The third "hypothetical solution" is that of those who hold that a Divine answer to prayer may be conveyed through the ministry of angels, or the agency of intelligent, voluntary, and active beings, employed by God, in subordination to His Providence, for the accomplishment of His great designs. The existence of such an order, or rather hierarchy, of created intelligences is clearly revealed in Scripture; and it is rendered credible, or even probable, by the analogy of Nature, since we observe on earth a regular gradation of animal life from the insect up to man, and we have no reason to suppose that the gradation is suddenly arrested just at the point where the animal and the spiritual are combined. But not only their existence, their active agency also, as "ministers fulfilling His will," as "ministering spirits sent forth to minister to them who shall be heirs of salvation," is explicitly and frequently declared as well as exemplified in Scripture; and this, too, would be, on the supposition of their existence, in strict accordance with the analogy of Nature, which shows that the lower orders of being are placed under the care and control of the higher. Mr. Boyle, accordingly, makes frequent reference, in his Theological treatises, to the ministry of angels, as subordinate agents, through whose instrumentality many of the designs of Providence may be carried into effect; and President Edwards enlarges on the same theme.[212]

The fourth "hypothetical solution" is that of those who hold that God has so arranged His Providence from the beginning as to provide for particular events as well as for general results, and especially to provide an answer to the prayers of His intelligent creatures. This solution is more general than any of the three former, and may even be comprehensive of them all. It regards prayer as an element which was taken into account at the original constitution of the world, and for which an answer was provided, as the result of natural laws or of angelic agency, employed for this express end by the omniscient foreknowledge and wisdom of God. It is the solution that has obtained the sanction of some of the highest names in Science and Theology.

"I begin," says Euler, "with considering an objection which almost all the Philosophical Systems have started against prayer. Religion prescribes this as our duty, with an assurance that God will hear and answer our vows and prayers, provided they are conformable to the precepts which He hath given us. Philosophy, on the other hand, instructs us that all events take place in strict conformity to the course of Nature, established from the beginning, and that our prayers can effect no change whatever, unless we pretend to expect that God should be continually working miracles in compliance with our prayers. This objection has the greater weight, that Religion itself teaches the doctrine of God's having established the course of all events, and that nothing can come to pass but what God foresaw from all eternity. Is it credible, say the objectors, that God should think of altering this settled course, in compliance with any prayers which men might address to Him? But I remark, first, that when God established the course of the universe, and arranged all the events that must come to pass in it, He paid attention to all the circumstances which should accompany each event, and, particularly, to the dispositions, desires, and prayers of every intelligent being; and that the arrangement of all events was disposed in perfect harmony with all these circumstances. When, therefore, a man addresses to God a prayer worthy to be heard, that prayer was already heard from all eternity, and the Father of mercies arranged the world expressly in favor of that prayer, so that the accomplishment should be a consequence of the natural course of events. It is thus that God answers the prayers of men without working a miracle."[213]

"It is not impossible," says Dr. Wollaston, "that such laws of Nature, and such a series of causes and effects, may be originally designed that not only general provisions may be made for the several species of beings, but even particular cases, at least many of them, may also be provided for, without innovations or alterations in the course of Nature. It is true this amounts to a prodigious scheme, in which all things to come are, as it were, comprehended under one view, estimated and laid together: but when I consider what a mass of wonders the universe is in other regards, what a Being God is, incomprehensibly great and perfect, that He cannot be ignorant of anything, no not of the future wants and deportments of particular men, and that all things which derive from Him, as their First Cause, must do this so as to be consistent with one another, and in such a manner as to make one compact system, befitting so great an Author; when I consider this, I cannot deny such an adjustment of things to be within His power. The order of events, proceeding from the settlement of Nature, may be as compatible with the due and reasonable success of my endeavors and prayers (as inconsiderable a part of the world as I am) as with any other thing or phenomena how great soever.... And thus the prayers which good men offer to the all-knowing God, and the neglects of others, may find fitting effects, already forecasted in the course of Nature, which possibly may be extended to the labors of men and their behavior in general."[214]

"If ever there was a future event," says Dr. Gordon, "which might have been reckoned on with absolute certainty, and one, therefore, in the accomplishment of which it might appear that prayer could have no room or efficacy, it was just the restoration of the Jewish captives to the land and city of their fathers. And yet, so far from supposing that there was no place for prayer to occupy, among the various means that were employed to bring about that event, it was just his firm belief in the nearness and certainty of it that set Daniel upon fervent and persevering supplications for its accomplishment.... With regard to the rank which Daniel's prayer occupied among the various means or agencies that were to be employed in bringing about the object of it, he had good reason to believe that it was neither without a definite place, nor in itself devoid of efficacy.... He had been honored to vindicate the power and assert the supremacy of the Lord God of Israel; by the wisdom of his counsels and the weight of his personal character, he had paved the way for that decision in favor of the people of God to which the King of Persia was soon to be brought; and the whole business of his active and most laborious life was made to bear on the interests and the liberation of his afflicted brethren. And if God had thus assigned to the outward actions of His servant an important place in carrying into effect His thoughts of peace towards his penitent people, is it conceivable that He had no place in that scheme for the holy and spiritual efforts of the same servant? or that the aspirations of a sanctified spirit, the travailing of a soul intent upon the accomplishment of the Divine will and the manifestation of the Divine glory, should be less efficient or less essential in the execution of the Divine counsels, than the outward and ordinary agency of human actions? The whole tenor and the most explicit declarations of Scripture stand opposed to such a supposition; nor can I understand how a devout mind should have any difficulty in conceiving that it must be so. The agency of prayer is, indeed, a less obvious and palpable thing than that outward cooeperation whereby mankind are rendered subservient to the accomplishment of the Divine purposes. But is it not an agency of an unspeakably loftier character? Is it not the cooeperation of an immortal spirit, bearing the impress of the Divine image, and at the moment acting in unison with the Divine will? Is it not befitting the character of God to set upon that cooeperation a special mark of His holy approbation, by assigning to it a more elevated place among the secondary causes which He is pleased to employ? And must there not be provision made, therefore, in the general principles of His administration, for fulfilling the special promise of His word, 'The Lord is nigh to all that call upon Him, to all that call upon him in truth.'"[215]

"We should blush," says Bishop Warburton, "to be thought so uninstructed in the nature of prayer, as to fancy that it can work any temporary change in the dispositions of the Deity, who is 'the same yesterday, to-day, and forever.' Yet we are not ashamed to maintain that God, in the chain of causes and effects, which not only sustains each system, but connects them all with one another, hath so wonderfully contrived, that the temporary endeavors of pious men shall procure good and avert evil, by means of that 'preestablished harmony' which He hath willed to exist between moral actions and natural events."

"But should some frigid skeptic, therefore, dare To doubt the all-prevailing power of prayer; As if 'twere ours, with impious zeal, to try To shake the purposes of Deity; Pause, cold philosopher, nor snatch away The last, the best, the wretched's surest stay. Look round on life, and trace its checkered plan, The griefs, the joys, the hopes, the fears of man; Tell me, if each deliverance, each success, Each transient golden dream of happiness, Each palm that genius in the race acquires, Each thrilling rapture virtuous pride inspires, Tell me, if each and all were not combined In the great purpose of the Eternal Mind?

* * * * *

Thus while we humbly own the vast decree, Formed in the bosom of Eternity, And know all secondary causes tend Each to contribute to one mighty end; Yet while these causes firmly fixed remain— Links quite unbroken in the endless chain, So that could one be snapped, the whole must fail, And wide confusion o'er the world prevail; Why may not our petitions, which arise In humble adoration to the skies, Be foreordained the causes, whence shall flow Our purest pleasures in this vale of woe? Not that they move the purpose that hath stood By time unchanged, immeasurably good, But that the event and prayer alike may be United objects of the same decree."[216]

On the whole, we feel ourselves warranted, and even constrained, to conclude that the theory of "government by natural law" is defective in so far as it excludes the superintendence and control of God over all the events of human life, and that neither the existence of second causes nor the operation of physical laws should diminish our confidence in the care of Providence and the efficacy of Prayer.

FOOTNOTES:

[181] CICERO, "De Natura Deorum," lib. I. c. 44.

[182] HOWE, "Works," I. 104. CUDWORTH, "Intellectual System," I. 120, 144.

[183] M. COMTE, "Cours," VI. 149, 247, 295. SPINOZA, "Tractatus Theol.-politicus," pp. 57, 102, 122, 144, 150, 319.

