He pictures to himself the universe as originally an infinite expansion of minutely subdivided matter, and supposing a single centre of attraction to be somewhere therein set up, he endeavours to show that the result must be a prodigious central body surrounded by systems of solar and planetary worlds in all stages of development. 'In vivid language,' says Professor Huxley,[43] 'he describes the great world-maelstrom widening the margin of its prodigious eddy in the slow progress of millions of ages, gradually reclaiming more and more of the molecular waste, and converting chaos into cosmos.' Then, fixing his attention more particularly on our own system, he accounts for the relation between the masses and densities of the planets and their distances from the sun, for the eccentricity of their orbits, for their rotation, for their satellites, for the general agreement in the direction of rotation among the celestial bodies, for Saturn's ring, and for the zodiacal light. All this he does, according to Professor Huxley, by 'strict deduction from admitted dynamical principles,' and I, well aware of my own inability to form an independent judgment on the point, gladly take so high an authority's word for it. For aught that I know, Kant's attractive and repulsive forces being admitted, the establishment of centres of attraction, and of circle within circle of revolutions round them, and all his other details, would follow naturally and of course. I limit myself to asking, Whence these simple forces?—and when Kant replies, 'From the Eternal Thought of the Divine Understanding,' I should be the last to criticise if his answer stopped there. Unfortunately, he adds that the forces were 'evolved without purpose'; in other words, that the Intelligence which thought them into existence failed to think of any purpose for them. 'Matter,' he proceeds, 'is purely passive, yet, nevertheless, has in its simplest state a determination towards the assumption of a more perfect constitution in the way of natural development, whereby it breaks up rest, stirs up nature, gives to chaos shape.' For the elements whereof this passively stirring up matter is composed 'have native powers of setting each other in motion, and are to themselves a spring of life;' and when, having of course being previously dead, they have given themselves life, they forthwith begin to attract each other with a strength varying with their varying degrees of specific gravity. The scattered elements of the denser sort collect by attraction all particles of less specific gravity out of their immediate neighbourhood, and are themselves similarly collected by particles of still denser sort, these again by others denser yet, and so on, until, as results of this particular action, several masses are formed which in like manner would converge towards and be united with the largest and densest of their number, were it not that the counter principle of repulsion now comes into play. This principle—familiarly exemplified in the elasticity of vapours, the emanations from strong smelling substances, and the expansion of all spirituous substances—causes the vertical movements of the converging masses to be deflected laterally, so as ultimately to enclose the central mass within circles which, at first intersecting each other in all directions, are at length, by dint of mutual collision, made all to revolve in the same direction, and nearly the same plane.

Now I most earnestly protest against being suspected of what in me would be the intolerable impertinence of desiring to cast ridicule on these magnificent speculations, the grandeur of which I thoroughly appreciate so far as my scant mathematics enable me to follow them. I take exception to them only because the language in which they are couched seems to imply that operations, of whose nature one of the most powerful of human intellects could, at its utmost stretch, catch only a faint hazy inkling, may yet have been initiated and perfected without the intervention of any intellect at all. This is a falsism against which my respect for philosophy and philosophers makes me only all the more indignant when I find any of the latter falling into it, as those of them inevitably must who, busying themselves, early or late,

With a mighty debate, A profound speculation about the creation And organical life, and chaotical strife, With various notions of heavenly motions, And rivers and oceans, and valleys and mountains, And sources of fountains, and meteors on high, And stars in the sky,—propose by and bye,

like John Hookham Frere's Aristophanic Birds,

If we'll listen and hear, To make perfectly clear

how creation took place without a conscious Creator. All their fancied solutions of this hopeless puzzle have one feature in common—a family likeness which the wickedest wit finds it difficult to caricature. There is a note to Frere and Canning's 'Loves of the Triangles' which the reader will be grateful to me for transcribing here, the more frequently he may have laughed at it already, laughing now all the more, and laughing heartily at it now though he may never have before.

It begins by tracing the genesis or original formation of Space to a single point, in the same manner as the elder Darwin had, in his 'Zoonomia,' traced the whole organized universe to his six Filaments. It represents this primeval Point or Pinctum saliens of the universe, after 'evolving itself by its own energies, to have moved forwards in a right line ad infinitum till it grew tired.' Whereupon, 'the right line which it had generated would begin to put itself in motion in a lateral direction, describing an area of infinite extent. This area, as soon as it became conscious of its own existence, would begin to ascend or descend, according as its specific weight might determine, forming an immense solid space filled with vacuum, and capable of containing the present existing universe.'

Thus slow progressive points protract the line, As pendant spiders spin the filmy twine: Thus lengthened lines impetuous sweeping round, Spread the wide plane, and mark its circling bound; Thus planes, their substance with their motion grown, Form the huge cube, the cylinder, the cone.

It then proceeds as follows:—

'SPACE being thus obtained, and presenting a suitable nidus or receptacle for the generation of chaotic matter, an immense deposit of it would gradually be accumulated; after which the filament of fire being produced in the chaotic mass by an idiosyncrasy or self-formed habit analogous to fermentation, explosion would take place, suns would be shot from the central chaos, planets from suns, and satellites from planets. In this state of things, the filament of organization would begin to exert itself in those independent masses which, in proportion to their bulk, exposed the greatest surface to the action of light and heat. This filament, after an infinite series of ages, would begin to ramify, and its viviparous offspring would diversify their forms and habits so as to accommodate themselves to the various incunabula which nature had prepared for them. Upon this view of things, it seems highly probable that the first effort of Nature terminated in the production of vegetables, and that these being abandoned to their own energies, by degrees detached themselves from the surface of the earth, and supplied themselves with wings and feet, according as their different propensities determined them in favour of aerial or terrestrial existence. Others, by an inherent disposition to society and civilisation, and by a stronger effort of volition, would become men. These in time would restrict themselves to the use of their hind feet; their tails would gradually rub off by sitting in their caves or huts as soon as they arrived at a domesticated state; they would invent language and the use of fire, with our present and hitherto imperfect system of society. In the meantime, the Fuci and Algae, with the Corallines and Madrepores, would transform themselves into fish, and gradually populate all the submarine portions of the globe.'[44]

Although the writers of this delicious drollery seem to have had Dr. Erasmus Darwin only in view, they could not, we thus see, parody his peculiar crotchets without hitting off not less neatly some of the corresponding extravagances of both earlier and later expounders of Nature. Nature is a phrase which, greatly to the confusion of those who so employ it, is habitually used simultaneously in two quite opposite senses, so as to denote at the same time both the agency in virtue of whose action the universe exists, and likewise the universe itself which results from that action. Nature, in either signification, becomes to a great extent interpretable when the agency so designated is credited with sufficient sense to foresee and to intend the results of its own action. On that condition, although among the many unsolved problems she may continue to present there will be some evidently lying beyond the limits of human comprehension, there will be none running counter to human reason. Except on that condition, the universe is not simply uninterpretable, it is a bewildering assemblage of irreconcilable certainties. Philosophy's choice lies between such patent truisms as that there can be no force but living force, no vis but vis vivida, no vis inertiae otherwise than metaphorically, and such blatant falsisms as that inertness and exertion may coincide, unintelligence generate intelligence, agency of whatsoever sort produce, merely by its own act, and merely out of its own essence, other agency capable of higher action than its own. Philosophy, when with these sets of alternatives before her she deliberately chooses the latter, becomes Scientific Atheism, all the varieties of which have one point in common, resembling each other in their proneness to rush upon and embrace demonstrable impossibilities for the sake of avoiding a few things hard to be understood. One variety, however, the Comtist, far exceeds all the rest in the lengths to which it is carried by this propensity.

IV.

If, in speaking as I am about to do of Comtism, I commit—heedless of Mr. Lewes' solemn warning—the grave offence of speaking confidently about a writer whom I have never read, I may at least plead in extenuation of my fault, that, although my knowledge of that writer be confessedly merely an echo of what others have said of him, those others, at any rate, far from being his antagonists, are two of the most ardent of his not undiscriminating admirers. It is from Mr. Mill[45] and from Mr. Lewes[46] himself that I have derived the notions of Comtist philosophy that suggest to me the following notes.

