PHILOSOPHIA 
 
 ULTIMA, 
 
 CHAKLES WOODRUFF SHIELDS. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 J. B. LIFPINCOTT k CO. 
 186!. 
 
' « But as these great things are not at our disposal, we here, at the 
 
 I entrance of our work, with the utmost fervency and humility, put 
 
 forth our prayers to God, that remembering the miseries of man- 
 kind and the pilgrimage of this life, where we pass but few days 
 and sorrowful, he would vouchsafe through our hands, and the 
 hands of others, to whom he has given the like mind, to relieve the 
 human race by a new act of his bounty. We likewise beseech him, 
 that what is human may not clash with what is divine ; and that 
 when the ways of the senses are opened, and a greater natural 
 light set up in the mind, nothing of incredulity and blindness 
 towards divine mysteries may arise; but rather that the under- 
 standing, now cleared up, and purged of all vanity and superstition, 
 may remain entirely subject to the divine oracles, and yield to 
 faith the things that are faith's: and lastly, that expelling the 
 poisonous knowledge infused by the serpent, which puffs up and 
 swells the human mind, we may neither be wise above measure nor 
 go beyond the bounds of sobriety, but pursue the truth in char- 
 ity." 
 
 IxsT.\UKATio Magna. 
 
.^^^^^ri^'x 
 
 I. Scieiitia Scieiitiarum. 
 II. A.T3 Scieiitianana. 
 III. Scientia Artiviin. 
 
"In Theology," said Kepler, "Ave l^alance author- 
 ities; in Philosophy we weigh reasons. A holy man 
 was Lactantius, who denied that the earth was 
 round; a holy man was Augustine, who granted the 
 rotundity but denied the antipodes; a holy thing to 
 me is the Inquisition, which allows the smallness of 
 the earth, but denies its motion; but more holy to 
 me is truth; and hence I prove by philosophy that 
 the earth is round and inhabited on every side, of 
 small size, and in motion among the stars, — and this 
 I do with no disrespect to the Doctors." 
 
 If theologians, as well as philosophers, may now 
 enjoy the quaint irony and earnestness of these 
 words, it is because even a defeated party can afford 
 to smile at absurdities which they have outgrown. 
 We sometimes amuse ourselves with the errors of a 
 former age by turning them into a foil to modern 
 wisdom. But they may serve a graver purpc^se. 
 History, while it cheers us with evidences of prog- 
 
 2 (5) 
 
6 PHILOSOPHIA ULTIMA. 
 
 ress, likewise warns us tliat we are still fallible, 
 and possibly as to this ^ery class of questions more 
 than any other. 
 
 How far the nineteenth century is really in 
 advance of the seventeenth, as respects the great 
 problem of a logical affiliation of human science and 
 divine revelation, and consequent harmony of civili- 
 zation and Christianity, may be seriously argued. 
 Since the age of Kepler there have indeed been 
 changes for the better. Astronomy no longer dis- 
 turbs the current interpretation of scripture; theo- 
 logy has grown more tolerant of scientific opinion; 
 and the memorable lessons of the controversy are 
 not yet sj)ent in other fields of inquiry. But what 
 progress has been made toward a settlement of the 
 general question involved in such conflicts? How 
 much nearer are we to a philosophy or fixed doctrine 
 of the reciprocal relations of reason and revelation, 
 of science and theology? What broad surveys have 
 we of their distinct provinces and common ground? 
 What clear discriminations of their respective me- 
 thods and laws, and of their logical and historical 
 interaction? And what systematic attempts at har- 
 monizing and organizing the existing bodies of knowl- 
 edge which they have developed? Must not every 
 enlightened observer admit that the field of contro- 
 versy has been widening rather than contracting; 
 that the state of parties throughout that field grows 
 more involved and serious; and that the tenor of the 
 
PIIILOSOPIIIA ULTIMA. 7 
 
 strife is already critical? And is it to be maintained, 
 that this is the normal or final relationship of the two 
 interests? Are they of necessity and always mutu- 
 ally indifferent, antagonistic, and exterminating? Or, 
 do they admit of gradual reunion, coincidence, and 
 harmony ? 
 
 These are questions which begin to force them- 
 selves upon thoughtful minds. They not only invite, 
 but require and deserve consideration. Their very 
 difficulty and delicacy are overborne by their urgency. 
 