[184] DR. CHANNING, "Memoirs," II. 439. ROBT. BOYLE, "Free Inquiry into the Notion of Nature," p. 7.

[185] PROFESSOR SEDGWICK, "Discourse," fifth edition, p. CLIII. MR. COMBE, "Constitution of Man," p. 417.

[186] Proverbs 6: 27; Psalm 68: 2; 83: 14; James 3: 12; Matthew 7: 16; Proverbs 8: 29; Job 38: 11, 33; Psalm 119: 90; Jeremiah 31: 35; 33: 25.

[187] DR. M'COSH, "On the Divine Government," pp. 126, 129, 149.

[188] "Westminster Confession," c. v., Sec. II., III.

[189] M. COMTE, "Cours," IV. 663, 669; V. 259, 277; VI. 702, 780. J. S. MILL, "Logic," I. 397, 417, 422; II. 109, 471. LEWES, "Biographical History," I. 14; III. 55; IV. 9, 42.

[190] DR. REID, "Essays," III. 44. DR. M'COSH, "Divine Government," 88, 91, 111, 114.

[191] SIR JOHN HERSCHELL, "Address to the British Association," 1845.

[192] DR. THOS. BROWN, "Essay on Cause and Effect," p. 86. DR. THOS. REID, "Essays," I. 136. PIERRE POIRET, "De Deo, Anima, et Malo."

[193] DR. THOMAS BROWN, "Essay on Cause and Effect," pp. 74, 83, 93, 108, 191.

[194] GEORGE COMBE, ESQ.

[195] "Reasoner," XII. 21, 23.

[196] HOLYOAKE, "Grant and Holyoake's Discussion," p. 40.

[197] GEORGE COMBE, "Constitution of Man," pp. 150, 155, 163, 165, 234, 343, 358.

[198] MR. COMBE, "Constitution of Man," VI., IX., 25, 39, 41.

[199] MR. SCOTT, "Harmony of Phrenology with Scripture," pp. 82, 97.

[200] CITIZEN KENNEDY, "Nature and Revelation Harmonious," pp. 70, 122, 124, 131.

[201] MR. COMBE, "Constitution of Man," pp. 25, 53, 306, 364.

[202] F. B. BARTON, "The Reasoner," XI. 24, 373.

[203] VOLNEY, "La Loi Naturelle," which has been translated, and is usually appended to his "Ruins of Empires."

[204] BUTLER'S "Analogy," p. 1. c. 7.

[205] WARBURTON'S "Works," X. p. 8.

[206] DR. PRICE'S "Dissertations," p. 198.

[207] DR. PRICE, "Dissertations," pp. 208, 219.

[208] Daniel 9: 2, 19.

[209] Ezekiel 36: 37.

[210] DR. CHALMERS, "Works," II. 286.

[211] Ibid., 325.

[212] HON. ROB. BOYLE, "Theolog. Works," II. 96, III. 230. PRESIDENT EDWARDS, "Works," X. 1.

[213] EULER, "Letters to a German Princess," I. 271.

[214] DR. WOLLASTON, "Religion of Nature," p. 103.

[215] DR. ROBT. GORDON, "Sermons," p. 369.

[216] It is with melancholy pleasure that the author recalls and reproduces, after an interval of thirty years, the lines of his early college companion,—WILLIAM FRIEND DURANT,—a young man of high promise, removed, like his distinguished fellow-student, ROBERT POLLOCK, by what might seem a premature death, but for the prospect of immortality.



CHAPTER VI.

THEORIES OF CHANCE AND FATE.

When we survey the actual course of God's Providence, by which the eternal purposes of the Divine Mind are carried into effect, we discern immediately a marked difference between two great classes of events. The one comprehends a multitude of events which are so regular, stable, and constant, that we feel ourselves warranted in reckoning on their invariable recurrence, in the same circumstances in which they have been observed; they seem to be governed by an unchangeable, or at least an established law. The other comprehends a different set of events, which are so irregular and variable that they occur quite unexpectedly, and cannot be reduced to any rule of rational computation; they appear,—perhaps from our ignorance,—to be purely accidental or fortuitous.

In exact accordance with this difference between the two great classes of Providential events, there is a similar difference in our internal views or sentiments in regard to them. We are conscious of two totally dissimilar feelings in contemplating them respectively. We have a feeling of certainty, confidence, or assurance in regard to the one; and a feeling of uncertainty, anxiety, and helplessness in regard to the other; while for an intermediate class of events, there is also an intermediate state of mind, equally removed from entire certainty and absolute doubt, arising from the various degrees of probability that may seem to belong to them. These are at once natural and legitimate sentiments in the circumstances in which we are placed; for unquestionably there is much in these circumstances that is fitted to produce and cherish them all; and when they are combined,—especially when they are duly proportioned, in the case of any individual, they induce a habit or frame of mind most favorable to the recognition of God's Providence, and most conducive to our welfare, by impressing us with a sense both of our dependence on His supreme will, and of our duty to be diligent in the use of all appointed means. But when either of the two classes of events is exclusively considered, or the sentiments appropriate to them inordinately cherished, there will be a tendency, in the absence of an enlightened belief in Providence, towards one or other of two opposite extremes:—the extreme, on the one hand, of resolving all events into results of physical agencies and mechanical laws, acting with the blind force of "destiny," and leaving no room for the interposition of an intelligent Moral Ruler; and the extreme, on the other hand, of ascribing all events to accidental or fortuitous influences, equally exempt from His control. The former is the theory of "Fate," the latter is the theory of "Chance;" and both are equally opposed to the doctrine which affirms the eternal purpose and the actual providence of an omniscient and all-controlling Mind.

It matters little, with reference to our present purpose, whether or not every department of Nature be supposed to be equally subject to "natural laws;" for even were it so, still if these laws were either in part unknown and undiscoverable by us, or so related to each other that the results of their manifold possible combinations could not be calculated or reckoned on by human wisdom or foresight, ample room would be left for the exercise of diligence within the limits of our ascertained knowledge, and yet for a sense of dependence on a power which we feel ourselves unable either to comprehend or control. On the ground of analogy, we think it highly probable that every department of Nature is subject to regular and stable laws; and on the same ground we may anticipate that, in the progressive advance of human knowledge, many new fields will yet be conquered, and added to the domain of Science. But suppose every law were discovered,—suppose, even, that every individual event should be shown to depend on some natural cause, there would still remain at least two considerations which should remind us of our dependence. The first is our ignorance of the whole combination of causes which may at any time be brought into action, and of the results which may flow from them in circumstances such as we can neither foresee nor provide against. The second is our ignorance, equally unavoidable and profound, of the intelligent and voluntary agencies which may be at work, modifying, disposing, and directing that combination of causes, so as to accomplish the purposes of the Omniscient Mind. Our want of knowledge in either case is a reason for uncertainty; and our uncertainty in regard to events in which we may be deeply concerned is fitted to teach us our dependence on a higher Power. Let it not be thought, however, that our argument for God's Providence is drawn merely from man's ignorance, or that its strength must diminish in proportion as his knowledge of Nature is extended; on the contrary, it rests on the assumption that man knows enough to be aware that he cannot know all, and that as long as he is not omniscient, he must be dependent on Him who alone "knows the end from the beginning," and "who ruleth among the armies of heaven" as well as "among the inhabitants of this earth."

It is in the invariable combination and marvellous mutual adjustment of these two elements,—the regular and the variable, the constant and the casual, the certain and the uncertain,—that we best discern the wisdom of that vast scheme of Providence, which is designed at once to secure our diligence in the use of means, and to impress us with a sense of our dependence on a higher Power. And the same remark may be equally applicable, mutatis mutandis, to the revealed constitution of things, since Scripture itself exhibits certain definite truths surrounded with a margin of mystery like "lights shining in a dark place;" and while it prescribes and encourages diligence in the use of means, teaches us at the same time our dependence on the Divine blessing which alone can render our efforts effectual. Both elements, therefore, must be taken into account and kept steadily in view, if we would form a comprehensive conception of the method of the Divine government, or a correct estimate of the wisdom with which it is adapted to the case of created and dependent, but intelligent, active, and responsible beings. But when the one is either dissevered from the other, or viewed apart and exclusively by itself, when the mind dwells on either, to the neglect of what is equally a part of the same comprehensive scheme, then we are in danger of adopting a partial and one-sided view of Providence, and of lapsing into one or other of the opposite extremes,—the theory of "Chance" or the theory of "Fate."

