"The world that I regard is myself; it is the microcosm of mine own frame that I cast mine eye on; for the other, I use it but like my globe, and turn it round sometimes for my recreation. Men that look upon my outside, perusing only my condition and fortunes, do err in my altitude; for I am above Atlas his shoulders. The earth is a point not only in respect of the heavens above us, but of that heavenly and celestial part within us: that mass of flesh that circumscribes me, limits not my mind: that surface that tells the heavens it hath an end, cannot persuade me I have any: I take my circle to be above three hundred and sixty; though the number of the arc do measure my body, it comprehendeth not my mind: whilst I study to find how I am a microcosm, or little world, I find myself something more than the great. There is surely a piece of divinity in us, something that was before the elements, and owes no homage unto the sun."

Sir T. Browne. Religio Medici.

SYNOPSIS OF CHAPTER VII.

The object of this Chapter is to shew that the universally enforced maxim of Responsibility unites in itself two factors.

(1.) A true power of Causation, as explained in Chapter VI.

(2.) A moral distinction of Right and Wrong.

This second element of Responsibility is next investigated, and the Moral antithesis shewn to be inalienable. Right can never be Wrong, nor Wrong ever Right. Justice must certainly prevail at last.

From the connection of Morality with Causation, it may be inferred that the moral Law has its ultimate existence in a Supreme Personality—a just and sovereign God. This conclusion is verified. Human life and Human death read us the same lesson.

Corollary.—If the conclusion just drawn be accepted, and to know God be Life Eternal, we may also infer an à priori probability of some Supernatural assistances, intended to strengthen our human weaknesses and diminish our ignorance. This latter purpose would seem likely to include a better aid to happiness, and a more complete code of Moral Maxims.

Analysis.—As a social fact, Responsibility is universal, and accounted inalienable by any individual man. Responsibility involves Causation in the highest sense, together with Moral Sensibility.

Attempts to refine away ethical Rightness. An appeal to consciousness proposed:—Distinctness of moral feeling;—and its Permanence. Antithesis of Right and Wrong an irreconcileable Antagonism. Contrasted with correlation of Power and Function; this antithesis never fluent, but rigorous, immutable, imperishable, absolute. Ultimate coincidence of Happiness with Virtue is a necessary result of Independent Morality.

Moral Law exists conceivably in and by a Will alone; as—

1. Its cause and spring of movement.

2. Its source of expression and practical authority.

Being supreme, it exists in and by a Supreme Moral Will or Personality. That is to say, in and by God.

This conception verified. World inexplicable without Man. Man inexplicable without God; Whom to know is Life Eternal.

Corollary.—Supernatural assistance apparently to be expected when Moral Law is viewed as a human endowment proceeding from God. Thus Man is made for God, and God has not made Man in vain.

Confirmation from—

1. Image of Divine Love in Nature. 2. Nature of religious Trust as a Belief of Reason. 3. Incompleteness of our ethical knowledge apart from such assistance. 4. Universal expectation of Mankind.

L'Envoy.

CHAPTER VII.

RESPONSIBILITY.

Responsibility is the most serious fact of our whole human world. The affairs of life could not go on for a single day if there were no Responsibility. We never release any man from its burden, without incapacitating him, at the same time, alike from business and from enjoyment. We lay it upon childhood, as soon as the child is able to reflect upon his own actions and to choose deliberately;—we do not take it away from a collected and self-controlled age. And every reasonable Man who stands by an open grave, or knows that he is rapidly approaching his own, feels, (above all other pressures,) the unending prospect of Responsibility. Looking at this prospect, we look into our deepest solitude;—

None of our fellows, the dear companions of our Soul, can carry our burden then. And though they walk by our side in life, and cheer us with their love, they cannot really bear that burden now. And, thus, in the most serious and solemn fact of our existence, we are always isolated and alone.

But Responsibility is something better to every one of us than a burden;—it is also an incalculable benefit. A man who has no true sense of responsibility, is an unformed human being;—and, in proportion as we feel it inwardly, and express the feeling by consideration and self-control, we make progress in real manliness. On this account, Responsibility may be pronounced our chief aid in the formation of a manly character. And, probably, among all the sources of human happiness, none yields a more unbroken serenity, than the habitual consciousness of being enabled to act up to the single mark of our responsibilities.

