"></a>[170]</span>
-are separate, one from the other. If there
-is no primary, innate faculty; no abiding
-and indwelling mental activity, that lies
-behind, and determines and co-ordinates
-the objects which nature supplies through
-the senses, converting them into rational,
-orderly knowledge, then we can never get
-hold of truth. We are shut up to hopeless
-ignorance.</p>
-
-<h3>VI.</h3>
-
-<p>Berkeley, in order to escape the materialism
-to which Locke’s philosophy led,
-accepted his theory of knowledge, but destroyed
-his outward, material world. In
-his view, there was no matter, nothing but
-ideas. The impressions conveyed through
-the senses into our minds are but reflections
-of the ideas of God.</p>
-
-<p>In Hume, the empirical theory of knowing
-found a disciple who did not hesitate
-to affirm all that was involved in it.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_171"></a>[171]</span>
-Locke said there was an outward world,
-and knowledge was its image. Berkeley
-said there was no material world; that
-knowledge was the reflection of God’s ideas.
-Hume said there was neither outer world
-nor inner; that there was nothing but impressions,
-sensations, ideas, in perpetual flow
-and flux. He claimed that all ideas which
-could not be resolved into impressions
-were false. He declared we could have no
-ideas of substance, because, if perceived by
-the eye, it must be a color; if by the ear, a
-sound; if by the palate, a taste. And because
-we could not think of substance as a
-color or a sound or a taste, we could therefore
-have no idea of it whatever. Belief
-in a permanent external world was rendered
-irrational by his theory of knowledge.
-Nothing is more vital and irrepressible
-than belief in one’s own existence,
-but even this could not be retained
-in accordance with the teachings of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_172"></a>[172]</span>
-Hume’s philosophy. “Whence,” says he,
-“could the impression of the idea of self
-be derived? What impression could
-create this idea? This question it is impossible
-to answer without a manifest contradiction
-and absurdity, and yet it is a
-question that must necessarily be answered.
-For my part, when I enter most intimately
-into what I call myself, I always
-stumble upon some perception or other;
-heat or cold, light or shade, pain or
-pleasure. I cannot catch myself at any
-time without a perception, or observe anything
-but a perception. When my perceptions
-are removed at any time, as by
-sound sleep, so long am I insensible of myself,
-and may be said truly not to exist.”</p>
-
-<p>The sensational philosophy which promised
-so much, which appeared so eminently
-practical, that took to itself such an air of
-common sense as it got about obliterating
-innate ideas, was seen at length to be<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_173"></a>[173]</span>
-utterly impotent. It corresponded with
-absolutely nothing in heaven or in earth.
-The very impressions it admitted, passed
-through it like drops of water out of a
-fisherman’s net. Where the impressions
-came from or where they went to, it furnished
-no means of knowing. God and
-world and cause and law and self might
-be, but the human mind could never know
-whether they were or not. The human
-observer stood before a procession of
-images, sensations, perceptions going by
-like an unending circus troupe.</p>
-
-<p>In Hume may be traced the entire breakdown
-of empirical philosophy as a method
-for getting at the truth. He recognized
-this himself. “When I turn my eye inward,”
-he says, “I find nothing but doubt
-and ignorance.” “The understanding, when
-it acts alone, and according to its most
-general principles, entirely subverts itself,
-and leaves not the lowest degree of evidence<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_174"></a>[174]</span>
-in any proposition, either in philosophy
-or common life.” “We have, therefore,
-no choice left, but betwixt a false
-reason and none at all.”</p>
-
-<h3>VII.</h3>
-
-<p>The most remarkable thing in the whole
-search for truth, is that anybody after
-Hume should have attempted to find it
-with Hume’s principles. Yet the two best
-known writers who have lived in England
-since Hume’s day, have rested their dogmatic
-doctrines on the foundations laid by
-the sensational philosophers. Hume’s impressions
-and ideas became John Stuart
-Mill’s permanent possibilities of sensation
-and feeling, and Herbert Spencer’s vivid
-and faint manifestations of the unknowable.
-In our time Herbert Spencer has
-undertaken the herculean task of explaining
-matter and mind, time and space,
-society and morals; of showing what they<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_175"></a>[175]</span>
-are and what they are not, by the same
-principles which Hume himself demonstrated
-to be incapable of explaining anything.
-Spencer’s units of knowledge are
-vivid and faint manifestations of the Unknown.
-How the unknowable remains
-unknown, after vividly and faintly manifesting
-itself, we are not told. Mr.
-Spencer’s vivid and faint manifestations of
-the unknown are old acquaintances with
-new names.</p>
-
-<p>Locke knew them as impressions and
-sensations. Berkeley recognized them as
-ideas of sense and imagination. John
-Stuart Mill was on speaking terms with
-them as permanent possibilities of sensation
-and feeling. Mr. Spencer gives them
-another baptism and another name. He
-calls them vivid and faint manifestations
-of the unknowable. While they have been
-changed in name, however, it must not be
-supposed that they have undergone any<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_176"></a>[176]</span>
-change in nature or character. They stand
-apart, the one from the other, just the same
-as ever. They are just as foreign to the
-mind, where they vividly and faintly manifest
-themselves, as were the impressions of
-John Locke. They flare and flicker, rise
-and fall, like the jack-o’-lantern lights of
-legend and tale. One light is not of a piece
-with any other light. The lights follow
-one another in such quick succession, first
-vivid, then faint, that one cannot tell from
-the momentary flames and flashes what is
-intended to be advertised. That something
-is trying, by various pyrotechnic displays,
-to get itself revealed seems to be evident.
-But there is such hurry on the part of the
-something that makes the manifestations,
-such a disorderly whirl and changing of
-lights, that the observer is totally bewildered;
-and, being under the necessity of
-making some account to himself as to their
-meaning, concludes that they are vivid and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_177"></a>[177]</span>
-faint illuminations of the unknowable.
-Hume’s procession of sensations and ideas
-has by Spencer been converted into the
-fire-works of the unknowable. With
-Hume’s physiological theory, the mind
-could know nothing but its own sensations.
-Spencer’s vivid and faint manifestations of
-the unknowable are equally as incapable
-of furnishing any rational basis for belief
-in mind or matter, law or cause, self or God.
-To ask the human mind to believe the encyclopedic,
-dogmatic system of philosophy
-he addressed to it, after insisting that all
-our knowledge is but the sum of vivid and
-faint manifestations of the unknowable, is
-as irrational as trying to build a cathedral
-on a London fog bank. Underneath every
-one of Spencer’s general terms, the indestructibility
-of matter, the continuity of
-motion, the persistence of force, there is
-nothing but sensations, vivid or faint manifestations
-of the unknown.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_178"></a>[178]</span></p>
-
-<p>“The doctrine of the indestructibility of
-matter,” he says, “has now become a commonplace.”
-“Matter never either comes
-into existence, or ceases to exist.” How
-are we to know this, with minds incapable
-of any other knowledge except such as is
-made up of vivid and faint manifestations
-of the unknown? Who ever had a sensation
-or a manifestation of the indestructibility
-of matter? This is an idea involving
-all past time and all future time, and
-all the laws and forces by which matter is
-regulated and conserved. How could an
-image of the indestructibility of matter be
-photographed on the sensitive plate of the
-mind? To do this it would be necessary
-to compress all past time and all future
-time into one moment, and all matter into
-one single square inch or square yard of
-space, so that the impression of it could be
-made. To believe in the indestructibility
-of matter, with Mr. Spencer’s theory of the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_179"></a>[179]</span>
-mind’s capacity to know, is delirium and
-insanity. It is to believe in something
-that the mind, by its very nature, cannot
-even get an impression of. It is believing
-that the ocean can be carried in a thimble
-without any bottom. Any man who should
-utter this publicly, and sincerely, would be
-put in the insane asylum. He says again,
-“the very nature of the intelligence negatives
-the supposition that motion can be
-conceived (much less known) either to
-commence or to cease.” The nature of the
-intelligence is such that all the knowledge
-it possesses is made up of sensations and
-manifestations of the unknown. How can
-the continuity of motion be conceived? To
-do this, we must have a conception of all
-past time and all future time. It is an
-idea as transcendent as the idea of God.</p>
-
-<p>Mr. Spencer claims that the power the
-universe manifests to us is utterly inscrutable;
-that space and time are wholly<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_180"></a>[180]</span>
-incomprehensible; that matter, in its ultimate
-nature, is as absolutely incomprehensible
-as space and time; that all efforts to
-understand the essential nature of motion
-do but bring us to alternative absurdities
-of thought; that it is impossible to form
-any idea of force in itself, and equally
-impossible to comprehend either its mode
-of exercise or its law of variation; that we
-are unable to believe or to conceive that
-the duration of consciousness is infinite,
-and equally unable to know it as finite, or
-to conceive it as finite; and that the personality
-of which we are each conscious, and
-of which the existence is to each a fact
-beyond all others the most certain, yet is a
-thing which cannot truthfully be known
-at all: knowledge of it is forbidden by
-the very nature of thought. All this is
-perfectly consistent with his theory of
-knowledge. This is the point to which
-David Hume, his master, conducted the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_181"></a>[181]</span>
-human mind in its search for truth. But
-Spencer is not logical; he had a theory
-of being that contradicted his theory of
-knowing. So he reasons first one way and
-then another. He says, elsewhere in his
-First Principles, that common sense asserts
-the existence of a reality; that objective
-science proves that this reality cannot be
-what we think it; that subjective science
-shows why we cannot think of it as it is,
-and yet are compelled to think of it as
-existing; and that in this assertion of a
-reality utterly inscrutable in nature, religion
-finds an assertion essentially coinciding
-with her own. That we are compelled to
-regard every phenomenon as a manifestation
-of some power by which we are
-acted upon. That though omnipresence is
-unthinkable, yet as experience discloses no
-bounds to the diffusion of phenomena, we
-are unable to think of limits to the
-presence of this power, while the criticisms<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_182"></a>[182]</span>
-of science teach us that this power is
-incomprehensible. Analyzing the above
-declarations, we find that Mr. Spencer
-knows there is an ultimate reality. Then
-it has being. It acts upon us. Then it
-has the attribute of action. All phenomena
-are manifestations of it. Then it
-has power. All phenomena are manifestations
-of an inscrutable power, by which
-we are acted upon. Then it has causal
-energy. We are unable to think of limits
-to the presence of this power. Then it is
-omnipresent. So the unknowable, inscrutable
-something has being, power, activity,
-causal energy, and omnipresence. But
-how are we to grasp these universal,
-transcendental attributes of the unknowable,
-with an intelligence incapable of
-receiving anything but simple, separate,
-unrelated, broken impressions and manifestations?
-It takes as much mind to believe
-in the unknowable, with the attributes of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_183"></a>[183]</span>
-power, activity, being, causal energy, and
-omnipresence, as to believe in a self-existent
-God, with the attributes of power,
-wisdom, justice, truth, and love.</p>
-
-<p>Spencer’s theory of knowing is destructive,
-while his theory of being is constructive
-and transcendental.</p>
-
-<h3>VIII.</h3>
-
-<p>The intelligence, as the organ of truth,
-must be large enough to find truth and
-contain truth. No sane man would undertake
-to dig down a mountain with a toothpick.
-Mr. Spencer devoted page after page
-to the discussion of cause, time, space, force,
-and ultimate reality, while holding a theory
-of knowledge that made the very thought
-of these inconceivable. The very things
-that he labeled as knowable contained a
-substrate the mind could never get at.
-Knowable things, then, could not be known
-as they were; hence if they were known at<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_184"></a>[184]</span>
-all, must be known as they were not, which
-made the mind’s knowledge error. All
-who accept Mr. Spencer’s theory of knowledge
-are shut up to absolute ignorance or
-absolute error. If we are to know the truth
-of reality, of mind, of external existence, we
-must have knowing faculties up to the style
-of the truth we are to know. If we are
-to know light, we must have eyes capable
-of taking in the light, of analyzing it, and
-turning it into vision. The disposition to
-limit our power to know, by telling us, on
-the strength of Mansel and Hamilton and
-Kant, that all our knowledge is relative, is
-innocent enough when stripped of its seeming
-wisdom. It is true that we can know no
-more than our knowing faculties permit us.</p>
-
-<p>We cannot know more than we can know.
-We are not absolute and omniscient as to
-our capacity to know. All we can see is
-what we can see with our eyes. We cannot
-see with our fingers or with the back<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_185"></a>[185]</span>
-of our heads. All we can hear is what we
-can hear with our ears. We have no other
-organs with which to hear. All sounds
-that vibrate at the rate of sixteen times
-to the second up to thirty-eight thousand
-times to the second, we can hear. Whatsoever
-sounds vibrate at a lower rate than
-sixteen times to the second or at a higher
-rate than thirty-eight thousand times to the
-second, we cannot hear, because such sounds
-are not related to the ear. But the eye,
-being adjusted to and related to much finer
-wave lengths than the ear, can see waves
-that vibrate up as high as seven hundred
-and twenty-seven trillion times to the second.
-The eye cannot see waves shorter
-than seven hundred and twenty-seven
-trillion vibrations to the second, because
-such waves are not adjusted to the eye.
-The waves the ear cannot hear are not
-sound waves. The waves the eye cannot
-see are not light waves. There are no<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_186"></a>[186]</span>
-sound waves in the universe the ear cannot
-hear, provided they are near enough to come
-into contact with it. There are no light
-waves in the universe that the eye cannot
-turn into vision, if they strike the retina.
-Are we going to fall out with the eye, and
-discredit the beauty it does see, because it
-is not as large as the rim of immensity, and
-cannot see everything disclosed by the light
-of suns and stars at once? Are we to hold
-the ear in contempt after it takes in the
-harmonies of Beethoven and Mozart, because
-it cannot hear all the music the stars
-are making as they move through the
-heavens?</p>
-
-<p>Whatever is real and true the mind can
-know, because the mind is correlated to
-the real and the true. It cannot know
-what is unreal and untrue. It cannot
-know that two and two make five, because
-that is unreal and untrue. It cannot know
-that a crooked line is the shortest distance<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_187"></a>[187]</span>
-between two points, because that is unknowable.
-It cannot know that it is more
-rational to tell a lie than to tell the truth,
-because that is unknowable and untrue.
-There is much that is unknowable, but
-whatever is, we may be sure is irrational
-and unreal. Whatever is true in being,
-cause, time, space, mind, matter, force, motion
-may be known. The finite mind cannot
-know it at once, and can never,
-throughout all infinite time, directly take it
-into the intelligence; but it is knowable,
-because the underlying, fundamental, prior
-thing in the universe is mind, the mind
-of the absolute and eternal One. All
-things are set in order and reason. The
-external universe is the expression of mind,
-and is therefore intelligible. The human
-intelligence is the expression of the same
-mind, and is therefore capable of grasping
-and turning into thought the intelligible
-order without.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_188"></a>[188]</span></p>
-
-<p>According to the theory of Locke, Berkeley,
-Hume, Mill, and Spencer, any knowledge
-whatsoever is impossible. If the
-knowing subject and the knowable object,
-the two factors of knowledge, can only
-come together in a mechanical way, as
-basket and potatoes, kettle and water,
-paper and letters, then the very conditions
-of knowledge are denied, and we are shut
-up to blank, square ignorance.</p>
-
-<p>Things come together to form knowledge,
-as things come together to form a
-tree, and not as house, calico, pins, lace,
-shoes, and blankets come together to form
-a store. An acorn is a living something.
-It is not a tree, but within itself are the
-germs of a tree. When grown, it may be
-said to have forms, as root, trunk, and
-branches. These were potentially and
-ideally contained in the acorn. But their
-realization and active expression involved
-a process, in which the ideal forms, tendencies,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_189"></a>[189]</span>
-and forces contained in germ in the
-acorn met and united with the elements of
-the outside world. Suppose we consider
-the acorn the subject, and the particles in
-soil and rain and atmosphere capable of
-making a tree as the object. What happens
-when an oak with all its beauty
-stands out upon the hillside? This subject
-and object have come together in
-unity, in an organism. Suppose Locke
-should have undertaken the work of understanding
-how a tree came to be, instead
-of how knowledge came to be. We will
-say he began by analyzing a full grown
-tree. After thorough examination of its
-contents, he finds that all the parts of the
-tree, carbon, water, etc., are found outside
-of it in the external world.</p>
-
-<p>He finds that the tree is composed of
-various atoms, all of which may be found
-in the soil and in the atmosphere. He
-concludes, then, that these atoms from soil<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_190"></a>[190]</span>
-and atmosphere, began to move up to and
-down to the acorn. The acorn, passive
-meanwhile, lets them fall on it. So, of
-their own free will and accord, the atoms
-kept piling themselves upon the acorn, until
-in the process of a hundred years there
-was a tree. Now a brick column might be
-carried up after this fashion, but not a tree.
-The prior and fundamental thing in an oak
-tree is the acorn. It contains an active,
-organizing life principle. Falling into the
-soil, this folded life power begins to stir.
-It lays hold upon the elements about it,
-digests them, assimilates them, and turns
-them into an oak. The mind is to the raw
-material of knowledge, what the acorn is
-to the raw material of oak. Through the
-senses the raw material is conveyed into the
-mind. It is then appropriated, assimilated,
-digested, and turned into knowledge. The
-active, organizing, combining power that
-turns the raw material presented by the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_191"></a>[191]</span>
-senses into knowledge, does not come from
-the outside world. It is constitutional, fundamental,
-original. Just as the organic
-forces of the plant take up the elements
-from the outside environment upon which
-it subsists, so the synthesizing, living power
-of the mind takes the matter of sensation
-and turns it into the whole called knowledge.
-Knowledge is a unifying process.
-It combines the manifold into one. It reduces
-multiplicity to unity. All that is
-real and all that is true in the heavens
-above or in the earth below, in mind or in
-matter, in time or in space, in man or in external
-world, are capable of being reduced
-to unity in knowledge.</p>
-
-<p>Knowledge is the subjective unity in the
-finite mind that corresponds to the objective
-unity that lies within the infinite mind.
-Nothing less than a universal synthesis
-satisfies the finite mind, because it is a
-copy of the infinite mind. The finite<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_192"></a>[192]</span>
-self-consciousness is a copy of the infinite self-consciousness.
-The infinite mind knows
-all things at once; the finite mind comes to
-knowledge through a gradual process. It
-can never, through all eternity, know all
-the infinite mind knows, but it can eternally
-advance in knowledge, and comfort
-itself at every stage of the process with the
-thought that nothing in the mind of the
-infinite and absolute one is foreign to it, or
-in contradiction with its capacity to know.
-In thinking, the finite mind is at home in
-its father’s realm, and because this realm
-stretches out illimitably every way should
-not oppress us or discourage us. For this
-the finite mind can know, that throughout
-the limitless domain of God there is order
-and truth and reality.</p>
-
-<p>Thus standing face to face with truth,
-and being endowed with intellectual capacities
-capable of recognizing it, grasping it,
-in its unity and in its particulars, it is<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_193"></a>[193]</span>
-proper to inquire the object and the purpose
-of it. It is the revelation which the
-infinite mind has made to the finite. It is
-the language of God, in which he has embodied
-his thought. It is the word of the
-universal spirit. Man is a spirit, and he is
-to grow and come to the full realization of
-himself by partaking of the word of God.