I lay no stress on certain flaws in the fundamental propositions that 'we have no knowledge of anything but phenomena, and that our knowledge of phenomena is only relative, not absolute; that we know not the essence nor the real mode of production of any fact, but only its relations to other facts in the way of succession or similitude; that the constant resemblances which link phenomena together, and the constant sequences which unite them as antecedent and consequent, are all we know about them, and that their causes, whether efficient or final, are unknown and inscrutable.' I will only suggest that our mere consciousness of possessing some knowledge of phenomena is itself a knowledge distinct from the knowledge which constitutes its subject—distinct, that is, from the knowledge of phenomena; that if it were possible for us to be aware of only one single fact, we should know something about that fact, notwithstanding that there were no other facts which it could be perceived to have preceded or followed, or to which it could be likened, even as a polype with a stomach-ache would know something about a stomach-ache, although ignorant that it had a stomach, and oblivious of any former sensation, whether painful or pleasurable; and that if the causes of phenomena be utterly unknown, our ignorance of them ought not to be so signified as to sound like knowledge, as it does when resemblances are said to link, and sequences to unite, phenomena together, thereby warranting the inference that one phenomenon succeeds another because the two are so linked and united.

These, however, are trifles—mere spots on the sun one might say, were but the surface on which they appear altogether sunlike—and I leave them without additional remark except that, although it may perhaps have been hypercritical to point them out, still the language of a new philosophy, claiming to supersede all old ones, ought to be proof even against hypercriticism. I pass on to a generalisation, termed by Mr. Mill 'the key to Comte's other generalisations: one on which all the others are dependent, and which forms the back-bone, so to speak, of his philosophy,' insomuch that 'unless it be true he has accomplished little.' This is the so much vaunted discovery that all human thought passes necessarily through three stages, beginning with the theological, and proceeding through the metaphysical to the positive. These three terms, however, in the novel sense in which they are used by Comte, stand very urgently in need of definition. By the theological is to be understood that stage of the mind in which the facts of the universe are regarded as governed by single and direct volitions of a being or beings possessed of life and intelligence. It is the stage in which winds are supposed to blow, seas to rage, trees to grow, and mountains to tower aloft, either because winds, seas, trees, and mountains are themselves alive and so act of their own accord; or because there is a spirit dwelling in each of them which desires that it shall so act; or because each separate class of objects is superintended by an out-dwelling divinity, which similarly desires; or, finally, because one single divinity, supreme over all things, initiates and maintains all the apparently spontaneous movements of inanimate bodies. In the metaphysical stage, phenomena are ascribed not to volitions, either sublunary or celestial, but to realised abstractions—to properties, qualities, propensities, tendencies, forces, regarded as real existences, inherent in but distinct from the concrete bodies in which they reside; while the characteristic of the positive stage is the universal recognition that all phenomena without exception are governed by invariable laws, with which no volitions, natural or supernatural, interfere. These being the three stages, the discovery of which as a series necessarily passed through by human thought in its progress towards maturity, constitutes one of Comte's chief glories, I almost tremble at my own audacity, shrinking from the sound myself am making, when by inexorable sense of duty constrained to declare that the grand discovery is after all merely that of a distinction without a difference.

What Comte chiefly condemned in the metaphysical mode of thought, are the conception of mental abstractions as real entities which exert power and produce phenomena, and the enunciation of these entities as explanations of the phenomena; and certainly 'it is,' as Mr. Mill says, or rather was, previously to his own ingenious solution of it, 'one of the puzzles of philosophy, how mankind, after inventing a set of mere names to keep together certain combinations of ideas and images, could have so far forgotten their own act as to invest these creations of their will with objective reality, and mistake the name of a phenomenon for its efficient cause.' Those natural laws, however, on which Positivism relies—are not they as purely mental abstractions as the essences, virtues, properties, forces, and what not, for which it is proposed to substitute them? Yet since Positivism regards these laws as 'governing' phenomena, and having phenomena 'subject' to them, must it not necessarily regard them likewise as realised abstractions, as real entities? Plainly, if its language be taken literally, its professors must acknowledge that it does, unless they prefer to stultify themselves by propounding such unmitigated nonsense as that power may be exercised, and phenomena produced, by non-entities. But if so, what else is Positivism than another form of that very metaphysicism which it condemns? and a form, too, peculiarly obnoxious to Mr. Mill's caustic remark that 'as in religion, so in philosophy, men marvel at the absurdity of other people's tenets, while exactly parallel absurdities remain in their own, and the same man is unaffectedly astonished that words can be mistaken for things, who is treating other words as if they were things every time he opens his mouth.'

Possibly, however, it may be replied that 'government by natural laws' is a phrase which Positivists never use except metaphorically, and by which they never mean more than certain successions of events.[47] Very well. Either, then, they acknowledge no real government of phenomena at all, in which case to speak of phenomena as governed by law is, if not a purely gratuitous mystification, as glaring an instance as can well be conceived of a 'bare enunciation of facts, put forward as a theory or explanation of them:' or, if they do recognise real government, then they must suppose that, behind those mere mental abstractions, laws or order of Nature, there must be some lawgiver or other being that originally issued the laws, or ordained the order, and still enforces them, or maintains it. But if this be the positivist faith, then, that we may discover its other self, we have only to go still further back; as far back, however, as to the theological stage, supposed to have been so early left behind, yes, even unto the deities or deity that the metaphysical entities had displaced. Positivism, in short, is in this dilemma: either the mode of thought claimed by it as peculiarly its own is simply that process so justly ridiculed by Comte himself as the 'naif reproduction of phenomena as the reason for themselves,' and by Mr. Lewes as 'a restatement' (by way of explanation) 'of the facts to be explained;' or it is at any rate nothing more than a return, either to the metaphysical or to the theological mode of thought, according as one or the other is adopted of the only two interpretations that can possibly be placed on its own nomenclature. A new mode it certainly is not. It is either no mode of thought at all, but merely an empty form of words; or it is at best only a new name for one or other of two old-fashioned modes, both of which its author denounces as false from the beginning, and now worn out and obsolete into the bargain.