When a man has attained such practical wisdom, it "maketh his face to shine." His daily endeavour to do right, instead of causing him anxiety and disquietude, gives a buoyancy to the spirit; which shows itself in a peculiar brightness of countenance, unlike every other cheerful glance and aspect. The beaming faces, with which early Italian artists painted their good men and saintly women, are excellent illustrations of this expressional beauty.

Let us consider, through one chapter more, what Natural Theology has to say upon this subject.

Responsibility has been shewn to involve, as one of its constituent principles, an idea of Causation. It is, also, clear that to hold a man responsible, he must be supposed to possess some power of distinguishing Right from Wrong. In our last chapter, we drew from the principle of Causation certain conclusions regarding the Universal First Cause. We have now to examine the principle of Moral Sensibility.

Every one at all acquainted with modern controversy, is aware that few questions have been more keenly mooted, than the origin of moral distinctions among mankind. The debate respecting them has run, for a great part of its course, parallel with that on the origin of our primary intellectual beliefs, alluded to in a former chapter. Neither of these controversies concerns us beyond a certain point. Our business lies with the facts of human nature, rather than with theories concerning any supposed possibilities as to their growth and accretion. But, one caution we suggested respecting the case of intellect, holds good and is important to every moral inquirer. Let the analyst beware of his alembic! There is nothing more easy than to vaporize reality altogether, by way of exalting a philosophy.[221] And in Morality, the result is far worse than in speculation. The distinctive character of our Moral Consciousness is the "essence" which lends to a right action its peculiar fragrance and beauty. Invaluable per se, it will surely be found of a nature so delicate and fugitive as to escape the tests of analytic psychologists. Yet when this is fled, the residuum must be worthless to Moral philosophy.

The "essence" just mentioned, merits a few minutes' attention. Men have been known to assert that their feeling of appreciation in respect of a very lovely woman, was precisely similar to their appreciation of a handsome horse. No doubt, the right answer is to tell such a man that he is utterly blind to the true loveliness of woman; and does not deserve to call a creature so excellent, his wife. You may, also, point out to him the various distinctive characters of female excellence,—refinement, purity, depth of feeling, self devotion, the noblest heroism, and so on. But if the man has put all his perceptions of diverse excellences into a private alembic, and sublimated them into one of the lowest among æsthetic susceptibilities; no argument will really convince him. The truly bright æsthetic eye—the grander imaginative powers are wanting,—the man is mentally colour-blind.

The same truth holds good of theorists who tell us dogmatically that our Moral Sensibility is nothing better than an accretion of baser materials which may be stripped off from each other in the reverse order of their growth, just like the coats of a stalactite or a tulip-root. As may readily be surmised, there is great difference of dogma, when judgment comes to be pronounced on the moral core and centre of the whole. Some are for the needs of society,—some utility in general,—the greater part for individual advantage. Others take theoretically polar directions; and with them, rightness consists either in quietism, or else in self-immolation. Self-approving feelings, (each advocate tells us,) have clustered round his pet growing point; and the clustering has endowed us with all the moral sense we happen to possess. Here again, it is doubtful whether a right answer will convince the experimentalist, bent on turning lead into gold. Yet whether convincing or not, most honest hearts would prompt an indignant rejoinder. The world at large, however, is likely to prove a more successful arbiter. The utilitarian will find that he excites little sympathy even when general utility forms his moral kernel;—and, when it is no more than a personal gain of worldly advantages, he will not improbably be called a rascal. Then "Quietism" can never hope much favour in the busy workshop of the West. Though it may seem strange to some minds, self-immolation has by far the greatest chance of winning suffrages; one chief reason being, that the man who sacrifices his own private advantage, has evidently spurned expediency and selfishness. Even those who think his theoretical views erroneous—and possibly mischievous, will applaud his victory over the meaner passions.