-Truth has been revealed for no other purpose
-than to make men. Sir William Hamilton
-represents truth as game, and the
-method of getting truth to a chase. He says
-the exercise of our powers involved in the
-process of getting truth is better than the
-game we seek. Lessings says, “If the Almighty,
-holding in one hand truth, and in
-the other search after truth, presented them
-to me and asked me which I would choose,
-with all humility, but without hesitation, I
-should say, give me search after truth.”</p>
-
-<p>Mallbranche says: “If I held truth captive,
-like a bird in my hand, I would let it<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_194"></a>[194]</span>
-go again, that I might chase and capture
-it.” Müller says: “Truth is the property
-of God alone. Search after truth belongs
-to man.” Such sentiments indicate that
-the men who uttered them had no correct
-idea of the real nature of truth, or of man’s
-intellectual nature, the necessary food of
-which is truth. It is true that the search
-after truth gives exercise and pleasure to
-the intellectual faculties, as search after
-bread gives exercise and health to the
-physical powers. But an eternal search
-for bread is not sufficient to keep man’s
-body robust and strong. The very condition
-upon which he will be able to keep
-up the search for it is, that he regularly and
-steadily partake of it. A tree, had it intelligence
-and emotion, would, doubtless,
-enjoy wrestling with the storms, and throwing
-its roots into the earth and its branches
-into the heavens, making levies upon earth
-and sky for its own nourishment; but if it<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_195"></a>[195]</span>
-did not constantly turn the elements it
-found into its trunk and branches, it would
-not be able to wrestle long with the
-storms, or forage long upon the earth and
-sky.</p>
-
-<p>To claim that the intellectual faculties
-are always to search for truth, and that the
-search is better than the truth, is tacitly to
-assume that truth is not for them; or, if for
-them, and should ever be found, would be
-as useless as a poor, tired, half-dead fox
-overtaken by the hunters in the chase.
-Searching for truth is doing; partaking of
-truth is being. The search gives agility
-and skill; the partaking of truth gives
-wealth of character. To hunt game with
-no other object than that which comes from
-the sport of the chase is degrading. To
-shoot birds only for the purpose of seeing
-them fall is mean and wicked. So, to
-search for truth with no other purpose than
-that which comes from the exercise of the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_196"></a>[196]</span>
-search, is unworthy the intellect that was
-given, not only to find truth, but to grow
-rich and God-like by partaking of the truth.</p>
-
-<p>Man’s need for bread, we saw, led to the
-establishment of commerce, and commerce
-did far more than secure to man food and
-clothing and shelter. It brought men together
-and discovered themselves to themselves.
-Power lent itself to the uses of
-man’s social nature, awakened and developed
-by commerce, and made it possible
-for men to come into relations with one
-another, not simply in states and nations,
-but on all the earth. The need for bread
-helped to the formation of society, the
-nature of power and the applications to
-which it lent itself widened the social domain
-into a universal brotherhood, to which
-man, as a spirit, was correlated. But many
-saw bread only in its relations to hunger,
-and power only in its relations to wealth
-and worldly dominion. So, many see in<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_197"></a>[197]</span>
-truth no purpose except the practical and
-material ends to which it can be put. In
-the esteem of the utilitarians, it was well
-enough that learned men consecrated their
-genius and their industry to the study of
-the subtle subject of heat. It was well
-that they discovered the real nature of heat,
-and saw that it was not caloric, but a mode
-of motion. Because this opened the way
-for our railroads and steamboats and quick
-methods of transportation, which have contributed
-so much to the world’s wealth.
-It was well that the impracticable and
-theoretical men, who had nothing better to
-do, spent ages studying the nature of electricity,
-and finally discovered that there
-were certain metals for which it had affinity,
-and that it had speed equal to thought
-itself. For these studies have enabled the
-practical and substantial men to order their
-corn and meat by telegraph, and the practical
-housewives to order their roast beef<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_198"></a>[198]</span>
-by telephone. It is well that people who
-had no practical turn of mind spent years
-in considering the structure of the human
-frame, and the plants and minerals capable
-of ministering to it, for in this way the
-doctors have got ideas by which they are
-enabled to keep us practical men alive, so
-that we can trade longer, and build more
-factories and eat more victuals.</p>
-
-<p>Now it is true that the knowledge the
-intelligence comes to by insight into the
-relations and nature and truth of things,
-can be turned to practical account. But
-the truth the mind finds by study was not
-primarily intended to open the way for
-steam cars and telegraphs and the production
-of wealth. These things are incidental.
-Truth is the provision God has
-made for the intellect. The knowledge
-of the stars has helped man to sail the sea
-and to take his bearings on any part of its
-surface. But the practical account to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_199"></a>[199]</span>
-which this knowledge has been turned is
-not to be compared, in value, to the effect
-it was intended to have on the human
-mind, strengthening it, ennobling it, and
-harmonizing it with the divine mind.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_200"></a>[200]</span></p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_201"></a>[201]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="RIGHTEOUSNESS"><i>RIGHTEOUSNESS.</i></h2>
-
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_202"></a>[202]</span></p>
-
-<div class="blockquote">
-
-<p>“While smitten with the fatal wanness of approaching
-doom, the flamboyant pleiad of the men of
-violence descends the steep slope to the gulf of devouring
-time: lo! at the other extremity of space,
-when the last cloud has but now faded in the deep
-sky of the future, azure forevermore, rises resplendent
-the sacred galaxy of the true stars—Orpheus, Hermes,
-Job, Homer, Æschylus, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Hippocrates,
-Phidias, Socrates, Sophocles, Plato, Aristotle, Archimedes,
-Euclid, Pythagoras, Lucretius, Plautus, Juvenal,
-Tacitus, Saint Paul, John of Patmos, Tertullian,
-Pelagius, Dante, Gutenberg, Joan of Arc, Christopher
-Columbus, Luther, Michael Angelo, Copernicus,
-Galileo, Rabelais, Calderon, Cervantes, Shakspere,
-Rembrandt, Kepler, Milton, Molière, Newton, Descartes,
-Kant, Piranesi, Beccari, Diderot, Beethoven,
-Fulton, Montgolfier, Washington: and the marvelous
-constellations, brighter from moment to moment,
-radiant as a tiara of celestial diamonds, shine in the
-clear horizon, and, as it rises, blends, with the boundless
-dawn of Jesus Christ.”</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_203"></a>[203]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV.<br />
-<span class="smaller">THE PROVISION FOR THE MORAL NATURE OF MAN.</span></h2>
-
-</div>
-
-<p>Two elements are essential to the process
-of thinking, the intellect and the
-truth. One is within, the other is without.
-The one is subjective, the other is
-objective. Two elements are also essential
-to the process of volition, the will and the
-right. The one within, the other without.
-The one subjective, the other objective.
-Before sight is possible, there must
-be an eye and there must be light. The
-one is within, the other is without. The
-one is subjective, the other is objective.
-Before hearing, there must be an ear and
-there must be sound. The one is within,
-the other is without. The one is subjective,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_204"></a>[204]</span>
-the other is objective. Before breathing
-there must be lungs and there must be
-atmosphere. The one is within, the other
-is without. The one is subjective, the
-other is objective.</p>
-
-<p>No definition of man is large enough to
-accommodate the facts of his nature, that
-does not embrace what he is without as
-well as what he is within, what he is objectively
-as well as what he is subjectively.
-It must not only embrace the intellect, but
-the truth which it thinks; not only the
-will, but the right which corresponds to it;
-not only the eye, but the light which
-gives it meaning; not only the ear, but the
-sound which matches it; not only the
-lungs, but the atmosphere to which they
-are correlated. Human nature is dually
-constituted, so that the larger half of itself
-is outside of itself.</p>
-
-<p>Illustrations of the same duality of constitution
-may be found on a limited scale<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_205"></a>[205]</span>
-in the organic and in the inorganic worlds.
-The greater half of the oak is not in the
-life germ of the acorn, but in the elements
-of the soil and the sky which environ it.
-The larger part of the fish is in the ocean
-which surrounds it. Most of the fuel
-which makes the heat in the grate is not
-in the carbon of the coal, but in the
-oxygen of the air which fills the room.</p>
-
-<h3>I.</h3>
-
-<p>The possession of a will and the capacity
-for choice make man a moral being.
-Man’s will is bounded on every side by
-the laws of God. These laws are only
-another name for God’s will. Man is
-made in God’s image and has a will, as far
-as it goes, just like God’s will.</p>
-
-<p>By choosing to act and to move along
-the lines of law which gather from every
-whither about his will, he finds he can go
-somewhere, that he can leave the narrow,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_206"></a>[206]</span>
-provincial, and local neighborhood of ease
-and sense and subjection, and find his life
-in that broad realm of freedom, that belongs
-to him as a thinking and willing
-being.</p>
-
-<p>At the termini of some railroads there
-are huge contrivances called turntables.
-They are constructed of immense timbers
-and balanced on pivots. They are large
-enough to accommodate the full length of
-a steam engine. Iron rails are laid across
-these tables, of the same size and the same
-distance apart as the rails which make up
-the lines of the main track. When the
-train comes in from the far interior, the
-engine is run out on one of these tables
-and turned round, so that the headlight
-faces the main track again. Before the
-engine is ready to leave the short track,
-however, the rails on the turntable must
-exactly correspond to the rails on the
-main road. Then the engineer pulls the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_207"></a>[207]</span>
-throttle, and the great locomotive rolls
-past the circumference of its pivoted and
-temporary resting place into commerce
-with the railways of the globe. Imagine
-railway lines coming together about
-such a revolving table from all the earth,
-so that an engine could pass from this
-circular platform toward any quarter of
-the globe, the only condition being that
-the short track on the table correspond
-to the rails of the long track on which it
-was proposed for the engine to run, and
-you have an illustration, which in some degree
-helps us to understand the relation of
-man’s will to the laws of God.</p>
-
-<p>Should the engineer undertake to get
-the engine from the table without reference
-to the lines upon which it was intended
-to run, we know very well what
-the consequences would be. He would
-not go far, and even the little distance he
-should manage to make would be attended<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_208"></a>[208]</span>
-with tremendous bumping and friction.
-All movement would be in the direction
-of chaos and confusion. However great
-the expenditure of energy, no point would
-be reached, and the end of the undertaking
-would be waste and failure. If, on the
-other hand, we should imagine an engine
-on such a revolving plane, capable of making
-fifty miles an hour, with no tracks
-leaving it, we know it could not go anywhere,
-and besides there would be no reason
-for its being. It would be without
-meaning. Before the distance between
-one point and another can be passed by a
-train, two things are necessary, an engine
-and a railroad. The one may be called
-subjective, the other objective. The one
-implies the other. They are the necessary
-elements of transportation. As long as the
-train keeps to the iron rails laid for it, it
-moves without friction. It is only when
-the subjective element jumps the track<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_209"></a>[209]</span>
-and essays to determine its own objective
-direction, that trouble comes. Then it is
-that cars are ditched and people killed or
-crippled. The laws of God run to and fro
-throughout the whole earth. They cross
-and recross every realm. They pass
-through every domain, physical, mental,
-and moral. They go straight through
-matter and straight through mind. They
-lead under the sea and over the sea and
-through the sea. Down through the earth
-and up through the air they may be noted,
-embracing with their invisible tracks every
-square inch of soil and sky. They insure
-the order of the universe, visible and invisible,
-tangible and intangible. They reach
-from globe to globe and make possible the
-commerce of the spheres. They run out
-into the infinitely great and back into the
-infinitely small, and bind in unity the
-atoms and the stars.</p>
-
-<p>When man, by the aid of his reason,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_210"></a>[210]</span>
-discovers the truth of things, which is the
-provision for his intellect, these laws appear
-as provision for his will.</p>
-
-<p>So truth and law, reality and righteousness,
-expressions of the thought and will
-of God, are the everlasting facts to which
-man is to adjust his intellect and will, if
-he is to cross the oceans, travel the continents,
-and claim the possessions which in
-the universe belong to him. If he misreads
-the facts, he will of course misread
-the laws which govern the facts, and will
-thus be unable to get facts or laws to serve
-him. But clearly seeing the truth of
-things, he is able to avail himself of the
-laws of things. As long as he only saw
-things in the lump, and looked upon the
-world as so much air and earth and fire
-and water, he missed the subtle laws
-which regulate the atomic and molecular
-structure of bodies, and failed to make
-them his servants. When, by the aid of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_211"></a>[211]</span>
-observation and experiment, he reduced
-the earth to its ultimate particles and came
-to such knowledge of it as corresponded to
-the facts of it; when he came to see the
-laws and drift of things, the tendencies
-and affinities of things; he had only to put
-the productions of his will in line with the
-way things were going, to have them
-serve him. Seeing that forces have power
-to do work in proportion to their energy
-of position, and applying this insight to
-the river with forty feet fall, he builds his
-mill beside it and thus utilizes it to grind
-his wheat. Seeing what soil and sunlight
-and rain can do when they combine to unwrap
-the life in a seed, he commits his
-wheat to their benevolent tendencies and
-gets a harvest of twenty bushels for every
-one he seems to lose. He studies fire.
-He sees it wrap in flame and level in
-an hour fortunes it took a lifetime to accumulate.
-He learns what a furious and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_212"></a>[212]</span>
-awful force it is. He gets insight into its
-real nature. He gets knowledge of it that
-corresponds to the reality of it. He sees
-that it is only a flaming and lurid method
-of movement. With the truth of it he
-gets the law of it. So by the aid of volition,
-put forth in accordance with intelligence,
-he contrives a machine corresponding
-to the laws of heat, as a mode of motion.
-In this way he utilizes the heat that
-burned up his cities, to transport him in
-ease and comfort over the country. He
-studies the stars until his knowledge of
-them corresponds to them as they are;
-along with this knowledge, he comes to an
-understanding of their laws, their uniform
-methods of action. Then he builds his
-great ships and commits them to the wild
-and storm-tossed sea, sure that his power
-to guide them will never fail as long as
-law and order remain in the heavens.</p>
-
-<p>That there is a natural order, with certain<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_213"></a>[213]</span>
-inhering laws, men readily accept.
-That this order has the consistency of being
-developed in one way; that there is a dip
-to things that must be followed; that there
-is a clew, in accordance with which things
-may be worked; that there is a trend, drift,
-and law of things that must be accepted
-and followed; all this, men readily assent
-to. They do not attempt to farm the Sahara
-Desert, for they know the conditions
-of harvests are not there. They do not
-put out orange groves in Minnesota, nor
-plant cotton in Canada, nor sow rice in
-British Columbia. They do not expect
-the soil that spews up the ice to produce
-watermelons at the same time. They do
-not pretend to navigate ships over the continents,
-and to lay their railway lines on
-the surface of the sea. They fix their telegraph
-wires to poles by means of little
-glass contrivances, and never attempt to
-send electricity through the grape vine.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_214"></a>[214]</span>
-Natural laws they know inhere in the facts
-of nature, and are not read into earth and
-rock and river and atmosphere. They
-know that necessary laws reside in the
-facts of condition, and that they must study
-these laws to know the line of practical
-work they require. In building a house of
-stone they know it is necessary to defer to
-the law of gravity, that this law cannot be
-ignored or set aside, so they carry up the
-edifice in such conformity to rule and line
-as that the center of gravity falls in a line
-inside the base. They might prefer a house
-built with reference to a different order of
-things, one in which the center of gravity
-would fall in a line outside the base. But
-it is very well understood among men that
-the law of gravity must be respected. Even
-anarchists and nihilists, who seem to have
-irrepressible antipathy for all ancient orders
-and laws and establishments, do condescend
-sufficiently to respect the time-honored,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_215"></a>[215]</span>
-even if slightly belated, laws of
-gravity.</p>
-
-<h3>II.</h3>
-
-<p>The time was when men accepted the
-existence of a moral order with the same
-implicit, unquestioned confidence, that all
-men to-day accept the existence of a natural
-order. In Homer’s Themistes we have
-an illustration of this confidence. The
-very word by which the decision of a judge
-is described attributes it to Themis, the invisible
-embodiment of justice. Thus the
-judge is but the channel through which the
-decision passes from the unseen moral order
-into the Greek court of justice. The judge
-is not respected because he has authority
-to make the decision, but because his vocation
-makes him the vehicle through which
-the decision of a higher power is rendered.
-Moses said to the people of Israel, “Thou
-shalt not lie,” “Thou shalt not steal,”
-“Thou shalt not commit adultery,” but<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_216"></a>[216]</span>
-these were not his words simply, but the
-words through which a moral order was
-interpreted. The solemn and awful import
-given to these commands did not arise
-from the vehicle through which they
-passed into the Hebrew social order, but
-from the fact that they inhered in the very
-constitution of man as a social being, and
-when they were uttered, they were felt to
-come from the God who fashioned man’s
-life and set him in communities and states.
-They had the same sort of authority in the
-moral realm that the declarations of Newton,
-concerning the power of gravity, had
-in the natural. Newton did not conceive
-in his own brain the laws of gravity, he
-saw them and formulated them. Nor did
-Moses create the Ten Commandments, he
-saw them and interpreted them. The laws
-of gravity were transcripts from the will of
-God concerning matter, the Ten Commandments
-were transcripts from the will of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_217"></a>[217]</span>
-God concerning men. When natural
-bodies come together, it would be found
-that they always attracted each other in
-proportion to their mass and inversely as
-the squares of their distance. When men
-come together, it would always be found,
-that if they were to live together in harmony
-and health; if they were to advance
-and get above the planes of the brutes and
-the savages; they must abstain from lying,
-and stealing, and adultery, and thus be
-truthful, and honest, and virtuous.</p>
-
-<p>The laws of gravity were not arbitrary
-rules, ordained to oppress suns and systems
-without rhyme or reason. Order of some
-sort had to be preserved among the
-millions of blazing, rolling worlds. Nor
-were the Ten Commandments arbitrary
-lines of conduct imposed upon men at the
-pleasure of a great, omnipotent tyrant.
-Men could not live apart, out of touch
-and contact with one another. Thus living,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_218"></a>[218]</span>
-they were lower than the beasts that
-perish. They could not live together
-without rules of some sort to regulate
-their lives. And laws which looked to
-the preservation of truthfulness, honesty,
-and virtue, were thought better than laws
-which looked to the production of lying,
-dishonesty, and adultery.</p>
-
-<p>Because of the impetus given to the
-studies of material science within recent
-years, by the discoveries of scholars, the
-attention of men has been directed to the
-objects of the natural world and the laws
-which regulate them. Discoveries into
-the nature of heat, light, etc., has had the
-same effect upon the human mind that the
-discoveries of the gold fields in the West
-had upon the people of America in the
-early days. People abandoned fields and
-shops and stores and went in search for
-gold. The attention of the civilized world
-has in this generation been directed to the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_219"></a>[219]</span>
-consideration of outward facts. There
-has been promise here of earthly fortune.
-Conviction as to the existence of a moral
-order with its rewards and penalties is not
-so deep and abiding as it once was among
-English speaking people. But it is well
-to remember that the moral laws of the
-universe have not in the meantime been
-suspended, because men have not seen
-proper to consider them and to act with
-reference to them. They are just as real
-and as unfailing as ever. When accepted
-and followed, their presence is seen in
-health, in political stability, in intellectual
-progress. When ignored and forgotten,
-their presence is seen in disease, in political
-corruption, in mental stupidity, in
-sham and emptiness. In one way or another
-they always manage to get in their
-work. They never sleep, they never tire,
-they are eternally present to bless or to
-curse, to lift up or to cast down. They<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_220"></a>[220]</span>
-get round to every man’s home, and sooner
-or later to every man’s life, bearing honor
-or dishonor, legitimate reward or righteous
-infamy. They are not to be bribed, whitewashed,
-or bulldozed; they come clean, unvarnished,
-and unveneered to posit their
-labels on every man’s character; and whatever
-is read on the label, absolutely defines
-the content. Irrespective of money, titles,
-place, or rank, they come. The president
-in his seat, the judge on his bench, the
-preacher in his pulpit, cannot escape. If
-the president gets labeled pigmy, pigmy
-he is. If the judge gets classified fraud,
-fraud he is. If the preacher gets down as
-trimmer and sham, trimmer and sham
-he is.</p>
-
-<h3>III.</h3>
-
-<p>How are we to find moral laws? Just as
-we find natural laws. When we find the
-truth of natural bodies, reason sees the laws
-which inhere in them, and prudence dictates<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_221"></a>[221]</span>
-such action on our part as these laws
-require. When we come to truth, on the
-moral plane, or to such knowledge of the
-facts as corresponds to the truth, reason,
-unless perverted, sees the laws that reside
-in them, and conscience dictates that these
-laws should be obeyed. Conscience unerringly
-and infallibly approves the right.
