Chapter X — The Relation of the Objective to the Subjective Element — An Analysis of Religious Belief by Viscount Amberley

Chapter X The Relation of the Objective to the Subjective Element

One final postulate has been found to be involved in all religion, namely, that between the human essence spoken of as the subjective element, and the power spoken of as the objective element, “there is held to be a singular correspondence, their relationship finding its concrete expression in religious worship on the one side and theological dogma on the other.” Ritual, consecration of things and places, ordination of priests, omens, inspiration of prophets and of books, all of them imply the supposed possibility of such a relation. All of them, however, from their contradictory and variable character, prove that they are but imperfect efforts to find utterance for the emotion which underlies them all. But that this emotion is incapable of an explanation consistent with rational belief is not therefore to be taken for granted.

Consider, first, that in order to be aware of the existence of the ultimate and unknown power, we must possess some faculty in our constitution by which that power is felt. It must, so to speak, come in contact with us at some point in our nature.

Now, no sensible perception can lead us to this conception as a generalization. The whole universe, regarded merely as a series of presentations to the senses, contains not a single object which can possibly suggest it. Nor can any combination of such presentations be shown to include within them any such idea. Neither can the existence of such a power be inferred by the exercise of the reasoning faculty. There is no analogical case from which the inference can be drawn. When we reason we proceed from something known to something unknown, and conclude that the latter, resembling the former in one or more of its qualities, will resemble it also in the quality yet to be established. In exploring, for instance, some deserted spot, we find traces of a building. Now, previous experience has taught us that such buildings are only found where human builders have made them. We conclude, therefore, that we have stumbled upon a work of human hands. Suppose we explore further and find the remains of the building very extensive. We now draw the further inference that it was inhabited by a wealthy man, because we know that only the wealthy can afford to live in magnificent houses. But if prolonged excavation lead to the discovery of long rows of buildings, of various sizes and having streets between them, we confidently assert that we have unearthed a ruined city; for we are aware that no single man, however rich or powerful, is likely to have built so much. Of these three inferences, the first only is, strictly speaking, infallibly true. But the others are rendered by familiar analogies so highly probable as to be practically certain. Now let the thing sought be, not some single cause of a single phenomenon, or the various causes of various phenomena, but the ultimate cause of all phenomena whatever,—where is the corresponding case on which we can proceed to argue? Plainly there is none. There is no other world or system to which we can appeal and say, “Those stars and those planets were made by a God, therefore our own sun and its planets must have been made by a God also.” Every single argument we can frame to establish the existence of deity assumes in its major premiss the very thing to be proved. It takes for granted that phenomenal objects require a cause, and were not the idea of this necessity already in the mind it could not take one single step. For if it be contended, say, that the world could not exist without a Creator, we have but to ask, “Why not?” and our adversary can proceed no further with his argument. All he can ever do is to appeal to a sentiment in us corresponding to the sentiment of which he himself is conscious.

Thus it appears that neither direct observation, nor reasoning, which is generalized observation, supplies the material for an induction as to the existence of an Unknowable Cause. Yet this idea is so persistent in the human race as to resist every effort to do without it. In one form or another it invariably creeps in. There is but one possible explanation of such a fact: namely, that it is one of those primary constituents of our nature which are incapable of proof because they are themselves the foundations on which proof must be erected. We cannot demonstrate a single law of nature without supposing a world external to ourselves. And we cannot suppose a world external to ourselves without referring explicitly or implicitly to an unknown entity manifested in that world. The faculty by which this truth is known must be considered as a kind of internal sense. It is a direct perception. And precisely as objects of direct perception by the senses appear widely dissimilar at different distances, to different men, and to the same man at different times, so the object of the religious emotion is variously conceived in different places and ages, by different men, and by the same man at different times. Moreover, as the religious sentiment in the mind of man perceives its object, the Ultimate Being, so that Being is conceived as making itself known to the mind of man through the religious sentiment. A reciprocal relation is thus established; the Unknowable causing a peculiar intuition, the mind of man receiving it. And this is the grain of fact at the foundation of the numerous statements of religious men, that they have felt themselves inspired by God, that he speaks to them and speaks through them, that they enter into communion with him in prayer, and obey his influence during their lives. We need not discard such feelings as idle delusions. In form they are fanciful and erroneous; in substance they are genuine and true. And in a higher sense the adherent of the universal religion may himself admit their title to a place in his nature. To use the words of a great philosopher, “he, like every other man, may consider himself as one of the myriad agencies through whom works the Unknown Cause;” “he too may feel that when the Unknown Cause produces in him a certain belief, he is thereby authorized to profess and act out that belief” (Spencer’s “First Principles,” 2d ed., § 34, p. 123).

But we may go still deeper in our examination of the nature of the relation between the Ultimate Being and the mind of man. To do so we must briefly recur to the philosophical questions touched upon in the eighth chapter of this Book. We there discussed four possible modes of viewing the great problem presented by the existence of sensible objects: Common and Metaphysical Realism, Moderate and Complete Idealism. Let us briefly reconsider these several systems to discover whether any of them affords a satisfactory solution.

Common Realism is excluded by the consideration that it treats the qualities of external objects as existing in those objects and not in the percipient subject. It requires but little reflection to prove that such qualities are modes of consciousness, not modes of absolute being. This defect is surmounted in Metaphysical Realism, which, however, is liable to the fatal objection, that it takes for granted an abstract substance in material things, which substance is like the Unknowable, utterly inconceivable, yet is not the Unknowable, and is incapable of accounting for any of the manifestations belonging to the mental order. So that we should have a superfluous entity brought in to form the substance of matter, of which entity neither our senses, nor our reason, nor our emotions, give us any information. For matter, in the abstract, is not the matter perceived by the senses; nor is it the object of the religious sentiment; nor is its existence capable of any kind of proof save that which consists in establishing the necessity of some kind of Permanent Reality below phenomena. And this Reality is not only the substratum of material, but of all phenomena whatsoever. Moderate Idealism is in no better case. For in denying all true existence except to living creatures it fails utterly to give any rational account of that order of events which is universally and instinctively referred to external causes, nor can it find any possible origin for the living creatures in whose reality it believes. Extreme Idealism recognizes no problem to be dealt with, and can therefore offer no solution.

Each of these systems, however, while false as a whole, contains a partial truth. Extreme Idealism is the outcome of the ordinary, unreflecting Realism; for if the Common Realist be convinced that appearances do not imply existence, and if he believe in no existence but appearances, the ground is cut from under his feet, and he remains standing upon nothing. He knows only phenomena, and the phenomena are mere ideas of his own mind. The truth common to these two extremes is that so emphatically asserted by Berkeley, that the esse of material objects is percipi; that we exhaust the physical phenomenon when we describe its apparent qualities, and need not introduce besides these a material substance to which those qualities are related as its accidents. They are not the accidents, but the actual thing, in so far as it is material. Metaphysical Realism and moderate Idealism are united in the recognition of the truth that the phenomena are not the ultimate realities, and that the qualities of bodies, when analyzed, are subjective, not objective; forms of the human mind, and not independent, external existences.

Hence these various philosophies, like the various religions of which they are in some sort metaphysical parallels, must be considered as preparing the way for the admission of that all-embracing truth which is the common ground of metaphysics and religion.

Examine a simple objective phenomenon. Then you find that you can separate it into all its component qualities: its color, taste, smell, extension, and so forth; and that after all these qualities have been taken into account nothing of the object remains save the vague feeling of an unknown cause by which the whole phenomenon is produced. All the apparent qualities, without exception, are resolvable into modes of consciousness, but the whole object is not so resolvable. For the question still remains, How did we come to have those modes of consciousness? Thus the analysis of the commonest material object leads us straight to an unknowable origin of known manifestations. And each particular phenomenon brings us to the same result. But are we to assume a special Unknowable for each special object? A little consideration will show that the division and subdivision we make of the objects of sensible perception resembles their apparent qualities in being purely subjective, and indeed more than subjective, arbitrary. For I consider an object as one or many, according to the point of view from which I regard it. The glass which I hold in my hand is at this moment one; but the next moment it is shivered into a thousand atoms, and each of these atoms is of complex character, and resolvable into still simpler parts. The planet we inhabit is, for the astronomer, one object; for the geologist a number of distinct rocks; for the botanist it is composed of mineral and vegetable constituents, and of these, the latter, which alone engage his attention, are numerous and various; for the chemist it consists of an infinite multitude of elementary atoms variously combined. Hence unity and multiplicity are mere modes of subjective reflection; not ultimate modes of objective being. And the Unknowable cannot, strictly speaking, be regarded as either one or many, since each alike implies limitation and separation from something else. Rather is it all-comprehending; the Universal Foundation upon which unity and multiplicity alike are built.

Material things, then, are analyzable into modes of consciousness with an unknown cause to which these modes are due. But what is consciousness itself? Like matter, it has its subjective and its objective aspect. The subjective aspect consists of its various phenomenal conditions; the sensations which we ascribe to outward objects as their producing causes, and the emotions, passions, thoughts, and feelings which we conceive as of internal origin. The objective aspect consists of the unknown essence itself which experiences these various states; of the very self which is supposed to persist through all its changes of form; of the actual being which is the ultimate Reality of our mental lives. The existence of this ultimate Ego is known as an immediate fact of consciousness, and cannot be called in question without impugning the direct assurance which every one feels of his own being as apart from his particular and transient feelings. Nobody believes that he is the several sensations and emotions which he experiences in life; he believes that he has them. And if the existence of the Unknowable underlying material manifestations is perceived by a direct, indubitable inference, the existence of the Unknowable underlying mental manifestations is perceived without an inference at all by an intuition from which there is no appeal. For no one can even attempt to reason with me about this conviction without resting his argument upon facts, and inferences from facts, which are in themselves less certain than this primary certainty which he is seeking to overthrow.