Each hour of thought the reader can bestow on moral distinctions, will turn to certain good. At the very least, it must help to form a habit of self-examination. And for this purpose, very simple interrogatories bring out very useful responses. If the reader be a rose grower, let him inquire into his own feelings, when he plucks the fairest flower in his garden, to give fragrance and colour to the sick room of a poor but sensitive little invalid. He will certainly perceive a wide interval between his pleasure in admiring the glowing rose, and his pleasure in adding to the scanty luxuries of the poor sick child. Thus, although a benevolent action be a truly beautiful thing, yet there is a difference between the rose grower's impressions of mere beauty, and of pure benevolence. A difference too between his enjoyment of beauty, and his enjoyment in benevolently resigning to another, the object which charmed him because it was beautiful. Time, also, makes a vast difference between the two emotions. We cannot recal a delicious odour, as truly as we can reproduce a pretty sight before our retrovertive eye. The image of the rose remains, after its sweet fragrance has departed. But much, much longer than either, remains the moral impression graved upon the mind. That little pleasure enjoyed in a brief self-denial, will repeat itself through half a century of years.

Permanence is, indeed, one characteristic which demonstrates the paramount excellence of all moral impressions. It is so difficult to repeat to ourselves the sensation of physical pleasure or physical pain, that many writers on pathologic topics speak of it as a thing impossible. Certainly, its greatest vividness is in dreams; and above all, "ægri somnia"—sick visions—seem to possess the strongest reproductive power. It is curious, however, to observe the manner in which dreams themselves put on a moral meaning. Who does not remember Sir W. Scott's lines in the "Lady of the Lake," on the returning phantoms of early youth,—change, loss, and separation? But those phantoms are pale shadows, compared with what we have all felt in our visionary hours,—the consciousness of our own absolute loneliness,—of our death,—of a hopeless, endless isolation. Even the very thought of our spiritual life,[222] as distinguished from mere corporeal life, is terrible to us and hardly to be borne. So overwhelming is the idea of the demand of Justice upon each of us;—the law of human Responsibility.

It is remarkable, too, that the most common-sense practical people sometimes feel these impressions the most acutely. One reason may arise from the circumstance, that the spiritually imaginative temperament of such persons is vigorous,—has few occasions of employment; and throws its unexhausted force into those strong "Michel-Angelesque" realizations.

Whatever may be thought on this point, there is no truth of our whole Manhood more striking, as well as more evident, than the independent vitality of our Moral Consciousness. Let us suppose, for example's sake, that the reader was once unhappy enough to injure a neighbour, a friend, or relation. Let the injury be something which you in your heart know to be truly injurious;—a thing impossible in your better moments,—but still a thing done. Now, let years elapse, and when the thought recurs and the deed is reacted, you feel how wrongful it was. And when you grow old, and there are few left to love you, the feeling will become far more deep. Put oceans, continents, tropics, between yourself and your injured one; the reality is not at all less real. The same stars no longer look down upon you by night,—the sun does not bring back the same seasons at the same time,—but your act is Timeless;—and, though night and day vary, its criminality remains the same. And worst of all,—the injured one may die, whilst no act of reparation may have been performed by you,—no word of love or ruth escaped your lips. The deed is irremediable, and you are the doer of it. Neither Space nor Duration of years can alter the fact. There is a moral mark set upon your conscience; and no human sympathy can heal, nor even alleviate the sorrow. Most likely, you never attempt to explain to others the pain you feel, because were the case another's you would hardly comprehend it yourself. Thousands have gone to the grave, carrying heavy burdens of this kind almost or altogether unsuspected.

Exemption from the laws of Time and Space, is perhaps the most wonderful characteristic of our Moral Consciousness. With this solitary exception, we seem to find ourselves in perpetual subjection to those laws. But in the realm of Morals it is the reverse. The endless theoretical contradictions about the Finite and the Infinite, (to which we have more than once alluded,) bear witness to this fact. Morality at once puts the two together;—what in its sphere of commission was a finite crime, is likewise an infinite immorality. We count up our faults as sins; but, when viewed awhile in the light of conscience, they are most burdensome to us as being, not sins, but Sin. Look at the pre-Christian Eumenides; the last writing of St. John the Evangelist; the confessions of Augustine; and the life of John Bunyan; to which we might add more than one great Oxford life;—and, through them all, the profound sense of Sin underlies every other utterance.