-By the aid of the light which is thrown upon
-it when the intellect comes into relations
-of knowledge with moral truth, it recognizes
-the laws the will ought to follow.
-These laws make up a part of the truth.
-Before the right can be recognized, the truth
-must be seen. When that which the intelligence
-takes for truth is not the truth, the
-conscience will recognize laws for the will
-to follow that do not correspond to the laws
-of God. It has often happened that what
-the intelligence took for truth did not correspond
-to objective reality, and hence was
-not the truth; hence the conscience has often<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_222"></a>[222]</span>
-approved and suggested lines of action that
-were at variance with that which was essentially
-and eternally right. Those who followed
-the dictates of conscience, however,
-under such conditions, did, under the circumstances,
-right. To have refused to follow
-conscience would have increased their
-confusion. A man in the bog, with the certainty
-of death before him, ought to follow
-the guide that appears, even though he
-should not know how to lead him out of
-the swamp. Conscience never fails to come
-as near recognizing the right as the intellect
-comes to discovering the truth. When
-that which the intellect apprehends as truth
-corresponds to objective reality, we may be
-sure that the laws which inhere in it, and
-which conscience suggests as the ones the
-will ought to follow, correspond to the laws
-of God. One’s conscience may lead him
-wrong, but only when the intellect has led
-him wrong. St. Paul’s conscience led him<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_223"></a>[223]</span>
-wrong when it impelled him to persecute
-the Christians of the early church, but it
-was because that which he held for truth
-did not tally with the outward facts, and
-hence was not the truth. Had the supposed
-truth which he held while persecuting the
-Christians been real truth, then in persecuting
-the Christians he would have done
-right. The reversal of conscience resulted
-from the incoming of new truth, or such
-knowledge as was sustained by the outward
-facts. The conscience of the Hindoo
-mother that leads her to throw her child
-into the River Ganges is as good as the conscience
-of the Christian mother that leads
-her to carry her child to the Sunday school.
-The trouble with the Hindoo mother is not
-with her conscience, but with her religious
-knowledge; it does not correspond to the
-facts of the order of the moral and spiritual
-universe. We are to determine the value
-of the affirmations of conscience by determining<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_224"></a>[224]</span>
-the value of the knowledge out of
-which those affirmations grow. Knowledge
-is valuable in proportion to its correspondence
-with that which is real. As
-often as the intellect grasps the truth, the
-conscience will suggest the right that accompanies
-it. There is no truth of a moral
-nature that has not its attendant right.</p>
-
-<h3>IV.</h3>
-
-<p>We know the moral truth as we know
-material truth, through its relations. Relation
-makes the difference between chaos
-and cosmos. To define any natural object
-is to place it in its relations. We could not
-define oxygen without naming the elements
-to which it is related. To take it out of
-relation is to take from it any meaning.
-Error is wrong relation. When the mind
-assigns a place to an object other than
-that which really belongs to it, in the order
-of which it forms a part, we call this error.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_225"></a>[225]</span>
-If, seeing the parts of a house scattered over
-a field by a storm, we should confound a
-sleeper with a rafter, we should take it from
-its proper place and take away its meaning
-as a part of the building. All of our
-knowledge is of relations and not of sensations,
-as Hume taught. Sensations set
-the mind to classifying and comparing, and
-the knowledge it comes to is of relations.
-Take the sensations the mind has when a
-red object is presented to the eye. Does
-not the mind begin at once to distinguish
-this sensation as one of redness
-from other sensations that are of different
-colors?</p>
-
-<p>Is not its reality as a particular color
-constituted for us by its relation to colors,
-by its place in the scale of colors? If there
-was but one color, and that color the one
-we now know as red, how could we know
-it as such? How could we call it red unless
-to distinguish it from some other color with<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_226"></a>[226]</span>
-which we, for the time being, compared it
-or contrasted it? So true is it that reality
-is constituted for us by the sum of its relations,
-that if the relations of things are maintained,
-no increase or diminution of the quantity
-of things related will be detected in our
-knowledge of them. If the earth were
-compressed into a sphere no larger than a
-marble, no one could know it if the relations
-among the objects which make it up were
-the same.</p>
-
-<p>Again, the earth might be enlarged
-until it should be a billion times larger
-than what it is; yet this could not be
-known as long as men and gates and spoons
-and saucers and houses and cuff-buttons
-were enlarged in the same proportion. The
-leaf of a man’s dining table might be ten
-miles square, and the ball of butter on his
-table as big as the Stone Mountain in
-Georgia; yet if cook, and cat, and stove,
-and water-bucket were increased in the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_227"></a>[227]</span>
-same ratio, he would not recognize any
-difference.</p>
-
-<h3>V.</h3>
-
-<p>We enter the world of humanity, which
-is the realm of morality, through the
-family. Here we open our eyes to the
-light, and here we have the first intimations
-of truth, which is provision for the
-intellect, and of righteousness, which is
-provision for the will. The truth of the
-family is the sum of the relations which
-subsist among the members of it. The
-family consists, we will say, of father and
-mother, and children. Here is a man and
-a woman, then, bound together by the
-relation of marriage. The children are
-related to the parents as offspring. The
-children are related to one another as
-brothers and sisters. Altogether they are
-one and they are many. There is unity
-and there is difference. In the relations
-implied in the names husband and wife,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_228"></a>[228]</span>
-father and mother, parents and children,
-brothers and sisters, we have the truth of
-the family. We know the family and can
-only know the family through these relations.
-Take the relations away, and you
-take the family away. There cannot be a
-husband without a wife, a father without
-a mother, parents without children, and
-children without a father and a mother.
-Abiding in these relations, which make up
-the truth of the family, wrapt up with
-them and growing out of them, are the
-laws of right which the will is to obey.
-The relation of marriage is accompanied
-by certain obligations and duties which
-husband and wife are to observe. These
-obligations and duties are divine laws,
-because marriage is a divine relation. The
-relations involved in the term parents, are
-attended by certain necessary laws the
-father and the mother are to observe with
-reference to children. The names of child,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_229"></a>[229]</span>
-brother, sister, imply relations that in turn
-imply laws the child is to follow with reference
-to parents, and brothers and sisters
-are to regard with reference to one another.
-These laws, which grow out of
-the relations which constitute the family,
-are not arbitrary, artificial, or accidental.
-They have not been formed by the
-opinions of men, nor formulated in the
-legislative assemblies of men. Legislative
-bodies have, perhaps, confirmed them and
-reproduced them in statutes, but this was
-not to create, but to transcribe what was
-already present. The laws with reference
-to which the members of a family find
-themselves placed are as essential and constitutional
-as the laws governing natural
-objects, which we define when we say
-bodies attract each other in proportion to
-their mass and inversely as the squares of
-their distance. These are subtle and
-invisible principles which cannot be read<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_230"></a>[230]</span>
-out of rocks and logs and moons and suns.
-Displace rocks and logs and suns and
-moons, and the apparent power of these
-laws would not be seen, but upon the
-appearance of the natural objects, they
-would be immediately grasped and dominated
-by the power of the laws.</p>
-
-<p>We pass from the family into the school.
-Here again we find laws already laid for
-the will to follow. They grow out of the
-truth, constitutive of the school, and this
-truth is made up of the relations subsisting
-among the members of the school. There
-are teachers, whose duty it is to control
-and to instruct. There are children,
-whose duty it is to learn and obey. The
-school is an institution, the object of
-which is to lead young minds into a knowledge
-of the earth, its continents, seas,
-rivers, and mountains; into a knowledge
-of language, its structure, uses, and the
-meaning of its terms; into a knowledge of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_231"></a>[231]</span>
-humanity, its races, governments, and
-religions. If children are to share in the
-benefits of the object for which the school
-is established, they must observe the laws
-which inhere in the very constitution of it.</p>
-
-<p>They must obey the teacher, they must
-study the books, they must be polite, forbearing
-and kind to one another. It often
-happens that a child enters the school and
-refuses to follow the laws that reside in
-the structure and purpose of the school.
-He is willful and conceited, and thinks his
-own way better than the necessary and
-essential way ordained for him. He has
-the same sort of experience the engineer
-has who attempts to run his engine from
-the turntable, without reference to the
-railway lines laid for it. There is friction
-and trouble. Various methods of punishment
-are resorted to with the view to get
-his will to move along the lines laid for it.
-If rebuke and punishment fail, then he is<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_232"></a>[232]</span>
-turned out, to attempt the stupid and insane
-experiment of getting himself through
-the world without reference to the laws
-fixed for his will to obey. Of course he
-does not go far. He turns up sooner or
-later in the jail, the hospital, the penitentiary,
-or the poorhouse.</p>
-
-<p>Leaving the school, we find ourselves
-citizens of the state, members of society.
-But we do not go into society like an ax-man
-in a frontier forest to clear a place for
-his house, his fence, and his field. Methods
-of conduct are already prescribed, lines of
-action are already fixed, and the laws which
-claim our obedience are already formulated.
-Society is an organism of mutually dependent
-members; the object of it is the equity
-of all, the welfare of all, and the liberty of
-all. Equity, liberty, welfare do not come
-by accident. Men cannot reach them out
-of touch and contact with one another.
-They are only possible to men living together,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_233"></a>[233]</span>
-and only possible in conformity with
-certain conditions, and in the observance of
-certain laws. These laws lie folded in the
-nature of men as social beings. They are
-fundamental, and Aristotle saw them when
-he said, “man is by nature a political
-animal.” The germs of government and
-law are in the depths of every man’s being,
-as the germs of the oak are in the acorn.
-Wise men, living in society, have seen the
-truth of society, made up of the relations
-subsisting among people living together.
-Accompanying these relations, and counterparts
-of them, they have discovered the
-laws necessary to insure the equity, liberty,
-and welfare of all. These laws have been
-embodied in constitutions, enactments, and
-statutes. To carry out these laws and to
-make them prevail, certain institutions have
-been established, a body of men whose
-duty it is to execute the laws, a Judiciary,
-whose duty it is to interpret and expound<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_234"></a>[234]</span>
-the laws, and a legislative body, whose
-duty it is to repeal old laws that did not
-work well, and to frame new laws to meet
-the exigencies of new conditions. To protect
-the rights of all, certain penalties have
-been made to accompany the violations of
-laws. To make these penalties real, and
-to inflict them upon the proper parties,
-courts and jails and penitentiaries have
-been established.</p>
-
-<p>So we see, as the acorn cannot grow
-without appropriating the elements already
-prepared for it in the soil and the sky; and
-as the carbon cannot burn without laying
-hold of the oxygen already existing for it
-in the atmosphere of the room; and as the
-fish cannot swim without utilizing the
-water already adjusted to its fins; so man
-cannot fill out the possibilities of his being
-without obeying the laws he finds already
-ordained for his will, when he comes into
-the world. These laws converge about<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_235"></a>[235]</span>
-his will in the home where he first sees the
-light, and are always deducible from the
-particular relations in which, at any time,
-his moral life is placed. They are as real
-as the laws of heat and motion and gravity.
-They run out from the home through the
-school, and from the school through all the
-continents of the social realm. They grow
-out of the truth of the facts of the family,
-the school, and society. They are as
-fundamental, necessary, and divine as the
-family, the school, and society. By observing
-them, man is able to turn into his
-character the tenderness of the home, the
-learning of the school, and the resources of
-society.</p>
-
-<h3>VI.</h3>
-
-<p>The authority of the laws which govern
-society is not found in the fact that the
-laws have been made by the will of the
-majority, or the will of the minority, or by
-the will of a king, or by the wills of any<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_236"></a>[236]</span>
-or all of the people; but because they are
-founded in the constitution of human nature.
-The basis for the constitution of
-human nature is the mind of God, who
-created man in his own image. Social laws
-have authority, then, because they are
-consonant with the nature of man, and
-have their source in the will of God.</p>
-
-<p>It is easy to show, however, from the
-records of history, that nations have often
-lived under laws imposed upon them that
-contradicted every principle of human
-nature. Men were accustomed once to
-find the laws of society as well as the
-laws of nature, not from the study of men,
-or from the study of the objects of nature,
-but in the depths of their own imaginations.
-In former times men met in convention
-and council and determined by resolution
-the shape of the earth and the sun’s method
-of movement. They also subjected themselves
-to the criticism of posterity by cutting<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_237"></a>[237]</span>
-the heads of the people off who did
-not agree with them. But it gradually
-dawned on the human mind that to find
-out for certain the shape of the earth it
-might be well to devote a little study to
-the earth itself. Thus it happened that
-in the course of events men ceased to read
-laws into God’s material universe from the
-boundless realms of their fancy and conceit,
-and fell upon the more rational habit of
-taking the laws that were already there.
-Herein is the difference between mediæval
-and modern times.</p>
-
-<p>The disposition to read laws into nature,
-without reference to the facts of nature, was
-in line with the programme to read laws
-into the social realm without reference to
-the facts of human nature. The laws of astronomy
-to-day are such as have been found
-by a study of the stars. The laws of chemistry
-are such as have been found by a study
-of the atomic structures of bodies. One<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_238"></a>[238]</span>
-might fall out now with the celestial laws of
-Ptolemy, and head a movement to set them
-aside. But it is not rational to fall out
-with the astronomical laws of Norman
-Lockyer, for that is to buck against the
-sun, and to make faces at the stars.
-Lockyer’s laws came straight to him from
-the skies, and find their value and verification
-in the close calculation of every
-steamer that sails on the wide, restless
-sea. The laws of civilized nations to-day
-are such as have been found by a study of
-the facts of human nature. To quarrel
-with them is to set one’s self against the
-way man is built. It would not do to say
-that the social laws of civilized peoples
-to-day are exact transcripts from the will
-of God concerning the conduct of social
-life. Men do not now, and perhaps will
-not for a long time, read aright the facts of
-human nature. One thing is certain, however:
-in the making of laws among civilized,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_239"></a>[239]</span>
-republican peoples, reference is had to the
-facts of human nature, and not to the
-fancy of those who wish to govern. It
-cannot be disputed that the right facts
-are considered from which to make deductions.
-This means a complete change
-of front in the modern world over the ages
-past. There are doubtless many minor
-laws on the statute books of the liberal and
-progressive nations of the earth to-day
-which are not in accordance with the
-nature of man; but it seems that any rational
-person is compelled to admit that
-the great legal trunk-lines conform to the
-essential laws of human nature. Take the
-Constitution of the United States. Some
-one has said that the apple from which
-Newton deduced the laws of gravity was
-two thousand years falling. He would
-have been nearer the truth if he had said
-six thousand years. The Constitution of
-the United States is as clearly a deduction<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_240"></a>[240]</span>
-from the facts of human nature, as were
-the laws of gravity from a study of falling
-bodies. The convention that met in
-Philadelphia to frame the Constitution of
-the United States, in 1787, was called to
-order on the top of the centuries. The
-members had such advantage of position as
-made it possible for them to look all down
-the ages. They were in a position to see
-all sides of human nature, under all forms
-of government.</p>
-
-<p>In the preamble to the Constitution, they
-specified certain objects for which, in their
-esteem, this government should be formed—union,
-domestic tranquillity, justice,
-liberty, welfare. Any government constituted
-by a document like that has for the
-basis of its existence the facts of human
-nature, as really as the law of gravity has
-for the basis of its existence the facts of
-the stars.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_241"></a>[241]</span></p>
-
-<h3>VII.</h3>
-
-<p>If it is necessary that man grasp the
-truth of things before he can determine the
-laws of things, we cannot fail to see how
-important it is that he have a proper theory
-of knowledge.</p>
-
-<p>Man’s idea of law will correspond to his
-theory of knowledge. When the French
-people accepted Locke’s theory of knowing
-they immediately applied it to the laws,
-establishments, and institutions of the nation.
-They concluded logically, if all
-knowledge is of sensations, then there can
-be no authority for the belief in God, the
-immortality of the soul, or the divinity of
-law. These are universal and transcendent
-facts, but the mind has no capacity to know
-universal or transcendent facts. So society
-was to be dissolved into its constituent
-atoms, in order that individuals could arrange
-their lives on a universal, go-as-you-please<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_242"></a>[242]</span>
-principle. All existing laws and institutions
-were to be obliterated. Everything
-that was up was to be put down.
-There are to-day, scattered through the
-civilized states of Europe and in some parts
-of the United States, men who want to
-emancipate the people from the dominion
-of all authority. All this grows out of the
-fashionable and sensational theory of knowledge
-taught first by John Locke and
-David Hume, and within recent years by
-John Stuart Mill and Herbert Spencer.
-Here is the source of anarchy. There is
-not an influential anarchist in the world,
-but is one upon the basis of the physiological
-theory of knowledge. There is no objective
-reality, but such as is composed of
-material atoms. These have got their arrangement
-and collocations without the
-agency of any great co-ordinating mind.
-They come together in pairs and clusters
-and groups, by the aid of no power but<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_243"></a>[243]</span>
-such as issues from the unknowable. A
-man is no more a criminal for killing
-people than is the Mississippi River for
-overflowing its banks and drowning people.
-Men are mere products of nature, and their
-thoughts are only secretions of the brain.
-Laws and institutions are just the brain
-deposits of animals we call men, as dams
-across rivers and cells in gums are the deposits
-of the brains of beavers and bees.</p>
-
-<p>In a document found on the person of a
-recent anarchist arrested by the authorities
-in England, it is asserted that the purpose
-of the anarchists is to put down all political,
-religious, and military authority; to
-burn all churches, palaces, soldier-barracks,
-fortresses, provisions, and to destroy all
-that has lived till now by business-work
-without contributing to it. From such
-documents we are to understand that the
-anarchists take it for granted that all laws
-and institutions among civilized peoples<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_244"></a>[244]</span>
-have been imposed arbitrarily by those who
-govern upon those who are governed; that
-the parties to be governed have as much
-right to ignore them as the governing
-parties had to make them; that there is in
-the universe no moral order to which the
-political and social orders among men correspond;
-that every man has the privilege
-of setting up his own order; that every
-engineer has the right to ignore the rails
-laid for the flanges of his wheels on the
-long roads leading out from the turntable,
-and the inestimable subjective liberty of
-pulling open the throttle valve and running
-out into the country according to his
-own sweet will. Suppose all the anarchists
-in the world should be sent to some
-great island so that they could test their
-own theories, would they not be under the
-necessity of founding some sort of a government?
-They would have to construct
-roads, devise ways and means for lights,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_245"></a>[245]</span>
-water, and for protection against individual
-violence. Would they not have to
-bind themselves together by some kind of
-social contract, or compact? If a number
-of men should unite themselves into a syndicate
-for the purpose of building houses
-without reference to the laws of gravity, if
-they should declare it as their set purpose
-to so build houses as that the center of
-gravity should fall in a line outside the
-base, the whole company would be tried for
-lunacy and confined in the insane asylum.
-So the most summary and straightforward
-methods should be adopted for ridding
-society of all that class of men who
-propose to manage human affairs without
-reference to the facts of man’s nature
-and the laws of the universe. It is
-a question whether they should be put into
-an insane asylum or into a jail, for it is
-hard to determine which they have the most
-of: insane stupidity or insane meanness.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_246"></a>[246]</span></p>
-
-<p>Society has made great advances, but
-every increment of progress has been along
-the lines of the eternal laws of the universe.
-Those laws were here before man appeared
-upon the stage of action; they will be here
-when he is gone. Men may doctor themselves
-with error about truth, and error
-about right, until they come to be great
-imbeciles; but the truth and the right will
-remain clear and immortal for the intellect
-and the will of the wise and the good.</p>
-
-<h3>VIII.</h3>
-
-<p>It is important, as never before, for those
-who see the truth and recognize the right
-to declare the same with all authority. It
-is said that the Emperor Henry IV. stood
-shivering two whole days and nights in the
-snows of the courtyard of Canossa Castle,
-suing piteously for permission to throw
-himself, in agonized submission, at the feet
-of Hildebrand. That he was shunned by<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_247"></a>[247]</span>
-his subjects more absolutely because of the
-ban that was upon him than he would
-have been had he been afflicted with the
-smallpox. This incident illustrates for us
-the authority wielded by the Church of
-the Middle Ages. The Church was then
-felt to be in touch with tremendous power.
