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 Maurice, Frederick Denison, 
 
 1805-1872. ! 
 
 Sequel to the inquiry, What i 
 
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SEUUEL TO THE INQUIRY, 
 
 HAT IS REVELATION? 
 
" Now what great and high objects are these, for a rational con- 
 templation to busy itself upon! Heights that scorn the reach of 
 our prospect ; and depths in which the tallest reason will never touch 
 the bottom : yet surely the pleasm-e arising from thence is great and 
 noble ; forasmuch as they afford perpetual matter and employment 
 to the inquisitiveness of human reason, and so are large enough for 
 it to take its full scope and range in ; which, when it has sucked and 
 drained the utmost of an object, naturally lays it aside, and neglects 
 it as a dry and an empty thing." — South's Sermons, vol. i. p. 16. 
 
SEQUEL TO THE INQUIRY, 
 
 WHAT IS REYELATION? 
 
 IN A 
 
 Btxm 0f ^titers I0 a Jfruntr ; 
 
 CONTAINING 
 
 A REPLY TO MR. HANSEL'S 
 
 " EXAMINATION OF THE REV. E. D. MAURICE'S STRICTURES 
 . ON THE BAMPTON LECTURES OF 1858." 
 
 BY THE EEV. 
 
 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE, M.A., 
 
 CHAPLAIN OF LINCOLN'S INN. 
 
 MACMILLAN & CO., 
 
 AND 23, HENRIETTA STREET, CO VENT GARDEN, LONDON. 
 
 1860. 
 
PRiNTi-11 nv 
 
 JOilN KDVVARD TAYLOR, MTTLK glKKN STRKT'T. 
 LINCOLN'S INN FIKLnS. 
 
PEEFACE. 
 
 I TRUST that these Letters will meet the wants of 
 ' Theological Students preparing for Orders ^ in some 
 respects better than the work to whicli they are a 
 Sequel. They enter more fully into many topics in 
 which cler^vmen are directlv interested, for their own 
 sakes and for the sake of their flocks. But I address 
 them to a Lavman for these reasons. First, because 
 I am maintainincr that the hiGrhest truths are for all 
 men, and not only for professional men, — that it is 
 only necessaiy to separate speculative truths fi'om re- 
 gulative truths when the first are reduced into dog- 
 mas and the last into diy and powerless maxims of 
 conduct. Secondly, because I desii^e that those who 
 are interested in no theological conclusions, but are 
 used to the weighing of evidence, should consider 
 whether I have committed the crimes which ]Mr. 
 Mansel imputes to me. I would especially call upon 
 any friend of Sir W. Hamilton to say whether the 
 charge of having uttered words which are injmious to 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 his character or his piety has any, even the slightest, 
 foundation to rest upon (see seventh Letter). And 
 I "would call upon any friend of ^Ir. IMansel to say 
 whether the charge of having told a ^vilful lie for 
 the purpose of convicting him of a heresy (see the 
 thirteenth Letter) is supported by evidence upon 
 which he would convict the worst man in England 
 of that or even any less tremendous enormity. Right- 
 eous Laymen regard this class of offences with pecu- 
 liar disgust. They suspect clergymen of an especial 
 tendency to commit them. Knowing that they will 
 be severe and intolerant judges, I wish them to be 
 judges in my case. 
 
 The friend to whom these Letters are written was 
 willing that I should publish his name, which would 
 have conferred honour on my book and on me. I 
 have not accepted his kind permission, because I do 
 not wish to make him in the least degree responsible 
 for the opinions which I have expressed, from many 
 of which he may dissent. 
 
 London, January, 18G0. 
 
co]^rTE]srTS. 
 
 inciters. 
 
 Page 
 J. PURPOSE AND PLAN OF THESE LETTERS. — MR. 
 
 hansel's and MR. CHRETIEN's PAMPHLETS . 1 
 
 II. THE DOUBLE SENSE OF WORDS. — TIME; ETER- 
 NITY; SELF 7 
 
 III. STYLE. SCHLEIERMACHER. FANCIED AGREE- 
 
 MENT. — HARD AND PROUD WORDS. — MORAL 
 NEEDS OF OXFORD STUDENTS 26 
 
 IV. THE ' TIMES ' NEWSPAPER. — THOMAS A KEMPIS. 
 
 — MR. mansel's tests 38 
 
 V. THE PRAYER-BOOK. KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. — 
 
 AUTHORITIES 53 
 
 VI. AN EXAMINATION OF WITNESSES 61 
 
 VII. SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON 104 
 
 VIII. BUTLER 122 
 
 IX. RATIONALISM AND DOGMATISM. — THE TWO 
 METHODS OF ASCERTAINING THE FORCE OF 
 
 WORDS. APPEALS TO THE CONSCIENCE, ARE 
 
 THEY DELUSIVE? — THE VALUE OF QUOTATIONS 135 
 
Vni CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 X. THE PURE REASON AND REVELATION . . . .161 
 
 XT. THE PRACTICAL REASON. — LOGIC UNDER DIF- 
 FERENT ASPECTS. — RULES AND PRINCIPLES. — 
 TRUTH IN PROPOSITIONS AND IN A PERSON . 190 
 
 XII. THE UNITARIAN CONTROVERSY 213 
 
 XIII. THE HUMAN MANIFESTATION OF MORALITY . 244 
 
 XIV. THE BIBLE 272 
 
 XV. CONCLUSION 290 
 
 ERRATUM. 
 
 At page 180, 7th and 8lh lines from the bottom, I would request the reader 
 to observe that the words ' personal ' and * general ' have changed plnees. The 
 transposition seriously affects the meaning of the passage in which they occur. 
 
SEQUEL TO THE INaUIM, 
 
 WHAT IS REVELATION? 
 
 ERRATA. 
 
 Page 22, for Daniell read Daniel. 
 
 Page 88, last line but one, for Prefection read Perfection. 
 
 Page 147, line 14, for then read than. 
 
 Page 219, line 17, for RoseUinus read Roscellinus. 
 
 In Chapter VI., wherein I have examined Mr. Mansel's autho- 
 rities, I proposed to omit those who were " living at this day in oiu* 
 land." I have unawares introduced Professor Lee, who is an emi- 
 nent member of Trinity College, Dublin. 
 
 guage. You have told me very recently tliat you 
 trusted a grand debate concerning morals and the- 
 ology would not be degraded into a personal alter- 
 cation. For ?dl these reasons I have asked that I 
 might address to you any observations which I might 
 wish to make on Mr. ManseFs Examination of my 
 statements. You are aware that he- has said in that 
 examination that I have "produced a book which 
 
 / 
 
 l B 
 
Vlll CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 X. THE PURE REASON AND REVELATION . . . .161 
 
 XI. THE PRACTICAL REASON. — LOGIC UNDER DIF- 
 FERENT ASPECTS. — RULES AND PRINCIPLES. — 
 TRUTH IN PROPOSITIONS AND IN A PERSON . 190 
 
 XII. THE UNITARIAN CONTROVERSY 213 
 
 XIII. THE HUMAN MANIFESTATION OF MORALITY . 244 
 
 XIV. THE BIBLE 272 
 
SEQUEL TO THE INQUIRY, 
 
 WHAT IS REVELATION? 
 
 LETTEE I. 
 
 PURPOSE AND PLAN OF THESE LETTERS.- MR. MAN- 
 SEL'S AND MR. CHRETIEN'S PAMPHLETS. 
 
 My dear Sir, 
 
 Few persons I think can have studied the con- 
 troversy between Mr. Mansel and me as carefully as 
 you have done. You have looked at our books with the 
 eyes of a critic and of a layman. In many important 
 points of opinion you differ from me. You have often 
 said that you regretted the vehemence of my lan- 
 guage. You have told me very recently that you 
 trusted a grand debate concerning morals and the- 
 ology would not be degraded into a personal alter- 
 cation. For all these reasons I have asked that I 
 might address to you any observations which I miglit 
 wish to make on Mr. ManseFs Examination of my 
 statements. You are aware that he- has said in that 
 examination that I have ^^ produced a book which 
 
 /' B 
 
<i SEQUEL. 
 
 " for gross misrepresentation, insulting sneers, coarse 
 " invective, and calumnious imputations, has, as far 
 " as he is aware, no parallel in the literature of the 
 " present generation." (Examination, p. 100.) He 
 has said also, you will recollect, that I have ut- 
 tered '' an accusation which is utterly void of truth, 
 " and which I must have known to be void of truth 
 " at the moment when I wrote it down." [Examina- 
 tion, p. 79.) If these charges are established by suf- 
 ficient evidence, they must of course exclude me from 
 all respectable society, and prevent me for ever from 
 opening my lips as a clergyman. In the effort to 
 confute them, I might easily be tempted into foolish 
 and violent protestations; I might forget how very 
 insignificant a thing my character is in comparison 
 with the cause in which I am engaged. The recol- 
 lection that you are my correspondent may, I hope, 
 save me from this danger. I shall be sure that I am 
 addressing one who will not start with assuming me 
 guilty of such enormities ; who will at least wish that 
 I may be able to clear myself of them. And know- 
 ing that liowever friendly you may be, you would 
 rather believe me the weakest of advocates than sus- 
 pect the principle for which I am struggling of weak- 
 ness, I shall try to make every word I say on my 
 own behalf subordinate to the illustration and vindi- 
 cation of tliat principle. 
 
 I propose to throw my remarks into a series of 
 Letters, each of which will rci'cr to some subject 
 
LETTER I. 3 
 
 tliat is handled in Mr. Hansel's pamphlet. By taking 
 this course I shall give my readers an opportunity of 
 judging whether I have met or evaded any charge 
 which he has brought against me. I shall be able 
 to explain how^ in my judgment^ that special charge 
 affects the general issue. I may be obliged to speak 
 more of myself than is agreeable to the reader or to 
 me. But I hope I shall not say anything of my op- 
 ponent -vThich can appear, even to him, unfairly per- 
 sonal. If I liave used any such language in my 
 former book, I shall not be hindered from confessing 
 it by any indignation which his recent accusations 
 have inspired me with. 
 
 In this, as in my longer treatise, I shall quote 
 very freely from Mr. Mansel. On that subject of 
 quotations I wish to make a preliminary remark, 
 or rather, an appeal to your experience. You have 
 heard in what respect my Letters are said to be 
 without a parallel in literature. I venture to ask 
 you as a critic extensively acquainted with the con- 
 troversial writings of our day, whether you know of 
 any in which greater pains were taken that the oppo- 
 nent might speak for himself, not in broken, dislo- 
 cated sentences, but in connected discourse ; not in 
 his weakest passages, but in those which he would 
 himself have selected for extracts ? I ask vou whe- 
 ther I did not exert myself to the utmost that I 
 might be detected if I was guilty of any misrepre- 
 sentation of his purpose ? I knew it was not enough 
 to implore the reader to consult the original work. 
 
4 SEQUEL. 
 
 tliougli T did implore him frequently. I knew it was 
 not enough to give references. From my own pages 
 lie should confound me, if I practised any dishonest 
 arts. I will mention a curious instance of wliat I 
 mean. The 'Saturday Review' contained an article 
 on 'AVhat is Revelation?' In it I was accused of 
 " ingeniously'' omitting, in the very first page of my 
 preface, the adjective ^ infinite/ which Mr. !Mausel had 
 applied to the nature of God. How did the reviewer 
 know that I had omitted it? Because the ivords 
 stood on that very page just as they were taken from, 
 the preface to Mr. ManseVs third edition. Since 
 neither Mr. Mansel nor I had the least doubt that 
 the nature of God is an infinite nature, I repeated, a 
 few lines below, in my language, what he had already 
 said in his. Singular ingenuity ! How diligently I 
 must have studied in the Fagan school, where the art 
 of extracting handkerchiefs and epithets is taught ! 
 
 As I have alluded to a critic who gave me pain, 
 I must refer to a writer who has caused me a live- 
 lier and deeper pleasure than I have often known. 
 i\lr. Chretien's Letter to me appeared at the same 
 time with Mr. IMansel's answer. I knew that lie 
 had devoted earnest attention to the subject. It 
 appears that he has studied my book, as well as 
 Mr. ManseFs, more diligently than perhaps any one 
 except yourself. I am not personally acquainted 
 witli liim. He is an admirer of Mr. Mansel. He 
 thinks I have often been wrong. His gentleness 
 would dispose him to judge hardly of my impetuosity ; 
 
LETTER I. O 
 
 vet he says deliberately that I have attacked my 
 opponent in '' no unknightly or unchristian spirit/' 
 Such a testimony from a man whose own spirit is so 
 eminently knightly and Christian, is to me of un- 
 speakable value. 
 
 T have no wish however to call witnesses to cha- 
 racter before I have examined the charges that are 
 alleged against me. It is for no such purpose that I 
 have referred to Mr. Chretien^s letter. It strikes me 
 as a curious psychological fact, that two men of the 
 same university, both logicians and scholars, should 
 have arrived at such directly opposite judgments re- 
 specting the same volume. The simple and obvious 
 explanation of that fact I take to be this : — There 
 being two possible interpretations of the book and of 
 different passages in it, one of which interpretations 
 would consist with the belief that the writer was in- 
 difiPerently honest, the other of which would convict 
 bim of baseness and maliciousness of the worst kind, 
 jkir. Chretien has accepted the first of these as the 
 most probable one, and Mr. Mansel the second. 
 
 It will be one object of these Letters to show in 
 reference to each particular allegation in the ' Exami- 
 nation,^ that if I might have intended to speak plain 
 words, or to indulge in an insulting sneer, Mr. Man- 
 sel has given me credit for the sneer ; that if I might 
 have designed to take his words exactly as any one else 
 would take them, or to misrepresent them grossly, he 
 has assumed that I designed to misrepresent them 
 
 r 
 
6 SEQUEL. 
 
 grossly ; that if according to one construction of my 
 sentences, I might have spoken truly, and according 
 to another have lied foully, he has thought it neces- 
 sary to impute the lie. But evidently I ought uot to 
 stop at this point. T ought to show that the sense 
 he has put on my words is not the obvious one, not 
 the one which is most in harmony with the context, 
 not the one which would be most consistent with my 
 general purpose. I ought to show next why, without 
 any evil motive such as he attributes to me, he may 
 have accepted the more difficult and less natural ver- 
 sion of my words as the most reasonable, extending 
 the well-known canon of criticism, which refers to 
 the readings of a !MS., to the printed utterances of 
 an obscure mystic. 
 
 In the next Letter I shall illustrate what I have 
 said by an instance. But I trust that I shall do 
 more than that. At the risk of being egotistical, 
 I think I shall be able to show you and my other 
 readers why I have felt so strongly respecting the 
 doctrine and method of the ' Bampton Lectures,^ why 
 I have seemed to the lecturer to be assailing not 
 them but him. The remarks which I have to make 
 will lead us into the very heart of the controversy. 
 They are still intended for theological students pre- 
 paring for Orders and in Orders, thougli they will not, 
 1 trust, be without interest to laymen like yourself. 
 
 Very sincerely yours, 
 
 F. D. M. 
 
LETTER IT. 
 
 THE DOUBLE SENSE OF WORDS.— TIME ; ETERNITY 
 
 SELF. 
 
 My dear Sm, 
 
 You will find the following note at p. 10 of the 
 ' Examination :' — 
 
 " I may take this opportunity of warning the reader, 
 " once for all, against a favourite expedient of Mr. 
 '^ Maurice's, of which he avails himself in several 
 " parts of his work. This consists in seizing upon 
 some expression which his opponent uses in a 
 strictly metaphysical sense, or in a sense specially 
 explained in the place where it occurs, and then 
 " assuming the identity of this with some popular 
 " sense which he can attack by his usual method of 
 " sneer and inuendo. The word Time is one of those 
 " thus treated. In the ^ Bampton Lectures,' existence 
 " in time means existence in duration and succession, 
 " existence continuous but divisible into successive 
 " moments, as distinguished from the nunc stans, or 
 " existence of which every portion is present at once, 
 " and from which all successiveness is excluded. In 
 
 ee 
 
 (C 
 
8 SEQUEL. 
 
 ' this sense, time docs not necessarily imply that the 
 continuous existence ever had a beginning, or will 
 ever come to an end. In another sense, time is 
 used to signify a terminable, as distinguished from 
 an everlasting duration ; and in this sense the 
 thinfjs of time mean the perishable things of this 
 world. Mr. ^Maurice avails himself of this am- 
 biguity to insinuate that his opponent desires to 
 fix men's minds on the things that are seen and 
 temporal, instead of on those that are unseen and 
 eternal, (pp. 103, 352, 428.) Personality, or Self, 
 is another expression which is treated in like man- 
 ner. In the ^Barapton Lectures,' it means that 
 one permanent individuality which continues un- 
 changed through all the various modes of con- 
 sciousness, and without which no mode of con- 
 sciousness is conceivable by us. In a popular 
 sense, self means man's earthly desires and enjoy- 
 ments, and the thoughts associated with them. Mr. 
 ]\Iauriee seizes upon a passage where it is used in 
 this latter sense, to confute his opponent who uses 
 it in the former. Thus he exclaims (p. 378), ^Our 
 ' old English poet says, — 
 
 " ' Except he can 
 Above himself erect himself, how poor a thing is man !' 
 
 " The moral of the ' Bampton Lectures' is, ' If he 
 " ' tries, by one means or another, al)()vc himself to 
 " 'erect himself, what a fool is man!' It is chari- 
 '^ tably to be ho[)ed that !Mr. i.Iauricc never saw the 
 
LETTER II. 9 
 
 " context of the lines wliicli lie quotes; indeed, he 
 " gives them so inaccurately that we may fairly sus- 
 " pect that he knows them only at second-hand. The 
 ^' continuation of the passage would have been too 
 " palpably inapplicable even for his controversial 
 '^ license. 
 
 " 'And that, unless above himself he can 
 Erect himself, how poor a thing is man ; 
 And how turmoiled they are that level lie 
 With earth, and cannot lift themselves from thence, 
 And never are at peace with their desires, 
 But work beyond their years, and even deny 
 Dotage her rest, and hardly will dispense 
 With death ; that when ability expires 
 Desire lives still ; so much delight they have 
 To carry toil and travail to the grave.' " 
 
 (Note, p. 10, Examination.) 
 
 In a later page, as I have remarked already, ]\Ir. 
 Mansel finds himself '^ compelled '' with " the deepest 
 regret/^ to charge me with an act of wilful falsehood. 
 But you see from this note that he supposes the habit 
 of falsehood to be formed in me, so that it works na- 
 turally, almost of course. I have " a favourite expe- 
 dient,^^ that is his phrase, of which it is necessary to 
 warn the reader once for all. It is the expedient of 
 confusing together two senses of a word, and imput- 
 ing that one to a writer which obviously is not his. 
 I have done this with reference to the word Time, in 
 order to insinuate that Mr. Mansel " desires to fix 
 " men^s minds on the things that are seen and tem- 
 

 10 SEQUEL. 
 
 " poral, instead of on those that arc unseen and 
 " eternal/' Tliree pages are quoted from my book 
 which strike ^Ir. Manscl as having this object, and 
 as illustrating my " usual method of sneer and inu- 
 " cndo/' I must extract them, that you may judge 
 of them for yourself. 
 
 " Such preachers the parables have been to the lium- 
 ^' ble and meek, who have asked Christ, as the Disci- 
 ples did, to tell them why He spoke by parables, 
 and to interpret the parables which they have found 
 " in every street and alley, as well as in every hill and 
 " stream. We are told, brethren, that they have been 
 " deceiving themselves. No real knowledge of the 
 Eternal is possible ; our conceptions are bounded 
 by the finite and the visible. My answer is : — If 
 " that is the reason, no knowledge of the seen and the 
 " temporal is possible. Slavery to our conceptions, 
 '' as the teacher of experimental science has shown 
 '' us, is the hindrance to any real, solid acquaintance 
 " with the mysteries of Nature. When wc try to 
 " bind her with the forms of our intellect, she will 
 " give us no faithful answers; she will only return 
 " an echo to our voices. Here is another proof of 
 " the analogy between things sensible and spiritual. 
 " The same enemy blocks the entrance into both 
 " regions. The determination to measure all things 
 '^ ])y ourselves, to bring everything under the con- 
 " ditions of our intellect, makes us exiles from the 
 '' Kingdom of Heaven and the Kingdom of Earth. 
 
 (< 
 
LETTER II. 11 
 
 ' That determination in other days was called, Pride ; 
 ' in ours (words alter their meaning so strangely), it 
 ' claims to be owned as the profoundest humility. 
 ' We dare not presume to burst the shackles which 
 ' God has imposed upon us ; we dare not dream of 
 ' ascending above the world in which He has seen 
 ^ good to place us ; that we do not is the great sign 
 ' that we accept Christianity with childlike submis- 
 ^ sion. We prove oar allegiance to the Gospel by 
 ' affirming that it is not given us to know the mys- 
 ' teries of the Kingdom of Heaven ; that the parables 
 ' of Christ are not real revelations of it.^' — [What is 
 Revelation ? Sermon VI.) 
 
 " He (Mr. Mansel) has taken great pains to show us 
 ' that our finite intellects can never be the measure of 
 ' the Infinite. The maxim is established ; it is one to 
 ' start from. And because the finite cannot be the 
 ' measure of the infinite, — because our conceptions 
 ' can never be the measure of that which is, — because 
 ' those conceptions will lead us only to the apparent, 
 ^ therefore we need that which shall be the measure 
 ^of our finite thought, which shall lift us above 
 ' our conceptions, which shall bring us into con- 
 ' tact vt'ith that which our conceptions are feeling 
 ' after, but cannot reach. He has shown us that a 
 ' mere negation, such as is expressed by the word 
 ' Infinite, can never content a creature who needs 
 ' what is positive, living, personal, to rest upon. We 
 
<c 
 (( 
 
 12 SEQUEL. 
 
 " heartily sympathize with the obseryaticn. For In- 
 '' finite, let us substitute the word which is so dear to 
 St. Paul and St. John. Let us speak of the Eter- 
 nal. Let us distinguish, with St. Paul, between the 
 ''things that are seen, which are temporal, and the 
 " things that are not seen, Avhich are eternal. Let us 
 " speak not of knowing the Infinite, but of knowing 
 " Him who is from the beginning. Him who was and 
 '- is and is to come. So we shall be in exact harmony 
 ''with the teaching of Scripture; so shall we ayoid 
 "mere speculations about that which is at a distance 
 "from us; so we shall be brought to ask for that 
 " which is the ground of our own being ; for that 
 " Rock on which we and the Uniyerse are resting.^^ — 
 {What is Revelation ? p. 352.) 
 
 " Believing, as our fathers did, that He came to re- 
 " yeal the Eternal God, Him wdio is, and was, and is 
 "to come, — belieying that He did manifest that life 
 "of Righteousness, Love, Truth, which is not and 
 " cannot be limited by Time, — believing that these 
 " are the invisible things which St. Paul opposes to 
 " the visible things that are temporal, — believing that 
 " the Gospel means the admission of men in Christ, 
 " into the possession and enjoyment of these Eternal 
 " Treasures, which men in the ages before His coming 
 " were feeling after, and in which thej?^ were sure that 
 " they had an interest, — believing that to be without 
 " these Eternal treasures, is to be in the state which 
 
LETTER II. 13 
 
 " the Apostles describe as Deaths Eternal Death, that 
 " to possess them in any measure is to have a taste of 
 " Eternal Life, that to possess them altogether, to live 
 '^ and dwell in them, to go no more out of them, to 
 " sink no more back into our own evil nature, is the 
 " reward which God has prepared for those that love 
 '^ Him, the fullness of joy which is at His right-hand, 
 " — believing that this is the teaching of the Bible, 
 " and that the more we read it, the more that teach- 
 " ing explains to us all tlie capacities of good as well 
 " as of evil in ourselves, — I am not afraid of Christ^s 
 '' own language." — (What is Revelation ? p. 428.) 
 
 These passages, you will remember, are selected 
 by Mr. Mansel himself. He has given his interpre- 
 tation of them. Will you listen to mine ? 
 
 That there are two senses of the words which con- 
 cern us most, — one metaphysical, one popular, — is a 
 doctrine which most of us are taught, which some of us 
 receive implicitly. Long before I heard jMr. MansePs 
 name I was forced to ask myself whether I could ac- 
 cept it. I was not then contending with any opponent 
 except myself j I Avas trying to find a foundation upon 
 which I might stand. It seemed to me that neither 
 of these forms of speech gave me such a founda- 
 tion, or even helped me to discover it. One told me 
 the opinion about certain great facts which was cur- 
 rent among doctors. The other told me the opinion 
 about the same facts which was current among pulpit 
 orators. Was there no way which led directly to the 
 
14 SEQUEL. 
 
 facts themselves? In pliysics unquestionably there 
 is. The opinions which prevail in the cave and forum, 
 — idols our great experimental teacher calls them, — 
 are thrown down; the things themselves can be in- 
 vestigated and apprehended. Is there no similar 
 method for investigating and apprehending moral 
 truths, those in which man is chiefly interested? 
 When we are occupied with them, are we merely float- 
 ing in a sea of traditions, or obliged to adopt what- 
 ever maxims have establislied themselves in a parti- 
 cular age ? 
 
 I had much help from several books in extricating 
 myself from this fearful puzzle. But the Bible was 
 the great help of all. That, I thought, spoke of a 
 substantial, eternal world, in which men were in- 
 tended to find a home. If what it said was true, the 
 words which described that substantial, eternal world 
 must be most strictly metaphysical words. And 
 yet they must be also most strictly popular words ; 
 words for the people, for human beings as such. I 
 found temporal things in the Bible opposed to eternal, 
 but not in the way of contempt or disparagement. 
 The greatest justice was done to both. The world 
 wdiich we see w^ith our eyes was never treated as poj)u- 
 lar preachers treat it. It had its own honour. It de- 
 rived honour and grandeur from its associations with 
 the other. The Kingdom of Heaven, the Kingdom 
 of Bighteousness, Peace, Truth, was the substantial, 
 the Eternal Kingdom. The more men kept that be- 
 
LETTER II. 15 
 
 fore them, dwelt in it, tlie more faitliful tliey would 
 be to the business of the changeable^ visible world ; 
 the more worth they would attach to all its transac- 
 tions. 
 
 Using this guide, it seemed to me that I could look 
 straight at the words which concerned us most, such 
 as Time and Eternity ; that I need not give either 
 two senses ; provided I looked upon the permanent 
 as the standard for the changeable and fleeting, and 
 did not attempt to deduce the nature of the higher 
 from that of the lower. I fancied the Scripture lan- 
 guage, instead of shrinking into a little corner of its 
 own, and declining all comparison with any other, 
 was capable of being tested by the metaphysical in- 
 quiries and beliefs of all peoples and ages. I could 
 not doubt that it was, at the same time, the popular 
 language, that it would go straight home to the very 
 heart and spirit of our people — of the poor, to whom 
 the Gospel was first preached — because it addressed 
 itself, not to that which is superficial and accidental, 
 but to that which is deepest in all, and common to 
 all. 
 
 These convictions were working in me long before I 
 took Orders in the English Church. They were the 
 result of many personal conflicts, and of intercourse, 
 limited enough certainly, but lying chiefly among 
 young men of stirring and active minds in the Uni- 
 versities and in London. When I did take Orders, 
 my sphere of work was not among them, but amongst 
 
16 SEQUEL. 
 
 the inmates of a hospital. I felt myself as ignorant 
 as a man could well be of their wants and feelings ; 
 as afraid as any one could be, that I should talk of 
 things which had no interest for them, or which they 
 could not understand. I was sure I should do this 
 if I fell into either the scholastical or what is called 
 the popular style; if I either discoursed to them 
 about the beauty of virtue and the mischief of vice, 
 or, on the other hand, urged them to abandon thoughts 
 of their bodies for thoughts of their souls, when 
 God, by His visitation, had compelled them to think 
 of their bodies, and of what they were suffering in 
 them, and when their benevolent medical friends were 
 doing their utmost to relieve their bodily sufferings. 
 But I could not forget that at the Universities we are 
 trained in what are there called Humane studies. It 
 seemed to me, that if I had profited as I ought to 
 have done by those studies, I should be able to address 
 men, not in a university dialect, not in the dialect of 
 a stump orator, but in a human dialect. I had not 
 profited as I ought by those studies ; therefore my 
 success w^as very imperfect. But so far as I connected 
 my humane education with the divine lore of Scrip- 
 ture, and tried by that means to make amends for 
 my defects, so far I felt that I could speak to men 
 with nothing of wdiat we call culture, — with only 
 that culture which is obtained from suffering and 
 sorrow and the sin which was often the cause of both. 
 And this because I could tell them of an Eternal 
 
LETTER II. 17 
 
 Being of absolute goodness and truth^ wliom they 
 were created to trust and to know; and wlio^ that 
 they might trust Him and know Him, had revealed 
 Himself in One who had borne their sickness and 
 sorrows and sins ; because I could tell them, that by 
 trusting in Him who was the same yesterday, today, 
 and for ever, they might be delivered from their sins, 
 might rise above themselves and their own bad na- 
 ture. T repeat it ; I found I could make some of 
 these men understand me. And if I have in later 
 years ever succeeded in making any m.en who have 
 culture understand me, it has been from following the 
 same course; from assuming that they had that in 
 them which was craving for the Eternal and the Infi- 
 nite, even as they had that in them which led them to 
 turn away from it, and dwell wholly in the change- 
 able and the transitory ; and from endeavouring to 
 show them that they could never deal bravely and 
 manfully with changeable and transitory things, or 
 pay them the reverence to which they have a right, 
 while they raised them into gods; that they could 
 see the earth and all its beauty clearly, and love it 
 heartily, while they walked in the light of the heavenly 
 sun which is looking down upon it. 
 
 Now, if you will do me the favour to read over the 
 passages in my book to which Mr. Mansel has alluded, 
 I think you will judge that they might have been 
 written by a person who did not resort to the expedi- 
 ent of confounding two distinct senses of the word 
 
 c 
 
18 SEQUEL. 
 
 ^time ^ for the sake of blackening an opponent's cha- 
 racter. They might express a very strong and deep 
 conviction which made sucli an '^ expedient ^' abso- 
 lutely impossible, such an object preposterous. And 
 if you will then turn to Mr. Mansel's comment on 
 these passages, you will perceive that this must be 
 the interpretation of them, and that the other can- 
 not be. For (1) the idea of Eternity as opposed 
 to Time in these passages is precisely that which 
 Mr. Mansel attacked me for holding six years ago. 
 (2) That idea of Eternity is incompatible with either of 
 the definitions of Time which he supposes that I am 
 trying to confound. (3) It is especially incompatible 
 with that definition upon which he supposes me to 
 ground my insinuation against him of '' desiring to 
 ^' fix men's minds on the things that are seen and 
 '^ temporal." (4) You must be aware — if Mr. Mansel 
 is not — that my doctrine upon this subject is one 
 which makes me specially unpopular with the religi- 
 ous world, and that his has made him peculiarly po- 
 pular. An expedient for raising a prejudice against 
 him on this ground would therefore seem about the 
 absurdest and most hopeless that ever entered into a 
 human brain. 
 
 But in spite of these startling and obvious pre- 
 sumptions against Mr. Mansel's interpretation of my 
 words and my purpose, I am satisfied that it appeared 
 to him the only possible one. It could not be other- 
 wise. He allows all varieties of opinion among those 
 
LETTER II. 19 
 
 who accept the double sense of words^ and who are 
 content to receive his two definitions of Time. Those 
 who try to break down the barrier between the meta- 
 physical and the popular regions^ — those who refuse 
 to deduce Eternity from Time at all^ — are simply un- 
 intelligible to him. He does not mean to be unjust 
 to them, but as he cannot account for their vagaries, 
 he must, whenever they come into contact with him, 
 give them credit for some dark design. He cannot 
 believe that they are really as stupid as they pretend 
 to be. They must accept his definition, though they 
 say they do not. And if they do, and yet maintain 
 their own ground, I can see as little as he can that 
 there is any escape for them from the guilt of direct 
 inconsistencv, insincerity, and falsehood. 
 
 Mr. Chretien has not imputed to me the ^ expedient' 
 or the villanous purpose which is involved in it, be- 
 cause, as it seems to me, he is able to understand some- 
 thing of the processes of mind which have led me 
 to reject the double sense of words and to seek for a 
 meaning of Eternity which does not make it a mere 
 extension or a mere negation of Time. He carefully 
 guards himself against being supposed to adopt my 
 method or to approve of it. But he has, if I am not 
 mistaken, felt most bitterly the perils of the double 
 sense of words. The remarks upon his own sufierings 
 when he heard Mr. ManseFs Lectures, in pp. 33-36, 
 expressed as they are with the greatest modesty, — 
 with profound respect to the talent of the Lecturer 
 
20 SEQUEL. 
 
 and thorough confidence in the goodness of his inten- 
 tions, — have done much to confirm me in my convio- 
 tion on this subject, and to assure me that a number 
 of earnest and thoughtful men who would be most 
 inclined by their intellectual discipline to arrive at 
 an opposite conclusion, must be passing through the 
 struggles which I passed through, and must be feel- 
 ing their way to a similar result. 
 
 At the same time it cannot escape you or any 
 observer of our times, that both in the schools and 
 in the world theirs is a struggle against a prevailing 
 habit, one into which we are all apt to fall, one which 
 is eagerly adopted and recognized as a right one by 
 the guides of opinion in both regions. The moment 
 Mr. ManseFs Lectures appeared, they were welcomed 
 by a great part of the religious press of the country 
 as the academical defence of Christian truths. Such 
 a recognition of a book which was in its nature 
 scholastic by the unscholastic w^orld, I do not think 
 any of us have witnessed in our time. You may ima- 
 gine how such a phenomenon must have struck a 
 person strongly persuaded that the schools and the 
 world ought to be mutual helpers, but equally per- 
 suaded that each may do incalculable injury to the 
 other, and that this injury is no way so likely to be 
 effected as by the uncertainty whether the words of 
 preachers are to be taken scholastically or popu- 
 larly, and by the opportunity which the admission 
 of a double sense affords of giving them one force 
 
LETTER II. 21 
 
 or another^ as they may answer best to refute an 
 unbeliever or a heretic. You will understand, I 
 think, how that confusion which Mr. Mansel attri- 
 butes to me, may have been the effect which I most 
 feared from the publication of his Lectures, — how his 
 acknowledged metaphysical ability may have made 
 me dread more than I can at all express their effect 
 upon those who are not metaphysicians, as well as 
 upon those who are. That this dread may have often 
 betrayed me into heat of language, that the difference 
 of our habits of mind may have caused me to misun- 
 derstand him as he has misunderstood me, is quite 
 possible. Whenever I discover that to be the case, I 
 trust I shall not be slow to confess it. 
 
 Nay, I will go a little further. In a somewhat ex- 
 cited passage (p. 85), in which he scarcely preserves 
 his usual tone of conscious and lofty superiority to his 
 antagonist, Mr. Mansel intimates that I have laid 
 down one law for his conduct and another for my 
 own. I will show you by an instance how far this is 
 the case, and on what maxims I desire that we should 
 respectively be judged. If I shall find that I have 
 anywhere charged him with resorting to an expedient 
 for perverting and confusing the meaning of words 
 that he might injure the character of any one of the 
 eminent men whom he has attacked in his Lectures or 
 his Notes, I shall not offer any of the explanations for 
 myself which I have felt that I ought to offer for him; 
 I shall simply say that I had no business to suspect 
 
22 SEQUEL. 
 
 a man of probity of such an intention, and that 1 beg 
 liis pardon for having been tempted to suspect him. 
 
 After this remark, I shall not make any parade of 
 candour in owning at once, as I ought to own, that I 
 made a gross blunder in quoting from Daniell. It is 
 no sufficient justification, that I wrote the letter which 
 contained that quotation in the country, where I had 
 not access to books ; for I could easily have corrected 
 it afterwards, and ought to have done so. The folly 
 of having made a ten-syllable line into a bad Alex- 
 andrine, and of having substituted except for unless, 
 I fully admit. I am thankful to undergo the exposure 
 for such carelessness ; I am thankful also to Mr. 
 Mansel for quoting the whole passage from which I 
 had taken a line and a half. He is right in his con- 
 jecture that I did learn that line and a half at second- 
 hand more than thirty years ago, and that it has re- 
 mained in my memory without any thought about the 
 surrounding sentences. If I do not mistake, I found 
 it first in the note or preface to one of Mr. Words- 
 worth^s poems. I believe I received it along v/ith his 
 interpretation of it, which may not be the true one 
 since it differs from Mr. Mansers. Nothing which I 
 see in the whole passage in the least proves to me 
 that it was not the true one. Daniell may no doubt 
 have meant merely what the dullest preacher would 
 mean, when he talks of those 
 
 " That level lie 
 With earth." 
 
LETTER II. 23 
 
 Or he may have meant to explain why they so lie, 
 and why they cannot lift themselves up. Rightly 
 or wrongly I supposed (with my betters) that he did 
 mean this. At all events I found in his words a very 
 beautiful hint as to the reason which kept me on this 
 level. I found that I had in myself that which aspired 
 to rise above its own level and that which was content 
 to stay upon its own level. The one I learnt from St. 
 Paul to call the spirit, the other the flesh. I learnt 
 also from him that it was possible to live after the 
 flesh and so to die, or to live after the spirit, and so 
 to enter into fellowship with those eternal things which 
 eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered 
 into the heart of man to conceive. Having adopted this 
 nomenclature, I was less disposed here even than in the 
 other case to give that strictly metaphysical sense to 
 the word self, according to which " it means that one 
 " permanent individuality which continues unchanged 
 ''^ through all the various modes of consciousness, and 
 '■'■ without which no mode of consciousness is conceiv- 
 ^^ able by us," or that "^ popular sense'^ in which it 
 " means man^s earthly desires and enjoyments, and 
 ^'^ the thoughts associated with them." These defini- 
 tions are exceedingly well ; but where am / ? I, the 
 person, am lost in that grand personality. I, who have 
 the desires and enjoyments and thoughts, am con- 
 founded with them. The more I converse with people 
 of any class or school whose minds are exercised with 
 questionings or doubts, the more do I perceive them 
 
24 SEQUEL. 
 
 writhing under these formulas^ utterly unable to con- 
 nect them with their actual experiences and sufiPer- 
 ings. To such I can make myself intelligible so long 
 as I do not desert St. Paul's method for any conceit 
 of my own. But I am too well aware how often those 
 conceits intrude themselves and mar the eflect of that 
 which in itself I believe to be the right and divine 
 way of speaking to one's fellow-men and fellow- sin- 
 ners. Chiefly to that cause — though partly to their 
 habit of resolving each person into a personalit}'- (just 
 as our modern political writers reduce Nations into 
 Nationalities) — I attribute it that I always have been^ 
 and I fear always must be a barbarian, and worse than 
 a barbarian, to eminent scholastic teachers like Mr. 
 Mansel, as well as to the whole body of popular critics. 
 High Church, Low Church, Broad Church, Orthodox, 
 Unitarian, Calvinistical, Freethinking, who assume a 
 certain scheme of opinion, and by that measure and 
 judge the Universe. They do and must suppose that 
 when I profess to speak of the evil in myself, I am 
 hinting at the evil which is in some one else, and am 
 consequently indulging in " insulting sneers ;" that 
 when I declare my belief in a good which is within 
 the reach of us all, and which I know best by the 
 reproaches of my conscience for not having attained 
 it, I am boasting of my superiority to other men ; that 
 when I talk of an Infinite Charity, which I need to 
 fill up the hollowness in myself, and to overcome my 
 tendencies to bitterness and hatred, I wish people to 
 give me credit for possessing that charity. 
 
LETTER II. 20 
 
 I am not afraid that those who know me and my 
 ordinary manner of teaching will fix these charges 
 upon me. But that Mr. Mansel should attribute to 
 me almost immeasurable cant and hypocrisy^ ought to 
 cause me no sort of surprise. I rather wonder that, 
 looking at me from his point of view, he has been able 
 to find words strong enough for the expression of his 
 disgust and scorn. If he is right, the method into 
 which I have been led is utterly and hopelessly wrong. 
 That T have made it appear so to any who might 
 have benefited by it is cause for serious repentance. 
 But I do not believe that even a wise man could have 
 caused it to look reasonable or tolerable in the eyes 
 of the Bampton Lecturer. 
 
 Ever very truly yours, 
 
 F. D. M. 
 
26 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 STYLE.— SCHLEIERMACHER.— FANCIED AaSEEMENT. 
 —HARD AND PEOUD WORDS.— MOEAL NEEDS OF 
 OXFORD STUDENTS. 
 
 My dear Sir, 
 
 You may think that I was unreasonably diffuse in 
 my comments upon the Note which I considered in 
 my last Letter. But in it you will find the key to all 
 my differences with Mr. Mansel, to the censures in 
 every other part of his pamphlet, to the relation be- 
 tween the personal question about which few can be 
 interested but ourselves, and the moral one in which 
 all mankind is interested. My present Letter will be 
 chiefly occupied with matters of much less importance. 
 At page 4 of the pamphlet you will find these words : — 
 " To some indeed of Mr. Maurice's charges I shall not 
 ^' attempt to reply at all. I do not think it worth 
 " while to enter upon a controversy in defence of 
 " the merely literary character of my Lectures. Mr. 
 " Maurice, in his anxiety to leave no weapon of attack 
 unemployed, has discovered that my style is in one 
 place ' bewildering,' in another 'jargon,' in another 
 
 
(C 
 
 (( 
 
 (( 
 
 CI 
 
 (( 
 
 LETTER III. 27 
 
 " ' a -wilderness of words/ in another ' vagueness/ in 
 another ' slipslop^ (whatever that may mean) ; and 
 that my thoughts exhibit ' terms and realities hope- 
 lessly mingled/ I am quite ready to plead guilty to 
 " these charges, if my accuser^s writings are to be con- 
 " sidered as examples of the opposite qualities. I will- 
 ingly admit that my notions of clearness of thought 
 and accuracy of language are diametrically opposed 
 '^to his.^' [Examination, p. 4.) A very kind writer in 
 the last number of ' Eraser's Masrazine ' has made the 
 following remark upon this passage : — '^ Who has not 
 ' presented to him here the picture of one who, deter- 
 ' mined seriously to wound, is glad to envenom the 
 ' wound with as much superfluous outrage as may be ? 
 ' Now, will it be believed that scarcely one of the pas- 
 ' sages in Mr. Maurice's book, to which we are referred 
 ^ — and as Mr. Mansel gives us references, every reader 
 ' can try the experiment for himself — partakes of the 
 Equality of literary criticism, criticism on style, in 
 ^ the ordinary sense of these words ? A particular 
 ^ phrase, not necessarily viewed as Mr. ManseVs in- 
 ' vention or peculiar property, is contrasted with liv- 
 ^ ing reality as ^school jargon.' With no mention of 
 ^ style at all, it is complained that a point which Mr. 
 ' Maurice considered essential to the argument is left 
 ' in ' vagueness.' So much for two of the alleged 
 ^grievances. The rest we can leave to the reader 
 ' who will follow our example of verification." I am 
 particularly grateful for this comment upon the words, 
 
28 SEQUEL. 
 
 and will try the process of verification which the Re- 
 viewer recommends in the other cases. The charge 
 of '' bewildering '^ is this : — " The observations re- 
 "specting Creation with which this passage closes, 
 ^^ seem to show that Mr. Mansel had a sense of this 
 " earlier order^ otherwise they would be out of place. 
 " They are bewildering^ will prove more and more be- 
 " wildering^ to the consciences of his readers^ will 
 '' darken all practical principles to them^ will make 
 " action as impossible as belief, so long as we revile 
 " other persons for rejecting the plain words of Scrip- 
 " ture, and refuse to accept these words as the guides 
 " of our own thoughts.^^ I do not see what criticism 
 upon an author would be possible^ if one was not at 
 liberty to remark that some of his words were in this 
 sense bewildering, or how such a remark can possibly 
 be construed into a general attack upon Mr. ManseFs 
 style, or into a resolution to " leave no weapon of at- 
 '^ tack unemployed." I did say (p. 320) that I wished 
 Mr. Mansel ^Miad not rushed into a wilderness of 
 ^' words about the combination of the One and the 
 " Many.'^ Whether the passage I referred to deserves 
 to be called a wilderness of words or not, the reader 
 may judge for himself. At all events the charge con- 
 cerned the matter of the argument ; only the style so 
 far as it bore upon the matter. The slipslop phrase 
 to which I objected was one in which Mr. Mansel 
 spoke of " views in their essential features." It cer- 
 tainly struck me that this was a phrase which one 
 
LETTER III. 29 
 
 might rather have expected to meet in a speech of 
 Lord CastlereagVs than in the discourse of an accom- 
 plished Oxford scholar. It is the single instance^ I 
 believe, in which I have complained of the language 
 for its own sake. The complaint would have had no 
 force if it had not applied to an author from whose 
 general character and talent such a solecism was not 
 to have been expected, one who had been generally 
 and deservedly praised for his command of language. 
 That I spoke of terms and realities being hopelessly 
 mingled in a great part of the Lectures, is strictly 
 true. It is an objection to the character and sub- 
 stance of them, to the very principle which they are 
 written to maintain. No change of style could have 
 made a difference in this respect ; oftentimes the con- 
 fusion of which I speak becomes more evident to the 
 reader from the transparency of the mere form in 
 w^hich it is exhibited. 
 
 I have answered these charges in detail. Now look 
 at the whole passage as it stands, and ask yourself 
 whether a writer who accumulates points of evidence 
 of this kind, and founds such a conclusion upon them, 
 might not very readily persuade himself that I had 
 ^' produced a book which for gross misrepresentation, 
 " insulting sneers, coarse invectives, has no parallel in 
 '' the literature of the present generation. ^^ 
 
 In the note to p. 5 are these words : — "He objects 
 " to my attributing to Schleiermacher a theory con- 
 " cerning Religion, because the original is Frommig- 
 
30 SEQUEL. 
 
 *^ keit, which ought not to he translated Religion/' 
 Will you kindly turn to p. 315 of my book? I 
 have written there : — " Now I think any one who 
 " will be at the pains to refer to the ' Christlichc 
 '' Glaube ^ of Schleiermacher, will discover that he 
 " certainly was not putting forth a theory on the 
 " subject of Religion or of Prayer. Rightly or 
 " wrongly, he had evidently a dread of theories in 
 " this region. He was disposed, his opponents al- 
 '' ways say, to exaggerate the feeling above the intel- 
 " lect.^' To the word Religion, in the first of these 
 sentences, I subjoined a note, of which this is the 
 first line : ^' Frommigkeit is his word_, which, I submit, 
 " ought not to be translated Religion." Now it 
 must surely be evident to any one who reads this 
 passage, with the pages which follow it, that the em- 
 phatic word in the sentence to which the note was 
 subjoined, is not Religion but Theory. The observa- 
 tion about the translation in the note, was merely an 
 accidental and subsidiary one. What I am com- 
 plaining of Mr. Mansel is, that he imputes to Schleier- 
 macher an elaborate theory about Religion, when the 
 characteristic of his mind was, that he exalted per- 
 sonal consciousness or feeling above theories. It was 
 desirable for this pui'pose to remark, that Piety was 
 the exact translation of his word. It was all the 
 more important, because he identified Piety with Re- 
 ligion. I wished the reader to observe that he did, 
 and therefore that Mr. ManseFs attempt to reduce 
 
LETTER III. 31 
 
 his account of Keligion into a theory, however in- 
 geniouSj was necessarily a misrepresentation of his 
 object. Had Mr. Mansel, in the least degree, appre- 
 hended this purpose, he would see that the elaborate 
 attempts to confute me in the note, have either no 
 bearing upon the point which I raised, or are con- 
 firmations of ray remark. But this is just one of 
 the cases in which, as 1 have shown you already, it is 
 impossible that he can apprehend those who differ 
 from him. He must make them theorists, whether 
 they like it or no. He cannot contemplate them or 
 their thoughts till he has fixed them in a theory. The 
 method which Schleiermacher had learnt in his la- 
 borious study of the Platonic Dialogues, was just, 
 I conceive, that which he was trying to apply in his 
 theological inquiries. This was the link between the 
 Herrnhutter and the Philosopher. That method of 
 rising by questionings of common facts into the per- 
 ception of eternal realities, Mr. Mansel, of course, 
 cannot recognize. To interpret Socrates, he must 
 turn him into a theorist, just as he has turned 
 Schleiermacher into a theorist. Whatever in his 
 discourses could not be brought within these limits, 
 he would agree, with the old Comedian, in ascribing 
 to the inspiration of the Cloud- Goddesses, and would 
 assTime to belong to the mysteries of their worship. 
 
 The other misstatement which Mr. Mansel notices, 
 I am glad at once to correct. I had rashly spoken 
 in my preface of Mr. Mansel having intimated a 
 
32 SEQUEL. 
 
 hope that we were essentially agreed in opinion. I 
 omitted, he says, the qualifying words, " on this 
 ^^ question, at least.^^ And he adds, " I was neither 
 " so sanguine nor so simple as to cherish any belief 
 " in a general agreement between Mr. Maurice's the- 
 " ology and mine." My object was simply to thank 
 him for his courtesy, and to express my fear, that 
 even on the question to which he alludes, about the 
 meaning of Scripture, I was not in agreement with 
 him. But he is fully entitled (he will, I am sure, 
 exercise the right) to withdraw that passage and every 
 passage which can be construed into even a partial 
 approval of any word that I have ever written ou 
 theology or any other subject. Have I not a right 
 also to demand that he will strike out those sentences 
 in his Examination which express " respect " for the 
 character of one whom he has accused of deliberate 
 falsehood? Can such words be sincere in him? 
 Must they not be most offensive to me ? 
 
 With two more of these miscellaneous charges I 
 will conclude a Letter which it is disagreeable for me 
 to write and for you to read. They are contained in 
 pp. 16-18 of the Examination. 
 
 " The rest of Mr. Maurice's first Letter is devoted 
 " to vituperation instead of argument, and may safely 
 " be left to stand or fall by its own merits. He consi- 
 " ders the Bampton Lectures to be full of ' hard and 
 " ' proud words spoken against those who were crying 
 " ' out for Truth.' Other critics have expressed a very 
 
LETTER TTI. 33 
 
 ^' different opinion of the spirit in which that work is 
 " written. One of the most antagonistic of its re- 
 " viewers (excepting, of course, Mr. Maurice himself), 
 " while pointing out two instances, and two onlv, 
 " which he considers exceptions (and even one of these 
 " is an error of his own) , admits that ' the general 
 " ' spirit of the book is scholarly and liberal ; and pro- 
 " ' bably the deviations from this tone are involun- 
 " ^ tary and intellectual merely.^ Another critic as- 
 " serts that the author ' displays great liberality, not 
 " ^ only as regards persons but questions ;' while a 
 " third speaks of the ^ true courtesy with which he 
 '' ^ has treated those from whom he has most differed.^ 
 " Mr. Maurice, of course, is welcome to hold a differ- 
 " ent opinion ; and indeed, to judge by his own wri- 
 " tings, he seems to have adopted a somewhat peculiar 
 ^' standard of literary courtesy. The following speci- 
 " men belongs to the present Letter : we shall come 
 " to more hereafter. ^ A man,^ says Mr. Maurice, 
 " ^ may grovel in the sty without attracting any spe- 
 " ^ cial notice from the modern defender of Christi- 
 " ' anity ; if he aspires by an irregular method after 
 " ^ righteousness, no laughter is too loud for his pu- 
 " ^ nishment.^ 
 
 " I shall leave it to the readers of the Bampton 
 " Lectures to judge for themselves, whether the argu- 
 " ment of that work required, or even admitted, any 
 " ' special notice' of ^ men who grovel in the st}'' ;' or 
 '^ whether the method employed in dealing with the 
 
34 SEQUEL. 
 
 ^' intellectual errors which it professes to notice is that 
 '^ of ^loud laughter/ I quote the passage only as a 
 '^ specimen of Mr. Maurice's notions of fair and conr- 
 " teous controversy, and as an edifying contrast to the 
 " ' hard and proud words' which he has discovered in 
 " the Banipton Lectures." — {Exammation,'\)^.\(S-\^.) 
 
 As I had not a perfectly distinct recollection of my 
 own. words, I reallv believed on Mr. Mansel's autho- 
 rity that I had said that the Bampton Lectures were 
 full of " hard and proud words against those who were 
 "■ crying out for Truth." Will you let me repeat to 
 you what I did say ? 
 