Of other features of Comtist philosophy it would be out of place to speak here,[48] where, indeed, that philosophy would not have been mentioned at all but for its having been transformed by its author into a religion, and that, too, an atheistical religion—the 'Religion of Humanity.' To myself, as to most people, a religion without a God is a contradiction in terms. To constitute what is almost universally understood by religion it does not suffice that there be a 'creed or conviction claiming authority over the whole of human life: a belief or set of beliefs deliberately adopted respecting human destiny and duty, to which the believer inwardly acknowledges that all his actions ought to be subordinate:' nor that there be in addition 'a sentiment connected with this creed or capable of being invoked by it, sufficiently powerful to give it, in fact, the authority over human conduct to which it lays claim in theory:' nor yet that there be, moreover, 'an ideal object, the believer's attachment and sense of duty towards which are able to control and discipline all his other sentiments and propensities, and prescribe to him a rule of life.'[49] That such an object is fully capable of gathering round it feelings sufficiently strong to enforce the most rigid rule of life, will certainly not be denied by me, privileged as I am to count among my friends more than one whose whole life is little else than a life of devotion to an object, 'the general interest of the human race,' plainly incapable of affording them in exchange that 'eternity of personal enjoyment' to which ordinary devotees look forward as their reward, and whose virtue I honour as approaching the sublime, on account of its independence of all the props and stimulants which ordinary virtue finds indispensable. But the sublimest virtue does not of itself constitute religion. For, besides the 'creed,' 'conviction,' and 'sentiment' indicated above, there is needed some suitable object of worship to which the soul may alternately bow down in humble reverence, and look up in fervent love—some being to whom its prayer, praise, and thanksgiving may be fittingly addressed. This want, recognised—as one of the few who do not recognise it admits—by nine out of every ten persons, was distinctly recognised by Comte, who, however, attempted to supply it by pointing, not to God, but to Man. His reason for this was not a conviction that there is no God. On the contrary, he habitually disclaimed, not without acrimony, dogmatic atheism; and once even condescended so far as to declare that 'the hypothesis of design has much greater verisimilitude than that of a blind mechanism.' But in the 'mature state of intelligence' at which his mind had arrived, 'conjecture founded on analogy did not seem to him a basis to rest a theory upon.' He preferred a religious theory without a basis, and therefore adopted one as destitute of support as the tortoise on which stands the earth-upholding elephant of Hindoo mythology; selecting, as the 'Grand Etre' to be worshipped, 'the entire Human Race, conceived as a continuous whole, past, present, and future.' For this great collective non-existence, this compound of that which is, that which has been but has ceased to be, and that which is not yet, he elaborated a minute ritual of devotional observances, and would, if he had had the chance, have consecrated a complete sacerdotal hierarchy, subordinated to himself as supreme pontiff. Having, for fear of recognising what possibly might not be, begun by, wilfully and with his eyes open, recognising what could not possibly be, he proceeded to invest this sanctified non-existence with precisely those attributes best calculated to render it unfit to receive the admiration he prescribed for it. That feeble Humanity—the actually living portion thereof, that is—may need and be the better for our services, which Divine Omnipotence of course cannot be, was distinctly urged by him as a reason why prayers, or at least those outpourings of feeling which he so designated, should be addressed to the former and not to the latter. That Humanity is in a constant state of progress, so that both the collective mass and choice specimens of each successive generation of men must always be superior to the corresponding masses and specimens of all previous generations, is a prime article of the Comtist creed; but not the less is it an imperative injunction of the Comtist rubrick that religious homage shall be paid, not only to the collective 'Grand Etre' of Humanity, but also to individual worthies of past ages—that superiors shall consequently fall down before, and worship, and take as models, their intellectual and moral inferiors. The fact of a religion made up of tenets like these having been thought out by one of the profoundest of reasoners does not prevent its being the very perfection of unreason. Even though on the one side there were nothing more than some doubt whether Deity might not exist, still with complete certainty on the other of the non-existence of 'Humanity,' Deity ought in fairness to have at least the benefit of the doubt. In selection for adoration, that which only perhaps may be, at any rate deserves to be, preferred to that which positively is not. The excess of superstition with which St. Paul reproached the Athenians, for raising an altar to the 'Unknown God,' looks like excessive circumspection, beside the solemn dedication of temples to a chimera known not to be. Nay, even Isaiah's maker of graven images is at length outdone. Even he who, having hewn down a tree, 'burneth part thereof in the fire, with part thereof eateth flesh, roasteth roast, and is satisfied, warmeth himself, and saith, Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire; and with the residue maketh a god, yea, his graven image, and falleth down unto it and worshippeth it, and prayeth unto it, and saith, Deliver me, for thou art my god'—even he has at last found more than his match in irrationality. For he has at least before him a visible tangible block of wood, not the mere memory of one that has long ago rotted, nor the dream of one that is yet to grow, whereas that mental figment, Consecrated Humanity, is not even a real shadow, but only a fancied one, a shadow cast by no substance. And it is to Comtists of all people—intellectual salt of the earth as they are—that this figment is recommended for adoration—yes, to those who, pharisaically standing aloof from the common herd, thank their imaginary substitute for God, or whatever else it is they deem thankworthy, that they are not blind as other men are, and least of all as those dazed metaphysicians who actually personify their own mental abstractions. No wonder that such extreme provocation should try the patience of all but the stanchest disciples. No wonder that Mr. Lewes himself should seem half inclined to apostrophise his quondam master in words resembling those once addressed to Robespierre, 'Avec ton Grand Etre, tu commences a m'embeter.'

Here make we one more pause. This chapter's theme is, as was betimes premised, not the strength of theism, but the weakness of atheism. I have in it attempted to execute a design which, according to Boswell, was conceived by Lord Hailes, and approved by Dr. Johnson, that of writing an essay, Sur la credulite des incredules, and I think I have succeeded so far as to show that, if any one who can swallow atheism affects to strain at theism, it cannot, at any rate, be for want of a sufficiently capacious gullet.

FOOTNOTES:

[36] The story was thus told by Diderot, to Sir Samuel Romilly, when a young man:—'Je vous dirai un trait de lui, mais il vous sera un peu scandaleux peut-etre, car vous autres Anglais, vous croyez un peu en Dieu; pour nous autres, nous n'y croyons gueres. Hume dina dans une grande compagnie avec le baron D'Holbach. Il etait assis a cote du baron; on parla de la religion naturelle. "Pour les athees," disait Hume, "je ne crois pas qu'il en existe; je n'en ai jamais vu!" "Vous avez ete un peu malheureux," repondit l'autre, "vous voici a table avec dix-sept pour la premiere fois."'—Edinburgh Review for January 1847.

[37] 'Studies in Animal Life,' chap. v.

[38] The reader who, having skipped some of the earlier chapters, may find this language obscure, is requested to turn back to the essay on 'Huxleyism,' pp. 194-6.

[39] See again, pp. 194-6.

[40] 'Mr. Darwin's Hypotheses.' Part II. 'Fortnightly Review' for June 1868.

[41] 'Origin of Species,' p. 226.

[42] Of this treatise, no English or French translation has, I believe, been published. For my own very limited acquaintance with it, I am indebted to the extreme kindness of my friend, Professor Croom Robertson, who has most obligingly favoured me with a manuscript version of the portion referred to in the text.

[43] 'Lay Sermons,' p. 240.

[44] 'Beauties of the Anti-Jacobin,' 1799, pp. 214-6.

[45] 'Auguste Comte and Positivism,' passim.

[46] 'History of Philosophy,' 4th edition, vol. ii. pp. 654-735.

[47] Not that so restricted a meaning can, with any propriety, be placed on positivist definitions of law. See, for instance, that of Mr. Lewes ('History of Philosophy,' vol. ii. p. 701), who defines law to be 'the invariable relation between two distinct phenomena, according to which one depends on the other.'

[48] Some few additional random remarks, however, though not permissible in the text may, perhaps, be less inappropriate in a note.

My scientific deficiencies do not prevent my understanding or, at least, fancying I understand, that Comte's famous 'Classification of the Sciences' may be extremely serviceable as indicating in what order the sciences may most profitably be studied. That a student's general progress would be swifter and surer if, before entering on physics or chemistry, he had already made considerable progress in algebra, geometry, and mechanics, than if he commenced all five sciences simultaneously, seems probable enough. If, however, the classification be intended also to indicate historically the order in which the sciences have actually been studied, I cannot but suspect it to be misleading. Certainly, if knowledge of number was the earliest knowledge acquired by man, those savage races which have not even yet learnt how to count beyond four, must have been content with very few lessons in arithmetic when turning off to other branches of learning.

As to the measure of success that attended Comte's scheme of creating a Philosophy of General Science, I presume not to utter one syllable of my own, preferring to cite what Mr. Mill says of that 'wonderful systematization of the philosophy of all the antecedent sciences from mathematics to physiology, which, if he had done nothing else, would have stamped him on all minds competent to appreciate it as one of the principal thinkers of the age.' In all sincerity, I say that the mere conception of the enterprise, whose vastness is so luminously expounded by Mr. Lewes, in the last edition of his 'History of Philosophy,' seems to me to betoken superior genius. I feel, as it were, simply awe-struck in the presence of an intellectual ambition, that within the brief span of one human life could aspire to a mastery over all the sciences, sufficient, first for co-ordinating the fundamental truths and special methods, and so obtaining the philosophy of each, and then for co-ordinating the manifold philosophies so obtained, and—by condensing them all into one homogeneous doctrine, and blending them into one organic whole, whereof each part would be seen to depend on all that preceded, and to determine all that succeeded—transforming all science into philosophy.

One point however remains on which I shall speak with some confidence, that, namely, of the inclusion among 'Comte's titles to immortal fame' of the creation of a Science of Sociology. 'What the law of gravitation is to astronomy, what the elementary properties of tissues are to physiology,' that, says Mr. Lewes, in the opinion of Comte's disciples, 'is the law of the three stages to sociology.' But if, as I have shown, there are not really three but only two stages, the so-called third stage being simply a return to either the second or the first, the law of the three stages cannot be much of a law, nor the science of which it is the essence much of a science.

Mr. Lewes, nevertheless, maintains that M. Comte created Social Science. Mr. Mill considers that he did not create it, but only proved its creation to be possible. With all possible deference, I submit that what he really did was to prove its creation to be impossible.

In a passage of Mr. Mill's 'Positivism,' quoted with approval in Mr. Lewes's 'History of Philosophy,' and presumably, therefore, expressing the sentiments of both writers, Comte is described as pronouncing inappropriate to the Science of Society, the method universally admitted to be proper to all other sciences—that, namely, of obtaining by induction the laws of the elementary phenomena, then, from these laws thinking out deductively those of the complex phenomena, and, finally, of verifying by specific observation the laws obtained by deduction. Among social phenomena, he is described as arguing, the elementary ones are human feelings and actions, the laws of which are the laws of universal human nature. But the human beings, on the laws of whose nature social facts depend, are not abstract or universal, but historical human beings, already shaped and made what they are, not by the simple tendencies of universal human nature, but by the accumulated influence of past generations of human society. This being the case, the laws of universal human nature evidently cannot serve as materials, whence it would be possible for any powers of deduction, starting from the bare conception of the Being Man, to predict beforehand how successive generations of men would feel and act. Wherefore, in order to get at social laws, we must reverse the ordinary method, seizing upon any generalizations which the facts of history, empirically considered, will supply, and then using the universal laws of human nature for the verification of these generalizations.