-Its fulminations carried terror to the hearts
-of kings and subjects. What the Church
-declared should be done, or should be left
-undone, the people felt could only be disregarded
-at the peril of all hope for time
-and eternity. It not only declared the
-duties men were under the necessity of observing
-in order to save their souls, but the
-kind of thoughts men were under the necessity
-of thinking concerning the shape of
-the earth, the movements of the stars, and
-the structure of the human body, in order
-to save themselves from the odium of
-heresy. The Church reigned without a
-rival in all the civilized world. She was<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_248"></a>[248]</span>
-not expected to give any reason for her
-actions or her utterances. When she determined
-what the order of the solar system
-was, the brains of men were compelled,
-without question, to acquiesce. Even to
-doubt was to deny the faith. The Church
-dictated the policy of the stars without
-being at the trouble of studying the stars;
-and no other sidereal opinions were tolerated
-but such as she formulated and published.</p>
-
-<p>But the minds of scholars and students,
-in different parts of Europe, began to reach
-other conclusions concerning the nature and
-order of things than such as had been ecclesiastically
-settled for them. Copernicus
-saw that the heavenly bodies did not move
-in accordance with the teachings of the
-Church. And when the Venetian scholars
-looked through the telescope of Galileo at
-Padua, and saw Jupiter and his satellites,
-a central sun and revolving planets, the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_249"></a>[249]</span>
-authority of the Church on the subject of
-astronomy was gone. In this way the
-Church has been forced to give up one
-position after another. The people, seeing
-she had no foundation for the opinions she
-held concerning nature, began to question
-the value of her opinions concerning God,
-and heaven and hell, and right and wrong.</p>
-
-<p>Now the Church must regain her note of
-authority. She must do this by seeing
-what the laws are which grow out of the
-facts of condition. The laws of the family
-are to be deduced from the truths of relation
-which constitute the family. These
-will be seen to coincide with the old laws
-uttered from Sinai. The laws of society
-are to be deduced from the truths of relation
-which constitute society. These, it
-will be seen, are summed up as was said of
-old in the formula, “Thou shalt love thy
-neighbor as thyself.” When men get
-through framing laws for the regulation of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_250"></a>[250]</span>
-human conduct, from a study of the facts
-of human nature, they will find to their
-amazement that they have reinstated the
-Ten Commandments, and that Sinai is not
-a burnt out volcano. They will find that
-the Ten Commandments are still the foundations
-of social health, and harmony, and
-progress. God wrote them for Moses on
-tables of stone because he had already
-written them in the nature of man. The
-laws of gravity can no more be read out of
-the world of space than the Eternal Decalogue
-can be read out of the world of
-human life. So the man of law should
-speak with the same authority as the man
-of science, without apology and without
-misgivings.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_251"></a>[251]</span></p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_252"></a>[252]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="BEAUTY"><i>BEAUTY.</i></h2>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="blockquote">
-
-<p>“If the endeavor to analyze the world is a trifle, it
-is because the world is such. The sum of things can
-have no second intention, nor can it be characterized
-by any trait that is not included in itself. Some
-things are sweet, but what is our sense which perceives
-them; some things are good, but what is our conscience
-which judges them; some things are true, but
-what is our intellect which argues them; some things
-are deep, but what is our reason which fathoms them?
-Everyone who thinks deeply, must have reflected
-that, if the purposes and results of man’s practice are
-vanity, so also must be those of his speculation.
-Goethe said, that there was no refuge from virtues
-that were not our own, but in loving them; and Ecclesiastes,
-that there was none from the vanity of
-life, but in fearing and obeying God. So, also, from
-the vanity of speculation there is no refuge but in
-acquiescing in its relative nature, and accepting truth
-for what it is.”</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_253"></a>[253]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V.<br />
-<span class="smaller">THE PROVISION FOR THE ÆSTHETIC NATURE OF MAN.</span></h2>
-
-</div>
-
-<p>The glory of the mind is the possession
-of two eyes, the eye of sense and the eye of
-reason. Through the one, it looks out upon
-the world of matter and fact. Through
-the other, it beholds the world of idea and
-relation. The world of matter and fact,
-seen through the eye of sense, is lifted and
-transfigured and multiplied a thousandfold
-when contemplated through the eye of
-reason. When the literal world is transferred
-to the ideal world, it takes on hues
-and dimensions in accordance with the universal
-and illimitable nature of man. The
-world which the sense sees, and the world
-which the reason sees, are both real, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_254"></a>[254]</span>
-through the mind commerce is kept up
-between them. Along this mental highway
-facts make a pilgrimage to the holy
-land of reason; there they are changed into
-ideas. Stars are turned into astronomy,
-atoms into chemistry, rocks into geology,
-plants into botany, colors into beauty and
-sounds into harmony.</p>
-
-<p>Over the same royal road, ideas pass to
-the world of sense. There they are changed
-again into facts. Ideas of beauty, distilled
-in the alembic of the imagination from the
-seven prismatic colors, are turned into painting,
-and Raphael’s “Transfiguration” blesses
-the world. Ideas of harmony, formed
-by the power of the imagination from the
-notes of the musical scale, are turned into
-song, and Handel’s “Messiah” agitates the
-thoughts and feelings of men with the
-melody of the skies. Ideas of form, deduced
-from the contemplation of the shapes of
-things, are turned into sculpture, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_255"></a>[255]</span>
-Michael Angelo’s “Moses” augments the
-world’s fund of conviction and courage.
-By changing facts into ideas, the mind gives
-us science. By changing ideas back to
-facts, it gives us art. Without science, life
-would be without bread; without art, it
-would be without ideals.</p>
-
-<p>Science ministers to the body, art to the
-spirit. Men who go from things to ideas
-are practical; those who go from ideas back
-to things are the seers. Practical men conserve,
-but never venture. Seers throw the
-light of their genius into the dark beyond,
-disclosing new worlds for men. They are
-the leaders, they are in the vanguard of
-human progress.</p>
-
-<p>By the possession of two eyes, the eye of
-sense and the eye of reason, man is placed
-into relation with two worlds.</p>
-
-<p>The world he sees by the eye of sense is
-meager, limited, poverty-stricken. There
-are only a few houses in it, a little clump<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_256"></a>[256]</span>
-of trees, a little patch of meadow, a horizon
-hounded by the curl of his cabin smoke.
-The world he sees by the eye of reason
-stretches far down into the twilight of the
-past, embracing all ages, all stages of progress,
-all empires and republics, all literature
-and peoples.</p>
-
-<p>Through the eye of sense, he sees a world
-of hard limitation and fact. Through the
-eye of reason, a universe of ideas, visions,
-relations. Through the eye of sense, he
-sees a candle, with its flickering and passing
-flame. Through the eye of reason, he sees a
-kingdom of light, with truth and beauty,
-and love billowing away to infinity.</p>
-
-<p>Through the eye of sense he sees a little
-mountain spring rise from the ground, to
-lose itself in the deepening shadows of the
-trees. Through the eye of reason he sees
-a river, clear as crystal, flowing forever
-from under the throne of God. A few
-violets and buttercups, covering with their<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_257"></a>[257]</span>
-blue and their beauty a little strip of
-meadow, he sees through the eye of sense.
-The hills of day, numberless and immeasurable,
-covered with flowers, whose
-leaves never wither and whose beauty never
-fades, he sees through the eye of reason.</p>
-
-<p>It is the conceit of those whose habit of
-mind is to look through the eye of sense
-alone, that they see more in the actual
-tangible world than those who are accustomed
-to look through the eye of reason
-as well as through the eye of sense. There
-never was a greater mistake. Those who
-see most in the world of mountain and sea
-and sky, are those who look most through
-the eye of reason into the world of idea,
-principle, and relation. Adams in England,
-and Leverrier in France, discovered Neptune,
-not by sweeping the heavens with
-their telescopes, but by careful ciphering in
-their studies. “Mr. Turner,” said a friend
-to him one day, “I never see in nature the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_258"></a>[258]</span>
-glows and colors you put into your pictures.”
-“Ah! don’t you wish you could, though,”
-was the painter’s reply. In an apple’s fall
-Newton sees the law of gravitation.
-Goethe sees in the sections of a deer’s
-skull the spinal column modified. Emerson
-sings:</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">“Let me go where’er I will,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">I hear a sky-born music still.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">’Tis not in the stars alone,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Nor in the cups of budding flowers,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Nor in the red-breast’s yellow tone,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Nor in the bow that smiles in showers;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">But in the mud and scum of things,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">There always, always something sings.”</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Humboldt habitually dwelt in the realm
-of principles and ideas. He spent only
-five years in America, and it took twelve
-quartos, and sixteen folios, and half a
-dozen helpers, and many years to put on
-record what he saw.</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">“The poem hangs on the berry bush,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">When comes the poet’s eye,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And the street is one long masquerade</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">When Shakspere passes by.”</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_259"></a>[259]</span></p>
-
-<h3>I.</h3>
-
-<p>Yet the mind must first see through the
-eye of sense, before it is capable of seeing
-through the eye of reason. The universe,
-that really belongs to the mind, the eye of
-sense never sees, but it sees something that
-suggests it. Through the eye of sense man
-takes in a few colors, but these suggest
-to Rubens the magnificent visions which
-illuminate the art galleries of Europe.
-Through the sense man hears a few notes,
-but these are taken and multiplied into
-the symphonies of Beethoven.</p>
-
-<p>Through the eye of sense, Columbus
-sees a few pieces of driftwood brought to
-the shore by the waves of the ever-restless
-sea; but these help him, through the eye of
-reason, to see a new world with its virgin
-forests, its wide-reaching plains and its
-majestic mountain ranges. Agassiz sees
-through the eye of sense an indentation on<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_260"></a>[260]</span>
-a rock in the State of Maine. This gives
-him a suggestion which helps him to see,
-through the eye of reason, the icebergs and
-the glaciers, which, in the early ages,
-ground their way to the south. The man
-of science sees through the eye of sense,
-only a bit of chalk; but from this a suggestion
-comes to him, which enables him to
-see through the eye of reason the oozy bed
-upon which the submarine cable rests; and
-the life that sported in the vast oceans
-when the Dover Cliffs were being formed.
-Through the eye of sense Cuvier sees an
-immense tooth, larger than any known at
-the present. Through the eye of reason
-he sees the huge animal in whose jaw it
-was set. Upon the comprehensive, active
-power of reason, man relies to determine
-for him the elements good for food, the
-power which serves his social nature, the
-truth which furnishes his intellect, the
-right which matches his will, and the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_261"></a>[261]</span>
-beauty which corresponds with his
-æsthetic nature.</p>
-
-<p>The universe lends itself in its totality
-to the scale and the dip of the particular
-capacity or power through which man, for
-the time being, seeks to appropriate it. It
-stands before the sense of hunger in terms
-of bread. It stands before the social nature
-in terms of power. It stands before
-the intellect in terms of truth. It stands
-before the will in terms of law. It stands
-before the æsthetic nature in terms of
-beauty. The person who has related himself
-to the world through all the powers of
-his nature, finds it capable, by turns, of
-feeding every faculty with which he is endowed.
-The universe is now all bread,
-now all power, now all truth, now all law,
-and now all beauty. It will be any or all
-of these, according to the side, or sides, of
-himself through which he addresses it.
-One of the great discoveries of modern<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_262"></a>[262]</span>
-times is the correlation of forces. The persistent
-force may express itself in heat, or
-light, or electricity, or magnetism. These
-are only different forms of the same thing,
-and any one may pass to any of the others.
-In the world, as a whole, we find the sense
-of correlation inheres, as it relates itself to
-the different faculties man has for taking
-hold of it. As the correlate of hunger, it
-is all bread; as the correlate of the social
-nature, it is all power; as the correlate of
-the intellect, it is all truth; as the correlate
-of the will, it is all law, and as the correlate
-of the æsthetic sense, it is all beauty. Objective
-reality is addressed to the many
-sides of human life, in order that the
-whole of it may be used up for the purpose
-of making a man. It is all to be drawn
-into manhood. As all rivers meet in the
-ocean, and all colors meet in the white ray
-of light; so objective reality, in all that it is
-for food, for power, for truth, for right, for<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_263"></a>[263]</span>
-beauty; is to meet in human life, for nutriment,
-for furnishment, and for the completion
-of manhood. If you want to know
-what the objective self of the fish is, look
-at the ocean. If you want to know what
-the objective self of the eagle is, look at
-the sky. If you want to know what the
-objective self of the elephant is, look at the
-Asiatic jungle. If you want to know what
-the objective self of man is, look at the
-conditions of food, power, truth, law, and
-beauty which environ him. The fish gets
-the water, the bird gets the air, and the elephant
-gets the jungle; but man, with a
-nature illimitable, with capacities inexhaustible,
-with hunger deep as truth, with
-aspirations as wide as right, and with an
-ideal as unfathomable as beauty, is the
-child of the eternal God, and is to get the
-fullness of his nature in nothing less than
-the entire expression which God has made
-of himself in objective reality.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_264"></a>[264]</span></p>
-
-<h3>II.</h3>
-
-<p>All truth, as we have before stated,
-which man has tried to express, is but a
-transcript of divine truth. The truth of
-astronomy is a transcript from the reality of
-the stars. The truth of botany is a transcript
-from the reality of plants. The
-truth of geology is a transcript from the
-reality of the earth’s structure. All right,
-which man has sought to embody in statutes,
-in constitutions, in enactments, is but
-a transcript from the will of God. So all
-beauty, which man has attempted to symbolize,
-is contained in the nature of things,
-and has its source in God. The beauty
-man has seen has taken in the process of
-history many forms. It is seen in architecture,
-sculpture, poetry, painting, and
-music. These are different forms of the
-same thing. As the persistent physical
-force expresses itself in heat, light, electricity,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_265"></a>[265]</span>
-and magnetism, so genius is the persistent
-mental force which expresses itself in
-art. Sometimes the persistent mental force
-comes to such unity and fullness in some
-massive soul that from him it goes out into
-all the fine arts. Michael Angelo was by
-turns poet, painter, sculptor, and architect.
-Had he lived in Germany in the time of
-Beethoven he would have added to his
-other accomplishments that of music. The
-noblest specimens of music are only great
-cathedrals constructed out of sound, as
-Michael Angelo’s “Moses” was a great epic
-poem wrought in stone.</p>
-
-<p>We wish to consider beauty in its relation
-to the æsthetic sense, in two aspects
-of itself.</p>
-
-<p>The most important forms of beauty
-have as the physical conditions of their existence
-light and sound, and as the ideal
-conditions of their existence space and time.
-The names man gives to these forms of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_266"></a>[266]</span>
-beauty, when he expresses them, or re-expresses
-them, are painting and music. For
-no element of man’s nature has more marvelous
-provision been made than for the æsthetic
-element. The objective conditions
-of the beauty, which correspond to the subjective
-æsthetic sense, are contained in
-sound and light. Sound and light are the
-invisible physical forces which play upon
-the objects of nature, and call from them
-the responses of melody and vision which
-the æsthetic nature appropriates for ecstasy
-and delight.</p>
-
-<p>Capacity for sound is lodged in well-nigh
-all created objects. Minerals, woods, gases,
-and liquids even, contain the notes of the
-musical scale. Builders of pianos, harps,
-put no notes in the elements they use in
-the construction of these instruments.
-They simply comply with conditions necessary
-to bring them out. The music we
-get out of wood and steel and brass, as we<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_267"></a>[267]</span>
-find them arranged in the piano, the organ,
-the harp, by striking them at regular intervals,
-is the melody breathed into them when
-they were created. Beethoven, Handel,
-and Mozart created no music. Their genius
-was manifested simply in the power to
-bring out of forest and mine and cane-brake
-what God put into them.</p>
-
-<p>As to what note a body shall give up
-under tension and pressure, is owing to its
-ultimate structure, and the elements which
-compose it; and also the note latent in the
-object by which it is struck, or pressed.
-Sing into a piano and the same notes respond
-which are used in the execution of
-the song. A storm, howling through a
-forest, makes a loud noise, but no music.
-Its notes do not synchronize with those contained
-in the limbs and leaves of the trees.
-But when the low, sad murmur of the evening
-winds gently strike the needles of the
-long-leaf pine there is music. The notes of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_268"></a>[268]</span>
-the one are related to the notes of the
-other.</p>
-
-<p>As all things have capacity for sound, so
-well-nigh all created things have capacity
-for color. The color which an object takes
-on in the presence of light is determined
-also by its ultimate structure and the elements
-which constitute it. Nearly every
-object absorbs a portion of the light and
-throws back to the eye of the beholder a
-portion. Bodies absorb those rays which
-are synchronous with their constituent elements.
-When the particles which compose
-a body are not capable of vibrating at the
-rate of any portion of the light particles,
-then they are all thrown back, and the body
-is pronounced white. It is to be observed
-that no body has color or sound of its own,
-but only the capacity for these. The note
-of a body is discovered by striking it, and
-its color by stimulating it with a light ray.</p>
-
-<p>Another interesting fact is to be noted<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_269"></a>[269]</span>
-here—that is the analogy between sound
-and light, or music and painting. The
-difference between a sound wave and a
-light wave is only a difference of length.
-The principles underlying them are the
-same, and the methods by which they are
-produced are the same. Sound waves, to
-be heard, must vibrate at least as often as
-sixteen beats to the second. Light waves,
-in order to pass through the organ of vision,
-and reach the retina of the eye, must not
-vibrate at a less rate than four hundred
-trillions of times to the second. The difference
-between the eye and the ear is, one is
-more refined than the other. A painting
-is a silent piece of music, and a piece of
-music is an audible picture. The notes of
-the musical scale and the colors of the prismatic
-scale are analogous. The distance
-between C and A of the musical scale is
-the same as the distance between red and
-orange of the prismatic scale. The notes of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_270"></a>[270]</span>
-the one scale may be translated into the
-colors of the other. Harmony of colors in
-a silk dress, would, if translated into their
-analogous notes, produce a piece of music
-that would be equally as pleasing to the
-ear as the colors are to the eye. Painting
-is only a more refined form of music. This
-is not fancy; it is mathematics and science.
-All things about us are capable of music,
-silent or audible. Notes belonging to some
-part of a great song are lodged in all
-created objects. Things are not measured
-off in continents, oceans, islands, mountains,
-forests, and mines only, but also in octaves.
-The music of the spheres is no longer a
-dream of the poets, but in accordance with
-exact science. The material system into
-which we are born is capable, then, not
-only of furnishing us food to eat and clothes
-to wear, but music and painting for the
-sense of the beautiful. A mere utilitarian,
-bread-and-butter philosophy does not exhaust<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_271"></a>[271]</span>
-the possibilities of even the material
-world. In its very construction respect to
-man’s higher nature was had, as well as to
-his lower. By so much as music and harmony
-of color surpass in their subtlety and
-refinement the coarser elements necessary
-to sustain the lower nature; by so much
-has God emphasized the value of the higher
-nature. Had God intended his children
-for no higher plane than that upon which
-the animals live, and no greater future for
-them than that which belongs to “the
-beasts that perish,” doubtless the beauty
-would have been left out. Men have been
-told, by one having authority, not to cast
-their pearls before swine. The beauty that
-was flung at the feet of man contained a
-message to a side of himself keyed to a
-radiant and imperishable realm.</p>
-
-<p>Who does not feel, under the charm of
-music, or the influence of a great painting,
-reasons for high living which no words can<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_272"></a>[272]</span>
-express? The tear which often gathers in
-the eye of the most abandoned, hardened
-man, under the power of song, bespeaks the
-fact that chords have been touched which
-vibrate responsive to no earthly interest or
-relation.</p>
-
-<h3>III.</h3>
-
-<p>The melody in sound and the harmony
-in color are correlated to the æsthetic
-nature of man through the ear and the
-eye. In the ear is found the musical
-scale, and in the eye the prismatic scale.</p>
-
-<p>Notes are in the ear which correspond
-with the C D E F G A B of the musical
-scale, and parts are in the eye which
-correspond to the red, orange, yellow,
-green, blue, indigo, and violet of the prismatic
-scale. It is only through D in the
-ear that D out of the ear can be heard,
-and it is with C in the ear that C out of
-the ear is heard.</p>
-
-<p>If there were no notes in the ear except<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_273"></a>[273]</span>
-D, and all other notes in nature were
-destroyed, the ear could hear no notes at
-all. A hears A, and B hears B, and C
-hears C. What A hears, B does not hear,
-and what C hears, A does not hear. What
-is true of the ear is true of the eye. The
-parts of the eye with which red is seen are
-not the parts with which green is seen.