 Viewed in one light, they are indeed suited to 
 daunt the most reckless speculation. What mortal 
 wisdom can reap two such vast fields of knowl- 
 edge, or bind into sheaves such varied harvests of 
 truth! How jealous is reason of faith, and faith of 
 reason! And how warily must either venture with- 
 in the bounds of the other! To link the jarring 
 sciences, material and moral, rational and reveak^d, 
 into one series, by one method, and to one aim ; to 
 organize a true hierarchy in this present anarchy of 
 knowledge, divine and human, — this is not tlie task 
 of any single mind or age; and wQve it in itself a 
 mere wordy pastime of philosophers, all earnest souls 
 would but shrink from it in proportion as they com- 
 prehend it. 
 
 Viewed in another light, however, such questions 
 only nerve w hile they tempt our curiosity. What a 
 mass of human interests hangs upon their issue! 
 What a medley of human opinions is involved in 
 
8 PHILOSOPHIA ULTIMA. 
 
 their solution! How all human duty and destiny 
 concentrate in the problem of reconciling the finite 
 with the Infinite reason ! and how all human history 
 points to the goal where science returns into Omni- 
 science, the earth becomes subject to man, and man 
 to God! The unity of nature and scripture, the har- 
 mony of theory and creed, the marriage of reason and 
 faith, the perfection of knowledge, the triumph of art, 
 the regeneration of society, — these, in their order, are 
 linked ideals of prophecy and philosophy, which at 
 once overawe and charm us into an enthusiasm that 
 must grow in fervor as it grows in humility and 
 caution. 
 
 History is full of analogies to support the idea that 
 great social movements do not burst upon the world 
 as mere happy accidents, or as the achievements of 
 distinguished leaders, but grow logically out of some 
 existing exigency^ known and felt by the few long 
 before it is seen by the many. The modern reforma- 
 tions in religion, science, and politics which we asso- 
 ciate with such names as Luther, Bacon, and Wash- 
 ington, and hail as the wonders of our era, may now 
 be traced back to causes secretly working for centuries 
 before, and be linked in a series of events binding the 
 whole past to the present, and the present to the 
 future. For thus does Providence rule the world in 
 order and reason. 
 
 An inquiry into the historical origin of the existing 
 schism between science and revelation, midit confirm 
 
PIIILOSOPHIA ULTIMA. 9 
 
 this principle. Having begun in a legitimate revolt 
 of reason from authority, that schism has grown up 
 into one of the great diseases or abuses of Protestant- 
 ism, calling for another reformation, to be as far in 
 advance, it may be, of the incidental evils of Protest- 
 antism, as Protestantism itself is in advance of the 
 evils of Catholicism; a reformation which may cure 
 the sectarianism and infidelity of the age, not by a 
 recoil to the dead catholicity of the past, but by the 
 growth of that new catholicity of the future, which 
 shall rest upon the demonstrated harmony of all 
 truth, and subsist in a spontaneous and universal con- 
 currence; and a reformation, too, which shall be none 
 the less real and thorough because gradual and peace- 
 ful in its progress. No more instructive chapter in 
 the history of philosophy could be written, than that 
 which should review the collisions of the theological 
 and scientific classes during the past three centuries, 
 and trace the rise of that anarchy of the sciences and 
 consequent anarchy of opinions, institutions, and in- 
 terests which has become the characteristic peril of 
 modern civilization. 
 
 The object of this essay, however, is simply a survey 
 of the present state of opinion upon the question, with 
 the view of showing that the opposition, so long ex- 
 isting between these two modes of knowledge, has 
 reached a critical stage, or amounts to a grave exi- 
 gency; and that philosophic and educational reforms 
 are already imminent and practicable. 
 
10 ririLosoriiiA ultima. 
 
 "It is a pleasure," saj's a master of ancient, as 
 quoted l^v tlie master of modern philosophy, "to 
 stand on the shore and to see ships tossed upon the 
 sea; a pleasure to stand in the window of a castle 
 and to see a battle, and the adventures thereof below; 
 but no pleasure is comparable to the standing on the 
 vantage-ground of truth, (a hill not to be commanded, 
 and where the air is always clear and serene,) and to 
 see the errors, and wanderings, and mists, and tem- 
 pests in the vale below; so always, that this prospect 
 be with pity and not with swelling or pride." But, 
 when the survey is to be for use rather than pleasure, 
 even the bird's-eye view of a battle-field, bounded 
 only by the horizon of thought, covered all over with 
 the smoke of controversy, and whereon not kings or 
 peoples alone, but great ideas are striving for the 
 mastery, with lasting interests of humanity staked 
 upon the issue, — how it behooves us to lay aside all 
 prejudice as well as pride, and, like Moses at Ajalon, 
 pray only that the sun may not go down upon the 
 world till Truth shall come off victor. 
 