Existence, then, is known to us immediately in our own case; mediately in every other—consequently, the only conception we can frame of existence is derived from ourselves. Hence when we say that anything exists, we can only mean one of two things: either that it exists as a mode of human consciousness, as in the case of material things; or that it exists per se, and is the very substance of consciousness itself. And the former of these modes of existence is altogether dependent upon a conscious subject. A material object is a congeries of material qualities, none of which can be conceived at all except in relation to some percipient subject. Take away the subject, and color, extension, solidity, sound, smell, and every other quality, vanish into nothing. The existence of these qualities, and hence the existence of matter itself in its phenomenal character, is relative and secondary. There remains therefore only the second of these two modes of existence as absolute and primary. The substance of consciousness, then, is the one reality which is known to exist; and in no other form is existence in its purity conceivable by us. For if we attempt to conceive a something as existent which is neither object nor subject, neither that which is felt nor that which feels, neither that which is thought nor that which thinks, we must inevitably fail. There is no tertium quid which is neither mind nor matter of which we can frame the most remote conception. We may, if we please, imagine the existence of such a tertium quid, but the hypothesis is altogether fanciful, and would have nothing in science, nothing in the construction of the human mind, to render it even plausible. Indeed, it would be making an illegitimate use of the word “existence” to apply it in such a sense. Existence to us means consciousness, and never can mean anything else. We cannot by any effort conceive a universe previous to the origin of life in which there was no consciousness; for the moment we attempt to conceive it, we import our own consciousness into it. We think of ourselves as seeing or feeling it. The effort, therefore, to frame an idea of any existing thing without including consciousness in the idea is self-defeating, and when we predicate Existence of the Unknown Cause, we predicate its kinship to that ultimate substance of the mind from which alone our conception of absolute existence is derived.

Here, then, we have a second and more intimate relationship between the objective and the subjective elements in the religious emotion. They are found to be of kindred nature; or, to speak with stricter caution, it is found that we cannot think of them but as thus akin to one another. We must ever bear in mind, however, that our thoughts upon such a subject as this can be no more than partial approximations to the truth; tentative explorations in a dark region of the mind rather than accurate measurements of the ground. Thus, in the present instance, we have spoken of the Unknowable as more or less akin to the mind of man; yet we cannot think of the Unknowable as resembling the fleeting states which are all that we know by direct observation of the constitution of the mind. It is not the passing and variable modes, but the fixed and unchangeable substratum on which these modes are conceived to be impressed, which the Unknowable must be held to resemble. And this substratum itself is an absolute mystery. We can in no way picture it to ourselves without its modes, which nevertheless we cannot regard as appertaining to its ultimate being. One further consideration will establish a yet closer relationship than that of likeness. The Unknown Reality, which is the source of all phenomena whatsoever, mental and physical, must of necessity include within itself that mode of existence which is manifested in consciousness; for otherwise, we must imagine yet another power as the originator of conscious life, and we should then have two unknown entities, still requiring a higher entity behind them both, to effect that entire harmony which actually subsists between them. The Unknowable is, therefore, the hidden source from which both the great streams of being, internal and external, take their rise. Since, then, our minds themselves originate in that Universal Source, since it comprehends every form of existence within itself, we stand to it in the relation of parts to a whole, in which and by which those parts subsist. There is thus not only likeness but identity of nature between ourselves and our unknown Origin. And it is literally true that in it “we live, and move, and have our being.”

From the summit to which we have at length attained, we may survey the ground we have already traversed, and comprehend, now that they lie below us, a few of the intricacies which we met with on our way. The apparent puzzle of automatism, for example, may be resolved into a more comprehensive law. It was shown, at the conclusion of the preceding chapter, that a train of physical events could in no way impinge upon, or pass over into, a train of mental events, nor a state of consciousness be converted into physical movements. But it was hinted that, while the distinction between the two great series of manifestations, those of mind and those of matter, was ultimate in the order of thought, it need not be ultimate in the order of things. Of this suggested possibility we have now found the confirmation; for we have seen that material phenomena, analyzed to their lowest terms, resolve themselves into forms of consciousness, and forms of consciousness, analyzed in their turn, prove to be the varied modes of an unknown subject; and this unknown subject has its roots in the ultimate Being in which both these great divisions of the phenomenal universe find their foundation and their origin. The distinction, therefore, between the mental and the material train belongs to these trains in their character of phenomena alone. They are distinguished in the human mind, not in the order of nature. Thus, if we recur to the illustration used in explaining automatism, we pointed out that in the circumstance of hearing a call and going to the window, two series might be thus distinguished: 1. The material series, consisting of atmospheric undulations, affections of the nerves and matter of the brain, movements of the body; 2. The mental series, consisting of the sensations of sitting still, and hearing of the thought of a person, of the sensations of motion, and seeing the person. Now, if we take the trouble to observe the terms of which the first series is composed, we shall see that they also express states of consciousness, though states of a different kind from those contained in the terms of the second series. Undulations, nervous affections, movements, and so forth, are only intelligible by us as modifications of our consciousness. To conceive in any degree the atmospheric perturbations which are the physical correlatives of sound, we must imagine them as somehow felt or perceived—for instance, as a faint breeze. To conceive the cerebral changes implied in hearing, we must imagine ourselves as dissecting and examining the interior of the brain. In other words, the external train of events to which consciousness runs over parallel can only be represented in thought by translating it into terms of consciousness; and the absolute harmony of both these trains, the fact that while states of consciousness do not originate the movements of our bodies, they yet bear so unvarying a relation to them as to be mistaken for their causes, finds its solution in the reflection that, when we look below the appearances to the reality pervading both, it is the same Universal Being which is manifested in each alike.

Hence, too, the sense of independent power to produce physical effects in accordance with mental conceptions, which forms the great obstacle to the general admission of the doctrine of human automatism. Reason as we may, we still feel that we are reservoirs of force which we give out in the shape of material movement whenever we please and as we please. And if the doctrine of the Persistence of Force appears, by showing that every physical consequent has a purely physical antecedent, to contradict this feeling, we naturally give the preference to the feeling over the doctrine. But since the Persistence of Force is itself no less firmly seated in consciousness than the sense of independent power—since all nature would be a chaos without the Persistence of Force—it is the part of true philosophy to give its due to each. And this may be done by admitting the particle of truth contained in the belief that the human will influences the external world. We are indeed reservoirs of force. But it is not our own peculiar force that is exerted through us; it is the Universal Force, which is evinced no less in the actions of men than in the movements of inanimate nature. And since those actions are in constant unison with their wishes, there is not, and cannot be, the sense of constraint which is usually opposed to voluntary performance. Thus, to take a simple illustration, the necessities of our physical constitution absolutely compel us to support ourselves by food; yet no man feels that in eating his meals he is acting under external compulsion.

It would be a strange except ion indeed to the universal prevalence of unvarying law, if human beings were permitted to exert independent influence upon the order of events. Not in so slovenly a manner has the work of nature been performed. We are no more free to disturb the harmony and beauty of the universe than are the stars in their courses or the planets in their orbits. Our courses and orbits are no less fixed than theirs, and it is but the imperfection of our knowledge, if they have not been, and cannot yet be discovered. But it would be a lamentable blot upon a universe, where all things are fixed by a Power “in whom there is no variableness nor shadow of turning,” were there permitted to exist a race of creatures who were a law unto themselves.

Again, the relation now established between the human mind and the ultimate Source both of mind and matter, serves to throw light upon that dark spot in the hypothesis of evolution—the origin of consciousness. For while in this hypothesis there is a continual progression, of which each step is the natural consequence of another, from the gaseous to the solid condition of our system, from inorganic to organic substances, from the humblest organization to the most complex, there is absolutely no traceable gradation from the absence to the presence of conscious life. No cunning contrivance of science can derive sensation from non-sentient materials, for the difference between the two is not a difference in degree of development, but in kind. There is a radical unlikeness between the two, and it is unphilosophic, as well as unscientific, to disguise the fact that a mere process of material evolution can never lead from the one to the other. “The moment of arising of consciousness,” says Mr. Shadworth Hodgson, “is the most important break in the world of phenomena or nature taken as a whole; the phenomena above and the phenomena below it can never be reduced completely into each other; there is a certain heterogeneity between them. But this is not the only instance of such a heterogeneity” (Hodgson’s “Theory of Practice,” vol. i. p. 340). I venture to say that it is the only instance, and that there is nothing else in nature which can properly be compared with it. The instances of similar heterogeneity which Mr. Hodgson gives appear to me less carefully considered than might have been expected from so careful a writer. That between Time and Space, which is his first case, is involved in that between mind and matter, and is only another expression of it (see supra, p. 447); while “curves and straight lines,” and “physical and vital forces,” are not truly heterogeneous at all, unless under “vital forces” we include mental effort, and so again illustrate the primary unlikeness by a case included under it. But the last example is remarkable. “Until Mr. Darwin propounded his law of natural selection, it was supposed also [that there was heterogeneity] between species of living organisms in physiology.” Now it is the great triumph of the evolutional system to have rid us of this unintelligible break, and to have shown that the whole of the material universe, inorganic and organic, is the result of the unchangeable operation of laws which are no less active now than they have ever been. In other words, evolution dispenses with the necessity of supposing the existence, at some point in the history of the planet, of a special law for the production of species brought into operation ad hoc.

But the general principles which apply to the origin of organic products must apply also to the origin of conscious life. This also must be figured as an evolution. This also must take place without the aid of a special law brought into operation ad hoc. Like the evolution of material products, it can only be conceived as taking place from a preëxisting fund, containing potentially the whole of the effects which are afterwards found in actual existence.