 " He who holds that the Bible testifies from its first 
 " page to its last that God has created men for the 
 ^' knowledge of Himself, and is kindling in them a 
 " thirst for that knowledge, a discontent with anything 
 " which comes short of it, — cannot by possibility lis- 
 " ten without the profoundest interest to every cry of 
 '' men after it in one age or another. He must not 
 " ask first what thev have failed to attain, but what 
 " they have been permitted to attain. He must be 
 " glad to learn from their blunders as well as their 
 
 successes : perceiving in the first the likeness of his 
 
 own ; in the second, the guidance of God. He may 
 *' not expect their opinions or conclusions to do 
 " much for him ; their struggles and questionings and 
 '' glimpses of light he will cherish, and be thank- 
 " ful for. All will appear to him to be pointing to a 
 '' full -orbed Truth which is not in them but in God, 
 
 
LETTER III. 35 
 
 " and which He has manifested in the Eternal Word^ 
 '^ the only-begotteu Son. The remembrance of hard 
 ^' and proud words spoken against those Avho w^ere 
 ^' crying out for Truth will be always the bitterest in 
 " his life, that which recurs to him with the keenest 
 '' sense of having grieved the Holy Spirit of God, of 
 " having brought upon him the curse of a brother^s 
 ''h\oodi:'—{miat is Revelation? pp. 142, 143.) 
 
 Now I should have thought any one who read this 
 passage must have perceived that I could not be re- 
 ferring in it to Mr. Mansel ; that I must be referring 
 to Mr. Mansel's opponent. What those remem- 
 brances are to 'vhich I alluded, it is not necessary that 
 I should state to you or to any man. That I am the 
 only person who could make the discovery, were it 
 demanded, the only person I had in my mind when I 
 put the words on paper, the Searcher of hearts knows. 
 What words may not be turned into an "insulting 
 sneer'^ if it is assumed that these form one ? 
 
 The other sentence about the class of persons who 
 were and were not attacked by '' modern defenders of 
 Christianity" was not intended specially for ]Mr. Man- 
 sel. It was less applicable, I thought, on the whole, 
 to him, than to some of those whose sentiments he 
 has adopted, and whose apologies he has lauded in his 
 notes. I do not know that, except in his treatment 
 of Hegel and Marheinecke, in the fifth Lecture, he 
 has used language which out of a church would have 
 provoked " loud laughter -/' whereas it is apparently 
 
36 SEQUEL. 
 
 the habitual purpose of one author especially for 
 whom he has expressed much respect, to produce either 
 that ebullition against all doubters and unbelievers, — 
 often men of high aims and purposes, however much 
 they may be in error, — or else that settled scorn which 
 certainly is not better for those against whom it is 
 directed or for those who indulge it. But I did con- 
 sider, and do consider, that the complaint occurs fit- 
 tingly in an answer to the Bampton Lecturer. He is 
 the able and popular champion of a regulative mo- 
 rality against a speculative or absolute morality. He 
 was addressing a body of j^oung men, one out of a 
 hundred of whom might be tempted to worship He- 
 gel, every one of whom might be tempted to break 
 through the laws of ordinary morality ; to think basely 
 of the female sex, and to forget the duties which men 
 owe to them ; to bribe at elections ; to gamble and 
 run into debt; to make money his object and his 
 god. Was this no opportunity for the regulative mo- 
 ralist to prove his superiority to the speculative or 
 absolute moralists? Could he not have turned their 
 empty impracticable suggestions into contempt, by 
 showing how his bore upon the life and conduct of 
 those who sat around him, or who would read his lec- 
 tures afterwards? 
 
 A Lecturer, with this purpose before him, with 
 these prodigious advantages for effecting it, appeals 
 to the reader " whether the argument of his book re- 
 ^' quired or even admitted any special notice of those 
 
LETTER III. 37 
 
 '' wlio grovel in the sty." Be it so. Then on behalf 
 of English parents I implore University Lecturers and 
 Preachers to choose arguments which do require and 
 admit such notice. And if they shall discover that 
 they cannot hinder our children from falling into the 
 sty, or raise them out of it, unless they set forth the 
 Eternal and the Infinite Being as actually revealing 
 Himself to our race, that the members of it may ac- 
 tually apprehend Him, and so be delivered from their 
 own grovelling tendencies, I trust that no theories 
 which they have heard on that subject, no evidence 
 of the exceeding popularity of the theorist in the re- 
 ligious world, will hinder them from giving the help 
 to practical morality which the whole country de- 
 mands at their hands. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 E. D. M. 
 
38 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 THE 'TIMES' NEWSPAPEE.— THOMAS A KEMPIS.— 
 
 MR. MANSEL'S TESTS. 
 
 " In his first Letter/' says Mr. Mansel, " Mr. Mau- 
 " rice opens the attack by an insinuation that the 
 " teaching of the Bampton Lectures is destructive of 
 " all contemplative piety. To support this charge he 
 " avails himself of a criticism published in the ^ Times' 
 '^ newspaper, the writer of which mentions the follow- 
 " ing inference as one ivhich many minds will draw : — 
 '^ ' All mystic Theology disappears before this doctrine 
 '' ' at once. The followers of Thomas a Kempis, in all 
 " ' their degrees, the Avhole list of religious men who 
 " ^ have endeavoured to abstract themselves from sense 
 " ' and its conditions, are proved the merest triflers.'"^ 
 
 * "This extract from the 'Times,' which is here given verbatim, 
 " and only alluded to by Mr. Maurice, furnishes a good instance of 
 " my antagonist's fairness in quotation. The writer of the above cri- 
 " ticism immediately adds, ' We do not expect Mr. Mansel to admit 
 " 'these probable consequences of his theory, or to accept them as 
 "' legitimate consequences at all. We call attention to them as in- 
 " ' ferences which many minds will draw from his theory, whether h- 
 
LETTER IV. 39 
 
 '^ ]\Ir. jMaurice of course accepts tlie inference, and 
 " exclaims, ' Am I quite prepared, were that all, to 
 *' ^part with the Imitation of Christ, the most che- 
 "'rished book of devotion throughout Christendom, 
 '' ' dear to E-omanists, to Prote^3tants, to Quakers, — 
 '^ ' the companion of the sick in hospitals, of the soli- 
 ^' ^tary prisoner?^ ^' — [Exarn'mation, pp. 6, 7.) 
 
 As I spoke of the article in the ^Times^ from re- 
 collection, I feared when I read this note that 1 had 
 done the writer and the Lecturer serious injustice. 
 AYith some trembling I procured the number for the 
 11th of January. I will give ^S^erbatim '^ a much 
 longer passage than Mr. Mansel has given : — 
 
 *^ Divines have been accustomed to suppose that 
 ^the region of higher truth is peculiarly their own. 
 ' They have soared in imagination alcove merely plie- 
 ' nonrenal existence, and contemplated the purest 
 ' forms of being. They have discoursed of the In- 
 ^ finite and Eternal, without any suspicion that they 
 * were using words without ideas. To cross the limits 
 ' of space and time has been with them a matter of 
 ^ everyday adventure. Beyond the limits of the visi- 
 ' ble and sensible world they have sought the point 
 
 ' ' gitimately or not.' This statement in Mr. Maurice's hands assumes 
 ' the following form : — ' He pointed out, with the skill and conscien- 
 ' ' tiousness of a logician, certain results which folloioed inevitably 
 ' ' from Mr. Mansel's doctrine.' The ' skill of a logician' is a quality 
 ' for which Mr. Maurice generally professes very little respect : the 
 ' above sentence almost warrants a suspicion that his contempt ex- 
 ' tends to the 'conscientiousness* also." 
 
40 SEQUEL. 
 
 ^' of view from which they might perceive its real pro- 
 " portions^ and set a proper value on the temporal 
 ^' and finite. Eternity^ they have exclaimed, is more 
 " than time, — infinity, something greater than the 
 " realms of space can hold, Mr. ManseFs argument 
 ^' will make those of the race uncomfortahle who sur- 
 " vive to hear it. Eternity, they have to learn, is the 
 "absence of time; Infinity, the negation of space. 
 " Till we can escape from these positive conditions of 
 '^ thought, we must remain in ignorance of their mys- 
 " terious negatives. Imaginable, the world has long 
 " known that they are not. Imagination, if it is more 
 " active than thought, can travel a less distance. We 
 " cannot paint to the mind's eye a polygon of a thou- 
 " sand sides, though we can conceive it, and may even 
 " know that it exists. We cannot imagine, though 
 " we can conceive, the depths to which the Atlantic 
 " cable is sunk, or the long succession of miles through 
 " which it stretches from continent to continent. But 
 " Infinity and Eternity, according to Mr. Mansel's 
 " doctrine, are neither imaginable nor conceivable. If 
 " so, what are the words but signs without a thing 
 " signified, — symbols with no conceptions to answer 
 " to them ? What are the propositions into which 
 " they enter but verbal juggles without sense or mean- 
 " ing ? At best, the strength and force of the nega- 
 " tive concept must vary with that of the positive. 
 " The more fully our minds are occupied with time 
 ^' and space, the more closely we can approach to their 
 
LETTER IV. 
 
 41 
 
 " contraries. The finite thus becomes the only school 
 " in which we can study the Infinite, and the distinct 
 " appreciation of the temporal is the best proximate 
 '^ measure of the Eternal. All mystic Theology dis- 
 ^^ appears before this doctrine at once. The followers 
 " of Thomas a Kempis, in all their degrees, the whole 
 " list of religious men who have endeavoured to ab- 
 '' stract themselves from sense and its conditions, are 
 " proved the merest triflers. Their minds, removed 
 " from outward objects, could rise to no higher reali- 
 " ties, but were forced by the law of their being to 
 " contemplate either nothing or themselves. But we 
 " must not confine our thoughts to a single religious 
 " school, or even to religion at all. How does the 
 " glory depart from art, and the inner light from 
 " nature, its lesson from the rolling ocean, and their 
 *' moral from the everlasting hills ; how much worse 
 " than idle become all the strivings of tlie soul after 
 " a pure and elevated ideal, if, in the endeavour to 
 *' rise above the earth, it can but dash itself against a 
 " heaven of iron, and when it seeks an object of love 
 " and worship, finds but a negation ! 
 
 ^' When nationalism and Mysticism are gone, dog- 
 " matic Theology must follow. It is useless, though 
 " it is possible, to construct syllogisms and affect for- 
 " mal demonstrations when dealing with unconcciv- 
 ^^ able terms and unmeaning propositions. Some of 
 ^' the orthodox divines whom Mr. Mausel would most 
 ^^ approve are essentially deductive. Some truths, the 
 
42 SEQUEL. 
 
 
 first principles of theological science, tliey gained, as 
 they supposed, from reason, and some from Revela- 
 *' tion. Here was a sure basis on which to erect with 
 " anxious care and thought a temple of eternal veri- 
 *' ties. Vain aspiration ! The statue must fall from 
 " its pedestal, for iron is mixed with the clay. E,e- 
 'Welation addresses us through our faculties, and 
 " Reason is one of our faculties ; and our faculties 
 *' can tell us nothing of the Absolute and the Infinite, 
 ^^ which they can neither knowhjor conceive. Our 
 ^' conclusions cannot contain more than our premisses. 
 " No logic can extract positive truth from negations. 
 " Turn over your selected propositions as often as you 
 " please, and arrange them as best you may, you can 
 " extract nothing from the mind which is not pre- 
 " viously in it ; and your supposed objective Theology 
 " will be but a reflection of yourself. 
 
 '' We do not expect Mr. Mansel to admit these pro- 
 " bable consequences of his theory, or to accept them 
 " as legitimate consequences at all. We call attention 
 " to them as inferences Avhich many minds will draw 
 " from his theory, whether legitimately or not.^^ 
 
 Now I think the reader of this eloquent passage, 
 which I have preserved in its original order, will ar- 
 rive at conclusions not very different from these. 
 
 (1) That I did great injustice to my cause in 
 merely referring to a single clause of it. (2) That 
 the paragraphs before the qualifying sentence leave 
 a far stronger impression of the inevitable conse- 
 
LETTER IV. 43 
 
 quence of ]\Ir. Mansel's statement than my meagre 
 allusion to Thomas a Kempis can have conveyed. 
 
 (3) That this qualifying sentence does not efface the 
 impression, but only suggests the thought that Mr. 
 Mansel may see an escape from the apparently inevi- 
 table conclusions, which the reviewer does not see. 
 
 (4) That this qualifying sentence does not follow 
 ^' immediately '' on the passages respecting Thomas a 
 Kempis, but after a long intervening paragraph re- 
 specting dogmatic theology. (5) That the writer 
 might very naturally not expect Mr. Mansel to ac- 
 quiesce in what he said about dogmatic theology, and 
 might expect him to assent to any inferences which 
 were fatal to Rationalism and JNIysticism, in the last 
 of which classes the followers of Thomas a Kempis 
 would be generally reckoned. (G) That no person of 
 ordinary candour can possibly suppose Mr. jNIansel to 
 have used the word " immediately " — though it af- 
 fects very seriously the meaning of the Article — from 
 " contempt of conscientiousness,^^ or from any cause 
 but the carelessness to which all writers are liable. I 
 do not know whether it will be considered a point in 
 my favour, — any evidence that I have not unlawfully 
 strained th(3 purpose of the writer in the ' Times,^ — 
 that Mr. Chretien does not mention that among the 
 instances in which I have dealt unfairly with my oppo- 
 nent. Perhaps he is not as well acquainted with the 
 criticism as Mr. Mansel. 
 
 The really important question however is, whether 
 
44 SEQUEL. 
 
 those ^' many minds'^ were right, which, on the lowest 
 rendering of the reviewer's words, would think that 
 Mr. Mansel's statement proved "the followers of 
 " Thomas a Kempis, in all their degrees/^ to be the 
 " merest triflers/' The writer in the ^ Times ' ex- 
 plains the feeling of these many minds by saying that, 
 according to Mr. Mansel, "the Finite becomes the 
 " only school in which we can study the Infinite, and 
 " the distinct appreciation of the Temporal is the best 
 " proximate measure of the Eternal." Mr. Mansel 
 observes, " The mysticism of a Kempis^ a very subor- 
 " dinate feature in his work, is of a practical, not a 
 " speculative character." Whether subordinate or 
 not, the remark that it is essentially practical is un- 
 doubtedly true. The " many minds " would care no- 
 thing for Thomas a Kempis were it otherwise ; the 
 sick in hospitals and the solitary prisoner must be 
 very indifferent to any Mysticism that is not practical. 
 I endeavoured to reconcile the instinct of these many 
 with the reason which the critic assigned, by observ- 
 ing that a Divine Teacher of man's spirit, with whom 
 he could converse, was assumed throughout the ' Imi- 
 tation of Christ,' that this was the characteristic of 
 the book as a practical book, that this had endeared 
 it to practical and suffering people. I had no occasion 
 surely to support this assertion by extracts. Every 
 one who has looked into the ^ Imitation,' who knows 
 the form in which it is cast, must be aware that it 
 ceases to exist as a manual of devotion, that all its 
 
LETTER IV. 45 
 
 words lose their significance, if the " disciple " in the 
 fourteenth century and in all subsequent centuries 
 might not as much hold converse with Christ as 
 those who sat with Him in the ship on the sea of Ga- 
 lilee, or walked with Him in the streets of Jerusalem. 
 In other woi-ds, the idea of the book is that there is an 
 Eternal Teacher ever near to the disciple, who is en- 
 deavouring to draw him away from " sense and its 
 " conditions.^^ And it certainly did seem to me, as to 
 one of the many, that if the Infinite could be only 
 approached through the Finite, the Eternal through 
 the Temporal, this postulate of a Kempis was an 
 utterly false one. To this objection ]\Ir. INIansel 
 makes answer : — 
 
 " In the preface to the Bampton Lectures, the in- 
 " quiry which that work is intended to pursue is stated 
 " as follows : — ^ Does there exist in the human mind 
 '' ^ any direct faculty of religious knowledge, by which, 
 " ' in its speculative exercise, we are enabled to decide, 
 " ' independently of all external Revelation, what is 
 '^ ' the true nature of God, and the manner in which 
 " ' He must manifest Himself to the world ; and 
 " M}y which, in its critical exercise, we are entitled 
 ^^ ' authoritatively to decide for or against the claims 
 ^* ^ of any professed Revelation, as containing a true 
 ^^ ^ or a false representation of the Divine Nature and 
 '' ^ Attributes ?^ The reasons for answering this 
 '' question in the negative are given in the third Lec- 
 '^ ture, in which it is maintained that the Infinite, 
 
46 SEQUEL. 
 
 "as such, is not a direct object of human know- 
 " ledge, on account of certain limitations to which 
 " all human thouglit is subject. The limitations spe- 
 " cified are four in number, which may be briefly 
 " enunciated as follows : — (1) There must be an 
 "object about which to think; and this object must 
 " be distinguishable from other objects. (2) There 
 " must be a person to think ; and this thinker 
 " must be distinguishable from the object about 
 " which he thinks. (3) There must be a time to 
 "think in; and this must have a certain limited 
 " duration, as a portion of the life of the thinker, and 
 " must succeed or precede other portions of time, in 
 " which he is thinking of other objects. (4) Attri- 
 "butes of body must be conceived as existing in 
 " space ; and attributes of mind as existing in a })erson. 
 " No mode of knowledge which does not profess to be 
 " exem.pt from one of these four conditions is repudi- 
 " ated by the Bampton Lectures, as ' impossible in the 
 " ^ very nature of things.^ '' — [ExammatiGn, pp. 9-11.) 
 No"w, in the statement of this question, there are 
 four or five words the meaning of which cannot be 
 taken for granted, upon which in fact the whole 
 controversy turns. What is meant bv " a faculty of 
 " religious knowledge'^ ? What is meant by its 
 " speculative exercise'^ ? What is meant by "external 
 " Revelation" ? What is meant by deciding " inde- 
 " pendently '^ of external Revelation ? It w^as exactly 
 because I thought that every one of these expressions 
 
LETTER rV. 47 
 
 required to be sifted before any propositions which 
 were grounded upon them could be of the least worth, 
 that I wrote my Letters. If " a direct faculty of rcli- 
 " gious knowledge '^ means a faculty of knowing the 
 Being in whom we live and move, as a child knows 
 its father, then I think that such a knowledge is 
 implied in the ^ Imitation of Christ/ and in all writ- 
 ings of the same character, nay, more or less in all 
 devotional writings Avliatsoever. If, on the other 
 hand, bv " direct faculty of reliirious knowlcd2:e/^ is 
 meant a faculty by Avhich the child comprehends the 
 Father, the Finite the Infinite, most persons, of all 
 schools, would in terms repel so monstrous a no- 
 tion ; while all of us are liable to fall into it, be- 
 cause all of us are tempted continually to make our- 
 selves gods. The question is surely open, whether 
 the evil is ever corrected in us till we discover 
 that we have a divine faculty which will always be 
 likely to put forth extravagant pretensions when it 
 is denied its legitimate functions. If, again, by the 
 "■ speculative exercise ^' of this faculty, is meant the 
 exercise of looking out beyond the limits of the finite 
 and the visible, beyond itself, this too, I think, is 
 the assumption of such writers as a Kempis, and 
 more or less distinctly the assumption of all devo- 
 tional writers whatsoever. If, on the other hand, by 
 " speculative '^ exercise is meant, as in tlie former 
 case, that the speculation embraces within its terms 
 and limits that which, by the hypotliesis, is tran- 
 
48 SEQUEL. 
 
 scendent and infinite, I sliould say again that no 
 school or sect ought to be charged, except on the 
 clearest evidence, with admitting so hnge a contra- 
 diction ; but that there does seem a great danger of 
 those approaching the very edge of it, who think that 
 Man has no faculty which raises him above the terms 
 and limits of his own understanding, and who yet 
 confess an Infinite and Eternal God, whom he is in 
 some way to approach and (not ignorantly) to wor- 
 ship. So, thirdly, if by " external Revelation '^ is 
 meant the unveiling and discovering to Man by God 
 Himself of His own Nature and Character, I appre- 
 hend that Thomas a Kempis and all his followers 
 would say, that this is the revelation or unveiling 
 which the Bible speaks of, and that we cannot, con- 
 sistently wdtli the acceptance of the Bible, deny that 
 God has created men with faculties to receive such a 
 revelation ; that it is, in fact, the ground of all their 
 discoveries, the means by which all their powers are 
 awakened. If, on the other hand, any have said that 
 men^s faculties could be awakened without such an 
 external revelation, or that without it they have any 
 faculties which could judge of the nature of God, I 
 think it should be carefully inquired whether these 
 opinions are not attributed to many who do not actu- 
 ally hold them : and whether those wdio do, or think 
 they do, may not have been led into their opinion by 
 statements which seem to imply tliat men have no 
 faculties whatever for receiving such a Revelation, or 
 
LETTER IV. 49 
 
 appreliencling from whom it came^ or whether it con- 
 tain a true or a false representation of the Divine 
 Nature and Attributes. These are the questions 
 which are at issue. You will see, I think, how easy 
 it is, by the use of certain words, such as Reli- 
 gious, Knowledge, Revelation, to lose all sight of the 
 principles which they involve. When, therefore, Mr. 
 Mansel says, in reference to the passage which I 
 have extracted, " By these tests the Lectures may 
 " fairly be tried in reference to any school of tlieolo- 
 " gians which they are supposed to approve or to 
 ^^ condemn,^^ I demur to the statement altogether. I 
 maintain that every one of these tests must be tested 
 again before one can the least understand whom it 
 does or does not approve or condemn. And I think 
 that the instinct of the " manv minds,^^ which leads 
 them with satisfaction or with sorrow to confess, 
 that all the theologians to whom the ' Times ^ re- 
 viewer refers, or to whom I refer, must be sacrificed, 
 if Mr. Mansel's positions are maintained, is a sound 
 instinct, and one which will endure much severer tests 
 than those which Mr. Mansel has applied to his Lee- 
 tures. 
 
 The assertion that such books as Thomas a Kempis 
 must be " sacrificed ^^ or " expelled from libraries ^^ if 
 Mr. Manser s opinions are adopted, which was made 
 in my Letters, and which I have repeated now, has 
 created much surprise and contempt in his mind. I 
 would gladly withdraw such expressions, if on reflec- 
 
 E 
 
50 SEQUEL. 
 
 tion they appeared to me exaggerated. I cannot feel 
 that they are. Manuals of devotion which have be- 
 come associated with the highest delights and the se- 
 verest conflicts of those who use them, when they are 
 discovered to proceed upon a false principle, cannot 
 be treated like a history or an astronomical lecture, 
 which has been superseded by later information and 
 a more expanded science. A bitter moral disappoint- 
 ment, a sense that the writer has helped us to deceive 
 ourselves about questions in which deception is most 
 serious and terrible, will make any half-measures in 
 this case impossible. Those who have seen these cruel 
 reactions — those who have felt them — will understand 
 me. 
 
 But Mr. Mansel goes on : — ^' Let it be granted that 
 "this or that writer (mystic or not) has so far de- 
 " ceived himself as to mistake for a divine revelation 
 " what is in reality but the result of his own medita- 
 " tions ; — still those meditations may be pious and 
 " profitable, though we regard them as the work of a 
 " human author, possessing no supernatural safeguard 
 " against human errors, and having no title to be be- 
 " lieved as articles of the faith. It may suit Mr. 
 '^ Maurice's purpose to confound these two questions, 
 " as it suited him, in his ' Theological Essays,^ to 
 " identify the inspiration of Holy Scripture with the 
 " inspiration of religious men. The majority of his 
 "readers and mine, with the Sixtli Article of the 
 " Church of England to assist them, will probably be 
 
LETTER IV. 51 
 
 "able to distinguish between the two." — [Examina- 
 tion, pp. 13, 14.) 
 
 I am very glad that Mr. Mansel is able, by help of 
 the Sixth Article, to settle the question about the 
 limits of Inspiration to his own satisfaction. As I do 
 not find the word Inspiration once used in that Ar- 
 ticle, I should have been thankful if he w^ould have 
 told me how I was to cure my errors on the subject 
 bv its teaching;. The Sixth Article tells us what are 
 the Canonical books of Scripture, and what are the 
 Apocryphal. I acknowledge the Canonical as Cano- 
 nical, and the Apocryphal as Apocryphal. If the 
 Church had required me to hold a certain theory 
 about the absence of Inspiration in the Apocryphal 
 books, or in any other books, I suppose she would 
 have told me so ; there could not certainly have been 
 a more convenient opportunity. As to the presence 
 of Inspiration in the writers of the Canonical books, 
 I think I accept it in at least as full a sense as Mr. 
 Mansel does. The extreme horror which I feel of 
 the theory of Dictation, arises from a belief, right or 
 wrong, that it is wholly at war with the idea of In- 
 spiration ; tliat holy men could not speak as they were 
 moved by the Holy Ghost if they put down certain 
 letters mechanically; if they acted as amanuenses, 
 not as men. 
 
 Some may deem ]\Tr. INIansel's allusion to my 
 'Theological Essays' not relevant to the question in 
 hand. I differ from them. I am grateful to him for 
 
52 SEQUEL. 
 
 introducing it^ not only because it gives me an oppor- 
 tunity of making a remark upon tlie Sixth Article 
 wliicli I believe may relieve some minds of a great 
 embarrassment^ but because the question respecting 
 Thomas a Kempis and the Mystical Writers may re- 
 ceive some illustration from that remark. Should any 
 one attempt to establish an Article of Faith out of 
 Thomas a Kempis, or out of any book which I have a 
 greater reverence for than I have for his, I should offer 
 as stout a resistance as my opponent. But that these 
 writers, or any writers who have expressed any deep 
 truth or exercised any good moral influence over the 
 world, were merely uttering their own meditations, were 
 not under the guidance and teaching of God^s Holy 
 Spirit, this I am not prepared to concede, precisely 
 because I do accept those Canonical books of Holy 
 Scripture, precisely because I do learn mj Articles 
 of Faith from them. Those Articles which are in- 
 cluded in the third portion of our Creed, those which 
 most emphatically belong to the New Testament, are 
 grounded, as I hold, on a manifestation of the Holy 
 Spirit, as tlie Inspirer of all right thoughts, good 
 counsels, and just works. To say that where I find 
 these, the inspiration of God's Spirit is wanting, is, in 
 my judgment, to set at nought the testimony, not of 
 the Apocryphal, but of the Canonical books. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 F. D. M. 
 
53 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 THE PRAYER-BOOK.— KNOWLEDGE OF GOD.— 
 
 AUTHORITIES. 
 
 In Mr. Chretien's Letter to me (p. 15) I finrl the fol- 
 lowing words : — 
 
 " At the lieginning of the fifth Lecture, we find Mr. 
 ^ Mansel expressly recognizing the knowledge of God 
 ' as possible, and speaking of it as ^ a consciousness 
 ^^ of the relation of a Person to a Person' (p. 143). 
 ' The sense of these words recurs continually in this 
 ' and the preceding Lecture ; I select them because 
 ^they are perhaps those in which Mr. Mansel gives 
 ' his belief on this subject the simplest and most 
 ^quotable expression. Surely, Sir, they are worthy 
 ' grave attention. They must remove from your 
 ^mind the suspicion which you entertained (p. 139), 
 ' that the Lecturer must tremble at the thought of 
 ' our using such phrases as these — ' We who know 
 " Thee now by faith' — ^In knowledge of Whom stand- 
 ' ' eth our eternal life.' To accept phrases like these, 
 ' when they occur in our Liturgy or elsewhere, is as 
 '^easy for Mr. Mansel as for you or for myself. 
 
54 SEQUEL. 
 
 "Whatever differences there are between you (and 
 " they are neither few nor unimportant) , this^ at least, 
 " is not among the number. On one common ground 
 "you meet, — ' This is life eternal ; that they might 
 " ' know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, 
 " Svhom thou hast sent ^ (Johnxvii. 3)." 
 
 This admonition, so kindly and truthfully expressed, 
 has reference to a remark which I made in my first 
 Letter respecting the alterations in the Prayer-book 
 which will be necessary if the doctrine of the B amp- 
 ton Lectures was established. 1 cannot say how 
 heartily I thank Mr. Chretien for it. I did certainly 
 think that the accusation against Schleiermacher in 
 the 16th note to Mr. ManseFs fourth Lecture justi- 
 fied me in applying a somewhat severe rule to himself 
 respecting that which might constitute hypocrisy in 
 the act of prayer. But if I left the apprehension 
 upon a mind so open and honest as Mr. Chretien^ s, 
 that I was judging Mr. Mansel, or fancyiog that he 
 used a prayer which he must use habitually, in a less 
 real or devout sense than I used it myself, I desire at 
 once to withdraw the expression. It was intrinsically 
 wrong; it was especially inconsistent with all my 
 professions ; for I have always declared that I be- 
 lieved acts of prayer to be those in which men rise 
 above themselves and all their dogmatic confusions, 
 so that the prayers of divines should never be mea- 
 sured by their arguments or opinions, and that they 
 themselves should be tried bv the former rather than 
 
LETTER V. 00 
 
 by the latter. To have lost sight of this principle in 
 speaking of any person, would be a far greater sor- 
 row to me than to have incurred any of Mr. Hansel's 
 denunciations. Without justifying the fault, I will 
 explain how I fell into it. I was writing, as Mr. 
 Chretien supposes, not to a single theological student 
 only, but to a whole class of theological students, with 
 whom, directly or indirectly, I liave been in contact, 
 whose difficulties and dangers I have known. To 
 make them afraid of saying that the words they use 
 when they are praying for and with their people only 
 mean so and so; to convince them that they mean 
 more, not less, than they mean when they are used 
 in the ordinary intercourse of life, and that prayer 
 itself is to teach them how much thev mean, — this 
 has been, and I trust always will be, a principal ob- 
 ject with me whenever T am trying to influence this 
 class. Now I cannot help feeling every day that 
 such teaching as Mr. Hansel's, however little it may 
 interfere with his own apprehension of this Collect, 
 must lead and is leading numbers to take it in a 
 non-natural sense ; perhaps I should rather say, is 
 justifying them in the very inadequate and unreal 
 sense which they give to it already. The astonish- 
 ment which I have seen expressed in various journals. 
 Church and Dissenting, at my notion that the words 
 of St. John, which Mr. Chretien has quoted, do really 
 point to a knowledge of God in the strict sense of the 
 words, — their evident feeling that Hr. IMansel's sense 
 
56 SEQUEL. 
 
 is the strict one^ and that the Bible's is a rhetorical 
 or metaphorical one, — confirms me in the dread which 
 I indicated. I believe, in my heart, that those words 
 in the Prayer-book are the great protection against 
 the opinion that we cannot know the Infinite and 
 Eternal God ; and that while we heartily pray them, 
 no double senses of the word ' know ^ will ever esta- 
 blish their dominion over us. 
 
 This was what I meant by referring to the Collects. 
 Certainly the last thing that was in my mind was to 
 indulge in " sarcasm '^ against Mr. Mansel. I was writ- 
 ing very earnestly on behalf of myself and of a mul- 
 titude of other men. I knew nothing of him as an 
 individual ; I merely felt about him as a writer who 
 had put forth a doctrine which had met with great 
 acceptance, and which it seemed to me would have 
 more effect in undermining the lessons I had learnt 
 in the Prayer-book, — lessons I believe we all require 
 to be deepened in our hearts, — than any vt'hich had 
 been circulated by any professed enemy of our Church. 
 I cannot change that opinion. But Mr. Mansel says : 
 
 " Mr. Maurice, if he has honestlv read the book 
 "he is criticizing, must be perfectly well aware that 
 " the application of this argument is not limited to 
 " the Bampton Lecturer. He must have found, in 
 " the notes to that book, quotations from writers of 
 " various ages and countries, some of them at least 
 " of unimpeachable orthodoxy, — Fathers, Greek and 
 " Latin, mediaeval and modern Divines, Philosophers, 
 
LETTER V. 57 
 
 ' Englishmen^ Frenchmen^ Germans, — all concmTing 
 '^ in the confession, that the Infinite is beyond the 
 reach of man's reason ; that the absolute essence of 
 God is unknown; that the Divine attributes are 
 apprehended, not directly in themselves, but indi- 
 rectly in their relations to us. The following, to 
 say nothing of more questionable authorities, — 
 Justin Martyr, Theophilus of Antioch, Clement of 
 Alexandria, Athanasius, Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, 
 Cyril of Jerusalem, Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, 
 Hooker, Bramhall, Cudworth, South, Browne, 
 Berkeley, Butler, Whately, Hampden, Lee, Des- 
 cartes, Pascal, Bartholmess, Leibnitz, Jacobi, Storr, 
 Neander, Drobisch, form a goodly array of divines 
 and philosophers, every one of whom, if Mr. Mau- 
 rice's judgment is trustworthy, would have ' trem- 
 bled ' at using the Collect for the Epiphany and 
 the second Collect at Morning Prayer. Of these 
 I shall repeat but one quotation, which has already 
 been given at length at the close of the third Lec- 
 ture, and in that position could hardly have been 
 overlooked by any moderately attentive reader. 
 The writer from whom it is taken is one not ge- 
 nerally supposed to be peculiarly hostile to the 
 doctrines and services of the Church of England. 
 ' Dangerous it were for the feeble brain of man to 
 ' wade far into the doings of the Most High, whom 
 ^ although to know be life, and joy to make men- 
 ^ tion of his name, vet our soundest knowledge is 
 
58 SEQUEL. 
 
 " ' to know that we know him not as indeed he is, 
 " ^ neither can know him ; and our safest eloquence 
 " ^ concerning him is our silence, when we confess 
 *' ' without confession that his glory is inexplicable, 
 " ^ his greatness above our capacity and reach/ In 
 " such company I am quite content to bear my share 
 " of Mr. Maurice's sarcasm ; and notwithstanding his 
 " lucid dissertation on the word knoio, and his denun- 
 " ciation of the ' confused and unsatisfactory ' charac- 
 " ter of those discourses which do not employ the 
 " term in his sense, I venture to assert once more, as 
 " I have asserted before, that knowledge by faith is 
 ^' not knowledge by sight or by demonstration ; and 
 " that a knowledge which is sufficient for the pur- 
 " poses of religious life and worship, may be insuffi- 
 " cient for the purposes of a Speculative Theology." 
 — [Examination, pp. 14, 15, and 16.) 
 
 I certainly did not enter in my former volume into 
 an examination of the authorities enumerated in this 
 extract. I will make amends for the fault in this 
 Sequel. In the next Letter I will consider them one 
 by one, omitting those who are still alive in our own 
 land. In general I shall not be content with merely 
 looking at the passages which are given in Mr. 
 MansePs notes, though I will do my best to discover 
 their sense as they stand. I will also inquire whether 
 they do not gain fresh force from their context, and from 
 the general purpose of the writers. I do not promise 
 to accept their statements, whatever they may be, as 
 
LETTER V. 59 
 
 controlling the language either of the Bible or the 
 Prayer-book. But I shall be most thankful to dis- 
 cover what they do say ; whether they confirm Mr. 
 ManseFs belief respecting the Infinite and Eternal ; 
 whether they contradict my belief as to the objects 
 of Revelation. One author, of greatest worth and 
 weight, I shall not have need to quote in his chro- 
 nological place. I quite agree with jNIr. Mansel, 
 that the passage he took from Hooker could " not 
 " have been overlooked by any moderately attentive 
 " reader of the Lectures.^^ I at least did not over- 
 look it. I referred to it in these words : — 
 
 " Mr. Mansel quotes a beautiful passage from 
 Hooker in this Lecture, one from Augustine in 
 the next, both of which indicate what deep awe 
 they had of the Being in whom they were living 
 and moving and having their being; how, as one 
 worthy to stand beside them, our holy and admir- 
 able Leighton, expresses it, ' The posts of the door 
 ^ of the spiritual temple moved at the voice of Him 
 ' that cried.^ Such passages might have been mul- 
 tiplied indefinitely ; none would have been more 
 to the purpose than the well-known soliloquy in 
 the fifth book of Hooker respecting the Eucharist. 
 They should be read and re-read, that we may feel 
 how true the saying is, that ' those who know most 
 ' of God, and trust most in His love, will fear Him 
 'most;^ how impossible it is to cultivate the fear 
 of God in any sense in which the Scriptures speak 
 
60 SEQUEL. 
 
 " of it, if we regard Him as a distant, unknown 
 '' Being, whose Nature and Character we cannot 
 ^' enter into, or partake of; how certainly, if we en- 
 " tertain that opinion, our fear will be taught us by 
 " the precepts of men ; how certainly it will alternate 
 ^' between the sentiment of slaves towards a cruel 
 " Taskmaster, and that of idolaters who have made 
 " their own Gods, and therefore feel — as the Greeks 
 " did about their heroes, as the Italians do about 
 " their saints — that they have a right to scold them 
 " and scoff at them ; how truly the words of Job 
 '' express the whole difference between the mere tra- 
 " ditional homage, and that which comes from actual 
 " discovery. ' I have heard of Thee by the hearing 
 ^ of the ear, but now my eye seeth Thee. Where- 
 ' FoiiE / abhor myself, and repent in dust and 
 '' ' ashes: ''—[What is Revelation? pp. 352, 353.) 
 
 I beg you to remember those words when you pe- 
 ruse the passages from Fathers, Schoolmen, French 
 and English divines, which will come under our notice 
 
 immediately. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 F. D. M. 
 
 (C 
 
61 
 
 LETTER YI. 
 
 AN EXAMINATION OF WITNESSES. 
 
 My dear Sir, 
 
 Mr. Mansel's first reference (Lecture IV., Note 
 19) is to the sixth chapter of the second Apology of 
 Justin Martyr. It is to this effect, that " the words 
 '' Father and Creator, and Lord and Master, are not, 
 " properly speaking, names, but titles or appellations 
 " derived from benefits and acts." It must be diffi- 
 cult, I think, for a reader knowing only these words. 
 to give them a very definite sense. AY hat goes before, 
 makes Justin^ s purpose intelligible. He is speaking 
 of the Daemons or Demigods of the heathen mytho- 
 lofifv. These he derives from that union of the sons 
 of God with the daughters of men, which is spoken 
 of in the Book of Genesis. Each angelic parent, he 
 supposes, gave a name {e. g. Poseidon or Pluto) to his 
 offspring. But the Father of all, he says, had no 
 name, inasmuch as he who bestows a name must be 
 older than he on whom it is bestowed. Then follows 
 Mr. ManseFs extract. After which Justin proceeds 
 to speak of Him who alone he truly called Son, the 
 
62 SEQUEL. 
 
 Word^ who was ever with the Father, being begotten 
 before all creatures. He explains why the name Christ 
 belongs to Hira, and how He is to overcome the 
 Daemons. Doubtless a passage from which much 
 may be learnt respecting the belief of the second 
 century, and which may also be valuable for other 
 reasons. But how it serves Mr. ManseFs cause, or 
 what light it throws upon the question in what sense 
 the words " knowing God " are used in the Prayer- 
 book, I must leave the reader to guess. 
 
 Theophilus of Antioch follows next (Lecture IV., 
 Note 18). It is to this effect, that as the soul in a 
 man is not seen, being invisible to men, but is discovered 
 through the movement of the body, so likeivise may it 
 be impossible that God should be seen by human eyes, 
 though He is discerned through His Providence and 
 His works. A very suitable and excellent argument 
 as addressed to a heathen like Autolycus, but how it 
 affects those who never dreamed of seeing God with 
 their eyes, who entertain the profoundest horror of 
 idolatry, I cannot imagine. 
 
 The next passage (Lecture IV., Note 23) is more 
 astonishing. It is taken from the fifth book of the 
 ' Stromata"* of Clemens of Alexandria. Now, most 
 readers of ecclesiastical history are aware, that Cle- 
 mens delighted to be called a true Gnostic, precisely 
 because he sought to confute the Gnosticism of Ba- 
 
LETTER VI. 63 
 
 silides, Valentinus, and others, not^ as Tertullian did, 
 by merely deuoimcing their method of attaining to 
 the knowledge of God, but by showing that there is 
 a method of arriving at the knowledge through the 
 guidance and teaching of tlie Divine and ^' Philan- 
 thropic '^ Word. The fifth book of the ' Stroraata/ 
 from which the extract in question is taken, begins 
 with the clearest and strongest assertion respecting 
 this yvcocrL^;. Take some of the early sentences of 
 the first chapter. 
 
 Neither is Faith ivithout Knowledge, nor Knowledge 
 without Faith. For the Father is not ivithout the 
 Son ; in so far forth as He is a Father, He is Father 
 of a Son. And the Son is the ty^ue Teacher concern- 
 ing the Father. And that one may believe i?i the Son, 
 it is necessary to knoiv the Father, to ivhom the Son is 
 related. And again, that we may have a knoivledge 
 of the Father (Iva rbv Ylarepa irpoyvcofjuev), it is ne- 
 cessary to be a believer in the Son, seeing the Son of 
 God teaches of Him. For from Faith to Ktiowledge ; 
 through the Son to the Father. But Knowledge is of 
 the Father and the Son, according to the Gnostical 
 canon (I mean Gnostical in the true sense), the grasp- 
 ing at and apprehending {iiri/SoXr] koI Bcd\7)yjn<;) 
 of Truth is through the Truth. 
 
 In the chapter of this book from which the ex- 
 tract in the note comes, Clemens has ascended to the 
 very sublime of this Alexandrian doctrine. He has 
 been speaking of the Greek Mysteries as indicating 
 
64 SEQUEL. 
 
 the truths tliat purification is the step to the highest 
 knowledge. The greater Mysteries^ he says^ have no 
 longer reference to learning, but to the actual con- 
 templation of Nature and things in themselves. Then 
 pointing out how, by confession and the other acts of 
 the Christian life, this Pagan doctrine may be turned 
 to its truest sense, he talks of arriving, after having 
 abstracted the soul from all bodily desires, at the 
 Monad or Unity ; then how this is to be disengaged 
 from all notions of position or locality. The sen- 
 tence Mr. Mansel has quoted follows, wherein he ex- 
 horts, that throwing aside " whatsoever appertains 
 " to bodies, or to the things that are called incorpo- 
 " real, we should cast ourselves into the greatness of 
 " Christ, and thence go on by a process of holiness 
 " into the Immeasurable, and so should come to the 
 " knowledge of the Omnipotent^ not however as if 
 "we could take measure of that which it is, but 
 " rather of that which it is not." On this last 
 clause, of course, the whole stress of Mr. Mansel's 
 quotation rests. Whether it can rest safely there, 
 after the passages to which I have referred^ and the 
 hints which I have given respecting the whole life and 
 purpose of Clemens, others may judge. I suspect 
 that the negative knowledge which Clemens seems to 
 affirm as the highest attainable, is explained in the 
 following sentence, wherein he intimates that ' figure 
 and motion and place, and right hand and left,' all of 
 which are connected with God in Scripture, are to be 
 
LETTER VI. 65 
 
 thrown aside by the Gnostic, not as if they were not 
 necessary steps to his knowledge, bnt as being hints 
 of that which he is afterwards to attain in its simpler 
 essence. The idea of this negative knowledge runs 
 through all writings of this class. It reappears in 
 the fourteenth century in Eckart ; Gerson handles 
 it ; Mr. Vaughan and Mr. Mansel would say, and say 
 rightly, I conceive, that it reaches its full development 
 in Hejrel. In all its forms I feel far more dread of it 
 than sympathy with it. But surely the indication of 
 it in Clemens does not make this passage exactly the 
 authority to which Mr. Mansel should appeal. 
 
 The next authority is Athanasius (Lecture IV., 
 Note 18). I will give Mr. MansePs passage as it 
 stands. " For ofttimes the artist, though not seen, 
 " is known from his works ; and just as they say 
 " about the image-maker Phidias, that his productions, 
 " by their symmetry and the proportion of their parts 
 " to each other, show forth Phidias, though not there, 
 " to the beholders ; so may we fitly know from the 
 " order of this world the God who is the Maker and 
 " Fashioner of it, even though by the eyes of the body 
 " He is not perceived.'^ What I said about Theo- 
 philus, applies emphatically to this passage of Athana- 
 sius. He is writing against idolaters and a])Out ido- 
 latry. His whole argument has reference to the de- 
 gradation which Heathens suffer from fancying God to 
 be in the likeness of the objects which are presented 
 
 F 
 
66 SEQUEL. 
 
 to their senses. He had been arguing in the previous 
 chapter, that having immortal souls which they can- 
 not see, they make guesses about God from the things 
 they do see. He had asked them why, as they turned 
 away from God, tliey do not turn to Him. For they 
 can do this, he says, if they wash themselves from 
 the filth of their lust, and so casting off what is the fo- 
 reign accident of the soul, will exhibit only that which 
 comes forth from the Creator, that so with it they 
 may behold the Word of the Father, after which they 
 were at first created. He repeats the same sentiment 
 in fuller and more striking language, affirming, ^^that 
 " the pure part of the soul being thoroughly pene- 
 '' trated with light, beholds as in a glass the Word 
 " that is the Image of the Father, and in Him reason- 
 " ably apprehends the Father (tov Harepa Xoyl^e- 
 " zai), of whom the Saviour is the Image. Or if the 
 "instruction that cometh from the soul is not self- 
 " sufficing by reason of the things without it that are 
 *' disturbing the reason, and because it cannot of itself 
 '^ see that w^hich is nobler, it is possible again, even from 
 " the things that appear, to la . hold of the knowledge 
 " concerning God; the creation, as in written characters, 
 " through its order and harmony signifying and pro- 
 " claiming its Master and Creator. For God being 
 " good and philanthropic, and caring for the souls that 
 " are placed under Him, seeing that He is unseen and 
 " incomprehensible in nature, being above all created 
 " substance, and seeing that on this account the human 
 
LETTER VI. 67 
 
 " race would have missed tlie knowledge coucerning 
 " Him, in that it is formed out of the things that are 
 " not, and He is without beginning, — for this reason 
 " God so fashioned His creation by His own Word, 
 " that whereas He is by nature unseen, He might even 
 " from the works be made known to men/^ And then 
 follow the words Mr. Mansel has quoted. I venture 
 to ask whether this passage favours more than the 
 others his doctrine, so far as that is opposed to mine ? 
 Athanasius believed undoubtedly that tlie creature 
 cannot by its own efforts ascend to the Creator. That 
 is the doctrine of my whole book. He contends that 
 the Creator reveals Himself to the creature, that 
 it is the proof of His goodness that He does. He no- 
 where hints that this Revelation is not of what God 
 is, but '' how He wills that we should think of Him 
 " in our present finite state." This is tJie question. 
 Do not let us lose sight of it. 
 
 Basil and Gregory of Nyssa are Mr.MansePs next 
 authorities (Lecture IV., Note 19). I join them to- 
 gether, because the passages which he has extracted are 
 taken from treatises written by the respective authors 
 against Eunomius. The object of Eunomius was to 
 refute the belief of the Churcii respecting the Gene- 
 ration of the Son, by proving that the idea of gene- 
 ration was imcompatible with the idea of Godhead. 
 He assumed the epithet ungeneratcd [a^evvi]To<i) to 
 be the epithet for the Divine nature. He would not 
 
68 SEQUEL. 
 
 admit it to be merely an epithet^ or to be deduced from 
 human notions. It denoted, or ratlier, connoted, the 
 Divine substance. To speak of a generated Being as 
 consubstantial with the 6 ayevy7]T0<; is a contradiction. 
 The first book of Basil and the twelfth Oration of 
 Gregory are chiefly occupied with arguments on this 
 point. There is much of course in both which is not 
 argument but vehement denunciation. Basil espe- 
 cially is provoked, by some allusion of his antagonist 
 to privative or negative w^ords, into the exclamation 
 that he has got that lore from the categories of the 
 pagan Aristotle, with which the doctrine of the Church 
 ought never to be mixed. Omitting however these and 
 other accessories of BasiFs discourse, it is an ingeni- 
 ous effort (more able, I think, than the corresponding 
 one of the other Father) to show that Eunomius has be- 
 wildered himself by confounding a phrase which ex- 
 presses just as much as any other phrase a notion 
 about the Divine substance, with that substance. The 
 name, " the Unbegotten," Basil contends, can no more 
 represent the nature of God than any other name. 
 Taken by itself, it does not satisfy the human mind ; 
 nay, it is derived from the idea of generation ; it is 
 merely the negation of that. And then having con- 
 futed this very awkward experiment for getting at 
 a Substance which must be above all our notions, 
 through one of these notions, or rather by a denial of 
 one of them, he goes on to say, in the words which 
 Mr. Mansel has quoted, that " the very supposition of 
 
LETTER VI. 69 
 
 " liaving found out the substance of the God who is 
 ^^ over all^ what self-conceit and arrogance it is ! Let 
 " us examiiie him. whence he savs that he has come 
 " into the perception of it. Is it from the common 
 " judgment of Mankind ? That indeed suggests to us 
 "the existence of God, not what that existence is.'^ 
 And therefore, Basil goes on to show how, since these 
 experiments at arriving at the substance of God are 
 so vain and impossible, since they are found to termi- 
 nate at last in some notion which we have abstracted, 
 or in some mere denial of that which is human, God 
 ha^j manifested Himself in the Only-Begotten Son, who 
 could truly say, " He that hath seen ]Me hath seen the 
 " Father.^^ The whole argument tends to this point. 
 There must be an Only-Begotten Son to reveal 'the 
 Father. There is no contradiction in such a revela- 
 tion. No doubt Basil believed that in one sense sub- 
 stance — the substance of the earth, the substance of 
 man, the substance of God — is incognizable. That is 
 to say, he believed that there is in each person and 
 in each thing that which constitutes the person or 
 the thing, the very self of him or it. That must be 
 incommunical)le. But the wdiole end of his trea- 
 tise is to show that the Son does show forth the per- 
 fect image, the exact form of this substance. Ac- 
 cording to Eunomius, that was impossible ; the Un- 
 begotten could not be presented in the Begotten _ 
 What then was Basil, what was Gregory of Nyssa 
 setting forth, but that very idea of a Revelation of 
 
70 SEQUEL. 
 
 the real and true God, as He is, in the Person of the 
 Incarnate Word, which I opposed to the idea that 
 God only tells us what " He wills that we should 
 " think of Him in our present finite state'' ? I cannot 
 be too glad that Mr. Mansel has given us this passage 
 from Basil. It is worthy of the most careful medita- 
 tion, not only for its own sake, but as the key to the 
 mind of the doctors of the Nicene age generally on 
 the subject of Revelation. 
 
 Cyril of Jerusalem is referred to in the same 
 note. A very different man, I need not remind you, 
 from Basil or Gregory, a man with much more sim- 
 plicity of heart than subtlety of intellect, a man who 
 could never enter into the Homoousion of the Council, 
 and yet to whom the greatest champions of that Coun- 
 cil have not denied the title of orthodox. Most con- 
 sistently with this character does he say in the chap- 
 ter of his Catecheses which refers to the one God, 
 "For we do not declare what is God; but that we 
 '^ cannot arrive at an exact knowledge about Him, with 
 " humbleness we confess. For in things concerning 
 '' God, it is great knowledge to confess ignorance." 
 A beautiful sentiment, and one which I believe most 
 persons whom Mr. Mansel has attacked in his Lec- 
 tures, would in the best moments of their lives recog- 
 nize to be no less true than beautiful. It is in strict 
 harmony with the passage from Hooker, and explains, 
 I think, better than almost any we can find, in what 
 
LETTER VI. 71 
 
 sense many devout men have, sometimes, seemed to 
 cut off human beings from that knowledge which, in 
 their most fervent exhortations, they were urging them 
 to seek ; how earnestly they have confessed ignorance 
 as the very road to Knowledge ; how readily they have 
 acquiesced in darkness respecting the jjlans of God, 
 because they have believed that He has revealed 
 Christ's Infinite Goodness and Wisdom in which they 
 can repose. 
 
 (C 
 (C 
 
 Augustine follows next (Lecture V., Note 18). 
 The passage is taken from the thirteenth book of the 
 Confessions. I will use the translation which is given 
 in the ' Library of the Fathers' : — " For altogether as 
 " Thou art, Thou only knowest who art unchangeably 
 '^ and knowest unchangeably and wiliest unchange- 
 " ably. And thy Essence knoweth and willeth un- 
 changeably ; and thy Knowledge is and willeth un- 
 changeably ; and thy Will is and knoweth unchange- 
 " ably. Nor seemeth it right in thine eyes that as 
 " the unchangeable light knoweth itself, so should it 
 " be known by the thing enlightened and changeable." 
 Did any one ever suppose that the creature knows the 
 Creator as the Creator knows Himself? But hear 
 the end of the passage, which Mr. Mansel has not 
 given. '' Therefore is my soul like a land where no 
 ^' water is, because as it cannot of itself enlighten 
 " itself, so can it not of itself satisfy itself. For so is 
 ^' the fountain of life with Thee, like as in Thy light 
 
72 SEQUEL. 
 
 ^' we shall see light/^ Evidently here^ as throughout 
 the Confessions^ the unchangeableness of God is not a 
 negation of the changeable^ but the very ground of all 
 changeable things j the thought and belief of it alone 
 makes them endurable. Augustine can find his rest 
 nowhere but in the Infinite and the Eternal. The 
 whole book is a prayer to be drawn into it ; a prayer 
 that God would ^' satisfy ^^ the soul with Himself since 
 nothing else can satisfy its infinite desires. 
 