A few remarks on each of these theories may be neither unseasonable nor useless, if they serve to illustrate the different kinds of Atheism which have sprung from them, and to place in a clear and strong light the radical difference which subsists between both, and the doctrine of Providence, as it is taught and exemplified in Scripture.

1. The theory of "Chance," which was once the stronghold of Atheism, is now all but abandoned by speculative thinkers, and exists only, if at all, in the vague beliefs of uneducated and unreflecting men. This result has been brought about, not so much by the Metaphysical or even the Theological considerations which were urged against the theory, as by the steady advance of Science, and the slow but progressive growth of a belief in "law" and "order" as existing in every department of Nature. It has been undeniably the effect of scientific inquiry to banish the idea of Chance, at least from as much of the domain as has been successfully explored, and to afford a strong presumption that the same result would follow were our researches extended beyond the limits within which they are yet confined. To this extent there is truth in the reasonings of M. Comte as applied to Chance, while they have no validity or value as applied to Providence; and we deem it a noble tribute to Science when it can be said of her with truth, that she has been an effective auxiliary to Religion in overthrowing the once vaunted empire of that blind power.

At one time some ascribed all the works both of Creation and Providence to Chance, and spoke of a fortuitous concourse of atoms in the one case, and of a fortuitous concurrence of events in the other. The Atomic theory, which, as a mere physiological hypothesis, is far from being necessarily Atheistic, and which has been adopted and defended by such writers as Gassendus and Dr. Goode,[217] was applied by Epicurus and Lucretius to account for the fortuitous origin of existing beings, and also for the fortuitous course of human affairs. No one now, in the present advanced state of science, would seriously propose to account either for the creation of the world, or for the events of the world's history, by ascribing them to the operation of Chance; the current is flowing in another direction; it has set in, like a returning tide, towards the universal recognition of "general laws" and "natural causes," such as, from their invariable regularity and uniformity, are utterly exclusive of everything like chance or accident in any department of Nature. Instead of ascribing the creation of the world to a fortuitous concourse of atoms, modern speculation would refer it to "a law of development" such as is able of itself to insure the production of astral systems in the firmament, and also of vegetable and animal races on the earth, without any direct or immediate interposition of a higher power; and instead of ascribing the events of history and the "progress" of humanity to a fortuitous or accidental origin, modern speculation would refer them to "a law of social or historical development," such as makes every succeeding state the natural, and, indeed, necessary product of a prior one, and places the whole order of sequences—whether physical, moral, political, or religious—under the government of "natural law," as contradistinguished from that of a "supernatural will." There is thus a manifest tendency to resile from the old theory of Chance, and to take refuge in the new asylum of Law, Order, or Destiny. There is, apparently, a wide difference between the two contrasted systems; and yet the difference may be, after all, more seeming than real: for both the old doctrine of "chance" and the new theory of "development" are compelled to assume certain conditions or qualities as belonging to the primordial elements of matter, without which it is felt that neither Chance nor Fate can afford a satisfactory account of the works either of Creation or Providence. The one party spoke more of "Chance," the other speaks more of "Law;" but both were compelled to feel that neither Chance nor Law could of themselves account for the established order of Nature, without presupposing certain conditions, adjustments, and dispositions of matter, such as could only be satisfactorily explained by ascribing them to a wise, foreseeing, and designing Mind.

In the present state of philosophical speculation, which evinces so strong a tendency to reduce everything to the dominion of "Law," it may seem unnecessary to refer to the doctrine of "Chance" at all; but believing as we do that there are, and ever must be, certain events in the course of life, and certain facts in the complex experience of man, which will irresistibly suggest the idea of it, even where the doctrine is theoretically disowned, we think it right to lay down a distinct and definite position on this subject, such as may serve, if duly established, at once to neutralize whatever is false and noxious in the doctrine of Chance, and at the same time to preserve whatever is true and wholesome in it, as having a tendency to illustrate the actual scheme of Divine Providence. And the position which we are disposed to state and prepared to establish is this: That, with reference to God, as an omniscient Being, there is, and there can be, no such thing as "Chance;" while, with reference alike to men and angels, many events may be fortuitous or accidental, not as being independent of causes, but as depending on causes unknown, or on combinations of causes whose joint operation may result in effects absolutely undiscoverable by our limited intelligence.

This position consists of two parts. It affirms that with reference to God and His omniscient knowledge, there can be nothing that is fortuitous, accidental, or unexpected. It affirms, with reference to man and all created intelligences, that there may, or even must, be much uncertainty in regard to the products of natural causes, especially when they act in combination, and come into play in circumstances which we cannot foresee or control. Many events may thus be casual, accidental, or unexpected to men, which are not so to the supreme governing Intelligence. The first part of the position is proved by the general evidence which warrants us in ascribing omniscience, and especially an unerring prescience, to the Divine Mind; and it cannot be denied, without virtually ascribing ignorance to God. The second part of the position is established by some of the most familiar facts of experience. We know and feel that however certain all events are to the omniscient knowledge of the Most High, many of them are entirely beyond the reach of our limited foresight; and this because they are either dependent on individual causes which are unknown to us, or on a combination of various causes, too complex to admit of any rational computation in regard to their results.

The "calculation of chances" has been reduced to something like scientific accuracy;[218] and it has been applied, with beneficial effect, to the insurance of life and property on land and at sea. Even the casual events of human history may be said, in a certain sense, to be governed by fixed laws. The aggregate result in such cases may be tolerably certain, while the individual cases are very much the reverse; and hence human wisdom, proceeding on a well-ascertained body of statistics, may construct a scheme for securing some against the evils to which they would otherwise have been liable, by means of the sacrifices of others, who would not have been in fact, although they might have been, for ought they know, liable to the same. But what is this, if it be not a practical acknowledgement of the uncertainty in which all are placed in regard to some of the most important interests of the present life? or how can it be said that chance or accident is altogether, and in every sense, exploded, when large bodies of men are found to combine, and that, too, at a considerable personal sacrifice, for the express purpose of protecting themselves, so far as they can, from the hazards to which they are individually exposed?

In the sense above explained, we cannot consent to discard "Chance" altogether, either at the bidding of those who resolve everything into "natural laws," or even in deference to the authority of others who ascribe all events to Divine Providence. It may be true that all events, however apparently casual or fortuitous, are governed by "natural laws;" it may be equally true that all events are determined, directed, or controlled by Divine Providence: but as long as some events depend on causes which are certainly known, and other events on causes which are not known, or on a combination of causes whose results cannot be foreseen, so long will there be room for the distinction between the regular and the accidental phenomena of human experience. This distinction, indeed, is explicitly recognized in Scripture itself; for while it speaks of all events as being infallibly known to God, it speaks of some events that are accidental with reference to man.[219] The unknown, unforeseen, and unexpected incidents of life, which constitute all that is apparently casual or accidental, may be, and we believe they are, really subject both to natural laws and to God's providential will; but they are removed far beyond our comprehension or control; and being so, they are admirably fitted, as a part of the complex scheme of His natural and moral government, to serve one of the most important practical ends for which it is designed, by impressing us with a sense of constant dependence on a higher Power, and of dutiful subjection to a superior Will.

But while, in this sense and to this extent, the doctrine of "Chance" is retained, it must be utterly rejected as a means of accounting either for the creation or government of the world. For, on the supposition of a Supreme Being, there can be no chance with reference to Him; and without such a supposition, we cannot account for the regularity which prevails in the course of Nature, and which indicates a presiding Intelligence and a controlling Will. . 2. But this very regularity of Nature, when viewed apart from the cross accidents of life, is apt to engender the opposite idea of "Fate" or "Destiny," as if all events were determined by laws alike necessary and invariable, inherent in the constitution of Nature, and independent of the concurrence or the control of the Divine will. We are not sure, indeed, that the idea of Fate or Destiny is suggested solely, or even mainly, by the regular sequences of the natural world; we rather think that it is more frequently derived from those unexpected and crushing calamities which occur in spite of every precaution of human foresight and prudence, and that thus it may be identified, in a great measure, with the doctrine of Chance, or, at least, the one may run into and blend with the other. But if any attempt were made to establish it by proof, recourse would be had to the established order and regular sequences of Nature, as affording its most plausible verification, although they afford no real sanction to it, in so far as it differs from the Christian doctrine of Providence.