Let us test this by trying to conceive the process in other ways. Consciousness might be supposed to arise in two ways: by special creation, and by uncaused origin, from nothing. Both possibilities are in absolute contradiction to the fundamental principles of evolution. Creation by a superior power is a hypothesis standing on a level with that of the creation of man out of the dust of the earth. To realize it in thought at all we must suppose the very thing intended to be denied, namely, the material of mind already existing in the universe, as that of body existed—in the earth. Otherwise, we should be obliged to admit the unthinkable hypothesis of the origin of something from nothing. This latter difficulty presses with its full force upon the second supposition. Mind would thereby be represented as suddenly springing into being without any imaginable antecedent. For no material antecedent can produce it without an exception to the Persistence of Force, which requires a material consequent. And it cannot arise without any antecedent but by a similar exception.

Neither creation nor destruction can in fact be represented as occurring in nature. We cannot conceive a new being arising out of nothing, or passing into nothing. As the development of the physical universe takes place by the change, composition, decomposition, and re-composition of preëxisting constituents, so it must be with the development of mind. We cannot suppose the origin of sensation, its advance to more varied and complex kinds, through emotions, passions, and reasonings to the most subtle feelings and the profoundest thoughts, without believing that all of these have their source in the Ultimate Reality of nature, which comprehends not these only, but every further perfection of which we may yet be capable in ages to come.

Here, then, is the solution of the difficulty which was shown (p. 690) to beset the theory of abiogenesis; a theory which, if ultimately accepted by science, as I believe it will be, will for the first time bring perfect unity into our conceptions of the development of the world we live in. While science will thus show that there is no impassable break between inorganic and organic forms of matter, philosophy will confirm it by showing, that there is no real distinction between the universal life which is manifested in the (so-called) inanimate forces and constituents of our system and the fragmentary life which comes to light in animated creatures. There is heterogeneity nowhere. There are no breaks in nature. There are no unimaginable leaps in her unbroken course.

From the point of view now reached we can understand also—so far as understanding is possible in such a case—the apparent riddle of our knowledge of the existence of the Unknowable. We can explain the universal sentiment of religious minds that there is some direct relation between them and the object of their worship. The sense of an intuitional perception of that object, the sense of undefinable similarity thereto, the sense of inspiration and of guidance thereby, are included under and rendered intelligible by the actual identity in their ultimate natures of the subject and the object of religious feeling. And the incomprehensibility of the latter is shown to have an obvious reason. For the part cannot comprehend the whole of which it is a part. It can but feel that there is a whole, in some mysterious way related to itself. But what that whole is, the conditions of its existence render it impossible that it should even guess.

Imagine the whole of the atmosphere divided into two great currents: a hot current continually ascending, and a cold current continually descending. And let the hot current represent the stream of conscious life, the cold current the stream of material things. To complete the simile, conceive that there is a sharp boundary between the two currents, so that atoms of air can never cross to and fro; while yet the conscious atoms in the hot current are aware of the existence of the unconscious atoms in the cold one. Now if the atoms or particles in the conscious current should be gifted with senses in proportion to their size, they will see and feel an infinitely minute portion both of the ascending current in which they they themselves are placed, and of the descending current they are passing by. But of the whole of the atmosphere of which they are themselves fragmentary portions they will be able to form no conception whatever. Its existence they will be aware of, for it will be needed to explain their own. But of its nature they will have no idea, except that in some undefinable way it is like themselves. Nor will they be able to form any picture of the cause which is continually carrying them upwards, and forcing their homologues in the opposite current downwards. While, if we suppose these opposite movements to represent the elements of Time and Space, they will be conscious of themselves only in terms of movement upwards, and of the unconscious particles in terms of movement downwards. They will suppose these two movements to be of the very essence of hot and cold particles, and will be able to conceive them only under these terms. Suppose, lastly, that at a certain point in their progress the hot particles become cold and pass into the opposing current, losing their individual, particular life, then their fellow-particles in the hot current will lose sight of them at that point, and they will be merged in the general stream of being to emerge again in their turn into the stream of conscious being.

Imperfect as this simile is, and as all such similes must be, it serves in some faint measure to express the relation of the mind of man to its mysterious Source. And it serves also to illustrate the leading characteristics of Religion and Theology, or Faith and Belief, the function of the first having ever been to conceive the existence of that relation, and the function of the second to misconceive its character. Thus there runs through the whole course of religious history a pervading error and a general truth. In all its special manifestations these two have been mingled confusedly together, and the manifold forms of error have generally obscured from sight the single form of truth.

The relation held by Faith to Belief, by the true elements to the false, in special creeds, may be thus expressed: That the creeds have sought to individualize, and thus to limit that which is essentially general and unlimited. Thus worship, in its purest character a mere communing of the mind with its unknown Source, has been narrowed to the presentation of petitions to a personal deity. Particular places and peculiar objects have been selected as evincing, in some exceptional manner, the presence of the infinite Being which pervades all places and things alike. Certain men have been regarded as the exclusive organs of the ultimate Truth; certain books, as its authorized expressions; whereas the several races of men in their different modes of life, and in the diverse products of their art and their culture, are all in their variety, and even in their conflict, inspired workers in the hands of that Truth which is manifested completely in none, partially in all.

And as it has been with the special objects upon which Theology has fixed its gaze, so it has been with the general object which underlies them all. This, too, has been individualized, limited and defined. It has been forgotten that we are but forms of that which we are seeking to bring within the grasp of our reason, and cannot therefore see around it, above it, and below it. But this truth, which Theology is ever forgetting, Religion must ever proclaim. The proclamation of this truth is the title-deed of its acceptance by mankind. Without this, it would sink into the dishonored subject of incessant wranglings and profitless dispute. When it begins to define the Infinite, it ceases, in the purer sense of the word, to be Religion, and can only command the assent of reasonable beings in so far as its assertions comply with the rigorous methods of logical demonstration. But this condition is in fact impossible of fulfillment, for the nature of the object concerning which we reason, renders the exact terms of logical propositions misleading and inadequate. The Unknowable Reality does not admit of definition, comprehension, or description. How should we, mere fragments of that Reality, define, comprehend, or describe the Infinite Being wherein we have taken our rise, and whereto we must return?

Thus is Religion analyzed, explained and justified. Its varied forms have been shown to be unessential and temporary; its uniform substance to be essential and permanent. Belief has melted away under the comparative method; Faith has remained behind. From two sides, however, objections may be raised to the results of this analysis. Those who admit no ultimate residuum of truth in the religious sentiment at all, may hold that I have done it too much honor in conceding so much; while those who adhere to some more positive theology than is admitted here, will think that I have left scarcely anything worth the having in conceding so little.

To the first class of objectors I may perhaps be permitted to point out the extreme improbability of the presence in human nature of a universally-felt emotion without a corresponding object. Even if they themselves do not realize in their own minds the force of that emotion they will at least not deny its historical manifestations. They will scarcely question that it has been in all ages known to history as an inspiring force, and often an overmastering passion. They will believe the evidence of those who affirm that they are conscious of that emotion now, and cannot attribute it to anything but the kind of Cause which religion postulates. The actual presence of the emotion they will not deny, though the explanation attempted of its origin they will. But those who make the rather startling assertion that a deep-seated and wide-spread emotion is absolutely without any object resembling that which it imagines to be its source, are bound to give some tenable account of the genesis of that emotion. How did it come into being at all? How having come into being, did it continue and extend? How did it come to mistake a subjective illusion for an objective reality?

These are questions pressing for an answer from those who ask us to believe that one of our strongest feelings exists merely to deceive. But it will be found, I believe, that all explanations tending to show that this emotion is illusory in its nature assume the very unreality they seek to prove. Should it, for example, be contended that human beings, conscious of a force in their own bodies, extend the conception of this force to a superhuman being, which extension is illegitimate, it is assumed, not proved, in such an argument as this, that the force manifested in the universe at large is not in some way akin to that manifested in human beings. Again, should it be urged that man, being aware of design in his own works, fancies a like design in the works of nature, it is a mere assumption that this attribution of the ideas of his own mind to a mind greater than his is an unwarrantable process. The argument from design may be, and in my opinion is, open to other grave objections; but its mere presence cannot be used as explaining the manner in which the religious emotion has come to exist. Rather is it the religious emotion which has found expression in the argument from design. The same criticism applies to all accounts of this sentiment which aim at finding an origin for it sufficient to explain its presence without admitting its truth. They all of them assume the very point at issue.

But the real difficulty that is felt about religion lies deeper than in the mere belief that a given emotion may be deceptive. It lies in the doubt whether a mere emotion can be taken in evidence of the presence in nature of any object at all. Emotions are by their very nature vague, and this is of all perhaps the vaguest. Nor are emotions vague only; they are inexpressible in precise language, and even when we express them as clearly as we can, they remain unintelligible to those who have not felt them. Now this general and unspecific character of emotions renders it hard for those who are wanting in any given emotion to understand its intensity in others, and even fully to believe in their statements about it. Were religion a case of sensible perception they would have no such doubt. Color-blind persons do not question the faculty of distinguishing colors in others. But while the sharp definitions of these senses compel us to believe in the existence of their objects, the comparatively hazy outlines drawn by the emotions leave us at least a physical possibility of disputing the existence of theirs.