Another salient character of the moral sense, actually existing among mankind, may be outlined as follows. We have already considered the manner in which laws appear to human intelligence, as types, ideas, or relations. Amongst them, we paid particular attention to the relativity between Power and Function. And, when viewing these as polar opposites, with a chain or nexus between them, we saw that the opposition was, in a certain sense, fluent. Function changed into Power more than once, before each complex process of production became entirely accomplished. Power, in accomplishing its errand, continually was lost, and vanished away in Function. But between Right and Wrong, the opposition is fixed, contradictory, and enduring. Any Logic or Rhetoric which attempts to make the antithesis appear fluent, is justly condemned as special pleading, and the art of an oratorical Sophist. The only question asked of the Sophistical speaker, is whether the error he tries to excuse was wilful, or unintentional; whether it was a mistake, or a confusion of distinctly-opposed moral dictates. So Demosthenes says to Œschines, "Among all other men I observe these principles and these distinctions to prevail. Does any one wilfully do wrong? He is the object of indignation and of punishment. Does any one commit an error unintentionally? He is pardoned, not punished.... All this is established not only in all our jurisprudence, but by Nature herself in her unwritten laws, and in the very constitution of the human mind."[223]

And we may all feel quite sure that this is the normal decision of Mankind.

Right and Wrong stand out as irreconcileable antagonists, contending for the empire of the world. A man who watches the strife without deep interest, and never mingles in the fray because he thinks its issue immaterial, is no better than a Pessimist.

Compare a Duty with a Function, (in the wide sense we assigned to the latter conception,) and two points will at once be evident. First, how strong the contrast, how wide the interval, between the Law of productive work, and the law of moral activity. Secondly, how inextinguishable the contradiction between Right and Wrong. One man undertakes some mechanical utilitarian function, dependent on the pleasure or life of a superior; to whom he is in no other respect bound, nor in any way accountable. Another is a husband, a father, or a son. The object of his natural affection, is also the being to whom his tender offices of devotion are morally due. For different reasons, the daily lives of both these men have become first irksome,—then, very wearisome,—finally, almost odious to themselves. The man of routine goes to visit his ailing superior, and is permitted to enter the sick room. He undraws a curtain and looks upon the face of a dead man. Between the departed and himself, there existed no natural love, nor any acquired hate, neither duty nor demand. The link was simply official, and it is broken. Next month, there will be a new Superior who knows not Joseph. Another subordinate will occupy the post of routine; and, under the circumstances, to be released from the old toil is a sort of happiness. The tedious function of the past is over; and he carries his powers into a more hopeful employment. Yet Man is always something to Man, if both are genuine; and there arise a thousand regretful memories, and thoughts of kindly interchange of gestures, looks, and words. After a time, the last change of all is thought of as a thing to be deplored, but gone by,—a thing simply irremediable.

But how different, when the man who has been morally bound—say the son—sees a dead face upturned from his father's pillow! Here is another link of service broken;—service of another kind,—a duty. It is gone, the sick bed attendance, the harass, the vexation, endured with a recalcitrant feeling, and sometimes an openly determined opposition. And how much is gone besides! The feeling of resistance vanishes, when there is no longer a Will to be resisted; the harass and vexation appear unwholesome phantoms. To look on the life of a father or a near friend, after death, is like looking on a moonlighted landscape; its harsher features are lost in lengthening shadow; all that we thought rugged and stern, appears subdued and blended with a thousand fondly-remembered softnesses. A mild and silvery radiance flows over the whole familiar scene;—we gaze and sigh,—and sigh and gaze again. To think of its becoming veiled from our eyes, seems like losing a portion of our own existence.

And what more is gone besides? The son's thought, which used to mingle so strangely with his feelings of distaste,—that, some day, he would fill up the measure of that which was consciously lacking in his filial duty and devotion. He has now no power of offering sorrow to obtain the remission of claims unsatisfied, no possibility of saying, "Father, I have sinned"! He would die by inches, if, with each slow degree of mortality he could revoke a short period of the Past.

In other concerns of life all beyond human cure is also beyond human care; but this concern is a matter of Right and Wrong. To say the Wrong is irremediable, is to utter the sharpest cry of Remorse,—the last word of a long Despair.