 Anselm is named next (Lecture VI., Note 12) . The 
 passage selected is from the sixth chapter of his work, 
 ' De Fide Trinitatis.' Anselm is dealing with that ten- 
 dency to Tritheism which was so prevalent in his time. 
 He says that the mistake which persons commit on 
 this subject, arises from their assuming the necessary 
 separation of human creatures as their starting-point, 
 and arguing that there must be a corresponding se- 
 paration in the nature of God. Then he says, in the 
 words which Mr. Mansel has quoted, '' But if he de- 
 " nies that Three can be spoken of One and One of 
 " Three, that the Three cannot be spoken of each 
 " other mutually, as we do in the three Persons and 
 '' the one God ; if he says that because he does not see 
 " this in other things, neither can he understand it in 
 " God, let him suppose, just for a moment, that there 
 " is something in God which his intellect cannot pene- 
 " trate ; nor let him compare a nature which is above 
 ^' all, free from all law of place and time and composi- 
 
LETTER VI. 73 
 
 '^ tion of partSj with things that are enclosed in place 
 " and time, or are composed of parts. But let him bc- 
 " lieve that there is something in that which cannot be 
 " in these, and let him acquiesce in the authority of 
 " Christendom, not dispute against it.^' Does it not 
 strike Mr. Mansel that this passage cuts two ways, 
 and that the edge which is turned towards him is 
 much the sharper ? Is not the Archbishop protesting 
 against the doctrine attributed by the ' Times ^ Re- 
 viewer to the Bampton Lecturer, ^' that the Finite is 
 " the only school in which we can study the Infinite, 
 " and that the distinct appreciation of the Temporal is 
 ^' the best proximate measure of the Eternal ^^? 
 
 Aquinas succeeds Anselm (Lecture VL, Note 17). 
 The passage selected is contained in the ^ Summa Theo- 
 logize,' P. 1, Qu. xxxii., art. 1. It contains the conclu- 
 sion upon a question which has been, as usual, con- 
 sidered first on both sides. The question is this : Can 
 we arrive at any knowledge of the Trinity by natural 
 Reason? The arguments pro are derived from the 
 supposed hints of the doctrine in pagan authors, and 
 from those analogies of nature which the Fathers were 
 so fond of observing. Contra, there is the assurance 
 of orthodox authorities that the doctrine is especially 
 of the New Testament, and is cognizable only by faith. 
 In the passage which Mr. Mansel quotes, Aquinas de- 
 cides for the negative, drawing a distinction which the 
 Lecturer considers highly valuable, especially for the 
 
74 SEQUEL. 
 
 confutation of those who would enlist the Neo-Platonist 
 divines among the champions of the Trinity, that by 
 '' natural reason those things may be known concern- 
 " ing God which pertain to the Unity of Essence, but 
 "not those which pertain to the distinction of per- 
 sons/' Before Aquinas winds up his article he an- 
 swers the apparently plausible arguments for the opi- 
 nion which he has rejected, maintaining that a truth 
 once known may be corroborated by evidence which 
 could never have caused it to be received. 
 
 How these statements affect my assertion respect- 
 ing a knowledge which is derived to us from Revela- 
 tion and not by independent exercises of the reasoning 
 faculties, — how they at all confute the opinion that we 
 can know Him who reveals Himself, —I do not per- 
 ceive. Instead of advancing further than Mr. Han- 
 sel or Thomas Aquinas in putting forth claims for a 
 knowledge of the Trinity on behalf of the natural Rea- 
 son, I cannot go nearly so far. The distinction which 
 has been proclaimed to be of such great worth, fails, I 
 think, utterly, when it is referred to the test of His- 
 tory. Have men arrived by natural Reason at the 
 Unity of the Essence ? Is not the proclamation, " The 
 Lord our God is one God," in the judgment of most 
 Christians, a special proclamation of God to the Is- 
 raelites, — that which separated them from the other 
 nations of the earth ? And how could this distinction 
 apply to the Neo-Platonists, who notoriously regarded 
 the discovery of Ujiity as the last and highest disco- 
 
LETTER VI. 75 
 
 very of all, that which only the most exalted Philoso- 
 phers, probably with the aid of mystical rites, could 
 attain ? If we hold that God was gradually educa- 
 ting men to the apprehension and knowledge of His 
 own Nature, we may reconcile that first revelation of 
 His own distinction from all creatures with the final 
 revelation of the Unity of the Father and Son in 
 one Spirit ; we may believe that that offers the high- 
 est satisfaction to the spirit of Man which craves 
 equally for distinction and for oneness. And then 
 the second distinction of Aquinas between the light 
 which either Nature or the History of men^s thoughts 
 and opinions can give, and that which they receive 
 when the light has fallen upon them from above, will 
 be of exceeding value. But while we set up Revelation 
 against Reason instead of regarding the first as God^s 
 discovery of Himself to the other, we shall be in the 
 double peril of degrading the Reason, and of giving 
 it an unfair and dangerous exaltation. 
 
 Passing over Hooker, of whom I have spoken al- 
 ready, B RAM HALL is thc ucxt authority to whom j\lr. 
 Mansel appeals (Lecture III., Note 3). To see how 
 far his authority bears upon the question, I will simply 
 quote Mr. ManseFs own words. 
 
 '' This distinction plays a part in the controversy 
 " between Bramhall and Hobbes, the former of whom 
 " says, ' The nearer that anything comes to the es- 
 " ' sence of God, the more remote it is from our ap- 
 

 76 SEQUEL. 
 
 " ' prehension. But shall we therefore make poten- 
 ^ tialities, and successive duration, and former and 
 Hatter, or a part without a part (as they say), to be 
 " Hn God ? Because we are not able to understand 
 " ' clearly the Divine perfection, we must not there- 
 " ^fore attribute any imperfection to Him/ To this 
 " Hobbes replies, 'Nor do I understand what deroga- 
 " ' tion it can be to the divine perfection, to attribute 
 " ' to it potentiality, that is, in English, power.^ ' By 
 *' 'potentiality/ retorts Bramhall, ' he understandeth 
 '^ ' power or might ; others understand possibility 
 " ' or indetermination. Is not he likely to confute 
 " ' the Schoolmen to good purpose ?' Hobbes conn 
 " eludes by saying, ' There is no such word as poten- 
 " ' tiality in the Scriptures, nor in any author of the 
 " ' Latin tongue. It is found only in School divinity, 
 " ' as a word of art, or rather as a word of craft, to 
 " ' amaze and puzzle the laity. ^ This charge may 
 " be answered in the words of Trendelenburg. ' In 
 " ' explicandis his notionibus, ex ipso philosophise se- 
 " ' cessu depromtis, Latinse linguae in philosophicis et 
 " ' laxa remissio et Iseva inopia in angustias quasdam 
 " ' nos rediget, ut perspicuitatis gratia ad scholasticos 
 " 'terminos confugiendumsit.^^^ — (Bampton Lectures, 
 p. 327.) 
 
 Here no doubt is a valuable discussion about words 
 between two able and accomplished disputants. Mr. 
 Mansel may be very right in taking BramhalFs part 
 against Hobbes on the propriety of using the phrase 
 
LETTER VI. T! 
 
 ' potentiality/ and not identifying it with ' power.' 
 But can any one affirm from this passage that Bram- 
 hall belongs to ^' the goodly array of Divines and Phi- 
 losophers^^ who agree with Mr. ManseFs doctrine and 
 reject mine? Surely I am not more disposed than 
 he is to make '^ Potentialities" and " Successive Du- 
 ration" and " Former and Latter" into a part of God ! 
 It is from this very danger that I am flying when I 
 speak of His Eternity as not being explained by du- 
 ration. I admit that the nearer anything comes to 
 the Essence of God, the more remote it must be from 
 our apprehension ; only I have contended, as I think 
 Bramhall would have contended, that what was far off 
 was brought nigh to us in Christ; that though no 
 man or no angel can ascend into the pure Essence of 
 God, we may with our spiritual eyes behold the very 
 God of very God in Him who was made Man. 
 
 In Lecture TIL, Note 2, South is introduced to 
 us. The passage is taken from his animadversions 
 upon Sherlock. It recalls to us that melancholy con- 
 troversy which ought to stand as a perpetual warn- 
 ing to Clergymen who are engaging, as I am, in a 
 controversy about great and holy subjects, how they 
 allow themselves to follow abler and better men, 
 whose wit and wisdom they cannot reach, in their 
 bitteiness and personality. While accusing Sherlock 
 of worshiping three Gods, South was betrayed into 
 an audacity and irreverence of jesting which I think 
 
(f 
 
 (I 
 
 78 SEQUEL. 
 
 must make all men shudder ; the more if they feel how 
 easily they might be tempted into the same fault were 
 they conscious of the same gift. Such a recollection, 
 I think, should make us a little cautious how we fol- 
 low implicitly his statements in this treatise, at all 
 events without balancing them against those that ai'e 
 to be found in his practical Discourses. Subject to 
 this remark, I am most willing that the reader should 
 peruse the following passage, which, if the words com- 
 prehend and know were identical, would seem to me 
 reasonable enough : — 
 
 The second reason of our short and imperfect no- 
 tions of the Deity is, the Infinity of it. For this we 
 " must observe. That we can perfectly know and com- 
 '* prehend nothing, but as it is represented to us un- 
 der some certain Bounds and Limitations. . . . Upon 
 which account, what a loss must we needs be at, in 
 " understanding or knowing the Divine Nature, when 
 " the very way of our knowing seems to carry in it 
 " something opposite to the thing known. For the 
 " way of knowing is by defining, limiting, and deter- 
 " mining ; and the thing known is that of which there 
 " neither are nor can be any Bounds, Limits, Defini- 
 " tions, or Determinations.^^ — [Bampton Lectures, p. 
 326.) 
 
 No one is more averse than I am to " notions of 
 " the Deity .^^ And no one, I think, can be ignorant 
 that the age of South was just the age in which the 
 word ' knowing' was beginning to be confounded with 
 
 (C 
 
LETTER VI. 79 
 
 that of forming notions. Nevertheless, there was a 
 protest in the minds of SoutVs contemporaries and 
 of South himself against that confusion. If you will 
 turn to the discourse which in most editions stands 
 first in his Sermons, that ' On the Pleasantness of 
 Religion/ you will, I think, agree with me. With 
 the theology of that sermon Mr. Mansel is much 
 more likely to agree than I am ; as an exhibition of 
 clear, powerful, racy English, every one must delight 
 in it. But what I think will surprise you most is, 
 that in what may be called in one sense a Utilitarian 
 discourse, this is put forth as one of the charms and 
 rewards of Religion, that it sets before us objects of 
 thought which are infinite, and in which therefore we 
 may roam for ever without satiety. Such is especially, 
 according to him, the pleasure of religion, so far as 
 speculation is concerned. Is Mr. Mansel willing to 
 accept these words of South as a testimony in favour 
 of his doctrine ? 
 
 In the twenty-ninth Note to Lecture VII., there 
 occurs this extract from Cudworth : — 
 
 " As it is certain that prescience does not destroy 
 " the liberty of man's will, or impose any necessity 
 " upon it, men's actions being not therefore future, 
 " because they are foreknown, but therefore fore- 
 '' known, because future ; and were a thing never so 
 " contingent, yet upon supposition that it will be 
 " done, it must needs have been future from all 
 
80 SEQUEL. 
 
 " eternity : so is it extreme arrogance for men, be- 
 " cause themselves can naturally foreknow nothing 
 " but by some causes antecedent^ as an eclipse of the 
 " sun or moon, therefore to presume to measure the 
 " knowledge of God Almighty according to the samiC 
 " scantling, and to deny him the prescience of hu- 
 " man actions, not considering that, as his nature is 
 " incomprehensible, so his knowledge may be well 
 " looked upon by us as such too ; that which is past 
 " our finding out, and too wonderful for us." — [Bamp- 
 ton Lectures, pp. 404, 405.) 
 
 This passage would probably be quoted by many 
 who desire to convict Cudworth of being a Platonist, 
 as obscure. I make no complaint of it on that 
 ground or on any other. It affirms that the know- 
 ledge which God takes of us is not measured by the 
 knowledge which we take of Him, that the Infinite is 
 not measured by the Finite, God^s thoughts by our 
 thoughts ; all which I steadfastly believe. Whether 
 Cudworth would have agreed with Mr. Mansel in 
 thinking that the Infinite and Eternal are not sub- 
 jects of man^s thought, because they cannot be com- 
 prehended by his thoughts, those readers who are 
 best acquainted with his writings may determine for 
 themselves. 
 
 I need hardly have made this appeal to other 
 readers, for the very next writer to whom Mr. Mansel 
 appeals in his ^Examination,^ Bishop Browne, is 
 
LETTER VI. 81 
 
 called in (Lecture III.^ Note 10) to confute Cud- 
 worth upon this very point. The author of the ' In- 
 tellectual System ' had said, " Though we cannot fully 
 " comprehend the Deity, nor exhaust the infiniteness 
 '^ of its perfections, yet may we have an idea or con- 
 '^ ception of a Being absolutely perfect, ... as we 
 " may approach near to a mountain, and touch it 
 " with our hands, though we cannot encompass it all 
 " around and enclasp it within our arms." Bishop 
 Browne sets aside this distinction between Apprehen- 
 sion and Comprehension. He says, " If God is to 
 " be apprehended at all by any direct and immediate 
 '^ idea. He must be apprehended as infinite, and in 
 " that very act of the mind He would be compre- 
 " hended, and there is no medium between appre- 
 " bending an infinite Being directly and analogically." 
 Bishop Browne, therefore, and Cudworth must pair 
 off together ; they cannot both form part of '' the 
 " goodly array of Divines and Philosophers." 
 
 Berkeley is mentioned in the Note to the Exa- 
 mination. There is a reference in the twenty-fifth 
 Note of the fourth Lecture to the eleventh section 
 of the seventh Dialogue of the ' Minute Philosopher.^ 
 In that Dialogue, you will perhaps remember, Alci- 
 phron meets all the arguments which Euphranor has 
 urged on behalf of Christianity in their previous 
 conversations with one clenching objection. ^^A 
 ^^ thing demonstrably and palpably false is not to be 
 
 o 
 
cc 
 
 cc 
 
 82 SEQUEL. 
 
 " admitted on any testimony whatever^ which^ at best, 
 ^' can never amount to demonstration. . . . You are 
 '^ not to wonder if the same sort of tradition and 
 '^ moral proof wMch governs our assent with respect 
 " to facts in civil or natural history^ is not admitted 
 " as a sufficient voucher for metaphysical absurdities 
 ''and absolute impossibilities. Things obscure and 
 " unaccountable in human affairs or the operation 
 " of nature may yet be possible, and, if well attested, 
 may be assented unto ; but religious faith can be 
 evidently shown to be in its own nature impracti- 
 " cable, impossible, and absurd.^' When he proceeds 
 to explain this position, he maintains that every word 
 ought by its very nature to have some idea corre- 
 sponding to it ; that the words which are held most 
 sacred in the New Testament have no such idea cor- 
 responding to them. Grace is chosen as an instance. 
 For artists and ordinary men it has a signification ; it 
 answers to comeliness or beauty. But that sense of 
 it which connects it with a Divine operation is alto- 
 gether foreign to this. Theologians are continually 
 disputing about its meaning. Euphranor answers the 
 general objection by denying that there is an idea 
 which can be set out in the terms of a proposition 
 answering to every word which is in familiar use, 
 and which all men feel to have a most practical sig- 
 nification. The special instance is met by another. 
 What abstract idea can you fix upon as corresponding 
 to the word Force ? If you assign one, may not an- 
 
LETTER VI. 83 
 
 other pliilosopher assign another ? Yet is not Force 
 most real ? Do you not attribute the greatest effects 
 to it? He goes on: — ''That which we admit with 
 " regard to Force^ upon what pretence can we deny 
 *' concerning Grace ? If there are queries, disputes, 
 " perplexities, diversity of notions and opinions about 
 " the one, so there are about the other also ; if we 
 " can form no precise, definite idea of the one, so 
 " neither can we of the other. Ought we not there- 
 " fore, by parity of reason, to conclude, that there 
 '^ may be divers true and useful propositions con- 
 '^ cerning the one as well as the other ? and that 
 " grace may be an object of our faith, and influence 
 " our life and actions, as a principle destructive of 
 " evil habits and productive of good ones, although 
 " we cannot attain a distinct idea of it, separated or 
 abstracted from God the author, from man the 
 subject, and from piety and virtue the effects of 
 " it V Then follows the eleventh section, to which Mr. 
 Mansel refers. I extract all that can concern our 
 subject. 
 
 " Shall we not admit the same method of arguing, 
 " the same rules of logic, reason, and good sense, to 
 " obtain in things spiritual and things corporeal, in 
 ^' faith and science, and shall we not use the same 
 " candour, and make the same allowances, in examin- 
 " ing the revelations of God and the inventions of 
 *' men ? For aught I see, that philosopher cannot be 
 '' free from bias and prejudice, or be said to weigh 
 
 IC 
 
 a 
 
84 SEQUEL. 
 
 (C 
 
 cc 
 
 (C 
 
 things in an equal balance, who shall maintain the 
 " doctrine of force and reject that of grace^ who shall 
 " admit the abstract idea of a triangle, and at the 
 " same time ridicule the holy Trinity. But^ however 
 partial or prejudiced other minute philosophers 
 might be, you have laid down for a maxim, that the 
 " same logic which obtains in other matters must be 
 '^ admitted in religion. Lys. I think, Alciphron, it 
 '^ would be more prudent to abide by the way of wit 
 ^' and humour, than thus to try religion by the dry 
 " test of reason and logic. Ale. Fear not : by all the 
 ^' rules of right reason it is absolutely impossible that 
 " any mystery, and least of all the Trinity, should 
 ^^ really be the object of man^s faith. Eiq)h. I do 
 " not wonder you thought so, as long as you main- 
 " tained that no man could assent to a proposition, 
 ^^ without perceiving or framing in his mind distinct 
 " ideas marked by the terms of it. But although 
 " terms are signs, yet having granted that those signs 
 " may be significant, thoagh they should not suggest 
 " ideas represented by them, provided they serve to 
 " regulate and influence our wills, passions, or con- 
 '^ duct, you have consequently granted, that the mind 
 " of man may assent to propositions containing such 
 " terms, when it is so directed or affected by them, 
 " notwithstanding it should not perceive distinct ideas 
 " marked by those terms. Whence it seems to follow, 
 '^ that a man may believe the doctrine of the Trinity, 
 " if he finds it revealed in Holy Scripture, that the 
 
LETTER VI. 85 
 
 " Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, are God, and 
 " that there is but one God ? Although he doth not 
 " frame in his mind any abstract or distinct ideas 
 '' of Trinity, substance, or personality, provided that 
 " this doctrine of a creator, redeemer, and sanctifier, 
 '' makes proper impressions on his mind, producing 
 '' therein love, hope, gratitude, and obedience, and 
 " thereby becomes a lively, operative principle, infiu- 
 " encing his life and actions, agreeably to that notion 
 " of saving faith which is required in a Christian. 
 " This I say, whether right or wrong, seems to follow 
 " from your own principles and concessions. But for 
 " further satisfaction it may not be amiss to inquire 
 " whether there be anything parallel to this Cliris- 
 ^' tian faith in the minute philosophy. Suppose a fine 
 " gentleman or lady of fashion, who are too much 
 " employed to think for themselves, and are only 
 " free-thinkers at secondhand, have the advantage of 
 " being betimes initiated in the principles of your 
 " sect, by conversing with men of depth and genius, 
 " who have often declared it to be their opinion the 
 " world is governed either by fate or by chance, it 
 "matters not which; will you deny it possible for 
 " such persons to yield their assent to either of these 
 '^propositions? Ale. I will not. Euph. And may 
 " not such their assent be properly called faith. Ale. 
 " It may. Euph. And yet it is possible those disciples 
 " of the minute philosophy may not dive so deep as 
 ^' to be able to frame any abstract, or precise, or any 
 
86 SEQUEL. 
 
 " determinate idea whatsoever, either of fate or of 
 " chance. Ale. This too I grant. Euph. So that, 
 ^' according to you, this same gentleman or lady may 
 " be said to believe or have faith where they have not 
 " ideas. Ale, They may. Euph. And may not this 
 " faith or persuasion produce real effects, and show 
 " itself in the conduct and tenor of their lives, free- 
 '^ ing them from the fears of superstition, and giving 
 " them a true relish of the world, with a noble indo- 
 '' lence or indifference about what comes after ? Ale. 
 " It may. Euph. And may not Christians, with 
 " equal reason, be allowed to believe the divinity of 
 " our Saviour, or that in him God and man make 
 " one person, and be verily persuaded thereof, so far 
 " as for such faith or belief to become a real principle 
 '^ of life and conduct, inasmuch as by virtue of such 
 '^ persuasion they submit to His government, believe 
 " His doctrine, and practise His precepts, although 
 " they frame no abstract idea of the union between 
 " the Divine and human nature ; nor may be able to 
 '' clear up the notion of person to the contentment 
 ^^ of a minute philosopher? To me it seems evident, 
 " that if none but those who had nicely examined, 
 " and could themselves explain, the principle of indi- 
 '' viduation in man, or untie the knots and answer 
 " the objections which may be raised even about hu- 
 '' man personal identity, would require of us to ex- 
 " plain the Divine mysteries, we should not be often 
 " called upon for a clear and distinct idea of person 
 
LETTER VI. 87 
 
 " in relation to the Trinity, nor would the difficulties 
 " on that head be often objected to our faith /^ 
 
 I have quoted this unusually long passage partly 
 because I was afraid of not seizing the point of evidence 
 for which Mr. Mansel alluded to it, partly because it 
 illustrates a difference which is of very great import- 
 ance in this controversy. No persons would assent 
 more readily to Berkeley's doctrine that the meaning 
 of Grace as well as Force is to be tested by actual 
 effects, and not by its correspondence with some ab- 
 stract idea, than those who object most strongly to 
 the doctrine of the Bampton Lectures, that there may 
 be a regulative Revelation which produces effects upon 
 the conduct though it is not the revelation of that 
 which actually is. Berkeley's argument goes to show 
 that that which in the truest sense is, which proves that 
 it is by its operations, which the humblest person 
 may therefore actually perceive and enter into, ma;^ 
 be most inadequately represented by the notions and 
 conceptions of our minds. When I contend for a 
 human faculty which can ascend above the notions 
 and conceptions of our minds and take hold of that 
 which is, I contend for the very truth which Berkeley 
 is asserting here. The interesting remarks wliich he 
 makes in the latter part of the dialogue, about signs 
 and the way in which they represent that which ab- 
 stract terms cannot express, bring out this meaning 
 and throw, it seems to me, much light upon the Scrip- 
 tural method of teaching. 1 say so with the less fear, 
 
88 SEQUEL. 
 
 because I am conscious that the great admiration which 
 I feel for Berkeley as a man and as a thinker, does not 
 hinder me from disliking the tone and style of many ar- 
 guments in the ^ Minute Philosopher/ It was impossi- 
 ble, even for a man benevolent and truth-loving as he 
 was, to avoid the usual special-pleading and unfairnesses 
 of an apology. I would make amends for what I said, 
 perhaps harshly, of Mr. Mansel, that he appeared 
 sometimes to be holding a brief for Christianity, by ad- 
 mitting that the charge applies to some of the best 
 men of our own or of any country, and among others 
 to him of whom a friend of another faith bore wit- 
 ness that he had " every virtue under Heaven.^^ 
 
 The next reference is in the 2nd Note of the Third 
 Lecture. It is to the ^ Principia ^ of Descartes. (Part I, 
 § 19.) " Thus then we shall never be fatigued with dis- 
 " putations about the Infinite, for doubtless, since we 
 " are finite, it would be absurd for us to determine any- 
 " thing about it, and so to endeavour as it were to de- 
 " fine and comprehend it." What can be more decisive 
 in favour of Mr. MansePs conclusion than this ? Can 
 the reader believe that only a few sections before the 
 one in which this sentence occurs, these words are to 
 be found ? "I see not herein any difficulty for those 
 " who have accustomed their minds to the contempla- 
 " tion of the Divinity and who have had regard to His 
 '^ infinite Prefections. For although we comprehend 
 " them not, because the nature of the Infinite is 
 
LETTER VI. 89 
 
 cc 
 
 such that our finite conceptions cannot comprehend 
 " it, we nevertheless conceive them more clearly and 
 "more distinctly than material things, seeing that 
 " being more simple and not being limited, that which 
 " we conceive of it is much less confused. Therefore 
 " there is no speculation which can help more to per- 
 " feet our understanding and wdiich is more import- 
 " ant than this ; since the consideration of an object 
 "which has no bounds to its perfections fills us with 
 " satisfaction and confidence." (§ 19.) T express no opi- 
 nion about the method by which Descartes arrives at 
 this conclusion. It proceeds, you will remember, upon 
 those data which Lockers first book was written to 
 confute. Descartes supposes the idea of God to be 
 innate in man as well as the ideas of numbers and 
 figures. All I maintain is that the passage respect- 
 ing the Infinite which Mr. Mansel has alleged, must 
 be interpreted, so far as our subject is concerned, by 
 the previous one, and that the author of it cannot 
 swell " the goodly array " of those who maintain the 
 doctrine of the Bampton Lectures. 
 
 I pass, not without sadness and reluctance, to the 
 next great name. It is that of Pascal (Lecture IV., 
 Note 19). It is not that I find anything in the 
 third article of the second part of the ' Pensees ' which 
 is essentially different from that which I have just 
 quoted fi'om PascaFs great countryman. The words 
 Mr. Mansel adduces are simply these : — " We know 
 
90 SEQUEL. 
 
 " that there is an Infinite, and we know not its nature. 
 " So, for instance, we know that it is false that num- 
 " bers are finite ; therefore it is true that there is an 
 " infinite in numbers. But we know not what it is. 
 " It is false that it is even ; it is false that it is un- 
 " even, for by adding unity it does not change its 
 " nature. Nevertheless it is a number, and every 
 " number is even or uneven. It is true that that is 
 " to be understood of all finite numbers. It is quite 
 " possible then to know that there is a God without 
 " knowing what He is, and you ought not to conclude 
 " that there is no God because we do not perfectly know 
 " His nature.^' ^ Pensees/ Part II. Art 3. I might very 
 well rest upon the *' parfaitement " in the last clause 
 (which clause, by the way, does not appear in Mr. Man- 
 seFs quotation) as a proof that Pascal was not contra- 
 dicting anything I have said. I might remind you that 
 the whole of this passage is an argument with an athe- 
 ist and apparently with a libertine too ; that the writer 
 avowedly lowers himself to what he regards as his 
 opponent's point of view ; and that nothing therefore 
 can be inferred from his statements as to his own 
 most inward convictions. I should like to say this 
 and to leave the subject. But I cannot honestly do 
 so. I am l)ound to admit that though this article 
 does not establish any direct sympathy between Pascal 
 and Mr. Mansel upon tJiis point, it does contain what 
 seems to me the most frightful exaggeration of the 
 favourite argument about the chance of the Christian 
 
LETTER VI. 91 
 
 being rights and the safety of his conclusion, which I 
 believe is to be found in the writings of any good and 
 wise man. There is a sort of satisfaction to one^s 
 English pride, in feeling that Butler, in a worse time, 
 when he approached the edge of this argument, stopped 
 so very far short of the point to which Pascal carried 
 it. But this feeling is far outweighed by the pain 
 with which one sees the exquisite subtlety which had 
 been ripened in mathematical studies, as well as the 
 real and deep earnestness of the believer, turned to 
 such a low account ; appealing to the evil instead of the 
 good in the opponent ; suspending a Gospel to man- 
 kind upon a calculation of chances. It is not right 
 to suppress the fact that there exists in Christian lite- 
 rature such a parody as this upon Christian reasoning. 
 ^' Ce discours me transporie, me ravit'^ exclaims the 
 atheist at the conclusion of it. I am afraid many 
 of his class have felt the same transport in the reading 
 of it, as they have drawn the conclusion that beneath 
 Pascal's Jansenist faith there lay an unfathomable scep- 
 ticism. Those who reverence and love his name, will 
 rather believe that there was an infinite faith beneath 
 this scepticism. They will turn to such passages as these 
 as the warrant of that conviction. '^ Le Dicu d'Abra- 
 " ham et de Jacob, le Dicu des Cliretiens, est un Dieu 
 '' d'amour et de consolation ; c'est un Dieu qui rcm- 
 " plit Tame et le coeur qu'il possede ; c'est un Dieu 
 " qui leur fait sentir interieurement leur misere et sa 
 *' misericorde infinie, qui s'unit au fond de leur ame ; 
 
92 SEQUEL. 
 
 " qui la remplit d'liumilite^ de joie, de confiaiice^ d^a- 
 '' mour ; qui les rend incapables d^ autre fin que de 
 " lui-meme. Le Dieu des Chretiens est un Dieu qui 
 "fait sentir a Tame qu^il est son unique bien; que 
 " tout son repos est en lui^ et qu^elle n^aura de joie 
 " qu^a Taimer ; et qui lui fait en meme temps abhor- 
 "rer les obstacles qui la retiennent et rempeclient 
 " de Faimer de toutes ses forces. L^ amour-propre et 
 " la concupiscence qui Farretent lui sont insuppor- 
 " tables. Ce Dieu lui fait sentir qu'elle a ce fonds 
 " d^ amour-propre et que lui seul pent Fen guerir. 
 Voila ce que c'est que de connaitre Dieu en Chre- 
 tien.^^ — [Pensees, Part II., Art 15, § 2.) 
 
 (C 
 
 (( 
 
 I am likewise referred in this note to Bartholo- 
 MEss. A passage from him occurs in Note 23 to Lec- 
 ture III. " He who refuses to borrow some traits 
 " of resemblance from the moral part of creation, 
 ^' will be forced to derive them from the physical 
 " part of it, from the mathematical part, from the lo- 
 gical part. He will make God in the image of the 
 corporeal world, in the image of a geometrical or 
 " arithmetical magnitude, in the image of a dialecti- 
 cal abstraction ; continually in aiming at the Crea- 
 tor he will be leaning on some spot or other of crea- 
 tion.^' {B. L., p. 344.) I do not know the work from 
 which this extract is taken, and I would not presume to 
 judge of the intention of the author. I should sup- 
 pose, from the mere words as they stand, that he had 
 
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 (( 
 
 (C 
 
LETTER VI. 93 
 
 the same horror which I have of building up a notion 
 of God from those forms of creation which most surely 
 witness of Him ; the same conviction that He must 
 reveal Himself to us who are made in His image if 
 He would not have us make Him in our image ; the 
 same conviction that the revelation must be a moral 
 one in a perfect Man, and not through any physical 
 or logical or mathematical part of creation. At all 
 events, I could adopt his words as marking out condi- 
 tions respecting our knowledge of God, which are as 
 unlike as possible to those conditions by which the 
 Bampton Lectures declare that we are bound. 
 
 Jacobi speaks next: ^'^ Being without distinct 
 " being {' ein Seyn olme Selbstseyn') is altogether 
 " and universally impossible. But an independent 
 ^' being without conscious being, and again a con- 
 " scious being without independent conscious being, 
 '^ without substantiality, and at least an appended 
 " personality, is quite as impossible. One as much as 
 " the other is merely a clatter of words to which no 
 " thoughts are attached. Then God is nothing, is 
 the not-being in the highest sense, if He is not a 
 Spirit. And He is no Spirit if the fundamental 
 property of a Spirit, self-consciousness, substanti- 
 '^ ality, and personality are wanting to Him." {Bamp- 
 ton Lectures, p. 343.) Very high and noble doctrine it 
 seems to me, true in every word and letter of it, con- 
 firmatory of the argument against Pantheism for which 
 
 cc 
 te 
 (t 
 
94 SEQUEL. 
 
 I suppose Mr. Mansel originally quoted it ; but as 
 utterly inapplicable to the support of his doctrine re- 
 specting the knowledge of God as all that we have 
 considered hitherto. 
 
 Leibnitz appears in the 12th Note to the Fifth 
 
 Lecture, and again in the 10th Note to the Seventh 
 
 Lecture. The quotation in the first note affirms that 
 
 in other divine mysteries^ as well as in those which 
 
 he has been speaking of before, ^' reasonable minds will 
 
 " always find an explanation which is sufficient for 
 
 " faith, and never one which is sufficient for compre- 
 
 " hension. We are told the what ; but the how is be- 
 
 " yond us and is not necessary to us." A Revelation of 
 
 God in His Son is a revelation of the what, not of the 
 
 how. I contend that it does tell us really what God is 
 
 — not something else. The questions how or why, are 
 
 not, it seems to me, involved in the debate at all. I 
 
 never dreamed that the Nature of God ceased to be 
 
 mysterious, ceased to be infinite, because I believed that 
 
 the mystery had been made known, that the infinite 
 
 had come nigh to us. Fully to expound the words 
 
 of Leibnitz in this sentence, we ought to go into his 
 
 whole doctrine concerning the reconciliation of Faith 
 
 and Reason — the very subject of his Treatise; what 
 
 I have said will be enough to show that on the ground 
 
 of this passage alone Mr. Mansel cannot claim him as 
 
 one of the goodly array. 
 
 The second allusion to him is onlv an allusion. 
 
LETTER VI. 95 
 
 But it is to an earlier section of the Treatise, and 
 Mr. Mansel has distinctly announced what he sup- 
 poses Leibnitz to have maintained. These are his 
 words : — " That the moral Providence of God cannot 
 " be judged by the same standard as the actions of 
 " men, see Leibnitz, Theodicee, De la Conformite, etc., 
 " p. 32.''—{Bampton Lectures, pp. 398, 399.) 
 
 No doubt Leibnitz does show, both by argument and 
 instance, in ivhat sense the Providence of God cannot 
 be judged like the actions of men ; whether in the 
 sense of the Bampton Lecturer you shall judge. He 
 is considering an objection of Bayle respecting the 
 permission of evil. The ordinary rules of reason and 
 justice cannot, argued the author of the ' Dictionary,^ 
 be applied to the actions of God by those who accept 
 the Scriptural account of Adam and Eve. For what 
 human tutor or parent would not be condemned by a 
 human tribunal for exposing those of whose weakness 
 he was aware to such a trial ? Leibnitz replies to this 
 reasoning by alleging that a human judge must avail 
 himself of presumptions ; that, no doubt, in a great 
 majority of cases, those presumptions would be against 
 the tutor or parent who should subject a child to such 
 a risk ; but that the case is conceivable of a person 
 being proved by other evidence to be so good, so wise, 
 so just in his ordinary proceedings, that this presump- 
 tion would be quite overruled ; that there is evidence 
 of perfect wisdom, justice, and goodness in God ; that 
 therefore we have a right to call the presumption in this 
 
96 SEQUEL. 
 
 instance on the other side invalid. He gives the result 
 of this argument (§ 35) in these words : — ^^ Ce n^est 
 " done pas que nous n^ayons aucune notion de la 
 " Justice en general qui puisse aussi convenir a celle 
 " de Dieu ; et ce n'est pas non plus que la justice de 
 " Dieu ait d^autres regies que la Justice commune 
 " d'hommes ; mais c'est que le cas dont il s^agit est 
 " tout different de ceux qui sont ordinaires parmi les 
 " hommes. Le Droit universel est le meme pour 
 " Dieu et pour les hommes ; mais le fait est tout dif- 
 " ferent dans le cas dont il s^agit." He goes on to 
 show (§ 38) that the appearances and probabilities 
 which contradict faith may also contradict Reason; 
 that one may as much demand that they should be 
 set aside as the other. I trust you will consider the 
 whole passage from the words " Une des choses/^ with 
 which the section quoted by Mr. Mansel opens^ to the 
 end of § 38. I should be sorry that you or any reader 
 should take my statement on trust. 
 
 Next appears Storr. A quotation from him is 
 found in the 23rd Note to the Sixth Lecture. I will 
 give it in the Latin^ as I might misrepresent the au- 
 thor's purpose in a translation, and I do not think it 
 is very important to the mere English reader. 
 
 " Cum enim longe aliud sit universe, rei impossibi- 
 " lit at em intelligere, aliud possibilitatem rei non in- 
 "telligere; tum maxime in iis quee tam vehementcr 
 
 ignoramus, sicut ea quse sensui exposita non sunt. 
 
 cc 
 
LETTER VI. 97 
 
 " haud profecto irapossibilia sunt continuo, quorum 
 " possibilitas, modus ac facultas a nobis non perspici- 
 " tur. Ergo, ut his utamur, philosoplium non dccct, 
 ^' universe negare divinam in condito mundo efficien- 
 ^' tiam, seu pro certo dicere, Deum ipsum (immediate) 
 ^' nihil quicquam conferre vel ad rerum naturalium 
 " consecutionem, veluti conservationem partis cuj usque 
 '' et speciei, quara genus animalium aut plantarum 
 " amplectitur, vel ad morales mutationes, ut animi 
 '^ humani emendationem, ant fieri omnino non posse, 
 " ut revelatio aliave eventa extraordinaria divinitus 
 " effecta fuerint/' 
 
 I should not have supposed that a person -who held 
 this opinion would have been entirely at issue with 
 me because I hold that all our knowledge may be 
 traced ultimately to Revelation from God. 
 
 Neander appears in the following extract (Note 23 
 to Lecture II.) : — " Here, therefore, there occurred to 
 '^ him those reasons against a beginning of creation 
 " generally, which must ever suggest themselves to 
 " the reflecting mind, which cannot rest satisfied with 
 " simple faith in that which to itself is incomprehen- 
 " sible. Supposing that to create is agreeable to the 
 ^' divine essence, how is it conceivable that what is 
 '^ thus conformable to God^s nature should at any 
 "time have been wanting? Wliy should not tliose 
 ^' attributes which belong to the very essence of the 
 " Deity, His almighty power and goodness, be always 
 
 II 
 
98 SEQUEL. 
 
 " active ? A transition from the state of not- creating 
 " to the act of creation is inconceivable without a 
 " change, which is incompatible with the being of 
 " God/^^ 
 
 I have thought much of this passage^ have studied 
 it in its connection with the words of Origen, on which 
 it is a comment J and with the account of the theories 
 of Hermogenes and others which precedes it ; and I 
 have been utterly unable to divine how it bears upon 
 any question which is at issue between Mr. Mansel 
 and me. I certainly never complained of the Bamp- 
 ton Lecturer for believing that the world was made 
 by the Word of God, and that the things which are 
 seen were not made out of things that do appear. I 
 should suppose, as Neander intimates, that such a faith 
 was the best deliverance from materialistic notions 
 of creation as well as from those notions into which 
 Origen fell in the desire to avoid them. I can admire 
 also, as much as Mr. Mansel, the historian^ s quick ap- 
 preciation of intellectual difficulties upon this subject, 
 and the frankness and forbearance with v/hich he sets 
 them forth. These excellencies, which are so charac- 
 teristic of him, become still more conspicuous if we 
 follow out his remarks on Hermogenes, on the pro- 
 bable connection of his profession (that of an artist) 
 with the peculiar form of his doctrine ; on tlie desire 
 which Origen showed to reconcile adherence to the 
 traditions of the Church with the exercises of his fancy 
 
 * " Church History,' English translation, vol. ii. p. 281." 
 
LETTER VI. 99 
 
 on subjects ^vliich he supposed it had left open, etc. 
 etc. ; full of instruction, and quite as valuable for the 
 method of treating such subjects which they suggest 
 to theological inquirers, as for their own sake. 
 
 Two names yet remain on the list, besides those 
 which I have omitted for the reason I have stated al- 
 ready j one I had nearly overlooked. 
 
 Professor Lee is referred to in Lecture V., Note 
 L3 : — ^' It is plain,^^ he remarks, " that, in any cora- 
 " munication from an infinite Being to creatures of 
 " finite capacities, one of two things must happen. 
 '^ Either the former must raise the latter almost to 
 " His own level ; or else He must suit the form of 
 ^' His communication to their pov/ers of apprehension. 
 " . . . If we turn to Scripture, however, we shall see 
 " how this matter is decided. In God^s dealings 
 ''with men we find ' wrath,^ 'jealousy,' 'repentance,' 
 " and other afiections, ascribed to the Divine Being. 
 " He is described as ' sitting on a throne ; ' His 
 " ' eyes ' are said to ' behold the children of men ;' 
 " not to mention other instances, which must sug- 
 " gest themselves to every one, in ^ hich God con- 
 " descends to convey to us, not the very reality in- 
 '^ deed, but something as near the reality as He sees 
 " it expedient for us to know." — (Professor Lee, The 
 Inspiration of Holy Scripture, pp. 63, 64 : 2nd edit.) 
 
 A very fair statement of the popular notions upon 
 this subject. The word ' accommodation ' seems to a 
 
100 SEQUEL. 
 
 number of persons to settle the whole question what 
 these titles and names signify which connect the nature 
 of God with the nature of man. To me it appears 
 that the Scripture words, ^ God made man in His own 
 image/ ' The only-begotten Son is the express image 
 of His Person/ are a solution of the difficulty, which 
 no phrase or abstraction of ours ever can be. It is 
 the inquiry which I have tried to raise in my Letters. 
 I wish you earnestly to ponder it, and in the mean- 
 time to give every weight to the i2:)se dixit of Pro- 
 fessor Lee to which you think it is entitled. 
 
 The last passage is taken from Drobisch, ' Grund- 
 lehren der Religions -Philosophie ^ (Note 25 to Lec- 
 ture IV.). The substance of it is gathered up in the 
 last clause, " Wir werden Gott nur durch Relationen 
 " zu denken haben.'^ I will not venture to affirm in 
 what sense Drobisch may have taken this maxim. 
 But I wish to say most emphatically that there is 
 a sense in which I not only can accept it, but in 
 which my whole book is the assertion of it. Indeed 
 there is no point upon which I am so anxious that 
 theological students should seek to understand them- 
 selves as on this ; there is no truth which, I believe, 
 may so much help to clear away misunderstanding be- 
 tween German and English students, and to make 
 them helpers instead of hinderers of each other. The 
 earnest and Christian Englishman is always, I sus- 
 pect, disposed to think first of God as a Father. That 
 
LETTER VI. 101 
 
 name expresses to him a real relationship; it is no 
 mere synonym of Creator ; it connects itself with 
 all that is most sacred in his home and human sym- 
 pathies. The German almost as naturally grasps at 
 an idea of God in Himself; and feels that he must 
 perish if he loses it. Set up the Relation against the 
 Absolute ; glorify our own dear English faith^ be- 
 cause it is ours ; insult the German for what seems to 
 us the vagueness of his aspiration ; and we undermine 
 our own ground. Fatherhood in God becomes merely 
 at last a figure of speech formed after the likeness of 
 our own earthly Fatherhood ; an " accommodation '' 
 which it is well for us to preserve^ because it pro- 
 duces certain good results in our minds, but which 
 very soon our English honesty will reject, as it must 
 reject whatever is merely invented for such an end. 
 On the other hand, let the German scoff at our En- 
 glish indifference to ontology and our love for what 
 is homely ; let him wrap himself in his grand idea 
 of an absolute Being; and soon he has no idea to 
 wrap himself in ; it passes into a mere conceit of his 
 mind ; the Being has vanished. But let us boldly 
 say, ' Because we are really related to God, because 
 ' we have a right, in the strictest, holiest sense of the 
 ' word, to call Him our Father in the only-begotten 
 ' Son, therefore we may ascend to the knowledge of 
 ' Him as He is.^ Let the Germans say, ' Because He 
 ^absolutely is and we need to know Him, therefore 
 ' does He speak to us through relations, therefore must 
 ' we rise to Him through relations.^ And then there 
 
102 SEQUEL. 
 
 will be no more cruel contentions between us. Each 
 will refuse to part with that trust which has been 
 committed to him. Each in fulfilling that will do 
 justice to his neighbour. There will be a continual * 
 reciprocation of benefits. There will be a continual 
 increase of Light to each from the other. 1 should 
 care little about the fierce war which has been com- 
 menced in Oxford against the Absolute if I thought 
 of it merely or chiefly as to the efiect which it will 
 produce on ihose who are seeking the Absolute. I 
 dread it because it will teach Englishmen to regard 
 the relations in which they stand to God as artificial 
 and imaginary. 
 
 I can now bring this long Letter to a termination. 
 With the exception of Hooker^ to whom I referred in 
 the last Letter^ and of Butler, whom I must speak 
 of hereafter, as he is the subject of a separate title in 
 the ' Examination/ — and of two living prelates whose 
 opinions I have no right or wish to canvass, — I have 
 questioned each of the witnesses whom the learned 
 Counsel on the other side has called to support his 
 case. I entered upon the task because Mr. Mansel 
 challenged me to it, and intimated that I had some 
 good reason for declining it before. What is the issue ? 
 There remains of the goodly array of divines and phi- 
 losophers enumerated in the note (possibly) Bishop 
 Browne and Professor Lee. 
 
 I wish no reader to mistake the nature of this 
 result. I have not proved in the least that Mr. 
 ManseFs reading is not most extensive. I have the 
 
LETTER VI. 103 
 
 strongest conviction that he derived his quotations, 
 not from indexes or at secondhand, but from a real 
 study of the writers in which they occur. I do not 
 beheve tliat he designed to misrepresent them in any 
 single instance. But the stronger our faith is in his 
 learning and his wish to give his authorities faith- 
 fullv, the more shall we be driven to the conviction 
 that his mind is so wholly preoccupied and possessed 
 by his opinion respecting the Eternal and Infinite, 
 that he can hear nothing but echoes of that opinion 
 whether he turns to the right or the left, to Fathers 
 or Schoolmen, to English divines or to French or 
 even German philosophers. His very respect for them 
 compels him to understand them in that sense. An 
 affectionate desire that they should not utter what 
 seems to him dangerous nonsense, leads him to watch 
 eagerly for words they may have dropped which look 
 like an acknowledgment of the true philosophical faith, 
 and makes him blind to any perverse exhibitions, even 
 in closely neighbouring sentences, which might tempt 
 him to suspect them of heretical pravity. 
 
 If I have been obliged to spend some time in re- 
 moving the impression that the great men alluded to 
 in the notes to the Lectures are supporters of the 
 doctrines maintained in the text, I at least am thank- 
 ful that I have been withdrawn for that time from 
 
 personal controversy. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 F. D. M. 
 
104 
 
 LETTEE VII. 
 
 SIE WILLIAM HAMILTON. 
 
 My dear Sir, 
 
 In the treatment of this controversy there is no 
 topic of more importance than the relation between 
 Sir William Hamilton, the Edinburgh philosopher, 
 and his theological disciple in Oxford. It seemed to 
 me when I read Mr. ManseFs Lectures and compared 
 them with the Article on Cousin, in Sir William^s 
 Discussions, that there was scarcely an instance on 
 record in which an eminent Philosopher had unwit- 
 tingly done so much harm to a Divine, or in which 
 the Divine had so thoroughly requited the injury by 
 conveying a very unfair impression of the Philosopher. 
 All the highest and most characteristic principles of 
 Christian Theology, those that bear most upon the 
 practice of life, were, it appeared to me, dwarfed and 
 maimed that they might adapt themselves to the doc- 
 trine of the Unconditioned, which is set forth in the 
 Review of Cousin. On the other hand, that most able 
 Review, so full of instruction and interest to those 
 
LETTER VIT. 105 
 
 who cannot assent to its negative conciusions, so rich 
 in facts bearing upon the history of philosophy, and 
 (especially in the notes which were added upon its re- 
 publication in a volume) so precious to the theological 
 student for its noble aspirations and its courageous in- 
 consistencieSj was forced to do duty as a mere weapon 
 of attack upon a set of men whom it was desirable for 
 the comfort of orthodox Christians to confute or to 
 silence. And yet I could not help rejoicing that the 
 experiment, however unjust to Christianity, however 
 unjust to Sir W. Hamilton, had been made. For 
 so I thought the weaknesses in his argument, which 
 his knowledge, ability, and candour had been able to 
 conceal, were brought to light ; so it was shown that 
 Man must pursue that Infinite and Eternal which his 
 faculties cannot comprehend. And so also I trusted 
 it would be proved that the Revelation of God will 
 not submit to be treated as anything less than a Re- 
 velation of the Infinite and Eternal ; that it cannot 
 part with that which has made it dear to its friends, 
 merely that it might gain a new engine against some 
 of its foes. Divines have often appeared ready to 
 purchase such engines at that price. If I\lr. ManseFs 
 was the ablest experiment of the kind, I hoped it 
 might also be the last ; its very ability might assist in 
 demonstrating the falseness of the method upon which 
 it proceeded, the unworthiness of the end at which it 
 aimed. 
 
 Being very strongly possessed with these feelings. 
 
106 SEQUEL. 
 
 I entered in my second Letter upon an examination 
 of Sir W. Hamilton's Essay. At every step as I ad- 
 vanced^ I felt a growing admiration for the honesty 
 and the power that were displayed in it ; at every step 
 an increased conviction that the best antidote to any- 
 thing that was wrong in it would be found in itself. I 
 therefore extracted the statement — clear and beautiful 
 as any I ever read — of the opinions that have been en- 
 tertained respecting the Unconditioned as an object of 
 knowledge or thought. I explained how much weight 
 must attach to the judgment of a man with such great 
 capacities for forming a judgment as Hamilton, re- 
 specting the impossibility of our conceiving the In- 
 conceivable, or of om* knowing that which we cannot 
 conceive. I urged that his authority was seconded by 
 all our own natural notions on this subject, that we 
 were all inclined to vote a man a lunatic who supposed 
 that ^' the greyhound could outstrip its own shadow, or 
 " the eagle outsoar the atmosphere in which he floats, 
 " and by which alone he can be supported'^ {Discussions, 
 p. 14). All of us were ready to say with him, " How 
 " indeed it could ever be doubted that the thought is 
 " only of the conditioned may well be deemed a matter 
 " of the profoundest admiration " {Discussions, ibid.) . 
 Nevertheless I gathered from this same Essay that 
 with a series of eminent men, " from Xenophanes to 
 "Leibnitz, the Infinite, the Absolute, the Uncondi- 
 " tioned, had formed the highest principle of specula- 
 " tion.'^ I gathered from the same Essay that Kant, 
 
LETTER VII. 107 
 
 of whose speculations a most lucid account was given, 
 had done his very utmost, in Sir William Hamilton's 
 judgment, to get rid of such speculations, and yet that 
 there ^' was contained in the bosom of his own philo- 
 '' sophy '^ the germ of new efforts after the Absolute 
 and the Unconditioned. The "theories,'^ he said, " of 
 ^' Fichte, of Schelling, of Hegel, and of sundry others, 
 " are just so many endeavours of greater or less abi- 
 " lity to fix the Absolute as a positive in knowledge.^' 
 I went on, still not departing from the Lectures, to 
 speak of the progress of this same study in France, 
 which was so unlike Germany in its philosophical cha- 
 racter, — of the multitudes who crowded to Cousin's 
 lectures in Paris. 
 