-Red in the eye sees red out of the eye.
-Blue in the eye sees blue out of the eye,
-and green in the eye sees green out of the
-eye. If there was in the prismatic scale
-located in the eye only the part with
-which blue is seen, no color in the world
-would be visible except the blue. The
-notes latent in all natural objects are
-addressed to the æsthetic sense, through
-the corresponding notes latent in the ear;
-and the seven colors, capacity for which is
-latent in all earthly objects, address themselves
-to the æsthetic nature through the
-corresponding capacities for color contained<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_274"></a>[274]</span>
-in the eye. That man is related to
-the kingdom of beauty in a sense which
-marks him off from the animals below
-him, is proven by the fact that he can take
-the elements of this kingdom into his
-imagination and send them back to the
-realms of sense, in oratorios and paintings.
-The masters have given all history ideal
-and permanent setting by means of sound
-and light. Man cannot only see the truth,
-but repeat it; not only recognize the
-right, but conform to it, and not only
-appreciate beauty, but express it. In this
-he has the evidence of his kinship with
-the author of the true, the good, and the
-beautiful. The lower animals, as far as
-we know, may be thrilled with that
-which is beautiful; we do know they never
-repeat the beautiful. In the art galleries
-and conservatories of the world all the
-past is brought to life again and stands
-before the eye and the ear, under the ideal<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_275"></a>[275]</span>
-forms of time and space. Moses is not
-only immortal in the laws which he wrote,
-and in the race which he civilized, but,
-through Michael Angelo’s genius, he has
-been made eternal in the kingdom of
-beauty.</p>
-
-<p>Thus, through his æsthetic side, man
-not only receives, but he gives. The
-melody of sound and the harmony of color
-not only come to him, but go from him;
-and from him, too, charged and shot
-through with all the suffering, temptation,
-sin, and sacrifice he has known.</p>
-
-<h3>IV.</h3>
-
-<p>The empirical philosophy, which reduces
-knowledge to sensations and morality
-to laws imposed by prudence, and man
-himself to the same plane of life occupied
-by the lower animals, invades the domain
-of æsthetics, and makes of beauty a mere
-matter of individual feeling, local convention,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_276"></a>[276]</span>
-and arbitrary fashion. This philosophy
-of the dirt denies to mind any
-inherent, creative activity, in the region
-of knowledge, morals, or art. Now, it
-is doubtless true, that food and power
-and beauty of color and tone are addressed
-to the lower animals; sufficiently,
-at least, for them to get the means
-of subsistence, and some low sort of
-pleasure from them. They do this, however,
-not by reason, but by instinct. The
-bee is determined by its nature to build
-his cell in accordance with mathematical
-principles, and to store it with honey from
-the leaves and the flowers. The bee does
-this as naturally as water runs down-hill.
-There is no calculation in it, and the bee
-does not recognize itself in the process of
-this work.</p>
-
-<p>The bird may be determined in the selection
-of its mate by brilliant plumage, or
-joyous song, but this it does just as a rock<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_277"></a>[277]</span>
-turned loose from the top of a house falls
-to the ground. The evidence of a combining,
-mental activity in man, to which things
-in the outside world are addressed, in a
-peculiar and distinct sense, is found in the
-fact that man not only receives the things
-that come to him, but sends them from
-him in the forms of his own thought.</p>
-
-<p>The bee appropriates the honeydew
-that covers the surface of the leaves, stores
-it in his cell, and eats it in the winter; but
-who ever knew bees to plant out trees in
-order that there might be leaves from
-which to secure honeydew? Man finds
-the bananas that grow in the tropics, and
-the berries that grow in the temperate
-zones, and eats them; but he sees how
-bananas and berries grow, and so clears
-fields and hedges, to insure a more abundant
-crop.</p>
-
-<p>The monkey hears the thunder and sees
-the lightning as well as the man, but man<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_278"></a>[278]</span>
-investigates the nature of lightning; he
-sees the principle underlying its weird
-movements, the things for which it has
-affinity. So he contrives various methods
-for utilizing it. The mind within him being
-the same in kind as the mind which
-sends the lightning, he sees how lightning
-is sent, and sends it. He not only sees
-thunder-storms, but how they are made.
-So the professor creates them in glass jars
-for the benefit of his class.</p>
-
-<p>Nature presents herself to man under
-uniform methods of action. Everywhere
-is regularity and orderliness. He reproduces
-this order in political and social life.
-The laws without him kindle into expression
-the moral magazine of volition within
-him.</p>
-
-<p>Nature presents herself to man as unity.
-This implies mind. Unity is impossible
-without mind. The mind underneath the
-unity, without him, speaks to the mind<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_279"></a>[279]</span>
-within him. Then by his own mind he
-recreates the universe in literature.</p>
-
-<p>He hears the cawing of rooks, the cooing
-of doves, the purling of brooks, and the
-roar of tempests. These, with all other
-sounds in nature, are caught and combined
-in the marvelous creation of Mozart and
-Beethoven.</p>
-
-<p>Much is said by the learned men who
-are ever seeking to minify man’s place in
-nature, about the reason and memory, and
-intelligence, and even conscience of the
-lower animals. It is almost enough to
-make one wish he were a dog or a horse
-when he reads how much sense and how
-much conscience dogs and horses have.
-Not much weight, however, will ever be
-given to these long treatises on the intelligence
-of the lower animals, until some bee
-shall give us a book on mathematics, or
-until some horse shall tell through one of
-our agricultural journals the best time to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_280"></a>[280]</span>
-sow clover; or some dog shall give us
-the philosophy of the chase. We see the
-capacity of the human mind in Shakspere’s
-plays. So one picture painted by
-a cat, one poem written by a mule, one
-philosophical dissertation composed by an
-owl, or one cocoanut plantation planted by
-the monkeys, would establish beyond question
-that the high claims made for the
-mental capabilities of these humble members
-of the animal creation are justified.</p>
-
-<p>Man grows wheat by the use of the
-mind within him, which sees how the
-mind without him has made the growth of
-wheat possible. Man utilizes power, by
-the use of the mind within him, which
-recognizes how power is produced and controlled
-by the mind without him. Man
-sees truth, because the mind within him is
-like the mind without him, which expresses
-itself in truth. Man sees law, because
-the mind within him is like the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_281"></a>[281]</span>
-mind without him which ordained law.
-So man sees beauty, because the mind
-within him is like the mind without him,
-which expresses itself in beauty. Food,
-and truth, and law, and beauty, cannot be
-reproduced by man, except by the laws of
-mind acting in him as the laws of mind
-do without him.</p>
-
-<h3>V.</h3>
-
-<p>What is the use of beauty? Like truth
-and law, it looks beyond itself. It is to
-help realize the purpose for which the
-earth was created, the purpose which finds
-its consummation in a perfect man.</p>
-
-<p>Beauty comes to man, bearing intimations
-of his high origin and also of his
-glorious destiny. Under the magic spell
-which beauty throws around him, he forgets
-for the time being his limitations, his
-fears, his doubts. He is lifted into a
-realm of universal freedom, where all difficulties<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_282"></a>[282]</span>
-disappear, where all conflicts are
-eliminated. The æsthetic nature is not at
-all seclusive and aristocratic. It receives
-the melody, and symmetry, and harmony
-which reason finds in the tones, and forms,
-and colors of the outside world, and turns
-over to it. These rich gifts are then
-shared with all other human powers and
-faculties. Hunger is served with food
-set in painted china. Around the table,
-where man satisfies his appetite, pictures
-are hung, and the beef market and the
-mill are built and arranged in accordance
-with the dictates of symmetry and taste.
-The college, where truth is taught, and the
-courthouse, where law is administered,
-are invested with all the beauty of the
-architect’s genius. Thus beauty, high,
-heaven-born, and refreshing, is drawn into
-all the relations, and thrown around all the
-institutions of life. It reduces friction,
-redresses littleness, and adds to life good<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_283"></a>[283]</span>
-cheer and depth. It smoothes the rough
-places, rounds the sharp corners, and hangs
-the bow of hope on the dark cloud of coming
-trial.</p>
-
-<p>The æsthetic sense, nurtured on beauty,
-keeps before the minds of men and nations
-a proper ideal of life. When the ideal
-held before the mind at one period of advancement
-is reached, the æsthetic sense
-has already lifted another and a nobler, as
-far ahead of the actual as the first. In presenting
-to the living spirit ideals always in
-advance of actual attainment, the æsthetic
-nature opens the unending path of progress.
-It is incorrect to suppose that the
-ideal is worked out only in painting, symphony,
-or cathedral. Its presence is manifest
-in the useful, as well as the fine arts.
-The ideal often gets itself translated into
-the heel of a shoe, into the crown of a hat,
-into the wheel of a wagon, into the fence
-around the field, and into the structure of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_284"></a>[284]</span>
-the mower and the reaper. It curves in
-the arches of bridges, echoes in the sound
-of the hammer, and breaks over the hills in
-the whistle of the engine.</p>
-
-<p>The progress of beauty in modern times
-has not been in the direction of form or
-coloring or symmetry, simply, but toward
-wider distribution. In early times, its
-ministry was to kings and scholars; it has
-advanced by expanding. The pyramid of
-Gizeh, the most expensive monument ever
-seen, was reared to perpetuate the memory
-of a great Egyptian king. A country was
-drained of revenue and of life to regale the
-pride of one man. The Parthenon ministered
-to a few great men in Greece. The
-cathedrals of the middle ages blest and
-helped a wider circle. But it was left to
-the time which is ours to build churches
-and chapels, as broad in their aims and
-ministry as the life of humanity. The
-early poetry concerned itself about the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_285"></a>[285]</span>
-wars of gods and the contentions of kings.
-But as the sacredness of human life came
-to be seen more and more, did it tend to
-catch within the sweep of its rhythm the
-incidents and traditions and loves of the
-common people. The ideal in our day is
-being worked out in fields of waving grain,
-into the cattle upon the hills, into the
-homes of the people. It is being turned
-into orchards and vineyards. It is being
-traced in vines and flowers over the poor
-man’s cottage. The ideals were once
-housed and confined in the museums;
-now they are being turned out into the
-street. It was once the custom to bring
-Venus and Diana, by the aid of the chisel,
-from rough marble. The tendency now is
-to put the beauty of Venus and the enterprise
-of Diana into the spirits of our
-women. Sublime conceptions were once
-mainly realized in temples and cathedrals,
-but now we would see them distributed<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_286"></a>[286]</span>
-into dwellings for families, into schools
-for children, and into churches for the
-true worship of God. We would see them
-in bridges spanning all the rivers, in mills
-grinding the people’s bread, in factories
-spinning their clothes, and in railroads
-transporting their products. We would
-see them lifted into an asylum for the
-blind, a shelter for the orphan, and a home
-for the aged and infirm. We would hear
-them in the whirl of the spindle, in the ring
-of the hammer, in the splash of the paddle,
-and in the sound of the flying train. We
-would hear them in the steady march of
-progress, and in the pulse-beats of the
-happy plowman. Beauty is to be used
-to stimulate human courage, to embellish
-human spirit, and to enlarge human thought.
-Life’s shadows are to be chased by the light
-of eternity’s day, and its tumult hushed by
-the repose of eternity’s harmony. The
-æsthetic element in man’s nature was<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_287"></a>[287]</span>
-appointed to receive the beauty provided
-for it. But it was to be God’s almoner;
-having received it, also freely to give it.
-Thus it was to be the power whose function
-should be to put the whole of life into
-terms of harmony. Bernard Palissy put
-his ideal into a white enamel for his pottery;
-Columbus worked his ideal into a new
-world; Morse left his in the electric telegraph;
-Cyrus W. Field turned his into the
-submarine cable; and Thomas A. Edison
-has given his to the world in the telephone.
-It is not to be inferred, however, that those
-who work their ideals out in the useful
-arts contribute more to the making of men
-than those who express their ideals in
-poetry, painting, sculpture, or music. The
-tendency of beauty to get down into the
-ordinary work and relations of life is an
-intimation that all life should be beautiful
-in itself, and in all expressions which it
-makes of itself. The æsthetic sense is the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_288"></a>[288]</span>
-badge of man’s royalty. A tutor was once
-employed to teach the son of a king. The
-young prince was sometimes disobedient.
-But in the esteem of the tutor, it was not
-quite proper to whip the son of a king with
-a common switch. So to the lapel of the
-boy’s coat the teacher pinned a piece of
-purple ribbon. When the young prince
-manifested a disposition to defy authority,
-the instructor pointed with the end of the
-rod to the purple ribbon on his coat. This
-was an appeal to his royal blood.</p>
-
-<p>Not a flower gathers on the limbs of a
-rose bush but addresses the high and purple
-nature of everyone who beholds it. In
-Mexico, where the average of life is so low,
-the flowers which grow in such profusion
-are about all that is left to keep the people
-reminded that they are the children of God,
-the author of all beauty. The highest
-evidence of the remaining worth of the
-Mexican people is found in the fact that<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_289"></a>[289]</span>
-they love flowers with a deep and unfailing
-passion.</p>
-
-<h3>VI.</h3>
-
-<p>Beauty is to feed enthusiasm. Tones
-and colors are to be used to jostle the elements
-of mind, and will, and emotion into
-harmony with the high and holy life of our
-Father who art in Heaven. Beauty is to
-nerve the soldier for the battle, the martyr
-for the stake, and the hero for his work.
-There is a height of development to which
-the human spirit aspires, that the logical
-understanding is unable to reach. Here,
-then, where truth in logical form fails,
-beauty comes, and helps the human spirit
-to disentangle itself from the sphere of
-contradictions and antagonisms.</p>
-
-<p>Truth and right command the spirit by
-an external necessity; beauty moves it by
-an internal necessity and starts it to vibrating
-in the very centers of its being, in consonance
-with itself. Beauty lifts it to a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_290"></a>[290]</span>
-pinnacle where the horizon quadrates with
-its irrepressible longings; and where the
-whole of life is rounded into an orb from
-which all strife is eliminated, and all discord
-extracted. Men seek artificial stimulants
-and narcotics, because of the abiding
-conviction they have, that their lives were
-keyed to some ideal realm of unity and
-freedom.</p>
-
-<p>What intoxicants do to the detriment of
-the spirit, beauty accomplishes to its health
-and vigor. It is carried by beauty into no
-land of vague dream, and unreal delirium,
-but into a radiant region where the environing
-conditions exactly match its undying
-hopes.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_291"></a>[291]</span></p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_292"></a>[292]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="LOVE"><i>LOVE.</i></h2>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="blockquote">
-
-<p>“There are indeed men whose souls are like the sea.
-Those billows that ebb and flood, that inexorable going
-and coming, that noise of all the winds, that
-blackness and that translucency, that vegetation
-peculiar to the deep, that democracy of clouds in full
-hurricane, those eagles flecked with foam, those
-wonderful star-risings reflected in mysterious agitation
-by millions of luminous wavetops, confused
-heads of the multitudinous sea—the errant lightnings,
-which seem to watch; those prodigious sobbings,
-those half-seen monsters, those nights of darkness
-broken by howlings, those furies, those frenzies,
-those torments, those rocks, those shipwrecks, those
-fleets crushing each other; then that charm, that
-mildness, those festivals, those gay white sails, those
-fishing boats, those songs amid the uproar, those
-shining ports, those mists rising from the shore;
-those wraths and those appeasements, that all in one,
-the unforeseen amid the changeless, the vast marvel
-of inexhaustibly varied monotony—all this may
-exist in a mind, and that mind is called genius, and
-you have Æschylus, you have Isaiah, you have
-Dante, you have Michael Angelo, you have Shakspere.”</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_293"></a>[293]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI.<br />
-<span class="smaller">THE PROVISION FOR THE SPIRITUAL NATURE OF MAN.</span></h2>
-
-</div>
-
-<p>In speaking of the spiritual nature of
-man, reference is not had to a side or faculty
-or power of himself, but to his real,
-essential life. Man is a spirit. All faculties
-and powers exist for him as such. The
-hunger, and the food provided for it, are to
-serve man as spirit. The social element,
-and the power provided for it, are to serve
-him as spirit. The intellect and truth, the
-will and right, the æsthetic sense and
-beauty, are all to serve him as spirit. The
-correlate of man as spirit, on one side of
-himself, we have seen to be the life of
-humanity—the correlate of man as spirit,
-on the other side of himself, is the life of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_294"></a>[294]</span>
-God. Man’s spiritual nature is mediated
-to him on one side by the family, by the
-school, by the institutions of the state, by
-the establishments of trade, by the newspaper,
-by literature, by art, by history.
-Man’s spiritual nature is mediated to him
-on the other side by love, embodied in the
-one Mediator between God and man.</p>
-
-<p>The mud-philosophy of Locke, and
-Hume, and Mill, and Spencer dissolves
-spirit, because it dissolves the idea of a
-mind, an ego, or an external world. If the
-mind can know nothing but a succession of
-things in time, if nothing but a constant
-flow and flux of sensations; of course it cannot
-know itself, only as a sensation in the
-perpetual procession of sensations always
-passing by. But how is it possible for the
-mind to know a succession of things in
-time, and a procession of things in space,
-unless it is itself out of and apart from the
-succession and the procession. One sensation,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_295"></a>[295]</span>
-say of the self, in a flow of sensations,
-could not know itself as a part of such a
-flow, without knowing itself as related to a
-before and an after in the process. To
-know even a procession of sensations, we
-must have a spirit that stands still and
-does not pass on with the procession. The
-spirit, then, must be out of time to know
-succession, and out of space to know procession,
-and self-conscious, so as to distinguish
-itself from the succession and the
-procession. The human spirit is something
-in the midst of time, yet passes not with
-the tides of time. It is to the succession
-of things ever passing through it, and to
-the procession of sensations ever passing
-before it, like some mighty Teneriffe with
-its peak of Teyde in the midst of the sea,
-pushing its proud head up 12,000 feet
-above the sea, and contrasting with its ever
-changing waves, the immutability of eternity.
-Man, as a spirit, is after God, the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_296"></a>[296]</span>
-most universal of all facts. He is illimitable
-in more ways than space, remaining
-when all the events of time have passed,
-and with a nature dipping into the eternal
-spirit of God. The respect in which man
-is made in the image of God, is, that he
-is endowed with self-consciousness, and
-self-determination. Self-consciousness and
-self-determination are the universal forms
-of spiritual activity. Man, as a self-conscious
-and self-determining spirit, is not independent.