It is always thus, when the moral rule intervenes. It is so, when an injured friend dies,—the injurer is fast bound by the crime he has committed. It is so, when the Son thinks he has to face things undone which ought to have been done,—the opportunity of doing them now lost for ever. Inability to remedy a wrong makes our sorrow inextinguishable. And we know by experience, that such a sorrow is unlike every other sorrow. It differs in kind from all trains of ordinary feeling, and seems to belong less to our emotional life than to be a dictate of our sovereign reason. And the moral rule is so. In the eye of Practical Reason which (so far as human nature goes), constitutes our supreme guide, a claim of Morality is absolutely rigorous—absolutely supreme—and if unsatisfied, absolutely inexorable.

To suppose anything less, would be to annihilate the whole moral law. For, how can you, or I, or any one, be required to immolate our life, freedom, fortune, or even our ordinary enjoyments, unless the rule be perfectly unyielding; perfectly unchangeable? To be binding now,—it must be binding under all circumstances, and binding always. If a single claim remain unsatisfied the admission is fatal. Broken once, the law is broken everlastingly. Every man might conceive that his own case was, possibly, just one marked for exception. Who, then, would sacrifice at the altar of Right-doing all earthly goods; undergo chains, ignominy, dungeon-solitude, pain, lingering hopelessness, and death? Who, then, would be able to stand by, and see all these inflictions undergone by one he loves best, when compliance with wrong-doing would surely set the sufferer free? It is the certainty of an equal and unrelenting law, which makes all kinds of endurance possible.

If no other reason existed, this one would suffice to prove that, unless human nature is a falsehood, happiness must ultimately coincide with virtue. How distantly removed their final coincidence may be, is a point which can have no influence on the certitude of our knowledge. We speak here, as we speak of parallel lines which cannot meet through infinity;—only we speak the reverse way;—it is for all infinity that virtue must become happiness. If a man will seriously sit down, and try the contrary hypothesis out to himself, he will see that if held true, Morality ceases to be imperial, and Man ceases to be human. The claim of Right is to rule the Universe, entire, and in every part. Before that claim, all knowledge, scientific, phenomenal, inferential, must fail and vanish away. Whatever else be true or untrue, this must be rigorous, unalterable, imperishable truth. Upon this truth, each reasonable being, percipient of it, is required to act in his own individual person. Therefore, in the case of each individual it must hold absolutely true. And thus the moral endowment of Man is not a general sense of Morality; no indeterminate impulse towards excellence floating before him; no mere thought that past generations were made for us, and we for a coming race. What we really know and acknowledge as moral truth, is each Man's strict accountability, individual, isolated, and inalienable. Otherwise, individual rightness cannot be demanded, and individual suffering for conscience-sake must become, in some eyes Utopian,—to most sufferers intolerable. The moral law is therefore supreme, or it would be ineffectual. It is individually specializing, otherwise it could not claim individual obedience. And to be supreme, both in final effect and present empire over each human being, it must obviously be—(as our practical Reason apprehends it)—Universal. To such a sovereignty there is nothing great, nothing small. Time sets no bounds, while Reason beholds in it the ultimate perfection and sum of all that went before it.

Towards that complete coincidence of happiness with virtue, the aspiration of good and the sighs of sorrowful souls, have been breathed continually. In its realization alone, can our noblest capabilities be realized. For, there is nothing in this world commensurate with the capacious longings of the human spirit. Here, too often, it droops like a beautiful plant in a strange unkindly soil; and, when it blooms its brightest, we feel that under other influences it might bloom more brightly still. True humanity is marked by its own specific character, as the fit inhabitant of a far more excellent sphere.

We ask with some eagerness, how may these things be? And the primary answer to this question lies within the circuit of our knowledge. Our own consciousness, the facts of life, and the reason of the thing, all agree in one result. Moral law exists only in, and for, a Will; and by a Will alone can it be made effectual. In this respect, it resembles the Law of Production, which, apprehended ideally by intelligence, becomes realized by the moving force of Will. Moreover, we have seen that Will is true Causation, and therefore in Will exists the first ground of Movement. We know in fact of no other. Neither is any other Causality conceivable by us, even in hypothesis; and we think this causative power of Will only by knowing its real existence and verifying its workings through their issues.