 Then I observed further that this pursuit of the 
 Absolute, which it was ^' a matter of the profoundest 
 " admiration that any should have engaged in,'' had 
 also spread into our practical England, so that it was 
 necessary to deliver lectures a£fainst it in the Uni- 
 versity Church of Oxford. The facts, all of which, 
 except the last, I derived from Sir W. Hamilton's 
 Essay, who had recorded them as if he deemed them 
 of importance, I could not regard as insignificant. It 
 was surely worth while to know how that which was 
 a matter of profound admiration had come to pass. 
 England being an extreme case, and also the one in 
 which we were the most interested, I tried to discover 
 how it was that we had been drawn into such in- 
 quiries; how those who boast of being emphatically 
 
108 SEQUEL. 
 
 experimental philosopliers, could ever have ventured 
 into that region -which is apparently so opposed to 
 experiment ; how those who had been bred in the ad- 
 miration of the Bible could approach the verge of 
 that Rationalism which appears to make light of the 
 Bible. I hinted^ that perhaps our very pursuit of 
 experimental science had led us to feel that we could 
 not be tied and bound by the conditions of our own 
 minds^ that we must rise above them in order to see 
 things as they are in the natural world. I hinted 
 that our very study of the Bible might have led us to 
 think, that there was a way to the apprehension of 
 that which " eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, and it 
 " hath not entered into the heart of man to conceive.^' 
 
 With some surprise I have read the following com- 
 ment upon these statements in Mr. Hansel's ^ Exami- 
 nation :' — 
 
 ^^ Mr. Maurice's next discovery is equally sagacious. 
 ^' He has found out that the truth of a system of 
 " Philosophy may be ascertained by counting the 
 " number of its supporters at any given time, or even 
 " of those who attend to hear the lectures of a popu- 
 " lar exponent of it. He tells us, with an air of 
 " triumph, how the Philosophy of the Absolute has 
 
 spread and flourished among disciples and listeners 
 
 in Germany, in France, and finally in England; 
 ' ' and he accounts for its progress in the last of these 
 '' countries by the fact that it is ^ the very effort which 
 ^' ' Bacon taught the student that he must make if 
 
 (C 
 
 a 
 
({ 
 
 LETTER VII. 109 
 
 " ^ he would advance one step in the knowledge of 
 '^ ' Nature.' Hegel would have been somewhat asto- 
 "nished to find himself described as the disciple of 
 " Bacon : Bacon would have been somewhat asto- 
 " nished to find himself described as the teacher of 
 " Hegel. Mr. Maurice however finds in the ' ear- 
 ^ nest attention of Englishmen to physical studies' 
 a proof of their sympathy with the metaphysics 
 '' of Germany^ and an explanation of the influence 
 " of German Philosophy on the Anglo-Saxon mind. 
 He prudently omits to tell us that it has been taken 
 up in England, so far as it has been taken up, as 
 " is not unusual with German speculations, at the 
 very time when it has been generally abandoned in 
 its own country. He prudently omits also to tell 
 us that the method of Hegel is utterly opposed to 
 " that of Schelling, and that of Cousin to both of 
 "" them ; so that the followers of each diminish rather 
 " than increase the strength of the others, as regards 
 " the point of most importance — the means of attain- 
 '^ ing the proposed end. Both these facts somewhat 
 " militate against Mr. Maurice's arithmetical method 
 " of settling controversies in philosophy. But really 
 ^' such an argument is not worth a serious answer. It 
 " acquires a seeming plausibility in Mr. Maurice's 
 " hands, only from its connection with a third nota])le 
 " discovery, Avith which it may safely be left to stand 
 " or fall. 
 
 " ]Mr. Maurice's third discovery, for there are no 
 
 cc 
 cc 
 
 cc 
 cc 
 cc 
 
110 SEQUEL. 
 
 cc 
 
 t( 
 cc 
 
 cc 
 cc 
 
 cc 
 
 less than three in this one Letter, is that Sir William 
 ^' Hamilton and the Bampton Lecturer both regard 
 " all who diflPer from them as fools or madmen. I 
 was not aware before that this consequence followed 
 from the mere assertion that they have pursued an 
 erroneous method. Sir W. Hamilton can hardly 
 have reversed the method of his predecessors more 
 '^ completely than Bacon did ; and Bacon modestly 
 compares himself to a cripple in the right way, Avho 
 '' can outstrip a racer in the wrong. Sir W. Hamil- 
 " ton speaks of his antagonist M. Cousin, as a phi- 
 " losopher for whose genius and character he has the 
 " warmest admiration ; and I am not aware of any- 
 " thing in the Bampton Lectures incompatible with 
 " a similar appreciation of most of the philosophers 
 " from whom the author finds it his duty to differ." 
 — [Examination, pp. 19, 20.) 
 
 I will merely observe upon this passage, which I 
 am anxious should lose none of the effect which it 
 can derive from the liveliness and wit of the critic ; — 
 1st. That if I was so ignorant as not to know that 
 Hegel and Schelling were not friends but opponents. 
 Sir AV. Hamilton probably was aware of that fact. 
 It is he who has joined together their names, because 
 they were both seeking, as he expresses it, to make 
 the Absolute positive in knowledge. I joined them 
 together as he did, and for the same reason. 2nd. 
 That in what I said of Bacon I assumed him to 
 be as unlike as possible to Hegel, just as I assumed 
 
LETTER VII. Ill 
 
 those who had a reverence for Scripture to be as un- 
 like as possible those who set Scripture aside. 3rd. 
 That to consider the question, how the study of a 
 particular subject by the most eminent thinkers for 
 two thousand years was compatible with that subject 
 being totally unfitted for human investigation, would 
 not in general be described as an " arithmetical me- 
 '^ thod of settling controversies in philosophy." 4th. 
 That assuming Sir William Hamilton's data, it is not 
 he, but I, that should pronounce the study of the 
 Absolute to be Lunacy. I stated expressly, that the 
 common sense of mankind would be in favour of that 
 judgment. 
 
 And this is the explanation which I have to offer 
 of another observation on which Mr. Mausel has 
 commented in the following words : — 
 
 " In his second Letter, Mr. Maurice gives further 
 " proof of his talent for making notable discoveries 
 " in theology and philosophy. In the first Letter, he 
 " found out that the Bampton Lecturer's method of 
 " treating those from whom he differed was ^ loud 
 " ' laughter :' in the present, he ascertains, with equal 
 " sagacity, that Sir William Hamilton's method is 
 " ^ ridicule' and ^ jokes.' *^The kind of ridicule,' he 
 " tells us, ' which Sir William Hamilton has poured 
 "^ ' upon such inquiries, was poured upon them in 
 every age. Schelling knew such jokes from his 
 
 ' boyhood ; Hegel must have learnt them from 
 " ' doctors and jesters old and new.' The adversaries 
 
 (C c 
 
112 SEQUEL. 
 
 " as well as the disciples of Sir William Hamilton 
 '' have hitherto^ by some strange delusion^ taken him 
 " for a serious thinker ; and his illustrious opponent, 
 " Cousin^ in reference to this very article, speaks of 
 " him as ' the first critic of the age/ It was reserved 
 " for the genius of Mr. Maurice to make the brilliant 
 '^ discovery, that the Article on the Philosophy of 
 " the Unconditioned is an elaborate series of jokes ; 
 " — a discovery the honour of which, it may safely be 
 " predicted, no rival critic will have the slightest 
 " wish to dispute with him.^' — [Examination, pp. 18, 
 19.) 
 
 Mr. Mansel has been good enough to extract the 
 single passage of my Letter which could convey to any 
 reader the impression that I regarded Sir William 
 Hamilton's method as ^' ridicules " or " gibes," the 
 single passage which could lead any one to suppose 
 that I did not take him for a most serious as well as 
 a most able thinker. I thank him for doing so. I 
 am glad of the opportunity of saying that the word 
 'such^ was an unhappy one. What I meant was 
 this : There is contained in the article on the Uncon- 
 ditioned the rationale of ten thousand jokes which 
 have been in circulation against transcendental philo- 
 sophers from the days of Aristophanes to those of Mr. 
 Mansel, and which were especially prevalent in the 
 eighteenth century, when Schelling and Hegel were 
 young men. Some of these jokes, 1 apprehend, were 
 good ones, and profitable to those against whom 
 
LETTER VII. 113 
 
 they were directed ; some very feeble and efiete^ 
 which they could easily bear. To which class the 
 jokes in the ' Examination ' belong, I will not deter- 
 mine. I am far from affirming that they are ' such ' 
 as Sir William Hamilton would have approved or in- 
 dorsed.* 
 
 But if Mr. Mansel has only been indulging a grace- 
 ful humour in the former part of this article, he be- 
 comes very serious before the end of it. I call your 
 attention, and the attention of every one of my readers, 
 to the passage. The writer shall speak for himself; 
 no account of his words could do them justice : — 
 
 " There is one other of Mr. Maurice's attacks upon 
 " Sir W. Hamilton which it is important to notice, 
 
 * In Coleridge's ' Aids to Reflection ' there is a very valuable pas- 
 sage, as it seems to me, on the distinction between Mathesis, or the 
 process by which a student like Pythagoras arrived at a truth in 
 Geometry, and the process of enunciating and demonstrating the 
 same truth. More than twenty years ago — in some lectures now out 
 of print — I urged that Sir William Hamilton's arguments against the 
 studies of one of our Universities (the articles in the ' Edinburgh Re- 
 view,' on that subject, were then comparatively recent) were based 
 upon a neglect of this distinction. Mr. Mansel, of course, ignores it. 
 But was it necessary to assume that / did not acknowledge it, and 
 therefore to visit me with a storm of ridicule for treating Euclid as 
 inductive and not deductive ? (See Examination, p. 24.) 
 
 In the conclusion of this passage Mr. Mansel applies the same 
 contempt to what I said of the Copernican doctrine, asserting that 
 according to me, the believer in that doctrine must set aside the con- 
 ditions of Relation, Difference, and Plurality. I am glad he has 
 done so. The distinction to which I have referred is often overlooked 
 in the case of Mathematics. But nearly all physical students confess its 
 
 I 
 
114 SEQUEL. 
 
 not so mncli for its own merits, as for the light 
 which it throws on his method of controversy. Sir 
 W. Hamilton, speaking with reference to the philo- 
 sophy of the Unconditioned and the theology which 
 its disciples have endeavoured to found upon it, ob- 
 serves : ' True therefore are the declarations of a 
 ' pious philosophy : — ^ A God understood would be 
 ' no God at all ;^ — ^ To think that God is as we can 
 ' think him to be, is blasphemy/ — The Divinity, in 
 ' a certain sense, is revealed ; in a certain sense is 
 ' concealed : He is at once known and unknown. 
 ' But the last and highest consecration of all true 
 'religion, must be an altar — ^Ajvcaorrcp QeS — To 
 ' the Wfiknoivn and unknowable GodJ* On these words 
 Mr. Maurice remarks, ' Now it cannot help strik- 
 'ing any person brought up in our English reve- 
 ' rence for Scripture, that Sir W. Hamilton is here, 
 ' not by inference, but in direct terms, contradicting 
 ' St. Paul. He affirmed that the altar to the Un- 
 ' known God was not the last and highest consecra- 
 
 application of it to what we call the Experimental Sciences. They 
 are perfectly aware that the conditions of Relation, Plurality, and 
 diflFerence, must be observed in stating and expounding the Coper- 
 nican doctrine, but that those who used those conditions as chains to 
 bind Nature and to direct their investigations into her secrets, were 
 necessarily Ptolemaists. If he had lived in the sixteenth century, would 
 not Mr, Mansel have been one of the ablest and most scornful of 
 those logicians who put down the Italian opponent of the old doctrine 
 when he went to Oxford in the company of Sir Philip Sidney to allege 
 reasons against it ? 
 
C( 
 
 <c 
 
 CI 
 
 LETTER VII. 115 
 
 "^tion of true religion. — 'Him ivhom ye ignorcmtly 
 ' worship,^ he said^ ^ declare I unto you J 
 " Now it cannot help striking any person brought 
 up in our English love of fair play, that Sir W. Ha- 
 milton, by using the expression ^ in a certain sense 
 ^^ ^ revealed, in a certain sense concealed/ meant in 
 " direct terms to guard against this very charge of 
 " contradicting St. Paul, and to declare his conviction 
 " that the Revelation made by the Apostle was a very 
 " different thing from that proclaimed by the philo- 
 '' sophy of the Absolute. I am not now inquiring 
 " whether Sir W. Hamilton was right or wrong in 
 " this conviction. It is sufficient that he had it, and 
 '^that, having it, he employed language directly pro- 
 " testing against that very misinterpretation which 
 " Mr. Maurice has chosen to put upon his words. 
 
 " It is difficult to believe that Mr. Maurice did not 
 " know this ; that he was not perfectly aware that Sir 
 "W. Hamilton is not '^ in direct terms contradicting 
 " ^ St. Paul.' It is difficult to believe that i\Ir. ]\[au- 
 " rice did not use the language for the express pur- 
 " pose of creating in the minds of careless readers a 
 " prejudice against his adversary which he knew to 
 " be unjust. And it is right to draw attention to this, 
 " because Mr. Maurice, in the course of his work, is 
 '' particularly severe on those writers who attempt to 
 " convict their opponents of error by the testimony of 
 " Scripture ; ' turning,^ as he expresses it, ' the bread 
 " ' of life into stones for casting at your enemies.^ 
 
116 SEQUEL. 
 
 " And I call attention to it in this place^ because the 
 " assault is not due to any previous provocation on 
 " the part of the victim. Mr. Maurice may perhaps 
 '' think that the Bampton Lecturer has put himself 
 " out of the pale of fair controversy, and may be justly 
 " assailed by a method which is to be condemned in 
 " all other cases. But he has no excuse whatever for 
 " flinging the same missiles at the head of Sir W. 
 " Hamilton. 
 
 Mr. Maurice continues : — ' 1 am not in the least 
 " ' anxious to strain this point, or to use it as the 
 " ' ground of a charge against Sir William Hamilton. 
 '^ ' . . . God forbid that I should make a man an of- 
 " ' fender for a word.' If so, we cannot help asking, 
 " why does he make a man an offender for a word ? 
 " Surely, after solemnly calling upon God to forbid 
 " his making such a charge, he might have had the 
 " decency to erase from his page the sentence in which 
 "that very charge is made. But such a sacrifice was 
 " too much for Mr. Maurice's magnanimity. He pre- 
 " fers to fling the stone first, and then to say, ^ God 
 "^forbid that I should throw it.'" — {E anamination 
 pp. 20-22.) 
 
 There are some omissions in the extract which is 
 the ground of this tremendous charge. I will sup- 
 ply them. 
 
 " I am not the least anxious to strain this point, or 
 " to use it as the ground of a charge against Sir Wil- 
 " liam Hamilton. Every one knows what an excuse 
 
cc 
 
 (C 
 
 (C 
 
 cc 
 
 LETTER VII. 117 
 
 " it ivould have been, if it had occurred in any Ger- 
 ^' man philosopher, for raising the cry that he ivished 
 to set aside Chinstianity as an obsolete and imper- 
 fect religion, and to 'consecrate^ a higher system. 
 But God forbid that I should make a man an of- 
 fender for a word, even if that ivord is the legiti- 
 " mate deduction from a proposition which is used for 
 " the purpose of making all other men offenders, and 
 " is vaunted as the basis of all orthodoxy I I rejoice 
 " to believe that Sir TV. Hamilton meant to be a pious 
 "philosopher ; I rejoice to discover in this very passage 
 " a wavering and uncertainty of mind, showing that 
 " the spirit loithin him demanded that resting-place in 
 " the Absolute and Eternal, which he said that men 
 ''were not permitted, by the conditions of their intel- 
 " lect, to seek after J" — [What is Revelation? p. 159.) 
 You will see that the words which Mr. INIansel left 
 out contain the key to the whole meaning of this pas- 
 sage. For they prove (1) that so far from having 
 an interest in convicting Sir AVilliam Hamilton of 
 impiety, it was my object to show from this very sen- 
 tence that he meant to be a pious philosopher, further 
 evidence of Avhich fact I went on to produce in a se- 
 ries of extracts from the other notes to the Review. 
 (2) That I quoted that sentence from the Review 
 because other sentences less strong and not illustrated 
 and qualified by the context, had been quoted in the 
 Bampton Lectures against different German and En- 
 glish writers for the purpose of showing that they 
 
118 SEQUEL. 
 
 set aside the teaching of the Bible. (3) That there- 
 fore, if I had designed to condemn Sir William Hamil- 
 ton for a word, I should not only have belied all my 
 own professions — I should not only have committed 
 the atrocious wickedness which Mr. Mansel ^ finds it 
 difficult to believe ^ that I did not commit, — but I 
 should have destroyed my own argument; I should 
 have taken all the point out of observations which I 
 believed had a point, and a sharp one, for the disciple, 
 though none for the master. 
 
 As this is one of those awful charges against me of 
 which I spoke in the beginning of these Letters — and 
 as Mr. Mansel recurs to it afterwards as a support of 
 the other, which he has endeavoured to make still more 
 destructive of my character — I earnestly entreat those 
 who have the strongest prejudice against me, the 
 highest reverence for him, to examine into the proofs 
 as they would into the proofs of any charge of for- 
 gery or of murder that are brought into an English 
 court of justice. I ask them to consider whether I have 
 misrepresented in any one point the process by which 
 Mr. Mansel has arrived at his conclusion. I do not 
 wish to add a word respecting the anhnus of the ac- 
 cuser as it is exhibited in the paragraph which follows. 
 It is extracted from Archdeacon Hare's letter to the 
 Dean of Chichester, and would no doubt be very ap- 
 posite and very distressing if my design had been to 
 make Sir William Hamilton an ofi'ender for a word. 
 If all the evidence proves that that was not my de- 
 
LilTTEll VII. 119 
 
 sign^ the extract is as wide of the mark as any that 
 is to be found in the English language. It may de- 
 light readers of very coarse minds, who are delighted 
 with every argumentum ad hominem, — with whatever 
 they think will inflict a certain amount of pain. It 
 cannot produce the effect which Mr. Mansel ^Hias 
 difliculty to believe" that I was not aiming at, of 
 misleading the most ' careless ^ reader, — seeing that 
 the accident of my using the phrase '' God forbid/' 
 which, like most others, is innocent or guilty accord- 
 ing to the purpose to which it is applied, is what gives 
 the quotation even a faint appearance of relevancy. If 
 Mr. Mansel intended to revive an old controversv, or 
 to mingle personal bitterness with a question of in- 
 finite importance, he may have succeeded. I know no 
 other end he has achieved. 
 
 But as he has mentioned (quite incidentally) that 
 Archdeacon Hare was an antagonist of Sir William 
 Hamilton, I will take leave to say that nothing, I be- 
 lieve, would have delighted him more than to read 
 in my Letter passages which would have convinced him 
 that there was a heart agreement between him and 
 one from whom in opinion he differed very widely. I 
 know that he always sought for such agreements, 
 and welcomed them if he found them in those who 
 had denounced him in no measured words. And I 
 know that my Letter respecting Sir W. Hamilton has 
 led some who had previously disliked him to regard 
 him as an earnest, noble ^hunter after truth.' That I 
 
120 SEQUEL. 
 
 wished them to receive this impression you at least will 
 believe. And I trust that some Scotch friends and dis- 
 ciples of Hamilton who have complained of me for 
 identifying his doctrines with the theological polemics 
 which have been grounded upon them, will henceforth 
 acquit me of any such injustice, and will join with 
 me in thankfulness that Mr. MansePs ^Examination,' 
 if it has answered no other purpose, has at least made 
 the difference between the objects, the methods, and 
 the disposition of himself and of his assumed guide, 
 strikingly manifest. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 F. D. M. 
 
 P.S. The following note is appended to the quota- 
 tion from Archdeacon Hare : — 
 
 " One moreover who did not hesitate to character- 
 " ize as ^ belonging to the reptile order of litera- 
 " ture,^ the work of one of the leaders of those vulgar 
 " rationalists whom Mr. Maurice (p. 250) regards as 
 " divinely appointed antidotes to check the extrava- 
 " gancies of mysticism. This, by the way, is another 
 ^^ specimen of Mr. Maurice^s fairness of quotation. 
 '^ In the Bampton Lectures (pp. 39, 40) I had 
 '' spoken of the ' vulgar rationalism, which regards 
 ^^ ' the reason of man, in its ordinary and normal ope- 
 " ' ration, as the supreme criterion of religious truth ;' 
 " in contrast to the ' rationalism which agrees with 
 " ^ mysticism, in referring the knowledge of divine 
 
LETTER VII. 121 
 
 " ^ things to an extraordinary and abnormal process 
 " ^of intnition or thought.' The meaning of vulgar 
 " ratio7ialism in this context is tolerably obvious, and 
 " affords no handle for an imputation. Mr. Maurice 
 " accordingly finds it convenient to alter vulgar ra- 
 " ' tionalism ' into ' vulgar rationalists/ and to print 
 '' the words in italics apart from the context, to call 
 " special attention to their enormity. The two expres- 
 " sions are about as fair equivalents to each other 
 " as ^ the vulgar tongue ' is to ' a vulgar speaker.' " — 
 [Examination, p. 23, yote.) 
 
 Here again Mr. Mansel suspects his opponent of 
 the blankest stupidity in order that he may convict 
 him of base injustice. If I had meant to denote any 
 of the rationalists, of the ^ reptile ' class, by the term 
 vulgar rationalists, I should have stultified my own 
 argument for the express purpose of contradicting the 
 opinions of a friend to whom, as Mr. Mansel says, 
 I am under unspeakable obligations, and whose judg- 
 ment on any matter connected with German theo- 
 logical literature I should esteem above any man's. 
 I took ' vulgar ' just in the sense in which Mr. jNIan- 
 sel says he took it. The Italics might or might 
 not be necessary ; but they did not show that I had 
 distorted the author's statements merely to confound 
 my own. 
 
122 
 
 LETTEE VIII. 
 
 BUTLEE, 
 My dear Sir, 
 
 When I was talking with you on the subject of 
 Mr. MansePs book and my answer to it^ I found that 
 you were at issue with me respecting the high opi- 
 nion I expressed of Butler^s Analogy. You could see 
 a great worth in the Sermons upon Human Nature ; 
 but you could not overcome the feeling that the 
 other and more popular book was a piece of ingeni- 
 ous special pleading, intended, like Mr. Mansel's, to 
 show students what they must not investigate, rather 
 than to guide their investigations. 
 
 The author of the Bampton Lectures is entitled to 
 the full benefit of these complaints. They prove that 
 his idea of Butler is at least a very prevalent one, not 
 only among those who agree in his positions, but 
 among those who entirely dissent from them. They 
 give him a manifest advantage in contending with 
 those who, like me, acknowledge that the Analogy 
 has been one of their great teachers, and who yet 
 
LETTER VIII. 123 
 
 have little liking for Apologies generally, and a special 
 dislike for the class of Apologies to which you are 
 inclined to refer Butler's. T felt, when I undertook 
 my reply to Mr. Mausel, that the weight of opinion 
 upon this subject — of opinion which I esteem highly 
 — was against me. I was quite aware how many pas- 
 sages from the Analogy, that opinion could allege in 
 its support. I enumerated, out of my own knowledge, 
 a number of thinkers, each starting from a different 
 point of view, who began their study of Butler with 
 hope, and ended with disappointment. I had myself 
 passed through enough of their different experiences 
 to be able to sympathize, to a very great extent, with 
 their irritation and despondency. 
 
 Nevertheless, I could not but testify of l)lcssings 
 which I could trace distinctly to this source. I 
 was sure that I had learnt from Butler, (1) that the 
 facts which surrounded us, and the facts of our own 
 lives, are full of the deepest meaning, and are to be 
 reverently examined for the sake of discovering that 
 meaning; (2) that there is tliat analogy between the 
 Constitution and Course of Nature and (what he calls) 
 the Truths of Natural and Revealed Religion, which 
 his title indicates, and that the more liumblv we trace 
 that Analogy, availing ourselves of all lights which 
 Butler did not possess, or of which, from any cause, 
 he could not freely avail himself, the more we should 
 be rewarded. That the facts about us showed us this 
 truth among others, that we are in the midst of a 
 
124 SEQUEL. 
 
 scheme with which we are very imperfectly acquaint- 
 ed, I could not doubt for a moment. That this truth 
 might at times eclipse all others in Butler's mind, 
 and might lead him to say, ' Do not look there or 
 ' there ; you will see nothing/ was very natural ; 
 and that the more he met with hasty and arrogant 
 pretensions to knowledge, or with hasty and arrogant 
 denials grounded upon the imaginary possession of 
 knowledge, the more he would be tempted to press the 
 proofs of the incomprehensibility of the Universe, 
 and even of some of its commonest events, was also 
 to be expected. But that he dreaded indolence far 
 more than vigorous investigation ; — that what he ob- 
 jected to most, in those very pretenders and denier s, 
 was their impatience of steadfast inquiry, their easy 
 acquiescence in a fashionable scepticism ; — that he 
 longed to make them think, and think earnestly, on 
 those very subjects which are supposed by some of 
 his modern disciples to lie beyond the bounds of al 
 thought ; — that his whole method stimulated and en- 
 forced this thought, however much some of his acci- 
 dental words might seem to discourage it; — that even 
 when he argued with men, something in the strain to 
 which we have seen Pascal condescending, respecting 
 the safety of one course and the danger of another, 
 he intended the safety of thought and the danger of 
 being without thought, — this I have been more con- 
 vinced the more I liave studied him, and have used 
 one part of his writings to illustrate and expound an- 
 other. 
 
LETTER VIII. 125 
 
 What Butler would have desired most, it seems to 
 me, isj that wherever his book was used, wherever es- 
 pecially it Avas made a manual, these characteristics 
 of it should be fully brought forth ; if they were not 
 brought forth, if any accidents of his arguments were 
 prominently exposed and these thrown into the shade, 
 his end would be defeated, his book would mislead. 
 If, for instance, a teacher of Butler determinately 
 adhered to the phrase natural and revealed Religion, 
 he might be asked to define these words before he 
 proceeded to his inquiiy ; one and another account of 
 revealed Religion, as well as of Natural, might be re- 
 jected by his own fellow-disciples, and the objector 
 might say, that till they had settled their differences, 
 the Course and Constitution of Nature could prove 
 but little. If, on the other hand, this teacher, being 
 confessedly a believer in Scripture, consented to ac- 
 cept the Scripture substitute for that phrase ; — if he 
 was willing to speak of a Revelation of God, through 
 Nature and through a divine jNIan, — he might be able 
 to show that there was a strict analogy between those 
 Revelations, and that the last, which was the highest, 
 helped to the interpretation of the lower. The stu- 
 dent would say to himself. Does the Revelation of the 
 character, purposes, wisdom of God, in the person of 
 Jesus Christ, contradict the previous Revelation of 
 Him in the visible Universe ? Are not contradictions 
 which rested on the first taken away by the second ? 
 
 The question whether Butler was to be treated in 
 
126 SEQUEL. 
 
 this way or in directly the opposite way — whether his 
 book was to show how men might find excuses for 
 the Divine Government^ or how God Himself vindi- 
 cates it — might be a matter of comparative indifference 
 in a Scotch University, or even in Cambridge, where, 
 though he may be respected, he has not a greater 
 influence than many others. But in Oxford, he has 
 a special authority which has survived through many 
 changes of feeling, and has been maintained by va- 
 rious schools. In the present day it seems to me 
 more than ever important that the students there 
 should know whether his name and method are used 
 to crush doubts or to give a hope that these may be 
 satisfied. 
 
 Much of what I said in my Letter will be intelligible 
 chiefly to men who have passed through Oxford or 
 are passing through it now. To some of them I 
 am certain that it will be intelligible. I am sure 
 they will know that the difficulties I have described 
 are actual and pressing difficulties ; that they do 
 hinder the study of Butler, and do turn readers of 
 him into infidels. To their earnest attention I com- 
 mend the article on Butler in Mr. Mansel's ' Exami- 
 nation,' pp. 24-36. They will find in it (1) a series 
 of extracts from Butler which correspond to cer- 
 tain passages in the Bampton Lectures. (2) A quo- 
 tation from a passage in my book, wherein 1 point 
 out how a student of the anomalies in the Moral 
 world, or a student of the facts of the Natural world, 
 
LETTER VIII. 127 
 
 may profit by Butler's method in arriving at an ap- 
 prehension of the unspeakable worth of the higher 
 Revelation which is made to man in the Son of God. 
 (3) An allusion to a remark T made on the necessity 
 for a real reconciliation of divine and physical me- 
 thods inasmuch as a Museum was rising up to attest 
 the serious devotion of Oxford to the study of Na- 
 ture. (4) A quotation from a work of William Law 
 in defence of Behmen's Theosophy. 
 
 (1.) The parallel passages in Butler's works and in 
 the Lectures prove, what we all knew before, that 
 Mr. Mansel had sympathized with those conclusions 
 of the Bishop which refer to our incapacity of com- 
 prehending the Divine plans, and that he had skil- 
 fuUv blended this conclusion with the doctrine re- 
 specting the Unconditioned, which he had learned 
 from Sir W. Hamilton. But (I speak to you who 
 have a grudge against Butler, and would be rather 
 pleased to convict him of an agreement with his mo- 
 dern disciple) consider whether the comparison which 
 Mr. Mansel has forced upon us does not make most 
 evident the actual difference between their methods, 
 and between the ends at which they have aimed. 
 
 Take the different chapters in the first part of the 
 Analogy. Observe that the first, " Of a Future Life" 
 instead of showing that it is impossible to know any- 
 thing about that which is to be, argues for the ex- 
 treme reasonableness of assuming Continuance, unless 
 you have positive proofs of Dissolution. Observe 
 
128 SEQUEL. 
 
 that the second^ on " The Government of God by Re- 
 wards and Funishments,^^ in like manner is designed 
 to show, not the uncertainty of any inferences we can 
 draw respecting that government here or anywhere, 
 but the strong proofs that we have of its Uniformity, 
 and the strong presumption that it will be the same 
 in principle hereafter as it is now. Look at the third 
 chapter, on " The Moral Government of God.'' See 
 how he argues, against all apparent contradictions, 
 that the order of things here is in favour of Virtue 
 and against Vice, and how he throws in the length 
 of ages and the immensity of the Universe, not to 
 make these inferences more doubtful, but to afford a 
 hope that anomalies which we see may be in a pro- 
 cess of removal. The fourth chapter, "On a State 
 of Trial/' is equally based on the idea of a Unifor- 
 mity in all the Divine proceedings. We are in a 
 State of Trial as to our mundane interests. Is it 
 not most reasonable that we should be in a state of 
 trial as to our higher moral condition ? Should there 
 not be evidence to establish the contrary hypothesis 
 if it were the true one ? Read these sentences from 
 the chapter which follows, " On a State of Moral 
 Discipline/' and consider what they indicate respect- 
 ing the object of the writer throughout his book. 
 " Our being placed in a state of moral discipline 
 " throughout this life for another world, is a Provi- 
 " dential dispensation of tlnngs exactly of the same 
 " kind as our being placed in a state of discipline 
 
LETTER VIII. 129 
 
 " during childhood for mature age. Our condition 
 " in both cases is uniform and of a piece^ and com- 
 *^ prehended under one and the same general law of 
 "Nature." [Analogy, ch. v. art. 3.) The chapter on 
 " The Opinion of Necessity as Influencing Practice,'^ 
 is surely written for the very purpose of showing that 
 the positive evidence of an Order or Constitution, to 
 which human beings are subjected, and of their own 
 moral Nature, is not overthrown or shaken by any 
 theory that their actions are determined by some ir- 
 resistible fate. To all these chapters the one on 
 '^ The Government of God, a scheme incomprehensi- 
 " ble,^' succeeds. Had that chapter taken precedence 
 of all the restj — had there been nothing previously 
 about a future state, a Government of God, an Edu- 
 cation of Men by God ; — had no evidence been pro- 
 duced to show that we are in the midst of an Order, 
 not of a Chaos, — the moral effect of the Analogy 
 might have been the same as that of the Bamptoii 
 Lectures. But seeing that it comes to wind up the 
 argument, and show that while we can know the 
 righteous purposes of God, there is a Wisdom devi- 
 sing plans for the fulfilment of those purposes which 
 ■we cannot penetrate, I conceive no two books in our 
 language have a more directly opposite tendency, 
 since one is occupied in the patient study of facts, 
 all leading to a positive result, and the other with 
 the learned and elaborate confutation of theories; 
 that confutation ending in a purely negative result. 
 
 K 
 
130 SEQUEL. 
 
 (2.) Mr.Mansel is perfectly aware that the statement 
 ill p. 186 of my Letters did not profess to contain 
 " the substance of Butler's teaching," but the results 
 to which the use of his method might lead a person 
 born in a different age from his age^ and surrounded 
 by different circumstances. He does not differ with 
 me in holding that Butler's thoughts are germinant 
 thoughts, which may bear fruits for other times such 
 as they could not bear in his own ; otherwise he could 
 not suppose that they might be applied to the con- 
 futation of Hegel and of German Rationalism. 
 
 You may think that his deductions are more faith- 
 ful than mine ; some of his admirers may agree with 
 me ', some may say that Butler would have dis- 
 claimed us both. But I certainly should not be so 
 unfair to Mr. Mansel as to say that he was pretend- 
 ing to give the substance of Butler's teaching in his 
 second, third, or fourth Lectures, when he was mani- 
 festly assuming only to give us the results and appli- 
 cations of that teaching which had presented them- 
 selves to a very ingenious disciple, acquainted with- 
 a large amount of other literature. 
 
 (3.) If it were merely proposed that the studies 
 of geology, chemistry, natural philosophy generally, 
 should be added to the Oxford Curriculum — that such 
 books as Sir Charles LyelFs, Professor DanielPs, or 
 Humboldt's, should be made manuals on subjects of 
 examination as well as books of Latin and Greek 
 literature, or of Logic and Moral Science, — I quite 
 
LETTER VIII. 131 
 
 agree with Mr. Mansel that there is nothing in the 
 doctrines of his book which could in the least inter- 
 fere with such a project. The establishment of a 
 Museum pointed^ 1 thought, in a different direction. 
 It signified that Oxford was not merely encouraging 
 her sons to read works on Physical Science, to learn 
 what had been said or was already accepted upon any 
 branch of study, but to investigate physical facts for 
 the sake of arriving at discoveries. If I am mistaken 
 on this point, I wish to be corrected. I hope it will 
 be announced that the objects for which a ^Museum 
 is founded in Oxford are not those for which it is 
 founded in any other place. But, if I am not mis- 
 taken, — if the building signifies there what it signifies 
 everywhere else, — then I apprehend it is of im- 
 portance that the Oxford student should understand 
 in what sense there is said to be an analogy between 
 the studies in which he wiU be engaged in the Mu- 
 seum and those in which he will be engaged when 
 he is in the moral or theological class-room. If 
 he is told in the latter that the scheme of the moral 
 Universe is imperfectly comprehended, and is told 
 also that every fact in that moral Universe deserves 
 to be studied and examined because it is under the 
 guidance of a Being of absolute and eternal Goodness 
 and Truth, who has revealed that Goodness and 
 Truth to His creatures that through ages upon ages 
 they may explore them and enter into them and dwell 
 in them, — everything he meets with in that natural 
 
132 SEQUEL. 
 
 world which the Museum opens to him will be in 
 strict analogy with this teaching; he will find himself 
 there amidst wonders which baffle and confound him ; 
 he will find himself there, in spite of many discourage- 
 ments and relapses_, advancing step by step into light. 
 But if in one, and in that which he has been used to 
 regard as the principal department of his studies, he 
 is told only of obstacles which cannot be surmounted ; 
 if there he is hemmed in with logical notions and 
 conditions ; if " thus far shalt thou go and no further'^ 
 is written all around the walls of his lecture-room, — 
 and the " no further^^ is interpreted to mean what- 
 ever belongs to the infinite and eternal Nature of 
 God ; — then I say he will either conclude that the same 
 terms and formulas are hemming him in when he 
 passes into the region of physical inquiries, and so all 
 his efforts at the discovery of truths and the rectifi- 
 cation of old errors will be abortive ; or else he will 
 feel that all is free and hopeful in one region, all bar- 
 ren and prohibitory in the other ; he will inevitably 
 prefer Physics to Morals, Nature to God. These 
 consequences are too serious for one who regards the 
 well-being of Oxford and of England with the feelings 
 of a son, to be suppressed merely because they may 
 be treated with utter contempt by the most popular 
 doctor in the University, The indifference which 
 such a man shows to the subject, his inability to com- 
 prehend even the nature of the fears with which many 
 besides me are possessed, must add greatly to those 
 fears. 
 
LETTER VIII. 133 
 
 (4.) If Mr. Mansel thinks that Behmen is a philo- 
 sopher who would especially have welcomed the kind of 
 inquiries into Physics which are carried on in a ]\Iu- 
 seum — if he holds him to be a cautious, tentative, Ba- 
 conian student, such as I have maintained that Butler 
 is, and such as I desire that his Oxford disciples 
 should be, — the panegyric of him and of his method 
 by William Law, which he has quoted, is peculiarly 
 appropriate to my case. If that is 7iot the cha- 
 racter which he ascribes to the Gorlitz shoemaker, I 
 am at a loss to know how so singularly inapposite an 
 extract found its way into the ' Examination,^ In 
 despair of any other solution of the puzzle, I have 
 been driven to suppose that Mr. Mansel had seen in 
 some column of advertisements the notice of a volume 
 of William Law^s which I once undertook to edit. If 
 he had opened the book, he would have discovered 
 that it had nothing whatever to do with Behmen, 
 that it did not even belong to the cycle of Law's mys- 
 tical writings any more than the ^ Letters on the Ban- 
 gorian Controversy,^ or the ' Serious Call/ that it was 
 simply an answer to Mandeville's ' Fable of the Bees.' 
 Mr. Mansel knows quite as well as I do that into 
 whatever perversions of thought or of language Law 
 may have fallen when he was trying to represent the 
 speculations of a man who wTote in German, which 
 he did not understand, there were very few men, even 
 in his own age, who possessed a greater command of 
 pure and idiomatic English. However superior Butler 
 
134 SEQUEL. 
 
 may Lave been to him in other respects, he was^ it 
 will be generally admitted, immeasurably inferior to 
 him in that. Supposing, then, that Mr. Mansel in- 
 tended to confound me, either as a Mystic or as an un- 
 intelligible scribbler, a better argumentum ad homi- 
 nem might have been chosen. Indeed I should have 
 been slow to attribute that vulgarest kind of argument 
 to a distinguished man, if he had not shown, in his 
 extract from the ^ Letter to the Dean of Chichester,' 
 that he could stoop to it, and could even take pains 
 to make his arrow venomous when he failed to give it 
 a point. 
 
 Yery truly yours, 
 
 r. D. M. 
 
135 
 
 LETTEE IX. 
 
 RATIONALISM AND DOGMATISM.— THE TWO ME- 
 THODS OF ASCERTAINING THE FORCE OF WORDS. 
 —APPEALS TO THE CONSCIENCE, ARE THEY DE- 
 LUSIVE ?— THE VALUE OF QUOTATIONS. 
 
 My dear Sir, 
 
 The pages 36-49 in Mr. Mansel's ^ Examination^ 
 contain an exposure of my method of reasoning (of 
 course he would not dignify it with that name), illus- 
 trations of it from passages out of various books of 
 mine, denunciations of it by Dr. Candlish, Mr. Rigg, 
 and others ; together with a vindication of the Lec- 
 turer's own method, which I have, as usual, misrepre- 
 sented, either from stupidity or malignity, or both. 
 Unpromising as this statement is, T do hope that 
 much may be learnt from these pages respecting the 
 general controversy ; that its nature and importance 
 will become more evident from the remarks which I 
 shall make upon them ; that those remarks will allay 
 instead of aggravating the personal irritation which 
 there may be in the minds of Mr. Mansel and of his 
 friends or mine. I encourage that expectation, be- 
 cause the more readers are aware that the question is 
 
136 SEQUEL. 
 
 one about two methods which concern all morals^ all 
 Theology, all the practice of life, the more seriously 
 they will apply their thought to the subject, the less 
 they will trouble themselves about me, or even about 
 the distinguished persons who have written against 
 me. At the same time they will see how inevitably, 
 from the very nature of the case — (from the very 
 vice, as Mr. Mansel would say, of my method) — I per- 
 sonally have been brought into the discussion ; how 
 impossible it has been for my opponents not to iden- 
 tify me with the cause I have been pleading ; how 
 easily and without any unkind prejudice they may 
 have concluded that I must have a very spiteful feel- 
 ing tow^ards individuals, and be cloaking it under a 
 pretence of tolerance and charity. As I said before, 
 I am far from denying that my own clumsiness and 
 moral defects, which are worse than any intellectual 
 clumsiness, may have contributed to produce this im- 
 pression. I cannot therefore hope entirely to remove 
 it from the minds of those who have once entertained 
 it, but, at least, it may cease to be an obstacle to any 
 student in his own search after truth. 
 
 I will not repeat what I said in my second Letter 
 on the word Self ; on the way in which I have been 
 led to connect it with actual personal experience; 
 on the difficulty I have found in reducing it under a 
 formal logical definition; but will ask you to bear 
 those remarks in your mind when you read the fol- 
 lowing passage. I have ventured to supply from the 
 
LETTER IX. 137 
 
 Letter of mine, whereon it is a comment, two sen- 
 tences which Mr. Mansel has omitted, but which I 
 think you will consider necessary for the full appre- 
 hension of my meaning if not of his. 
 
 " The first of these Lectures having commenced 
 '■ with some remarks on Dogmatism and Rationalism, 
 ^' Mr. Maurice commences his reply by giving his 
 " own explanation of these two terms." Mr. Mansel 
 proceeds, '' After quoting the text Cast first the beam 
 " out of thine oivn eye, he continues." — Of course 
 the reader will assume that I quoted that text at 
 the Bampton Lecturer. The whole passage stands 
 thus : — 
 
 " In the eloquent peroration to his eighth Lecture 
 " (p. 266), Mr. Mansel announces the oracle. Know 
 " thyself, as the one guide to all safe thought upon 
 " any subject. In cases like this, that oracle has 
 ^' taken even a more distinct and awful form, as it has 
 '•' issued from a more sacred shrine. ' Cast first,' it 
 " has been said, ^ the beam out of thine oiun eye ; then 
 " ' shalt thou see clearly to take the mote out of thy 
 " ' brother's eye.' This principle, being so exactly in 
 " accordance with the maxim of the Lectures, must, 
 *^ we are bound to assume, have been diligently 
 " weighed by the Lecturer. Before he proceeded to 
 '' charge any one else with Dogmatism or Rational- 
 ism, he went through, we may be sure, a laborious 
 process of inquiry, to ascertain what seeds of them 
 " there might be in himself. But his performance 
 
 (C 
 
 (( 
 
138 SEQUEL. 
 
 '' of that task^ and his success in it, cannot absolve 
 " us from a similar one. I, at least, who have been 
 " warned by Mr. Mansel in some of the notes to 
 " which I have referred, that I have caught the in- 
 " fection of one or both diseases from greater men, 
 " am bound to look diligently for the signs of them 
 " in the only region in which I may truly judge of 
 " their nature or their effects." — [What is Revelation ? 
 pp. 194, 195.) 
 
 "The inuendo intended by this refined irony is 
 " tolerably obvious j but it is curious to observe the 
 " manner in which Mr. Maurice supports his im- 
 " plied accusation. The Bampton Lecturer had ex- 
 " plained in his text and notes the meaning which he 
 " attached to the terms Dogmatism and Rationalism, 
 " by reference to their actual use at certain periods in 
 " the history of Philosophy ; especially as applied in 
 " Germany to the followers of M^olf and Kant re- 
 " spectively. But this method of proceeding is not 
 '•' sufficiently philosophical for Mr. Maurice. Accord- 
 " ingly he forswears history and its applications, and 
 " retires within himself, to evolve the ideas of a 
 " Dogmatist and a Rationalist from the depths of his 
 " own consciousness. The portraits produced by this 
 " process may have more or less merit in other re- 
 " spects ; but at all events they are utterly unlike 
 " any that appear in the Bampton Lectures. There, 
 " Dogmatism and Rationalism denoted certain me- 
 " thods of defence or attack, common to philosophy 
 

 LETTER IX. 139 
 
 " and theology. In Mr. Maurice's sketchy they de- 
 " note certain states of temper in which the defence 
 " or attack is made.^ The one may be ascertained 
 " by the examination of a man's writings^ and is 
 " therefore a legitimate object of criticism. The 
 " other can be ascertained only by an inspection of 
 " his hearty and the knowledge of it is therefore con- 
 ^^ fined to the individual himself and to Him to whom 
 " all hearts are open. I do not deny Mr. Maurice's 
 right to use his own terms in his own sense ; but I 
 do most decidedly deny his right to identify his 
 " terms so used with those of a writer who has dis- 
 
 * " Mr. Maurice distinguishes between a good and an evil Dog- 
 " matism and Rationalism ; and his distinction, as regards the former, 
 " is curious enough. He says (p. 197), ' Every man knows that he 
 '' ' is a Dogmatist in the offensive, immoral sense, whensoever he 
 " ' confounds that which seems to him or to any man with that which 
 " ' z's ; that he is a Dogmatist in an honest and true sense, whenso- 
 " ' ever he swears with deliberate purpose that something is, and 
 " ' that from that no man and devil shall tear him away.' I am not 
 "interested in disputing Mr. Maurice's judgment of the 'offensive, 
 " ' immoral Dogmatist ;' as it is not in that sense that I have used the 
 " term ; but surely his ingenious distinction is somewhat difl&cult of 
 " application. We are told that we are not to confound that which 
 *' seems to us with that which is ; but is there not a previous ques- 
 " tion, How came it to seem to us ? If I honestly believe, after such 
 " investigation as I am able to give, that a certain doctrine is part 
 " of God's revelation to man, does it cease to be God's truth by be- 
 " coming an article of my belief? Or if whatever I believe is mere 
 " seeming, because it is my belief, what use can I make of the mere 
 " conviction that something is, if I am never to know what that 
 "something is, and am only warned against confounding it with 
 " anything that I think it to be ?" 
 
140 SEQUEL. 
 
 ' tinctly stated that he employs them in another 
 ^ meaning. To call any man a Dogmatist or a 
 ' Rationalist in the sense of the Bampton Lectures, 
 ' is simply to say that his works contain reasonings 
 ' of a certain kind : to call him by either of these 
 ^ names in Mr. Maurice's sense, is to assert that 
 ^ those reasonings were the result of a certain state 
 ' of temper and feeling. The one statement may be 
 ^ borne out by direct citations from the works them- 
 ^ selves : the other is at best but a vague conjecture, 
 ' and one which, whether true or false, does not aflPect 
 ^ the value of the reasonings themselves. Yet it is 
 ' on a confusion of these two that Mr. Maurice's 
 ^ inuendo is based ; and the whole of his edifying 
 ^ discourse on the mote and the beam derives its sole 
 ^ point from this ambiguity.'' — [Examination, pp. 36 
 -38.) 
 
 1. You will not be surprised — I was not — that Mr. 
 Mansel should suspect "inuendo" and "irony" (the 
 epithet ^refined ' shows that he will not suffer me to 
 monopolize that form of speech) in these extracts. Yet 
 I do not see how I could have expressed my meaning 
 otherwise. Though I objected to the negative use of 
 the precept Knoiv thyself, as excluding the knowledge 
 of the Infinite, — the use which is made of it in the 
 "Essay on Man" — I was sure there was a positive 
 use of it which may indeed be said to descend from 
 Heaven. I desired to show what I conceived to be 
 the application of the oracle in this particular case. I 
 
LETTER IX. 141 
 
 did not tlie least wish to deny that Mr. Mansel had 
 so applied it previously. But I did think that unless 
 each of us was willing to bring the words Rationalism 
 and Dogmatism to the test of his own experience; 
 — unless he was ready to ask himself. ^ What kind of 
 ^ Rationalism_, what kind of Dogmatism^ does my con- 
 * science condemn me for using, what does it justify 
 ' me in using ?^ — the discussion would lead to no satis- 
 factory result, the condemnation of others upon either 
 charge would be almost inevitably unjust. 
 
 2. Mr. Mansel pronounces that the ^^ portraits pro- 
 " duced by this process are utterly unlike any that 
 " appear in the Bampton Lectures. ^^ Certainly ; they 
 professed to be imlike. I demurred to the process on 
 which Mr. Mansel produced his portraits. I suggested 
 another. They are open to comparison. I showed no 
 desire to confound them. 
 
 3. The difference between these processes is said to be 
 that one denoted certain methods of defence or attack 
 common to Philosophy and Theology ; the other, "cer- 
 " tain states of temper in which the attack or defence 
 " is made.^' Surely Mr. Mansel is not doing himself 
 justice in this report of his own statement. He did 
 not mean to define Rationalism as a mode of attack, 
 because Rationalists have attacked certain propositions 
 or principles, or Dogmatism a mode of defence, because 
 Dogmatists have defended certain propositions. How 
 has so accurate a writer fallen into this carelessness ? 
 Is it not because he has thought so much of the ap- 
 
142 SEQUEL. 
 
 plication to particular writers of theology of that 
 which he allows to be a general distinction, that the 
 distinction itself has become identical with its acci- 
 dental use ? Certainly / did not denote by Rational- 
 ism or Dogmatism, states of temper in which merely an 
 attack or defence is made. I thought a Rationalist 
 might exhibit himself in looking at a picture, a Dog- 
 matist in pronouncing on the binding of a book or 
 the colour of a chameleon. But I do not think I am 
 singular in treating them as habits or states of mind, 
 rather than as modes of attack and defence. 
 
 4. It is said that " the one '^ (that is Mr. ManseFs 
 sense of the words) " may be ascertained by the ex- 
 " amination of a man^s writings, and is therefore a 
 " legitimate object of criticism.^' To this position I 
 demur. I quite admit that if you begin with defini- 
 tions of Rationalism or Dogmatism, you may contrive 
 to bring a man^s writings or certain passages in his 
 writings under those definitions ; and that you may 
 then proceed to call him a Rationalist or a Dogmatist. 
 But I deny that anything is ^ ascertained^ by this 
 process, or that such criticism is of any value. You 
 make and execute the laws by which you try the of- 
 fender ; they are generally eoc post facto laws. 
 
 5.1" forswear history and its applications, to re- 
 " tire within myself to evolve the ideas of a Dosrma- 
 '' tist and a Rationalist from the depths of my own 
 " consciousness.^^ My sense of the words " can only 
 " be ascertained by an inspection of my heart, and 
 
LETTER IX. 143 
 
 " the knowledge of it is therefore confined to the in- 
 " dividual himself, and to Him to whom all hearts are 
 " open/^ These remarks, and the note, which is a 
 striking commentary upon them, raise anew the ques- 
 tion which I raised in the tenth Letter of my book, 
 whether the disciple of Butler — the teacher of Butler 
 in Oxford — admits, in any sense, Butler^s doctrine of 
 a conscience as applicable to practical life, or whether 
 he regards it as merely a theory in a book. Remem- 
 ber, the subject we are occupied with is not absolute 
 truth or falsehood. It is, according to Mr. Mansel's 
 own hypothesis, about '' States of Temper.^^ If con- 
 science has no verdict to pronounce on these, on what 
 can it pronounce ? What exercise has that supreme 
 faculty, that great lawgiver, of which Butler speaks ? 
 Is it not a delusion ? I would entreat any one care- 
 fully to read over the Sermons on Human Nature, 
 and the note to p. 37 of the ^ Examination,^ and ask 
 whether there is not more than an apparent — a ra- 
 dical and essential — opposition between them ? 
 
 But let \is try the general principle in the particular 
 instance. Mr. Mansel thinks that if I talk about my 
 experience of what is right or wrong in nationalism 
 or Dogmatism, I am forswearing history, and setting 
 forth that which is individual and isolated. If it is 
 so, of course what I say goes for nothing. Every one 
 would exclaim at once, ' I never felt anything like 
 ' that. Your description does not reveal anything to 
 ' me that I ever did right or wrong, any judgment that 
 
144 SEQUEL. 
 
 ' I ever was forced to pass on myself. What is it to 
 ' me ? How can I know the meaning of words better 
 ' for it ?' This will of course be the answer^ if I have 
 taken a piece out of a private chapter of my own 
 story, to which there is nothing answering in the story 
 of mankind. It was just because I was sure that this 
 was not the case, that my words would be responded 
 to by numbers, that my experience was not a pecu- 
 liar one, but the vulgarest, the most universal of all, 
 that T dared to set it down. And because I am con- 
 vinced that all our deepest experiences, — all our experi- 
 ences of the struggle between right and wrong, between 
 the apparent good and the real good, — are common 
 experiences which the peasant and the scholar share 
 together, — it is therefore that I do not think Butler 
 was uttering vain and idle words when he put forth 
 his idea of Human Nature as inseparable from the 
 idea of a Conscience ; though I hold, as 1 have said 
 before, that St. PauFs doctrine of a Flesh and a Spirit 
 is higher and more practical and more universal than 
 his, one which relieves it of its embarrassments, one 
 which connects it with the perception of the Eternal 
 Truth ; and that St. John's words respecting the Light 
 that lighteth every man, show how the human has its 
 root in the divine, how the mystery of a conscience 
 is intertwined with the mystery of a Revelation. 
 
 (6.) Mr. Mansel goes on to say : — " As I did not 
 " use, and never intended to use, the terms Dogmatism 
 '^ and Rationalism in the sense which Mr. Maurice 
 
LETTER IX. 145 
 
 ^' has affixed to them, I could hardly, as he recom- 
 " mends, have adopted his mode of determining their 
 " meaning, before mixing them with any theological 
 " associations. Nor was there any need to do so. 
 *' Mr. Maurice has chosen to give to both terms a 
 " moral meaning, in which they are made to denote 
 '^ certain states of mind, which he himself describes 
 '^ as ^ altogether detestable.^ I have given them an 
 " historical meaning, in which they may certainly be 
 " connected with intellectual errors, but convey no 
 " moral imputation whatsoever. My object was not to 
 '^ exhibit the temper or personal character of any in- 
 " dividual or number of individuals ; but to show how 
 " certain philosophical principles had in opposite ways 
 " affected, consciously or unconsciously, the theolo- 
 " gical teaching of certain writers. And to do this, 
 " it was necessary to have recourse to theological in- 
 " stances. ^^ [Examination, pp. 38, 39.) 
 