Yet the cases are in their natures identical. We see a table, and because we see it we infer the existence of a real thing external to ourselves. The presence of the sensations is conceived to be an adequate warrant for asserting the presence of their cause. Precisely in the same way, we feel the Unknowable Being, and because we feel it we infer the existence of a real object both external to ourselves and within ourselves. The presence of the emotion is conceived to be an adequate warrant for asserting the presence of its cause. Undoubtedly, the supposed object of the sensations and the supposed object of the emotion might be both of them illusory. This is conceivable in logic, though not in fact. But there can be no reason for maintaining the unreality of the emotional, and the reality of the sensible object. Existence is believed in both instances on the strength of an immediate, intuitional inference. The mental processes are exactly parallel. And if it be contended that sensible perception carries with it a stronger warrant for our belief in the existence of its objects than internal feeling, the reasons for this contention must be exhibited before we can be asked to accept it; otherwise, it will again turn out to be a pure assumption, constituting, not a reason for the rejection of religion by those who now accept it, but a mere explanation of the conduct of those who do not.

In fact, however, the denial of the truth of religion is no less emotional than its affirmation. It is not denied because those who disbelieve in it have anything to produce against it, but because the inner sense which results in religion is either absent in them, or too faint to produce its usual consequences. For this of course they are not to blame, and nothing can be more irrational than to charge them with moral delinquency or culpable blindness. If the Unknown Cause is not perceptible to them, that surely is not a deficiency to be laid to their charge. But when they quit the emotional stronghold wherein they are safe to speak of those to whom that Unknown Cause is perceptible as the victims of delusion, these latter may confidently meet them on the field which they themselves have chosen.

First, then, it is at least a rather startling supposition that their fellow creatures have always been, and are still, the victims of a universal delusion, from which they alone enjoy the privilege of exemption. Presumption, at all events, is against a man who asserts that everybody but himself sees wrongly. He may be the only person whose eyes have not deceived him, but we should require him to give the strongest proof of so extraordinary an assertion. And in all cases which are in the least degree similar, this condition is complied with without the smallest hesitation. There are, so far as I am aware, no instances of proved universal delusions, save those arising from the misleading suggestions of the senses. That the earth is a flat surface, that the sun moves round it, that the sun and moon are larger than the stars, that the blue sky begins at a fixed place, are inferences which the uninstructed observer cannot fail to draw from the most obvious appearances. But those who have combated these errors have not done so by merely telling the world at large that it was mistaken; they have pointed out the phenomena from which the erroneous inferences were drawn, and have shown at the same time that other phenomena, no less evident to the senses than these, were inconsistent with the explanation given. They have then substituted an explanation which accounted for all the phenomena alike, both the more obvious phenomena and the less so. Precisely similar is the method of procedure in history and philosophy, though the methods of proof in these sciences are not equally rigorous. Great historical delusions—such as the Popish plot—are put to rest by showing the misinterpreted facts out of which they have grown, exposing the misinterpretation, and substituting true interpretation. Imperfect psychological analysis, say of an emotion, is superseded by showing from what facts this analysis has been obtained, and what other facts it fails to account for.

Observe, then, that in all these cases the appeal is made from the first impressions of the mistaken person to his own impressions on further examination; not to those of another. Considerations are laid before him which it is supposed will cause him to change his mind, and in all that class of cases where strict demonstration is possible actually do so. To a man who believes the earth to be a flat extended surface we point out the fact that the top of a ship’s mast is the first part of it to appear, and that this and other kindred phenomena imply sphericity. Our appeal is from the senses to the senses better informed; not from another man’s senses to our own. And we justly assume that were all the world in possession of the facts we have before us, all the world would be of our opinion.

What, then, is the conclusion from these analogies? It surely is, that those who would deny the reality of the object of religious emotion must show from what appearances, misunderstood, the belief in that object has arisen, and must point out other appearances leading to other emotions which are in conflict with it. As the astronomer appeals from sensible perception to sensible perception, so they must appeal from emotion to emotion. But it must not be their own emotions to which they go as forming a standard for ours. They can demand no hearing at all until they attempt to influence the emotions of those whom they address.

Generality of belief need not, for the purposes of this argument, be taken as even a presumption of truth. We can grant our adversaries this advantage which, in the parallel cases of the illusions of the senses, was neither asked nor given. But we must ask them in return to concede to us that, if the generality of a belief entitles it to no weight in philosophic estimation, the singularity of a belief entitles it to none either. All mankind may be deluded: well and good: a fortiori a few individuals among mankind may be deluded too. Grant that the human faculties at large are subject to error and deception, it follows from this that the faculties of individuals lie under the same disability. No word can be said as to the general liability to false beliefs, which does not carry with it the liability to false beliefs of the very persons who are seeking to convince us.

By whom, in fact, are we asked to admit, in the interests of their peculiar theory, the prevalence of a universal deception, and a deception embracing in its grasp not only the ignorant multitude, but men of science, thinkers and philosophers of the very highest altitude of culture? By whom is it that the great mass of humankind is charged with baseless thoughts, illusory emotions, and untenable ideas? By those who, in thus denying the capacity of the whole human race to perceive the truth, nevertheless maintain their own capacity to see over the heads of their fellow men so far as to assert that they are all the victims of an error. By those who, while bidding us distrust the strongest feelings, nevertheless require us to trust them so far as to banish, at their bidding, those feelings from our hearts. Not from our reason to our more instructed reason do they appeal, only from our reason to their own. But I deny the competence of the tribunal; and I maintain that until not merely disbelief, but disproof, of the position of Religion can be offered, Religion must remain in possession of the field.

Yet there is one mistake which, as it may tend to obscure the issue, it will be desirable to clear away. It is often contended, oftener perhaps tacitly assumed, that the burden of proof must rest on those who in any case maintain the affirmative side of a belief, while the negative on its side requires no proof, but can simply claim reception until the affirmative is established. Now this principle is true, where the negative is simply a suspension of judgment; the mere non-acceptance of a fact asserted, without a counter-assertion of its opposite. To understand the true application of the rule we must distinguish between what I will term substantial affirmations or negations, and affirmations or negations in form. Thus, to assert that A. B. is six feet tall, is a substantial affirmation. Out of many possible alternatives it selects one, and postulates that one as true, while all the rest it discards as false. Since, however, there are numerous possibilities besides this one with regard to A. B.’s height—since he may be either taller or shorter by various degrees—the negative, in the absence of all knowledge on the subject, is inherently more probable, for it covers a larger ground. It is a substantial negation. That is, it affirms nothing at all, but simply questions the fact affirmed, leaving the field open to countless other substantial affirmations. So, in law, it is the prosecution which is required to prove its case; for the prosecution affirms that this man was at a given place at a given time and did the criminal action. The opposite hypothesis of this covers innumerable alternatives: not this man but another, may have been at that place, or he may have been there and not done the action charged, or some other man may have done it, or the crime may have not been committed at all, and so forth. These are cases of substantial affirmations; asserting one alone out of many conceivable possibilities, and therefore needing proof. And their opposites are substantial negations; questioning only the one fact affirmed, and even with reference to that merely maintaining that in the absence of proof there is an inherent probability in favor of the negative side.

Widely different is the case before us. Here the affirmation and negation are affirmative and negative in form alone. The assertions, “An Unknowable Being exists,” and “An Unknowable Being does not exist,” are not opposed to one another as the affirmative and the negative sides were opposed in the previous cases. The latter proposition does not cover a number of possible alternatives whereof the former selects and affirms a single one. Both propositions are true and substantial affirmations. Both assert a supposed actual fact. And the latter does not, as the previous negative propositions did, leave the judgment in simple suspense. It requires assent to a given doctrine. That the one cast is in a negative form is the mere accident of expression, and without in any way affecting their substance, their positions in this respect may be reversed. Thus, we may say for the first, “The universe cannot exist without an Unknowable Being;” and for the second, “The universe can exist without an Unknowable Being.” There are not here a multitude of alternatives, but two only, and of these each side affirms one. Each proposition is equally the assertion of a positive belief. Thus, the reason which, in general, causes the greater antecedent probability of a denial as against a positive assertion, in no way applies to the denial of the fundamental postulate of Religion. The statement that there is nobody in a certain room is not in itself more probable than the statement that there is somebody. And the proposition: “all men are not mortal,” though negative in form, is truly as affirmative as the counter-proposition: “all men are mortal.”

But this argument, inasmuch as it places the denial of all truth in the religious emotion on a level with its affirmation, fails to do justice to the real strength of the case. There are not here two contending beliefs, of which the one is as probable as the other. In conceding so much to the skeptical party we have given them a far greater advantage than they are entitled to demand. Generality of belief is, in the absence of evidence or argument to the contrary, a presumption of truth; for, unless its origin from some kind of fallacy can be shown, its generality is in itself a proof that it persists in virtue of the general laws of mind which forbid the separation of its subject from its predicate. And it is not only that we have here a general belief, or, more correctly speaking, a general emotion, but we have categories in the human mind which are not filled up or capable of being filled up by the objective element in the religious idea. There is, for example, the category of Cause; Nature presents us not with Cause, but with causes; and these causes are mere antecedents, physical causation in general being nothing whatever but invariable antecedents and invariable sequence. But this analysis of the facts of nature by no means satisfies the conception of causation which is rooted in the human mind. That conception imperiously demands a cause which is not a mere antecedent, but a Power. Without that, the idea would remain as a blank form, having no reality to fill it. And how do we come to be in the firm possession of this idea if there be nothing in nature corresponding to it? From what phenomena could it be derived? Akin to our notion of Cause is our notion of Force. When the scientific man speaks of a Force, he merely means an unknown something which effects certain movements. And Science cannot possibly dispense with the metaphysical idea of Force. Yet Force is not only unknowable; but it is the Unknowable manifested in certain modes. Again, therefore, I ask, whence do we derive ineradicable feeling of the manifestation of Force, if that feeling be a mere illusion? Similar remarks apply to other categories which, like these, have no objects in actual existence in the conformity of the religious sentiment to truth be denied. Such is the category of Reality. Imagination cannot picture the world save as containing, though in its essence unknown to us, some real and permanent being. We know it only as a compound of phenomena, all of them fleeting, variable, and unsubstantial. There is nothing in the phenomena which can satisfy our mental demand for absolute being. As being transient, and as being relative, the phenomena in fact are nothing. But our intellectual, our emotional, and our moral natures demand the τό ὃντως ὄν—that which really is, as the necessary completion of
τὰ φαινόμεα—that which only appears. And it is precisely the unshakeable belief in an unchangeable, though unknowable Reality; an everlasting Truth amid shifting forms, a Substance among shadows, which forms the universal foundation of religious faith.