Dr. Cudworth discusses this subject at great length, and makes mention of three distinct forms of Fatalism. The first, which is variously designated as the Democritic, the Physiological, or the Atheistic Fate, is that which teaches the material or physical necessity of all things, and ascribes all natural phenomena to the mechanical laws of matter and motion. The second, which is described as a species of Divine or Theistic Fate, is that which admits the existence and agency of God, but teaches that He both decrees and does, purposes and performs all things, whether good or evil, as if He were the only real agent in the universe, or as if He had no moral character, and were, as Cudworth graphically expresses it, "mere arbitrary will omnipotent:" this he describes as a "Divine Fate immoral and violent." The third, which is also designated as a species of Divine or Theistic Fate, is that which recognizes both the existence of God, and the agency of other beings in Nature, together with the radical distinction between moral good and evil, but teaches that men are so far under necessity as to be incapable of moral and responsible action, and unfit subjects of praise or blame, of reward or punishment: this he describes as "Divine Fate moral and natural." These three are all justly held to be erroneous or defective views of the Divine government, and, as such, they are strenuously and successfully opposed.[220]

But there is room for a fourth doctrine, which may be designated as the Christian doctrine of Providence, and which combines in itself all the great fundamental truths for which Dr. Cudworth contends, while it leaves open, or, at least, does not necessarily determine, some of the collateral questions on which he might have differed from many of its defenders. This doctrine affirms, first, the existence and attributes of God, as a holy and righteous Moral Governor; secondly, the real existence and actual operation of "second causes," distinct from, but not independent of, "the First Cause;" thirdly, the operation of these causes according to their several natures, so that, under God's Providence, events fall out "either necessarily, freely, or contingently," according to the kind of intermediate agency by which they are brought to pass; and, fourthly, that in the case of intelligent and moral agents, ample room is left for responsible action, and for the consequent sentence of praise or blame, reward or punishment, notwithstanding the eternal decree of God, and the constant control which He exercises over all His creatures and all their actions. These four positions may be all harmoniously combined in one self-consistent and comprehensive statement; and, in point of fact, they are all included in the Christian doctrine of Providence, as that has been usually explained and defended by the various sections of the Catholic Church. Not one of them is omitted or denied.[221] They seem fairly to meet, or rather fully to exhaust, the demands of Dr. Cudworth himself, when he says: "These three things are, as we conceive, the fundamentals or essentials of true religion, first, that all things in the world do not float without a head or governor, but that there is a God, an omnipotent understanding Being, presiding over all; secondly, that this God being essentially good and just, there is something in its own nature immutably and eternally just and unjust, and not by arbitrary will, law, and command only; and lastly, that there is something [Greek: eph' hemin], or that we are so far forth principals or masters of our own actions as to be accountable to justice for them, or to make us guilty or blameworthy for what we do amiss, and to deserve punishment accordingly." All these fundamentals of true religion are explicitly recognized in the Christian doctrine of Providence, which stands out, therefore, in striking contrast with the Atheistic, and even Theistic, theories of Fate which he condemns; and they are as zealously maintained (whether with the same consistency is a different question) by Edwards, Chalmers, and Woods, on the one side, as they ever were by Cudworth, Clarke, and Tappan, on the other.

It may be said, however, that the doctrine of Providence, especially when taught in connection with that of Predestination, does unavoidably imply some kind of necessity, incompatible with free moral agency, and that, to all practical intents, it amounts substantially to Fate or Destiny. But we are prepared to show that there is neither the same kind of necessity in the one scheme which is implied in the other, nor the same reason for denying moral and responsible agency in the case of intelligent beings. In doing so, we must carefully discriminate, in the first instance, between the various senses in which the term necessity is used. Dr. Waterland has given a comprehensive division of "necessity" into four kinds, denominated respectively, the Logical, the Moral, the Physical, and the Metaphysical.

"Logical necessity" exists wherever the contrary of what is affirmed would imply a contradiction; and in this sense we call it a necessary truth that two and two make four, that a whole is greater than any of its parts, and that a circle neither is nor can be a square. It amounts to nothing more than the affirmation, that the same idea or thing is what it is; and it relates solely to the connection between one idea and another, or between one proposition and another, or between subject and predicate. This is "logical necessity;" we cannot, with our present laws of thought, conceive the thing to be otherwise without implying a contradiction.

"Moral necessity," again, denotes a connection, not between one idea and another, or between the subject and predicate of a proposition, but between means and ends. It is not necessary absolutely that any man should continue to live; but it is necessary morally that, if he would continue to live, he should eat and sleep, food and rest being, according to the established constitution of Nature, a necessary condition or indispensable means for the support of life. There is in like manner a "moral necessity" that we should be virtuous and obedient, if we would be truly happy, virtue and obedience being, according to the established constitution of Nature, an indispensable means of true and permanent happiness. This is "moral necessity" which has reference solely to the connection between means and ends, but that connection, being ordained, is immutable and invariable.

"Physical necessity," again, exists wherever there is either a causal connection between antecedents and consequents in the material world, or even a coactive and compulsory constraint in the moral world. It is physically necessary that fire should burn substances that are combustible, that water and other fluids should flow down a declivity, and rise again but only to a certain level; and there is the like kind of necessity, wherever a moral agent is forced to act under irresistible compulsion,—as when the assassin seizes hold of another's arm, and thrusting a deadly weapon into his hand, directs it, by his own overmastering will, to the brain or heart of his victim. In this latter case, the unwilling instrument of his revenge or malice is not held to be the guilty party, but the more powerful agent by whom that instrument was employed. This is "physical necessity," which relates solely to the connection between cause and effect in the material world, and, in the moral, to the compulsory action of one agent on another.

"Metaphysical necessity," again, can be predicated of God only, and denotes the peculiar property or prerogative of His being, as existing necessarily, immutably, and eternally, or, to use a scholastic phrase, the necessary connection in His case between essence and existence.

Omitting the last, which does not fall properly within the limits of our present inquiry, we may say with regard to the three first, that each of them may exist, and that each of them does really operate, in the present constitution of Nature. We are subject, unquestionably, to certain "laws of thought," which we can neither repeal nor resist, and which impose upon us a logical necessity to conceive, to reason, and to infer, not according to our own whim or caprice, but according to established rules. We are equally subject to certain "conditions of existence,"—arising partly from our own constitution, partly from the constitution of external objects and the relations subsisting between the two,—which lay us under a moral necessity of using suitable means for the accomplishment of our purposes and plans. And we are still further subject to "physical necessity," in so far as our material frame is liable to be affected by external influences, and even our muscular powers may be overmastered and subordinated by a more vigorous or resolute will than our own. These three kinds of "necessity" exist; they are all constituent parts of that vast scheme of government under which we are placed; and the question arises, Whether, when the existence of these necessary laws is admitted, we can still maintain the doctrine which affirms the providential government of God and the moral agency of man; or whether we must not resolve the whole series of events, both in the natural and moral worlds, into the blind and inexorable dominion of Destiny or Fate?

We answer, first, that there is nothing in any one of these three kinds of necessity, nor in all of them combined, which, when rightly understood, should either exclude the idea of Divine Providence, or impair our sense of moral and responsible agency. We may not be so free, nor so totally exempt from the operation of established laws, as some of the advocates of human liberty have supposed: but we may be free enough, notwithstanding, to be regarded and treated as moral and accountable beings. We may be subject to certain "laws of thought," and yet may be responsible for our opinions and beliefs, in so far as these depend on our voluntary acts, on our attention or inattention to the truth and its evidence, on our use or neglect of the appropriate means, on our love or our hatred to the light. And so we may be subject to certain other laws, in various departments of our complex experience, without being either restrained or impelled by such external coaction as alone can exempt creatures, constituted as we know and feel ourselves to be, from the righteous retributions of God.

We answer, secondly, that the doctrine of Providence, even when it is combined with that of Predestination, represents all events as "falling out according to the nature of second causes, necessarily, contingently, or freely;" nay, as falling out so "that no violence is offered to the will of the creature, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established." It follows that if there be either on earth or in heaven any free cause, or any moral and responsible agent, his nature is not changed, nor is the character of his agency altered, by that providential government which God exercises over all His creatures and all their actions; he still continues to develop, within certain limits imposed by unalterable laws, his own proper individuality, or his personal character, in its relation to the law and government of God.