 I observed, you may remember, that a person look- 
 ing at a picture or a natural landscape, and asking 
 himself continually, ^ Why are we to admire this V 
 ^ Why is this beautiful?' would be, in my sense of 
 the word, an offending rationalist ; just as a man who 
 merely brought to the study of the same picture or 
 natural landscape certain canons or notions about 
 beauty, which he had formed or inherited, and substi- 
 tuted them for an earnest contemplation of it, would 
 be an offending Dogmatist. And since the idea of 
 Rationalism and Dogmatism which I derive from this 
 
146 SEQUEL. 
 
 example is not changed in the least when it is ap- 
 plied to the highest subjects of metaphysics and theo- 
 logy, I might plead with some plausibility that I am 
 not confounding moral errors with intellectual, more 
 than Mr. Mansel. But I do not avail myself of that 
 plea. I believe it is an unsound one. I confess that 
 I regard the question as a moral one, in its lowest 
 forms as in its highest. I confess that I think the 
 student of the picture who lets the ' why ' or the 
 canons come between himself and the object, is 
 yielding to an immoral, I will repeat my former ex- 
 pression, to a ^ detestable ^ habit. I find these habits 
 in " my own consciousness ;" they meet me everywhere 
 in history. Each man, I believe, has to fight them in 
 himself, in his children, in every person upon whom 
 he has any influence. He can fight them just so far 
 as he acknowledges that he himself and that each of 
 them is called by God to a right exercise of his faculty 
 of Reason, to a right reverence for the Judgments and 
 Decrees of past ages, and that he himself and each 
 of them has a conscience to which God is speaking, 
 and which bears witness for the right and against the 
 wrong. 
 
 7. But as I do not pretend that my method fixes the 
 limits between intellectual and moral error, — as I do 
 not see why it is necessary that we should fix these 
 limits, if our only object, for ourselves and for others, 
 is to check the tendencies and tempers which lead to 
 either, — so I cannot admit that Mr. ManseFs charges 
 
LETTER IX. 147 
 
 against individuals whom he has attacked, " convey 
 no moral imputation whatever/^ It seems to me that 
 he is yielding to a great delusion when he takes up 
 this opinion, and that it accounts for the union of 
 that courtesy of tone towards his opponents, for which 
 his critics gave him, not too great, credit, with the 
 want of substantial ' English justice ^ which I com- 
 plained of. Standing entirely aloof from the Ration- 
 alists and the Dogmatists whom he was censuring, 
 not feeling that their errors were his errors, not feel- 
 ing that it behoved him to examine ' states of temper ' 
 at all, he could with the kindest intention and in the 
 gentlest voice speak of men as holding a system which 
 was less ^' logical then undisguised Atheism," less 
 '' religious than unmixed idolatry ;" and when he was 
 introducing individual names, could attribute direct or 
 implicit denial of the ' revealed doctrine of the Atone- 
 ment ^ to men who were bound by their subscriptions 
 to hold it, by their ordination vows to preach it. So 
 far as I am concerned, I should make no complaint 
 of Mr. Mansel for fixing the last or even the first charge 
 upon me. I should only ask that if he did fix it, he 
 would call it by its right name, that he would frankly 
 own it was a ' moral imputation,^ just as much as the 
 charge of wilful lying which he has in terms brought 
 against me in his ' Examination.^ There is no want 
 of ordinary ^ English justice ^ in that charge. The 
 grounds of it are stated. I can meet them, and per- 
 haps rebut them. It is the vagueness and uncertainty 
 
148 SEQUEL. 
 
 of charges which may mean something very criminal, 
 or may be explained away to mean nothing criminal 
 at all, which in the schools will possibly be under- 
 stood as referring only to a particular mode of attack 
 or defence, which will be at once treated in the world 
 as marking out men for ecclesiastical censure and 
 public disgrace, — it is this which in my own name and 
 in the name of many more I solemnly protest against. 
 8. I was led in my Fourth Letter to complain of an 
 outrage upon English justice and philosophical method, 
 by Mr. MansePs application of his remarks upon 
 Eyationalism and Dogmatism to those who attacked 
 or defended the revealed doctrine of the Atonement. 
 On reconsidering the passage regarding this subject 
 which Mr. Mansel has extracted from my book, I find 
 one sentence which I regret, and wish to retract. I 
 said, " It was therefore convenient to leave the whole 
 " subject in vagueness." This sentence did not 
 imply to my mind, nor could it convey to the reader's, 
 anything like the notion of ' a favourite expedient ^ for 
 misrepresenting and injuring an opponent. It ex- 
 pressed, at most, the belief that just at that moment 
 Mr. Mansel found vagueness more suitable to his pur- 
 pose than direct statement would have been. But the 
 phrase did convey that insinuation, and therefore is 
 of the same kind with one which I considered unfair 
 in my own case. I own at once that I had no right 
 to use it. There is no merit in saying so, for I be- 
 lieve that by yielding to the temptation of imputing a 
 
LETTER IX. 149 
 
 wrong motive to another^ I weakened my cause. My 
 business was to show how Mr. ManseVs method in 
 volved him unwittingly in an act of unfairness. By 
 suggesting the thought that he had resorted to it for 
 some convenience of his^ I turned the point of the 
 argument in a wrong direction; I made it less evi- 
 dent why the wrong with which I reproached him 
 had been committed. But as to the substance of the 
 charge^ I retract nothing. I feel more strongly than 
 I did before what the consequences of adhering to 
 his method must be, how great the duty is of adhering 
 to an opposite method. Let me state the case to 
 you, availing myself as I proceed of all the increased 
 knowledge which I have gained from Mr. ManseFs 
 notes, of the objections which he and others feel to 
 that opposite method of mine, of the indignation with 
 which it inspires them. 
 
 9. The question, what is denoted by these words, 
 '^ the revealed doctrine of the Atonement,^^ is proba- 
 bly the one in our time which is most occupying the 
 attention of English Episcopalians, of Scotch Pres- 
 byterians, of all the religious sects and schools into 
 which England and Scotland are divided. Since law- 
 yers like you require that a man should have some 
 standing-ground, some personal interest, before he 
 appears as a party in a cause, I may say that a number 
 of journalists have again and again told the Bishops 
 of our Church that they are culpably negligent in 
 allowing me to remain one of its ministers while I 
 
150 SEQUEL. 
 
 believe what these journalists suppose me to believe on 
 this subject. Dr. Candlish^ the most eminent of Free- 
 Church Ministers^ took the opportunity of a visit to 
 England some six years ago, to explain how very dif- 
 ferently I should have been treated if I had accepted 
 his confession, and had been within the reach of his 
 discipline. Men of the highest character, learning, 
 and influence, who are alluded to in the note on Mr. 
 ManseFs first Lecture, have been subjected to some- 
 thing little short of official censure, for opinions on this 
 subject of a different kind from mine, but not more 
 odious to the religious journals. Not many years ago 
 a series of Sermons was preached in the church in 
 which Mr. ManseFs Lectures were preached, some 
 of them by Prelates of the Church, and was intro- 
 duced to the world by a preface proceeding from the 
 then Y ice- Chancellor of the University. In that pre- 
 face Dr. Magee^s Lectures on the Atonement were 
 distinctly announced as a standard of English ortho- 
 doxy. All later heresies were said to have been fore- 
 seen in that book; by it they might be judged and con- 
 demned. Now, widely as I may differ from some of 
 the opinions of the excellent man who was under- 
 stood to be chiefly pointed at in those sermons and in 
 that preface, I have said before, and I say again, that 
 I do not accept Dr. Magee's Lectures as a standard 
 of orthodoxy, and that if either the University or the 
 Bishops, instead of or in addition to the subscription 
 to the Prayer-book and the Articles, require a decla- 
 
LETTER IX. 151 
 
 ration that his doctrine is the revealed doctrine of the 
 Atonement, they will compel me, and I believe mul- 
 titudes besides me, not to quit the English Church, — 
 that, thank God, they can never do, — but to renounce 
 ail share in its ministrations or its possible emolu- 
 ments. It is better to say so openly and at once. I 
 ask that no one may be hindered from holding Dr. 
 Magee's opinions upon the Atonement, who feels that 
 they are compatible with his faith in Scripture, in the 
 Prayer-book, and the Articles ; I cannot pretend that 
 they are compatible with mine. 
 
 10. My reasons for objecting to Dr. Magee^s state- 
 ment, and to all less elaborate and learned statements 
 of the same kind, I have given in the course of my 
 Letters on Mr. Mansel's Lectures and elsewhere. I 
 should not repeat them if they did not contain the in- 
 terpretation of certain expressions in my book which 
 havegiven particular offence to Mr. Mansel, and which, 
 more than once in the ' Examination,' he has quoted 
 against me. That all Nations, civilized even more than 
 barbarians, have attached great worth to Sacrifices, 
 Dr. Magee has, I apprehend, shown perhaps more 
 satisfactorily and learnedly than his predecessors in 
 the same path. That he has overstated the importance 
 of that fact I do not believe. That he has been right 
 in supposing that the intention of tbese sacrifices was 
 to propitiate the gods to whom they were offered, and 
 to avert the punishment of the sins of those by whom 
 they were offered, no one, I think, can dispute. That 
 
152 SEQUEL. 
 
 the needs which were expressed in these Sacrifices were 
 actual human needs, and that the feelings and no- 
 tions which accompanied those needs are likely to pre- 
 sent themselves, in some form or other, in every age and 
 country, I am fully convinced. That the great sub- 
 ject of the Gospel is a Sacrifice, and that the Sacrifice 
 must bear a relation to all the needs expressed in the 
 heathen sacrifices, I should proclaim everywhere. But 
 I find these words written. ^' All things are of God, 
 who hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ, and 
 hath given to us the Ministry of reconciliation. To wit, 
 that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto 
 Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, and 
 hath committed to us the word of Reconciliation J'* 
 Because I receive this text as announcing St. PauFs 
 idea of the Gospel which was entrusted to him, I must 
 believe that that Gospel meets the needs expressed 
 in the heathen sacrifices by reversing the notions 
 which were embodied in them. Reconciliation with 
 a righteous and living Being was what men wanted. 
 But because these schemes of reconciliation luere 
 all of men ; — because they guessed the characters of 
 their gods from themselves ; — because they necessarily 
 imputed to them the low and selfish tempers which 
 were in themselves, — therefore every plan of propitia- 
 tion was an attempt to persuade the gods not to pu- 
 nish offences which, for the world^s sake and for the 
 offender's sake, ought to have been punished ; which 
 attempts became more base as the minds of the sin- 
 
LETTER IX. 153 
 
 ful petitioners became more base. When all things 
 were declared to be of God, when He became Him- 
 self the Propitiator, the Reconciler, the Atoner, — the 
 message of a Lamb who taketh away the sins of the 
 world was exchanged for the message of an offering 
 to remove the punishment of particular men; that 
 message could be proclaimed to the conscience for 
 its deliverance from the burden of sins ; it might be 
 proclaimed to all, without exception, because it was 
 the news of an Atonement, of an actual Union of 
 the Righteous God with man in the Son of God and 
 the Son of Man ; because it was the message of a 
 Spirit given to men that they might be delivered 
 from their own inward evil, and reformed in the image 
 of the Father. 
 
 11. Now the danger I apprehend from Dr. Magee^s 
 statement of the doctrine of Atonement is nothing less 
 than this, that it has given and does give a scholastical 
 sanction to that which I hold to be the most perilous 
 of all popular tendencies, that is to say, the tendency 
 to reproduce the notions of Paganism in the forms of 
 Christianity, and so to set aside the " revealed doc- 
 trine of the Atonement ;" or, as 1 should express it, 
 the Revelation of the Atonement of God with Man 
 in Christ, which the Apostles preached, and which 
 we are sent to preach. 
 
 When therefore the most scholastic and the most 
 popular preacher in a University from which that dic- 
 tum respecting Archbishop Magee so short a time 
 
154 SEQUEL. 
 
 before went forth, — himself proclaiming in one of his 
 notes his deference to the same authority, — took for 
 granted " a revealed doctrine of the Atonement/' 
 against which certain objections had been raised, or 
 which had been defended by unlawful arguments, and 
 when he set down certain persons as Rationalists for 
 dissenting from this doctrine, was it very unna- 
 tural or unreasonable that a person holding the con- 
 victions I have expressed, should ask that the charge 
 might be more definite ? Was not the question too 
 serious, pressing too strongly upon individual clergy- 
 men, upon the whole Church, upon each of our flocks, 
 to admit a refined distinction about intellectual errors 
 and moral evils ? Am not I abetting moral evils if I 
 mislead those who are trusted to me respecting the 
 moral nature of God ? Have I any other way of 
 curing them of moral evil but by declaring how He 
 has revealed Himself as the extirpator of it, as the 
 deliverer of the sinner from it ? 
 
 12. Such issues, such great moral issues, being, 
 it seems to me, involved in this question, I have 
 never hesitated to use very strong language in de- 
 nouncing those Pagan notions which mingle, as I 
 think, with our popular notions of the Atonement, 
 with our popular Theology generally. But what 
 do I mean by popular notions? I mean, as I 
 have explained, those which I find in myself; " in 
 the depths of my consciousness," as Mr. Mansel 
 would say. I should rather say, not in the depths 
 
LETTER IX. 155 
 
 of it, but on the surface of it. For when I look 
 into the depths of it^ I find another faith altogether 
 different from this. I find that which answers to the 
 cry, " Lo, I come : in the Volume of the Book it is 
 written of me, to do Thy loill, God f^ I find that 
 which asks for a real Atonement and Reconciliation 
 with God, and which embraces the message that there 
 is One who has made it and in whom it stands firm 
 for ever. 
 
 The signs of that deeper faith, of that response 
 to the divine Revelation, I find however not only 
 in myself but also in those popular divines against 
 whose semi-Paganism I have often been disposed to 
 exclaim. I find in them words which have stirred 
 my inmost heart, and which I am sure have been 
 kindled by a divine Inspirer. I find also in those 
 same persons, when they are exposing the Romish 
 doctrines of indulgences, of intercession, of an unfi- 
 nished salvation, the boldest denunciations of that 
 mixture of Paganism with the Gospel which I fancy 
 I detect in them. Nay, Mr. Mansel informs me that 
 Mr. Rigg, upon whose authority and judgment he 
 places great reliance, accuses me, among other Angli- 
 can divines, of Paganism. So that I am not singular 
 in my dread of this peril, or in my conviction that it 
 requires to be continually watched against and de- 
 nounced. But because I agree entirely with Mr. Rigg, 
 and know possibly better even than he does that I 
 have this Pagan tendency in me, — as I venture to think 
 
156 SEQUEL. 
 
 it is also in liim^ — I do not feel myself justified in 
 selecting passages which would prove this person or 
 that to have uttered sentiments respecting the Atone- 
 ment which I regard as Pagan. I am rejoiced to be- 
 lieve that he would disclaim the imputation, feeling 
 that it did not describe his real purpose. I am 
 rejoiced to think that he could produce sentences 
 of his which would show how unfair a representation 
 of him had been deduced from the others. 
 
 13. This is Mr. ManseFs bitterest complaint against 
 me. He produces extracts from books, which show 
 that the writer is adopting the mode of attack or 
 defence, which he describes by the name Rationalism 
 or Dogmatism. / talk of popular opinions, current 
 notions, sayings of divines, and never produce chapter 
 or verse for any of my charges. My answer is. When 
 I am finding fault with an individual man, I do 
 take pains to produce chapter and verse. Whatever 
 he may say of my Letters respecting him, they were 
 not deficient in this respect. And if I were following 
 his method, — if I began with laying down certain de- 
 finitions of my own which referred to " intellectual 
 errors," though they might at any moment dilate 
 themselves into most inconvenient " moral imputa- 
 tions," — I should be obliged to do as he does, to take 
 passages from authors which would serve as illustra- 
 tions of my notions about them — not, perhaps, at all 
 of tlieir meaning. But since my desire is to get 
 all the help I can, and to give all the help I can, 
 
LETTER IX. 157 
 
 in resisting evils which I feel to be threatening the 
 life of each one of us, of our country, of the whole 
 Church, and in sustaining the good which I believe 
 God is keeping alive in each of us, in oar land, in 
 the whole Church, I will — God aiding me — incur all 
 risks of offending the leaders of scholastical thought 
 and popular feeling amongst us by pointing out what 
 I hold to be the great religious and moral corrup- 
 tions of the age, and will not run the risk of offend- 
 ing any simple Christian by fixing upon him, or 
 upon some teacher whom he loves, as an example of 
 those corruptions."^ I will tell my countrymen, and 
 tell myself, that we are men of like tempers and pas- 
 sions with the worshipers of Moloch and of Mammon 
 and of Siva. I will tell them that there is no security 
 against our falling into that worship in the fact of our 
 being surrounded with a Christian atmosphere, in our 
 
 * Between the publication of the first and second editions of my 
 ' Theological Essays ' a number of comments upon them appeared in 
 the religious journals, from which I might have extracted confirma- 
 tions of all my most startling accusations against the popular theology* 
 even while those accusations were vehemently disclaimed. {'E. g. I was 
 called a heretic by a religious journal for maintaining that the words, 
 '' Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world," 
 should be read as they stand, and that ' punishment' should not be 
 substituted for 'sin.') But though the corporate character of these 
 writings takes them out of my rule against assuming the isolated 
 statements of individuals as evidences of their general opinions and 
 faith, — -though they represent faithfully enough the different parties 
 of which they are organs, as parties — there is that in each party 
 which they do not represent, and which justifies the best men of 
 
158 SEQUEL. 
 
 having been brouglit up to acknowledge all the mys- 
 teries of the Christian faith. I will tell them that 
 God Himself is our only deliverer from false and 
 dark notions of Him, and that if we do not trust in 
 Him to save us from them and to give us the true 
 knowledge of Himself, they will creep in upon us, and 
 overcome us, and mould all our orthodoxy into their 
 likeness. And if A. B. and C. being in conspicuous 
 places, from which they are influencing others, should 
 seem to me to be abetting directly or indirectly this 
 evil, I will do what in me lies to counteract their les- 
 sons. But if I have any occasion to speak against 
 them, I will add that I do not hold them to be worse 
 men than I am, and that I am satisfied they have a 
 better and nobler spirit in them, which is confessing 
 the true God and rendering probably a more accept- 
 able homage to Him than I render. I will say this be- 
 cause I hold it to be true, and because I ought to say 
 it, though I know perfectly well that such language 
 will lead Mr. Mansel to suspect me of hypocrisy, 
 and though it is sure to draw forth such pungent re- 
 each party in disclaiming them. On the whole I thought it safer 
 and honester to let people condemn me for sajdng that there is that 
 element in popular theology which earnest lajrmen complain of pub- 
 licly, which clergymen confess privately in sorrow and shame, than 
 to produce instances of it either from anonymous or known writers. 
 I used the privilege of a second edition for another purpose, viz. to 
 erase certain passages which had given unnecessary pain vidthout 
 asserting any important principle ; passages which Mr. Mansel has 
 sought out and preserved. — See ' Frasei''s Magazine,' Nov. 
 
LETTER IX. 159 
 
 marks as the one which he has quoted against me 
 from Dr. Candlish : — " It would really seem as if the 
 " author^ s notion of candour and charity were this : 
 " blacken your opponent to the utmost pitch of black- 
 " ness, by making his belief thoroughly odious^ and 
 " then generously whitewash him with the insinua- 
 "tion that after all his belief is a sham." If this 
 description is a true one, as I am sure Dr. Candlish 
 and Mr. Maasel consider it to be, it cannot do me 
 much harm ; the inward insincerity and wickedness 
 in the sight of God of such a character as Dr. Cand- 
 lish has portrayed, must make all the appearances 
 it may present to men of little moment. If it is 
 not exactly a faithful portrait, I may still have much 
 to answer for having led eminent men, through my 
 violence or stupidity, to suppose that it is impossible 
 to denounce with intense earnestness what one feels 
 to be the mischievous acts and teachings of others, 
 without exalting oneself or denying them to be ca- 
 pable of all excellence. I am certain that this cannot 
 be impossible, otherwise there can be no reformation 
 wrought in the earth ; since the evils that prevail in 
 an age have always hitherto been opposed by those 
 who Avere bitterlv conscious of those evils in them- 
 selves, and therefore sought to extirpate them. Mr. 
 Mansel takes me to be a person who believes himself 
 pure and other men foul ; for these are the words 
 with which he winds up the article : — 
 
 " It is doubtless easier and more sweeping to ccn- 
 
160 SEQUEL. 
 
 " sure classes than to cite individuals ; but that Mr. 
 " Maurice should have succeeded in persuading him- 
 " self that the one course exhibits the very cream of 
 ^' brotherly kindness^ while the other is remarkable 
 " only for ' hard and proud words spoken against 
 '' ' those who were crying out for truth/ is one of 
 " those extraordinary self-delusions which it is easier 
 "to expose than to explain." — [Examination, pp. 48^ 
 49.) 
 
 As I have shown you that I did not charge Mr. 
 Mansel but myself with uttering " the hard and proud 
 words;" — as I believe he cannot by any raking to- 
 gether of evidence from my books^ even from those 
 passages which I deliberately left out^ prove that I 
 have ever given myself credit for " the cream of bro- 
 therly kindness ;" — as I have declined to cite indivi- 
 duals, not that I might have the pleasure of censur- 
 ing classes^ but that I might not make either indivi- 
 duals or classes responsible for principles which I be- 
 lieved were injuring both, — I think that he has mis- 
 understood me a little, and the method for which I 
 have been contending altogether. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 F. D. M. 
 
161 
 
 LETTEE X. 
 
 THE PURE REASON AND REYELAIION. 
 
 My dear Sir, 
 
 The passage of Sir William Hamilton respecting 
 Kant, which I quoted in my book on Revelation, and 
 to which I have referred in one of these Letters, shows 
 what importance he attached to the Critical Philo- 
 sophy. It might, he thought, have led to the aban- 
 donment of all inquiries respecting the Absolute and 
 Infinite; it had in fact been the starting-point for 
 some of the most elaborate and resolute of those in- 
 quiries. Mr. Mansel recurs to the subject often in 
 his Lectures. He speaks of Kant as one who made 
 himself a transgressor by building up that which he 
 had destroved. In a note to his fourth Lecture he 
 used this language : — 
 
 " If there is but one faculty of thought, that 
 " which Kant calls the Understanding, occupied with 
 " the finite only, there is an obvious end to be an- 
 " swered in making us aware of its limits, and warii- 
 " ing us that the boundaries of thought are not those 
 " of existence. But if, with Kant, we distinguish 
 
 M 
 
162 SEQUEL. 
 
 " tlie Understanding from the Reason, and attribute 
 " to the latter the delusions necessarily arising from 
 " the idea of the unconditioned, we must believe in 
 '• the existence of a special faculty of lies, created 
 '^ for the express purpose of deceiving those who 
 '^ trust to it/^ — {Bampton Lectures, p. 264.) 
 
 As this distinction of Kant^s had always seemed 
 to me of great practical importance for reasons of 
 which I shall speak presently, I commented severely 
 on the phrase " Faculty of Lies.^' It seemed to me 
 one which was not respectful to a great man, and one 
 which must confuse the judgment of the reader. Mr. 
 Mansel replies to what I said by bringing several 
 heavy charges against me. I am anxious that you 
 should consider not only the matter of these charges, 
 but the exact terms in which they are expressed. 
 
 " Mr. Maurice, as we have already seen, is fond 
 " of superlatives ; whatever may be thought of his 
 '^ manner of applying them. We have seen what are 
 " his notions of ^ philosophical method and English 
 " ^ justice,^ and of ^ the most flagrant outrage^ upon 
 '' both. We have now to examine his specimen of 
 " ^ language scarcely paralleled in controversy.^ If 
 " I am not mistaken, the examination will tell a 
 " curious tale of Mr. Maurice's ' philosophy,^ or 
 " ^justice,' or both. It will scarcely be believed by 
 " those who have read only Mr. Maurice's invective, 
 " that the whole of the above note, concerning a 
 " '■ faculty of lies,' is taken from tlie direct assertion 
 
(C 
 
 (( 
 
 LETTER X. 163 
 
 " of Kant himself; that the charge of falsehood 
 " against the reason originates with the very phi- 
 " losopher whom Mr. Manrice so indignantly vindi- 
 " Gates from the impntation of having ^ believed in 
 it '/ and that it occnrs^ not in that portion of his 
 writings in which he is attempting ^ to overleap the 
 " ' bounds of his own philosophy/ but in that in which 
 ^* he is laying down those bounds with the utmost 
 "^ strictness. Mr. Maurice must be well aware, 
 " though many of his readers may not be, that one 
 '' of the principal divisions of Kant^s best-known 
 '' work is entitled ^ Transcendental Dialectic/ and 
 " treats of certain illusions which the author declares 
 ^' to be inherent in the constitution of reason itself. 
 " In the introduction to this division, the illusion is 
 " stated as follows : — ' In our reason, subjectively 
 " ^ considered as a faculty of human cognition, there 
 " ' exist fundamental rules and maxims of its exercise, 
 ^ which have completely the appearance of objective 
 ' principles. Now from this cause it happens that 
 ' the subjective necessity of a certain connection of 
 ^ our conceptions is regarded as an objective neces- 
 ^' ^ sity of the determination of things in themselves. 
 " ' This illusion it is impossible to avoid.^ And sub- 
 " sequently, in the second book of the same division, 
 " Kant says, ' Such arguments are, as regards their 
 " ^ result, rather to be termed sophisms than syllo- 
 " ' gisms. . . . They are sophisms, not of men, but 
 '^ "^ of pure reason herself, from which the wisest can- 
 
 
164 SEQUEL. 
 
 " not free himself/ And again : ' The paralogism has 
 '^ ' its foundation in the nature of human reason, and 
 " ' is the parent of an unavoidable, though insoluble, 
 " 'mental illusion.' ^^ — [Examination^ pp. 50-52.) 
 
 Then, after quoting a passage from a pamphlet of 
 his own respecting Kant, which I have no doubt I 
 ought to have read, and should have been much 
 better for reading, but which I never have read, or, to 
 the best of my remembrance, seen, he proceeds : — 
 " Mr. Maurice probably never saw the above pas- 
 sage, of which the note in the ' Bampton Lectures' 
 is merely a repetition. If he has seen it, his offence 
 must assume a much graver character. But even 
 without this assistance, it is difficult to imagine 
 how a professed historian of philosophy and reader 
 of Kant could have been so profoundly ignorant 
 of one of the best-known parts of his best-known 
 work, as to i^efer a criticism belonging to Kant's 
 speculative philosophy, in which he fixes the limits 
 of pure reason, to his practical philosophy, in which 
 he attempts to overleap them. But accuracy of re- 
 ference is not Mr. Maurice's forte ; and it would 
 be cruel to demand such drudgery from a man of 
 his inventive and invective genius. He had found, 
 or thought he had found, an interpretation which 
 enabled him to bring a serious charge against his 
 adversary : it was too much to expect that he should 
 take pains to ascertain whether his interpretation 
 was the right one. What is the exact resemblance 
 
LETTER X. 165 
 
 between Butler^s principle of conscience and Kant's 
 pnre reason^ with its three ideas derived from the 
 three forms of the logical syllogism, and the neces- 
 sary illusions involved in each, is a question which 
 must be left to be expounded by Mr. Maurice 
 himself, who has already shown his talent for ma- 
 king discoveries in Butler. If the above mistake 
 was made in honest io;norance, it savs little for 
 Mr. INlaurice's qualifications as an historian of phi- 
 losophy : if it was made in wilfulness, or even in 
 culpable negligence, it supplies an edifying com- 
 ment on his own language a few pages back : ^ Of 
 ' all outrages upon philosophical method^ and upon 
 ^ ordinary English justice, which are to be found in 
 ^ our literature, I believe this is the most flagrant.' " 
 -{Examination, pp. 52, 53.) 
 Once more : — 
 
 '^ But Mr. Maurice is not merely the historian of 
 philosophy and the arbiter elegantiarum of contro- 
 versy : he is also himself a philosopher; and in that 
 capacity he proceeds to show that the Kantian 
 Reason, or something equivalent to it, is indis- 
 pensable to the reception of religious truth. ' The 
 ' question/ he says, ^ is concerning that which is 
 ' and that w hich is not ; whether there is any 
 ' faculty in man that can be brought to perceive 
 ' that which is, and to reject that which is not, in 
 ' any matter whatsoever ; whether that faculty is 
 ' extinguished when we are called upon to pay the 
 
166 SEQUEL. 
 
 ^' ^ highest reverence and worship to a certain object 
 ^' ^ or objects ; or whether it is this to which God 
 " ' himself appeals.' This faculty, he has just before 
 " told us, ' is not special, but human/ and ' is worth 
 '^ ' more than all the notions of the understanding, 
 " ' because it takes hold of that which is substan- 
 " ' tial.' 
 
 " Truly a wonderful faculty, and one of which 
 " Mr. Maurice has made some wonderful uses. But 
 " notwithstanding the magnificence of its promises, 
 ^' we need some surety for their performance. Mr. 
 ^' Maurice regards this faculty as the criterion of 
 ^' truth in the highest things, as that to which God 
 '' himself appeals in His revelation to man. Mr. 
 ^' Maurice, then, believes in the Trinity on the wit- 
 '^ ness of this faculty, distinguishing that which is 
 '' from that which is not. But his Unitarian neigh- 
 '' hour, possessed of the same faculty (for it is not 
 ^' special, but human), and using it as honestly as 
 *^ Mr. Maurice himself, arrives at the conviction that 
 " the doctrine which Mr. Maurice accepts as one of 
 ^' ^ the pillars of his own being and of the Universe,^ 
 '' is a contradiction and an impossibility. Who is to 
 " decide between these two conflicting exhibitions of 
 '' ' that which is '? " — {Examination, pp. 53, 54.) 
 
 There are several accusations here Avhich I will 
 take in order. Unimportant as they are to the reader 
 so far as they only concern me, they suggest ques- 
 tions which may be of the greatest interest and value 
 
LETTER X. 167 
 
 to him. Mr. Mansel accuses me (1) of pretending to 
 be an historian of philosophy ; (2) of complaining 
 of a charge against Kant which his OAvn words fully 
 justify ; (8) of absurdity in suspecting a relation be- 
 tween Butler's doctrine of the Conscience and Kant's 
 doctrine of the Reason ; (4) of absurdity in think- 
 ing that God appeals in His Revelation to this faculty 
 of Reason. I begin with the first and least interest- 
 ing of these subjects. 
 
 (1.) If I had professed to be an historian of phi- 
 losophy^ the sneer which has been bestowed upon my 
 pretensions would have been not an '' insulting^' but 
 a well-merited one. Those who have looked into the 
 book which has exposed me to that sneer, will know 
 that I have again and again disclaimed the dignity of 
 an historian. Twentv-two vears aoro I was asked bv 
 an eminent man, not generally identified with Ra- 
 tionalists and Mystics — the late Rev. Hugh James 
 Rose, — to write, in an Encyclopaedia which he was 
 editing, a sketch of the progress of Moral and Meta- 
 physical Inquiries. I entered with much fear upon a 
 task which he thought I might perform without dis- 
 grace to a work to which eminent men had contri- 
 buted and were contributing. In spite of very kind 
 words which had been spoken to me about the article 
 by men whose esteem much abler writers might prize, 
 I felt, when I read it as a whole, that it was exceed- 
 ingly crude and unsatisfactory. Being asked by the 
 present proprietor of the Encyclopaedia to prepare it 
 
168 SEQUEL. 
 
 for separate publication, I began, eleven years ago, 
 to rewrite it. He has not generally seen cause to 
 complain of the great '^ haste " in composition which 
 Mr. Mansel imputes to me. He has rather thought 
 that in my determination not to copy existing ma- 
 nuals, but to give such accounts as I could of each 
 author I spoke of from my own reading, and often in 
 his own words, I was drawing unfairly upon his own 
 patience ; he would say, perhaps, upon the patience 
 of my readers, though the vel duo vel nemo included 
 in that list may not be worthy of very serious 
 consideration. Certainly, if I proposed to myself 
 fame, or any more tangible reward, nothing can be 
 more absurd than the pains I have bestowed on so 
 meagre a sketch. I am quite aware that Oxford 
 doctors will scorn it ; I am quite aware that it will 
 find no favour with Germans, or with our own Liberal 
 schools. Nevertheless I have persevered, having a 
 hope, supported by one or two unexpected encourage- 
 ments, that hereafter, when the name of the writer 
 is forgotten, it may assist a few students who are 
 struggling with difficulties which I have struggled 
 with ; may show them that there is a connection be- 
 tween the thoughts of the schools and the life of the 
 world ; may give them hints for tracing better than 
 I have traced the relation between the inquirers of 
 one period and those of another ; may cheer them 
 with the thought that a divine Teacher has been with 
 men of all ages, in the midst of their confusions, and 
 
LETTER X. 169 
 
 that He will not desert their contemporaries or them. 
 These egotistical remarks, however silly they may ap- 
 pear to ^Ir. Mansel, will be tolerated by you, and 
 they may help you, I fancy, to understand better the 
 next point which is at issue between him and me. 
 
 (2.) In writing the sketch to which I have alluded, 
 I have felt it an especial duty to preserve, not in 
 name only, but in fact, the chronology of human in- 
 quiries. I mean, that I have been afraid of imputing 
 to earlier men the forms of thought which belong to 
 the students of a later age ; while I have been also 
 most anxious to show how the same doubts do pre- 
 sent themselves in different forms, and demand a 
 solution in the earliest times and in the latest. It 
 seems to me that the German historians of Philo- 
 sophy, — valuable as they are for their great diligence 
 and erudition, — being cradled in Metaphysics, — know- 
 ing Kant and Hegel before they know, at least as 
 philosophical students, Plato and Aristotle, or cer- 
 tainly Anselm and Aquinas, are apt to read the 
 Greek and mediaeval writers by the light which falls 
 from their own schools, and to explain them by re- 
 ference to those schools. An Englishman, it seems 
 to me, may profit by the practical habits of his 
 country — I had almost said, by his ignorance of and 
 his inaptitude for Metaphysics — to escape this inver- 
 sion. He ma}'^ watch the men who transmit the 
 torch more truly, may report the steps which they 
 have run more faithfully, because he does not know 
 
170 SEQUEL. 
 
 SO well who or what is coming next. I confess for 
 myself that I have been desirous to reserve the exact 
 study of German philosophy^ as such, till I come to 
 it in its own proper period^ believing that the pre- 
 paration of interest in the speculations of previous ge- 
 nerations will give me — not the large acquaintance 
 with the books that contain it which Mr. Mansel and 
 others possess, but — such a perception of the differ- 
 ent lines of thought which different men have fol- 
 lowed, and of the points at which they join older 
 lines of thought, as students tell me they miss in the 
 works of some men of great acquired knowledge, and 
 even of great metaphysical acuteness. 
 
 I was quite aware that this method of proceeding 
 would put me at a great disadvantage in any conflict 
 with a man who had armed himself for a battle with 
 the German Schoolmen by a recent and diligent study 
 of their writings. No one in England would have been 
 less competent to appear as their champion than I 
 should have been. But I had no such object. I was 
 looking at the whole subject from an English point 
 of view ; the interests for which I was contending 
 were English interests. When therefore I had to 
 speak on such a subject as Kant and the Critical Phi- 
 losophy, I did not begin with explaining any opinions 
 which I might hold about him and that philosophy. 
 I did not bring forth, out of my slender stores of 
 reading, passages from Kant which Mr. Mansel might 
 at once have overpowered with passages from his ex- 
 
LETTER X. 171 
 
 tensive reading ; 1 took the statements which I found 
 respecting him in Sir William Hamilton, confirmed 
 and commented upon as they were by Mr. Mansel. 
 Against these at least no objection could be raised; 
 Mr. INIansePs learning and his arguments would not 
 be employed to show that these were worth nothing. 
 The objection to Kant was, that though anything but 
 favourable to ontological speculations, he had una- 
 wares conceded the existence of a faculty which tran- 
 scends the limits of experience, and busies itself with, 
 subjects which lie beyond the conditions of the un- 
 derstanding. This was the first charge. Connected 
 with it was another, which is especially considered 
 in Mr. Mansel's seventh Lecture, that he admits the 
 existence of a faculty of Practical reason, which is 
 concerned with the principles of universal morality. 
 Any one entering upon an examination of the Cri- 
 tical Philosophy as such, is bound to mark most 
 carefully this distinction between the speculative and 
 the practical reason, — is bound to deal with all those 
 passages in Kant's writings w^liich attempt to fix the 
 o1)jects and the laws of either. I hope, whenever I 
 come in the course of my sketch to the inquiries of 
 the eighteenth century, I shall not spare any dili- 
 gence that may be requisite for this purpose ; though 
 I shall certainly not be able to satisfy Mr. Mansel 
 either about my methods or my results. But in this 
 book tliese questions only were present to my mind. 
 Is there or is there not a faculty in us which looks 
 
172 SEQUEL. 
 
 beyond appearances to the thing as it is in itself? 
 Is or is not this the strictly human faculty as distin- 
 guished from the faculties which belong to different 
 individuals? Is or is not this faculty that to which 
 the revelation of God's own Nature and Being is ad- 
 dressed ? Or is this to be called rather a ^' faculty 
 
 ft/ 
 
 of lies " ? 
 
 Now I have no doubt that in the pamphlet of 
 Mr. Mansel^ which I have not seen^ he carefully an- 
 nounces that he is criticizing one part of Kant's 
 writings and not another ; that he is occupied with 
 the speculative and not with the practical Reason. 
 There is nothing in the note to which I referred, so 
 far as I see, which determines its application in the 
 same manner. But if there were, the observation 
 with which Mr. Mansel wishes to crush me is a pure 
 sophism. No doubt Kant is investigating in the 
 part of his work to which Mr. Mansel alludes, the 
 laws of the Reason as such. But he assumes, as 
 Mr. Mansel himself has told us, that that Reason 
 overleaps the boundaries and conditions of the Un- 
 derstanding, and it was with this overleaping that I 
 was concerned. I was speaking here of the specu- 
 lative Reason so far as it is that which takes cogni- 
 zance of Being as distinguished from appearances. 
 I was not confounding it with the practical Reason, 
 though I did hold, and I will show you hereafter why 
 I held, that we may perceive a union between the 
 practical and the speculative Reason, which Kant did 
 
LETTER X. 173 
 
 not perceive. But, will you credit it ? That very ex- 
 tract whicli Mr. Maiisel has given from Kant^s Tran- 
 scendental Dialectic, to prove that accuracy of re- 
 ference is not my forte, is a maimed quotation, one 
 that breaks off in the middle of a sentence, the re- 
 mainder of which, as I think you will admit, explains 
 in what sense Kant holds that there are illusions in 
 the pm'C Reason, and confounds the whole argument 
 which Mr. Mansel raises upon the first part of the ex- 
 tract. After the words, " Eine Ilhision, die gar nicht 
 "zu vermeiden ist," he adds, '^ so wenig, als wir es 
 " vermeiden konnen, dass uus das Meer in der Mitte 
 " nicht hoher scheine, wie an dem Ufer, weil wir jene 
 " durch hohere Lichtstrahleu als diese sehen, oder, 
 " noch mehr, so wenig selbst der Astronom verhin- 
 " deru kann, dass ihm der Mond im Aufgange nicht 
 " grosser scheine, ob er gleich durch diesen Schein 
 "nicht betrogen wird.""^ — {Die Transcend. Dialekt., 
 Einleitung.) 
 
 Now this illustration shoAvs, I apprehend, clearly, 
 that Kant believed the faculty of the Eeason to be 
 liable to a class of illusions of its own, precisely as he 
 ])elieved the senses to be liable to a class of delusions 
 
 * Translated thus by Meiklejohn : '• This ilhision it is impossible 
 " to avoid, just as one cannot avoid perceiving that the sea appears 
 " to be higher at a distance than it is near the shore, because we see 
 " the former by means of higher rays than the latter ; or, which is 
 •' a still stronger case, as even the astronomer cannot prevent himself 
 " from seeing the moon larger at its rising than sometime afterwards, 
 "although he is not deceived by the illusion." 
 
174 SEQUEL. 
 
 of their own. The illusions are altogetlier different ; 
 the nature of each must be inferred from the nature 
 of the faculty itself. And if these illusions warrant 
 us in calling one faculty a faculty of lies, they warrant 
 us in giving the same name to every other ; they 
 warrant us in saying that we are living in a lie. The 
 professed object of Kant^s Transcendental Logic is to 
 guard against the illusions of the Reason, as he ex- 
 presses it, " Den Schein transcendentaler Urtheile 
 " aufzudecken und zu2:leich zu verhiiten dass er nicht 
 " betriige ;" just as there is a similar discipline to 
 prevent the senses from deceiving us. There is, in- 
 deed, a method recommended in the extract which 
 Mr. Mansel gives from his own pamphlet for avoiding 
 the perplexity. Kant had only to say that there is no 
 distinction between the Reason and the Understand- 
 ing, and to call the illusions of the Reason the impo- 
 tence of the Understanding ; then the illusion would 
 cease. The German, I suspect, had considered that 
 way of cutting the knot as seriously as Mr. Mansel. 
 It was the natural and obvious one which his incli- 
 nation would have led him to embrace. It was the 
 pressure of evidence, the sternness of his actual ob- 
 servation, which compelled him to refuse it. At all 
 hazards, in spite of all apparent contradictions, he 
 must confess that there is that in us which grasps at 
 the Infinite and Eternal, — which will not be content 
 with phenomena, or with any arguments and deduc- 
 tions from phenomena. 
 
LETTER X. 175 
 
 But thougli the analogy of the senses and their 
 illusions is amply sufficient to justify any one in not 
 denying the existence of a pure Reason because it 
 may be exposed to illusions^ I am perfectly aware 
 that there is a startling difference between the de- 
 ceptions which occur to us while we are conversing 
 with appearances^ and while we are attempting to look 
 beyond appearances. This difference has been felt 
 most painfull}^ by those who have accepted Kant^s 
 belief in a higher faculty. They have admired his 
 honesty for not allowing any anomalies to hinder 
 him from rejecting the evidence of facts; they have 
 owned this to be the true test of a scientific inquirer. 
 But they have also been certain that paralogisms and 
 antinomies lying so near the root of their beings — be- 
 longing to their very nature, — must be very terrible, 
 and must demand a more perfect solution than his 
 Transcendental Logic, however valuable in itself, can 
 supply. These persons have been driven to ask w hether 
 the impossibility of finding such a solution did not 
 lie in the nature and limitations of the Critical Phi- 
 losophy ; whether there must not be something to 
 complete the inquiry into the nature and demands of 
 our faculties, viz. a full inquiry into the Objects of 
 those Faculties. The visible world meets the senses 
 and gives them their objects. What meets the faculty 
 which rises above sense and experience, and gives it 
 its object? Is not that '^appearance of objective 
 principles " in the Reason, which Kant speaks of. 
 
176 SEQUEL. 
 
 precisely the indication of this want? Could there 
 he a more faithful exposition than that phrase con- 
 tains of the need in the highest region of our being, 
 of something to commune with it and save it from the 
 endless and frightful contradiction into which it falls 
 from making its own thoughts its objects ? 
 
 Hence, I apprehend, arose the demand for that 
 Philosophy of the Absolute and the Infinite in Ger- 
 many which Mr. Mansel thinks may be got rid of by 
 simply denying the existence of any faculty which 
 transcends experience. Closely connected with that 
 demand, though only in some cases consciously con- 
 nected with it, arose the feeling in many religious 
 Germans, that the Gospel or the Christian Church 
 might fill up the void which Kant had discovered and 
 left. I wdll not allude to the various movements, 
 in one direction and another. Evangelical and Ro- 
 manist, to which this thought has given the im- 
 pulse. I do not say that the records of these move- 
 ments are not of great worth for Englishmen; I do 
 not say that there have not been movements in Eng- 
 land which have corresponded to them. Still the 
 question about these paralogisms and antinomies of 
 the Reason, presents itself to us in quite a different 
 form from that which it takes in Germany. It does 
 present itself to us, though the names Paralogisms 
 and Antinomies may sound as strange to us as any 
 specimens of the Caftre dialect. We admit them in 
 fact, though we have no words for them ; they give 
 
LETTER X. 177 
 
 rise to many murmurs; they lead to much indifference 
 and despair; they are discoursed of under other 
 titles in sermons ; the preacher tries sometimes to 
 turn them to account, sometimes to remove the pre- 
 judices against all divine lessons which the discovery 
 of them awakens. And most devout Englishmen 
 will, I think, be disposed to admit that there must be 
 paralogisms and antinomies in any faculty which is 
 created to seek after that which is above all sense and 
 experience, and which does not perceive that that 
 which it seeks is coming to meet it, is seeking for 
 it. Stated in our own wav, in our own conventional 
 forms, this is one of our approved commonplaces. 
 Hundreds of passages might be quoted from divines 
 to whom Kant^s name is a dream or a horror, which 
 apply the story of the man who, when his eyes first 
 began to be opened, saw men as trees walking, to 
 the eye of the spirit when God first says Ephphatha 
 to it, meaning that hereafter it should behold Him 
 clearly. Translated into philosophical phraseology, 
 what is this but the mistaking of the perceptions of 
 the Reason for its object ? You may easily persuade 
 Englishmen to regard the faculty which they are told 
 is spoken of in Kant's Critique on the Pure Reason 
 as a faculty of lies ; but you will not persuade them, 
 if they are serious, godly men, that what they speak 
 of under the name of their inward eye is a faculty of 
 lies; though they know too well, and will confess 
 with profound sorrow, how quickly, how of necessity, it 
 
 N 
 
178 SEQUEL, 
 
 falls into lying, when it is not in communion with its 
 true Enlightener. 
 
 No doubt, it is difficult to connect these practical 
 conclusions of our countrymen with those which Ger- 
 mans have arrived at by so different a process. But 
 there are encouragements in attempting that course, 
 and there are motives which, I believe, make it neces- 
 sary at this time. The encouragement lies in the fact 
 that almost fifty years ago, Mr. Coleridge, then a most 
 unpopular writer, regarded by the public sometimes as 
 a poetical, sometimes as a metaphysical madman, in 
 circumstances eminently unpropitious, in a book which 
 was published in a provincial town, made a still more 
 startling application of the doctrines of the Critical 
 Philosophy, and especially of the doctrine respecting 
 the illusions of the pure Reason which is now under 
 our consideration, to the political controversies of the 
 day, and that his words, little as they might be un- 
 derstood or heeded at the time, wrought so secretly 
 and so effectually upon the minds of his younger con- 
 temporaries, that there is perhaps no Conservative 
 speech or pamphlet of our day which is not different 
 from what it would have been if the Essays in the 
 * Friend' had not been written. In these Essays, you 
 may remember, he treats the attempts to found a 
 Constitution on the idea of the Rights of Man, as 
 originating in those assumptions of the pure Reason 
 which Kant has pointed out in his Transcendental 
 Dialectic. The course of thought which he pursues in 
 
LETTER X. 179 
 
 the ^ Friend^ may have struck many as unintelligible 
 and absurd. Nevertheless it enabled some to recon- 
 cile the experimental wisdom for ^vhich Burke con- 
 tends in his Reflections, with deep moral convictions 
 respecting human rights which they could not part 
 with. It enabled them to do justice to the changeable 
 without losing their faith in the permanent. I am 
 bound in gratitude to record that opinion, because the 
 younger men of our day, whether they call themselves 
 Liberals or Conservatives, do not know what they 
 owe to Coleridge. Deeming that some of us have 
 spoken extravagantly of him, they are half-disposed 
 to adopt again the cant of the vulgar wits who tried 
 to persuade us and our elders that he was an im- 
 postor. There are too many eminent men of letters 
 who are ready, from different antipathies, to favour 
 that reaction — too many grave and reverend signors, 
 who once were glad to profit by Coleridge's argu- 
 ments, and even to take part in building his sepulchre, 
 ])ut now suspect that the arguments may not always 
 support their conclusions, and that the sepulchre may 
 be a reproach both to their fathers and to them — not 
 to make it a duty that those who still feel unspeak- 
 able obligations to him, should take every suitable op- 
 portunity of confessing them. 
 
 (3.) But even if there were no encouragement from 
 past experience, a wish to save some of the truths 
 which English thinkers have vindicated from neglect 
 and denial, a still stronger desire to make those fruits 
 
180 SEQUEL. 
 
 available for our English people, would stir me to the 
 effort of maintaining that there is that faculty of 
 which Kant bore witness. We have seen in the last 
 letter how Mr. Mansel treats that belief in a Con- 
 science which was the strongest of all beliefs in the 
 mind of his master. Whenever I speak of that faculty 
 as being available for any practical purposes, whenever 
 I assume that there is that in me which passes judg- 
 ment on my own acts and states of mind, and pro- 
 nounces some to be right and some to be wrong, he 
 cannot restrain his contempt. And why ? Because 
 he evidently feels, as strongly as I do, that if there is 
 a faculty which speaks of what is right or wrong, there 
 must be one which speaks of that which is true and 
 false. The faculties are clearly not identical ; one 
 has relation to me, to what / do and think : the other 
 belongs to the region — I am afraid I must use the 
 word — of the absolute. But there is so close an affi- 
 nity between their processes, they blend so curiously 
 and intricately, that it is scarcely possible for a man 
 of logical and coherent mind, who is convinced of the 
 non-existence of the pGi^see^l judge, to recognize, for 
 actual use, the existence of the general judge. I must 
 again affirm (notwithstanding Dr. Candlish^s terrible 
 sentence) that T suppose him and Mr. Mansel to use 
 both these faculties every hour of their lives. All I 
 mean is, that the non- recognition of a Reason which 
 takes account of what is, as distinct from what ap- 
 pears, involves the non -recognition of a Conscience 
 
LETTER X. 181 
 
 which affirms this to be right for me and that to be 
 wrong. I apprehend that the example of a reasoner 
 like Mr. Mansel is the best answer to his scoffing 
 question, what connection I discover between Kant^s 
 Keason with his three ideas and its corresponding 
 paralogisms, and the doctrine of a Conscience as it is 
 expounded in Butler's three Sermons. I should say 
 that the difference between the character of the men, 
 their countries, their forms of thought, makes it all the 
 more remarkable that they should have arrived at 
 conclusions which, being seemingly diverse, have this 
 great test of internal sympathy and accordance, that 
 you can scarcely reject the one without making light 
 of the other. 
 
 I count it indeed a great advantage for England — 
 one for which we ought to be thankful, though with- 
 out assuming that what is best for us would have been 
 best for Germany — that the inquiry respecting the 
 Conscience is ours rather than the inquiry respecting 
 the Reason, and that we cannot reallv avail ourselves 
 of the second except through the first. Butler's ser- 
 mons were, it seems to me, just what we needed, and 
 that for two apparently opposite reasons. (1) They 
 served to counteract the habit, which the Evangelical 
 movement of that time was encouraging, of turning 
 the experiences of evil in the minds of men into laws 
 of their minds ; in other words, of making the depra- 
 vity of human nature the interpretation of human 
 nature. (2) They justified all the appeals which the 
 
182 SEQUEL. 
 
 Evangelical teachers were making to the Consciences 
 of men, respecting their sins against God and their 
 brethren, — appeals which their own theory did not 
 justify, — appeals which the coldness of Butler^s school 
 made impossible for that school. And Butler's doc- 
 trine being brought to this test, its deficiency, and 
 the cause of it, were also made manifest. When the 
 preachers spoke of the Conviction of Sin, they as- 
 sumed that God was speaking to the Conscience, 
 that He was revealing to men their moral condition. 
 As I have hinted before, it seems to me that just this 
 was wanted to make the idea of the Conscience a 
 complete idea ; and that in Butler it was inevitably 
 incomplete, not from a fault in him, but because he 
 was criticizing the mind of man from its own ground, 
 not contemplating it from a higher ground. Looked 
 at from this point of view, there are paralogisms and 
 antinomies of the Conscience as there are of the Rea- 
 son. He was partly aware of them ; he had a sort of 
 dialectic of his own for hindering the mischiefs that 
 arise from them ; but happily they did not lead him 
 to treat the Conscience as "■ a faculty of lies ;'' happily 
 they did not lead him to identify its decrees with the 
 conclusions of the understanding from probable evi- 
 dence j happily they did not discourage him from as- 
 serting in broad, even audacious language, its supre- 
 macy, leaving those who profited by his lessons to as- 
 certain what is necessary to the real exercise of that 
 supremacy. 
 