A ship that has been driven from her intended course is drifting, with a crew who have no clear knowledge of her whereabouts, upon an unexplored ocean. Suddenly her captain exclaims that he sees land in the distance. The mate, however, summoned to verify the captain’s observation, fancies that the black speck on the horizon is not land, but a large vessel. The sailors and passengers take part, some with the one, some with the other; while many of them form opinions of their own not agreeing with that of either, one maintaining it to be a whale, another a dark cloud, a third something else, and so forth. Minor differences abound. Those who take it to be land are at issue as to its being a plain or a mountain, those who think it a vessel cannot agree as to the description of the craft. One solitary passenger sees nothing at all. Instead of drawing what would appear to be the most obvious conclusion, that he is either more shortsighted or less apt to discover distant objects than the rest, he infers that his vision alone is right, and that of all the others, captain, passengers, and crew, defective and misleading. Oblivious of the fact that the mere failure to perceive an object is no proof of its non-existence, he persists in asserting not only that the speck seen in the distance, being so variously described, probably does not resemble any of the ideas formed of it on board the ship, but that there is no speck at all. Even the fact that the crews of many other ships, passing in this direction, perceive the same dim outline on the horizon, does not shake his conviction that it is a mere “idol of the tribe.” Such is the procedure of those who deny the reality of the object of the religious idea. Instead of drawing from the diversity of creeds the legitimate inference that the Being of whom they severally speak is of unknown nature, they conclude, from the mere absence of the idea of that Being in their individual consciousness, that its very existence is a dream.

Lastly, a few words, and a few only, must be said in reply to those who will think that the cenception of the Unknowable resulting from our analysis is too vague and shadowy to form the fitting foundation for religious feeling. They will probably object that the Being whom that feeling requires is not an inconceivable Cause or Substance of the Universe, but a Personal God; not an undefined something which we can barely imagine, but a definite Some one whom we can adore and love. There is nothing, they will say, in such a conception as this either to satisfy the affections or to impress the moral sentiments. And both purposes were fulfilled by the Christian ideal of a loving Father and a righteous Judge.

To these objections I would reply, first of all, that I have simply attempted to analyze religion as I found it, neither omitting what was of the essence of the religious idea, nor inserting what was not. If this analysis is in any respect defective, that is a matter for criticism and discussion. But if it has been correctly performed—of which I frankly admit there is abundant room for doubt—then I am not responsible for not finding in the universal elements of religion that which is not contained within them. The expression found for the ultimate truths must embrace within it, if possible, the crude notions of deity formed by the savage, and the highly abstract ideal formed by the most eminent thinkers of modern times. Even then, if I myself held the doctrines of the personality and the fatherhood of God, I could not have required from others any admission of these views of mine as universal ingredients in religious faith. The utmost I could have done would have been to tack them on as supplementary developments of the idea of the ultimate Being. And thus it is still open to any one who wishes it to do. Difficult as it is to reconcile the ideas of Love and Justice with unlimited Power and absolute Existence, yet if there are some who find it possible to accomplish the reconciliation, it may be well for them so to do.104 Undoubtedly, however, all such efforts do appear to me mere hankerings after an incarnation of that idea which, by its very nature, does not admit of representation by incarnate forms, even though those forms be moral perfections. And I would reply, secondly, to the above objection, that, while we lose something by giving up the definite personality of God, we gain something also. If we part with the image of a loving Father, we part also with that of a stern monarch and an implacable judge. If we can no longer indulge in the contemplation of perfect virtue, embodied in an actual Person, we are free from the problem that has perplexed theologians of every age: how to reconcile the undoubted evil in the world with the omnipotence of that Person. I know that there are some who think it possible to retain the gentler features in the popular conception of deity, while dropping all that is harsh and repulsive. To them the idea of God is as free from terror as the idea of the Unknowable, and the first of these gains is therefore no gain to them. But the problem of the existence of evil presses perhaps with greater severity upon them than upon any other class of theologians. To suppose that God could not prevent the presence of wickedness, or could not prevent it without some greater calamity, is to deny his omnipotence; to suppose that he could, and did not, is to question his benevolence. But even admitting the improvement made by purging from the character of God all its severity, its vindictiveness, and its tendency to excessive punishment, the fact remains that the conception thus attained is not that of the popular creed at all, but that of a few enlightened thinkers. And it is with the former, not with the latter, that the doctrine of the Unknowable must be compared, in order fairly to estimate its advantages or disadvantages in relation to the current belief in a personal God.

Moreover, it must be borne in mind that the dim figure we have shadowed out of an inconceivable and all-embracing ultimate Existence, if widely different from the more ordinary theological embodiments of the religious idea, is altogether in harmony with many of its expressions by the most devoutly religious minds. If religion has always had a tendency to run to seed in dogma, it has also always had a tendency to revert to its fundamental mysticism. The very best and highest minds have continually evinced this tendency to mysticism, and it has mixed itself up with the logical definitions of others who did not rise to so exalted a level. So that the examination of the writings of religious men will continually disclose that profound impression of the utterly incomprehensible and mysterious nature of the Supreme Being which is now, in its complete development in the form of Agnosticism, stigmatized as incompatible with genuine religious faith.

That tendency to be deeply sensible of the impossibility of conceiving the Absolute which Religion has thus evinced, it is the result of Science to strengthen and to increase. Science shows the imperfection of all the concrete expressions which have been found for the Unknowable. It proves that we cannot think of the Unknowable as entering in any peculiar sense into special objects in nature, dwelling in special places, or speaking through special channels. Miraculous phenomena, which were supposed to constitute the peculiar sphere of its manifestations, are thrown by Science completely out of the account. But all phenomena whatsoever are shown to manifest the Unknowable. Thus, while scientific inquiry tends to diminish the intensity of religious ideas, it tends to widen their extension. They do not any longer cling to partial symbols. They do not attach themselves with the same fervor to individual embodiments. But, in becoming more abstract, they become also more pervading. Religion is found everywhere and in everything. All nature is the utterance of the idea. And, as it gains in extension while losing in intensity in reference to the external world, it goes through a similar process in relation to human life. No longer a force seizing on given moments of our existence, at one moment inspiring devotional observances, at the next forgotten in the pleasures or the business of the day; at one time filling men with the zeal of martyrs or crusaders, at another leaving them to the unrestrained indulgence of gross injustice or revolting cruelty, it becomes a calm, all-pervading sentiment, shown (if it be shown at all) in the general beauty and spirituality of the character, not in the stated exercises of a rigorous piety, or in the passionate outbursts of an enthusiastic fervor.

But these considerations would lead me on to a subject which I had once hoped to treat within the boundaries of the present volume, but which I am now compelled, owing to the enlargement of the scheme, to postpone to a future time. That subject is the relation of religion to ethics. It may have struck some readers as an omission that I have said nothing of religion as a force inspiring moral conduct, which is the principal aspect under which it is regarded by some competent authorities. But the omission has been altogether intentional. It would take me a long time to explain what in my judgment has been the actual influence of religion upon morals in the past, and what is likely to be its influence in the future. Meanwhile I merely note the fact that this analysis professes to be complete in its own kind; that I have endeavored to probe the religious sentiment to the bottom, and to discover all that it contains. Thus, if religion be not only an emotion, but a moral force, it must acquire this character in virtue of the relation of its emotional elements to human character, not in virtue of the presence of ethical elements actually belonging to the religious emotion, and comprehended under it by the same indefeasible title as the sense of the Unknowable itself.

At present, however, I can attempt no answer to the objection which will no doubt be urged, that so abstract and cold a faith as that expounded here can afford no satisfaction to the moral sentiments. Indeed I must to a certain extent admit the reality of the loss which the adoption of this faith entails. There is consolation no doubt in the thought of a Heavenly Father who loves us; there is strength in the idea that he sees and helps us in our continual combat against evil without and evil within; there is happiness in the hope that he will assign us in another life an infinite reward for all the endurances of this. Above all, there is comfort in the reflection that when we are parted by death we are not parted for ever; that our love for those whom we have cherished on earth is no temporary bond, to be broken ere long in bitterness and despair, but a possession never to be lost again, a union of souls interrupted for a little while by the separation of the body, only to be again renewed in far greater perfection and carried on into far higher joys than can be even imagined here. All this is beautiful and full of fascination: why should we deny it? Candor compels us to admit that in giving it up with the other illusions of our younger days we are resigning a balm for the wounded spirit for which it would be hard to find an equivalent in all the repertories in Science, and in all the treasures of philosophy. Yet it must be borne in mind that every step from a lower to a higher creed involves a precisely similar loss. How much more beautiful was nature (as Schiller has shown us in his poem on the gods of Greece) when every fountain, tree and river had its presiding genius, when the Sun was driven by a divine charioteer, when the deities of Olympus intervened in the affairs of men to prevent injustice and to maintain the right. How cold and lifeless, nay, how profoundly irreligious, would our modern conception of the earth and the solar system have appeared to the worshiper of Poseidon and Apollon. And if the loss of the Christian as compared to the Pagan is thus great, how great also is the loss of the enlightened Protestant as compared to the ignorant Catholic peasant. What comfort must be found in the immediate intervention of the Virgin in answer to prayer, what security afforded by the protection of the local saint. Or again, how great the pleasure of contributing by our piety to the release of a friend from purgatorial torment, and of knowing that our friends will do us the same kindly service.