I will not linger over the glaring inconsistency involved in the conclusion thus arrived at, of appealing, for the verification of empirical generalizations, to a species of deduction confessed to be impracticable for want of the requisite materials. I prefer to show that from Comte's own premises, as rendered by Mr. Mill, necessarily results a separate conclusion, absolutely fatal to his sociologically creative pretensions. According to him, as we have seen, the laws of elementary social facts, or of human actions and feelings, are the laws of universal human nature, which latter can, of course, be no other than whatever habits of invariably, in given circumstances, feeling and acting in given modes, may be common to all mankind. But it is admitted that the particular generation of human beings at any time existing must, by the accumulated influence of preceding generations, have been rendered very different from every preceding generation: and nothing is more certain than that two generations differing widely from each other in character, would, in many given circumstances, not only not feel and act in precisely the same, but would inevitably feel and act in widely different, manners. Nor is this all. The circumstances by which any generation is surrounded have been partly shaped for it by preceding generations, partly modified by itself—so that it is not possible for any two generations ever to find themselves in the same circumstances. Wherefore, as there never can be a repetition of either men or of circumstances precisely the same, it is manifestly impossible for any habits of feeling and thinking, in given modes in given circumstances, to be common to any two generations of men, still less to universal mankind. In other words, there cannot possibly be any laws of human nature: and if no laws of human nature, then no laws of elementary social facts; and if no laws of elementary social facts, then no laws of complex social facts; and if no laws of social facts, elementary or complex, then no single particle of material wherewith to build up the Science of Society or Sociology.

[49] 'Auguste Comte and Positivism,' pp. 133-4.



CHAPTER VI.

LIMITS OF DEMONSTRABLE THEISM.

Thought without Reverence is barren. The man who cannot wonder, who does not habitually wonder (and worship), were he president of innumerable Royal Societies, and carried the whole Mecanique Celeste and Hegel's Philosophy, and the epitome of all laboratories and observatories with their results, in his single head, is but a pair of spectacles, behind which there is no eye. Let those who have eyes look through him; then he may be useful.—Sartor Resartus.

'I wouldn't mind,' said once a representative of extreme heterodoxy, in debate with a champion of its diametrical opposite—'I wouldn't mind conceding the Deity you contend for, were it not for the use commonly made of him after he is conceded.' And no doubt that use is such as might well provoke a saint, provided the saint were likewise a philosopher. To whatever extent it be true that man was created in the image of God, it is certain that in all ages and countries God has been created in the image of man, invested with all human propensities, appetites, and passions, and expected to demean himself on all occasions as men would do in like circumstances. As popularly conceived, so long as sensual gratification was esteemed to be the summum bonum, he wallowed in all manner of sensual lust; when some of his more fervent worshippers turned ascetics out of disgust with fleshly surfeit, he became ascetism personified: at every stage his great delight has been flattery, and his still greater, revenge; in the exercise of power he has always been capricious and often wanton—ruthlessly vindictive against impugners of his honour and dignity, unspeakably barbarous to unbelievers in his reality. Now, as knowledge advanced, unbelief in a God so much below the level of ordinarily virtuous men advanced equally, quickening its pace, too, as the particular branch of knowledge styled 'physics' spread, and, spreading, exposed the utter impossibility of many of the fables in which theological views had been expressed. Wherefore, theological oracles have in every age and country been apt to confound scientific inquisitiveness with unbelief, and to denounce physical science especially as a delusion and a snare, and its cultivators as impostors none the less mischievous for being at the same time dupes. Of course, the latter have not been slow to return the compliment. Hearing the truths discovered by them stigmatised as falsehoods, they naturally enough retorted the charge of falsity against the divine authorities in whose name it was made. Finding war waged against them by every religion with which they were acquainted, they naturally enough in turn declared war against all religion, even with that form thereof which underlies every other except when sufficing to itself for superstructure as well as base. Natural enough this, for humanum est errare; but very humanly erroneous withal, for to include Deity itself in the same denial with pseudo-divine attributes is about as sagacious a proceeding as to refuse to recognise the sun at midday on account of his not appearing in Phoebus's chariot and four.

When religion on the defensive declares herself opposed to reason, so much the worse for religion. She is thereby virtually surrendering at discretion, since to appeal to her only other resource—revelation—is to beg the whole subject in dispute. Similarly, the worse and still less excusable is it for science to declare herself irreconcileable with religion, for she, too, is thereby slighting reason. It is only by forsaking the single guide in whom she professes to trust, and blindly giving herself up to angry prejudice, that she can fail to discover the rational solidity of so much of every religion as consists of theism.

For this, as we have seen, the argument from design abundantly suffices, although the only absolute certainty thence deducible be that the universe must have an author or authors fully equal to its original construction, its subsequent development, and its continued maintenance. Even if it be not inconceivable, notwithstanding that the chances to the contrary be many times infinity to one, that the mere restlessness of some utterly unintelligent force may have fabricated all material structures, and imparted to all their movements certain orderly successions, it is still manifestly impossible for unintelligence to have brought forth intelligence—for the speculative, critical, carping spirit of man to have been generated by that which has no speculation in its eyes, nor any eyes, to have speculation in; impossible, in short, for the creature to be more richly endowed than its creator. Since numerous embodied intelligences actually exist, they must have been preceded by intelligence capable of creating them and all other existing intelligences that have not eternally existed; and it is simply impossible that creative intelligence, whose creatures owe to it whatever intelligence they possess, should on any occasion have exhibited a want of intelligence which they are competent to detect.

But although it be thus demonstrably certain that an author of the universe exists, it does not follow that there is only one. As to this no proof positive, only probabilities, can be adduced; but the probabilities are of an amount all but equivalent to certainty. They are forcibly urged by Mr. Mill. Many exactly uniform occurrences, he observes, are more naturally referred to 'a single, than to a number of wills precisely accordant.' But the classes of uniform occurrences being exceedingly numerous, if there were a separate will for each class, there would be equally numerous wills, and 'unless all these wills were in complete harmony (which would itself be the most difficult to credit of all cases of invariability, and would require beyond anything else the ascendancy of a supreme Deity),' it would be 'impossible that the course of phenomena under their government should be invariable.' Every fresh appearance of resemblance extending through all nature 'affords fresh presumption that the whole is the work, not of many, but of the same hand, and renders it vastly more probable that there should be one indefinitely foreseeing Intelligence and immoveable Will than that there should be hundreds and thousands of such.'[50] I will not run the risk of weakening this reasoning by expansion. Its obvious inference that, there being a God, there cannot be more than one, could not be set forth more irresistibly.

That the wisdom of the Creator cannot be less than the amount thereof manifested in His works is a self-evident proposition, which none will be hardy enough directly to dispute. There is, however, one critic, of great ability and yet greater daring, who appears to doubt whether the wisdom manifested in the universe is anything to speak of. Mr. Lewes' faculty of veneration is, I suspect, but imperfectly developed, since 'the succession of phases which each (animal) embryo is forced to pass through,' is sufficient to give its action pause. 'None of these phases,' he remarks, 'have any adaptation to the future state of the animal, but are in positive contradiction to it, or are simply purposeless; many of them have no adaptation even to its embryonic state; whereas all show stamped on them the unmistakable characters of ancestral adaptations and the progressions of organic evolution.' 'What,' he asks, 'does this fact imply?' 'There is not,' he continues, 'a single known example of an organism which is not developed out of simpler forms. Before it can attain the complex structure which distinguishes it, there must be an evolution of forms which distinguish the structures of organisms lower in the series.... On the hypothesis of a plan that pre-arranged the organic world' (by no means, however, necessarily in types that could not change, but rather in types adapted and calculated to change), 'nothing,' he considers, 'could be more unworthy of a supreme intelligence than this inability to construct an organism at once without making several tentative efforts, undoing to-day what was so carefully done yesterday, and repeating for centuries the same tentatives and the same corrections in the same succession.' 'Anthropomorphists,' he says, 'talk of "The Great Architect," emphasising the name with capitals,' but 'what should we say to an architect who was unable, or, being able, was obstinately unwilling, to erect a palace except by first using his materials in the shape of a hut, then pulling it down and rebuilding them as a cottage, then adding storey to storey and room to room, not with any reference to the ultimate purposes of the palace, but wholly with reference to the way in which houses were constructed in ancient times? What should we say to the architect who could not form a museum out of bricks and mortar, but was forced to begin as if going to build a mansion, and, after proceeding some way in this direction, altered his plan into a palace, and that again into a museum? Would there be a chorus of applause from the Institute of Architects, and favourable notices in the newspapers of this profound wisdom?'[51]