We answer, thirdly, that the moral and responsible agency of man cannot be justly held to be incompatible with the Providence and Supremacy of God, unless it can be shown that, in the exercise of the latter, God acts in the way of physical coaction or irresistible constraint, and further, that man is not only controlled and governed in his actions, but compelled to act in opposition to his own will. But no enlightened advocate either of Providence or Predestination will affirm that there is any "physical necessity," imposed by the Divine will, which constrains men to commit sin, or that God is "the author of sin." "Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted of evil, neither tempteth He any man. But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lusts and enticed."[222]

We answer, fourthly, that when a "moral necessity" or moral inability is spoken of by divines as making sin certain and inevitable in the case of man, we must carefully distinguish between the constitution and the state of human nature,—its constitution as it was originally created, and its state as it at present exists. There might be nothing in the original constitution of human nature which could interfere in any way with the freedom of man as an intelligent, moral, and responsible being; and yet, in consequence of the introduction of sin, his state may now be so far changed as to have become a state of moral bondage. But the constitution of his nature, in virtue of which he was at the first, and must ever continue to be, a moral and accountable being, remains unreversed; from being holy, he has become depraved, but he has not ceased to be a subject of moral government, and the evils that are incident to his present position must be ascribed, not to God's creative will, but, in the first instance, to man's voluntary disobedience, and, in the second, to a Divine judicial sentence following thereupon.

And finally, we answer that the theory which ascribes all events, both in the natural and moral worlds, to the blind and inexorable dominion of Destiny or Fate, leaves altogether unexplained many of the most certain and familiar facts of human experience. There are two large classes of facts which no theory of Fate can possibly explain. The first comprises all those manifest indications of provident forethought, intelligent design, and moral purpose, which appear in the course of Nature, and which cannot be accounted for by a blind, unintelligent, undesigning cause. The second comprises all those facts of consciousness which bear witness to the moral nature and responsible agency of man, as the subject of a government which rewards and punishes his actions, in some measure, even here, and which irresistibly suggests the idea of a future reckoning and retribution. These two classes of facts must either be ignored, or left as insoluble, by any theory which advocates blind Fate or Destiny, in opposition to the overruling Providence and moral government of God.

These answers are sufficient, if not to remove all mystery from the methods of the Divine administration (for who would undertake to fathom the counsels of Him "whose judgments are unsearchable and His ways past finding out?"), yet to show at least that a Divine Providence is more credible in itself, and better supported by evidence, than any theory of Destiny or Fate; that the facts to which the latter appeals may be explained consistently with the former, while the facts on which the former is founded must either be left altogether out of view, or at least left unexplained, if the doctrine of Fate be substituted for that of Providence.

We have thus far compared the two theories of Chance and Fate, by which some have attempted to explain the system of the universe, and have contrasted both with the Christian doctrine of Providence. On a review of the whole discussion, we think it must be evident that the latter combines whatever is true and valuable in each of these opposite theories, while it eliminates and rejects whatever is unsound or noxious in either. It may seem strange that we should speak as if anything, either true or valuable, could be involved in the theories of Chance and Destiny; and, unquestionably, considered as theories designed to explain the system of the world, and to supersede the doctrine of Providence, they are, in all their distinctive peculiarities, utterly false and worthless. But it seldom, if ever, happens that any theory obtains a wide-spread and permanent influence, which does not stand connected with some partial truth, or which cannot appeal to some apparent natural evidence. We have already seen that there are two distinct classes of events in Nature, and two corresponding classes of sentiments and feelings in the human mind; that the latter point, respectively, to the constant and the variable, the certain and the doubtful, the causal and the casual; and that were either of the two to acquire an absolute ascendancy over us, it would naturally lead to one or other of two opposite extremes—the theory of Chance, or the theory of Fate. Now, the doctrine of Providence takes account of both these classes of phenomena and feelings, so as to combine whatever is true and useful in each of the two rival theories, while it strikes out and rejects whatever is false in either, by placing all things under the government and control of a living, intelligent, personal God.

It is scarcely necessary to add that the views and sentiments which the Christian doctrine of Providence inspires are widely different from those which must be generated by a belief either in Chance or in Fate, as the supreme arbiter of our destiny. The doctrine which teaches us to look up and to say, with childlike confidence, "Our FATHER which art in heaven," is worth more than all the philosophy in the world! Could we only realize it as a truth, and have habitual recourse to it in all our anxieties and straits, we should feel that, if it be a deeply serious and solemn fact that "the Lord reigneth," it is also, to all his trusting and obedient children, alike cheering and consolatory; and he who can relish the sweetness of our Lord's words when he spake of "the birds of the air" and the "flowers of the field," will see at once that Stoicism is immeasurably inferior, both as a philosophy and a faith, to Christian Theism.[223]

FOOTNOTES:

[217] DR. CUDWORTH, "Intellectual System," I. 75, 82, 106, 151; II. 77, 334. GASSENDI, "Syntagma." DR. J. M. GOODE, "Lucretius," Preface.

[218] LA PLACE, "Des Probabilities."

[219] Eccles. 9: 11; Luke 10: 31; Deut. 19: 5

[220] DR. CUDWORTH, "Intellectual System," I. 33. American Edition.

[221] DR. JOHN COLLINGES, "On Providence." Dr. Price, "Dissertations." SAMUEL RUTHERFORD, "De Providentia Dei." DR. CHARNOCK, "On Providence."

[222] James 1: 13, 14. See M'LAURIN'S profound discourse on this text.

[223] MICHELET has presented a graphic portrait of a Stoic:—"L'individu sous la forme du Stoicisme,—ramasse soi,—appuye sur soi,—ne demandant rien aux dieux,—ne les accusant point,—ne daignant pas meme les nier."—"Introduction a l'Historie Universelle."



CHAPTER VII.

THEORY OF RELIGIOUS LIBERALISM.

The Eclectic method of Philosophy, which was first exemplified in the celebrated School of Alexandria, and which has been recently revived under the auspices of M. Cousin in the Schools of Paris, may be regarded, in one of its aspects, as the most legitimate, and, indeed, as the only practicable course of successful intellectual research. If by "eclecticism" we were to understand the habit of culling from every system that portion or fragment of truth which may be contained in it, and of rejecting the error with which it may have been associated or alloyed,—in other words, the art of "sifting the wheat from the chaff," so as to preserve the former, while the latter is dissipated and dispersed,—there could be no valid objection to it which would not equally apply to every method of Inductive Inquiry. But this is not the sense in which "eclecticism" has been adopted and eulogized by the Parisian School. For, not content with affirming that the same system may contain both truth and error, and that it is our duty to separate the one from the other,—which is the only rational "eclecticism,"—M. Cousin maintains that error itself is only a partial or incomplete truth; that if it be an evil, it is a necessary evil, and an eventual good, since it is a means, according to a fundamental law of human development, of evolving truth and advancing philosophy; and that thus the grossest errors may exert a salutary influence, insomuch that Atheism itself may be regarded as providential.[224] In this form, Eclecticism becomes a huge and heterogeneous system of SYNCRETISM, including all varieties of opinion, whether true or false; and it has a natural and inevitable tendency to issue in a spirit of INDIFFERENCE to the claims of truth, which may assume the form either of Philosophical Skepticism or of Religious Liberalism, according to the taste and temperament of the individual who embraces it.

In the form of Religious Liberalism, it has often been exemplified in our own country by those who, averse from definite articles of faith, and prone to latitudinarian license, have studiously set themselves to disparage the importance of the peculiar doctrines of Christianity, and even to obliterate the distinction between the various forms of Religion, natural and revealed, by representing them all as so many varieties of the same religious sentiment, so many diverse, but not antagonistic, embodiments of the same radical principle. In the writings of Pope, several expressions occur which are easily susceptible of this construction, and which have often been quoted and applied in defence of Religious Liberalism, notwithstanding his explicit disavowal of it in his letter to the younger Racine, prefixed to the collected edition of his works. But on the continent of Europe, Syncretism has been much more fully developed, and fearlessly applied to every department of human thought. Pushed to its ultimate consequences, it obliterates the distinction not only between truth and error, but also between virtue and vice, nay even between Religion and Atheism; and represents them all as constituent parts of a scheme, which is developed under a law of "fatal necessity," but which is described also as a scheme of "optimism." Its range is supposed to be unlimited: for it has been applied to the History of Philosophy, by Cousin, to the theory of the Passions, by Fourier, to the doctrines of Christianity, by Quinet and Michelet, and to the Philosophy of Religion, by Benjamin Constant. The practical result of such speculations is a growing skepticism or indifference in regard to the distinction between truth and error, and a very faint impression of the difference between good and evil.[225] The speculations of Pierre Leroux, the head, if not the founder, of the Humanitarian School, are strongly tinged with this spirit: they amount to a justification of evil, an apotheosis of man.[226]