Even without contrasting such broad and conspicuous divisions of Christianity as these, we shall find enough of the same kind of difference within the limits of Protestantism itself. What mere intellectual conviction of a future state can vie with the consoling certainty offered by the Spiritualistic belief, that those whom we have lost on earth still hover around us in our daily course; sometimes even appear to us in bodily form, and converse with us in human speech. No mere hope of meeting them again can for a moment equal the delight of seeing their well-known shapes and hearing their familiar tones. Hence the Spiritualist has undoubtedly a source of comfort in his faith which more rational creeds can offer nothing to supply. But who that does not share it can envy them so baseless a conviction, so illusory a joy?

It is, in fact, the very condition of progress that, as we advance in knowledge and in culture, we give up something on the road. But it is also a condition that we do not feel the need of that which we have lost. Not only as we become men do we put away childish things, but we can no longer realize in thought the enjoyment which those childish things brought with them. Other interests, new occupations, deeper affections take the place of the interests, the occupations, and the affections of our early years. So too should it be in religion. Men have dwelt upon the love of God because they could not satisfy the craving of nature for the love of their fellow men. They have looked forward to eternal happiness in a future life because they could not find temporary happiness in this. It is these reflections which point out the way in which the void left by the removal of the religious affections should hereafter be supplied. The effort of those who cannot turn for consolation to a friend in heaven should be to strengthen the bonds of friendship on earth, to widen the range of human sympathy and to increase its depth. We should seek that love in one another which we have hitherto been required to seek in God. Above all, we should sweep away those barriers of convention and fancied propriety which continually hinder the free expression of affection, and force us to turn from the restrictions of the world to One towards whom there need be no irksome conformity to artificial regulation, and in speaking to whom we are under no shadow of reserve.

Were we thus permitted to find in our fellow creatures that sympathy which so many mourners, so many sufferers, so many lonely hearts, have been compelled to find only in the idea of their heavenly Father, I hesitate not to say that the consolations of the new religion would far surpass in their strength and their perfection all those that were offered by the old. Towards such increasing and such deepening of the sympathies of humanity I believe that we are continually tending even now. Meantime, while we are still far from the promised land, the adherents of the universal religion are not without a happiness of their own. Their faith is at least a faith of perfect peace. Untroubled by the storms of controversy, in which so many others are tossed about, they can welcome all men as brothers in faith, for all of them, even the most hostile, contribute to supply the stones of the broad foundation upon which their philosophy is built. Those therefore who contend against them, be it even with vehemence and passion, yield, them involuntary help in bringing the materials upon which their judgment is formed. No man can truly oppose their religion, for he who seems to be hostile to it is himself but one of the notes struck by the Unknowable Cause, which so plays upon the vast instrument of humanity as to bring harmony out of jangling sounds, and to produce the universal chords of truth from the individual discords of error. Scientific discoveries and philosophic inquiries, so fatal to other creeds, touch not the universal religion. They who accept it can but desire the increase of knowledge, for even though new facts and deeper reasoning should overthrow something of what they have hitherto believed and taught, they will rejoice that their mistakes should be corrected, and their imperfections brought to light. They desire but the Truth, and the Truth has made them free. And as in their thoughts they can wish nothing so much as to know and to believe that which is true, so in their lives they will express the serenity which that desire will inevitably bring. They are not pained or troubled because other men see not as they see. They have no vain hope of a unity of thought which the very conditions of our being do not permit. They aim not at conquering the minds of men; far rather would they stimulate and help them to discover a higher Truth than they themselves have been permitted to know. And as their action will thus be inspired with hope of contributing their mite to the treasury of human knowledge, well-being, and moral good, so their death will be the expression of that, peaceful faith which has sustained their lives. Even though torn away when, in their own judgment, they have still much to do, they will not repine at the necessity of leaving it undone, even though they are well aware that their names, which might have been illustrious in the annals of our race, will now be buried in oblivion. For the disappearance of a single life is but a ripple on the ocean of humanity, and humanity feels it not. Hence they will meet their end “sustained and soothed by an unfaltering trust,”

“Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.”

But the opposite fate, sometimes still more terrible, that of continuing to live when the joys of life are gone, and its purest happiness is turned into the bitterest pain, will be accepted too. Thus they will be willing, it need be, to remain in a world where their labor is not yet ended, even though that labor be wrought through suffering, despondency, and sorrow; willing also, if need be, to meet the universal lot—even though it strike them in the midst of prosperity, happiness, and hope; bowing in either case to the verdict of fate with unmurmuring resignation and fearless calm.

The End

Footnotes

1 This prayer, which is too long to quote, may be found in Aglio, A. M., v. 372, and in Sahagun, C. N. E., book vi. chap. 8. According to Sahagun, it contains “muy delicada materia.”

2 Lewis, The Bible, &c., p. 496. For a full account of the ceremonies on Holy Saturday at Rome, see A. M. Baggs, D. D., The Ceremonies of Holy Week, p. 96.

3 A. M., vol. v. p. 90 (Spanish), and vol. vi. p. 45 (English).

4 Brinton has given a very imperfect version of two of them in his M. N. W., pp. 127, 128.

5 Griffith, The Ramayan, vol. i. p. 268.

6 Henry IV., pt. 1, act iii. scene 1.

7 Irenæus adv. Hæreses, II. xxxi. 2.—A. N. L., vol. v. p. 241.

8 Ibid., II., xxxii. 4.—A. N. L., vol. v. p. 246.

9 For the evidence of these miracles, see a paper by the author on “The Latter-day Saints,” in the Fortnightly Review for December, 1869.

10 Bryant, a Forest Hymn.

11 After some hesitation, I have determined to adhere to the Latinized form of the name of the prophet of China, as more familiar to English ears. As a general rule, I consider the movement in literature which is restoring proper names to their original spellings,—giving us Herakles for Hercules, and Oidipous for Œdipus,—as deserving of all support. But where the common form, in addition to being the more familiar, may be considered as English proper and not Latin used in English (as in such names as Homer, Aristotle, Jesus Christ), I conceive it to be more convenient to retain the accustomed designation, even though it may be regretted that it has come into general use. Hence, I think, we may retain Confucius, who would scarcely be recognized by English readers under his full name, Khung-fu-tsze, or under his more usual abridged name, Khung-tsze, or under the name elsewhere given him, Chung-ne. No similar justification appears to me to exist for the Greek form Zoroaster, as compared with Zarathustra, which last form is as easy to pronounce as the other, and not very dissimilar from it in sound.
My authorities for the life of Confucius have been Dr. Legge’s Chinese Classics, vol. i. Proleg. p. 54-113, and the Lun Yu and Chung Yung, translated in the same volume.

12 Ibid., vii. 22. The occasion of this utterance is said to have been an attack by the emissaries of an officer named Hwan T’uy, with a view of killing the sage.

13 For authorities on Laò-tsé, see vol. ii. chap. vi. section ii.

14 Julien assigns B. C. 604 as the date, but confesses that he has no authority but historical tradition. L. V. V. xix.

15 The following works may be advantageously consulted with reference to the Buddha Sakyamuni:—Notices on the Life of Shakya, by Csoma Korosi; Asiatic Researches, vol. xx. part ii. p. 285: the Rgya Tch’er Rol Pa, par Ph. Ed. Foucaux; Hardy’s Manual of Buddhism; Bigandet’s Life or Legend of Gautama, the Buddha of the Burmese; Alabaster’s Wheel of the Law; and Koeppen’s Religion des Buddha, vol. i. p. 71, ff. Some information will also be found in my article on “Recent Publications on Buddhism”, in the Theological Review for July, 1872.

16 For an account of all that is to be made out concerning this prophet, see Haug’s Parsees, p. 258-264.

17 Yasna liii. 1-3. The translations contained in this section are taken either from Dr. Haug’s F. G., or his Parsees. Here and there I have ventured to amend his English without altering the sense.

18 The source from which this notice is mainly drawn is Sprenger, “Das Leben und die Lehre des Mohammed,” 3 vols. In addition to this I have consulted Muir’s “Life of Mahomet;” Caussin de Perceval, “Les Arabes;” Gustav Weil, “Mohammed der Prophet,” and other works. The facts here stated will generally be found in Sprenger. The translations of Koranic passages are taken from Rodwell’s Koran.

19 The author of “The Messiah” (London, 1872) contends that he was not only a master builder, but the principal builder of Nazareth. His remarks on this subject (pp. 91 ff.) deserve consideration, though they are not conclusive.

20 Lu. xi. 19. I use this verse, not as evidence that Jesus actually spoke the words ascribed to him, but that the practice of casting out devils was common to Jesus and the disciples of the Pharisees.

21 Kings omitted in the Gospel are inserted in brackets and italicized.

22 Mt. i. 1-17; Lu. iii. 23-38.

23 C. C. vol. iv. p. 465.—She King, Part iii. Bk. 2. i. 1. 2.

24 Ibid., vol. ii. p. 73. It is very remarkable that the same notion is expressed in Christian paintings of the middle ages. On a painted glass of the sixteenth century, found in the church of Jouy, a little village in France, the virgin is represented standing, her hands clasped in prayer, and the naked body of the child in the same attitude appears upon her stomach, apparently supposed to be seen through the garments and body of the mother. M. Didron saw at Lyons a Salutation painted on shutters, in which the two infants, likewise depicted on their mothers’ stomachs, were also saluting each other. This precisely corresponds to Buddhist accounts of the Bodhisattva’s ante-natal proceedings.—Ic. Chr. p. 263.