Yet further. The Moral Law, as a sovereign command, is addressed to our Wills; and unless it were the Expression of a Will, we know it could never be executed. The Law would remain a dead letter,—a thought of Intelligence,—an abstract speculation,—ineffective because impractical. Therefore, when we speak of a Supreme Moral law, we speak of a Supreme Moral Will; an idea we sometimes express by true Being, or true Personality. We speak, that is, of God.

Experience deepens to us every day the meaning of this final word. In the world of our present habitation, we see a confused mass of striving Wills,—the good and just not always in the ascendant,—rightful commands disregarded,—a sovereign rule not visibly asserted. To affirm the possible continuance of these practical contradictions, would be to deny the ultimate Moral Unity of moral purposes. This Divine consummation is, then, the finality towards which all things must in reason be tending. For even as human nature explains all other nature,—as the Moral Law explains all other law,—so God explains Man. Explains his existence, otherwise inexplicable, by the anticipated victory of Right over Wrong,—and the complete satisfaction of his unsatisfied aspirations. By presenting, that is to say, an adequate object,—a Personality infinitely great and infinitely good,—to the eye of Man's reason,—the desire of his heart,—the striving endeavour, and ceaseless energy of Man's whole essential being;—his affections, his will, his spirit.

This elevating thought comes home to each one of us, bringing with it a peace of mind unutterable. We know that the time must come, when thought and memory shall grow faint. Our brain will lose its quick apprehensive motion, and all our bodily powers must sink and languish. Our eyes will refuse to see the faces of those we love; our hands to return their kindly pressure; our nerves to thrill at their voices. But, whosoever has learnt the lesson which God's world, and God's gifts to Man, were meant to teach him, may truthfully say—"My flesh and my heart faileth, but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for Ever."

Corollary.—One reflection will probably have occurred to every reader of the last few pages. The rigour of the moral law demonstrates to us the necessary existence of a future state of recompense, and the supremacy of a sovereign Will—a divine Judge. Now, does not this very rigour leave man as hopeless, as if he were altogether without God? Can he ever expect to perform the behests of that pure and perfect Will? This difficulty would appear valid, were there nothing in the idea of God thus given us, to furnish rejoinders, such for example, as the following.—How could the Supreme Judge make any difference between those who are His anxious servants, and those who turn away from His infinite purity with hatred or indifference, if all men were alike overwhelmed in one common failure by reason of an inexorable law? How, again, could He satisfy the aspirations of earnest but half-hopeless human souls, without gathering them to His presence and to Himself? The manner in which such a happiness results to men, may be an enigma, so far as Natural Theology is concerned;—but if so, it is an enigma, of which, those who reason on this ground, may foresee that there will certainly be granted some solution. And we are not left quite in the dark as to how that solution may be found;—a truth we may perceive from the ensuing considerations:—

The moral law is presented to Man's practical reason with all its consequences. The divine Idea, when once apprehended, becomes the object of Man's noblest affections. God, Who graved His law of Right and Wrong upon the conscious will of His creature, wrote also a law of love upon His creature's human heart.

Hence we view the Supreme Being, as a God who formed and endowed Man for Himself. It was thus, that Man's nature received its only possible explanation. Hence, also, the sufficient account of a capacity for happiness which this world can never give;—and, along with it, the earnest of its ultimate satisfaction.

But these evidences of the Divine finger, prove also a Divine intention. The supreme ruler of the Universe has, by them, written upon Man's nature a purpose of making His creature happy. And if so, we cannot but conclude that to the Divine attribute of love, which inspired the glad promise, we may look for its certain fulfilment. In this point of view, a miracle worked for such a moral and spiritual purpose as the ennoblement and blessedness of Humanity, ceases in one sense to be a miracle. It becomes not only credible, but probable. And in reality, any event appears less improbable than that incredible and most unlovely issue,—the self-contradictory thought, that God has made Man in vain.

These considerations are drawn from our Moral nature, as just described. There are other considerations at hand to confirm them.