We do not class these speculations among the formal systems of Atheism, although they have often been associated with it; but we advert to them as specimens of that style of thinking which has a natural tendency to induce an atheistic frame of mind.[227] The profession of such sentiments is a symptom rather of incipient danger, than of confirmed disease. But that danger is far from being either doubtful or insignificant. For should the distinction between "truth and error" be obliterated or even feebly discerned, should it come to be regarded as a matter of comparative indifference whether our beliefs be true or false, should it, above all, become our prevailing habit to "call good evil, and evil good," we can scarcely fail, in such circumstances, to fall into a course of practical Atheism; and this, as all experience testifies, will leave us an easy prey, especially in seasons of peculiar temptation and trial, to any form of speculative Infidelity that may happen to acquire a temporary ascendancy. If there be no dogmatic Atheism involved in this state of mind, there is at least the germ of skepticism, which may soon grow and ripen into the open and avowed denial of religious truth. At the very least, it will issue in that heartless indifference to all creeds and all definite articles of faith, which, under the plausible but surreptitious disguise of "freethinking" and "liberalism," is the nearest practical approximation to utter Infidelity.[228]

The system which is known under the name of Religious Liberalism or Indifference has been recently avowed in our own country with a frankness and boldness which can leave no room for doubt in regard to its ultimate tendency. The late Blanco White avowed it as his mature conviction, that "to declare any one unworthy of the name of Christian because he does not agree with your belief, is to fall into the intolerance of the articled Churches; that the moment the name Christian is made necessarily to contain in its signification belief in certain historical or metaphysical propositions, that moment the name itself becomes a creed,—the length of that creed is of little consequence."[229] This is the extreme on one side, and it plainly implies that no one article of faith is necessary, and that a man may be a Christian who neither acknowledges an historical Christ, nor believes a single doctrine which He taught! But there is an extreme also on the other side, which is exemplified in the singularly eloquent, but equally unsatisfactory, treatise of the Abbe Lamennais,[230] in which, as then an ardent and somewhat arrogant advocate of the Romish Church, he attempts to fasten the charge of Indifference or Liberalism on the Protestant system, and to prove that there can be no true faith, and of course no salvation, beyond the Catholic pale. The chief interest of his treatise depends on his peculiar "theory of certitude," to which we shall have occasion to advert in the sequel; in the meantime, we may notice briefly the grievous error into which he has fallen in treating of the faith which is necessary to salvation. He overstates the case as much, at least, as it has been understated by the abettors of Liberalism. The latter deny the necessity of any articles of faith; the former demands the implicit reception of every doctrine propounded by the Romish Church. He repudiates the distinction between fundamentals and non-fundamentals in Religion, and insists that, as every truth is declared by the same infallible authority, so every truth must be received with the same unquestioning faith. He forgets that while all the truths of Scripture ought to be believed by reason of the Divine authority on which they rest, yet some truths are more directly connected with our salvation than others, as well as more clearly and explicitly revealed. Nor are we justly liable to the charge of "Indifference" or "Liberalism" when we tolerate a difference of opinion, on some points, among men who are, in all important respects, substantially agreed: for true toleration is the fruit, not of unbelief or indifference, but of charity and candor; and it is sanctioned in Scripture, which enjoins that we should "receive those who are weak in the faith, but not to doubtful disputations," and that "every man should be fully persuaded in his own mind."[231]

But it is not so much in its relation to the articles of the Christian faith, as in its bearing on the different forms of true and false religion, that the theory of Liberalism comes into collision with the cause of Theism, and evinces its infidel tendencies. If any one can regard with the same complacency, or with the same apathetic indifference, all the varieties of religious or superstitious belief and worship; if he can discern no radical or important difference between Monotheism and Polytheism, or between the Protestant and Popish systems; if he be disposed to treat each of these as equally true or equally false, as alike beneficial or injurious in their practical influence, then this may be regarded as a sufficient proof that he is ignorant of the evidence, and blind to the claims, of truth,—a mere skeptical dreamer, if not a speculative Atheist.

An attempt has recently been made to place the theory of Religious Liberalism on a philosophical basis, by representing religion as a mere sentiment, which may be equally elicited and exemplified in various forms of belief and worship. Several writers, following in the wake of Schleiermacher, who gave such a powerful impulse to the mind of Germany, have made Religion to consist either in a sense of dependence, or in a consciousness of the infinite; and this sentiment, as well as the spontaneous intuitions of reason with which it is associated, is said to be alike natural, universal, and invariable, the essential principle of all Religion, the root whence have sprung all the various forms of belief and worship. These varieties are supposed to be more or less rational and salutary, according to the conception which they respectively exhibit of the nature and character of God,—a conception which may be endlessly diversified by the intellect, or the imagination, or the passions of different men; while all the forms of belief are radically identical, since they all spring from the same ground-principle, and are only so many distinct manifestations of it. Thus Mr. Parker tells us that, stripping the "religious sentiment" in man "of all accidental circumstances peculiar to the age, nation, sect, or individual, and pursuing a sharp and final analysis till the subject and predicate can no longer be separated, we find as the ultimate fact, that the religious sentiment is this,—'a sense of dependence.' This sentiment does not itself disclose the character, and still less the nature and essence, of the object on which it depends, no more than the senses declare the nature of their objects. Like them it acts spontaneously and unconsciously, as soon as the outward occasion offers, with no effort of will, forethought, or making up the mind. But the religious sentiment implies its object; ... and there is but one religion, though many theologies."[232]

There is, as it appears to us, a mixture of some truth with much grave and dangerous error, in these and similar speculations. It is an important truth, and one which has been too often overlooked in treating the evidences of Natural Theology, that the sentiments of the human mind, not less than its intuitive perceptions or logical processes, have a close relation to the subject of inquiry; but it is an error to suppose that all the sentiments having a religious tendency can be reduced to one, whether it be called "a sense of dependence" or "a consciousness of the infinite," for there are other sentiments besides these which are equally subservient to the uses of Religion, such as the sense of moral obligation, of the true, of the ideal, of the sublime, and of the beautiful. It is also an important truth, that there are spontaneous "intuitions of reason," or fundamental and invariable "laws of thought," which come into action at the first dawn of experience, and which have a close connection with the proof of the being and perfections of God; but it is an error to suppose that the proof depends exclusively on these, or that it could be made out irrespective of the evidence afforded by the works of Creation and Providence. It is further an important truth, that the religious sentiment, or religious tendency, is natural to man, and that it may appear either in the form of Religion or Superstition: but it is an error to suppose that "there is but one religion, although many theologies;" for these theologies must spring from fundamentally different "conceptions of God," and what are these conceptions, in their ultimate analysis, but so many beliefs, doctrines, or dogmas, which, whether formally defined or not in articles of faith, have in them the self-same essence which is supposed to belong only to the bigotry of "articled churches?" But the fundamental, the fatal error of all these speculations, is the denial of any stable and permanent standard of objective truth. Truth is made purely subjective, and, of course, it must also be progressive, insomuch that the truth of a former age may be an error in the present, and the supposed truth of the present age may become obsolete hereafter. So that there is really nothing certain in human knowledge; and "truth" may be justly described as never existing, but only becoming, as never possessed, though ever pursued; it is a verite mobile, a truth not in esse, but in fieri. Hence we read in recent speculations of a "new Christianity," of a "new Gospel," and of "the Church of the Future," as if there could be any other Christianity than that of the New Testament, any other Gospel than that of Jesus Christ, or any other Church than that of apostolic times.

I have adverted to this theory, because, while it is of little value in a speculative point of view, it is often found to exert a powerful practical influence, especially on "men of affairs," men who have travelled in various countries, or who have been employed in the arts of diplomacy and government; and who, finding religious worship everywhere, but clothed in different forms, and marking its subserviency to social and political interests, have been too prone to place all the varieties of belief in the same category, if not precisely on the same level, and to regard with indifference, perhaps even with indulgence, the grossest corruptions both of Natural and Revealed Religion. The world is surely old enough, and its history sufficiently instructive, to prove, even to the most indifferent statesmen, that truth is always salutary, and error noxious, to the commonwealth, and that nowhere is society more safe, orderly, or stable, than in those countries which are blessed with "pure and undefiled religion." But let the opinion spread from the prince to the peasant, from the aristocracy to the artisans, from the philosopher to the public, that there is either no difference, or only a slight and trivial one, between truth and error, that it matters little what a man believes, or whether he believes at all: let the general mind of the community become indoctrinated with such lessons, and it needs no prophetic foresight to predict a crisis of unprecedented peril, an era of reckless revolution. A philosophic dreamer may affect a calm indifference, a bland and benignant Liberalism; but a nation, a community, cannot be neutral or inert in regard to matters of faith: it must and will be either religious or irreligious, it must either love the truth or hate it: it is too sharp-sighted, and too much guided by homely common sense, to believe that systems so opposite as Paganism and Christianity, or Popery and Protestantism, are harmonious manifestations of the same religious principle, or equally beneficial to the State.