25 C. C., vol. iv. p.468.—She King, Pt. iii. Bk. 2. i. 3.

26 Zech. xi. 12, 13. According to Ewald, this portion of Zechariah is by an anonymous prophet contemporaneous with Isaiah.

27 Mk. xiv. 17-21; Mt. xxvi. 20-25; Lu. xxii. 21, 22; Jo. xiii. 21-28.

28 Mk. xiv. 43-65; Mt. xxvi. 47-68; Lu. xxii. 47-53, and 63-71; Jo. xviii. 3-14 and 19-24.

29 Mk. xiv. 26-30, and 66-72; Mt. xxvi. 30-35, and 69-75; Lu. xxii. 33, 34, and 55-62; Jo. xiii. 37, 38, and xviii. 15-18, and 25-27.

30 Mt. xxiii. 1-33; Mk. vii. 6. I omit the concluding verses in Mt. xxiii., as the allusion in verse 35 renders it impossible that Christ could have uttered them. Indeed, the whole chapter is suspicious; but as portions of it are confirmed by Mark, I conclude that the sentiments at least, if not the precise words, are genuine.

31 Milton, Treatise on Christian Doctrine, Sumner’s translation, p. 100 ff.

32 This verse is so inconsistent with other declarations of Christ, especially with Mt. x. 23, that I am disposed to regard it as an interpolation.

33 The use of this word casts suspicion on the authenticity of the verse where it occurs.

34 See on this subject the truly admirable remarks of Karl Otfried Muller, in his Prolegomena zu einer Wissenschaftlichen Mythologie (Göttingen, 1825), pp. 282-284.

35 C. C., vol. iv. p. 140.—She King, pt. i. b. 7, ode 13.

36 C. C., vol. iv. p. 153.—She King, pt. i. b. 8, ode 4.

37 In treating of the Sacred Books of the Confucian School in China, I rely entirely upon the admirable and (so far as it has yet gone) complete work of the Rev. Dr. James Legge. Although I have consulted other publications, I have not drawn my information from them, because it was at once evident that Dr. Legge’s “Chinese Classics” was immeasurably superior to all that had preceded it on the same subject. Unfortunately, the very thoroughness of the work renders it voluminous; and it thus happens that the author has not fulfilled more than a portion of the promise held out at its commencement. It must be the earnest hope of all who are interested in these studies that the learned missionary will live to complete his design; meantime, we are obliged to confine ourselves to a notice of that portion of the Classics which he has translated. For Pauthier’s French translation of the Chinese Classics (in the Panthéon Littéraire: “Les Livres Sacrés de l’Orient”) embraces only that portion of the King which is to be found in the hitherto-published volumes of Dr. Legge.

38 Of which an English translation by David Collie, entitled “The Chinese Classical Work, commonly called the Four Books,” was published at Malacca in 1828.

39 Sir J. Davis (The Chinese, ii. 48) reckons only nine King, those enumerated above. I presume that the remaining four enjoy an inferior degree of veneration.

40 Yaou and Shun are the ideal Chinese emperors, and belong to a mythical age. Shun was not the legitimate successor of Yaou, who had raised him from poverty, and given him his two daughters in marriage. On Yaou’s death, his son at first succeeded him, and Shun withdrew; but the latter was soon called to the throne by the general desire.

41 Shoo King, b. 3, pt. iii. ch. i. pp. 6, 7.

42 She King, i. 4. 1.

43 She King, i. 7. 2.

44 Not literally a child. “Little child” is the usual style of Chinese rulers when designing to express feelings of modesty and religious reverence.

45 She King, iv. 1. [iii.] 1.

46 By far the best European work on the Taò-tĕ-Kīng is that of Victor von Strauss, and I have followed his translation, though not without consulting those of others. I am fully sensible of the inconvenience of a double translation, and I should have preferred to follow Chalmers’ English rendering of Laò-tsé, had not the obscurity of his version been so great as to render it almost unintelligible to the general reader. Reinhold von Plänckner’s translation errs on the other side by excess of clearness. It is a palpable attempt to force upon the ancient Chinaman a connected system professedly unraveled from the text by the ingenuity of the modern German. It should be used only with extreme caution, or not at all.

47 It deserves to be noted, as a peculiarity of the Chinese prophets—Confucius and Laò-tsé—that they alone among their peers have left authentic written compositions. The Koran can scarcely be said to have been written by Mahomet, in the sense in which we talk of writing a book. And neither Zarathustra, Jesus, nor the Buddha, were authors. The calmer Chinese temperament permitted, in the case of these two great teachers, a mode of conveying instructions which is repugnant, as a rule, to the fervid prophetic nature. Observe that of the Jewish (so-called) prophets, those who committed their prophecies to writing, generally belonged to a comparatively late age, in which oral prophecy was no longer in vogue, and the state of feeling that had inspired it no longer prevalent.

48 The former view is that of Stan. Julien; the latter that of von Plänckner.

49 Ch. 51. I have borrowed some expressions from Chalmers. O. P.

[50] Ch. 25. For the sake of enabling the reader to compare the interpretations of this important chapter given by various Sinologues, I subjoin in an appendix four other translations.

51 Ch. 55. Von Strauss explains this to mean that he is like the child in its unconsciousness of danger from these sources.

52 Or Compassionateness. Chalmers translates “compassion,” but this term denotes the sentiment rather than the virtue.

53 See their names in Le Livre de la Voie et de la Vertu (hereafter abbreviated thus—L. V. V.). Composé dans le VI Siècle avant l’ère chrétienne par le Philosophe Laò-tséu. Traduit en Français et publié avec le texte chinois par Stanislas Julien. 8vo. Paris, 1872, xxxvi.

54 Such is the description of M. Julien, derived from the most ancient Chinese commentators. I am at a loss to reconcile it even with his own translation, though it would be presumptuous in me to deny that the learned Sinologue may have reasons for it of which I am not aware.—See L. V. V., p. xiii.

55 Mémoire sur la Vie et les Opinions de Laò-tséu, par M. Abel Rémusat, Paris, 1823, p. 27.

56 The literature of the Veda is now copious. To mention only a few works, H. H. Wilson published a translation of the first five Ashtakas of the Rig-Veda-Sanhitâ, but I have forborne to make use of it, from a conviction that the advance of Vedic scholarship has to a great degree, if not wholly, superseded the methods of interpretation employed by him. Benfey has translated the whole of the Sâma-Veda-Sanhitâ into German, and I have studied his translation, but have preferred to rely mainly on the labors of English scholars, both because the inherent obscurity of these ancient hymns might be increased by the process of re-translation, and also because I might possibly fail to catch the exact shade of meaning of the German words. His work should, however, be consulted by those who desire to acquaint themselves with the style of the Veda. Max Müller has unhappily published but one volume of his translation of the Rig-Veda-Sanhitâ, which is doubtless destined (if completed) to become the standard English version of that portion of the text. The same eminent scholar has translated many of the hymns in his “Ancient Sanskrit Literature.” Another source from which I have derived valuable assistance is Dr. Muir’s laborious work entitled “Original Sanskrit Texts.” Such are the principal authorities on the hymns. Of the Brâhmanas, the whole of the Aitareya Brâhmana has been translated by Haug, and portions of others by Roer and by Rajendralal Mitra.

57 All this will be found admirably treated in Mr. Cox’s “Mythology of the Aryan Nations.”

58 No complete translation of the Tripitaka exists, or is ever likely to exist in any European language. Its vast extent, and the comparative worthlessness of many of its parts, would preclude its publication as a whole. But complete treatises, or portions of treatises, have been translated by Burnouf, in his “Histoire du Buddhisme Indien,” and “Lotus de la Bonne Loi;” by Beal, in his “Chinese Buddhist Scriptures;” by Schmidt, in “Der Weise und der Thor;” by Hardy, in his “Manual of Buddhism,” and by Alabaster, in his “Modern Buddhist.” An exact analysis of the contents of the hundred volumes of the great collection called the Kah-gyur is supplied by Csoma Kőrösi in the 20th vol. of the “Asiatic Researches.” The leading features of the books, and parts of books thus translated, are so well marked and uniform, that nothing further is needed to enable us to estimate the general character of each division of the whole Tripitaka.

59 Southern Buddhists fix the dates of these General Councils somewhat differently.

60 Apparently a people living beyond the frontiers (of the civilized world). See H. B. I., p. 252, n.

61 The state of an “Arhat” is the highest of four degrees which the hearers of the Buddha used to attain; i. e., the one which led most directly to Nirvâna. The other three degrees were those of Srotâpatti, of Sakridâgâmin, and Anâgâmin. The Arhat was not born again; each of the other three had a smaller or greater number of existences to undergo before Nirvâna.

62 I translate “l’Assemblée” by this phrase, which appears to render its meaning more precisely than a more literal translation.

63 These two verses are a standing formula by which the Buddha of the Canon summons the world to receive his law.

64 This Vocabulary is a Chinese compilation, forming one of a class of catalogues drawn up in ancient times by Buddhist preachers. Such catalogues are found in the midst of canonical books, and are of high authority among Buddhists.

65 The translation of this Sûtra is due to Mr. Beal, to whose most useful labors on Buddhism I am much indebted.—C. B. S., p. 206.

66 This is a standing miracle on the reception of novices by Buddha.

67 I do not pretend to any certainty that the above interpretation is correct, but I have in the main followed a trustworthy guide, Burnouf. See H. B. I., p. 491-507.