 Though there may be nothing like extended organ- 
 ization, or avowed concert underneath the vast medley 
 of modern philosophical opinion, yet throughout the 
 educated mind of the age, that mind which garners 
 the past and forecasts the future, there has been a 
 steady, silent growth of feelings and beliefs, which, at 
 least, admit of being described, compared, and esti- 
 mated. We see them reflected and contrasted in the 
 
PniLOSOPIIIA ULTIMA. 11 
 
 periodical literature of the day so clearly, that the 
 whole community of the learned, as they stand af- 
 fected to the question, may be divided into classes 
 or parties, none the less real because never visibly 
 arrayed or organized. 
 
 If, in here grouping and showing them together in 
 a body, we do not cite well-known writers and sys- 
 tems, let this be because it would be as needless as 
 difficult in a plan designed to reflect not merely all 
 actual, but all possible shades of opinion; and be- 
 cause, too, it may be well that we should not bewilder 
 the view with any mere personalities, but remember 
 only, as we gaze into the vast spectrum of human 
 conceit and error, that it is the one ray of truth there 
 thrown into such brilliant distortion, and that not 
 less our own little foible than another's, must first be 
 purged to form the perfect prism of knowledge. 
 
 Of the classes to be reviewed, the two largest and 
 most marked, are those who are averse and those 
 who are inapt to this great work of harmonizing the 
 knowledge of man with the knowledge of God. 
 
 If we except the few minds inclined by peculiar 
 taste to the inquiry, it would doubtless be found that 
 large bodies of scholars and thinkers are more or less 
 averse to its prosecution. Through some educational 
 or professional bias, or without any reflection, they 
 acquiesce in the present anomalous relations of reason 
 and revelation as necessary, unimportant, or even 
 desirable. They may be graded, according to their 
 
12 PIIILOSOPHIA ULTIMA. 
 
 decrees of aversion, into extremists and indifferent- 
 ists, and paired in each class, according to their point 
 of departure, into theologians and philosophers. 
 
 To the extremists belong those theologians and 
 philosophers who depart into the extremes of dog- 
 matism and rationalism, or who respectively dog- 
 matize within the province of reason, or rationalize 
 within the province of revelation. They are the 
 poles apart upon every question into wdiich scripture 
 and science can enter. They insist each against the 
 other upon exclusive jurisdiction throughout the en- 
 tire domain of truth; or, if they admit common 
 ground, it is viewed as a battle-field, in which there 
 can be neither peace nor truce, but only deadly war- 
 fare, till one or the other is exterminated. 
 
 The theologian of this class would invade the 
 whole province of reason. The scriptures he takes 
 as a revelation, not merely in respect to strictly theo- 
 logical questions, but also in respect to such purely 
 scientific questions as the construction of the material 
 universe, the formation and antiquity of the earth, 
 and the physical and psychical organization of human 
 nature. Their allusions, in popular language, to such 
 sul)jects, are wrought by him into a kind of scientific 
 creed, wdiich he is ready to maintain in defiance of 
 all opposing theories, and to bind upon the conscience 
 as pure dogma or mystery of faith; and even when 
 his exegesis comes in collision with actual discoveries 
 of fact, rather than change it, he w^ill suppose a 
 
PIITLOSOPniA ULTIMA. 13 
 
 miracle where one would have been as useless as im- 
 probable. Theology is for him a stern mistress, 
 rather than the adored queen of the sciences, and 
 holds them in abject pupilage at her feet. 
 
 Examples of this kind of ultraist have never been 
 wanting. He has appeared at the dawn of every 
 science, ready to decide its questions by the weight 
 of ecclesiastical or scriptural authority, and to oppose 
 its discoveries by some physical or metaphysical doc- 
 trine drawn from the Bible. When the heliocentric 
 theory was first broached, he thought it not only in 
 conflict with the letter of inspiration, but with a dif- 
 ferent astronomy which he found in scripture, and 
 which permitted him to admire the wisdom and 
 goodness of Jehovah in immovably fixing the earth's 
 plane and cope, and causing the heavenly luminaries 
 to rise and set over the scene of human happiness. 
 In our day, he is dogmatizing in a similar manner 
 within the province of geology. The whole problem 
 of ethnology he has settled in advance. And in 
 psychology, sociology, and theology, he does not even 
 admit any action of reason, but denounces it as the 
 foe or rival of revelation. 
 