Notwithstanding the exulting tone in which these questions are put, and which seems to imply that in their proposer's opinion they are unanswerable, they may, I think, be very summarily disposed of. Whatever other comments might be made on the conduct of an architect who should build in the complex manner suggested, surely the very last thing said would be that he did not know how to build in simpler wise. His having actually built a palace would be decisive proof of his knowing how to build a palace; and of all queer reasons for questioning his possession of that much architectural knowledge, about the queerest would be the fact of his having built, not a palace only, but a hut and cottage in addition. And if, adopting a still more complicated style, he should begin by so constructing a hut that, if left to itself, it would draw up brick and mortar from the earth, and grow into a cottage, and then go on growing and adding storey to storey till it became a palace, this surely would be a proof not of less, but of infinitely more, architectural knowledge than if he had commenced and completed the palace with his own hands. Not unwarrantably, perhaps, may Mr. Lewes, reflecting that his own and every other human organism's genesis has consisted of at least three stages, oval, foetal, and infantine, wonder why he was not formed all at once, 'as Eve was mythically affirmed to be taken from Adam's rib, and Minerva from Jupiter's head,' and why he was not brought forth full dressed in an indefinitely expansible suit of clothes. Not quite inexcusably, perhaps, might he conceive the reason to be some mere whim or humour of his Maker, though there might be more gratitude in conjecturing that the triple process was adopted for the purpose of assisting biological enquirers like himself in their special researches. From so practised a logician, however, about the very last thing to have been here expected was that he should suggest creative 'ignorance and incompetence' as the only apparent alternative to denying a Creator altogether, as if incapacity for a comparatively easy process were a likely reason for choosing one greatly more difficult. It might have occurred to Mr. Lewes that, if there were any absurdity in the choice, the Being who made him and bestowed on him the faculty of perceiving the absurdity, could not have failed himself likewise to perceive it and consequently to avoid it.

Of divine power, the measure or measurelessness is obviously identical with that of divine wisdom. Both attributes must be at least co-extensive with the universe; both consequently illimitable. Divine goodness, moreover, inasmuch as the creature's moral ideal cannot be superior to his Creator's, must be at least as vast as human imagination: God must be at least as good as man can conceive Him. But how, by goodness so transcending, conjoined with immeasurable might, can the co-existence of evil be tolerated? To this last, and perhaps greatest, among the many great questions brought forward for renewed discussion in these pages, I have long had by me an attempt at a reply, which, finding myself unable either to strengthen or shorten it by turning it into prose, I venture to submit in its original rhythmical form.

A Voice came to me as I sate apart, Pondering the burthen of life's mystery, In dim perplexity, with troubled heart. With whisper weak and faint it came to me, Like feeble glimmer of the struggling moon To wildered mariner on midnight sea: With whisper weak at first, but strengthening soon, Like the moon's beam when filmy clouds disperse, And through my scattered doubts, with quiet tune, Uttering in clear, apocalyptic verse, Truth, which for comfort and monition sent, E'en as the voice revealed, do I rehearse.

'What art thou? Whence derived? With what intent Placed where perpetual hindrances exhaust Thy wasted strength, in baffled effort spent? Where in blind maze, with crafty windings crossed, With stumbling-blocks beset, with pitfalls strewed, Thou wanderest, in endless error lost; Athirst beside glad rivers that elude, With mocking lapse, thy tantalized pursuit, And hungering where gilded husks delude With bitter ashes as of Dead Sea fruit, Ashes of Hope, but seed of Discontent, That rears its upas growth from blighted root? Around, thou hear'st Creation eloquent, Hymning creative attributes, and seest The starry marvels of the firmament, And marvels of the nearer earth, released By impulse from within, not dimly shown, Nor plainlier in the greatest than the least: And, through the known discovering the unknown, Acknowledgest thy Maker, power supreme, Might, and dominion, deeming His alone. Nor His the lax dominion mayst thou deem That builds up empire, and when built, neglects. Lo! where, afar, sidereal orbits gleam, What first impelled, impelling still, directs: Urges and guides each solar chariot, The mundane mass of every globe connects, By its own energy cohering not, E'en as dead leaves, decaying languidly, Not from themselves derive the force to rot.

'All-strengthening, all-sustaining Deity, Diffused throughout the infinite, abides, Dwells and upholds:—then, haply, dwells in thee? Yea, verily. Within thy frame resides What, by its movement only mayst thou know. The circling blood, thy being's ambient tides, Is't thine own will that bids them ebb and flow, And from their inundating flood depose Organic germs, whence health and vigour grow? Yet though such witness serve thee to disclose In human tenement divine abode, Not thine be the material creed that shows The spirit's birthplace in the moulded clod; Not thine the pantheist raving, that because God dwelleth with thee, thou thyself art God. Bethink thee—is't self-reverence that o'erawes Thy prostrate soul, and from thy faltering tongue, Subdued, involuntary homage draws? And when by harrowing pang thine heart is wrung, Is't for self-aid thy wandering eyes inquire, Heavenward, at length, in fervid suppliance flung? And from thy native slough of sensual mire, Is't to the mark of thine own purity Thy loftier aims and holier hopes aspire? Harshly thy fleshly fetters bear on thee, In dark and dreary prison-house confined, Cramped and diseased with long captivity, And hath divine Intelligence designed That noisome dungeon for her own restraint— By her own act to galling bonds consigned,— Self-doomed, with wilful purpose, to acquaint Herself with sin and sorrow, and pollute Aethereal essence with corporeal taint? How doth thy helpless misery confute That frantic boast of vain conceit, untaugh The paltriest of its plans to execute!

Hast thou the art to add, by taking thought, One cubit to thy stature? and hast thou, Or such as thou, Nature's whole fabric wrought? Not thine such vaunt—not thine to disavow The lustre of thy genuine origin. To the Most Highest, as thine author, bow With rapture of exulting faith, wherein Devotion's cravings their desire achieve, The bright ideal that they imaged, win. Rejoice that thus 'tis given thee to believe,— To recognise transcending majesty, Worthy all praise—all honour to receive: Rejoice in that high presence, gratefully Offering the vows that thy full heart dilate: Rejoice that thence there floweth light, whereby Thy emulative quest to elevate Thitherward, where unblemished holiness Irradiates sovereignty, benign as great.

'But here thou pausest, scrupling to confess A providence of aspect all benign. Fear not that sceptic scruple to express. Of truth, Almighty Goodness could assign Good only to the work of His own hand, Warmed into life by His own breath divine: And, where unchecked Beneficence had planned A home for creatures of a fragile race, Evoked from nothingness at His command, Nor care, nor want, nor anguish should have place, Nor fraud betray, nor violence oppress, Nor hate inflame, nor wallowing lust debase, Nor aught be found, save what conspired to bless The sentient clay, wrought surely for that end,— For wherefore wrought, if not for happiness?

'Not, as some teach, for mastery to contend With fate,—in doubtful conflict to engage,— Struggling, in pain and peril, to ascend Slowly, through this probationary stage, Sore let, but tried and chastened, and thereby Earning on earth a heavenly heritage.

Was there then need that prescience should try, By ordeal pitiless, assured event, Disclosed beforehand to prophetic eye? Need was there, by austere experiment, To test the frailty and the fall foreknown Of man, beneath o'erwhelming burthen bent? In this was tutelar prevision shown? Hardly may he, in such belief confide, Who sees his fellow myriads left to groan In barren penance, without light or guide, E'en from their birth by fostering vice controlled, Doomed as they cross life's threshold—doomed untried.

'As hardly, too, may he the dogma hold That fetters reason with a graduate chain Of beings, linked in order manifold, Where, to each link, 'tis given to sustain A part subservient to the general weal,— Duly to share the mutual burthen's strain:— Though who from such allotment would appeal, Could it be truth that wisdom's masterpiece Such aid could lack, such feebleness conceal, Suing its own constituents for release From wrong innate, throughout its texture wove, By hard necessity, not light caprice? But to what purport could premonished Love A system twined with mutual suffering weave, When but a word all suffering would remove? And wherefore yet delayeth the reprieve Of Love, that doth not willingly afflict Its children, neither wantonly aggrieve? Can aught the gracious purpose interdict Of Him, whose piercing eye, whose boundless sway, No cloud can dim, no barrier restrict? Say'st thou, "By path inscrutable, and way Past finding out, perchance, may mercy bend To its own use, whate'er its course would stay, And through the labouring world high mandate send That all things work together unto good, Work, though by means corrupt, to righteous end?"