LETTEH X. 183 
 
 Although, then, Butler was an avowed defender of 
 the Bible, and Kant was suspected of undermining its 
 authority, and of disputing a Revelation altogether, 
 there was a curious resemblance between them, even 
 in the point in which they at first sight seem to be 
 most opposed. Butler, no doubt, appealed to texts, ac- 
 cepted them reverently, threw his inquiries into the 
 form of discourses upon them. But he was to all in- 
 tents and purposes as much a student of the facts 
 of human nature, as much a careful critic of them, 
 without seeking any interpretation but what was de- 
 rived from themselves, as Kant was. And he was 
 exposed to similar difficulties from that very cause. 
 Each seemed to himself to have worked out a full ex- 
 planation of the faculty he was conversant with, each 
 really demanded further light to make its operation 
 intelligible. And in due time each, it seems to me, 
 gained that which it wanted, partly perhaps through 
 the inquiries of philosophers and the teachings of di- 
 vines, much more through the demands of the people. 
 
 If appeals to the Conscience became the character- 
 istic of the new school of English preachers, the com- 
 mencement of an age of Reason was hailed by the 
 disciples of the new school in France. How little of 
 sympathy there was between the first and Butler, I 
 have hinted already. Surely there was no greater 
 between the latter and the German. The glories of 
 Reason had been sung by the Encyclopaedists, who 
 certainly were guiltless, if any men ever were, of look- 
 
184 SEQUEL. 
 
 ing beyond the limits of experience. Their phrases 
 descended upon the mob of St. Antoiue : certainly no 
 association of the infinite and eternal was consciously 
 mixed with them by the receivers. But they did un- 
 dergo a mighty change in the new hands. Words 
 which had represented to the philosophers of the 
 salons the superiority of the few to the opinions and 
 delusions of the many^ represented to the multitude 
 the overthrow of distinctions — and these, distinctions 
 of intellect no less than of fortune aud of birth. Here 
 was the blind recognition of a human faculty, a 
 facultv which does not set one above another, but 
 
 ft •' 
 
 which belongs to all. And here also, as Mr. Cole- 
 ridge said in those papers of his which have been so 
 much contemned and have exercised so much power, 
 was an equally blind recognition of something, call it 
 by what name you will, which passes the limits of 
 experience, which is immeasurable, transcendent, uni- 
 versal. The name you find for that something may 
 be Human Rights, or Humanity, may be a Brother- 
 hood that breaks down all the boundaries of family 
 and nation, may be this Reason itself. All these 
 names will be tried; all have so much of meaning 
 in them that numbers will adopt each, and consider 
 that for a time all- sufficient. And those who do, if 
 they find it necessary to cast down their god, and to 
 say it is merely an idol, are in exceeding danger of 
 becoming simple Atheists; perhaps in all the more 
 danger if they agree to accept the traditions of their 
 
LETTER X. 185 
 
 country because one tradition is not more false to 
 them than another. 
 
 Do such observations strilvc you as very alarming, — 
 excuses for the despondency into which we are all ready 
 to fall ? Very alarming, I think ; but rather cures 
 for desponding than excuses for it. Our forefathers 
 of the last century learnt one lesson. They found 
 there was something in every man which might, by 
 God's mercy, be aroused, which might testify to him 
 of his own rebellion. We want that assurance more 
 than ever ; there is great danger of our losing it. But 
 to sustain it do avc not want another ? Is there not 
 that in us all which does not merely belong to us 
 as distinct individual beings, but which is common 
 to us all, which is ours because we are members of 
 a race ? May not this too be spoken to ? may not 
 this too be called forth ? Is not God speaking to 
 it ? is not God calling it forth ? Is not this that to 
 which He speaks when He reveals Himself to Man 
 in the Son who took upon Him the nature of Man, 
 who died for the whole human race? Is not this 
 that spirit in us which He calls forth by His Spi- 
 rit, which that Spirit teaches to say, Abba Father ? 
 ' If all Critical Philosophies, studies of the Absolute, 
 French Kevolutions, preaching of Rights, Humanity, 
 Reason, are leading to this issue, can we mourn that 
 they have been permitted or ordained ? If they are 
 not leading to this issue, may not we, the preachers 
 of the Gospel, have ourselves to blame that when the 
 
186 SEQUEL. 
 
 gates of the Kingdom of Heaven are openings we will 
 not enter into them ourselves^ nor suffer them who are 
 entering to go in ? 
 
 (4.) I have wandered not^ I believe, from the proper 
 text of this Letter, but far enough from the little per- 
 sonal questions which gave occasion to it. If I seem 
 to return to them that I may notice Mr. ManseFs 
 remarks on my very ^ wonderful ^ uses of the faculty 
 of Reason, and the illustration which he derives from 
 my supposed intercourse with a Unitarian neighbour, 
 I hope I shall be finding one more illustration of the 
 principle for which I am contending, and shall not be 
 betrayed into any angry defence of my own wisdom. 
 If I am making wonderful uses of the faculty which 
 all men possess, my folly and vanity must be capable 
 of a much readier exposure — an appeal to the common 
 judgment of men against me must be far more effec- 
 tual — than if no such facultj'' exists. The assertion of 
 such a possession for mankind is a witness against any 
 idiosyncrasies of mine which I may try to pass over 
 upon my fellow- creatures. Just so far as I appeal to 
 it, I must be pointing to common objects, objects in 
 which all alike are interested. I may, no doubt, prac- 
 tise tricks with it as with any other faculty, availing 
 myself of its own special illusions; but, if I hold that 
 God Himself is revealing Himself to us that He may 
 scatter illusions, I must hold that just so far as I pro- 
 claim Him to men, I am ensuring the exposure and 
 scattering of my tricks. 
 
LETTER X. 187 
 
 With respect to my Unitarian neighbour, I main- 
 tain most assuredly that he has this faculty of Reason 
 as much as I have. If I did not^ and I yet held that 
 the Trinity lay at the foundation of our human life^ I 
 should do my best by some arts of mine, and by force, 
 if I had it at command, or could influence more 
 powerful men to put it forth, to bring him over to 
 my side, to impose my dogmas upon him. Because 
 I am convinced that he has this faculty, and that God 
 is speaking to it in him as in me, the more confidence 
 I have in the honesty of his purposes and convictions, 
 the more assured I shall be that he will be guided 
 into all truth, the more gladly I shall help him to 
 discover it. And the more assurance I have that the 
 mystery of a Father, a Son, and a Spirit — three per- 
 sons in One God — is the mystery in w^hich we are 
 living and moving and having our being, the more 
 shall I be conscious that there are mists and illu- 
 sions in my mind and heart as in his, which are 
 keeping us from the full apprehension and enjoy- 
 ment of that mystery, and the more shall I ask that 
 whatever these are. He who knows us and loves ns 
 so inconceivably better than w^e know and love our- 
 selves, will bring us into that light in which is no 
 darkness at all. But we shall have more of this sub- 
 ject in a future Letter. 
 
 Most truly yours, 
 
 F. D. M. 
 
188 SEQUEL. 
 
 P.S. My friendly (and therefore faithful) critic in 
 ^ Eraser's Magazine^ makes this observation on a pas- 
 sage in a subsequent Letter of mine respecting Kant: — 
 
 " In a subordinate matter we think he misappre- 
 hends Mr. Mansel. The latter has used the fol- 
 lowing expression: — ^The object of which we are 
 ^conscious is thus, to adopt the well-known lan- 
 ^guage of the Kantian philosophy, 2i phenomenon^ 
 ' not a thing in itself f on which Mr. Maurice thus 
 comments : — ^ I do not know why Mr. Mansel at- 
 ^ tributes the distinction between a phenomenon and 
 ' thing in itself to the Kantian philosophy. It has 
 ^ been a recognized distinction in every philosophy/ 
 etc. — Maurice J p. 333. 
 
 " If Mr. Maurice will look at Mr. MansePs words 
 again, he will see that they give no evidence of in- 
 tention to attribute the distinction exclusively to 
 the Kantian philosophy. But he who talks of the 
 phenomenon and the thing in itself [Ding an sich), 
 is undoubtedly adopting ^ the well-known language ' 
 of that philosophy ; he is using its peculiar termin- 
 ology. Neither, on the other hand, while the dis- 
 tinction is an integral part of the Kantian philo- 
 sophy, is it admitted by every other. Mr. Mansel 
 is therefore unfairly charged with ^imputing to 
 ' Kant specially what he has in common with half 
 ' the world ;' and indeed the whole paragraph which 
 thus winds up wants revision.^' 
 
 I willingly submit to this correction; but I think 
 
LETTER X. 189 
 
 the writer will perceive, when he has read this Letter, 
 (1) Why I was likely to be somewhat jealous in 
 claiming the distinction between things as they are, 
 and phenomena, as not a specially German distinc- 
 tion. (2) That I am as little inclined as any one can 
 be to underrate the merits of Kant in giving fixed- 
 ness to that distinction as one of the most important 
 in Philosophy."^ 
 
 * If I am not mistaken^ the remark which I made, p. 178, re- 
 specting the effect of Coleridge upon later writers, who know very 
 little of him, is borrowed from an observation of his own, perhaps in 
 his Literary Life, respecting Burke. 
 
190 
 
 LETTEE XI. 
 
 THE PEACTICAL EEASOK.— LOGIC TJNDEE DIFFERENT 
 ASPECTS.— RULES AND PRINCIPLES.— TRUTH IN 
 PROPOSITIONS AND IN A PERSON. 
 
 My dear Sir, 
 
 If I do not make many extracts from the part of 
 Mr. ManseFs ^Examination^ which intervenes between 
 p. 55 and p. 63, it is not that I wish to escape the 
 humiliation of being represented to my readers as at 
 once the most ignorant and the most arrogant of hu- 
 man beings. But as I have given already paragraph 
 upon paragraph in which I appear in those characters, 
 and as T do not find any very new or specific charge 
 against me in these pages, I will simply ask that they 
 may be read at full as they stand in the pamphlet. 
 The tone which he has adopted may be a fitting pu- 
 nishment for my offences ; it may draw upon me the 
 ridicule of his admirers in Oxford or in the religious 
 press. There are some students in Oxford, I be- 
 lieve, some religious men in different parts of Eng- 
 land, who will not be hindered by it from seriously 
 asking themselves whether his method of discussing 
 the Infinite and the Absolute in his second Lecture 
 
LETTER XI. 191 
 
 was a right or a wrong one ; whether the distinction 
 between rules for practice_, and principles that satisfy 
 the Reason, which he songht to establish in the fifth 
 Lecture, was established or not; wdiether it was ir- 
 reverent in me to speak of Christ as Himself the 
 Truth, when I was considering his opinion that truth 
 and falsehood are only properties of our conceptions. 
 These are grave subjects, not quite settled by obser- 
 vations, hoAvever pointed and deserving of frequent 
 repetition, about my brilliant discoveries or profound 
 knowledge of philosophy. They will occupy me in 
 this Letter. 
 
 (1.) When I read Mr. Hansel's second Lecture, I 
 tried first to throw myself back into my undergra- 
 duate period, and to ask myself how I should have 
 felt if I had heard it then. Next I considered how it 
 must have affected any member of the classes which 
 it was expressly designed to confute, whether they 
 were Pantheists, or seekers for some moral founda- 
 tion which was deeper than their own consciousnesses 
 and conceptions. Such persons, it seemed to me, 
 would not recognize the force of Mr. Mansel's logic 
 at all as bearing upon themselves. They would recog- 
 nize it as defining the nature of Christian Divinity, 
 and as showing how little it met their wants. All 
 reflections of this kind Mr. Mansel simply passes by. 
 They do not touch him. He assumes that the thoughts 
 that I have attributed to these people are imaginations 
 of my own. Very poor and feeble, I confess that they 
 
192 SEQUEL. 
 
 are^ in comparison of sucli statements of actual mental 
 experience and mental suffering as are contained in 
 Mr. Chretien^s pamphlet. If tlie reader will meditate 
 on that most serious narrative after lie has amused 
 himself with Mr. ManseFs lively criticisms on me, I 
 shall not be at all afraid of any results that may fol- 
 low from the latter. And there were many blanks in 
 my statement which I ought not to have left at first ; 
 which at all events I should seek to fill up now. 
 
 1st. I may have led some of my readers to think 
 that I did not recognize as strongly as Mr. Mansel 
 does the difficulties and contradictions to which the 
 Reason is exposed when it tries to grapple with the 
 Absolute and the Eternal. My last Letter will have 
 removed all suspicion from your mind on this point. 
 I have shown you that I do confess these difficulties, 
 and confess them to be inseparable from the indepen- 
 dent exercise of the Reason. The questions at issue 
 between us are, whether these difficulties and con- 
 tradictions are proofs that there is nothing in man 
 which really demands a knowledge of the Infinite and 
 Eternal, and that what seems to demand it is an im- 
 potency of the understanding, attempting unlawful 
 and impossible flights; or whether tliese difficulties 
 and contradictions only show that the faculty which 
 God has given us for the apprehension can only put 
 forth its full powers when He meets it and illumi- 
 nates it. The practical treatment of the perplexities 
 and contradictions that surround the study of the In- 
 
LETTER XI. 193 
 
 finite and the Absolute^ and which have discovered 
 themselves in all investigations respecting that study, 
 depends upon the answer to this question. If it is 
 answered in the first way, Mr. MansePs method of 
 baffling and defeating the struggles of the mind after 
 an object which it cannot reach, is the reasonable 
 method. It is hard to charge the Lecturer with the 
 vertigo and the sickness of heart which these ex- 
 periments have caused in the listener or the reader. 
 Granting that the maxim from which he started is 
 right, he could not be hindered, by any dread of such 
 painful effects, from administering the only medicine 
 which could be effectual for the cure of the radical 
 disease. But it is fair to ask whether these effects are 
 not some evidence against the principle which forces 
 the most skilful practitioners to adopt such a process 
 of cure. 
 
 (2.) I hinted, and others have made the same ob- 
 servation, that there was a special incongruity in these 
 logical puzzles when they were introduced into a 
 pulpit discourse. If this was a mere feeling or sen- 
 timent, it is entitled to some weight, but not much. 
 ' You do not,' Mr. Mansel might say, ^ object to 
 ^ Butler's Sermons on Human Nature. Yet vou 
 ^ confess that they are philosophical inquiries taking 
 ' the form of Sermons. The form may not be the 
 ^ best possible, but you would rather have the thoughts 
 ^ in that form than not have them at all.' Cer- 
 tainly I would. I should indeed be sorry to see any 
 
 o 
 
194 SEQUEL. 
 
 imitation of Butler's sermons in this day ; first, be- 
 cause I think it would be a poor one ; secondly, be- 
 cause I believe that the idea of Sermons, as meant to 
 convey a Gospel from God to men, not an inquiry 
 about God, — starting from the human ground, — has 
 established itself among us since his time, and that 
 it is a sound idea, which for many reasons we cannot 
 afford to part with, which requires to be expanded and 
 developed, not in any way resisted. But subject to 
 that observation, we should be thankful that Butler 
 made this great addition to our literature, without 
 curiously considering whether it might have been 
 better made in the shape of an Essay, like his Ana- 
 logy. But here is the difference. Butler is investi- 
 gating the conditions of human nature, without any 
 especial reference to the Divine Nature. The Bamp- 
 ton Lecturer is investigating the conditions of human 
 nature, especially as they bear upon its capacity of 
 knowing the Divine. And the moment he comes in 
 contact with that Divine Nature, he exclaims, ^ I 
 ^ count it more reverent not to speak of that by its 
 ^ own proper name. I would rather talk of the Infi- 
 ' nite or of the Absolute than of Gon.^ Here lay the 
 contradiction, and it was the sense of this contradic- 
 tion, not a merely aesthetic feeling about the sacred- 
 ness of a church or the conditions of a sermon, which 
 caused the revulsion which I and so many have felt. 
 The preacher, the messenger from God, dares not 
 assume that character. Evidentlv he is convinced 
 that on his ground he ought not to assume it, and 
 
LETTER XI. 195 
 
 his readers bear an unconscious testimony, that there 
 is truth in that conviction. But is not this an expe- 
 rimentum crucis of his position? He proposes to 
 annihilate the philosophies of the Absolute for the 
 sake of Divinity. That he may do it, he must aban- 
 don the very characteristic of a divine. 
 
 (3.) Herein, I conceive, lies the true difference be- 
 tween Sir William Hamilton and Mr. Mansel, which 
 in my comments on his second Lecture I very im- 
 perfectly pointed out, but which has presented itself 
 to me strongly since I have been called to review 
 my book. The question whether the Infinite and the 
 Absolute can be anything but negations of the finite 
 and the conditioned, seemed to Hamilton, contempla- 
 ting it as a logician, capable of but one answer. The 
 philosophers of the Absolute did not shake him at 
 all. He could dispose of them. But Avhen those words 
 of Manilius and of Prosper occurred to him, which 
 speak of man as in some sense percipient of God, 
 he hesitated; there was something awful there; he 
 would rather contradict himself than dispute such 
 language. It is such language that Mr. Mansel, if 
 he is to carry Sir William Hamilton's doctrine into 
 the region of Theology, has to encounter. He has 
 a reverence for the Name ; the idea, before which 
 the philosopher stood appalled, the English divine is 
 pledged to grapple with. The perception of the Infi- 
 nite and the Absolute means, in his Lectures, the per- 
 ception of God. And he is precluded from saying. 
 
196 SEQUEL. 
 
 'That whicli you are feeling after and cannot find, 
 ' I can declare to you/ He is precluded from saying, 
 ' You only arrive by your logic at a negative infinite. 
 ' The Positive Infinite reveals Himself to you as He 
 * is/ These are the very statements which he rejects, 
 and undertakes to confute. In the interest of Di- 
 vinity he is to renounce a principle which Sir William 
 Hamilton, speaking only as a philosopher, was ready, 
 almost in words, certainly in fact, to concede. 
 
 (4.) My most friendly critics have suspected that I 
 intended to disparage Logic, when I spoke in my no- 
 tice of this Lecture, and other Lectures of Mr. Man- 
 sel, concerning the use which he makes of Logic. I 
 must have spoken very unadvisedly if I led any one 
 to suspect me of such folly. What I feel and have 
 always felt is, that there is a Logic of the Under- 
 standing, which deserves all honour whilst it confines 
 itself within its own limits, and contents itself with 
 telling us under what laws and in what forms we 
 must discourse. That there is a higher Dialectic, a 
 Logic belonging to that Faculty which converses with 
 the Infinite and the Absolute, Kant maintained, and 
 endeavoured to discover what that Dialectic was. 
 There has also been a very vigorous attempt, in all 
 ages, to construct a Dialectic of the Conscience ; in- 
 numerable books of Casuistry have been and are the 
 fruits of that cfibrt. Believing that Kant deprived 
 the Reason of its proper complement, so far as he 
 did not accept a Revelation, I must suppose that his 
 
LETTER XT. 197 
 
 Dialectic of the Reason may be very instructive, 
 and must be imperfect. Believing that God illumi- 
 nates the Consciences of all men, I must hold that 
 the dialectic of the Casuists is more than negatively 
 defective, is often positively mischievous, inasmuch 
 as it becomes itself, or it makes the priest, an opaque 
 medium for obstructing the light, a barrier between 
 the Spirit of God and the Spirit of man. But I 
 cannot therefore say that there is not a real Dialec- 
 tic for the Reason as well as one for the Conscience. 
 On the contrary, it seems to me now that the more 
 light I gain from the Bible, illustrated by human 
 history, respecting the Di\dne Revelation to the race, 
 the nearer I approach to the Dialectic for the Reason. 
 And the more light I gain from the Bible, illustrated 
 by personal experience and human biographies, con- 
 cerning the Revelation to the individual, the nearer I 
 approach to a Dialectic for the Conscience. In the at- 
 tempt to organize the one or the other, we fall into the 
 continual temptation of substituting private interpre- 
 tations and the opinions of our age, for that which 
 is actually told us either in books or in life. The 
 discovery of our own rash conclusions, and of those 
 of others, may lead us to think that there are no laws 
 governing us in one direction or other — in the region 
 of the finite or of the Infinite — or no one who can in- 
 terpret those laws for us. The despair is greatest, I 
 think, if we are only conversant with the finite, if 
 we suppose that all we can know is to be learnt from 
 
198 SEQUEL. 
 
 it. The despair is least if we believe there is an Infi- 
 nite Spirit of Truth watching over every faculty and 
 over all its movements, enabling it to find out its own 
 functions and the end of its existence — its own spe- 
 cial temptations and dangers ; enabling it to reverence 
 the acts and exercises of every other. For then we 
 may be sure that the accumulated experiences of ages, 
 of all earnest study and discovery, of all errors and 
 confusions, must be tending to the same end. And 
 each person may say for himself, ' That Spirit would 
 ' guide me into all truth; would show me all that leads 
 ' me to be false, and would save me from it — from my 
 ' fanaticism, and my indifference, from the special be- 
 ' wilderments of the Reason, of the Conscience, and 
 ' of the Understanding ; from those more complicated 
 ' bewilderments which arise when each forgets its 
 ^ place, and imposes its laws upon the other.' It is 
 this imposition of the Logic of the Understanding 
 upon the Conscience and the Reason, arising from 
 a disbelief in their distinct objects and obligations, 
 which I think we are bound to resist to the utmost. 
 It was against this I spoke; not against any applica- 
 tion of what is taught as Logic in Oxford, within its 
 own sphere. While it works within that sphere, all 
 ought to pay it reverence ; if it attempts its old usur- 
 pations, the Theologian, the Moralist, the Mathema- 
 tician, the Physical Student, must once more enter 
 into conspiracy to secure their proper freedom. 
 
 II. A question of deeper and of more evident inter- 
 
LETTER XI. 199 
 
 est to mankind is hidden behind this. The distinc- 
 tion which Kant draws between the Speculative and 
 Practical Reason was alluded to in the last Letter. 
 Evidently Mr. ManseFs distinction between Specula- 
 tive and Regulative truths has some relation to this ; 
 he is as anxious as those who more nearly agree with 
 Kant can be^ that they shall not be supposed to be 
 the same. Kant having affirmed that there is that in 
 us which takes cognizance of the Infinite and Eter- 
 nal, could not confound this faculty with that in us 
 which confesses an obligation to do something or to 
 be something. But on the other hand, he could not 
 help saying that if we analyze that sense of obligation, 
 it will be found at last to do homage, not to changeable, 
 or finite, or partial, but to eternal, infinite, universal 
 laws. Looking at the subject simply as a critic of our 
 faculties he could only consider these as laws in or of 
 the Reason itself; whatever imperfections are involved 
 in that mode of contemplating them seem to be inse- 
 parable from his course of investigation. Distinct 
 from this subject, but yet lying so close to it that they 
 cannot in practice be separated, is that which refers 
 to the power and operation of these laws. Do they 
 bind us by an iron chain of necessity ? Or are they by 
 their very nature such as speak to the Will, such as 
 can be disobeyed ? 
 
 Supposing a person to deny the existence of a fa- 
 culty which apprehends the Eternal and Infinite, and 
 to admit the sense in us of obligation, some such 
 
200 SEQUEL. 
 
 division as that which Mr. Mansel has developed in 
 these Lectures^ is inevitable. There must be that 
 which answers to the Speculative Reason. And see- 
 ing that the subjects of it are not the Infinite and 
 the Eternal — seeing that these are cut off as not 
 subjects of human thought at all — we are forced to 
 ask. What has that speculative faculty to do ? what 
 are the truths with which it comes in contact ? There 
 must again be some faculty which answers to the 
 Practical Reason, some faculty which confesses obli- 
 gation ; and seeing that this cannot apprehend laws 
 that are eternal and universal, we are forced to ask, 
 What has this faculty to do ? what obligations does 
 it own ; to what and by what does it affirm that we 
 are bound? 
 
 I must beg you to observe how these inquiries be- 
 come complicated with that which I endeavoured to 
 bring before my readers. Supposing Kant to be right 
 in saying that man has a faculty which demands the 
 Eternal, — supposing him to be also right in saying 
 that he has a faculty which confesses an obligation to 
 some Eternal, Universal Law or Principle, — a Reve- 
 lation of God might satisfy the Speculative Reason 
 by discovering the Eternal which is demanded ; or it 
 might satisfy the practical Reason by declaring what 
 law or principle it is which we are formed to obey. 
 It might do either of these things : might it not do 
 both ? Must it not do both if it is such a Revelation 
 as the Bible sets forth to us? If it is the Revela- 
 
LETTER XI. 201 
 
 tion of a Moral Being, — of a Being of Truth_, Good- 
 ness^ Justice, Mercy, — is the faculty which demands 
 the Infinite and Eternal and Absolute discontented ? 
 Would it say, ' I do not want this, but only the 
 ' name or notion of what is infinite, absolute, eternal' ? 
 Would it not say, ^Yes; Truth, Goodness, Justice, 
 ' are exactly what cannot be brought under the laws 
 ' of space and time, what defy all kinds of finite mea- 
 ^sm-ement^? But what would the practical Reason 
 say to such a discovery? Would it not say, ^Yes; here 
 ^ are those principles of Justice, Goodness, Truth, 
 ' which constitute my obligation to be true and good 
 ^ and just. Outward laws imposing penalties for acts 
 ^ which imply a departure from Truth, Goodness, Jus- 
 ^ tice, must have issued from the iMind in which these 
 'dwell absolutely, eternally, infinitely. And that 
 ' Mind, just because it is eternal, absolute, infinite, 
 'may be at once the standard of mine and of the 
 ' minds of all men, and may act upon us to mould us 
 ' into conformity with itself ? In this way those two 
 faculties or perceptions, which are necessarily diverse, 
 and appear sometimes as if they could not well be 
 brought into harmony when they are looked at as 
 faculties of ours, become united and harmonize by 
 that light which falls upon them from above. Each 
 finds that which meets its own need. The man in 
 whom they dwell is no longer a dislocated being, no 
 longer a mere philosophical compound ; he is a living 
 unity. And so also that other problem, insoluble 
 
202 SEQUEL. 
 
 when it is looked at upon the human ground^ receives 
 a Divine solution. The absolute and perfect Will, 
 the Will to all good, has its highest throne over the 
 will of man, which is formed in its image. Its laws 
 are laws not for stones and animals, but for crea- 
 tures that can trust, hope, love; and may sink into 
 distrust, despair, hatred; which by the influence of 
 the Divine may be raised out of the devilish, or be 
 preserved from sinking into it. 
 
 But supposing there be no speculative Reason and 
 no practical, in Kant^s sense of those words, the in- 
 quiry must be pressed which I have suggested : What 
 are the speculative truths which it is possible for man 
 to perceive ? What are those regulative truths which 
 may affect his conduct ? Mr. Chretien has pursued 
 the first of these inquiries with a clearness, an ear- 
 nestness, and a subtlety, which leave nothing to desire. 
 I only hope that his argument will not be felt by any 
 Oxford reader merely to bear upon Mr. Mansel, — 
 merely to show that the logic of a great logician has 
 in a special instance failed. The Bampton Lecturer, 
 it appears to me, has done an infinite service to us 
 all, by showing that a denial, which is common to 
 him with three-fourths of English psychologists, and 
 probably of English divines, involves the contradiction 
 which Mr. Chretien has pointed out. Admit nothing 
 but a faculty of the utiderstanding, and the question, 
 'Where are your speculative truths? are they not mere 
 'generalizations from objects that are presented to 
 
LETTER XI. 203 
 
 ' your senses?' must strike us tlie more we reflect. And 
 tlie difficulty becomes enormously increased by that 
 which we might hope would relieve it^ the belief that 
 God has spoken to His creatures^ that He has told 
 them anything about Himself. The question which 
 Mr. Chretien has felt to be so tremendous^ ' Can the 
 ^true God tell us about Himself what is not true? 
 will recur at every step. By introducing a revelation 
 upon that hypothesis_, you confuse the whole idea of 
 truth and falsehood more than ever in our minds. 
 
 But though I felt this difficulty very strongly_, I 
 felt that which is connected with the other part of 
 the division more strongly still. We want regula- 
 tive truths. Who does not feel that we want them ? 
 Truths to regulate and govern our whole lives^ truths 
 to determine our thoughts and our conduct, truths to 
 act upon us at every moment of our lives, truths that 
 can raise us out of falsehood and evil. I asked Mr. 
 Mansel to tell us where these truths were to be had, 
 let what would happen to those other speculative 
 truths. I found him answering, that " In religion, 
 " in morals, in our daily business, in the care of our 
 " lives, in the exercise of our senses, the rules which 
 " guide our practice cannot be reduced to principles 
 " which satisfy our reason.'' I fancied that this was 
 an appeal to experience and fact. Those questions 
 which have puzzled metaphysicians, and lie out of 
 the high-road of common life, might be tried by what 
 is passing in common life. I thought that when 
 
204 SEQUEL. 
 
 Mr. Mansel spoke of the exercise of our senses^ he 
 meant the exercise of hearing, seeing, smelling, tast- 
 ing, handling. I thought when he spoke of daily 
 business, he meant the things which ordinary men 
 are busy about every day. Following this analogy, 
 I thought that by E-eligion and JMorals he meant 
 that which we commonly understand by those words 
 when we use them in their simplest sense ; and that 
 by the care of our lives, he meant the watching 
 against colds and fevers and rheumatism. Such 
 homely, practical illustrations seem.ed to me exceed- 
 ingly worthy of a philosopher who esteemed regu- 
 lative above speculative truths. I could not conceive 
 a better way of arriving at a safe judgment upon 
 the question what was required for our practical 
 guidance, than that which he suggested. I therefore 
 followed him implicitly, trying to ascertain, in each 
 of these particulars, whether those whom he as well 
 as I would esteem the most practical and wise people 
 were seeking for rules or for principles. If it appeared 
 that in the very commonest events and experiences 
 rules are found inefficient, principles are demanded, 
 one might suppose this was a fortioy^i true in the higher 
 region of thought. But it appears that I ofiered the 
 grossest insult to Mr. Mansel in assuming that he 
 meant what his words expressed. Hear how he speaks. 
 "Was ever such egregious trifling solemnly pro- 
 " claimed under the name of an argument ? What 
 " on earth any one of these propositions has to do 
 
LETTER XI. ' 205 
 
 <( 
 
 li 
 
 (C 
 
 (( 
 
 (C 
 
 with anything asserted or denied in the Bampton 
 LecUires^ — what conceivable connection exists be- 
 tween ' anatomical and physiological principles ^ or 
 " ' the laws which our senses follow in their work- 
 " ' ings/ and the problems above cited as insoluble — 
 " is a secret which lies hidden in the unfathomable 
 depths of Mr. Maurice's association of ideas. To 
 attempt a serious refutation of such reasoning would 
 " be to insult the understanding of the reader.^' — 
 [Examination, pp. 60, 61.) 
 
 I perfectly admit Mr. MansePs right to say, ' I, an 
 ' Oxford Professor, speak only of Kings and Tetrarchs, 
 ' of all great things, of " Liberty and Necessity, Per- 
 ' " sonality and Reality, the One and the Many,'' ' 
 etc. ; but if he does allude to the exercise of the 
 senses and so forth, are we poor Londoners very in- 
 excusable for flattering ourselves that he has, for the 
 moment, descended to our level; that he is willing 
 to make himself intelligible to us through things 
 with which we are familiar ? Not that I have even 
 the slightest cause of complaint. Any disputant 
 would bear the sharpest scoffs and taunts, if he could 
 see his opponent withdrawing from the open field he 
 had chosen himself, and confessing that he was only 
 safe in heights and thickets. But for one who be- 
 lieves, as I do, that the distinction of the speculative 
 truths and regulative truths in the form which Mr. 
 Mansel has stated it, is likely to shut out the sun 
 over our heads and the ground at our feet, nothing 
 can be so satisfactory as that he should make this 
 
206 ' SEQUEL. 
 
 confession to plain persons, that at all events it is not 
 for them, that it may serve very well in the schools, 
 that it has not even the slightest relation to the life 
 of man. 
 
 III. We are prepared now for the last of the sub- 
 jects I proposed to discuss in this Letter. " Truth and 
 " Falsehood/^ Mr. Mansel said in his Lectures, " are 
 " not properties of things in themselves, but of our 
 ^' conceptions." I found fault with this statement. 
 I quoted in connection with it the words, " I am the 
 " Truth." Several of my critics, otherwise favourably 
 disposed to me, have remonstrated with me on the in- 
 justice of treating this doctrine respecting Truth as if 
 it belonged expressly to the Bampton Lecturer. They 
 have reminded me that it may be found, or something 
 equivalent to it, in almost every treatise on Logic. 
 Mr. Mansel is not so much astonished at my injustice, 
 — that of course he expected from me, — as frightened 
 at my irreverence. That I should venture to intro- 
 duce so sacred a text iuto a discussion of this kind, 
 appears to him very shocking. 
 
 I am not the least inclined to dispose of these ob- 
 jections lightly. They are entitled to the gravest 
 consideration, for their own sake and for the princi- 
 ples which are involved in them. I will begin with 
 the first. 
 
 1. Supposing there is only a Logic for the Under- 
 standing — only that Logic which the most eminent 
 Englisli writers undertake to expound, I grant at once 
 
LETTER XI. 207 
 
 that Truth is only concerned with Propositions ; and 
 that Propositions are concerned with our conceptions, 
 not with things as they are. If therefore a writer on 
 formal Logic — taken in that sense in which alone he 
 wishes it to be taken — defines Truth and Falsehood as 
 Mr. Mansel describes them, I should see no ground 
 for remonstrating. I should consider the question an 
 open one whether that was the only Logic. I should 
 reserve a right to recognize Truth in quite another 
 sense — and to hold that as the highest and the sim- 
 plest. But I should not obtrude that sense, where 
 it was not appropriate ; or deny that one which had 
 been given where it was appropriate. 
 
 You will understand me when T sav that I could 
 not quite adopt this course when I read that very re- 
 markable book of our times, Mr. Mill's Logic. Just 
 because it was so much more comprehensive, more 
 exhaustive, than other treatises of the same kind, — 
 just because it was impossible to doubt that he had 
 considered every subject which he handled, not merely 
 as a technical dialectician, but as a psychologist and 
 metaphysician, — ^just because Kant was as well known 
 to him as Locke, and the old Schoolmen as either, — 
 it was not possible for one feeling as I do, not to be 
 more disturbed when I found him speaking of Truth 
 as having only to do with propositions, than when the 
 same sentiment came from one who more strictly con- 
 fined himself within the formal limits. 1 remember 
 writing down in ray copy of his Logic, when it first 
 
208 SEQUEL. 
 
 appeared^ words which indicated how bitterly I felt 
 the separation which that part of his work seemed to 
 establish between my thoughts and those of a man 
 for whom I had the greatest admiration. His re- 
 cent work on ' Liberty/ in which I should probably 
 find more ' propositions ^ to dissent from than in the 
 Logic, caused me great delight, because it seemed 
 to bridge over this chasm, — convincing me that in 
 his heart of hearts the author acknowledges a sub- 
 stantial truth which is above all propositions — for 
 which it is worth while to fight and suffer and die. 
 But however I may have lamented that the intellec- 
 tual doctrine of the Logic should have such an ad- 
 vocate, — however gladly I may have accepted this 
 moral counteraction of it, — I should have considered 
 it altogether unjust, immoral, and irreverent, to in- 
 troduce our Lord^s words, " I am the Truth," into 
 an argument with Mr. Mill. If I had done so, I 
 should have made a shameful appeal to popular feel- 
 ing in a question which he had submitted to philoso- 
 phical reasoning ; I should be subjecting him to a 
 test which he had not accepted, and was not the least 
 bound to accept ; I sliould lay myself open to the 
 unanswerable retort, ^ Are you sure that your most 
 ' orthodox divines adopt those words in the sense you 
 ' put upon them ? ' 
 
 I give you this instance in order that you may 
 compare it with the one before us. I was not criticizing 
 a treatise on Logic, but a volume of Sermons. The 
 
LETTER XI. 209 
 
 preacher of those Sermons was employed in confuting 
 all who set aside the authority of the Bible. He 
 called upon the young men whom he addressed to 
 accept it altogether or reject it altogether. The very 
 question at issue between me and the writer of those 
 Sermons was about the nature of Speculative and Re- 
 gulative Truth ; whether they can be distinguished, 
 what is the distinction, whether Truth itself does not 
 vanish if it is such as he tried to make it. If the 
 preacher was allowed to take for granted the defini- 
 tion of Truth which belongs to formal Logic, every- 
 thing was taken for granted ; there was no room for 
 further disputation ; all the negative part of his doc- 
 trine was established. Had I not a right, then, to 
 turn upon him, and say, ^ But how does this consist 
 ' with the positive statements which you not only hold 
 ' yourself but censure others for not holdino- ? Is this 
 'the account of Truth which is given in the book 
 ' that we are to receive altogether or not at all ? Do 
 ' these words, '^ I am the Truth," mean anything or 
 ' nothing T 
 
 Mr. Mansel hints that my allusion to English feel- 
 ings about these words was very little to the pur- 
 pose. It would have had a purpose, but in my judg- 
 ment a very wrong purpose, if I had called in the 
 English reverence for Scripture to overwhelm any 
 person who was arguing a scientific question, either 
 respecting Logic or Physics. I know not which are 
 injured most by such appeals, the man of science, 
 
 p 
 
210 SEQUEL. 
 
 or they whose aid is invoked to crush him. He is 
 taught that the Bible has some interest which is un- 
 favourable to the investigation of Truth ; they are 
 taught to regard the Bible not as a book which is to 
 make them true, but to prove other men false. 
 
 But I maintain that the allusion to English feel- 
 ing had an obvious and a legitimate purpose in a 
 book which was expressly written to show that a 
 method which was adopted to kill German Ration- 
 alism, and to preserve English faith, might prove fatal 
 to it. I maintain that that allusion was demanded, 
 since, as I fear, the reverence for Truth, in the ordi- 
 nary and practical transactions of life, is growing 
 less amongst us, and will perish altogether if the re- 
 lation between that truth and the highest Truth is 
 taken to be a mere imaginary and artificial one ; if the 
 common name being retained, it is supposed to repre- 
 sent the most diverse and heterogeneous senses. And 
 this conviction, which I held very strongly before, has 
 been much deepened in me by Mr. MansePs second 
 objection to me. 
 
 2. It is very irreverent to introduce the words 
 which Christ spoke at the Passover Supper into such 
 a discussion as this. I do not the least object to the 
 form in which this accusation is brought ; the ruder 
 and coarser the setting is, the more suitable it is to 
 the sentiment which it encloses. That sentiment I 
 solemnly submit to the consideration of all thoughtful 
 people, especially of all Oxford teachers and students. 
 
LETTER XT. 211 
 
 It is come to this ; Christ's words are to be received, 
 because thev are written in the book which we call 
 the Bible. But those words which have been most 
 felt to meet the want of human beings, — those which 
 have been quoted again and again in sermons as the 
 answer to the question which Pilate would not wait 
 to have answered, — those which have been the com- 
 fort to thousands of weary inquirers after Truth, 
 who could find no rest in any propositions or any con- 
 clusions of their own understandings, — those are not 
 to be allowed to mingle with any of our common 
 thoughts, not even with any of our deepest specula- 
 tions. The truth which Mr. Mansel speaks of in the 
 schools, the truth which we are to utter with our lips 
 in the market-place, is altogether apart from this 
 Truth; it is a sin to associate them When I said 
 that I believed the function of the preacher was 
 obsolete if he had no right to proclaim an eternal 
 truth to men, or if men had no faculty for receiv- 
 ing it, I was answered, ' Oh, the Bampton Lecturer is 
 ^ only withdrawing us from that which is past finding 
 ' out, that he may fix our minds on that which has 
 ^ been brought nigh to us in Christ. He would not 
 ' have us explore the abysses ; he would have us con- 
 ' template the Person in whom the Truth has taken a 
 'living form.' Again and again I have been charged 
 with unfairness and blindness for not perceiving that 
 this was the scope and intent of the Lectures. Here 
 is my defence, made for me by Mr. Mansel himself 
 
212 SEQUEL. 
 
 If any language expresses the coming fortli of that 
 which was hidden into manifestation^ that it may be- 
 come a portion and treasure for human beings_, the 
 answer to Thomas expresses it. And this answer is 
 what must not be exhibited in relation with human 
 thoughts^ experiences, judgments, acts ! 
 
 This being the acknowledged principle of Mr. Man- 
 sel, had I not some cause to ask, What then is Reve- 
 lation ? 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 F. D. M. 
 
213 
 
 LETTER XII. 
 
 THE UNITARIAN CONTROVERSY. 
 
 My dear Sir, 
 
 Pages 63-73 of the 'Examination' are occupied 
 with the Unitarian Controversy. They are introduced 
 by the following remarks : — 
 
 " Mr. Maurice commences his ninth Letter with a 
 dissertation on the ' controversy respecting the Many 
 ' and the One / which he tells us ' has been a wea- 
 ' risome enough controversy in the schools ;' but 
 which, as he has now discovered, also ^ expresses a 
 ' profound difficulty to the wayfarer ;' and the dis- 
 cussion of which by philosophers, bethinks, ^should 
 ' be welcomed as a proof that they are coming into 
 ' contact with our actual necessities, and that they 
 ' cannot merely think and speak as Schoolmen.^ 
 Let us pause at this sentence, to go back a few 
 pages. A short time ago, the Schoolmen were de- 
 scribed by Mr. Maurice as 'a set of very earnest 
 ' men,' in whose conflict ' we may discover true 
 "^principles which do not belong to the schools, but 
 'to mankind.' A short time ago, the problem of 
 
214 SEQUEL. 
 
 ^^the Many and the One, with others of the same 
 '^ kind, was classed among ' nuts for children to crack^ 
 " and ' conundrums for breakfast-parties/ The critic 
 "now reverses his judgment in both cases. The 
 " Schoolmen are thinkers and speakers who cannot 
 " ' come into contact with our actual necessities :^ the 
 " ' nuts for children to crack ^ have become ' profound 
 " ^ difficulties to the wayfarer/ Why does Mr. Mau- 
 " rice thus blow hot and cold with the same breath ? 
 " Simply, as it seems, because it is convenient to 
 "praise or vilify the Schoolmen, according as he 
 " thinks he can discover in them an unlikeness or a 
 " likeness to the Bampton Lecturer. 
 
 " We shall see a few pages later why Mr. Maurice 
 " changes his tone concerning the Schoolmen. It is 
 " preparatory to calling his antagonist ' a Schoolman.' 
 " The epithet is meant to be insulting : but perhaps 
 " the object of this withering sarcasm may be satisfied 
 " with the reply of Bishop Horsley on a similar oc- 
 " casion to Dr. Priestley. ^ Perhaps, Sir, though a 
 " ^ Protestant divine, I may sometimes condescend to 
 " ' look into the Summa, and may be less mortified 
 ' than you conceive with this comparison. It was 
 ' well meant, however, and is one of those general 
 'depreciatory insinuations which are apt to catch 
 " ' the vulgar, and may serve the purpose of a reply, 
 " ' upon any occasion when a real reply is not to be 
 " ' found.' Mr. Maurice seems fully aware of the ad- 
 " vantage to be derived from such ' general deprecia- 
 
 (i 
 
 cc 
 
LETTER XIT. 215 
 
 " ' tory insinuations/ ^ This Oxford sclioolman/ he 
 " says, ^ urges us to accept a certain theological tenet 
 " ^ respecting the Being we worship, because we really 
 " ^ can know nothing of Him ; because as He is Infi- 
 " ^ nite, and we finite, it is impossible for us to say 
 " ' that this representation of Him may not be as near 
 " ' the truth as any other. Certainly there was need 
 " ' of persecution or bribes to persuade people of the 
 " ' duty of accepting a doctrine which by the showing 
 " ' of its defender could attach itself to no deep or in- 
 " ' ward conviction ! If bribes and persecution should 
 " ' both fail, what will become of it V The doctrine 
 ^' of which he is speaking is that of the Holy Trinity/^ 
 — [Examination, pp. 63-65.) 
 
 You will be struck with the harmony between this 
 passage and all that have preceded it. Mr. Mansel 
 thinks that I have been guilty of an inconsistency in 
 my way of speaking of the Schoolmen. He can ac- 
 count for it at once. I meant to call him a school- 
 man, therefore I changed my tone and disparaged 
 those whom I had praised. No other motive oc- 
 curred to him as possible but this ; having discovered 
 this, the contradiction itself naturally looked a little 
 more flagrant than perhaps it was. You, who will 
 not suspect me of simply belying all my convictions 
 for the sake of libelling an opponent whom I do not 
 know, and towards whom I had not the slightest ex- 
 cuse for entertaining a dislike, will perhaps allow me 
 to explain what I did say about the Schoolmen, and 
 
216 SEQUEL. 
 
 this question of the Many and the One. It will be 
 the best preparation for the important subject that 
 follow Sj in treating which I hope I may^ in one sense, 
 lose sight of what is personal; there is a sense in 
 which no one would less expect or wish me to sever 
 personality from that subject than yourself. 
 
 I cannot feel the point of the quotation from Bishop 
 Horsley^s answer to Dr. Priestley as keenly as Mr. 
 Mansel intended that I should, seeing that I also am 
 guilty of often referring to the Suimna, and have de- 
 rived great instruction from it. I have expressed, in 
 the book to which I alluded before, as much admira- 
 tion of the powers of Aquinas as I think Bishop 
 Horsley can have felt. Nor have I concealed my 
 opinion that the less popular opponent of his school. 
 Duns Scotus, the ultra-realist, the defender of the 
 immaculate conception of the Virgin, is entitled to 
 his own honour. In these discussions, often described 
 as barren and obsolete, I have found what I think 
 fruitful hints respecting the perplexities of our time. 
 If later study has pointed out great errors in the school 
 method, I suspect that we are liable to fall into those 
 errors in spite of the warning. As sign-posts to many 
 tracks of thought into which we must travel, as bea- 
 cons to keep us from some paths in which we may 
 lose ourselves, the Schoolmen appear to me most va- 
 luable for all who have leisure to consult them. 
 
 At the same time, I cannot dissent from the opi- 
 nion which all men express, in one language or ano- 
 
LETTER XII. 217 
 
 ther^ that we are fallen upon an age as unlike as pos- 
 sible that in which the Schoolmen livedo — an age of 
 Newspapers^ an age in which all thought takes po- 
 pular forms ; an age in which not only every divine, 
 but every metaphysician, almost every logician, is 
 trying to make himself heard by common men and 
 women. How to behave ourselves in this age must 
 be a great and difficult question for us all. Warnings 
 we hear from all sides against the popular Scylla 
 where all knowledge is made easy, against the Cha- 
 rybdis of antiquarian lore, which no one can be in- 
 terested in. But how to steer between them, this is 
 what we learn, I suppose, not much from charts or 
 pilots, — chiefly from our own flounderings and ship- 
 wrecks. As I have spoken on this subject in my se- 
 cond Letter, and have referred to it so often since, I 
 will not trouble you with any narrative of my own 
 adventures and mistakes. I will simply repeat the 
 result. It has been a conviction that the Schoolmen 
 were occupied in most earnest inquiries ; that these 
 inquiries had always a tendency to become verbal and 
 merely notional; that, as John of Salisbury and 
 others among them complained, this tendency some- 
 times became dominant over every other ; that even 
 the verbal discussions were not without the greatest 
 use as leading to the formation of an accurate no- 
 menclature, and still more as discovering their own 
 inadequacy ; that beneath them lay eternal principles 
 which they could not comprehend in their formulas, 
 
218 SEQUEL. 
 
 which they did not possess, but which possessed them, 
 to which they paid inward homage, and which really 
 gave them their interest in their controversies, and 
 accounted for that which seems to us a zeal about 
 trifles ; that it is the calling of our time to bring out 
 these principles and present them to our fellow-men, 
 not as dogmatic conditions of the understanding, 
 but as the grounds of their lives ; that if we do not 
 recognize this vocation, and fulfil it, we shall combine 
 all the evils of the scholastic with all the evils of the 
 popular temper ; that then we shall produce a com- 
 pound that may be accepted both in halls of learning 
 and by the reading public, and which will be equally 
 injurious to both. 
 
 The instance of this danger which I am about to 
 consider is a very striking one. The religious public 
 are troubled with the presence of persons who deny 
 the doctrine of the Trinity as it is set forth in our 
 Creeds. They know some general answers to the ar- 
 guments of these persons which are collected out of 
 the Bible and are summed up in tracts. But they 
 want some that are more philosophical, some that 
 they can produce with triumph when the opponent 
 says that they are holding an irrational tenet. These 
 they expect the Universities to supply. The task is 
 undertaken. They are told that the controversy about 
 the Many and the One is a very old controversy; that 
 it has been carried on as much among philosophers as 
 among divines ; that the first have been as little able 
 
LETTER XII. 219 
 
 to obtain any satisfaction upon it as the last ; that it 
 is in fact impossible to advance many steps in such 
 inquiries ; that there is darkness before and behind ; 
 that the human mind is overreaching its own limits 
 when it tries to penetrate the darkness. Is not this 
 just what the orthodox disputant wants ? Has he not 
 a prescription, drawn out in the most learned terms 
 of art, for silencing the Unitarian doubters ? 
 
 Now I venture to think that this is not a mode of 
 repelling Anti-Trinitarians or of defending the Trinity 
 which could the least have satisfied any one of the old 
 Schoolmen. The Trinity was associated in their minds 
 with the Beatific Vision, with the beholding of God. 
 If that language was especially adopted by the more 
 mystical of their body, it was never wanting in the 
 most intellectual. It was the real ground of Anselm's 
 opposition to Rosellinus ; it stirred up Bernard's in- 
 dignation against Abelard ; it was at the bottom of 
 the teaching of the Master of Sentences ; it was found 
 in the Angelic Doctor no less than in the Seraphic. 
 There might be various degrees of subtlety in differ- 
 ent defences of the Creeds against those who were 
 suspected of different forms of Heresy. But in the 
 minds of all there was the recognition of a ]Mystery 
 in which they were living and moving and having 
 their being, a Mystery which alone gave worth and 
 interest to their dogmatic distinctions and to their ar- 
 gumentative feats. If they were often unjust to the 
 intellectual difficulties of their opponents, as I con- 
 ceive Bernard was to Abelard's, the excuse w hich they 
 
220 SEQUEL. 
 
 made to themselves was that a truth in which all men 
 alike were interested^ the truth which lay at the very 
 foundation of the Cliurch,was put in hazard by the dia- 
 lectical dexterity of particular minds. Here, too, was 
 the plea for silencing the disputants, by the general au- 
 thority of the Church, — though reasoning was nearly 
 always thrown in to help authority. The evidence of 
 that authority, where it rested, how it could be ascer- 
 tained, might be often feeble enough ; but the assur- 
 ance that the principle itself was a universal one^ one 
 in which all had an interest, had a probative force, — 
 as jVfr. Bentham would say, — not only for the Laity 
 but for the Doctors, which did not dwell in any decrees 
 of Popes or testimonies of Antiquity. Yes ! in that 
 period which was emphatically the period for defend- 
 ing Dogmas, — for perfecting a logical nomenclature 
 suitable to all studies, to Theology especially, — for 
 arguing out points of the most curious refinement, 
 — there was, at the root of all this, the confession of 
 an Eternal Substance and Unity which sustained the 
 child and the hoary elder, of which the Doctor and 
 the Peasant might have fruition together. 
 