 At the opposite extreme is the philosopher of the 
 same class. He would invade the whole province of 
 revelation. The natural reason he deems competent 
 to deal not only with philosophical problems, but even 
 with the high theological problems of creation, incar- 
 nation, and judgment, of duty, destiny, and eternity. 
 
14 PIIILOSOPIIIA ULTIMA. 
 
 By means of its crude surmises he frames a kind of 
 theological tlieory Avhich he weighs against all inspired 
 teaching, and claims to supj^ort with a purely rational 
 demonstration; and when any of his researches or 
 speculations appear inconsistent with received inter- 
 pretation of scripture, he is in haste not merely to 
 unsettle that interpretation, but to impugn the very 
 fact of inspiration, together with the entire doctrinal 
 system it upholds. Science becomes in his hands a 
 crazed parricide, rather than the sane daughter of 
 theology, and with every new discovery aims a 
 deadly bloAv at the very breasts which nurtured 
 her. 
 
 If it be maintained that the former species of 
 ultraist is on the decline, it must be granted that 
 this latter is on the increase. He has been embold- 
 ened by the marvels of modern research and the 
 tolerance of the age to advance from the portal to 
 the very shrine of revealed truth. One doctrine after 
 another he is assailing with scientific theories, and 
 undermining by speculative processes. The chris- 
 tology of scripture he thinks to have made obsolete 
 by the discovery, that our earth, once supposed to be 
 the scene of a divine incarnation and center of the 
 universe, is but an insignificant planet lost among 
 myriads of suns. Against its cosmogony, he arrays 
 the nebular hypothesis and the geologic ages. He 
 menaces its anthropology with the theory of indigen- 
 ous races. And as to its soterology, ecclesiology, and 
 
riTiLosopiiiA ULTnrA. 15 
 
 eschatology, he does not even admit the fact or need 
 of revelation, but dreams of another gospel, church, 
 and millennium, which are to be the pure product of 
 reason. 
 
 Thus the extremists, on both sides, reach a like 
 degree of divergence and opposition, and in their aims 
 or tendencies are alike destructive. Were either to 
 prevail against the other, an original power of human 
 nature would be annulled, and a vast accumulation 
 of human knowledge dispersed. The real issue made 
 by them, however unwittingly, is whether philosophy 
 shall extirpate theology, or theology shall extirpate 
 philosophy ; or, stated more practically, whether civil- 
 ization shall reduce Christianity to superstition, or 
 Christianity reduce civilization to barbarism. 
 
 Now, the prime error of such ultraism is plainly a 
 false view of the normal relations of reason and revela- 
 tion. There is nothing in the idea of either to neces- 
 sitate collision or conflict. Viewed in the abstract, the 
 finite and the infinite mind, the divine and the human 
 intelligence, cannot be presumed to be in a state of 
 logical opposition. Each may have its own distinct 
 sphere, method, and aim; and, at the same time, 
 safely concede the like to the other. To put them 
 at war, would be only to force them into abnormal 
 action. It may be taken as an axiom, that it is at 
 once contrary to reason to oppose revelation, and 
 contrary to revelation to oppose reason. So that, 
 where any antagonism springs up between them, it 
 
16 rillLOSOPIITA ULTIMA. 
 
 must be treated as simply anomalous, and such abate- 
 ments made as follows : — 
 
 1. It is apparent rather than real. Often it con- 
 sists of mere logomachy, which would disappear on 
 a close comparison of terms and views. Theological 
 creeds and scientific theories come into conflict, not 
 because of any actual disagreement between the facts 
 of nature and the truths of scripture, but solely be- 
 cause of some false exegesis on the one side, or some 
 false induction on the other. All truth must be 
 found consistent with itself, when freed from admix- 
 ture with error. 
 
 2. It is temporary rather than permanent. The 
 least developed sciences are those which are in this 
 stage of antagonism, while the most exact and com- 
 plete are already passing into one of lasting harmony. 
 As our philosophy and our theology mature, they 
 will correct and complement each other, until at 
 length they shall stand forth coincident. The nnity 
 of knowledge is as axiomatic as the unity of truth. 
 