Beware how such conjectures must conclude. Can means impure Omnipotence befit, And clog the range of its solicitude? Can finite bonds confine the Infinite? Though man, by choice of ill, must needs offend, Need God do ill that good may come of it? Must havoc's mad typhoon perforce descend? May naught else serve to fan the stagnant air? Must captive flame earth's quaking surface rend, Or seek escape in lava flood? and ere Effete society new structure raise, Must dearth or pestilence the ground prepare? Thus is it that a parent's care purveys His bounty, and, exacting rigorously The price in tears, each boon's full cost defrays? Thus, with vain thrift withholding the decree, That from his treasury's exhaustless store To all could grant unbought felicity?

'But haply still 'tis reasoned (and with more Of reason's semblance were the plea maintained), That higher yet would life's ambition soar, Not for mere scheme of happiness ordained, But for advance in virtue,—for the growth By patient zeal and meek endurance gained: That, at the table of voluptuous sloth, Though banqueted on sweets without alloy, Unsated were a generous nature, loth To feast where unearned lusciousness would cloy, Faint with the tedium of unbroken rest, Sick with the sameness of unruffled joy: That for more poignant pleasure, and of zest Heightened and edged by healthful exercise,— For scope wherein her conscious strength to test In keen pursuit and venturous enterprise, For dear exemplars, in whose course serene Affection's tearful warmth might sympathise, For these the yearning mind would languish, e'en Though with all else that wish could name endued, While, in her striving for self-discipline, Foiled, and with fervid impulses imbued Vainly, where neither aught could valour dare Nor aught confront and challenge fortitude: And where no outward token could declare The hidden worth congenial heart would hail, Hail with each kindred chord vibrating there;d Since virtue wakes not but when griefs assail, Or travail burthens, or temptations try, Slumbering supine, till roused by adverse gale, In the deep sleep of moral lethargy, Joy's fullest cup, by hope or doubt unstirred, Curdling the while to dull satiety.

'Thus haply some have reasoned, undeterred By reasoning, with equal emphasis But counter aim, as readily preferred: Since Heaven's perfection striveth not, nor is In peril lest it lapse to apathy, Or lassitude invade its tranquil bliss. And were it as they deem, and righteously Were man adjudged with his brow's sweat to eat Bread leavened with embittering misery, E'en then affliction's measure to complete, Amply might pain, and want, and death suffice, And feeling's blight, and baffled love's defeat, And, on the altar of self-sacrifice, Hope's withered blooms by resignation laid: Nor were it needed that incarnate vice, In human mould, in the same image made, Trampled with iron hoof his fellow man, Virtue's chastised development to aid. For whence was Vice derived? Ere life began, For His own offspring could their Maker trace Their loathsome office, and beneath his ban Place them, accurst (creating to debase), And doom as fuel for the flames that test A favoured few, elect by partial grace?

Elect or outcast—if alike confessed Of the same parent, sons—brethren who bear No differing lineaments, save those imprest By his prevision—in their parent's care Should not all be partakers? Should not all Freely, alike, his nurturing guidance share? Are any worthier? 'Tis that warning's call Extends to them alone—'tis that to them Alone is given vigour, wherewithal Temptation's fraudful violence to stem— And how shall He, who needful strength denies, Weakness for its predestined fall condemn? How, when the creature of His wrath replies With feeble wail and inarticulate moan, The sighing of that contrite heart despise? What man amongst thy fellows hast thou known Who, if his son ask fish, will jeeringly Give him a serpent, or for bread a stone? If ye, being evil, at your children's cry Know how to give good gifts, should not much more Your heavenly Father His good things supply To them who ask Him? Should He not restore A cleansed heart within them, and renew An upright spirit? not, what they implore Reversing, and restraining, lest they do The good they would,—constraining them withal To do the evil they would fain eschew? How wilt thou to the same original Whence all just thoughts and pure desires proceed, Impute corrupt imaginings, whose thrall Enslaves anew the soul but newly freed From their pollution? Can a hybrid growth Arise spontaneous from unmingled seed? Are grapes upon the bramble borne, or doth The fig bear olive berries? Canst thou show Twin waters, sweet and bitter, issuing both From the same fountain? Neither should there flow Blessing and cursing from one mouth, nor yet From the same Providence both weal and woe.

'Vile as thou art, ofttimes in thee have met Mercy and Truth—and Peace and Righteousness Have kissed each other; and thine heart is set Ofttimes to follow what is just, redress Where thou hast trespassed, rendering; ofttimes, too, Forgiving other's trespass: to distress Thou grudgest not its sympathetic due Of kindly deed, or word, or mutual tears, Nor in vain wholly labourest to subdue The hydra host whose foul miasm blears Thy vision, and the distant gleam obscures That dimly through thy prison casement peers. E'en to the darkened dungeon that immures Thy soul, some feeble glimmer finds its way. Crushed beneath earthly durance, still endures Some lingering fire below that weight of clay, Some generous zeal, some honest hardihood, Some faith—some charity.—And whence are they? If not of Him whose quickening breath endued All things with life,—and, when he looked upon What He had made, beheld that all was good: All good,—but chiefly man, in whom alone Some likeness of Himself—some clouded light, From His own countenance reflected, shone. Doth not the sun outshine the satellite? And shall not He who in the murkiest hour Of sin's defilement, streaks thy dreary night With beams that bid thee, lower yet and lower Descending, hope, perchance, to rise again,— Say—shall not He in holiness as power Transcend the creature whom His gifts sustain! And here, if sneering casuist blaspheme, And to divided nature's sovereign, Ascribe, in nature's opposite extreme Like eminence, and nature's God aver In evil, even as in good, supreme,— Heed not, or ask if man's Artificer With His own work, in virtue matched, can prove At once more holy and unholier?

'Yet since all good is fruit of love, and love Worketh no ill, how still doth ill abound? Is't haply that with love a rival strove?

Mark well this parable. In chosen ground Only good seed a husbandman had sown, Yet when the blade sprang up, therewith he found Tares that amid the stifled wheat had grown. Then knew he well, how, entering unawares, This, while men slept, an enemy had done. And 'tis an enemy who, scattering tares Amid the corn sown in Creation's field, With deadly coil the growing plant ensnares. And no mean enemy, nor one unsteeled For bold defiance, nor reduced to cower Ever in covert ambuscade concealed, But at whose hest the ravening hell-hounds scour A wasted world, while himself prowls to seek, Like roaring lion, whom he may devour, And upon whom his rancorous wrath to wreak, Sniffing the tainted steam of slaughter's breath, And lulled by agony's despairing shriek. For it is he who hath the power of death, Even the devil, by whom entereth sin Into the world, and death engendereth: Yea! by whom entereth whatsoe'er within Warreth against the spirit,—sordid greed, Pride, carnal lust, envy to lust akin, And malice, and deceit, whose treacheries breed Strife between brethren, and the faith o'erthrow Of many, and the duped deserters lead, Beneath the banner of their deadliest foe, In rebel arms a Parent to defy, Whom, by His gifts alone, His children know.

'Not less that Parent marks with pitying eye The blinded rage that rivets its own chain: Not less to His own glorious liberty Seeks, from corruption's bondage, to regain His erring children,—by device, or lewd, Or threatening, lured, or goaded to their bane: Not less to overcome evil with good Labours, and shall therewith all things subdue Unto Himself—but hath not yet subdued.

And wherefore? wherefore tarrieth He, while through Eden, by daring foray oft defaced, Marauding fiends malignant raid pursue, Winging the turbid whirlwind's frantic haste, Pointing the levin's arrowy effluence, Over the mildewed harvest's hungry waste, Breathing the fetid breath of pestilence, And crying havoc to the dogs of war, Let slip on unresisting innocence? Why suffereth He that thus a rival mar His cherished work—through devastated fields Borne on triumphant in ensanguined car?— Him, who with power to rescue, tamely yields His helpless charge to persecuting hate, Nor His own offspring from the torturer shields, But sits aloof, callously obdurate, While but the will is lacking to redeem,— Him, how shall fitting stigma designate?