FOOTNOTES:

[224] M. COUSIN, "Introduction," I. 318, 391, 405, 419; II. 134. Ibid., "Fragmens Philosophiques." Preface, VII.

[225] VALROGER, "Etudes Critiques," pp. 115, 126, 151, 308, 316. MARET, "Essai sur Pantheisme," p. 249.

[226] P. LEROUX, "Sur l'Humanite," 2 vols.

[227] BUDDAEUS, "De Atheismo et Superstitione," pp. 184, 212.

[228] RICHARD BENTLEY, "On Freethinking," Boyle Lectures. VILLEMANDY, "Scepticismus Debellatus," III. His words are remarkable:—"Passim haec, aliaque generis ejusdem, placita disseminantur,—neque verum neque bonum, qualia sunt in seipsis, posse dignosci; hinc que adeo sectandam esse duntaxat cum veri, tum boni, similitudinem: quae si stent ac valeant,—illud omne erit verum, illud omne aequum,—illud omne pium et religiosum,—illud omne utile, quod cuiquam tale videatur; privatam cujusque conscientiam supremam esse agendorum, vel non agendorum, normam."

[229] JAMES MARTINEAU, "Rationale of Religious Inquiry," p. 108.

[230] F. DE LAMENNAIS, "Essai sur l'Indifference en matiere de la Religion," 4 vols. Paris, 1844.

[231] Romans 14: 1, 5.

[232] THEODORE PARKER, "Discourse of Matters pertaining to Religion," pp. 14, 17.



CHAPTER VIII.

THEORIES OF CERTITUDE AND SKEPTICISM.

We formerly adverted to the distinction between Dogmatic and Skeptical Atheism; and, believing that the latter is the form in which it is most prevalent, as well as most insidious and plausible, we now propose to review some recent theories both of Certitude and Skepticism, which have sometimes been applied to throw doubt on the evidence of Christian Theism.

The Academy of Moral and Political Sciences in the French Institute announced in 1843 the theory of Certitude as the subject of a Prize Essay, and issued the following programme as a guide to the competitors in the selection of the principal topics of discussion:

"1. To determine the character of Certitude, and what distinguishes it from everything else. For example, Is Certitude the same with the highest probability?

"2. What is the faculty, or what are the faculties, which give us Certitude? If several faculties of knowledge are supposed to exist, to state with precision the differences between them.

"3. Of Truth and its foundations. Is truth the reality itself,—the nature of things falling under the knowledge of man?—or is it nothing but an appearance,—a conception, necessary or arbitrary, of the human mind?

"4. To expound and discuss the most celebrated opinions, ancient and modern, on the problem of Certitude, and to follow them out into their theoretical and practical consequences. To subject to a critical and profound examination the great monuments of Skepticism,—the writings of Sextus, Huet, Hume, and Kant.

"5. To inquire what are, in spite of the assaults of Skepticism, the certain truths which ought to subsist in the Philosophy of our times."

Such was the comprehensive programme of the French Institute; and many circumstances concurred at the time to impart a peculiar interest to the competition. M. Franck's volume[233] contains the Report of the Section of Philosophy on the papers which had been prepared, and offers a careful analysis and critical estimate of their contents. Various other works[234] not concerned in the competition appeared before and after it, showing how much the philosophical mind of France had been occupied with this great theme, while in Britain it was attracting little or no attention.

This is the most recent discussion, on a great scale, of the theory of Certitude. But the question, far from being a new or modern speculation, is as old as Philosophy itself, and has been perpetually reproduced in every age of intellectual activity. Plato discusses it, chiefly in the Theaetetus, Sophist, and Parmenides; it was agitated by Pyrrho, Enesidemus, and Sextus Empiricus, with that peculiar subtlety which belonged to the mind of Greece; and in more recent times it has reappeared in the writings of Montaigne and Bayle, Huet and Pascal, Glanville, Hume, and Kant. Even during the middle age, the controversy between the Nominalists and Realists had an important bearing on this subject: so that from the whole history of Philosophy we derive the impression of its fundamental importance, an impression which is deepened and confirmed by the transcendent interest of the themes to which it has been applied.

In our present argument, we are concerned with it only so far as it stands connected with the foundations of Theology, or as the right or wrong solution of the general question might affect the evidence for the Being and Perfections of God. We do not propose, therefore, to offer a full exposition of the philosophy of Certitude, still less to institute a detailed examination of the various theories which have been propounded respecting it. It will be sufficient for our purpose if we merely sketch a comprehensive outline of the subject, and select some of the more prominent points which have the most direct bearing on the grounds of our religious belief. Thus much may be accomplished by considering, first, the statement of the problem, and, secondly, the solution of it.

In regard to the statement of the problem, it is necessary, in the first instance, to ascertain its precise import, by determining the meaning of the term Certitude. The programme of the Academy very properly places this question on the foreground, Is Certitude the same with the highest probability? And it is the more necessary to give precedence to this part of the inquiry, because it is notorious that there is a wide difference between the philosophical and the popular sense of Certitude,—a difference which has often occasioned mutual misunderstanding between disputants, and a profitless warfare of words. In the philosophical sense of the term, that only is said to be certain which is either an axiomatic truth, intuitively discerned, or a demonstrated truth, derived from the former by rigorous deduction; while all that part of our knowledge which is gathered from experience and observation, however credible in itself and however surely believed, is characterized as probable only. In the popular sense of the term, Certitude belongs to all those truths, of whatever kind and in whatever way acquired, in regard to which we have no reason to be in doubt or suspense, and which rest on sufficient and satisfactory evidence. A philosopher is certain, in his sense of the term, only of what he intuitively perceives or can logically demonstrate; a peasant is certain, in his sense of the term, of whatever he distinctly sees, or clearly remembers, or receives on authentic testimony. There is much reason, we think, to regret the existence of such a wide difference between the philosophical and the popular sense of an expression, which must occur so often both in speculative discussion and in the intercourse of common life. It may be doubted whether the metaphysician is entitled to borrow the language of society, and to engraft upon it an arbitrary definition of his own, different from and even inconsistent with that which it bears in common usage. Nor can he plead necessity as a sufficient excuse, or the accuracy of his definition as an effectual safeguard, since, however needful it may be to discriminate between different species of Certitude, by marking their peculiar characteristics and respective sources, surely this might be done more safely and satisfactorily by designating one kind of it as Intuitive, another as Demonstrative, another as Moral, or Experimental, or Historical, than it can be by any arbitrary restriction of the generic term to one or two of the many species which are comprehended under it. No doubt there is a real distinction, and one of great practical importance, between certitude and probability; but this distinction is not overlooked in the language of common life;—it is only necessary to determine what truths belong respectively to each: whereas when all the truths of Experience, and even, in some cases, those of scientific Induction, are ranked under the head of probability merely, is it not evident that the language of Philosophy is in this respect at variance with the prevailing sense of mankind?

An attempt has sometimes been made to draw a distinction between popular and philosophical Certitude, or, in other words, between the unreflecting belief of the many and the scientific belief of the few. Thus, M. Franck distinguishes Certitude, first of all, from the blind faith which commences with the earliest dawn of intelligence: then, from the doubt which supervenes on the initial process of inquiry; and then, from that half-knowledge, that middle term between doubt and certainty, which is called probability. And M. Javari speaks of Certitude "as the complete demonstration, acquired by reflection, of the legitimacy of any judgment, or of the reality of any object: this is definitive and scientific certitude, which is contrasted with that belief, however strong, which springs, not from the reflective, but the direct and spontaneous exercise of our faculties."[235] It must be evident that, according to this definition of the term, Certitude, in the scientific sense of it, as the product of philosophical reflection, must be the privilege and prerogative of the few, who have been led by taste or education to cultivate the study of Psychology; while the vast majority of men, who are nevertheless as certain of the truths which they believe, and, to say the very least, as little liable to doubt or skepticism, as any class of philosophers whatever, must be held to have no Certitude, just because they have no Science. It seems to be assumed that Certitude is the creation of Science, the product of reflective thought; whereas it may be demonstrably shown that without Certitude, Science would be impossible, and that reflection can give forth nothing but what it finds previously existing in the storehouse of human consciousness. It surveys the streams of belief, and may trace up these streams to their highest springs; but it does not, it cannot, create a new truth, or give birth to a higher certitude. We have no disposition, assuredly, to underrate the value of philosophical reflection, or to disparage the science of Psychology; the former may collect the materials and the latter may attempt the construction, of a goodly and solid fabric: but we cannot admit that the certainty of all our knowledge depends upon either of them, or that it is confined exclusively to the metaphysical inquirer. Reflection adds nothing to the contents of human consciousness: it examines our fundamental beliefs, but originates none of them; it discerns the elements and sources of certainty, but can neither produce nor alter them. Its sole province is to examine and report. If Certitude, in the philosophical sense of it, belongs to the reflex, Certainty, in the popular sense, belongs to the direct and spontaneous, operations of the human mind. We see and believe, we remember and believe, we compare and believe, we hear and believe, and that, too, with a feeling of confidence which needs no argument to confirm it, and to which all the philosophy in the world could impart no additional strength. Certitude is not the creation of Philosophy, but the object of its study; it exists independently of Science, and is only recognized by it; and it would still exist as a constituent and indestructible element of human consciousness were Metaphysics scattered to the wind.