-He must find his true self
-beyond himself. He is dependent upon
-the absolute self-consciousness and self-determination
-of God. He is the child of
-God, and as there cannot be an absolute
-without a relative, he is the relativity of
-the absolute. God’s nature is the ground
-of man’s nature, and in God he is mirrored
-to himself.</p>
-
-<p>In God man lives and moves and has his
-being. In finding God, man finds himself.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_297"></a>[297]</span>
-In the revelation of God is the revelation
-of man. God is a spirit and man is a
-spirit; but man, as a relative spirit, comes
-to himself in God, the absolute spirit; as
-the life-germ of the acorn comes to itself in
-the natural conditions of soil and sky which
-environ it.</p>
-
-<h3>I.</h3>
-
-<p>As man is essentially spirit, he can never
-come to unity, only as he comes to it in
-himself as a spirit. As long as he abandons
-himself to mere bread, or power, or
-knowledge, or law, or beauty, there is
-contradiction. Not in any one of these can
-he find full-orbed life. These all bring
-nutriment to him, as a spirit, from the several
-spheres to which they are variously
-correlated. But provision is made not only
-for the sides and faculties of himself, but
-for the essential nature of himself. We
-have seen how hunger was met by bread,
-the needs of the social nature by power, intellect<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_298"></a>[298]</span>
-by truth, will by law, and the
-æsthetic sense by beauty; but here we
-come to life, and find that love, timeless
-and illimitable love, alone corresponds to it.
-But love can only find its embodiment and
-its expression in life. Therefore, love has
-taken the form of life to meet the needs of
-man as a spirit.</p>
-
-<p>We do not propose to discuss this subject
-dogmatically. The writer believes in
-dogmatism; but in this work the attempt
-has been to treat man, and the things provided
-for him, scientifically. We have taken
-nothing for granted, and have intended
-to say nothing but what was warranted
-by the facts. That man is a spirit, and related
-to an unseen realm, is attested by the
-fact that all round this world temples and
-mosques, and synagogues and churches lift
-themselves sublimely, or modestly, to the
-sky. That there is something in man that
-seeks provision from beyond the range of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_299"></a>[299]</span>
-sense and sight, no one in his senses can
-deny. This deep and fundamental and irrepressible
-need of man’s nature finds its
-correlate in love. Speaking out of the
-depths of his life, it is an everlasting call
-for sympathy, for reconciliation, for pardon,
-for peace. Love gives sympathy, insures
-reconciliation, grants pardon, and secures
-peace. But love can only come from the
-unseen and eternal in the form of life.
-Let us see how the love expressed in the
-life and sacrifice and death of Jesus Christ,
-as the embodiment of divine love, is set
-over against the spiritual nature of man, as
-its correlate; as completely as bread is set
-over against hunger, or the truth against
-the intellect, or as beauty is set over against
-the æsthetic sense. We believe this is so
-in the nature of things, and will finally be
-taught as truth, as absolute and unfailing
-as the multiplication table. Men will come
-to it, after a while, not only as a dogmatic<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_300"></a>[300]</span>
-doctrine taught by the churches, but also
-as absolute doctrine, taught by the constitution
-and needs of human nature. The
-time will come when to doubt this will not
-simply be to write one’s self down as mean,
-but as mentally unbalanced. If Jesus
-Christ, as love, is the correlate of the
-spiritual needs of the human race, then his
-life is peculiar and unique. It cannot be
-classed with any other life. It cannot be
-measured by any rule used to measure
-other things or other lives. We propose
-to test this life by a principle said, by
-scientific men, to have universal application
-in this time.</p>
-
-<h3>II.</h3>
-
-<p>The doctrine of the correlation, equivalence,
-persistence, transmutability and indestructibility
-of force, or the conservation
-of energy has had vast influence upon the
-thought and life of our time. It has furnished<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_301"></a>[301]</span>
-a new opening through which to behold
-the nature of things. It has given to
-men a new working hypothesis and richer
-views and conceptions of the universe and
-its author.</p>
-
-<p>The tremendous advancement made in
-the material civilization of the present is
-due more to this than any other scientific
-doctrine or principle. According to Professor
-Balfour Stewart, there are eight forms
-of energy or force. The energy of visible
-motion, visible energy of position, heat
-motion, molecular separation, atomic or
-chemical separation, electrical separation,
-electricity in motion, and radiant energy.
-Now taking this earth as a complete whole,
-containing within itself all these forms of
-energy, and so isolated from the rest of the
-universe as to receive nothing from it
-and to add nothing to it, then the principle
-of the correlation of forces asserts that
-the sum of all these forces is constant.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_302"></a>[302]</span></p>
-
-<p>“This does not assert that each is constant
-in itself, or any other of the forms of force
-enumerated, for in truth they are always
-changing about into each other—now some
-visible energy being changed into heat or
-electricity, and heat or electricity being
-changed back again into visible energy;
-but it only means that the sum of all the
-energies taken together is constant. There
-are eight variable quantities, and it is only
-asserted that their sum is constant, not by
-any means that they are constant themselves.”</p>
-
-<p>For the purpose of elucidating our principle
-in the realm of nature, we will consider
-it as it applies to some of the useful
-forces whose effects we can measure and
-whose origin we can trace and determine.</p>
-
-<p>There is the force of conserved fuel.
-Away back in the carboniferous period of
-the world’s history, there grew immense
-forests, which in succeeding ages were<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_303"></a>[303]</span>
-turned under the earth, and, in the process
-of the years, were changed into coal and
-oil and gas. These have been treasured
-for untold ages in the mountains and in the
-bowels of the earth. Now they are brought
-forth by the applied intelligence of man,
-to turn his wheel, draw his car, cook his
-food, propel his plow, and to light his
-home and his street. The force in one ton
-of coal is capable of accomplishing more
-work in a few hours than one man could
-in a lifetime. All this force, as well as
-that contained in the growing forests of to-day,
-originated in the sun.</p>
-
-<p>There is the conserved force of food.
-This is found primarily in the grass, the
-wheat, the rice, the fruit, which grow in
-our fields and orchards. The lower animals
-feed on these, and through the process
-of digestion and assimilation, they are
-transmuted into blood and bone and muscle—thus
-furnishing man, who stands at<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_304"></a>[304]</span>
-the top and the end of the creative process,
-with a more refined higher form of
-food. But whether in the shape of grass,
-rice, wheat, or in the more refined form of
-animal flesh, these various elements of food
-are only so much transmuted sunshine.
-Before they ever adorned the surface of
-our fields, or moved in the lowing herd
-over the meadow, they were held in solution
-in the sunshine. The food, the fuel,
-and the animal life of our earth are all
-traceable to the sun.</p>
-
-<p>There is the conserved force of flowing
-water. This turns the wheel, spins the
-thread, gins the cotton, weaves the cloth,
-and grinds the corn. All the force that
-water possesses for the performance of
-work, comes from the sun. The warm
-rays of the sun, coming down on southern
-seas and rivers, causes the waters thereof
-to evaporate, and then it is carried on the
-wings of north-bound winds to a colder<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_305"></a>[305]</span>
-clime. There the diffused waters gather
-themselves into clouds and fall in rain to
-flow down the rivers, thus exchanging
-their energy of position, which they have
-obtained from the sun, for the actual
-energy of the turning wheel.</p>
-
-<p>There is also the conserved force of
-moving winds. By the aid of this ships
-spread their sails, and pass from continent
-to continent with the products of the
-earth. Again all the force the winds
-possess for the accomplishment of work
-comes from the sun. The rays of the
-sun come down with great intensity upon
-certain parts of the earth and heat the atmosphere.
-Into these heated places come
-the winds from colder regions. Thus currents
-and counter-currents are created.
-By putting the wheel of the windmill into
-these currents this force is converted into
-the ground wheat and the drawn water.
-Thus all the different forms of force displayed<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_306"></a>[306]</span>
-in the growing forests, the waving
-harvest fields, the flying birds, the lowing
-herds, the rushing railway train, the whir
-of the spindle, the ring of the hammer, and
-the pulsating blood come directly from the
-sun. The force, too, seen in all these physical,
-vegetable, animal, commercial realms,
-is the exact equivalent of what was
-poured into them from the sun. The
-earth contains no other force capital than
-what was paid over to it by the sun. It
-has issued no currency of its own, not even
-enough to run a watch, or to send the blood
-once around the body, or even to transport
-a piece of bread to a starving man. All
-the force our earth possesses is borrowed,
-and if we were to cease to borrow, we
-would be bankrupt in a single day. We
-are to remember, too, that by so much
-force as the sun has parted with to our
-earth, and to other worlds which look to it
-for supplies, by so much has its own force<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_307"></a>[307]</span>
-been decreased. If we knew how much
-force the sun had in the beginning, and
-would subtract from this amount all that it
-has given away to the present time, we
-might be able to form some estimate of its
-assets to-day.</p>
-
-<p>We know not what the sun’s resources
-are. We know not by what methods it
-has been replenishing its supplies of light
-and heat for ages past; whether by chemical
-combination, meteoric impact, or condensation;
-we only know by so much as it
-has in the ages past parted with, by so
-much less force it has to-day. That it has
-been able to supply our world and others
-like it, however, with heat and light and
-physical life for ages, is not at all strange
-when we remember what an immense ball
-of fire the sun is. It has a diameter of a
-million miles, in round numbers. Storms,
-which travel across our world at the rate
-of sixty miles an hour, would move across<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_308"></a>[308]</span>
-the surface of the sun at the rate of twenty
-thousand miles an hour. The flames of a
-burning forest, which on our world would
-rise one hundred feet in the air, on the
-sun would rise to the height of two hundred
-thousand miles. The sun, too, has enough
-force on hand to supply our earth and others
-with heat for untold ages yet to come, but
-unless its supply is replenished, the time
-will come when it will be bankrupt and
-nothing but a burnt out char in the heavens.
-This is so, because the sun is the center of
-that great natural realm, the universal law
-of which is the law of exclusiveness.</p>
-
-<p>In accordance with this law what the
-sun has in the way of force the other
-planets do not have, and what other planets
-obtain from the sun that body has forever
-lost. This is only another name for the
-law of the correlation of forces. This law
-applies not only to the force of the sun,
-but to all forces on this earth which come<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_309"></a>[309]</span>
-from that body. What one tree gathers
-into itself is at the expense of the general
-fund of force which goes to make trees.
-What one bird takes into his body is at
-the expense of all force which goes to make
-birds. What one man takes into his
-physical frame is at the expense of the
-general fund of force which goes to make
-human bodies. Whatever amount of force
-is contained in the cloud, in conserved
-water to turn the wheel, or in conserved
-electricity to carry the message, is at the
-expense of the general fund of force.</p>
-
-<p>According to the doctrine of the correlation
-of forces, the rising up of force in one
-place involves the subsidence of force in
-another place. The amount rising up, too,
-is the exact equivalent of the amount subsiding.
-When a rock falls from a church
-steeple the earth rises as much to meet the
-rock, in proportion to its mass, as the rock
-falls to meet the earth, in proportion to its<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_310"></a>[310]</span>
-mass. When a man shoots a rifle ball
-from a gun, as much force goes back
-against his shoulder as goes out through
-the muzzle of the gun. What the gun
-lacks in velocity it makes up in mass, and
-what the ball lacks in mass it makes up in
-velocity. When a pine tree is cut down
-and split into small pieces and put into an
-engine, just the same amount of heat is
-gathered from it that was garnered from
-the sun in the fifty years of its growth.
-This heat is also converted into an equivalent
-of steam, and this steam into an equivalent
-amount of mechanical motion. The
-sunshine, the pine tree, the heat, the steam,
-the mechanical motion, are only different
-forms of the same thing. Scientists of the
-materialistic school claim that this law
-holds good not only in the realm of the
-natural world, but in the mental and moral,
-as well. Prof. Thomas H. Huxley said, in
-a celebrated address in this country once,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_311"></a>[311]</span>
-that a speech was only so much transmuted
-mutton. According to Prof. Alexander
-Bain, there are five chief powers, or forces
-in nature: one mechanical or molar, the
-momentum of moving matter; the others,
-molecular, are embodied in the molecules,
-also supposed in motion—these are light,
-heat, chemical force, electricity. One member
-of vital energies, the nerve force, allied
-to electricity, fully deserves to rank in the
-correlation. According to this same distinguished
-authority, mind is only a refined
-and sublimated form of physical
-force. In this view the great poems,
-paintings, and literature of the world
-would be only so much transmuted sunshine—a
-higher form of the same force we
-see manifested in the flying railway train.
-In the one case the solidified sunshine contained
-in the coal is transmuted through
-the furnace of the engine into mechanical
-motion; in the other, the heat contained in<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_312"></a>[312]</span>
-food is transmuted through the human
-brain into literature and art. Perhaps it
-might not be at wide variance from the
-truth to assume that the force, mental or
-otherwise, expended by men who spend
-their lives under the dominion of the
-natural law of exclusiveness, may be accounted
-for in accordance with the doctrine
-of the correlation of forces. Even
-mind, when earthly and low, is subject to
-the bearing of the law of sin and death,
-which is the scriptural name for the law of
-exclusiveness.</p>
-
-<h3>III.</h3>
-
-<p>It might be plausibly contended that
-the religious movement of the prophet Mohammed
-could be accounted for in accordance
-with the doctrine of the correlation of
-forces. It is to be remembered that the
-personality of Mohammed is no more the
-equivalent of the vast movement which has<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_313"></a>[313]</span>
-existed and exists to-day under his name,
-than the acorn is the quantitative equivalent
-of the immense oak tree which has
-grown from it. The acorn, plus all the
-oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and
-other forces of sky and earth which it
-caught and organized, is the equivalent of
-the oak tree. The soil and the sky contain
-oaks in solution. Through acorns
-these are precipitated into trees.</p>
-
-<p>The mental, political, and social atmosphere
-of Turkey contained the Mohammedan
-movement in solution before Mohammed
-was born. Through him it was precipitated
-into Koran, mosque, prayer, and
-worship.</p>
-
-<p>Mohammed relied for success upon the
-methods with which men ordinarily succeed.
-He appealed to men’s love of fame,
-of pleasure, of conquest, of power, of
-riches. He simply organized the latent
-aspirations, and hopes, and fears of his<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_314"></a>[314]</span>
-countrymen into a great kingdom, essentially
-secular and sensual.</p>
-
-<p>In accordance with the principle of the
-correlation of forces, it might be possible
-to account for the success of Buddha, Confucius,
-Cæsar, and Bonaparte. What we
-wish now, is to apply this doctrine, which
-the materialists claim is capable of measuring
-everything, from an atom to Milton’s
-“Paradise Lost,” to the life and work of
-Christ. Granting, as we must, that all
-physical force may be estimated by it, and
-even that the work and thought of men, in
-so far as they live under the natural law of
-selfishness or exclusiveness, may be estimated
-by it.</p>
-
-<p>What we desire to inquire is, if the life
-and work of Christ form no exception to
-its operation, as ordinarily regarded. Can
-we, in accordance with this principle, account
-for the life and influence of Christ
-on the assumption that he was only a man?<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_315"></a>[315]</span>
-Has no more force issued from the person
-of Christ than subsided when only a man
-named Jesus was crucified?</p>
-
-<p>We have seen how the forms of physical
-force in the shape of fuel, food, moving
-waters, and winds may be traced directly
-to the sun. Let us also consider some of
-the forms of spiritual force which are
-traceable directly to the life of Christ, and
-inquire if they may be accounted for as
-the force which comes from the sun may
-be, by the principle of the convertibility
-of force.</p>
-
-<h3>IV.</h3>
-
-<p>There is the conserved spiritual force of
-Christian literature. This is stored up
-in the Bibles of the world, in commentaries
-upon its text, in expositions of its
-principles, in books illustrating its meaning.
-If all the Bibles of the world, books
-written about the Bible—in favor of it or
-against it—and all the books which have<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_316"></a>[316]</span>
-been inspired by some truth or precept
-taught in the Bible, and all the books
-which owe their existence directly or indirectly
-to the Bible, were burned up,
-Christendom would be well-nigh without
-literature. All Bibles and all books and
-literature which have grown out of the
-Bible owe their existence directly to Christ.
-They have come as straight from him as
-the coal in the mountain has come from the
-sun. Much force has been expended in the
-writing of all these books and in printing
-them, binding them, circulating them.
-They represent millions of dollars, ages of
-painful, patient thought. Into them a marvelous
-amount of force has lifted itself—physical
-force, money force, thought force.
-We are to find its equivalent. All the force
-that has arisen in Christian literature has
-subsided at some point, and the amount that
-subsided is the exact equivalent of that
-which has arisen. It must be remembered,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_317"></a>[317]</span>
-too, that distinctly Christian literature has
-not made its way in the world, as have
-the writings of Homer and Plato, by their
-affinity with man’s fancy. The wonderful
-interest which has ever centered around
-the Bible is totally different in kind and
-degree from that which centers around the
-works of Shakspere. Whatever there is
-of literary merit, of philosophic thought,
-or of poetic depth in the Bible is incidental.</p>
-
-<p>There is the conserved spiritual force of
-Christian art. The masterpieces in painting,
-sculpture, music, poetry, and architecture
-are Christian. The inspiration which
-produced Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” Handel’s
-“Messiah,” Powers’ “Eve,” and St. Peter’s
-at Rome, has all come from Christ. In
-the conception and production of these an
-immense amount of the most subtle, refined
-force has been expended.</p>
-
-<p>There is the conserved force of Christian<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_318"></a>[318]</span>
-money. This has taken the form of
-church buildings, buildings for education,
-for orphans, for the sick, for the wretched
-and the poor. There is not a great city
-in the world to-day without a Christian
-church edifice. They are the expressions
-of a great force, of which we are seeking
-to find the equivalent. They owe their existence
-directly to the person of Christ.
-The millions of money which have been
-spent in their erection have been because
-of love to him. They are as directly related
-to him as the oak tree is to the sun.
-If all these churches were burned down to-day,
-men would begin at once the erection
-of better ones to take their places. The
-conserved force of Christian money, then,
-which tends to lift itself into church edifices,
-is not exhausted in those which
-already stand upon the earth; but just
-as much as has lifted itself into brick
-and marble, and window, and dome, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_319"></a>[319]</span>
-pinnacle is ready to take the same forms
-if the necessity for them were laid upon
-the Christian world.</p>
-
-<p>There is the conserved force of Christian
-home life. The force here referred to
-is not manifest in the life itself, but in the
-form which family life has taken in the
-Christian world. There is hardly a home
-in Christendom to-day, but has been
-formed directly or indirectly with reference
-to Christ. Into those places where
-character is formed, where revolutions are
-started, where Wesleys and Gladstones are
-developed, where eternal issues pend,
-Christ has come quietly and silently to
-regulate, to dominate and control. To
-thus influence, regulate, and vitally touch
-homes, to thus determine their form,
-appointment, and character, requires a
-great deal of force.</p>
-
-<p>There is the conserved force implied in
-the inception and perpetuation of the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_320"></a>[320]</span>
-Christian Calendar. Infidels, materialists,
-and atheists, in dating their letters, pay
-tribute to the character of Christ in the
-fact that they recognize he has ushered in
-a new era. Christ has claimed and held
-through nearly two thousand years one
-day out of every week to be devoted to
-his service. The day upon which he was
-born is celebrated in the hearts of men
-and in the arts of men. To change the
-world’s calendar, to inaugurate and make
-permanent a new date, to impel the world
-to set apart a day for his worship, to
-furnish the world with new festivals and
-holidays, has required, certainly, a vast
-amount of force. This we are to trace
-and determine, and we are also to find its
-equivalent.</p>
-
-<p>There is the conserved Christian force
-implied in the fact that Christ has won the
-hearts of men. To win the disinterested
-love of one man takes much force, more<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_321"></a>[321]</span>
-than most men have. To win the love of
-a state takes more. But to win and to hold,
-through the perturbations and revolutions
-of kingdoms and republics, the undying
-love of the best and purest men on earth
-requires an infinite amount of force. This
-point in Christ’s character greatly impressed
-the first Napoleon. Said he, “I
-know men. Christ is not a man. I have
-seen the time when I could inspire thousands
-to die for me, but it took the inspiration
-of my presence and the power of my
-word. Since I am away from men, a
-prisoner on Helena, no one will die for me.