In treating the subject of Production, we saw Intelligence involved in every Idea, and preceding every process. When referred to the Universe, Intelligence was necessarily conceived as vast and immeasurable. In order to discern the other attributes of that universal Intelligence, we examined the characteristics of Design apparent in nature, and saw everywhere a spirit of superhuman tenderness breathed over our beautiful world. Thus, if there be any personal relation between the Author of Nature and our race, it ought to be one of trust on our side, demanded by care and beneficence on His. And this feeling is heightened by the charm of lavish kindness,—the prodigality of a love Divine.

Again, if we turn to one chapter of this Essay farther back, and bring to mind the rise and progress of our primary beliefs, we cannot but ask ourselves the question, how is it that the first religious idea of the Aryan race—the "Heaven-father"—should coincide with the most typical utterances of our loveliest childhood, and our most advanced manhood, now?—Is He really our Father? If so, may we not expect much from His hand? He is a Person, not an Abstract Entity,—a Force,—or a Thing. Our Father will give us, not a stone—but bread;—bread from Heaven—bread from Himself. And we see that He giveth liberally, and upbraideth not.

This is not all. The rigour of the Moral Law is an irreconcileable Antithesis between Right and Wrong,—a gulf which no human subtlety can bridge. But with all this rigour, it leaves unresolved, to a very considerable extent, one set of doubts perpetually recurring to an honest mind. Is this or that particular point a duty;—is it right or wrong;—or is its observance open to debate? There are obvious reasons, arising from the necessities of moral culture and improvement, why such points should, within certain limits, be indeterminate. This whole topic, however, belongs properly to Natural Religion, a separate subject from Natural Theology. Still, for our present purpose, an important consequence of the inexactness is clear.—It gives rise to a reasonable expectation of some more extensive code not unlikely to be vouchsafed us, harmonizing with, and supplementary to, the law of our moral consciousness. And at every age of Man's history, and throughout every country of his habitation, there always did, in fact, prevail an expectant attitude of mind, looking on all sides for the tokens of Divine Revelation. It was felt also by the wisest, that no human foresight could decide beforehand, what aids to higher knowledge and moral virtue might be given along with it. Certainly, every reasonable idea of the great and good God, formed a ground for hope and confident anticipation of the Highest and the Best.

This Essay has reached its close. May it be permitted its writer to drop the tone of an Essayist, and to say that every word of it has come from his heart?

May he likewise ask two favours of the intelligent reader; neither of them he trusts unreasonably onerous?

His first request is that the convergent effect of the separate considerations urged in this Essay, may be fairly taken into account. Indeed, the writer once thought of appending a kind of conspectus or "summing up."—But he would thus have added another full chapter to a book which has grown considerably in his hands. Neither might the summary be altogether welcome to the more candid minds amongst those who doubt, yet honestly debate. Most such readers prefer putting results and consilient reasonings into a connected shape for themselves. The writer may however venture on soliciting some special attention to the breadth of field ranged over;—the wide circumference from which his various arguments and illustrations have converged. This point is one of considerable value. Great credit is given to the accordant testimony of witnesses who have come together from distant parts of the world.

The other favour requested, is that every person who desires to form a deliberate judgment on the grand topics at issue, will carefully weigh in the balance what alternative he can embrace, if he refuses to be a Theist. An alternative, that is, sufficient to account for the human Will and Reason, for such a world as our own, and for so symmetrical and beautiful a Universe.

The system we have advocated on grounds of Reason, asserts that the first Cause of all Things and all Beings known to us, is God. This account alone is sufficingly complete, and coherent. Against it alone, no fatal objection has ever been alleged. And this single fact ought to have a preponderating weight in the balance.

When finally compared together, the motives of our Choice (as presented by Natural Theology), stand thus:—

If explanations of the Universe explain unequally, that account ought to be chosen which is easiest in itself, explains the most, and is the least self-contradictory.

If several explanations appear equal to the deliberative eye, then we must choose the noblest per se; and, as Men, we ought to prefer that which is the most elevating, and most germane to Humanity. In it, will be contained the only true Law of human Progress.

Either motive of our final Choice—still more, both these motives—will bring us to God; and with reason—"For we are also His offspring."

THE END.

Watson and Hazell, Printers, London and Aylesbury