It appears, again, to have been assumed in some recent treatises, that Certitude belongs only to that portion of truth the denial of which would imply a contradiction, or amount to the annihilation of reason. Is it, then, to be restricted to necessary and absolute, as contrasted with contingent and relative truths? Am I not as certain that I see four objects before me, as that two and two make four? Yet the former is a contingent, the latter a necessary truth. Is not my personal consciousness infallibly certain? And yet can it be said to belong to the head of necessary truth? Surely Certitude is unduly restricted when we exclude from it many of our surest and strongest convictions, which relate to truths attested by experience, but the denial of which would involve no contradiction.

The question has been still further complicated by extreme opinions of another kind. It seems to have been assumed that there can be no Certitude, unless we can explain the rationale of our knowledge, and even account for the objects of our knowledge by tracing them up to their First Cause, as the ground and reason of their existence.[236] Now, if the question were, Can you account for your own existence, or for the existence of the world around you, without having recourse to a supreme First Cause? we would answer, No: but if the question be, Can there be any Certitude prior to the idea of God, not deduced from it, and capable of existing without it? we would answer, Yes: the little child is certain of its mother's existence before it is capable of knowing God, and the veriest Atheist is certain of his own existence and that of his fellow-men, even when he professes to doubt or to disbelieve the existence of God. It may be true that the essential nature and omniscient knowledge of God is the ultimate and eternal standard of truth and certainty, or, in the words of Fenelon, that "il n'y a qu'une seule verite, et qu'une seule maniere de bien juger, qui est, de juger comme Dieu meme;"[237] and yet it may not be true that all our knowledge is derived by deduction from our idea of God, or that its entire certainty is dependent on our religious belief. Surely we may be certainly assured of the facts of consciousness, of the phenomena of Nature, and of many truths, both necessary and contingent, before we have made any attempt to explain the rationale of our knowledge, or to connect it with the idea of the great First Cause; nay, it may be, and we believe it is, by means of these inferior and subordinate truths that we rise to the belief of a supreme, omniscient Mind.

Some writers seem to confound Certitude with Infallibility, or at least to hold that there can be no Certitude without it. The impersonal reason of Cousin, the common sense or generic reason of Lamennais, and the authoritative tradition of the Church, have all been severally resorted to, for the purpose of obtaining a ground of Certitude in the matters both of Philosophy and Faith, such as is supposed to be unattainable by the exercise of our own proper faculties, or by the most careful study of evidence. According to these theories, Certitude belongs to our knowledge, only because that knowledge is derived from a reason superior to our own,—a reason not personal, but universal; not individual, but generic. When they are applied, as they have been, to undermine the authority of private judgment, and to supersede the exercise of free inquiry; when they are urged as a reason why we should defer to the authority of the Race in matters of Philosophy and to the authority of the Church in matters of Faith; when we are told that the certainty of our own existence depends on our knowledge of God, and that our knowledge of God depends on the common consent or invariable traditions of mankind,—we do feel that the grounds of Certitude, so far from being strengthened, are sapped and weakened by such speculations, and that we have here a new and most unexpected application of the Scottish doctrine of Common Sense, such as may be highly serviceable to the Church of Rome. Protestant writers, indeed, have sometimes appealed to common consent as a collateral proof, auxiliary to that which is more direct and conclusive; but they have done so merely because they regarded it as a part of the evidence, well fitted to prove what Dr. Cudworth calls "the naturality of the idea of God," and not because they confounded it with the faculty by which alone that evidence can be discerned and appreciated. They never regarded it as the sole ground of certainty either in matters of Philosophy or Faith. Nor can it be so considered by any thoughtful mind. For how can I be more assured of an impersonal reason than of my own? How can I be more certain of the existence and the traditions of other men, than of the facts of my own consciousness, and the spontaneous convictions of my own understanding? or how can I be assured that, in passing from the impersonal reason to the individual mind, from the generic reason to the personal, the truth may not contract some taint of weakness or impurity from the vessel in which it is ultimately contained,—from the finite faculties by which alone it is apprehended and believed?

The fact is that any attempt to prove the truth of our faculties must necessarily fail. Did we set ourselves to the task of proving by argument or by authority that we are not wrong in believing in our own existence or that of an external world, or did we attempt to establish the trustworthiness of our faculties by resolving it into the veracity of God, our effort must needs be as abortive as it is superfluous, since it involves the necessity not only of proving the fact, but of proving the proof itself, and that, too, by the aid of the very faculties whose trustworthiness is in question! There are certain ultimate facts beyond which it is impossible to push our speculative inquiries; certain first or fundamental principles of Reason, which are in themselves indemonstrable, but which constitute the ground or condition of all demonstration; certain intuitive perceptions, which are widely different from rational deductions, but which determine and govern every process of reasoning and every form of belief. To deny the certainty of our intuitive perceptions, merely because we cannot prove by argument the truth of our mental faculties, would virtually amount to a rejection of all evidence except such as comes to us only through one channel, and that the circuitous one of a process of reasoning; while, by the constitution of our nature, we are qualified and privileged to draw it fresh, in many cases, at its spring and fountain-head. It may be as impossible for man to prove the trustworthiness of his intellectual faculties as it is for the bee to prove the truth of its marvellous instinct; but, in either case, the reason may be that any such proof is unnecessary, that it is superseded by the laws of Instinct in the one, and by the laws of Thought in the other, and that by these laws a better and surer provision is made for our guidance than any that could have been found in a mere logical faculty,—a natural and irresistible authority, which the Skeptic may dispute, but cannot destroy, and which, however disowned in theory, must be practically obeyed.

It must be evident that the various meanings which have been attached to the term Certitude must materially affect both the statement and solution of the general problem, and, more particularly, that they must have an important bearing on the question, whether the doctrine which affirms the Being, Perfections, and Providence of God, should be ranked under the head of certain, or only of probable, truth. If, in making use of the term Certitude, I mean to denote by it something different from the certainty which belongs to the most assured convictions of the human mind, something that arises, not from the spontaneous and direct exercise of its faculties, but from a process of reflective thought or philosophical speculation, something, in short, that is peculiar to the metaphysical inquirer, and is not the common heritage of the race at large; then, unquestionably, the problem, as thus understood, must leave out of view many of the surest and most universal beliefs of mankind,—beliefs which may be illustrated and confirmed by Philosophy, but which are anterior to it in respect to their origin, and independent of it in respect of the evidence on which they severally rest. In the case of Certitude, just as in the case of every similar term expressive of a simple, elementary idea, the ultimate appeal must be made to individual consciousness. No one can convey to another a conception of Certitude by means of words, apart from an experimental sense of it in the mind of the latter, any more than he could give the idea of color to the blind or of music to the deaf. It is because we have had experience of it in our own breasts that we recognize and respond to the descriptions which others give of it. Every one knows what it is to be certain in regard to many things, just because, constituted as he is, he cannot doubt or disbelieve them. He is certain of his own existence, of the existence of other men, of the facts of his familiar consciousness, of many events long since past which are still clearly remembered, of certain abstract truths which are intuitively discerned or logically demonstrated. These various objects of his thought may differ in other respects, and may occasion a corresponding difference in the kind of Certitude which is conceived to belong to them; but they all possess the same generic character, and admit, therefore, of being classified under the same comprehensive category, as objects of our certain knowledge.