'But 'tis not thus thy calmer doubts esteem The loving-kindness that with open hand Dispenses bounty in perennial stream. Oft hast thou proved, while in a foreign land A sojourner, as all thy fathers were, Thou pacest painfully the barren sand, How o'er thy path watches a Comforter, And scatters manna daily for thy food, And bids the smitten rocks that barrier The arid track, well out with gurgling flood, And oft to shade of green oasis leads, And, from pursuer thirsting for thy blood, Such scanty shelter as is thine provides: And though full oft that shelter fails, and though Its torn defence demoniac glee derides, Yet not for this the cheerful faith forego, That memory of uncounted benefits And conscious instinct's still, small tones bestow. Charge not thy God with aught that unbefits Tenderest compassion, nor believe that He With hardened apathetic scorn commits A favoured people throughout life to be Subject to bondage. Doubt not of His will To rescue from that galling tyranny. Yet, if in His despite creation still In thraldom groan and travail—what remains? What but that strength is wanting to fulfil His scheme of mercy? What but that He reigns, Not as sole wielder of omnipotence, But, o'er a world unconquered yet, maintains Encounter with opposing influence, Which He shall surely quell, but which can stay, Awhile unquelled, His mightier providence.

'And doth this sadden only, or dismay? Grieves it that He, whose follower thou art, Rules not supreme with unresisted sway? Or that, the progress of His grace to thwart, Satanic might the host of hell arrays? And doth it not a thrill of joy impart That not alone need barren prayer and praise Thine homage be,—thy choicest offering The formal dues prescribed obedience pays? Henceforth with firmer step approach thy King. Some puny succour, thou, in thy degree, Some feeble aid, thou, even thou, mayst bring! In the fell conflict raging ceaselessly Around, thou, too, mayst join—thou, too, engage In that dread feud, twin with eternity, Which faithful angels and archangels wage Against the powers of darkness, to extend, O'er realms retained in demon vassalage, Their sovereign's pure dominion,—and to blend All worlds beneath one righteous governance, Into one kingdom which shall have no end.

'Wouldst thou, if haply so thou mayst, advance That blessed consummation? Wouldst thou speed The lingering hour of Earth's deliverance? Arise—the naked clothe, the hungry feed, The sick and wounded tend,—soothe the distressed. If thy weak arm cannot protect, yet plead With bold rebuke the cause of the oppressed, Kindling hot shame in Mammon's votaries, Abashed, at least, in lucre's grovelling quest; And, in the toil-worn serf, a glad surprise Awakening—when, from brute despondency, Taught to look up to heaven with dazzled eyes.— Thus mayst thou do God service,—thus apply Thyself, within thy limit, to abate What wickedness thou seest, or misery: Thus, in a Sacred Band, associate New levies, from the adverse ranks of Sin Converted,—against Sin confederate. Or—if by outward act to serve, or win Joint followers to the standard of thy Lord, Thy lot forbid,—turn, then, thy thought within: Be each recess of thine own breast explored: There, o'er thy passions be thy victories won: There, be the altar of thy faith restored, And thou, a living sacrifice, thereon Present thyself.—This ever mayst thou do, Nor, doing this, wilt aught have left undone.'

Here ceased the Voice, commissioned to renew Truth, which, of old, when Bactrian sage began Nature's dim maze to thread with slenderest clue, Its doubtful scope and dark design to scan, With inward whisper, hopeful witness bare, And justified the ways of God to man. And suddenly its warning ceased, but ere It ceased, the scales had fallen from my eyes, And I beheld, and shall I not declare What my uncurtained vision testifies? Shall coward lips the word of life suppress? The oracle vouchsafed from Heaven disguise? Nay, as one crying in the wilderness, Where none else hearken, to the vacant air And stolid mountains utters his distress, E'en so will I too cry aloud, 'Prepare Before Him the Lord's way. Make His path straight,' Nor heed though none regard me, nor forbear Though all revile, but patiently await Till, like light breath that panting meads exhale, And scornful zephyrs lightly dissipate, But which, full surely, down the echoing vale, Shall roll with sounding current, swift and loud, My slighted message likewise shall prevail, Entering the heart of many a mourner, bowed Beneath despair, and with inspiring voice Calling to hope to cleave her midnight cloud, And bidding grief, in hope's new dawn, rejoice.

This is a creed which long since came to me after earnest inward communings, and which, though subsequent reflection has in some few particulars modified it, I still in substance hold, clinging to it with a grateful consciousness of ever-multiplying obligations. For in it the soul has free scope for its loftiest aspirations and its widest and deepest sympathies, strongest incentives to zeal, surest guidance for activity, solace in every distress, support under every difficulty, added cause for exultation in every success, renewed resolution in every defeat. Still, it is here offered, not as ascertained truth, but merely as a sample of those guesses at truth by which alone ordinary mortals need hope to promote the common cause of humanity in any of its higher bearings. Such guesses, however, when harmonising with all the conditions of their subject-matter, may fairly claim to be provisionally regarded as truths—nay, to be adopted as working hypotheses until superseded by new hypotheses capable of doing the same work better; in which supercession none ought to rejoice, nor, if sincere truth-seekers, will rejoice, more cordially than the propounders of the discredited doctrines. It is in this spirit and with these reservations that the articles of faith above recited are submitted for consideration. How much soever they may fall short of the truth, they are, I feel, in the absence of any nearer approach to the truth, capable of rendering excellent service. However faintly and hazily the outlines of Deity be shown in them, the Deity whom they so imperfectly delineate is yet one to whom may justly be ascribed glory in the highest, one worthy of all trust, love, and adoration—of an adoration, too, inclusive not more of praise than prayer.

If the divine claim to the last-named tribute be disputed, it had better be by arguments other than those on which certain writers, with Mr. Galton for their leader and Professor Tyndall for their backer, have been recently expending much misapplied ingenuity. If the efficacy of prayer be, as the foremost of these declares it to be, 'a perfectly appropriate and legitimate subject of scientific enquiry,' the enquiry ought at least to be conducted according to scientific rules. On this point Mr. Galton himself lays much stress, intimating that whereas an unscientific reasoner may be expected to be 'guided by a confused recollection of crude experience, a scientific reasoner will scrutinise each separate experience before he admits it as evidence, and will compare all the cases he has selected on a methodical system.' Nevertheless, a brief examination of the experiences on which he and his principal associate rely, may suggest some doubt as to which of the two specified classes of reasoners it is that they themselves belong.

The facts or fancies cited by Mr. Galton in proof that praying is of no use are the following: 1. 'Sick people who pray or are prayed for do not on the average recover more rapidly than others.' 2. Although 'the public prayer for the sovereign of every state, Protestant or Catholic, is and has been in the spirit of our own—"Grant her in health long to live"—sovereigns are literally the shortest-lived of all persons who have the advantage of affluence.' 3. The 'clergy are a far more prayerful class' than either lawyers or medical men, it being 'their profession to pray,' and 'their practice that of offering morning and evening family prayers in addition to their private devotions,' yet 'we do not find that the clergy are in any way more long-lived in consequence;' rather, there is room for believing their class to be the 'shortest-lived of the three.' Nay, even missionaries, eminently prayerful as they are themselves, and prayed for as they are with especial earnestness by others, 'are not supernaturally endowed with health,' and 'do not live longer than other people.' 4. 'The proportion of deaths at the time of birth is identical among the children of the praying and the non-praying classes.' 5. Though 'we pray in our Liturgy that "the nobility may be endowed with grace, wisdom, and understanding,"' our 'nobility are peculiarly subject to insanity;' as are likewise, indeed, 'very religious people of all denominations,' 'religious madness being very common indeed.' 6. So far from 'religious influences' appearing to have 'clustered in any remarkable degree round the youth of those who, whether by their talents or their social position, have left a mark upon English history,' 'remarkable devotional tendencies' have been conspicuous chiefly by their absence from 'the lives either of our Lord Chancellors or of the leaders of our great political parties;' while, out of our twenty-three extant dukes, four at least, if not five, are descended from mistresses of Charles II., not a single one of them, on the other hand, being known to Mr. Galton to be of 'eminently prayerful qualities.' 7. In respect of those 'institutions, societies, commercial adventures, political meetings and combinations of all sorts' with which England so much abounds, and of which 'some are exclusively clerical, some lay, and others mixed,' Mr. Galton 'for his own part never heard a favourable opinion of the value of the preponderating clerical element in their business committees.' 'The procedure of Convocation which, like all exclusively clerical meetings, is opened with prayer, has not inspired the outer world with much respect.' Nay, 'it is a common week-day opinion of the world that praying people are not practical.' 8. In those numerous instances in which an enterprise is executed by the agency of the profane on behalf not of the profane themselves but of pious clients, 'the enterprises are not observed to prosper beyond the average.' Underwriters recognise no difference in the risks run by missionary ships and by ordinary traders, nor do life insurance companies, before they accept a life, introduce into their 'confidential enquiries into the antecedents of the applicant' any 'such question as "Does he habitually use family prayers and private devotions?"' Neither are the funds of devout shareholders and depositors at all safer than those of the profane when entrusted to the custody of untrustworthy directors, not even though the day's work of the undertaking commence, as that of the disastrous Royal British Bank used to do, with solemn prayer.[52]

Two or three minutes' attention to the grounds for, and the circumstances connected with, these statements, may assist us in appreciating Mr. Galton's notion of the difference between confusedly recollected experiences and experiences properly scrutinised and methodically selected.