 If we look at the subject from the other side, I main- 
 tain that there is a popular belief in the Trinity which 
 may need strengthening, but which can derive no 
 strength, only weakness, from those clever arguments 
 with which it is supplied for the demolition of its 
 adversaries. I mean the faith in a Father who has 
 created, in a Son who has redeemed, in a Holy Ghost 
 who sanctifies. Many questions arise in the minds of 
 
LETTER XII. 221 
 
 those who hold this faith ; often it is obscured on one 
 side or the other. But it is strongest in acts of Prayer; 
 it is reahzed when the man actually arises and goes to 
 his Father; when the thought of his own slavery or 
 of that of others^ drives him to a Redeemer ; when he 
 feels the need of One to encounter his corruptions, 
 to guide him out of darkness into light, out of tumult 
 into peace. If he hears that there are any who w ould 
 take from him w^hat he finds so near and dear to him, 
 — and if, having contemplated the subject chiefly in 
 reference to himself, he is not at all ready at discover- 
 ing general arguments, — he may no doubt be glad to 
 clutch at any which are thrown in his way, not much 
 caring to investigate their nature. But when he does 
 look into them, what a contrast do they offer to all 
 that he prizes most ! He is to tell his Unitarian neigh- 
 bour that he has no right to reject probable evidence, 
 the opinions of centuries, the traditional interpreta- 
 tions of Scripture, because all the paths in divinity 
 are so dark and trackless, that no certainty is to be 
 had. Whereas he longs to tell that neighbour, — and 
 when he is left to his own instincts he does tell him, — 
 that what they both want is certainty ; that for him- 
 self he cannot be content w ithout it ; that he finds 
 uncertainty when he looks out upon the world, but 
 that he turns to God as the rest from this uncertain- 
 ty, as the guide through it; that when he says '^Om' 
 Father,^ it is an actual Father to whom he is speak- 
 ing, and who is beckoning him home ; that he knows 
 that Father because He speaks to him through a Son ^ 
 
222 SEQUEL. 
 
 that a Spirit of love and power^ and a sound mind, 
 which he is sure is not his own, enables him to claim 
 his sonship and his heritage. These may be very poor 
 arguments ; the most ordinary Logician of the Under- 
 standing can expose their assumptions. Nevertheless, 
 Logic does not reach them or deprive them of their 
 power. That they only lose when the fervent speaker 
 tries to piece them out with a lore which he has learnt 
 from others ; then the old garment and the new make 
 a curious mixture, and the rents become painfully 
 visible. ' 
 
 Any one observing the effect which such statements 
 as these produce on numbers upon whom arguments 
 either fall dead, or whom they only awaken to hos- 
 tility, is inclined to speak much of the force of Con- 
 viction. A man thoroughly persuaded of the faith 
 he holds, it is said, can do wonders, while the most 
 practised fencer can do nothing. Mr. Mansel is right 
 in supposing that I attached great weight to the force 
 of Conviction ; but he is quite wrong in supposing 
 that I opposed it to Dogmas. I entirely agree with 
 him that a man must be convinced of something, and 
 that that something, not the conviction, is what we 
 must set forth to our fellow-men. The question be- 
 tween us is, whether that is my Dogma or the Being 
 about whom I hold the Dogma. If I believe in 
 the Trinity, I believe in the Father, the Son, and the 
 Holy Ghost, the one God blessed for ever. I believe 
 in a Living God. But if so, surely to speak of Him 
 is better than to speak of my notions about Him ; 
 
LETTER XII. 223 
 
 or even of my convictions, wliich will be feeble or 
 vital in proportion as they are or are not divorced from 
 that w iiicli calls them forth. In using this language, 
 I am departing very widely from Mr. MansePs teach- 
 ing, but I am noi setting up any counter-teaching of 
 my own. I am in harmony both with the highest faith 
 of the Schoolmen as I have just described it, and 
 with the most earnest faith of doers and sufferers in 
 the world. The Trinity was to the first tlie Infinite 
 Charity, the Absolute Truth and Goodness, the Mys- 
 tery that is about us, which we behold most imper- 
 fectly now, which the glorified saints see eye to eye. 
 The others, dwelling less in this transcendent Unity, 
 often losing sight of it altogether, are led by different 
 conflicts and torments of their own mind to the per- 
 ception of each distinct Person as having a demand 
 on their trust and confidence ; as the ground of their 
 thoughts and acts. The one were professional Dogma- 
 tists, occupied with all Ecclesiastical speculations; here 
 was the pillar of their souls; here was that which 
 gave their dreary debates their significance. The 
 others are always perplexed when the Unitarian tells 
 them that God cares about life and not Dogmas; there 
 is so much in their own hearts which answers to the 
 sentiment ; they repel it by tears, not words ; they are 
 sure what they mean is not a Dogma ; if it only be an 
 opinion of theirs or of all men, they know it must go 
 to pieces. They believe it is of God, and they can 
 ask Him to take care of it. 
 
224 SEQUEL. 
 
 To me it seems tliat this is a very sound confidence, 
 one which a believer in the Trinity ought to entertain 
 if there were no experience to sustain it, one which is 
 actually confirmed by the most clear warrants of ex- 
 perience. This article in Mr. ManseFs ^ Examination ' 
 suggests some of the most remarkable. He says, that 
 my language respecting Dogmas does not strike at 
 him more than at Bull, Waterland, Horsley, at the most 
 eminent English divines who have taken part in the 
 Trinitarian controversy. All have brought their learn- 
 ing to bear upon the support of a Dogma ; all have con- 
 tended against the impugners of a Dogma. I admit 
 the assertion, subject to certain qualifications. Neither 
 Bull, nor Waterland, nor Horsley, is merely the cham- 
 pion of a Dogma. Each, as a learned man, introduces 
 a vast amount of history into the discussion ; each ac- 
 tually sets forth something of the mind of the age from 
 which his authorities are drawn, something of the 
 mind of the individual fathers and schoolmen to whom 
 he refers. Each is obliged to investigate a large pro- 
 vince of thought, and the origin and force of words 
 which have been used by generations of men. Such 
 inquiries must not be confounded with the mere de- 
 fence of an opinion, or the confutation of an opinion ; 
 they have a distinct substantive worth ; they illustrate, 
 partially of course, but they do illustrate, long acts in 
 the divine drama. Often their opponents may also 
 have thrown light on these acts, may have suggested 
 hints which they did not suggest ; with less erudition, 
 
LETTER XII. 2.25 
 
 may have yet opened historical paths which later philo- 
 logers may be able to connect with those from which 
 they appear most widely to diverge. But if one could 
 forget these great accessories to their refutations, and 
 regard them simply as controversialists, the question 
 must force itself upon us, ' What has all their learn- 
 ^ ing and ability efiected ? What opponents did they 
 ' in their lifetime, or do they now convince ? How 
 ' many earnest believers in the Trinity can say, " We 
 ^' ' trace our establishment in that belief chiefly to these 
 " ^ triumphant exposures of Unitarian fallacies or mis- 
 " ' takes '^ V There may be such. It is no evidence that 
 there are not that I have never met with them or 
 heard of them. But I think I have met with some 
 and heard of more who have gathered an impression 
 from these controversies, that a doctrine which re- 
 quired so much clever reasoning to support it, so 
 much acute and not always satisfactory criticism of 
 words and constructions, could not be of much real 
 importance to mankind, might be safely left to the 
 judgment of scholars. I think I have met with some 
 clergymen, and heard of more, who have suffered not 
 a little in their own minds, and in their influence over 
 their flocks, from having fitted themselves out with 
 an armoury of evidences against Anti-Trinitarianisni 
 taken from those accomplished writers ; so that they 
 have seemed even to themselves to change positions 
 with their adversaries, to be maintaining a negative 
 instead of a positive, and have left the feeling upon the 
 
 Q 
 
226 
 
 SEQUEL. 
 
 hearts of those who heard or read their discourses, 
 that what they were pleading for must be altogether 
 unlike that which was set forth in the Creeds for the 
 life and health of the Christian man. 
 
 Surely the pious belief that God will take care 
 of any truth better than we can take care of it, 
 derives support from these facts. There are others 
 which you know as well as I do, that point in the 
 same direction. Mr. Mansel has quoted the excellent 
 saying of Bacon, that " a cripple, if he finds the right 
 " way, may advance further than a racer who chooses 
 " the wrong.^^ How many a Unitarian has confessed 
 the force of the undogmatic, unlearned statements, of 
 men who merely spoke what they had felt and learnt 
 through trial and sorrow ! How much more the Evan- 
 gelical movement of the last century really affected 
 the position and creed of Unitarians, than all the ar- 
 guments of Horsley or of Magee ! How much has 
 the belief of a Spiritual Power acting upon men and 
 in men, which was the belief that gave that move- 
 ment its character, insensibly operated upon Unita- 
 rians, and subverted some of their most resolute de- 
 nials ! These observations are patent to all who have 
 had any opportunities of studying the subject and of 
 tracing the ecclesiastical history of the last seventy 
 years. If they do not at once commend themselves 
 to Oxford divines, — if it strikes them that this Evange- 
 lical movement has strengthened the Unitarian cause 
 on one side more than it has weakened that cause on 
 
LETTER XII. 227 
 
 the other, — you will not be at any loss to understand 
 this contradiction. You will think that it may be 
 accounted for without setting aside the other evidence 
 to which I have referred, without any retractation or 
 modification of the inferences which I have drawn 
 from it. On this point I wish to make a few obser- 
 vations which will illustrate, I hope, the whole sub- 
 ject, and will show how it bears upon the points which 
 are at issue between Mr. Mansel and me. 
 
 The belief of a Spirit living and working upon men 
 and in men, has become strangely blended with all 
 the thought, feeling, speculation of this time, with its 
 strongest moral convictions, with its worst fanaticism 
 and imposture. In one shape or another the question 
 is driven home upon us all. A Spirit, but what Spirit V 
 There is a power acting upon us somehow and some- 
 where, acting upon our own very selves, acting not 
 upon our senses, but upon us who guide the senses. 
 May it not be an evil power as well as a good one ? 
 Can we know which it is ? The Evangelical teachers 
 who have given such a strong impulse to this belief 
 meet this inquiry as far as they themselves and their 
 followers are concerned. They say, the Spirit we 
 mean, the Spirit who works in us, is a Spirit of Holi- 
 ness, One who separates us from the world, One who 
 directs our thoughts to what is divine. But they can- 
 not meet it so far as men in general are concerned. 
 It has been their habit to speak of the majority as 
 essentially unspiritual, — in some sense, under the di- 
 
.228" SEQUEL. 
 
 rection and government of a bad spirit^ but chiefly in 
 this sense, that he holds them in the chains of the flesh 
 and the world ; so that the definition of mankind be- 
 yond the excepted circle is, that they are sensual and 
 mundane. No doubt it is involved in the very na- 
 ture of preaching that men should be told that this 
 ought not to be their condition ; that they are very 
 guilty in allowing it to be their condition. But it 
 seems, nevertheless, as if this were their normal state ; 
 as if only an abnormal process could make them any- 
 thing else. 
 
 Then comes the question, what it is that constitutes 
 the difi^erence between those who are under the in- 
 fluence of this Sanctifying Spirit and those who are 
 not. There are, or ought to be, it is said, great ex- 
 ternal differences, difl'erences in conduct, which all 
 can recognize. But, through various causes, these 
 outward signs may be unsatisfactory, or may be 
 confounded with the acts and conduct of those who 
 have not the Spirit. The differentia is faith in Jesus 
 Christ ; faith in Him, not as the Saviour of men 
 generally, but as the Saviour of him who exercises 
 the faith, the Saviour from his present torments of 
 conscience and from the wrath to come. And this 
 faith gives him a right to call upon God as his Fa- 
 ther, to think of himself as His accepted and recon- 
 ciled child. 
 
 I present this doctrine without one painful accom- 
 paniment, one injurious deduction, — as it is embraced 
 
LETTER XII. 229 
 
 by some of the best men and women of our times. 
 In that form the modern Unitarian protests against 
 it. He protests against the assumption of evil as 
 the ground of Humanity. He protests against the 
 limitation of spiritual operations to an excepted body. 
 He protests against the notion that the Spirit can 
 prompt any acts but good and benevolent acts, and 
 that any such acts should be taken to be not spiritual. 
 He protests against the notion that a certain belief 
 about Christ — perhaps that any belief about Him — 
 is necessary to make men good and benevolent, and 
 such as God would have them be. He protests against 
 the statement that only those who have such a faith 
 may call God their Father. He protests against what 
 he takes to be an invasion of the dignity and one- 
 ness of the Father. He may vary in his idea of the 
 Christ. Sometimes He may appear to him simply as 
 a glorious man ; sometimes as invested with the good- 
 ness if not with the perfections of God ; sometimes as 
 hovering between Humanity and Divinity. But this 
 uncertainty does not make him less but more a repre- 
 sentative of the feelings of our time, which are cha- 
 racterized in all directions by a like uncertainty. 
 
 Here, then, is excuse enough for the Evangelical to 
 say to the Unitarian of this day, ^You have accepted 
 'our Spiritualism in place of your old Materialism, 
 ' that you may become more effectually our antago- 
 nist.^ Here is an excuse for the Oxford Theologian 
 to say to the Evangelical, ' See what has come of 
 
230 SEQUEL. 
 
 ' your indifference to Dogmatism ! See what encou- 
 ' ragement you have been giving to heresy ! Do you 
 ' not perceive the necessity of recurring to our old 
 ^ Anglican Divinity, and inculcating formulas and prac- 
 ^tices which have nothing to do with the spiritual 
 ' conceptions and individual apprehensions you have 
 ' talked of so much V 
 
 Plausible statements both ; both, I think, ineffectual 
 for any practical purpose. What is done cannot be 
 undone. All the Oxford divines cannot cause that 
 that Evangelical movement should not have been and 
 should not have wrought mighty consequences. All 
 the Oxford Theologians and all the Evangelical preach- 
 ers put together, cannot hinder God^s education of 
 men from going on in His way, not in theirs. But if, 
 leaving the Unitarians for awhile, they will seriously 
 consider what is involved in their own confessions, 
 and how far they are adhering to those confessions, 
 they may become fellow- workers in that Divine edu- 
 cation ; they may address themselves courageously to 
 minds which appear the least in harmony with their 
 own. 
 
 The Evanojelical teachers are unfairlv accused of 
 being indifferent to Dogmatic Divinity. Dogmas 
 concerning the Fall of Man, concerning the Atone- 
 ment, concerning the Trinity itself, have become 
 an integral part of their teaching. But many un- 
 derstand by Dogmatic Divinity the Divinity of our 
 Creeds. The title has always appeared to me sin- 
 
LETTER XII. 231 
 
 gularly inapplicable. The Creeds emphatically pro- 
 claim Persons to our faith ; Persons who reveal them- 
 selves in acts; they set forth no dogmas about De- 
 pravity, about an Atonement, about any other matter 
 whatsoever. If the charge were that the Evangelical 
 teacher reversed the method of the Creeds, I think it 
 would be a tenable one. That teaching begins from 
 a Spirit speaking to and in us, and rises gradually 
 to a Father; the Creeds begin from the Father, and 
 end in the announcement of a Spirit proceeding from 
 the Father and the Son, to build up a community of 
 Saints, to bestow Forgiveness of Sins, to quicken our 
 mortal bodies, to give us life everlasting. This assu- 
 redly is the Theological Method. It is the method of 
 the Bible, where all things descend from God to the 
 creature, instead of ascending from the creature to 
 God. Suppose, then, the Professional Theologian — 
 the University teacher — firmly resolved to take this 
 method for his guide, and not to abandon it for any 
 other, however it may recommend itself to him as 
 more formally and technically convenient ; he would 
 find himself on the same living ground with the Evan- 
 gelical; he would also find himself adhering, not to 
 the arrangements of men, but to the order of the divine 
 Revelations. But he would be precluded from deter- 
 mining a number of questions which the Evangelical 
 by his course of thought is obliged to determine. The 
 One God the Father of all, the Maker of Heaven and 
 Earth, would be regarded as revealing Himself in the 
 
232 SEQUEL. 
 
 Only-begotten Son, Who was born of the Virgin Mary, 
 Who suffered under Pontius Pilate, Who was crucified 
 and dead and buried, Who descended into Hell, Who 
 rose again from the dead, Who ascended into Heaven, 
 Who sitteth on the right-hand of the Father, Who 
 shall come to judge the quick and the dead. There 
 can be no question that these are acts which connect 
 Him with the human race, acts done and to be done 
 for Man. Then the Spirit will indeed be believed to 
 ])e the Holy Ghost, since none other cauld proceed 
 from such a Father as Christ had manifested in His 
 life and death. And His acts would be acknowledged 
 as corresponding to the acts of the Son, as acts 
 wrought in a Human Society to bind the members of 
 it together, to emancipate them from the sins that 
 separate them from God and from each other, to give 
 them the full perfection of all their faculties of spirit 
 and sense, to fit them for the fruition of God for which 
 they are created. Such a creed assuredly explains 
 the strong conviction of the Evangelical that all his 
 discovery of his own evil, all his faith in a Deliverer, 
 all his worship of a Father, is the effect of a Spirit 
 working upon his spirit. But it does not allow him 
 to assume for an instant that his knowledge of evil 
 proves evil to be the law of his race ; that faith is 
 in a deliverer who is the deliverer of him and not 
 of all mankind ; that the Spirit who is teaching him 
 to claim his rights as a member of Christ and a child 
 of God is not leading all men to vindicate the same 
 
LETTER XII. 233 
 
 rights^ is not convincing all of sin for not vindicating 
 them. 
 
 Wide as such teaching is from much of that which 
 often passes under the name of Evangelical^ — from 
 that of persons who truly deserve this honourable 
 designation, — I am satisfied that many of these per- 
 sons are craving for it^ and would give thanks to 
 God night and day if they might accept it. For then 
 they would feel that they had a Gospel which they 
 could preach to all people everywhere, without stint 
 or limitation; one which they would not need to 
 pare down or qualify lest some should accept it who 
 had no right to it ; one which could never bear 
 any fruits but those of His Spirit. And the more 
 earnestly the Evangelical teacher remembers what is 
 implied in his name, — the more he demands such a 
 Gospel, and will endure nothing that falls short of 
 it, — the more, I am convinced, he will be led into 
 agreement — not with me, he may regard me as the 
 most mischievous of heretics, if he likes, but — with 
 that old lore which he often feels to be precious, but 
 which he as often contemplates through the mist of 
 modern interpretations. 
 
 If I went on to say that I am equally satisfied that 
 this same Creed is commending itself, and will com- 
 mend itself more and more, to the hearts and reason 
 of many Unitarians, I should rest the observation 
 upon these grounds. (1) That their strongest and 
 deepest convictions dwell in the name of Father, 
 
234 SEQUEL. 
 
 which in the Creed assumes its rightful prominence. 
 (2) That many of them are impatient of that half 
 ideal half actual Christy which they have been com- 
 pelled to substitute for the mere man of Nazareth, 
 in whom their fathers believed, and would rejoice to 
 substantiate the ideal, and to connect it with the ac- 
 tual, if they could only believe that in confessing a 
 Son of God who was with the Father before all worlds, 
 they were asserting more perfectly the meaning and 
 the glory of that Father ; that in confessing a Son of 
 Man who was really born of a woman and suffered 
 under Pontius Pilate, they were vindicating the true 
 greatness of mankind more than all high phrases 
 about humanity can ever vindicate it. (3) That many 
 of them are aware of the confusion which haunts their 
 minds, and in some measure the minds of all men 
 in this generation, when they speak of a spirit and spi- 
 ritual influences ; how easily an earnest faith in these 
 may run into Pantheism, confounding the spirit of the 
 world with the Spirit of God ; how easily it may run 
 into self-worship, confounding the devotee with the 
 object of his devotion: and would rejoice if they could 
 acknowledge a living Spirit proceeding from the Fa- 
 ther and the Son, not to glorify individual saints 
 who are unlike the rest of their race — not to commu- 
 nicate sudden impulses and impressions to creatures 
 who have no spiritual mould or constitution, — but to 
 awaken that spirit in man which is the very sign of 
 his kind, which distinguishes the human race from 
 
LETTER XII. 235 
 
 all other races ; so to build up a human fellowship^ 
 capable of showing forth tlie character and mind of 
 the Father in Heaven, capable of doing good works, 
 capable of overcoming evil in itself and in the world, 
 capable of that knowledge and life of God, after which 
 men in all ages have been aspiring. (4) That there 
 is a discontent in the most enlightened Unitarians 
 of our days with the mere notion of a numerical 
 Unity ; a sense that such a Unity does not and cannot 
 satisfy their most fervent longings; that therefore 
 many among them may be moi^e ready than those who 
 have been ecclesiastically trained to accept that 
 idea of a transcendent Unity — of distinct persons in 
 one Godhead — which is implied in all our formularies, 
 and which is expressed in the Creed that they regard 
 with a natural aversion and horror. 
 
 For though I started from the Apostles' Creed, I 
 have been obliged to introduce some of the principles 
 which are more fully developed in the others, not for 
 the condemnation of Unitarians, but for the removal 
 of what seem to me their just objections to some 
 of our current and popular statements. They com- 
 plain, not without clear and strong evidence, of our 
 shrinking from those words which occur in the Evan- 
 gelist to whose authority we appeal most constantly, 
 *' The Father is greater than I / ' The Son can do 
 ' nothing of Himself but what He seeth the Father 
 'do.' It is a common objection that orthodox di- 
 vines make efforts to explain these words away ; 
 
236 SEQUEL. 
 
 that they speak of Christ as claiming an indepen- 
 dent authority. Now if they would study the Nicene 
 Greedy and consider how resolutely (as Bishop Bull 
 demonstrated) it sets forth the subordination of the 
 Son to the Father; not (so Pearson allows that the 
 Fathers taught) merely as a man, but as a divine 
 Person ; they would not suppose that the idea of the 
 divine Unity, which the Church holds, is inconsistent 
 with these passages of St. John. They would rather 
 perceive how wonderfully these passages help to un- 
 fold it ; and moreover to reveal the divine Mystery as 
 the true groundwork of human obedience and human 
 self-denial. 
 
 And to go to the more offensive Creed. If we 
 had been strictly mindful of the words, Such as 
 the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy 
 Ghost, which we repeat in it, should we not have 
 avoided that which is the greatest scandal of all to 
 Unitarians ; that which I believe has been most 
 fatal to our own Theology and Morality ; the habit, in 
 scholastic lectures or in pulpit discourses, of repre- 
 senting the Father as having one mind towards men 
 and the Son another ; the habit of forgetting that 
 the Spirit who seeks to make us just and true, is the 
 guide to the knowledge of that mind ? Is the Atha- 
 nasian Creed so great a barrier between us and the 
 Unitarian as this contradiction of its fundamental 
 maxim is? 
 
 Comments which I have made on the damnatory 
 
LETTER XII. 237 
 
 clauses of this Creed have led many (at one time you) 
 to suspect me of using words in a non-natural sense. 
 I trust I was not guilty of that great sin ; if I was^ 
 may God give me repentance for it ! But this I must 
 say, that Mr. ManseFs Lectures^ and the popularity 
 they have acquired, have given a somewhat diflPerent 
 complexion to the controversy on this question. If 
 the doctrine that there is no faculty in men which can 
 take cognizance of the Eternal and Absolute, is hence- 
 forth to be the only orthodox doctrine, two conse- 
 quences will follow. (1) That construction of the 
 Athanasian Creed which makes it declare that those 
 who do not hold a certain dogma concerning the 
 Trinity must without doubt perish everlastingly, will 
 be the only admissible construction. Now many state- 
 ments as I have heard respecting this Creed, I never 
 yet found a person who said that he did himself take 
 it in this sense. For any one must perceive that if he 
 does, he is not merely dooming Unitarians, Arians, 
 or Sabellians, to perdition ; he is not merely doom- 
 ing to perdition such men as Cyril of Jerusalem, and 
 all others who did not accept the Homoousion ; he is 
 passing sentence on all worshipers who do not form 
 precisely that notion of the Trinity which the terms 
 of the Creed embody — every one who from any cause 
 is incapable of understanding those terms. These 
 consequences are not only so appalling, but so mon- 
 strous, that every one exclaims, ' I am sure the writer 
 ' did not mean that. Such a Creed could not have 
 
238 SEQUEL. 
 
 ' been recited by generations of serious men, if they 
 ' had attached that signification to it/ And there- 
 fore all have implicitly, if not explicitly, held that 
 the faculty which forms notions and opinions is not 
 the only one — not the great one — in our minds; that 
 that which belongs to man, that which has an in- 
 terest in the Nature of God, is altogether different 
 from this ; that a person may have an exact logical 
 conception of the terms in the Creed, and yet divide 
 the Substance and confound the Persons in the way 
 which the writer of the Creed would have thought 
 most fatal ; that a person may have a most imperfect 
 logical conception of those terms, or no conception at 
 all, and yet may be thinking of it as the writer of the 
 Creed, or, at all events, as the Searcher of Hearts, to 
 whose judgment the Creed refers us, would have him 
 think, and that he may be in the right way to learn 
 hereafter what he knows not now. 
 
 (2) If Mr. Hansel's doctrine is the only sound 
 one, any construction of the words ' perish everlast- 
 ingly,' but that which makes them describe a future 
 state of endless mental or physical torment, is inad- 
 missible. For Eternity, in any sense but as an idea 
 which is deduced from the conditions of Time, accord- 
 ing to his teaching, cannot be an object of human 
 thought. This notion of endless futurity has been 
 abstracted by a natural and legitimate process from 
 the conditions of Time. That which is associated with 
 the idea of God has not been and cannot be so ab- 
 
LETTER XII. 239 
 
 stracted. Now most of us have thought that the sen- 
 tence, ' The Father is Eternal, the Son is Eternal, the 
 ' Holy Ghost is Eternal/ fixes the adjective as having 
 its fullest, truest, most radical meaning when it is 
 linked to those divine Names. Learned and unlearned, 
 layman and priest, so far as I have been able to ob- 
 serve, hold this conviction till some opposing opi- 
 nion displaces it. And so long as they maintain it, 
 so long no theories whatever respecting eternal pu- 
 nishment can prevent them from supposing that 
 the adjective, somehow, retains its meaning in that 
 application. Mr. ManseFs doctrine consecrates that 
 notion which has been hanging about the other, and 
 has never been able to harmonize with it, into the only 
 possible one. That to which it has been attached 
 must be discarded. And this, I conceive, is the great 
 service which his work is doing and will do for Chris- 
 tian Theology, and for the Christian Church. We have 
 been living in a dim twilight, not quite knowing whe- 
 ther we were sentencing to damnation other men 
 for not holding a certain opinion about the Trinity, 
 or whether we were testifying of actual Persons, of a 
 perfect Unity — wherewith we may have fellowship, and 
 so become partakers of Eternal Life — from which we 
 may be divided, and so suffer that kind of death which 
 is measured by no minutes, days, or centuries, which 
 can be conceived under no conditions of time. For 
 our own sake, for the sake of the Church and of the 
 World, it is needful that we should not dwell in 
 
240 SEQUEL. 
 
 this twilight any longer. It makes every suspicion 
 of our own judgments, every hesitation about judging 
 our fellows, a step into indifference. We are afraid 
 to confess a dimness in our mind respecting any 
 part of the Creed we have learnt, lest we should be 
 bringing ourselves under its penalties. We are afraid 
 to look at the variety of opinions, to which the doc- 
 trine of the Trinity has given rise in all ages, lest w^e 
 should seem to be standing on a pin^s point of differ- 
 ence from all these opinions, and should not be able 
 to balance ourselves on that pin's point. And so there 
 grows up in our minds that which I have described 
 before, and must describe again, as an orthodox Athe- 
 ism — a readiness to acknowledge anything w^hatever 
 about God, because we do not in our hearts confess 
 that He lives. I have seen something of this Athe- 
 ism ; it has made me tremble for others and for my- 
 self ; it would, I think, have driven me to despair, 
 if I had not seen another process going on some- 
 times in the same persons, still oftener in persons 
 severed by education and habit from our Church 
 and its factions. Through severe mental struggles, 
 through outward circumstances apparently the most 
 unpropitious, one side after another of that Name 
 which they have been used to connect with the re- 
 finements of controversial divinity comes out livingly 
 before them ; takes hold of them with a mighty grasp ; 
 reveals itself to them as the interpretation of a num- 
 ber of tormenting problems ; and yet withal humbles 
 
LETTER XII. 241 
 
 them even more than it elevates. So have I seen — 
 am I speaking falsely or deceiving myself? — that very 
 idea of the Son^ of His eternal generation, of His 
 being the God of God and Light of Lights which cler- 
 gymen have thought they might cast aside for some 
 more easy, natural, less mystical form of doctrine, 
 presenting itself to persons brought up in all Unita- 
 rian traditions, and having no secular motives for de- 
 serting them — not as an opinion which they might 
 hold, but as a substantial verity which could give them 
 rest and comfort amidst the reeling and rocking of all 
 mere opinions. So have I seen these persons fastening 
 on the faith of the Son of God being indeed very 
 man, as the support of all that they had hoped for 
 their kind, of all that seemed too good to be true re- 
 specting it. And I have noticed, at first with wonder, 
 afterwards with humiliation, that the part of the my- 
 stery which lay in shadow for them still, was just 
 that which appears to me most needful for the defence 
 and protection of their old convictions — the belief of 
 a Personal Holy Ghost proceeding from the Father 
 and the Son, realizing and restoring that Unity which 
 their distinctions might appear to interrupt. I won- 
 dered at this fact for awhile, not only because the 
 strength of their original ackuowledgment of the One- 
 ness of God had led me to expect that they would 
 have more quickly acquiesced in this portion of the 
 Creed than in that which has overpowered them ; but 
 because, as I have said already, the confession of a Spi- 
 
 R 
 
242 SEQUEL. 
 
 ritual guide and educator appears to be in some sort 
 a special characteristic and necessity of our age. But 
 humiliation has taken the place of surprise, because 
 the more I reflect, the more it appears to me that the 
 belief of a Holy Spirit, in that sense in which the 
 Creeds proclaim Him, — T mean of a Uniting Spirit, — 
 must be weakened and marred, if not effaced, in the 
 hearts of men generally, by the spectacle of a broken 
 and discordant Church. We say that the Spirit is 
 given to form a Communion of Spirits ; all ask where 
 it is. Thev see men united in the confession of an 
 Infallible Dictator ; but they find nothing in that con- 
 fession which seems more than a treacherous semblance 
 of agreement ; nothing which answers to this idea. 
 They see men apparently agreed in the confession of 
 certain dogmas, but that agreement is as unlike this 
 Communion as anything can be. They see men calling 
 themselves spiritual and elect of God^ and trying to 
 associate on that ground ; but dare these men say 
 that this association satisfies even their conception of 
 a divine Fellowship, to say nothing of that which the 
 Church holds out to us ? 
 
 I thank God, my dear friend, I thank God in my 
 inmost heart, for these disappointments and discom- 
 fitures. I believe He is showing us the grounds of 
 Unity. I believe He is making us feel how far deeper 
 they lie than we have imagined, how far firmer they 
 are. If we have confessed a Father of an Infinite 
 IMajesty, an honourable, true, and only Son — the dis- 
 
LETTER XII. 243 
 
 covery of a Holy Ghost, a Comforter, in whom they 
 are One, will be to us the dawn of a new hope for 
 the Universe, the assurance that that which appears 
 so far off, and vet which we are all feelin^r after as if 
 it were very nigh, is yet to be ; and that if we are 
 not worthv to see it, God raav, throuorh o^reat crises 
 and struggles, be preparing the manifestation of it for 
 our children. The conviction that He is preparing 
 it, and that then all which Fathers and Schoolmen 
 have spoken of a Trinity in Unity, which man is cre- 
 ated to behold and dwell in — will find its full justi- 
 fication; that the ]Mystery will be proved to have 
 been about all men ; that in all times, and in diffe- 
 rent ways, through their infinite perplexities, it has 
 been revealing itself to them ; that the discovery of 
 its fullness and brightness will throw a light upon all 
 earthly things, upon the past, the present, the future 
 — this conviction, and not the desire to find an ex- 
 cuse for insulting Mr. Mansel, led me to write as I did 
 about the Trinity, about those who hold the Creeds, 
 and those who impugn them. He may deem what I 
 have written very foolish and mystical, but at least it 
 expresses thoughts which are not quite compatible 
 with that purpose. If I might do it without offence, 
 I would implore him, by the common blessings of our 
 Christmas festival, at least to acquit me of that un- 
 speakable meanness. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 F. D. M. 
 
244 
 
 LETTER XIIL 
 
 THE HUMAN MANIFESTATION OF MORALITY. 
 
 My dear Sir^ 
 
 The pages in Mr. ManseFs ^ Examination ' be- 
 tween p. 73 and p. 90^ are comments on my tenth 
 Letter. In the course of them occurs that passage 
 to which I have often alluded in this Sequel; that 
 wherein he charges me with wilful falsehood. I shall 
 give you the whole of that accusation, and the grounds 
 of it, in the writer^s own words ; but I must first ad- 
 vert to the subject which has called it forth, and 
 which must retain its importance, whatever becomes 
 of my opinions or my character. 
 
 I have endeavoured to show that the observations 
 of Kant respecting our faculties, like those of Butler, 
 may have the greatest worth in a criticism on those 
 faculties, — that any additions to them might, in such 
 a criticism, have been out of place, — and yet that 
 they may be entirely inadequate as a groundwork 
 either for Theology or for Morality. The Conscience 
 in each man bears witness of what is right for him 
 
LETTER XIII. 245 
 
 to do_, of wliat is wrong for him to do. By its very 
 nature the Conscience does not make the right or the 
 wrong. Therefore, however much Butler may have 
 affirmed that it has an authority of its own, we are 
 surely safer in saying that it confesses an authority ; 
 and that what it confesses must speak to it, that it 
 may exercise its functions rightly. The Speculative 
 Reason in men, so Kant affirmed, bears witness of an 
 Infinite and Eternal. It falls into illusions when it 
 tries to conceive the Infinite and Eternal ; however 
 little account, therefore, Kant may have made of a 
 Revelation, his Reason does demand a Revelation of 
 the Infinite and Eternal. The Practical Reason, so 
 Kant affirmed, bears witness to an Absolute and Uni- 
 versal Morality. In the effort to conceive such a 
 Morality, his practical Reason appears to contradict 
 its own Nature; therefore here too the demand arises 
 from the practical Reason itself for a manifestation 
 of this Absolute and Universal Morality. 
 
 These are the principles which I wished to assert 
 in my observations on Mr. ManseFs seventh Lecture, 
 and which I have further developed in these Let- 
 ters. What I have said respecting the Creeds in my 
 last Letter will show you that I suppose them to be 
 unmeaning and contradictory, unless there is some 
 faculty in us, some faculty in man as man, which 
 takes account of the Infinite and Eternal ; one which 
 is not merely conversant with notions and opinions 
 and dogmas about the Infinite and Eternal. I dare 
 
246 SEQUEL. 
 
 not call this faculty 07ily a Speculative Reason. I be- 
 lieve there must be a Practical Keason to receive 
 the Revelation ot a Righteous Father, a Son, and a 
 Spirit, of a divine Unity and perfect Charity. But 
 if we look into one portion of this Creed, we find that 
 which appears directly to meet the wants of that 
 Practical Reason, so far as that demands a transcen- 
 dent and yet a human morality. He who is declared 
 to be " the Only-begotten Son of the Father, the 
 Light of Lights, the very God of very God, of one 
 substance with the Father,^^ is said to have taken 
 upon Him our Nature, to have become actually and 
 indeed Man. This, it seems to me, is the Human 
 Manifestation of Morality. There is an exhibition of 
 a Universal and Absolute Morality, which yet, in the 
 fullest and most perfect sense, is the Morality of Man, 
 the ground of all which is moral in each particular 
 man. 
 
 This, I have always maintained, is the foundation 
 of Christian Ethics. If there is such a manifestation 
 as this, I can understand the words tiiat Man is made 
 in the Image of God; I can understand how it is 
 possible for men to show forth that Image. This 
 conviction has to struggle with many oppositions from 
 different quarters as well as from myself. (1) It is 
 opposed by all who, on any ground, deny the Union 
 of Godhead with Manhood in Christ. (2) It is op- 
 posed by those who derive the idea of Manhood from 
 Adam, and contemplate the Incarnation merely or 
 
LETTER XIII. 247 
 
 chiefly as a provision to repair, for a certain portion 
 of Men, the consequences of Adam^s fall. (3) It 
 is opposed by all who suppose Morality to be ex- 
 pressed most perfectly in Laws proceeding from a 
 Divine Will ; and who regard the Union of Godhead 
 and Manhood in Christ, and the Sacrifice which fol- 
 lowed on that Union, as means for extricating indi- 
 vidual men from the penalties imposed by those Laws. 
 In one of these two last classes are comprehended 
 the most influential writers in the religious journals ^ 
 those who are most ready to raise the cry of he- 
 resy against clergymen and laymen, those who can 
 raise it most effectually. They find the first fact 
 in the Bible to be the fall of Adam. Thev take it 
 for granted that they are adhering to the teaching 
 of the Bible when they make all anthropology, and, 
 in a great measure, all theology, dependent upon that 
 fact. 'Was not the first man made perfect? Did 
 ' not he lose his perfection ? Is there any mean- 
 ' ing in Redemption, except as it refers to his loss of 
 ' virtue and of Eden ? Again, did not the Law pre- 
 ^ cede the Gospel ? Must it not be preached to make 
 ' the Gospel intelligible ? Must not men be made to 
 ' feel that they are exposed to all the threats and 
 ' penalties of the Law, that they may appreciate the 
 * mercy which Christ has procured for them ?' 
 
 These, you know well, are the commonplaces of 
 our popular divinity. They have so strong a hold 
 upon the religious mind of the country, that any one 
 
.248 SEQUEL. 
 
 ^vho adopts the method I have adopted, does so at 
 the risk of being told that he denies the doctrine of 
 man's depravity ; that he is utterly ignorant of the 
 necessity and nature of the Divine Atonement ; that 
 he is a Mystic, a Neo-Platonist, a German Rational- 
 ist, a Pantheist, etc. etc. etc. All these imputations 
 Mr. Mansel, who has studied Dr. Candlish and Mr. 
 Rigg, knows very well have been brought against me, 
 and precisely on this ground. 
 
 I have been wont to combat them by alleging that 
 if we follow the writers of the New Testament, we 
 cannot make the event of Adam's fall the centre 
 of our divinity, for they never give it that position. 
 That Adam appears in them as the dying head of the 
 race, Christ as the living head of it. That if we take 
 St. Paul literally, we must regard the appearing of 
 Christ in our flesh as the manifestation of that truth 
 which had been hidden for ages and generations in 
 God. That if we take St. John literally, we must speak 
 of Christ as having been the Light that lightened 
 every man before He was clothed in the garments of 
 our humiliation. That if we adhere to the teaching 
 of any Apostle, we must regard Christ as exhibiting 
 in human acts that Wisdom and Righteousness of 
 God, departures from which the Law had prohibited, 
 and declared to involve an inevitable retribution. That 
 what the Law could not do for men by all its terrors, 
 this Righteousness and Wisdom manifested in a Per- 
 son could effect, seeing that men beholding them in 
 
LETTER XIII. 249 
 
 Him, may become invested witli them ; seeing that 
 men, being inspired by His Spirit, may show them 
 forth in their lives and deeds. That this idea of the 
 New Testament Uevelation is the idea that is em- 
 bodied in our Creeds, which contain no allusion to 
 Adam, which are wdiolly conversant about God and 
 Christ and the Spirit. That this is the Order of our 
 Articles, the second being on Christ taking the nature 
 of Man, and there being no allusion to the Fall till 
 the ninth ; the ground of Humanity being thus laid 
 in Christ, the depravity that is naturally engendered 
 in the offspring of Adam being treated as a departure 
 from that standard. 
 
 Such have been my statements, which I have set 
 in different forms of speech before rich and poor, be- 
 lieving that the New Testament Morality is for both_, 
 and that if these things are true, it may be available 
 for both ; but which I have sometimes pressed with 
 especial earnestness upon members of the University 
 of Oxford, because they study an admirable book of 
 Greek Ethics, which will, it seems to me, be of im- 
 mense value to them, if they believe that there is a 
 great human manifestation of Morality in the Son 
 of God and of Man ; but which, if they only try to 
 add on to it a certain special Christian morality, will 
 merely bewilder them when they apply what they have 
 learnt to themselves, and will cause them to treat the 
 profane and the sacred teachers, Aristotle and St. 
 John, with equal injustice. Bear these remarks in 
 
250 
 
 SEQUEL. 
 
 mind ; remember that my Letter turns wholly on 
 this idea of Christian Ethics, and then read the fol- 
 lowing extract : — 
 
 " Another passage from this Lecture, selected by 
 Mr. Maurice for special criticism, commences with 
 these words : ' God did not create Absolute Mo- 
 ' rality : it is coeternal with Himself ; and it were 
 ' blasphemy to say that there ever was a time when 
 ' God was and Goodness was not. But God did 
 ' create the human manifestation of morality, when 
 ' He created the moral constitution of man, and 
 ' placed him in those circumstances by which the 
 ^ eternal principles of right and wrong are mo- 
 '■ dified in relation to this present life.^ On this 
 Mr. Maurice actually comments as follows : ' "■ God 
 ' did create the human manifestation of Morality.^^ 
 ' What, is not Christ the human manifestation of 
 ' Morality ? Or does Mr. Mansel mean to set 
 ' aside the words of the Creed, "■ Not created, but 
 ' begotten^^ ? He need not be afraid that I should 
 ' impeach him of heresy. Happily, I should be 
 ' very little listened to if I did. And I prize those 
 ' words of the Creed too much, for their positive 
 ' worth, to degrade them by turning them into ex- 
 ' cuses for discovering flaws in the faith of other 
 ^ men.^ 
 
 '' We have seen before, in Mr. Maurice's remarks 
 on Sir W. Hamilton, the exact extent to which his 
 ' English reverence for Scripture ' forbade him to 
 
LETTER XIII. 251 
 
 make a man an offender for a word. We now see 
 the exact extent to which his value for the words 
 of the Creed forbids him to make use of them to 
 charge his neighbour with heresy. He will not 
 assert the charge ; he will only insinuate it. He 
 will only introduce his accusation with an ' I will 
 ' not / and leave his readers to draw the desired in- 
 ference for themselves. Kind and considerate cen- 
 sor ! How deeply grateful ought his antagonist to 
 feel for this beautiful exhibition of brotherly love 
 and Christian forbearance ! ^ir. Maurice * prizes 
 ' the words of the Creed ;' have we not his own 
 voucher for the fact ? He has also kindly given us 
 an exact gauge by which we may measure the ex- 
 tent to which he prizes them ; for he has intimated 
 pretty plainly that in his opinion a man does not 
 prize them^ who ' degrades them by turning them 
 ' into excuses for discovering flaws in the faith of 
 ' other men.^ Let the reader then calculate exactly 
 how far the above insinuation difi'ers in point of 
 truth or charity from a direct assertion ; and the 
 result will show exactly how far Mr. Maurice^s 
 method of prizing the words of the Creed difters, 
 according to his own confession^ from not prizing 
 them at all. He prizes them just so much as to 
 make them the means of indirectly hinting instead 
 of openly asserting ; but not enough to induce him 
 to abstain altogether from an accusation which is 
 utterly void of truth, and which he must have 
 
252 SEQUEL. 
 
 known to be void of truth at the moment when he 
 wrote it clown. 
 
 " I use these last words deliberately^ regretting the 
 necessity of uttering them^ but with the fullest 
 conviction that no other explanation is possible. I 
 say that it is utterly impossible for Mr. Maurice^ or 
 for any person of average intelligence, to have read 
 the words which he quotes from the Lecture, with- 
 out seeing that the Creation there spoken of does 
 not refer to Christ, but to Adam; and that ^the 
 ' human manifestation of morality ' does not mean 
 the example which Christ offers to His disciples, 
 but the law manifested by that moral sense which 
 is common to Christian and heathen alike. I shall 
 not now enter upon the question, whether the words 
 of the Creed, ' not created, but begotten,^ refer to 
 the Human or to the Divine Nature of Christ. 
 Mr. Maurice has, I believe, a peculiar theory on 
 that point ; and his theory may possibly have 
 blinded him to the sophistry of this portion of his 
 argument. But no theory can excuse a man for 
 distorting the words of an opponent to a sense 
 which he must have known thev were not intended 
 to bear ; and for founding upon that distortion an 
 imputation of heresy which he must have known to 
 be false and calumnious. 
 
 " It is, I repeat, with the deepest regret that I find 
 myself compelled to bring a charge of this nature 
 against one who has so many claims to respect 
 
LETTER XIII. 253 
 
 '' as ]\Ir. Maurice. Nothing short of overwhelming 
 " evidence would induce me to make it ; nothing 
 " would gratify me more than to believe that this 
 " evidence can possibly be interpreted otherwise. I 
 " would gladly believe, if it were possible, that Mr. 
 *^ Maurice, with all his animosity, means to be an 
 " honest and honourable opponent ; that he is one 
 " who may unintentionally misunderstand, but who 
 is incapable of wilfully misrepresenting. But in 
 ' this instance it is not possible. Let me repeat once 
 more my own words, with Mr. Maurice^ s pretended 
 " interpretation of them. ' God did create the hu- 
 '' ' man manifestation of morality, when he created 
 " ' the moral constitution of man, and placed him in 
 " ^ those circumstances by which the eternal principles 
 " ^ of right and ivrong are modified in relation to this 
 " ^present life.' This, says or insinuates Mr. Mau- 
 rice, is a heretical statement concerning the gene- 
 ration of the Son of God, who is ^ not created, but 
 " begotten ' from everlasting of the Father. If any 
 " reader can believe that, under the influence of any 
 ^' amount of prejudice or misapprehension, the words 
 can honestly be supposed by any one to bear this 
 construction, by all means let Mr. Maurice have the 
 " benefit of that belief. I for one cannot. '' — [Exa- 
 mination, pp. 77-80.) 
 
 On this extract I will venture a few remarks. 
 (1.) You will remember that I transferred the 
 whole passage, one part of which Mr. Mansel says 
 
 cc 
 
 ec 
 
 (C 
 
 cc 
 
 cc 
 cc 
 
254 SEQUEL. 
 
 contains a direct answer to my lie, into my own 
 book, before I made a single comment upon it. 
 
 (2.) After giving the passage in full, with all the 
 illustration of it which Mr. Mansel himself had 
 given, I began my observations, not where Mr. Man- 
 sel begins his quotation from me, but thus : — 
 
 " Now here we have the most distinct assertion I 
 " can imagine, that the Gospel does not explain what 
 " was left unexplained by the law, — that the mani- 
 " festation of Christ in the fullness of time, does not 
 ^^ remove the veil which was over the minds of men 
 " in the old dispensation. ' God could not create 
 '' Absolute Morality,^ that is admitted. I rejoice that 
 " it is, — the Absolute Morality must be in Him, His 
 " own Nature." — [What is Revelation ? p. 409.) 
 
 (3.) These sentences show why I referred to the 
 Nicene Creed. That Creed is common to Mr. Man- 
 sel and me. It sets forth in words which we both 
 accept. One who is not created, but begotten. Him 
 I take to be the human manifestation of Morality. 
 T deny that there is any created manifestation of 
 Morality. My objection therefore was not to some- 
 thing tliat Mr. Mansel did not say, and which he 
 rightly thinks that no reader of ordinary sense could 
 suppose him to say, but precisely to that which he did 
 say, precisely to that which he has repeated with em- 
 phasis in his denunciation of me. 
 
 (4.) In this instance then, as in every previous one 
 to which I have alluded, Mr. Mansel assumes, that 
 
LETTER XTTI. 255 
 
 for the pleasure of misrepresenting Iiira_, I have utterly 
 perverted my own meaning, and destroyed the whole 
 sequence of my Letter. 
 
 (5.) The mere fact of having quoted the Nicene 
 Creed against him, suggested the thought to me, 
 that I who am called a heretic by the religious 
 world_, might seem to be charging him, the popular 
 champion of orthodoxy, with heresy, and I expressed, 
 in the passage which followed, my sense of the ludi- 
 crousness of such a design, and at the same time of 
 its utter inconsistency with all my own professions 
 respecting the purpose for which the Creeds were 
 given us. Is not that the simple, natural sense of 
 my words ? 
 
 (6.) But Mr. Mansel affirms that they must bear 
 another sense, a hypocritical and lying sense, be- 
 cause he has already convicted me of using similar 
 words in a like sense respecting Sir William Hamil- 
 ton. Whether he did convict me of that sin, ;ind by 
 what process he sought to convict me, I have considered 
 in a previous Letter. (See Letter VII., pp. 117-119.) 
 (7.) Whether on these grounds Mr. Mansel was 
 justified in offering the greatest outrage to a clergy- 
 man which one man is able to otfer to another, I 
 leave his readers and mine to judge. He says that it 
 caused him great regret when he felt himself obliged 
 to write down the words which contained that out- 
 rage. I think hereafter he will perhaps regret, for 
 his own sake, not for mine, that he ever did write them 
 

 256 SEQUEL. 
 
 down. They have not injured me at alL I have 
 said all that I hope I shall ever have occasion to say 
 about them. 
 
 In the course of his remarks upon my supposed 
 falsehood^ Mr. Mansel has thrown out some words 
 which indicate the real diflPerence between us, that 
 diflference which affects all his thoughts of Ethics and 
 mine, that difference which appears in what we have 
 said about the Nature of Forgiveness, of Punishment, 
 of the conflict between Good and Evil. He says that 
 the human manifestation of Morality does not 
 mean the example which Christ offers to His disci- 
 " pies, but the law manifested by that moral sense 
 " which is common to Christian and heathen alike.'^ 
 Several questions are raised by this distinction. The 
 first. What is the example which Christ offered to 
 His disciples ? Is it 7iot an example of the highest 
 human excellence ? Why is it that ? The answer I 
 should make is. Because it is the manifestation of the 
 Divine excellence, of the excellence of that Nature 
 of which the human Nature is the Image, of all that 
 men had dreamed of as necessary to Divine perfection, 
 of all that they had felt was demanded for their own 
 perfection. Supposing Christ to be what the Apostle 
 says He was, the Only-begotten of the Father, and 
 the first-born of every creature; supposing Him to 
 be the brightness of the Father^ s Glory, the express 
 Image of His Person, and also to be the Head of 
 every man, the true root of Humanity ; then we have 
 
LETTER XIII. 257 
 
 not only " an example set before His disciples/' 
 either those who walked with Him upon earth, or 
 those who have been baptized into His Name since ; 
 but we have in Him that manifestation of Morality 
 to which " law '' was pointing, " that which was mani- 
 " fested by that moral sense which is common to Chris- 
 " tian and heathen alike/' By His manifestation we 
 can estimate the precionsness of that moral sense ; by 
 it we can judge the particular exercises of this sense 
 in different nations and ages; it will enable us to 
 do them all justice, while we feel most their errors 
 and deficiencies ; it will give us a hope and assurance 
 that none of the longings and aspirations after glory 
 and immortality and eternal life which were found 
 in men before the appearing of Christ, can have been 
 abortive. For then the forgiveness which came forth 
 in the cry upon the Cross will be regarded as the 
 manifestation of that Forgiveness which had been 
 shown to past generations of men by their Creator and 
 Lord ; it will be regarded also as the perfect fulfilment 
 of that forgiveness which they had been most imper- 
 fectly exercising towards each other. Then the se- 
 vere judgments which Christ denounced against the 
 unrighteousness of those who held down the truth in 
 unrighteousness, — against the hypocrisy of Scribes and 
 Pharisees, — will be regarded as the echo of the judg- 
 ments which had been going forth from the throne 
 of God in all ages, and which shall go forth in all 
 the ages to come, till they shall be gathered into 
 
 s 
 
258 SEQUEL. 
 
 one grand and conclusive judgment. They will be 
 regarded also as the justification and fulfilment of 
 the imperfect judgments which had been proceeding 
 against the like evils from the consciences of men 
 in all times ; yes, which were proceeding from the 
 consciences of the men whom Christ sentenced at 
 that time. Then the war with sickness and sorrow 
 and all forms of misery which Christ carried on in 
 His miracles, will be felt indeed to illustrate His 
 words, " The Father worketh hitherto, and I work,^^ 
 and to vindicate every brave and true effort of men 
 for the extirpation of sickness, sorrow, and misery, as 
 prompted and inspired by Him. Then, too, all pain 
 and anguish and death will be regarded as receiving 
 their interpretation from His Agony and Passion and 
 Death, that Death being the vindication of the good- 
 ness of His Father in permitting it to His Crea- 
 tion, and showing that there is a birth to which all 
 its travail and groans are leading. Then that sor- 
 row and agony and death will be taken to interpret, 
 sanctify, and fulfil all that men have endured any- 
 where or in any time for truth and right. Then 
 Christ's conflict with the Spirit of Evil and His vic- 
 tory will be looked at, not as a solitary event, or great 
 exception in the world's history, but in the way that 
 Milton did, and all preachers more or less do look at 
 it, as a witness that God had been resisting the Evil 
 Spirit through every one of His fighting servants ; as 
 a consummation of their struggles ; as a discovery of 
 
LETTER XIII. 259 
 
 the streagtli in which they had prevailed ; as a pledge 
 that the fight shall not cease till the Divine purpose 
 has been fully accomplished. 
 
 All this appears to be involved in the Revelation of 
 Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the Son of Man. I 
 do not say what inferences may or may not be drawn 
 from these principles. But certainly, if God strengthen 
 me, I will not shrink from setting them forth as a 
 Gospel to mankind through fear of any consequences 
 that may be deduced from them. And, on the other 
 hand, I ought not to shrink from resisting any doc- 
 trines, whencesoever they may come, and whatever 
 popularity they may acquire, which strike at the root 
 of these principles. Such doctrines, it seems to me, 
 were contained in Mr. MansePs Lectures generally, 
 but in his seventh Lecture especially. 
 