68 The authorities do not entirely agree in the accounts they give of the speed with which these paths lead to Nirvâna. The above statement appears to me unquestionably the oldest and most authentic. It is in agreement with Eitel, Sanskrit-Chinese Dictionary, sub vocibus Sakridâgâmin, however, is omitted, and with Hardy, E. M., p. 280.
Eitel indeed adds that an Arhat, if he does not enter Nirvâna, may become a Buddha, but this is probably a Northern perversion of the original notion. In the genuine authorities, a Bodhisattva is quite distinct from an Arhat. The account derived by Burnouf (H. B. I., p. 291 ff.) from Northern sources is palpably a corruption of the oldest doctrine, proceeding from that unbounded love of exaggerated numbers which is the besetting sin of Buddhist writers. According to this version, the Srotâpanna must pass through 80,000 ages before his seven births; Sakridâgâmin, after 60,000 ages, is to be born once as a man and once as a god; the Anâgâmin, after 40,000 ages, is exempted from re-birth in the world of desire, and arrives at supreme knowledge; which the Arhat reaches after 20,000 ages. Poor comfort this to souls longing for their eternal rest. Cf. Köppen, R. B., vol. i. p. 498.

69 Aryas is a term comprehending the several classes of believers.

70 There is a complete translation of the Zend-Avesta by Spiegel. It contains useful introductory essays; but in the present state of Zend scholarship the translation cannot be regarded as final. Dr. Haug, in a German treatise, has elucidated as well as translated a small, but very important, portion, of the Zend-Avesta, termed the five Gâthâs. The same scholar has also published a volume of Essays on the Parsee language and religion, which contains some translated passages, and may be consulted with advantage, though Dr. Haug’s English stands in great need of revision. Burnouf has translated but a very small part of the Zend-Avesta, in a work entitled “Le Yaçna.” Unfortunately Dr. Haug and Dr. Spiegel—both very eminent Zend scholars—are entirely at variance as to the proper method of translating these ancient documents; and pending the settlement of this question, any interpretation proposed must be regarded by the uninstructed reader as uncertain. I cannot refrain from adding an expression of regret that Dr. Haug, to whose labors in the interpretation of these obscure fragments of antiquity we owe so much, should have so far forgotten himself as to fall foul of Dr. Spiegel in a tone wholly unbecoming a scholar and inappropriate to the subject. It is not by this kind of learned Billingsgate that the superiority of his translation to that of his rival, as he evidently considers him, or his fellow-laborer as I should prefer to call him, can be established.

71 Throughout the Gâthâs I follow Haug; and I need make no apology for neglecting Spiegel’s translation, because that scholar himself admits, with creditable candor, that even his indefatigable perseverance was baffled by the difficulties of this portion of the Yaçna.—Av., 2. xi.

72 The sentences enclosed in parentheses are Haug’s explanations of the sense of the text.

73 It is a satisfaction to find that Spiegel’s translation does not differ so widely from Haug’s after we leave the territory of the Gâthâs. As a specimen, I quote the following verses from his Avesta, vol. ii. p. 135, which the reader may compare with the English rendering of the same passage in the text:—

Yaçna Haptağhâiti.

xxxv. 1.

1. “(Raçpi). Den Ahura-Mazda, den reinen Herrn des Reinen, preisen wir. Die Amesha-çpenta, die guten Herrscher, die weisen, preisen wir. 2. Die ganze Welt des Reinen preisen wir, die himmlische wie die irdische, 3. mit Verlangen nach der guten Reinheit, mit Verlangen nach dem guten mazdayaçnischen Gesetze. 4. (Zaota.) Der guten Gedanken, Worte und Werke, die hier und anderswo 5. gethan worden sind oder noch gethan werden, 6. Lobpreiser und Verbreiter sind wir, damit wir zu den Guten gehören mögen. 7. Das glauben wir, Ahura-Mazda, Reiner, Schöner, 8. Das wollen wir denken, sagen und thun: 9. was das Beste ist unter den Handlungen der Menschen für beide Welten. 10. Durch diese besten Thaten nun erbitten wir, dass für das Vieh 11. Annehmlichkeit und Futter gespendet werden möge 12. den Gelehrten wie den Ungelehrten, den Mächtigen wie den Unmächtigen.”

74 I follow Burnouf’s translation, because the strict accuracy of his method is acknowledged by both Haug and Spiegel. There are considerable differences in the text followed by Burnouf and Spiegel, which I need not weary the reader by particularizing in detail.

75 Y., p. 146.—Cf. Spiegel: 1. “Ich lade ein und thue es kund: dem Schöpfer Ahura-Mazda, dem glänzenden, majestätischen, grössten, besten, schönsten, 2. dem stärksten, verständigsten, mit bestem Körper versehenen, durch Heiligkeit höchsten. 3. Der sehr weise ist, der weithin erfreut, 4. welcher uns schuf, welcher uns bildete, welcher uns erhielt, der Heiligste unter den Himmlischen”—Av., ii. 35.

76 No mention of Zarathustra here in Spiegel.—Av. ii. 44.

77 Y. pp. 585, 588, 592. The concluding stanza is simpler and more intelligible in Spiegel.—Av., ii. 44.

78 Av., vol. ii. p. 85.—Yaçna, 12. The ch. xii. quoted above is No. 13. in Spiegel.

79 Çraosha is an important divinity in Parsee worship, who is considered by Spiegel to express the moral quality of obedience.

80 Av., vol. ii. p. 191.—Yaçna, 61. This blessing is repeated, Khorda-Avesta, 11.

81 There is, indeed, a passage which permits the mutilation of a mad dog by cutting off an ear, or a foot, or the tail; Spiegel, however, regards it as interpolated, and it is palpably at variance with the remainder of the chapter.

[82] Spiegel holds that Airyama is only a certain prayer hypostatized.—Cf. Av., vol. iii. p. 34.

83 Av., vol. iii. p. 3.—Khorda-Avesta, 1.

84 In the “Journal Asiatique,” 4me Série, tom. 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. I have followed it exclusively. The Homa Yasht is not formally included in the Khorda-Avesta; it forms the 9th chapter of the Yaçna. But the fact that, while utterly alien to the rest of the Yaçna, it is truly a Yasht—being in honor of a special personage—induced me to defer its consideration till now.

85 The term Çpitama, usually coupled with the name of Zarathustra, is translated by Spiegel “holy,” but is treated by Haug and Burnouf as a proper name. There are indications that it may have been the family name of the prophet. See Av., vol. iii. p. 209, n.

86 Complete translations of the Koran into English have been made by Sale and by Rodwell. Considerable portions have been rendered into German by Sprenger, “Das Leben und die Lehre des Mohammed;” and by Gustav Weil, “Mohammed der Prophet;” and into English by Dr. Muir, in his “Life of Mahomet.”

87 L. L. M., vol. iii., Vorrede; Sale, preliminary discourse, p. 46.—K., p. vii.

88 K., p. 604.—Sura, 66. 12. She is called the daughter of Imran, by a confusion between Mary, mother of Jesus, and Mariam, sister of Moses.

89 So in 2 Chron. xxiv. 3-7. But in 2 Kings xxii. 1, 2, there is no mention of the period at which “he began to seek after the God of David.”

90 Ewald, Geschichte des Volkes Israel, vol. iv.—Die Heiligherrschaft, 3 Die bestimmtere Gestaltung der Zeit der neuen Wendung.

91 Geschichte der Ost-Mongolen und ihres Fürstenhauses, verfasst von Ssanang Ssetsen Chungtaidschi. Aus dem Mongolischen übersetzt von I. J. Schmidt, St. Petersburg, 1829. 4to. p. 3.
This work will, in the following pages, always be referred to under “G. O. M.”

92 R. B., vol. i. p. 434.—Lotus, p. 447.—Wheel, p. xliii.

93 My attention was drawn to the fact that these were the contents of the tables by Goethe’s interesting essay: “Zwei wichtige, bisher unerörtete biblische Fragen.”

94 C.C., vol. iv. p. 598.—She King, part 4, b. i. [iii.] 3.

95 For information on the character and signification of this book, see “Le Cantique des Cantiques,” par Ernest Renan.

96 Throughout these descriptions of the prophetic books, I follow the chronological arrangement of Ewald.

97 The remark is not mine, but is made by Didron, a devout Roman Catholic writer, to whom I am much indebted for this and other hints.—Ic. Ch., p. 572 n.

98 Mill’s “Examination of Sir W. Hamilton’s Philosophy,” p. 209 (second edition).

99 Mr. Mill, in treating the point, seems to have forgotten the animal world, but his argument would cover it.—Mill’s “Examination of Sir W. Hamilton’s Philosophy,” pp. 208, 209.

100 See much interesting evidence in Dulaure, “Histoire Abrégée de différens Cultes.” vol. i. chs. xxiv.-xxvii.; and a valuable discussion of the whole subject in Tylor’s “Primitive Culture.”

101 See some evidence bearing on this point in a paper by the author, entitled “Recent Publications on Buddhism.” “Theological Review,” July, 1872, p. 313.

102 De Rerum Nat., iii. 830.

103 The doctrine here stated is not my own invention. It was first published (so far as I know) by Mr. Shadworth Hodgson in his “Theory of Practice,” vol. i. p. 416-436, § 57; but I am indebted for my acquaintance with it to Mr. D. A. Spalding, who discovered it independently, and announced it in the Examiner, December 30, 1871; September 6, 1873; March 14, 1874; and in Nature, January 8, 1874.

104 See an ingenious attempt to maintain the personality, along with the moral Qualities of God, in Mr. Shadworth Hodgson’s “Theory of Practice,” vol. i. p. 305 ff.

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