-Christ, on the other hand, has been away
-from the world nearly two thousand years,
-and yet there are millions who would die
-for him. I tell you, Christ is not a man.
-I know men.”</p>
-
-<h3>V.</h3>
-
-<p>It would be impossible to recount all the
-institutions, books, civilizations, laws, discoveries,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_322"></a>[322]</span>
-inventions, homes and hearts, into
-which the force of Christ’s life has for the
-past nineteen hundred years been lifting itself.
-As the sun expresses itself in the
-meadow, and lifts itself into the trees of the
-forests, so Christ has been embodying himself
-in the institutions, homes, and thoughts
-of men. The scientists say all force can be
-accounted for. When force has risen up at
-one point it has subsided at another: the
-amount rising up being the exact equivalent
-of that subsiding. Upon this principle
-we are seeking to account for all this
-force that, coming from Christ, has expressed
-itself in the domestic, social, political,
-and ecclesiastical institutions of men.
-More has risen than can be computed by
-human arithmetic, or compassed by human
-imagination, or comprehended by human
-thought. Where did it come from? Where
-did it subside? At what point did it disappear
-to rise again in such overwhelming<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_323"></a>[323]</span>
-volume, and such sweeping and far-reaching
-influence? We go back through eighteen
-hundred years. We are standing in Jerusalem.
-We hear conflicting reports of a
-strange, daring young man. At length he
-is pointed out to us. There is nothing remarkable
-about his appearance. He is a
-Jew. He was born among the poor. He
-is not noted for culture. He has no social
-position. He has no money. He has no
-political power or prestige. He has no
-army at his command. He has no philosophical
-system. He is connected with no
-academy. He is only thirty-three years
-old. His words are contained in no books.
-They are simply in the memory of his disciples.
-He is misunderstood. His own
-disciples do not know what to make of
-him. Finally he is arrested, and tried, and
-condemned, and crucified. He dies between
-two thieves, scorned, scoffed, buffeted, and
-friendless. Keep in mind the principle we<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_324"></a>[324]</span>
-are considering. All force can be measured.
-No more force rises up than subsides.
-Action and reaction are equal. We are
-seeking to account, in accordance with this
-principle, for the vast amount of force
-Christ has poured into the institutions and
-thoughts of humanity. Is this young man’s
-life, seemingly so insignificant and weak,
-the exact equivalent of all the churches,
-schools, colleges, arts, literature, homes,
-governments, sacrifice, heroism, good works,
-martyrdom, patience, love, and hope that
-have by general consent resulted from his
-existence in the world? If so, was he only
-a man? Multiply thirty-three years by
-poverty, toil, contempt, sorrow, and crucifixion,
-and you have one product. Multiply
-nineteen hundred years by millions of
-churches, schools, and homes; by millions
-of books, paintings, and poems; by social
-position, wealth, and power; by success,
-triumph, and conquest; by love, mercy, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_325"></a>[325]</span>
-truth; by a hold upon humanity unequaled,
-and by an influence on home and thought
-unrivaled, and you have another product.
-The question is: does one of these products
-seem to be the equivalent of the other?
-Does not the outcome surpass by an infinite
-degree the income? Is not the evolution
-out of all proportion to the involution?
-Has not a great deal more force risen up
-than seemingly subsided? Is there not
-much more power seemingly on this side
-the Cross than there was on the other?
-Manifestly and clearly Christ’s life and
-work cannot be accounted for by the principle
-of the correlation of forces.</p>
-
-<p>Mohammed’s success and disciples we can
-understand. He succeeded by the ordinary
-methods by which men succeed. He
-appealed to men’s love of fame, conquest,
-wealth, power, pleasure. He offered men,
-as a reward for their fealty to him, a great
-earthly kingdom, and such a heaven beyond<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_326"></a>[326]</span>
-the grave as would regale the senses, please
-the fancy, and gratify the appetites. He
-simply organized and applied the latent
-earthly forces already existing in his countrymen.
-His success is in line with that
-of Cæsar and Bonaparte. The kingdom
-which he proposed to establish was merely
-an earthly, sensual kingdom. His methods
-were carnal, the motives to which he appealed
-were sensual, and the hopes which
-he inspired were carnal. Christ, on the
-other hand, condemned men’s love of conquest,
-power, fame, riches, and pleasure.
-He made the conditions of discipleship to
-consist in the denial of self and in the relinquishment
-of all earthly hopes, gratifications,
-and prospects. “If you find your
-life in my kingdom,” said he, “you must
-lose it in this.” He proposed to build up
-a kingdom as wide as the world, and as
-lasting as eternity, without adopting a single
-method or utilizing any of the means<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_327"></a>[327]</span>
-ordinarily relied on for success. Not only
-did he propose a new kingdom, but to populate
-it with new men, motives, hopes,
-conceptions, and opinions. Hence, to come
-into his kingdom, men were to be made
-over. They were to die to self, to the
-world, to pleasure. So Christ’s work and
-influence in the world not only forms an
-exception to the principle of the correlation
-of forces, but here we have an unparalleled
-amount of force rising up when, to all human
-appearances, none subsided at all.</p>
-
-<h3>VI.</h3>
-
-<p>A poor young carpenter dies. He goes
-down in ignominy. Amid the jeers and
-contempt of the multitude, he goes down
-into the grave. But from that moment,
-commotion begins. Forgiveness of sin in
-the name of Christ is preached; disciples
-are won; books are written; civilizations
-are touched; movements are inaugurated;<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_328"></a>[328]</span>
-persecutions, bloody and relentless, are
-waged. The fires of hate are kindled;
-storms from all round the social, political,
-and religious sky gather, and howl, and
-empty their fury upon the new movement.
-Nothing impedes it; fire cannot hinder it;
-persecution intensifies it; death does not
-alarm it. Now, we submit, does not such a
-movement, starting from such a source, and
-moving out with such vigor, and becoming
-intenser and deeper as it is extended, form
-a remarkable and singular exception to the
-principle we are considering? Is there any
-rule among men by which it may be estimated
-and classified and labeled? Can
-any human, or logical, or philosophical
-formula or principle measure the multiform
-and widely diversified facts in this
-case? Does it not form an exception to
-all rules and human methods of measurements?
-Do we not augment the difficulties
-of accounting for the work of Christ<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_329"></a>[329]</span>
-by minifying him, and calling him a mere
-man? Is not the easier way to account for
-Christ’s work, to accord to him all that he
-claims for himself and all that his disciples
-claimed for him. He said, “All
-power is given to me in heaven and in
-earth.” If we accept this as true, we can
-account for his work. But in this view,
-we will see that his life was divine and
-one with the Father of us all. Then we
-will see that he was the Son of God, the
-Word made flesh, the incarnation of the
-divine mind and wisdom and power. It
-is impossible to account for the life and
-work of Christ by the principles with
-which physical force and merely human
-force and thought are measured. The sun
-is the center of the system of nature, a system
-destined to end. Any system, the
-center of which is gradually losing its
-force, cannot last. Christ is the center of a
-spiritual system totally different from the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_330"></a>[330]</span>
-system of nature. By all the force the sun
-parts with to the worlds about it, by so
-much less has it. It is gradually losing itself,
-to find itself no more forever. Christ
-is pouring his force into the system of
-which he is the center, but by such a process
-he is not losing his force, but increasing
-it. By losing himself he finds himself.
-The universal law of the system of which
-he is the center, is the law of communion.
-The force he gives away comes back to
-him augmented by the personality of all
-who partake of it. Instead of becoming
-poorer by giving, he becomes richer. This
-great truth St. Paul saw when he said: “All
-things are yours, whether Paul, or Apollos,
-or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death,
-or things present, or things to come, all are
-yours, and ye are Christ’s; and Christ is
-God’s.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_331"></a>[331]</span></p>
-
-<h3>VII.</h3>
-
-<p>One life has appeared among men, then,
-that was all love. Jesus Christ is the only
-original, absolutely unselfish life that has
-been lived on earth. The saints have
-found the secret, and strength, and inspiration
-of their unselfishness and love in
-him. The love which matches and meets
-the illimitable nature of the human spirit
-is embodied in a life that cannot be measured
-by the ordinary rules and standards of
-men. The object of which hunger is the
-subject, is bread; the object of which intellect
-is the subject, is truth; the object
-of which will is the subject, is law; the
-object of which the æsthetic sense is the
-subject, is beauty; the object of which
-the spiritual nature is the subject, is
-Jesus Christ. The spirit of man which
-has for its correlate in time, the race, has
-for its correlate in eternity, the life of one<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_332"></a>[332]</span>
-in which is summed up all power, all truth,
-all law, all beauty, and all love. As the
-embodiment of love the human spirit finds
-in Christ the climate and the conditions
-exactly adapted to its own realization.
-The plan and pattern, the invisible framework
-and ideal of every man’s life is
-Christian. To be an oak is to be a perfect
-acorn, to be an apple is to be a complete
-flower, to be a Christian is to be a
-complete man.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_333"></a>[333]</span></p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_334"></a>[334]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="IMMORTALITY"><i>IMMORTALITY.</i></h2>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="blockquote">
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">“How does the rivulet find its way?</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">How does the floweret know its day</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And open its cup to catch the ray?</div>
- </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">“I see the germ to the sunlight reach,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And the nestling knows the old bird’s speech.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">I do not know who is there to teach.</div>
- </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">“I see the hare through the thicket glide,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And the stars through the trackless spaces ride.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">I do not see who is there to guide.</div>
- </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">“He is eyes for all, who is eyes for the mole,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">See motion goes to the rightful goal.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">O God! I can trust for the human soul.”</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_335"></a>[335]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII.<br />
-<span class="smaller">THE PERMANENCE OF THE COMPLETED LIFE OF MAN.</span></h2>
-
-</div>
-
-<p>Back of the movement which began in
-creation and culminated in man, we posited
-the mind of a self-conscious, self-determining,
-self-active, personal God. Necessity
-was upon us to assume a first principle of
-some kind, and it seemed proper to have
-one large enough to account for the facts
-we were about to consider. The first principle
-Thales set up was water. In water
-he saw the origin of all and the end of
-all. But all that came out of water must,
-in the end, find its death in water. With
-nothing but a vast ocean to start with, we
-shall find, at the conclusion, nothing more
-articulate and rational than an infinite expanse
-of water to end with.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_336"></a>[336]</span></p>
-
-<p>Herbert Spencer, “the heir of all the
-ages in the foremost files of time,” took as
-the starting point of his philosophy the unknowable.
-In the selection of a first principle,
-however, we think Thales, though
-the first philosopher who ever lived, had
-the advantage of him.</p>
-
-<p>Water is a definite and positive somewhat;
-the unknowable is an indefinite and
-inarticulate vacuity. With water for a first
-principle, the prospect is certain destruction
-in a general deluge. With the unknowable
-for a first principle, the prospect
-is sure imbecility in universal ignorance.
-It is better to be drowned in water than to
-have the light of intelligence put out in
-everlasting night. Mr. Spencer’s unknowable
-was a convenient receptacle into which
-to dump difficulties and troublesome problems;
-but, as a working hypothesis, it was
-not sufficient even to build the universe
-Mr. Spencer saw. In the process of constructing<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_337"></a>[337]</span>
-his system, Mr. Spencer gave to
-his unknowable nearly all the attributes
-which theologians give to a personal God.
-As we have already seen, when Mr. Spencer
-got through with drawing from his unknowable
-all that he had to have to give
-his system the order and show of reason, it
-was found that the unknowable part of the
-unknowable had about been scattered in
-the light of knowledge. For this same unknowable
-was found to have Being, Power,
-Activity, Causal Energy, and Omnipresence
-for attributes. Nothing more can come
-out of a first principle than what is contained
-in it. Out of water, nothing but
-water comes, and out of the unknowable,
-nothing but the unknowable comes. One
-can posit an acorn, under certain conditions
-of soil and sky, and get an oak; but the
-germ of the oak must be in the acorn, and
-the nutriment of the oak must be in the
-conditions before any oak can come out.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_338"></a>[338]</span>
-It is the old truism, that “out of nothing,
-nothing comes.” No one ever attempts to
-account for anything without a first principle.
-The test of the reality and value of
-a first principle will be determined solely
-by its capacity to account for the facts
-which come out of it. It is because the
-unknowable fails to account for the facts
-of nature, and for self-consciousness, self-determination,
-and self-activity in man, who
-stands as the complete consummation and
-realization of nature, that it is not accepted
-as an adequate first principle.</p>
-
-<p>Matthew Arnold, in order to escape the
-objections which he had to taking a self-conscious,
-self-determining, personal God
-for a first principle, substituted “The
-Stream of Tendency, not ourselves, that
-makes for righteousness.” But this sentence,
-when analyzed, reveals the fact that
-Matthew Arnold’s Stream has about the
-same essential elements the theologian supposes<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_339"></a>[339]</span>
-to reside in God. A stream has a
-source, a direction, and an end. Here, then,
-we have cause, means, and ultimate object.
-It is also said that the stream makes for
-something; here is self-determination. It
-is said to make for righteousness; here is
-the attribute of Justice, and justice can
-only be predicated of a person.</p>
-
-<p>Given nature, with its elements, laws,
-and unity, and man as the being in whom
-the whole of nature is summed up, with
-self-consciousness, self-determination, and
-self-activity; the only first principle sufficient
-to account for the facts is a self-conscious,
-self-determining, self-active personal
-God. It is only such a first principle that
-is large enough to account for the number,
-and order, and drift, and collocations of
-the facts; and to such a first principle the
-number, and order, and drift, and collocations
-of the facts may be traced.</p>
-
-<p>If we see red and violet and blue colors<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_340"></a>[340]</span>
-appearing in the carpet on one side of the
-loom, we are warranted in assuming that
-red and violet and blue threads are entering
-the carpet on the other side of the
-loom. Nature is a marvelous loom. At
-first there are simple elements, then
-there are compounds, then there are
-plants, then there are animals. At last all
-the elements, as so many strands, with
-their manifold hues and variegated colors,
-appear in the life of man. Man is the
-harbor where all the freight, started on its
-stormy course at creation, comes to shore.
-Its matter takes majestic form in his body,
-its power lends itself as wind to his sail,
-as heat to his engine, as light to his street:
-its truth is arranged by the intellect into
-literature and science: its law is formulated
-into statutes, enactments, and constitutions:
-its beauty is built into oratorios
-and spread in radiant visions: its love is
-accepted and turned into tenderness, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_341"></a>[341]</span>
-sacrifice, and hope. Infinite personality at
-the beginning, self-conscious, self-determining,
-and self-active. Finite personality
-at the conclusion, self-conscious, self-determining,
-and self-active.</p>
-
-<p>If you call the process evolution, then
-no more has been evolved than was involved.
-If you prefer direct creation,
-then nothing is seen in the creature that
-was not built into him by the Creator.
-Either way, if a self-conscious, self-determining,
-and self-active man appears on
-one side of nature, a self-conscious, self-determining,
-and self-active personal God
-is, we may know, on the other.</p>
-
-<h3>I.</h3>
-
-<p>The importance of a correct first principle,
-and of a right idea of the nature of
-that first principle, cannot be urged too
-strongly. In the right solution of the
-question we are considering, everything<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_342"></a>[342]</span>
-depends on it. If we start with water, as
-Thales did, we will be forced to conclude
-that individual lives, like bubbles, will
-eventually fall back and mingle with the
-waves of the sea.</p>
-
-<p>If we start with the unknowable, as
-Spencer did, we shall be led to see that
-human spirits will lose themselves at
-death, as candles lose their light when the
-wicks are consumed.</p>
-
-<p>It is not left us, however, arbitrarily to
-assume such a first principle as comports
-with the particular theory of life it is our
-purpose to establish. The first principle
-that corresponds to reality is already
-implicit in the facts, the origin, and
-purpose, and end of which we wish to
-know. The law of gravity is implicit in
-falling bodies, and in the revolving stars.
-The sunbeam is implicit in the growing
-tree. All that happens when one posits a
-first principle that is not implicit in the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_343"></a>[343]</span>
-facts he is considering, is that his first
-principle will fail to account for the facts.
-Matthew Arnold had a perfect right to
-assume as a first principle, “The Stream
-of Tendency, not ourselves, that makes for
-righteousness.” This looked poetic and
-impersonal, and in his esteem served him
-as a working hypothesis.</p>
-
-<p>It never seemed to occur to him that
-his principle implied the same elements
-and attributes the theologians regarded as
-uniting in God; the elements and attributes
-he was so anxious to get rid of.
-Herbert Spencer, with a theory to work
-out, and a particular system to buttress
-and bolster, devised and adopted a first
-principle that seemed to promise most to
-his peculiar views. This he had a right to
-do. But he had no right to take as a first
-principle the unknowable, with which to
-destroy the Christian’s God; and just as
-soon as he had accomplished this to his<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_344"></a>[344]</span>
-entire satisfaction, to turn deliberately and
-take nearly every attribute of the Christian’s
-God to bestow upon his unknowable.
-It is hardly to be supposed that
-Mr. Spencer, with malice aforethought
-planned the death of God in order to
-steal his attributes. The more charitable
-view is to suppose that at the outset his
-intention was to erect an absolutely new
-philosophic edifice, upon a new and original
-foundation. To do this, it was
-necessary to clear the ground of everything
-in sight. So in a high moment of philosophic
-self-confidence, he determined on the
-obliteration of all previous and time-honored
-first principles, that he might
-posit one of his own making and to his
-own liking.</p>
-
-<p>This was the destructive stage of his
-mental movement, and it did not occur to
-him that many of the elements he was
-clearing away in such wholesale fashion<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_345"></a>[345]</span>
-would be necessary to carry up his new
-philosophic temple. When he got through
-with the period of preparation, he had
-nothing to start with but a plain, simple,
-empty, unknowable. But it soon became
-evident that the unknowable must have
-some content, in order to support a decent
-and orderly structure. At this point he
-took the attributes of the Christian’s God,
-Being, Power, Activity, Causal Energy,
-Omnipresence, and filled up his empty
-unknowable with them. Then he proceeded
-with his work.</p>
-
-<h3>II.</h3>
-
-<p>In starting with a self-conscious, self-determining
-and personal God, then, as
-a first principle that accommodates and
-insures the immortality of the individual
-spirit, we are only beginning with what is
-implicit in the facts of nature and human
-life. Let it be clearly apprehended that<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_346"></a>[346]</span>
-the ground of the self-conscious, self-determining,
-personal God is thought. That the
-fundamental and first thing in this universe
-is mind. That the being of God is
-secondary to the mind, or thought of God.
-God has being, because he has thought,
-and not thought, because he has being.
-The trouble with the pantheistic system of
-Spinoza was that he looked upon God,
-first as infinite substance or being, while
-thought was only one of the modes of
-this being, and extension was the other.
-The root of all doubt and skepticism is to
-be traced to a confused notion of the
-nature of God. Many speak of God as
-the Supreme Being, and advertise by their
-language that in their esteem God is diffused
-nebulosity, or universally extended
-externality. There never was a skeptic in
-the world who had come to the rational
-and tenable position, that God is primarily,
-and fundamentally, and essentially thought.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_347"></a>[347]</span>
-We may properly speak of his being, his
-wisdom, his justice, his truth, his love;
-but these are different determinations of
-his thought. God’s being is the externality
-of his thought. His wisdom is his
-thought devising means to ends. His
-justice is his thought balancing and regulating.
-His truth is his thought in
-realization. His love is his thought in
-sacrifice. “In the beginning was the
-Word.” A word is an expressed thought.
-“The Word was with God.” The realized
-thought or word was with God, the
-Eternal Thinker, or Thought. “God said,
-Let there be light, and there was light.”
-Light was thus the expression of thought.
-Nearly all materialism and pantheism look
-upon things as an emanation from something.
-Vapor emanates from the surface
-of a river, and is only the river in diffusion.