 I. In that Lecture human Forgiveness is expressly 
 declared to have another ground than the Divine For- 
 giveness; they are not of the same nature. This 
 doctrine I contended was contrary to the idea of the 
 Lord^s Prayer ; to the express command to forgive 
 others as God for Christ's sake has forgiven us ; to the 
 parable of the servant who would not forgive what his 
 fellow- servant owed, as their Lord had forgiven him 
 his debt. How does Mr. Mansel meet this objection, 
 which seemed strong to many persons who agree with 
 his theology far more than with mine? He says, 
 (1) that "\\\s, argument was directed against those 
 "persons who maintain that Christ's death cannot 
 
260 SEQUEL. 
 
 '^ be an atonement for our sins, because it is more 
 " consistent with God^s mercy to forgive freely with- 
 " out any atonement whatsoever." I know that it 
 was directed against those persons ; I said so ; I ex- 
 pressed my dissent from those persons, and gave my 
 reasons for dissenting from them. But may not a 
 very mischievous argument be directed against a 
 wrong opinion ? That which has procured acceptance 
 for Mr. Manser s theory, as I said when I began 
 my answer to him, is the notion that it is conveni- 
 ent for the refutation of opinions which most of us 
 feel to be wTong. If it had not that recommendation, 
 I should never have meddled with it. The whole of 
 this Lecture is apparently directed against the opinion 
 that human morality can be the measure of Divine ; 
 an opinion which I have fought against perhaps as 
 much as Mr. Mansel has. But in opposing that no- 
 tion he also strikes at the belief that Divine morality 
 is the measure and ground of the human, which I 
 hold to be the only deliverance from it. (2) He says 
 of me: — "^ He takes texts in which Christ Himself 
 '' declares the conditions on which the forgiveness 
 " which He has purchased will be granted to men ; he 
 " takes the assertion of the Apostle that we are forgiven 
 " for Christ^s sake : and he applies these passages to 
 "prove that there is a ^direct and a literal opposition' 
 " between them and the words of a writer who re- 
 " fuses to allow that we are forgiven merely because 
 " we repent, and not for Christ's sake at all.'' Re- 
 
LETTER XIII. 261 
 
 specting the first clause of this passage, I would re- 
 mark that it is of great value as pointing out the 
 hopeless contradiction into which Protestant divines 
 must fall if they refuse to acknowledge that the hu- 
 man forgiveness is the image of the Divine. We 
 assert against Komanists that the gift of God^s for- 
 giveness in Christ is free and unconditional ; no works 
 of righteousness can procure it or make us worthy 
 of it by " congruity.^^ Our Lord^s sentence about for- 
 giveness meets us, and we make an exception for it. The 
 most difficult of all righteous acts must be done before 
 we can receive the grace of Christ ! But suppose the 
 gift of Divine forgiveness to be that which works in 
 us the forgiveness of our brother ; suppose it is His 
 Spirit and not ours which sheds abroad forgiveness in 
 our hearts ; then clearly we reject God's forgiveness 
 when we refuse to forgive one another. I cannot be 
 too thankful to Mr. Mansel for having supplied me 
 with this decisive argument against his hypothesis, 
 an argument which will have weight in quarters 
 where mine could not reach. The sophism in the last 
 part of the sentence must, I think, by this time, be 
 as transparent to Mr. Mansel himself as it will be to 
 all his readers. The ^direct opposition' did not re-^ 
 fer to our being forgiven for Christ's sake and not as 
 the price of our repentance (though there may be a 
 very strong opposition between that part of St. Paul's 
 words and the doctrine about conditions to which I 
 have just referred), but between St. Paul's principle that 
 
262 SEQUEL. 
 
 our forgiveness is of the same nature with God^s, and 
 has its ground in Him_, and Mr. Hansel's that ours 
 has a dififerent nature from God's_, and has its ground 
 merely in a sense of sinfulness. (3) He says " The 
 " very parable to which Mr. Maurice refers, distinctly 
 " teaches that it is our duty to forgive our brethren 
 " because we ourselves are sinners ; the prayer from 
 " which he quotes is followed by the words, If you 
 "forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your 
 " Father forgive your trespasses. Yet ^Ir. Maurice 
 " can find a direct opposition to Scripture in the as- 
 " sertion that the sinner whose trespasses need for- 
 " giveness is not, as a sinner, the exact image of God V 
 The very principle I am asserting is that man, as a 
 sinner, is not the exact image of God, but is as un- 
 like God as possible. Forgiveness belongs to the na- 
 ture of God. What I say is, that man, ' as a sinner,' 
 is incapable of forgiveness. Out of sin no forgiveness 
 comes. The man who is able to forgive is able be- 
 cause God has, by His forgiveness, raised him out of 
 his sin. When he is so raised, he can feel for his 
 fellow-men, he can feel for them as sinners. In so far 
 as he is a sinner he can feel for no one ; he is with- 
 out sympathy. The parable and the Lord's Prayer 
 agree in this doctrine. Mr. Mansel cannot; I think 
 because he has not asked himself whether the greatest 
 human manifestation of the Divine Morality was not 
 ^n the act of bearing sins. (4) I had asked whether 
 the weakness, ignorance, and sinfulness of my nature, 
 
LETTER XIII. 263 
 
 ■which were said to be the grounds of my forgiveness, 
 did not " dispose me not to forgive.'^ INIr. Mansei 
 answers : — '^ This is certainly the first time I ever 
 " heard that a man^s obligation to obey a law is invali- 
 '' dated by his disposition to break it. Most moralists 
 " would say that the very sinfulness which disposes 
 " him not to forgive, makes it all the more his duty to 
 " resist that sinfulness and to forgive notwithstand- 
 " ing. Is it not a man^s duty especially to resist the 
 " temptation to which by nature he is most prone V 
 St. Paul discovered that it was his duty not to covet. 
 The law told him that it was his duty. That law 
 revealed in him all manner of covetousness. A man 
 discovers from Mr. ManseFs teaching that it is his 
 duty to forgive. If that teaching works any good in 
 him, it will show him his incapacity for forgiveness. 
 And then he will begin to ask whether the power of 
 forgiveness must not come from the forgiving God 
 who has blotted out his sins for Christ^ s sake, and 
 called him in Christ to receive his own nature. (5) 
 Mr. Mansei again quotes the passage from the first 
 edition of my ^ Theological Essays/ which I omitted 
 in the second. That passage had reference to the 
 cruel feelings of alienation which the popular religious 
 journals have created, and are creating, between the 
 old and the young, the parents and children in our 
 land ; leading those who have been formed in the 
 habits of one generation to suspect those who are 
 growing up in the other confirming the elders in a 
 
264 SEQUEL. 
 
 hard religious worldliuess, which maintains the recol- 
 lection of what was once believed, by attacking real 
 or supposed unbelief; driving the young into indiffer- 
 ence or a defiant Atheism. Mr. MansePs experience 
 at a University may not have made him acquainted 
 with this misery ; I have known too much of it to be 
 silent respecting it. Nevertheless I suppressed the 
 passage because I found its object had been mistaken. 
 Mr. Mansel has revived it. He has done wisely, 
 according to a certain standard of wisdom. The 
 journals will hail their champion as well as their dis- 
 ciple. They will catch eagerly at his allusions to 
 Socinus and Priestley. They will see that an Oxford 
 scholar recognizes and adopts their method of crush- 
 ing opponents. He will have that reward. Will his 
 conscience give him another ? 
 
 II. To that conscience I ventured to appeal in the 
 same Letter on another subject. Alluding to Eternal 
 Punishment, the Lecturer said : ^' It becomes us to 
 " speak cautiously and reverently on a matter of which 
 " God has revealed so little, and that little of so aw- 
 " ful moment ; but if ive may be permitted to criticize 
 the arguments of the opponents of this doctrine with 
 the same freedom with which they have criticized 
 the ways of God, we may remark that the whole 
 apparent force of the moral objection rests upon two 
 "purely gratuitous assumptions." — [Bampton Lec- 
 tures, p. 221.) 
 These words were addressed, you will recollect, to 
 
 <( 
 
 C( 
 
LETTER XITI. 265 
 
 a very mixed audience. They were uttered in a pulpit 
 which must give the tone to a number of pulpits in 
 the land. I know, and you know, in what way lay- 
 men speak of the use which we make of our privilege 
 to assail those who cannot answer us, and to fix pre- 
 judices against them in the minds of our less in- 
 structed hearers. It is an ordinary topic of complaint ; 
 none, I believe, excites so much bitter feeling against 
 the clergy in many minds ; none provokes so much 
 scorn and ridicule in others. I was writing to theo- 
 logical students. For their sakes I felt that I had a 
 right to notice what appeared to me a very aggra- 
 vated instance of the kind. The ' opponents of this 
 ' doctrine ^ (not some specific class of them, to whom 
 Mr. Mansel in his ^Examination^ wishes to confine 
 the remark) were ^ charged with wishing to criticize 
 ' the ways of God.' I considered the charge unfair in 
 in itself, and put into that form of ^ hinting a fault 
 and hesitating dislike,' which makes it especially gall- 
 ing. The persons I had known, who adopted this opi- 
 nion, were generally very sensitive about criticisms 
 on the character of God ; generally men who had 
 suffered bitterly, and had trembled for themselves or 
 others lest they should sink into Atheism, before they 
 had dared to question the popular opinion or to con- 
 sider whether Scripture supported that opinion. If 
 young preachers caught from one whom they were 
 sure to regard as a model, the habit of taunting doubt- 
 ers who perhaps had more fear of God than them- 
 
266 SEQUEL. 
 
 selves, they might do a great deal of injury before they 
 were aware of it, and might in later years have to go 
 through some of the processes which they had treated 
 with scorn in their fellow-men. 
 
 Moved by all these considerations, I said " the 
 " last clause of this sentence would be highly com- 
 " mendable in an Old Bailey Advocate ; whether it is 
 " equally admirable as coming from a Clergyman and a 
 " Gentleman, I leave to the author's conscience/' Mr. 
 Mansel's conscience boldly meets these words. He is 
 sure that he did say what it behoved him to say as a 
 Clergyman and a Gentleman ; my opinion upon the 
 subject has not, as I did not expect it to have, the 
 least weight with him. Seeing then that I have done 
 him no harm, and only enabled him to feel more 
 assured of his own innocence, I am glad that I 
 used the expressions about which I felt at first a little 
 doubtful. For they may be read by some who have 
 offended in this way, and who will be the better for 
 them ; they may come back to me when I am tempted, 
 as I often am, to acts which befit an Old Bailey 
 practitioner better than a Clergyman. Mr. Mansel 
 is anxious that I shall not miss the benefit which I 
 intended for hira, and therefore breaks out in this 
 eloquent style : — 
 
 " Mr. Maurice is doubtless a most competent person 
 " ' to decide wliat language is proper ' coming from a 
 " ^ Clergyman and a Gentleman.' His own writings 
 " furnish conclusive evidence of his fitness to lav 
 
LETTER Xlll. 267 
 
 '^ down the law upon this point. Be it known to all 
 " whom it may concern, that a Clergyman and a Gen- 
 " tleman is on no account permitted,, on pain of Mr. 
 " Maurice's heaviest displeasure, to speak of any 
 " person as ' criticizing the ways of God ;' but that 
 " he is perfectly at liberty, on the same high autho- 
 " rity, to make use of any of the following expressions. 
 " He may say that his opponent's statements are 
 " ' such as a heathen would use to defend the Sacri- 
 ^^ ^ fices which he offers to a malignant power.' He 
 " may say that his views ' stir up all the elements of 
 " ' strife and bitterness in the natural heart ;' but 
 " do not ' stir the spirit to any energetic action for 
 " ' God or man.' He may speak of his ' unsightly and 
 " ^ quite portentous imaginations ;' of his ' hardest 
 '' ^ and most mischievous theories.' He may charge 
 " his opponent with a ' confusion of our God and 
 '' ' Father with Moloch and Siva.' He may say that 
 " ^ Terms and Realities are hopelessly mingled in his 
 " ' intellect, nay, even in his conscience.' He may 
 " ' say that the confirmed, self-satisfied atheist is the 
 " ' only person who can receive such tidings without 
 " ' a protest.' And he may parody the Te Deum, to 
 " exhibit as the final result of the offensive teaching, 
 " ' We shall praise thee, O Devil, we shall acknow- 
 " ' ledge thee to -be the lord.' " 
 
 " In culling these flowers of polemical rhetoric, it 
 " is not my intention merely to retaliate upon Mr. 
 " Maurice with a tu quoque. If I have really offended. 
 
268 SEQUEL. 
 
 " in however slight a degree, against the laws of lite- 
 " rary courtesy, it is but an indifferent excuse to say 
 "that Mr. Maurice has committed the same offence 
 " more frequently and more grievously. But I am 
 " anxious to know myself, and to let others know, 
 " what we may say for the future, and what we may 
 " not. Mr. Maurice is my accuser ; and I am natu- 
 '^^ rally desirous to know the standard by which he 
 "judges and condemns. 1 have no infallible faculty 
 "for distinguishing between that which is and that 
 " which is not, ' in any matter whatsoever,^ and there- 
 "fore, among the rest, in the matter of polite speech. 
 " Mr. Maurice, who has, chooses to teach by example 
 " rather than by precept. The foregoing examples, 
 " if they do not constitute a very definite standard, 
 " may at least, it is hoped, serve as a step towards 
 attaining one. It will at any rate be highly satis- 
 factory to persons who are fond of strong language, 
 to know that the rule of clerical and gentlemanly 
 " propriety, whatever else it may include or exclude, 
 " gives them full liberty to make use of any of the 
 "above expressions.^^ — (Examination, pp. 85, 86.) 
 
 Here is a series of counter-appeals to my consci- 
 ence. I am glad to accept them as such. They are 
 proposed rather too rapidly for the reflection which they 
 separately deserve ; several of them may lose a little of 
 their effect from having been once or twice introduced 
 to my notice in former pages of the ^ Examination.' 
 And I cannot exactly judge of their pungency in the 
 
 (C 
 
 cc 
 
LETTER XIII. 269 
 
 form in which they stand in the pages which I have 
 just extracted, because that is 7iot the form in which 
 they stand in the books whence they are taken. I 
 beUeve, if any one who should happen to possess of 
 my ^Theological Essays^ the first or second edition, 
 or the volume ' What is Ptevelation T would do me 
 the great favour of referring to the passages which 
 Mr. Mansel has adduced, he would be astonished 
 at the transformation they have undergone from the 
 simple circumstance of their appearing originally in 
 the midst of sentences which explain what their pur- 
 pose was. Not having read the first of the books which 
 is referred to for several years, I was obliged to go 
 through the process myself. I must not waste your 
 time and be drawn away from my subject by leading 
 you through the same ; the examples I have given in 
 the case of men whom Mr. Mansel admires, will have 
 prepared you for his method of quoting from those 
 whom he despises. 
 
 But taking the passages generally, I must answer 
 now as I answered before. If I have imputed to any 
 specific opponent, or to any class of opponents, no- 
 tions and opinions which he or they repudiate, — or 
 have given him or them credit for feelings, tempers, 
 habits of mind, which are not theirs, or which they 
 are trying to throw off, — so far I confess that I have 
 committed a sin, which demands repentance towards 
 God, and such amendment and satisfaction as I can 
 make to those whom I have injured. This rule I 
 
270 SEQUEL. 
 
 shall construe more rigorously against myself than I 
 should against any one else. But I do not confess it 
 as a sin that I have denounced opinions and notions 
 which are prevailing, and which I know to be prevailing, 
 in English Society. I do not repent of having asked 
 men or women to consider whether these notions are 
 compatible with the higher and nobler faith which 
 they are cherishing in their hearts. I do not repent 
 of having done what in me lies to point out their in- 
 consistencv with the faith which is embodied in our 
 public Confessions. I do not repent of having tried 
 to show that if we believe in the Infinite and Eternal 
 God who has made Himself known to us in the Only- 
 Begotten Son, and who works in us by His Spirit, 
 we may throw off the incubus of those thoughts 
 about the future ruin of mankind which intertwine 
 themselves so closely with the popular theory of Eter- 
 nal Punishment, and which will rest with a thousand- 
 fold weight upon those who are persuaded that we 
 can only guess about the Eternal from the things of 
 time. 
 
 III. The last part of this article in Mr. ManseFs 
 ' Examination^ refers to a passage in my Letter respect- 
 ing the Permanence of Evil. The Bampton Lecturer 
 appeared to me to say that the immortality of Evil was 
 not a greater contradiction to our Beason than its ex- 
 istence. He might not mean what I supposed him to 
 mean ; if he did, the meaning might present itself in 
 a light altogether different to him and to me. I felt 
 
LETTER XIII. 271 
 
 that I was ready enough to believe in the immortality 
 of Evil ; that it was the most natural thought of all to 
 me ; that if I yielded to it, I gave up the fight with 
 Evil together ; that I could only overcome it by think- 
 ing of Him who wrestled with it to the death, and rose 
 again from the dead ; that when I did set my mind 
 upon Him, I could not believe in the immortality of 
 Evil; I must suppose that it would flee before the 
 brightness of His manifestation and that Good alone 
 would last for ever and ever. Such a method of rea- 
 soning will always appear ridiculous to formal logi- 
 cians ; it will always commend itself to fighting men. 
 If I introduced it^ I did not hope that it would find 
 any tolerance with Mr. Mansel in the former cha- 
 racter. I did believe, that it would not be entirely 
 lost upon him in the latter. Nor do I give over that 
 hope yet. He may suspect me of utter insincerity, of 
 only resorting to ^ rhetorical devices,^ when I speak 
 of my own shameful indifierence to Evil. I shall 
 not suspect him of the like insincerity. T shall be- 
 lieve that he feels the peril which I feel, and that he 
 will cast the most favourite theories to the Avind, — be- 
 cause he will have evidence that they have no sub- 
 stance in them, — if he discovers that thev hinder him 
 or others in that strife against Evil to which we are all 
 called, and in which each may help the other. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 F. D. M. 
 
272 
 
 LETTER XIV. 
 
 THE BIBLE. 
 My dear Sir, 
 
 ^> 
 
 My reply to Mr. Mansel was introduced by a 
 Series of Sermons. In those Sermons I considered 
 what answer the Bible gave to the question, ' What is 
 Eevelation V The Letters which followed were in- 
 tended to show that the principles on which the Bible 
 and Christianity were defended in the Bampton Lec- 
 tures, struck at the idea of Revelation which pre- 
 sented itself in every part of the New Testament; — in 
 the simplest records of the Gospels, in the Parables, 
 in the Miracles, in the preaching of St. Paul, in the 
 apostolical announcements of a future judgment. 
 
 I confined myself in these Sermons to the New 
 Testament ; for I had dwelt, in a number of previ- 
 ous sermons addressed to the same audience, on the 
 narratives of the Old, and on the lessons respecting 
 Revelation which they contain. The more simply 
 those narratives are considered, the less one departs 
 from the direct letter of them^ the more does the pur- 
 
LETTER XIV. 273 
 
 pose exhibit itself. Abraham, so we believe, was de- 
 livered from the idolatry of visible things by a reve- 
 lation of the Invisible God, who was with him in his 
 tent and family, with him when he went forth to bat- 
 tle, and who promised to be with his seed after him. 
 The Covenant with his descendants was the witness, 
 to those who acknowledged it, of a continual presence 
 with them, of a continual protection over them and 
 their households by an Invisible God. When the slaves 
 in Egypt had lost their faith, they were restored 
 again by the Revelation of the I Am to Moses. 
 Laws issuing from a mountain on which they saw no 
 shape ; the pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night ; 
 the tabernacle which travelled through the wilderness, 
 the manna, and the water that came from the rock, 
 were all signs and revelations of the same present 
 and living God; always distrusted, always proving 
 themselves true. The signs of the Presence went on, 
 the distrust went on. Each crisis of their history is 
 reported by the Prophet as a day of the Lord, a dis- 
 covery or revelation by an outward judgment of Him 
 who could not be seen, but who was the same from 
 generation to generation, always with those who were 
 forgetting Him. The evil habits into which one age 
 after another falls, the adulteries and murders, the 
 priestly corruptions, the unrighteous acts of the kings, 
 are all traced to the denial of the Unseen God ; each 
 manifestation of the evil tendencies of men brings out 
 His Righteousness into stronger relief; is a pledge 
 
 T 
 
274 SEQUEL. 
 
 that that Righteousness will turn to Judgment. The 
 hope of a fuller, more perfect unveilnig of God, is 
 the hope which is set before the Israelites ; more and 
 more he learns to blend that hope with the appearing 
 of a Divine King, with the revelation of a Man who 
 shall reign over the Gentiles, and be a refuge and 
 glory to His people Israel. Elders and Rabbis may 
 try to separate these promises ; they cleave to each 
 other in the mind and heart of the people. It is a 
 king they want, a king who will come forth and de- 
 liver them from the oppressions under which they are 
 groaning. 
 
 The New Testament opens with the birth of such 
 a King. He is shown to be of David^s lineage ; he 
 is divinely born of a woman ; the Idumsean king is 
 afraid of him; he is carried into Egypt; he grows 
 up unknown at Nazareth. Then the message of a 
 Kingdom of Heaven is heard. The Jews are called to 
 turn to the Righteous Lord, just as their fathers were 
 called by the old Prophets. They are baptized, as a 
 sign that God remits their sins. They are bidden not 
 to say that they have Abraham to their father, because 
 God can of the stones raise up children to Abraham. 
 He who is coming will gather His wheat into the 
 garner, and burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. 
 All these are prophecies of a revelation or unveiling 
 of God to His creatures. Then comes the message, 
 " This is my beloved Son.^^ He is anointed with the 
 Spirit. He enters into conflict with the Spirit of Evil 
 
LETTER XIV. 275 
 
 in the Wilderness. He carries on a conflict with that 
 same Spirit in the bodies and souls of men. By acts 
 and by words He proclaims a Kingdom of Heaven, 
 a Kingdom the direct opposite of the kingdom of this 
 world, which is established in the Csesar ; a Kingdom 
 of Righteousness, a Kingdom working for the deli- 
 verance, not for the bondage of human creatures; a 
 Kingdom reaching a region which that kingdom can- 
 not reach ; a Kingdom proving itself in a small sphere 
 to be effectual for the cure of all the evils to which 
 the flesh and the spirit of man is heir. The Kingdom 
 is proclaimed to be that of a Father in Heaven ; He 
 who proclaims it is treated as a blasphemer by Jews be- 
 cause He calls Himself the Son of God. He is delivered 
 up to the Gentiles to be crucified, because as a King 
 He is undermining the imperial throne. He dies. He 
 rises, He ascends on high. The Apostles on the day 
 of Pentecost declare that by His Resurrection He has 
 been revealed as indeed the Lord of jNIen and the Son 
 of God. They say that the gift of a Spirit who is 
 speaking by the lips of a set of poor Galileans is the 
 sign of His filial nature and His Kingly power. By 
 that Spirit they say He is binding together a Society 
 of men to be witnesses of His Eesurrection and divine 
 Kingdom. He will be revealed or manifested, in their 
 day, taking vengeance on the unrighteous city which 
 professed to worship God, and had rejected the image 
 of Him in Jesus of Nazareth. 
 
 In the years between that prophecy and its fulfil- 
 
276 SEQUEL. 
 
 merit, the Apostles go forth as the heralds of this 
 Revelation to men. Others are joined with them. 
 A Hellenistic teacher announces, more boldly than 
 they have done, the downfall of the Temple and the 
 disappearance of the Jewish ritual. He defends him- 
 self by tracing the continuous Revelation of a Liv- 
 ing God to his nation, and their resistance in every 
 age to the Holy Spirit ; the greatest resistance being 
 reserved for that Righteous One for whose coming 
 all legislators and prophets had been preparing. He 
 dies witnessing that the Son of Man is standing at 
 the right-hand of God. A young man who is con- 
 senting to his death, as he goes forth to bind those 
 who, like Stephen, are testifying that a crucified man 
 has revealed God to men, is himself overpowered by 
 a Revelation of that crucified man. Bv this name he 
 ever after describes that which changed the purpose 
 of his life. There was a vision to his external eye. 
 But what he dwells upon is the unveiling of the Son 
 of God in him ; that, he says, has fitted him to be a 
 preacher to the Gentiles. That has enabled him to tell 
 all men that they are fellow-heirs and of the same 
 body with the Hebrews whom he had taken to be 
 the exclusive favourites of Heaven. Whatever Church 
 he forms, to whatever Church he writes, it is still of 
 the Revelation of the Son of God as the Prince and 
 King of Men that he writes ; it is still of the Revela- 
 tion or Manifestation of the Spirit, who alone enables 
 them to call Christ the Lord. He bids the Churches 
 
LETTER XIV. 277 
 
 look for and wait for the Revelation or Manifestation 
 of the Son of God. He says that there will be such 
 a Revelation or Manifestation in that age. 
 
 It might be regarded as a specially Pauline phrase ; 
 so much does it penetrate all his discourses ; such 
 illustration does it receive from his experience. But 
 if you turn to the writings of St. John, you begin to 
 fancy that it is also specially his ; so much does the 
 idea of an unveiling or manifestation of God pervade 
 his Gospel; so much is it the central idea of his 
 Epistle. How name and idea both meet us in that 
 final book of the Bible, which not only English criti- 
 cism, but the most recent and adverse German criti- 
 cism assigns to him, T need not remark ; except for 
 the purpose of saying, that if we gave that name its 
 true emphasis, if we did not deprive it of the sense 
 which it bears in every other part of the New Testa- 
 ment, I believe that book would be found to possess a 
 worth which is not affected by the different theories 
 about various passages in it, or by the different dates 
 which are assigned to the fulfilment of its prophecies ; 
 that in the light of that name the theories might ex- 
 plain themselves, and each contribute something to 
 our instruction ; that in the light of that name what 
 has been supposed to be the book of riddles might 
 become an interpreter of the riddles which have 
 haunted us in earlier books ; that in the light of that 
 name the fullest conviction that the Apostles were 
 not deceived in the expectation of a Judgment and 
 Unveiling in their own day, might be reconciled with 
 
278 SEQUEL. 
 
 tlie fullest belief that the history of Christendom 
 has been a series of days of the Lord, and the belief 
 that there shall be one day in which all things that 
 are hidden shall be revealed, because it shall be a 
 complete revelation of Him who alone brings anything 
 within the range of our human vision now. 
 
 This is the idea of Revelation which I have derived, 
 not from some faculty of my own which Mr. Mansel 
 thinks that I claim, but from the Bible ; taking it as 
 it stands ; trying to follow the course of its disco- 
 veries ; not leaving out any part of it in obedience to 
 the teaching of Rationalists, not changing history into 
 allegory in compliance with the suggestion of Mystics. 
 Such as it is, I offer it to the reflection of those who 
 study the Bible and reverence its authority. They 
 may find a multitude of flaws in it ; they may have 
 perceptions of the truth which have never been vouch- 
 safed to me ; if we believe that God actually has re- 
 vealed Himself and is revealing Himself to His crea- 
 tures, each may hope in some measure to clear away 
 difficulties from his neighbour's path ; each may desire 
 earnestly that his own eyes may be couched, that the 
 light may enter into them. Suppose, on the other 
 hand, there is no human faculty which is capable of 
 receiving a Revelation of God as God ; supposing 
 there is no perfectly clear medium in whom He may 
 behold us and we may behold Him ; supposing there is 
 no Spirit of whom it may be believed literally and 
 strictly that He guides into all Truth ; it seems to 
 me that we are left to the mercy of the conceits and 
 
LETTER XIV. 279 
 
 judgments of particular men ; and that the fact of our 
 possessing a Bible does not make us at all less at 
 their mercy^ seeing that all they can do is to abstract 
 notions and probable conclusions from it which must 
 be modified and moulded by the tendencies of their 
 education and the habits of their times, and which 
 must therefore be a most fluctuating standard for that 
 time and for themselves, to say nothing of those who 
 come after them. 
 
 The more I read Mr. Mansel's Lectures, the more 
 convinced I was that this must be the result of his 
 denial that there is in man any faculty for conversing 
 with the Infinite and the Eternal. But the conviction 
 reached its climax when I read his final Lecture ; 
 when I found how he shrank from the examination of 
 the actual contents of the Bible ; when I perceived 
 that he threw us back, as the ultimate result of all 
 his inquiries, upon the evidences which show why the 
 Bible should not be rejected ; when I found him tell- 
 ing the students who listened to him that they were 
 to receive the Bible as a whole or not at all ; so lead- 
 ing many to place it on their shelves as a book which 
 it was safe to accept without any careful study of its 
 contents ; so driving others w^ho felt doubts about 
 particular passages, to cast it aside altogether."^ All 
 
 * Mr. Mansel complains of me because in speaking of liim and 
 those who adopt the " all or nothing " method, I supposed them to 
 address Infidels in the words of Moses when he stimck the rock, 
 " Now, ye Rebels." I did not know that Mr. Mansel or Mr. Rogers 
 would feel hurt at being compared to the greatest of Legislators and 
 the meekest of men, I am very sorry. I will never do it again. 
 
280 SEQUEL. 
 
 those were clear indications^ I thought^ that the book, 
 merely as such, was taking the place in his mind of 
 the Revelation whereof the book speaks ; and so that 
 while it was most loudly vaunted as the word of God, 
 it was actually ceasing to be the word of God at all. 
 
 The observation of the way in which the subject 
 of the Bible was handled in the Lecture which was 
 devoted to that subject, led me to consider how its 
 particular texts had been treated in the special Lec- 
 tures. Mr. Chretien thinks that I ought not to have 
 entered upon this inquiry; that the special objects 
 of the preacher warranted him in adopting mottoes 
 rather than investigating texts. Be it so. I may have 
 been wrong ; the object of discouraging theological 
 students from imitating that course may have been 
 too predominant in my mind. But I still hold that 
 the mottoes ought to have been appropriate, and 
 that on the whole they were singularly inappropriate. 
 And I must say that the defence which Mr. Mansel 
 has put forth for them, has not the last weakened, but 
 greatly strengthened that opinion. I objected to the 
 text. Ye shall not add unto the word which I com- 
 mand you, neither shall ye diminish aught from it, as a 
 preface to a discussion on Rationalism and Dogmatism, 
 because it so evidently refers to the Revelation of a 
 Living Being, and the discussion so evidently referred 
 to notions and opinions about this or that matter. 
 Mr. Mansel replied : — " But surely, if we in any de- 
 ^^ gree share in these privileges of the chosen people ; 
 
LETTER XIV. 281 
 
 " if tlie Bible is to us the word of God^ no less than 
 " the Law of Moses was to the children of Israel ; 
 ^' there is no reason why the prohibition against add- 
 "ing to it or taking from it may not be as applica- 
 " ble to us as to them, and as liable to be trangressed 
 '^now as then/^ — [Examination, p. 93.) I fully be- 
 lieve that we do share in the privileges_, and in far 
 more than the privileges_, of the chosen people ; I be- 
 lieve that their dispensation was only a preparation for 
 ours. And therefore I believe that we ought not to 
 cast away these privileges by representing our condi- 
 tion as merely that of men who have a certain book 
 put into their hands which they may interpret in a 
 Dogmatic or Rationalistic sense. I believe that was 
 the error of the Jews, Pharisees and Sadducees, in 
 our Lord^s time. The sense of a living Revelation 
 had departed from them ; they took interpretations. 
 Rationalistic or Dogmatic, as the substitute for it. 
 
 In reference to the next of these texts he says of 
 me : — " His objections are based upon the point which 
 ^^ separates his philosophy from mine, and turns, not 
 " on the meaning which the text must bear, but which 
 " it must bear to suit Mr. Maurice's speculations. He 
 '^ holds the Bible to be a complete revelation of the 
 '^ Infinite as Infinite. I hold it to be an adaptation 
 '^ of the Infinite to the finite capacities of meu.^' — 
 [Examination, pp. 93, 94.) I need not tell 3^ou that 
 I do not hold the " Bible to be a complete Revelation 
 "of the Infinite as Infinite.^^ I should hold such 
 
282 SEQUEL. 
 
 words to be nonsense. I believe that tlie Being to 
 whose Holiness and Goodness and Wisdom and Truth 
 there are no limits, has perfectly revealed Himself in 
 His Son Jesus Christ; that the Spirit of Holiness 
 and Goodness and Wisdom and Truth dwelt in Him 
 without measure; that His acts and life were the 
 manifestation of the Father. I have admitted any 
 finiteness in the incarnate Christ — the finiteness of 
 a little child — which is compatible with this true and 
 full revelation. I admits and I believe the Bible ad- 
 mitSj none which interferes with it. And I believe 
 that we only feel a contradiction in the revelation, 
 because we are all more or less infected by that false 
 philosophy which supposes that Goodness and Truth 
 are not Eternal things, which tries to apply to them 
 the measures of time. Christ, who was always in 
 communion with his Father, possessed them perfectly ; 
 we have a very weak grasp of them, some a weaker, 
 some a stronger ; but those unseen things which we 
 grasp ever so feebly, are still eternal things. 
 
 In connection with these texts, the following note 
 is introduced : — 
 
 In his remarks on the first of these texts, Mr. 
 
 Maurice garbles the language of Scripture in a 
 ^- manner which has already brought upon him the 
 '^ severe animadversion of one of his reviewers. He 
 "says (p. 470), '^If Mr. Mansel had acknowledged 
 '' ' any connection between the Old and New Testa- 
 
 ' ment, would not this passage have led him to that 
 
 ce 
 
 (( 
 
<( 
 
 LETTER XIV. 283 
 
 ^'^ ' in the third chapter of the Second Epistle to the 
 " ' Corinthians^ in which St. Paul contrasts the Old 
 " ^ Dispensation with the New in this very respect, 
 " ' winding up with the memorable words, And ive 
 all iv'ith open face beholding the glory of the Lord, 
 are changed into the same image from glory to 
 " glory ' ? Tt would scarcely be believed, without 
 '^ the witness of his own citation, that Mr. Maurice, 
 " while in the very act of charging his opponent with 
 '^misinterpreting Scripture, omits from the text of 
 '' St. Paul the very word which shows that its mean- 
 ^' ing is the direct reverse of that which he assigns to 
 ^' it : — ^ beholding as in a glass [icaroiTTpi^oiJievoi) 
 "^the glory of the Lord.^ Was Mr. Maurice afraid 
 "that, if he had cited the text entire, the language 
 " would have recalled another passage of the same 
 '^Apostle, in which a similar expression, ^we see 
 " ' through a glass darkly' [hi eaoirrpov iv alvl'yiiaTL), 
 " is directly contrasted Avith seeing ' face to face ' ? It 
 " is an unfairness similar in kind, if not quite so fla- 
 " grant, that Mr. Maurice speaks of St. Paul as con- 
 " trasting the Old Dispensation with the New in this 
 " very respect ; whereas the Apostle himself expressly 
 '' tells us that he refers, not to that passage in the 
 " Old Testament in which Moses is told that he can- 
 " not see the face of God ; but to that in which it is 
 '^said that ^the children of Israel could not stead- 
 " ' fastly behold the face of j\Ioses.^ Yet the man who 
 " can do this dares to charge his opponent with emp- 
 
284 SEQUEL. 
 
 "tying texts of their significance!" — (Examinatioriy 
 pp. 93, 94.) 
 
 I should have supposed that the readers of my book 
 and of Mr. ManseFs Lectures were sufficiently fa- 
 miliar with their Testaments to correct anv omission 
 like that which I am charged with, and that there 
 could not have been an act of more consummate fool- 
 ishness than to venture it for the sake of establishing 
 an argument or confuting an opponent. Whatever 
 may be done with books which lie out of the reach 
 of ordinary Englishmen, the English translation of St. 
 PauPs Epistles is happily not one with which such 
 tricks may safely be attempted. If others might 
 afibrd to run the risk, does not Mr. Mansel know 
 well enough that I of all men could not ? '^1 have 
 " brought on me the severe animadversion of one of 
 " my reviewers." What, only one ? The writer in the 
 ' Literary Churchman,' to which Mr. Mansel alludes, 
 ascertained that I had never read Anselm's Monolo- 
 gium or Proslogion, though I had given extracts from 
 one, and an account of both, in the book from which 
 I quoted a passage ; but a less erudite critic might be 
 able to prove that I had " omitted the words of St. 
 " Paul, which show that the meaning of the text is 
 " directly the reverse of that which I assign to it." I 
 apprehend that Journalists in general, with the best in- 
 clination to find me out in a transgression, knew too 
 well what the common feeling about the passage is 
 among readers of Scripture, to think that they could 
 
LETTER XIV. 285 
 
 raise any successful cry against me for having de- 
 parted from it. In our early English versions of the 
 passage the words * in a glass ^ do not appear ; Wick- 
 liff renders it : '^ And alle we that ivith open face seen 
 " the glorle of the Lord, ben transformed into the same 
 " ymage fro clerenesse into clerenesse, as by the Spirit 
 " of the Lord.'' He, no doubt, followed the Vulgate, 
 not connecting speculantes with speculum. " Nos autem 
 ^' revelatd facie gloriam Domini speculantes, in eandem 
 " imaginem transformamur a clay^itate in claritatem, 
 " tanquam a Domini Spiritu." Tyndale has it: " But 
 " we all beholde the glory of the Lorde loith his face 
 open, and are chaunged into the same similitude from 
 glory to glory, even of the Spirite of the Lorde.'' In 
 Cranmer^s, the speculum appears : — " But ive all be- 
 holde in a myrroure the glorie of the Lorde with his 
 face open, and are chaunged into the same similitude 
 from glory to glory, even as of the Spryte of the 
 " Lorde." It may be doubtful whether the Genevan 
 intends the ' open face ' to apply to the Object, or the 
 beholder : I should think, to the latter : "But we all 
 beholde as in a myrrour the glorie of the Lord with 
 open face, and changed into the same image from glory 
 unto glory, as of our Lorde' s Spirit." The Rheims 
 loses the mirror again : — " But wee al beholding the 
 " glorie of our Lord with face revealed, are trans- 
 formed into the same image from glorie to glorie, as 
 of our Lorde' s Spirit.^ 
 
 * I may add Luther's version, which is very remarkable : — " Nun 
 
 
 (C 
 
 a 
 
 (C 
 (C 
 (C 
 
 (( 
 
286 SEQUEL. 
 
 I do not put forth any one of these versions as 
 better than the authorized one, — on that subject I 
 offer no opinion, — but as helping to determine the 
 sense which the King James Translators found in the 
 words, the sense which T believe most of their readers 
 have found in them. The ^^mirroure^^ is not some- 
 thing which impedes the view of the object, or makes 
 the object itself less clear ; it presents the object ; it 
 enables the beholder to see it truly as it is, without 
 a veil. The other notion of the glass comes out in 
 Bretschneider^s Lexicon, but very curiously. He as- 
 sumes the sacred writer to deviate from the natural, 
 classical force of the word. These are his words : — 
 ^' KaTOTTTpl^co (a KaroTrrpov, speculum), monstro in 
 " speculo ; reprsesento aliquid tanquam in speculo. 
 " Medium : intueor me in speculo. Sic apud proja- 
 '^ nos. Sed 2 Cor. iii. 18 est intueor tanquam in 
 '^ speculo, i.e. imaginem rei video quae cognitio paulo 
 " obscurior est, quam si rem ipsam video.""^ Of course 
 he refers, as Mr. Mansel does, to the word ecroir- 
 rpov, and under that to the passage in 1 Corinthians 
 xiii. But I would venture to ask, do the words iv 
 alvlyfjiarv, make no difference ? Is it not in them 
 that the ^ darkly ' lies ? Why need it be in the 
 
 " aber spiegelt sich in uns alien des Herrn Klarheit mit aufgedecktem 
 " Angesicht ; und wir werden verklaret in dasselbe Bild, von einer 
 " Klarheit zu der andem, als vom Herrn, der der Geist ist." 
 
 * Liddell and Scott say, "It suits the whole context much better 
 to take KaTOTTTpi^dfiei/oi t?V So^au in the sense of reflecting the 
 glory." 
 
LETTER XIV. 287 
 
 glass at all ; except as that glass is discoloured by the 
 eye that looks into it ? 
 
 Be that as it may^ the subject considered in the 
 1 3th chapter of the first Epistle, is the difference be- 
 tween the light which was vouchsafed to the Apostle 
 and the Corinthians then, and the light which they 
 might look for when they had passed out of the world. 
 The subject in the 3rd chapter of the second Epistle 
 is the difierence between the light which was vouch- 
 safed to them under that dispensation, and the light 
 which the Israelites of a previous day had possessed. 
 How can the one be used to alter the interpretation 
 of the other ? If Sir John Herschel was to speak of 
 the little knowledge of physics which men have now 
 compared with that which they may have a century 
 hence, would he contradict anything he has said about 
 the superiority of the knowledge which any in this 
 age may possess to that which greater men possessed 
 before the days of Kepler and Newton ? Are the 
 two statements inconsistent ? Would not he who re- 
 fused to recognize the advantage of the present over 
 the past, practically deny the hope of the futui'e? 
 Let it be granted that St. Paul speaks of Moses com- 
 ing forth with a veil on his face when he presented 
 himself to the children of Israel. The contrast is 
 still that Christ does not present Himself with a veil 
 on His face ; the contrast is still that we may with 
 open face look to Him who with open face speaks to 
 us. The contrast is still that the glory of the Lord 
 
288 SEQUEL. 
 
 is revealed in Him as it was not revealed in Moses . 
 that a Communion is established between heaven 
 and earth in the Son which could not be established 
 in the Servant. Mr. MansePs restless effort to avoid 
 this acknowledgment, affords a greater help in un- 
 derstanding his Theology than all his subtlest argu- 
 ments.^ 
 
 These answers to my objections therefore bring us 
 back to that grand debate between us, whether the 
 Hevelation is only one which it has pleased God to 
 make, and which we cannot assume to be an actual 
 revelation of His own very nature, or whether that 
 Nature is the Archetype of ours, and therefore ours 
 can only be reformed by being brought into contact 
 with it, by contemplating it in the Mediator, by being 
 baptized with the Spirit. 
 
 And so I may conclude this Letter, the last but one, 
 I am thankful to say, of the series. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 F. D. M. 
 
 * In the Postscript to my Letters I referred to the passage in the 
 13th chapter of the first Epistle, expressly for the purpose of con- 
 trasting St. Paul's method of opposing present to future privileges 
 with Mr. Mansel's. I concluded that, according to him, men never 
 could have the vision of God in any after condition, unless they ceased 
 to be finite. Mr. Chretien has made nearly the same remark. 
 
289 
 
 LETTEE XV. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 My dear Sir, 
 
 The pages from 96 to 108 in Mr. ManseFs ' Exa- 
 mination ' contain that sentence which I quoted in the 
 first of these Letters, wherein he gathers up all his 
 charges against my book into a denunciation of it, as 
 nearly unparalleled in English literature for unfair- 
 ness and malignity. From these evil fruits he draws 
 an inference as to the value of the faculty, which he 
 says that I claim to possess, for judging between the 
 right and the wrong, the false and the true. Then 
 he confidently asks his readers to confirm the judg- 
 ment which he has pronounced against me. He pro- 
 ceeds, in a postscript, to speak of me as " eminently 
 entitled to respect,^' and to intimate that the differ- 
 ences between us would probably be found very slight, 
 if I could be induced to give up certain theories which 
 Mr. Rigg supposes that I borrowed directly from the 
 Neo-Platonists, which he rather suspects were ob- 
 tained from them at secondhand. 
 
 u 
 
290 SEQUEL. 
 
 As I have considered each of Mr. Hansel's charges 
 separately, I am the less anxious about them when 
 they present themselves in a heap. The passage, hoAv- 
 ever, in which they are collected will be good for quo- 
 tation, and will save many the trouble of going into 
 details. Mr. Mansel, well aware as he is of his own 
 popularity and my unpopularity, has very plausible 
 grounds for expecting with much assurance an instant 
 and decisive verdict against me on all the counts of 
 his indictment. Supposing it however to be a just 
 verdict, I do not exactly see that he will have proved 
 that there is no faculty for pronouncing upon the 
 right or wrong, the true or the false, in one subject 
 or another. I should imagine that he was exercising 
 that faculty when he passed sentence on me for fla- 
 grant outrages against honesty and truth ; I should 
 suppose he was appealing to the same faculty in his 
 readers when he invited them to ratify his sentence. 
 
 That being a convicted liar and hypocrite I am 
 "eminently entitled to the respect'^ of Mr. Mansel 
 and his readers, is a statement which I confess mvself 
 unable to understand. I should not offer such respect 
 to persons whom I believed to deserve those titles. 
 I cannot accept it from those who suppose that I de- 
 serve them. Mr. Mansel may have all the courtesy 
 which his reviewers attribute to him ; but he owes 
 something to his Order, and his courtesy should not 
 betray him into expressing the slightest respect for 
 one who has disgraced it. I claim an acquittal from 
 
LETTER XV. 291 
 
 the awful charges that have been brought against 
 me^ because I have shown that the accuser has not 
 established any one of them. I expect that acquittal 
 from those persons whose opinions I care for, be they 
 ever so hostile to me. But I ask no indulgence what- 
 ever — certainly not the faintest shadow of respect — 
 from those who hold me to be guilty. 
 
 The method of adjusting our theological differences 
 which Mr, Mansel proposes might tempt me far more. 
 It would be a small sacrifice for so great an end to re- 
 nounce my allegiance to the Neoplatonical teachers_, 
 seeing that I have never paid them any allegiance. 
 Bystanders are said to know more of a game than 
 those who are engaged in it. I am not, therefore, 
 bold enough to dispute the authority of Mr. Rigg 
 respecting the character of my opinions. I would 
 only observe that any expressions I have used respect- 
 ing the divine and human nature of our Lord, to 
 which he can take objection, are contained in Ser- 
 mons and Lectures on the Gospel and Epistle of St. 
 John. From that Gospel and that Epistle, and not 
 from Plotinus, lamblichus, Proclus, I have professed 
 to deduce my principles. If I appealed to the Law 
 and the Testimony, would it not have been as well 
 for Mr. Bigg to do the same ? Surely he would have 
 confuted me more easily, and have exposed me to 
 English readers more effectually, than by connecting 
 me with writers of whom (perhaps to dissemble my 
 love) I have been wont to speak rather uncivilly, and 
 
292 SEQUEL. 
 
 with whom all may not be so well acquainted as Mr. 
 Rigg is. 
 
 But though nothing looks more generous than a 
 proposal to grant me peace if I will surrender a ter- 
 ritory to which I have never pretended that I have 
 any right, there is a concession implied in these pre- 
 liminaries which I cannot make. I have not been 
 contending for a theory or against a theory. While 
 Mr. Mansel is holding his wise opinions, and I my 
 foolish ones, the world is going on ; men are born into 
 it and die in it every hour ; there are things which we 
 •see that deserve our earnest thoughts, there are things 
 we do not see that deserve more earnest thoughts 
 still. The question I have considered in this book is 
 whether these things which we do not see, and these 
 things which we do see, are not of more worth than 
 all the theories and opinions of all the Neo-Platonists 
 and all the Scotch Philosophers in the world; and 
 whether there is not a way in which human beings 
 who live and die may be actually and truly acquainted 
 with both, though they may be utterly unable to form 
 opinions or to judge of opinions. Not the question 
 whether I confound the Infinite and the Finite, and 
 Mr. Mansel accurately distinguishes them, has been 
 at issue between us; but the question whether the 
 Infinite and Eternal God has or has not unveiled 
 Himself to human beings, and whether, though all 
 distinctions and the very names Finite and Infinite 
 should be utterly dark to them, they may not dwell 
 
LETTER XV. 293 
 
 in His Lights and have fellowship with it, and gra- 
 dually come to see all things by it. This, I believe, 
 is the question of questions for our generation. In it 
 are involved, as I think, these issues; whether there 
 shall be any living Theology, or only a dry skeleton 
 divinity, which struggling and suffering men will 
 scorn, and vv^hich soon those who elaborate it and 
 proclaim it will be weary of; whether there shall be 
 any living IMorality concerning all men, or only a 
 System of Morality which shall not really concern 
 any man ; whether there shall be a living and advan- 
 cing Physical Science, or only conflicts of one learned 
 speculation against another ; whether there shall be a 
 living Politics, grounded on the acknowledgment of a 
 permanent Order adapting itself to the changing wants 
 of man, or only endless altercations between one po- 
 litical dogma and another, ending in a Tyranny in 
 which men acquiesce, because they have tried all plans 
 and notions and have found them barren; whether 
 Education in our Universities shall acquire new vigour 
 from communion with the wants of actual men, and 
 the Education of the world be raised and purified 
 by communion with the learning which is stored in 
 Universities, or the knowledge of the past shall only 
 help to rivet the prejudices of the present age, and the 
 vicissitudes of the present to make the witness of the 
 past as capricious as its pwn. If I did not feel these 
 interests to be at stake, I might have entered on the 
 controversy with the motives and for the ends which 
 
294 SEQUEL. 
 
 Mr. !Mansel attributes to me. As I do feel them to 
 be at stake, I think I ablior such motives and ends as 
 much as he can abhor them. 
 
 I shoukl be doing injustice to Mr. Mansel as well 
 as to myself if I admitted that the strife between us 
 had been about the merits or demerits of a certain 
 opinion. I fully acknowledge that he had a moral 
 purpose in his Lectures, a purpose of the greatest im- 
 portance for our country and our generation. I do 
 not mean the overthrow of Hegel and the Rationalists. 
 I have doubted always, and I doubt still, whether we 
 are very greatly and directly interested in that result. 
 I mean the cultivation in us of a sense of our own 
 ignorance ; an abatement of our desire to judge what 
 is above us ; an awe of the Majesty of God. His 
 experience of young men in his own University may 
 well have taught him how vehement and exclusive 
 the critical spirit is in all our minds ; how early it 
 manifests itself; how very wide it is in the range of 
 topics with which it intermeddles. He may have felt 
 a natural and laudable wish to fix boundaries beyond 
 which it should not pass. " Here, within the region 
 " of the finite, criticize as you will ; beyond lies a 
 " world into which you cannot enter without being 
 " guilty of folly as well as sin.^^ If I have not ho- 
 noured as I ought the feelings in the writer which 
 prompted such prohibitions as these, or the feelings in 
 his readers which responded to them, I am much to 
 blame. I know for myself, more than for others, how 
 
LETTER XV. 295 
 
 mucli we require to hear the words continually sound- 
 ing in our ears : " Take off thy shoes from thy feet ; 
 '' the place whereon thou standest is holy ground." 
 I know how much we want the trembling of the shep- 
 herd who was afraid to look upon God. 
 
 But the more I need help for this end^ — the more 
 I respect Mr. Mansel's desire to produce this awe, — 
 the less do I acquiesce in the method in which he has 
 dealt with our pride, and has sought to foster our 
 humility. Many in whom the critical temper is very 
 rampant, will simply despise the limits which are im- 
 posed upon it ; they will say that as long as men do 
 speak of the Infinite and Eternal, these are legitimate 
 subjects for their comments. Some of them will ac- 
 cept the restrictions, because they will pronounce all 
 that is not finite merely fantastic and imaginary. 
 Both will continue to cherish a habit of mind which 
 is as fatal to the right treatment of the finite as of the 
 infinite. For is not that Criticism false which fancies 
 that it can comprehend the purposes of a man or the 
 functions of an insect ? Is not that the right Criti- 
 cism which is always aiming at the apprehension of 
 the highest Truth and Good ; so learning to appreciate 
 all the lower forms of Truth and Good ; so learning to 
 detest and to eschew the Counterfeit and the Evil ? 
 This Criticism I know vou desire to cultivate. Shall 
 we not cultivate it, and all that awe which wc need 
 in our studies and in the acts of our lives, if we be- 
 lieve that the Eternal and Infinite is always near us, 
 
296 SEQUEL. 
 
 is always speaking to us, is always preparing ns for 
 the knowledge of His creation and Himself? Do we 
 not begin to know anything when we cease to measure 
 it by our own standard ? Does not every lower nature 
 — does not our own — become a worthy and profound 
 study to us, when we look up to a higher Nature, and 
 believe that we are intended to participate in that? 
 Thanks be to any teacher who shows us how wonder- 
 ful it is that we should be capable of such greatness ! 
 — thanks be to any teacher who tells us that men 
 could not reach it if the most High had not stooped 
 to their littleness ! But if there is no such capacity, 
 is not the Universe emptied of its meaning and its 
 glory ? — does not man shrink into the meanest of all 
 the atoms which compose it ? 
 
 Affectionately yours, 
 
 F. D. M. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 JOHN EDWAKD TAYLOR, PRINTER. 
 LITTLE aUEKN STREET, LIINCOLN'S INN FIELDfl. 
 
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