For the statement first on the list, some negative evidence is considered to be afforded by the absence of any 'single instance in which papers read before Statistical Societies have recognised the agency of prayer either in disease or in anything else.' The chief authority for it, however, is the eloquent silence of medical men 'who, had prayers for the sick any notable effect, would be sure to have observed it,' seeing that they are 'always on the watch for such things.' But are they really, in every case of recovery from illness that comes under their notice, so particular and so successful in their enquiries whether any, and, if so, how much, prayer has been offered on behalf of the patient, as to be qualified to judge whether prayer has had anything to do with the cure? If not, although they may be showing their discretion by not speaking on the point, the 'eloquence of their silence' must not be too hastily interpreted. For doctors, of all men, should be the last to deny, as an abstract proposition, the efficacy of prayer in disease, knowing, as they do, how great is the curative influence of prayer when addressed to themselves. How, they may naturally ask, is it to be expected that sickness should be cured unless properly treated? and how can it be properly treated without a doctor? and how can a doctor be expected to attend unless he be asked? Upon which very natural queries others naturally follow. What would be the good of the doctor's coming unless he prescribed judiciously? and will he not more certainly prescribe judiciously if his judgment be guided by special interposition of divine grace? and if prayer to himself has plainly been one condition of his coming, why may not prayer to God have been one condition of his judgment having been rightly guided? Will it be pretended that God's proceedings are abjectly submissive to inexorable laws from which those of the doctor are exempt, and that though the latter would certainly not have attended unless he had been asked, the grace of God, if given at all, must have been given equally whether asked for or not?

Statements 2 and 3 are founded on a memoir by Dr. Guy, purporting to show the 'Mean Age attained by males of various classes who had survived their 30th year from 1758 to 1843,' and whose deaths were not caused by violence or accident. According to this table, the average age of 97 members of royal houses was only 64.04, while that of 1,179 members of the English aristocracy was 67.31, and that of 1,632 gentlemen commoners 70.22; the proportion between the total number of royal, and that of noble and gentle, personages who died within the period specified, being apparently supposed to be as 97 to 2811, or as 1 to about 29. Except upon this supposition, Mr. Galton could not with any consistency have appealed to these figures, for he had previously announced his intention to be 'guided solely by broad averages and not to deal with isolated instances.' He seems, however, to forget this judicious rule when he comes to treat of the clergy, of whom 945 are compared in the table with 294 lawyers and 244 medical men. Here, he says, 'the clergy as a whole show a life value of 69.49 against 68.14 for lawyers, and 67.31 for medical men;' but then, he adds 'this difference is reversed' when the comparison is made between members of the three classes sufficiently distinguished to have had their lives recorded in Chalmers' Biographical Dictionary or the Annual Register, the value of life among clergy, lawyers, and medical men then appearing as 66.42, 66.51 and 67.34 respectively. Whether, of the distinguished professional men concerned in this second comparison, the parsons were distinguished for their prayerfulness and the lawyers and doctors for their prayerlessness, Mr. Galton omits to state; and still more serious omissions on his part are those of not mentioning in what part of our Liturgy we are accustomed to pray that it may be granted to the Queen, not simply long to live, but also to live longer than other people; likewise in which of 'the numerous published collections of family prayers' that have undergone his scrutiny, is to be found a petition that parsons may live longer than lawyers or doctors; and, yet again, since an average, falling short of threescore years and ten by little more than three and a half, is so contemptuously rejected by him, what is the precise number of years that would be accepted by him as a liberal compliance with prayer for long life?

While deducing his argument from clergymen, Mr. Galton makes repeated and particular reference to the clerical sub-genus, missionaries, treating it as the more remarkable that these should not enjoy comparative immunity from disease, because, as he suggests, it would have been so easy for God to have made them a favoured class in respect of health: to wit, by the notable expedient of dissuading them from exposing themselves to any of the risks peculiarly attendant on missionary enterprise. 'Tropical fever, for example, is due to many subtle causes which are partly under man's control. A single hour's exposure to sun, or wet, or fatigue, or mental agitation will determine an attack.' What more simple than for God so to 'act on the minds of the missionaries as to disincline them to take those courses which might result in mischance, such as the forced march, the wetting, the abstinence from food, or the night exposure?' What more simple, either, it may be added, than for God to save prayerful soldiers from ever being killed in battle by merely putting it into their minds to desert whenever they are ordered upon active service?

That 'the distribution of still-births is wholly unaffected by piety' Mr. Galton has satisfied himself by finding, 'on examination of a particular period, that the proportion of such births published in the 'Record' newspaper and in the 'Times' bore an identical relation to the total number of deaths.' He had previously, we must suppose, satisfied himself that advertisers in the 'Times' never say their prayers.

For the asserted commonness of religious madness Mr. Galton cites no evidence whatever, and, to judge from the sympathies and antipathies of which one of his avowed opinions may be supposed to be the subject and the object, speaks probably on this point solely from hearsay. Very possibly, however, his assurance of the extraordinary prevalence of insanity among British noblemen may be based on personal observation, as, of course, is that regarding the prayerlessness of his own ducal acquaintances. Birds of a feather, proverbially, flock together, and the same touch of irreligion may quite possibly suffice to make certain dukes and certain commoners kin.

Against the inefficiency, however notorious, of the clerical element in business committees, ought in fairness to be set the equally notorious efficiency of Jesuits in whatever they undertake, the signal statecraft displayed by the Wolseys, the Richelieus, and the Ximenes's of the days in which cardinals and archbishops were permitted to take a leading part in executive politics, and the very respectable figure still presented by the lords spiritual, beside the lords temporal of the British House of Peers. As for 'the common week-day opinion that praying people are not practical,' those by whom it is entertained, of course, mentally except praying Quakers.

The fact that insurance offices do not attempt to distinguish between the prayerful and the prayerless, but, treating both classes as liable to the same risks, exact from both the same premiums, proves, I submit, nothing against the efficacy of prayer, not even that the managers of insurance offices do not believe in it. The statement that prayerful and prayerless, when placing their money in the same dishonest keeping, or engaging in the same bad speculations, suffer losses, bearing exactly the same proportion to their respective ventures, although most probably quite true, is also one which Mr. Galton has neglected to verify by the application to it of any test, scientific or other. Finally, if the disasters of the Royal British Bank are to be ascribed to its custom of opening business with prayer, not only ought the cackle of Convocation to be attributed to a similar cause, but also all the legislative botchery of the House of Commons, and the abolition of prayer before debate should be treated as the most urgently needed of those further parliamentary reforms with which the fertile brains of certain eminent statesmen are suspected to be teeming.

Thus much by way of intimation that there would be no excessive temerity in encountering Mr. Galton even on the ground of his own choosing, were that ground really worth contending for. But baseless and exorbitant as all Mr. Galton's postulates are, there is not one of them to which he might not be made heartily welcome, for any effect its surrender could have upon the real issue, the true nature whereof both Mr. Galton and his principal coadjutor have, with marvellous sleight of eye, contrived completely to overlook. Such Pharisees in science, such sticklers for rigorously scientific method, might have been expected to begin by authenticating the materials they proposed to operate upon, and, when professing to experiment upon pure metal, at least to see that it was not mere dross they were casting into the crucible. Plainly, however, they despise any such nice distinctions. The most earnest prayer and the emptiest ceremonial prate are both alike to them. What sort of a process they imagine prayer to be may be at once perceived from the sort of trials to which they desire to subject it.