-But the universe does not emanate
-from God; it is the direct creation and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_348"></a>[348]</span>
-expression of his thought. Potentially the
-universe was always in the thought of
-God.</p>
-
-<h3>III.</h3>
-
-<p>We have dwelt at length on the self-consciousness
-and self-determination of God,
-as these unite in him as an absolute personality,
-for the reason that the immortality of
-the human spirit finds its condition and its
-security here. If God is a person, and
-self-conscious, self-determining, and self-active,
-man is immortal, for in him the
-elements which constitute the essential
-nature of God appear. Man is a person
-and a spirit, made in the likeness and
-image of God. He is, therefore, as imperishable
-and indestructible as God is. He
-has thought and is therefore self-conscious;
-he has a will, and is therefore self-determining;
-he has power, and is therefore
-self-active; he maintains his identity
-through change, and is therefore a person.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_349"></a>[349]</span>
-But the finite person finds his life through
-the infinite Person. He finds his knowledge
-by partaking of truth, the realized
-thought of God; he finds his freedom by
-the observance of law, the expressed will
-of God; he finds his peace by partaking
-of the life that was in Christ, the manifested
-love of God. As the fundamental
-and prior thing in the being of God is
-thought, so the fundamental and prior
-thing in the being of man is thought.
-His progress in the practical matters of
-life will be in proportion to his thought.
-His political status will be in proportion
-to his thought; his religious attainment
-will be in proportion to his thought.
-Schleiermacher said “Feeling is the
-source of religion—a feeling of dependence.”
-But one cannot have a feeling of
-dependence without having the thought of
-dependence. One cannot feel that he depends
-unless he thinks of himself as dependent.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_350"></a>[350]</span>
-Matthew Arnold said that religion
-was morality touched by emotion.
-But there cannot be morality without the
-thought of some rule by which conduct
-ought to be guided. Even the African
-savage, who worships a snake, thinks there
-is something in the snake entitled to
-his adoration. Thought is the clearest
-self-explication of the human spirit. In
-thought it comes to itself and knows itself.
-Take thought out of the spirit of man,
-and you take out its essential nature. Its
-immortality, even were it possible, would
-then not be worth contending for. One
-had as well be blotted out, as to lose the
-only element of his spirit by which he is
-able to recognize himself as such. Looking
-upon thought as the center and kernel
-of the human spirit, we see that to deny
-the immortality of the human spirit is to
-assume that thought is destructible; and
-this is a flat contradiction, for destruction<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_351"></a>[351]</span>
-has no meaning, except in relation to
-thought. It is of the very nature of
-thought to be eternal. No thought ever
-dies, or can die. All the determinations of
-God’s thought are eternal. The mind of
-God has within it all determinations of
-thought; those past, those present, and
-those to come. Some of these determinations
-of the divine thought have taken the
-form of objects in the inorganic world,
-some have taken the form of objects in the
-vegetable kingdom, and some have taken
-the form of objects in the animal kingdom.
-The determinations of thought, of which
-inorganic things, trees, and animals were
-the expressions, are all eternal.</p>
-
-<p>It is of the nature of the things in
-which the determinations of thought took
-form to change and pass away. But the
-ideal patterns, of which they were only the
-temporary forms, are held in the mind of
-God forever. The house which expresses<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_352"></a>[352]</span>
-the architect’s ideal may be blown away, or
-burned up, but the ideal in the thought
-of the architect cannot be blown away or
-burned up. Now in man the determination
-of God’s thought is not expressed in a
-thing, but in a thought. Man, as God’s
-child, inherits, or comes through creation
-into the possession of thought, of mind, so
-that he is able to set up thinking—in his
-own behalf, and by the self-determining, self-conscious,
-and self-active power of his own
-mind. God as thought is his own object
-and his own subject, and man as thought
-is his own object and his own subject.
-God has set him up to housekeeping in the
-republic of thought.</p>
-
-<p>In the changes which take place in material
-objects, there is preservation of the
-species, but the loss of the individual.
-The object is an element and not a self.
-When it changes, it is by something external
-to itself, and in changing, realizes its<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_353"></a>[353]</span>
-nature. It is indifferent to change, as
-there is no central self that retains its
-essential identity in the midst of all change.
-The tree belongs to a higher order of existence
-than a rock. It is the expression
-of unconscious life. The animal belongs
-to a still higher plane than the tree. Besides
-appropriating food from its environment, as
-does the tree, it takes in the images of
-things, and lives a low order of sentient
-life. But in order that animals may take
-in the images of things through the senses,
-the things must be present before them.
-When the thing is gone, the image fades.
-The objects which stand around man in his
-environment pass into his consciousness
-through the senses. But when the environment
-changes and the objects are taken
-away, the impressions made by the objects
-remain. In this way man re-creates the
-universe for his own thought. The gurgling
-of brooks, the murmur of the sea, the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_354"></a>[354]</span>
-sighing of the winds, the cooing of doves,
-he hears just as the animal does. But
-away from brooks, and seas, and winds, and
-doves, Beethoven throws into one of his
-symphonies all the notes that were ever on
-sea or land. He has within him the same
-kind of mind that expressed itself in all
-the notes of music, and he not only hears
-these notes, but he re-combines and reorganizes
-them in his great compositions.</p>
-
-<h3>IV.</h3>
-
-<p>The spirit of man is simple. It is an
-ultimate and indivisible unity. Death
-divides, breaks up, and disintegrates. The
-nature of the human spirit is such, however,
-that it cannot be divided, broken up,
-or disintegrated. We see it maintain its
-identity through the storms and mutations
-of eighty years. All things change about
-it. The very body that constitutes its
-temporary abiding place is torn down and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_355"></a>[355]</span>
-rebuilt many times in the course of a long
-life. It advances in knowledge and experience;
-grows larger and richer in hope
-and love, but all its accumulations of
-thought and increasing wealth of life are
-stored in the same self-conscious, self-determining,
-personal spirit. In the evening
-of life the old man sits in the midst of his
-grandchildren and recounts the scenes of
-his boyhood days. All the waves of time
-contained within the sweep of three score
-years and ten have left their labels of drift
-and storm on the shores of his life. But
-they have not worn, or wasted, or altered
-his spirit.</p>
-
-<p>A rock wears away, or is crumbled to
-dust, when it is a rock no longer. A tree
-is cut down and split into cord wood and
-burned in the engine, and it is a tree no
-longer. In the furnace it is turned back
-into its original elements. In the fire it is
-altered or othered. The other of a tree is<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_356"></a>[356]</span>
-oxygen, hydrogen, etc. The bird in the
-thicket is shot by the heartless sportsman.
-It falls to the ground and its little heart
-ceases to beat. Soon its body is changed
-back into earth and air. The other of a
-bird is not a bird, but the particles which
-were organized under the process of natural
-law to form its body. The images which
-fell on its vision in the grove, faded away
-when the objects which caused them were
-removed. The sounds which came to its
-ears from here and there in the forest
-passed from its sense when the air that
-caused them ceased to vibrate. In the
-bird there was no inner self, abiding, self-conscious,
-determining, and active, that
-was capable of grasping and holding and
-recreating the visions and the notes which
-came to it. It may have had a sort of sentient
-consciousness, but it was not much
-above the consciousness of the sea, which
-holds the images of the stars in its dark<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_357"></a>[357]</span>
-blue waves, as long as they stand above
-it.</p>
-
-<p>By comparing man with the classes of
-individuals below him, we may see the
-respects in which he rises infinitely above
-them. And we may see, too, by this comparison,
-that immortality is not something
-to which man is to come beyond death, but
-something that he has already in the very
-constitution of the personal spirit. The
-same may be said of man’s body, that is
-said of the bodies of trees and birds, its
-other is the original elements which compose
-it. The life in a tree cannot other itself, because
-it is not conscious. The life in a bird
-cannot other itself because its consciousness
-is not self-consciousness. But in man’s body
-there resides a spirit that can other itself.
-Man, as a personal spirit, can project himself
-out of himself, and reason with himself and
-commune with himself. The self he projects
-out of himself is another self, but not<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_358"></a>[358]</span>
-a different self. The other of man’s spirit,
-then, is not something else, but it is the
-same spirit. Man is subject and object,
-active and passive, determiner and determined.
-Man, as subject, may externalize
-himself, and thus make of himself his own
-object, and by this self-separation enrich
-himself and advance within himself.
-Beethoven, as a thinking subject, objectified
-his thought in the symphonies, and
-thus regaled and thrilled his own spirit.
-By putting his own thought into the form
-of sound waves, it came back to him in the
-rain, and storm, and thunder, and sigh, and
-murmur of music. As a thinking subject
-Raphael objectified his own thought in the
-transfiguration, and thus had it come back
-to him in a vision as immortal as the spirit
-that created it. Michael Angelo objectified
-his own thought in the Last Judgment,
-and by this self-separation of his spirit,
-advertised its indestructibility. Homer, as<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_359"></a>[359]</span>
-a thinking subject, objectified his thought
-into the Iliad. This great epic poem has
-already lived, even on this side of the
-grave, where the order is change and decay,
-nearly three thousand years. Are we to
-conclude that a personal spirit that could
-deposit itself in numbers never to die, was
-itself subject to dissolution? This would
-be to have an effect greater than the cause.
-The sunbeam may deposit itself in a tree,
-and thus secure to itself life in embodied
-form for hundreds of years. But in order
-that this may be, the sun must send his
-beams to warm and nourish the tree all
-the days of its life. The Iliad has lived,
-however, nearly three thousand years,
-without the daily ministrations of Homer’s
-spirit. For a bubble on the sea of life to
-lift itself into imperishable form and then
-fall back to mingle with the waves and the
-waters, is to contradict the principle of the
-correlation of forces, which declares that<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_360"></a>[360]</span>
-action and reaction must always be equal.
-The expression a spirit makes of itself cannot
-be more enduring than the spirit itself.</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">“The ship may sink and I may drink</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">A hasty death in the bitter sea;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">But all that I leave in the ocean grave</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">May be slipped and spared, and no loss to me.</div>
- </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">“What care I, though falls the sky,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">And the shriveled earth to a cinder turn?</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">No fires of doom can ever consume</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">What never was made nor meant to burn.</div>
- </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">“Let go the breath! There is no death</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">For the living soul, nor loss nor harm.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Nor of the clod is the life of God;</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Let it mount, as it will, from form to form.”</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>When a train of cars stops suddenly at
-the depot, the energy that caused it to fly
-along the track is not lost, it is only transformed.
-When a tree is cut down, the
-energy that expressed itself in its trunk
-and branches is not lost, it will only take
-other forms. When a horse dies, the energy
-of which its life was the expression<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_361"></a>[361]</span>
-is not lost, it is transformed. When a
-tree or a horse passes from the living world
-into the world of inorganic things, the
-exact amount of energy in the body of the
-living tree or horse takes other forms.
-The amount on the side of death is equal
-to the amount on the side of life. If we
-consider man only as a physical organism,
-the same may be said of him. The amount
-transformed into earth and air, will be the
-equivalent of the organized fund of bone,
-and sinew, and muscle, turned over to
-death. If we thus estimate man, however,
-as we do a tree or a horse, have we taken
-into account the entire sum of assets that
-were in his possession during life? What
-of his thought, affection, and volition?
-When Kepler died, what became of the
-intelligence that discovered the “Three
-Laws,” which constitute the arches of the
-sublime bridge that spans the vast chasm
-between Ptolemaic and modern astronomy?<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_362"></a>[362]</span>
-When Laplace died, what became of the
-spirit that solved the problems of the Mécanique
-Céleste, by the aid of which the
-irregularities of the heavenly bodies were
-reduced to order? When Adams died,
-what became of the massive spirit that
-built in the depths of his own study the
-planet Neptune, with no other raw material
-to work from than the perturbations of
-Uranus? When Moses died, what became
-of the affection that expressed itself in the
-training and civilization of a race? When
-Jesus Christ died, what became of the love
-that sacrificed itself for a sinful world?</p>
-
-<p>When we begin to talk about human life,
-we find all that has made civilization is not
-physical. In the death of human beings,
-the energies of thought, and affection, and
-volition are not represented in the transformations
-which take place with reference to
-their bodies. Yet all the energies man has
-put forth that give any evidence of his<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_363"></a>[363]</span>
-record on the earth are such as come from
-thought, and affection, and volition. As
-these energies are not transformed at death,
-as are the forces of the body, they must
-continue. For to suppose they ceased at
-death would be to break the law of the
-correlation and the conservation of forces.
-If they are not transformed at death, along
-with the forces of the body, they must reside
-in another than the material world,
-and must not, therefore, be subject to its
-changes.</p>
-
-<h3>V.</h3>
-
-<p>The personal spirit, by its very nature,
-and tendencies, and possibilities, seems to be
-addressed to another than the tangible,
-local, and physical realm in which it finds
-itself while residing in the body. An irrepressible
-and wide-reaching something in
-the spirit of each man seems to impel him
-to triumph over space, and time, and change.
-In the accumulation of property, he would<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_364"></a>[364]</span>
-own the whole world. A very small portion
-of land would be adequate to his
-physical needs. But he would add acre
-to acre, till his private domain compassed
-the surface of the whole earth. Alexander,
-weeping because there was not another
-world he could get to conquer, advertises
-the immensity and illimitability
-of the human spirit. By the aid of instruments
-by which man has augmented and
-lengthened his power of vision, he has
-come upon stars rolling in the immensity
-of space to the circle of the thirteenth
-magnitude. He has not been content to
-look upon the stars in the vast depths of
-space, but he has photographed them, so
-as to behold their faces in his study. Back
-beyond the dim dawn of time, commensurate
-with the appearance of human life on
-earth, he has gone, to return with the chemical,
-physical, and stratigraphical history of
-the globe. By the aid of steam, he has<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_365"></a>[365]</span>
-made himself a cosmopolite, and through
-the application of electricity, he has made
-himself ubiquitous. Must we not posit a
-spirit correlated to the universal to account
-for this disposition to compass all things,
-to know all things, and to be everywhere?
-The tendency of the human spirit to compass
-and possess universality is seen, too,
-by its capacity to create language, in which
-it embodies all things and through which
-it expresses its thought of all things. If
-there had to be separate words for all individual
-things any but the most limited
-knowledge would be impossible, and such
-knowledge alone there would be if man
-was shut up to atomic sensations for the
-data of knowledge. But the mind, by
-its creative, combining power, and its
-active spontaneous insight, forms words
-which represent not only individual things,
-but classes and species of things. Man devises
-the word <i>oak</i>, and lets it stand for all<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_366"></a>[366]</span>
-the oaks in the world. He creates the
-word <i>humanity</i>, and puts into it the whole
-human race. He coins the word <i>vegetable</i>,
-and uses it to define the whole kingdom of
-plants. Thus he not only goes over the
-world and sees it directly, but he produces
-language manifold and complicated, and
-elastic enough to accommodate and contain
-the world, with all that is in it. This
-makes it possible for him to go round the
-world and see all its wonders, without
-leaving the place of his birth.</p>
-
-<p>He not only builds for himself the universe
-in language, so that he can contemplate
-its moons, and measure its suns, and
-sail its oceans, and climb its mountains in
-the silent precincts of his study, but he
-avails himself of sound and light, also, to
-give expression to universal ideas. He
-takes a few notes, and so combines and
-mixes them as to be able to touch all the
-chords of the universal human heart in one<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_367"></a>[367]</span>
-song. Michael Angelo put all the theology
-of all the books into the Last Judgment.</p>
-
-<p>Throughout the length and breadth of
-nature, there is economy of faculty and resource
-until we come to man. The fish
-has not a gill nor a fin too many, and there
-is not in the water where he lives any surplus
-or margin upon which he does not
-make levies for his life.</p>
-
-<p>The wings and tail and bones of the bird
-are all necessary to his poise and circle in
-the sky. The same economy is found in
-the atmosphere through which the bird
-flies. It is none too heavy and none too
-light. But when we come to man, we find
-that margin and surplus is the rule. He
-has a surplus of faculty and a surplus of resource,
-a surplus of endowment and a surplus
-of environment. He finds it necessary
-to make levies on hardly any of himself to
-get along in this world, at least as far as
-his natural wants are concerned. What<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_368"></a>[368]</span>
-would be the use for a carpenter to have
-all the tools necessary to build St. Peter’s
-at Rome, if his only work was to put up a
-tent for a week’s camping excursion in the
-woods? Why have an engine with a million
-horse power to run a flutter mill?</p>
-
-<p>With the animal there is changing endowment
-and changing environment.
-Limitations are clear and distinct within
-and without. But with man there is infinite
-environment. Within he has a self-determining
-spirit, subject and object,
-bound together in a simple and indissoluble
-unity. Surrounding this spirit, infinite
-in structure and capacity, is infinite truth,
-infinite law, and infinite love. Even Herbert
-Spencer said “Perfect correspondence
-would be perfect life. Were there no
-changes in the environment but such as
-the organism had adapted changes to meet,
-and were it never to fail in the efficiency
-with which it met them, there would be<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_369"></a>[369]</span>
-eternal existence, and eternal knowledge.”
-In the personal spirit and the elements
-which surround it, we have the two eternal
-terms of eternal correspondence. A
-self-determining spirit is essentially, structurally,
-and constitutionally imperishable.
-It others itself only through its own act.
-And the other of itself is itself. It is its
-own subject and its own object. When
-it goes out of itself, it is itself that goes
-out. It is a complete circle, an absolute
-and indestructible individuation.
-It is the final expression of God’s creative
-power. Through all the revolutions and
-mutations of time, this was the destined
-goal. The destruction of a human spirit
-would register the death of God. It is
-the direct expression of the spirit of God,
-and bears his own likeness and image, and
-has for the guarantee of its permanence
-the person of the eternal God himself.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_370"></a>[370]</span></p>
-
-<h3>VI.</h3>
-
-<p>Rev. Edward White of England, Dr. E.
-Petavel of France, and Dr. Lyman Abbott
-of America, have denied what Dr. Abbott
-is pleased to call facultative immortality.
-Immortality, in their esteem, is an importation
-from without. It is the claim of
-Locke, and Hume, and Mill, and Spencer,
-that knowledge is an importation from the
-realm of sensation. Their war was upon
-the knowing faculties. From the domain
-of philosophy the conflict has passed up to
-the plane of religion, and we now have
-the attack made upon the self-determining
-spirit. In the sensational philosophy, we
-have seen all things dissolved. It not
-only makes it impossible to rationally believe
-in God, but also in mind, and self, and
-external world. The sensational philosophy
-got the object of knowledge by a process
-that destroyed the subject of knowledge,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_371"></a>[371]</span>
-so this irrational theory of Dr. Lyman
-Abbot would secure the object of
-life by the destruction of the subject of
-life. We know that the raw material
-of knowledge is found in the objective
-world, but unless the mind has the inherent
-combining, active power to take this
-raw material and organize it into an orderly
-system, then the individual can never
-know anything. There being in the mind
-no master of ceremonies, no director and
-referee, the tramp and vagabond sensations
-may wander in and wander out at their
-sweet will. They would come in with their
-own opinions and go out with their own
-opinions. There being no head of the
-house within, the tramps could have it all
-their own way.</p>
-
-<p>Knowledge, beginning out of the mind,
-would have its cause and end out of the
-mind. Beginning with matter, knowledge
-could be resolved back into matter.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_372"></a>[372]</span></p>
-
-<p>We believe the life in which the human
-spirit is to realize its nature fully and harmoniously
-was embodied in Jesus Christ,
-who was the word made flesh.</p>
-
-<p>But it is because the spirit of man is
-essentially indestructible, that it has power
-to take hold of this life and assimilate it.
-If it refuses this divine embodiment of life,
-it brings disorder, and confusion, and everlasting
-sorrow to itself, but not destruction.
-The self-determining spirit is in its structure
-and constitution up to the style of
-life offered it in the Son of Man and the
-Son of God. In finding the life that was
-in Christ, it finds its own life, and enters
-the path of everlasting progress.</p>
-
-
-<p>&nbsp;</p>
-<p>&nbsp;</p>
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