 3. It is, in some of its effects, salutary rather than 
 hurtful. By means of it, the several growths of 
 reason and revelation in history have been disen- 
 tangled, and left to a freer and more fruitful develop- 
 ment. The former have been emancipated from 
 ecclesiastical domination and fanatical interference, 
 and the latter from unsafe alliances with bigotry 
 and superstition; while in both departments new 
 enthusiasms have been kindled and a minuter divi- 
 
PIIILOSOPUTA ULTIMA. 17 
 
 sion of labors promoted. The fiercest controversy 
 has only disciplined them, and, in the end, found 
 them to be but friends who had mistaken each other 
 for foes. 
 
 By such proofs as these, it may be shown that 
 the two kinds of cognition, whatever else they may 
 be, are not hostile and exterminant, but distinct 
 and separate, limiting each other with boundaries 
 which neither can pass except at its own peril. Let 
 the philosopher, then, who would invade theology be 
 w^arned by that heathen fable wherein '^men and 
 gods are represented as unable to draw Jupiter to 
 earth, but Jupiter able to draw them up to heaven ;" 
 and let the theologian who would invade philosophy, 
 be warned by that saying of a Christian sage, "If 
 you will try to chop iron, the ax becomes unable to 
 cut even wood." 
 
 In contrast with this class, and perhaps occasioned 
 by it, is another which we have termed the indiffer- 
 entists. These are the theologians and philosophers 
 who insist upon a strict indifference between reason 
 and revelation, or who would respectively have 
 reason to rationalize without revelation, and revela- 
 tion to dogmatize without reason. They stand aloof 
 from every question into which scripture and science 
 can enter. In mutual dread of inva^^icm, they seem 
 to have agreed upon a division and joint occupancy 
 of the domain of truth, while as to any common 
 ground between them, they will keep up a kind of 
 
18 rniLOSOPniA ultima. 
 
 armed neutrality or truce until either shall have 
 demonstrated his power to take and hold it in 
 defiance of the other. 
 
 The theologian of this class does not invade, but 
 sim})ly ignores the province of reason. In his view, 
 the facts of nature have nothing to do with the 
 truths of scripture, and are to be treated as abso- 
 lutel}- irrelevant. When any scientific theory assails 
 his exegesis, he is at no pains to inquire into the 
 relative truth or value of either; and when any 
 scientific discovery sheds new illustration upon a 
 revealed doctrine, he shuns it as a questionable ad- 
 mixture of the sacred with the secular or profane. 
 He clings to the interpretations of a former and 
 darker age, and, in the face of all the light of mod- 
 ern research, refuses either to correct or improve 
 them. Theology, the true mother of the sciences, 
 is turned by him into a monster w4io spurns them 
 even when they come with joined hands to kneel at 
 her feet. 
 
 This species of neutral is a creature of modern 
 controversy. Alarmed at the disastrous inroads of 
 skepticism, he is fain to think there can be no peace 
 or safety but in indifferency, and will therefore allow, 
 within the limits of orthodoxy, the most opposite 
 opinions upon scientific questions. In astronomy, he 
 will not inquire whether other worlds also illustrate 
 the God of scripture, or are but a mere meaningless 
 waste of matter. In geology, he will not decide 
 
PHILOSOPHIA ULTIMA. 10 
 
 whether the earth has 2:)assed through long eras of 
 creation, or was literally stratified, with all its fossils, 
 in the space of a week. In ethnology, he is loth to 
 face the prohlem, whether the unity of the race is 
 one of origin or of nature. In psychology, he is now 
 a materialist and then a sjDiritualist. In sociology, 
 he is by turns absolutist or reformer. In theology, 
 he is unconsciously half deist or half pantheist. 
 Certain only of his revealed creed, he is dubious of 
 all rational researches. 
 
 As his counterpart, we have the philosopher of the 
 same class. He would not invade, but only ignore 
 the province of revelation. Its mysteries are in his 
 eyes too transcendental and vague to be included in 
 exact scientific inquiries. Should his theories run 
 counter to any reigning doctrine or interpretation of 
 scripture, he is in nowise troubled at the discrep- 
 anc}', or should they seem to require any of its ideas 
 or records for their OAvn rational support, he almost 
 scorns them as unscientific and prejudicial. Even his 
 vocabulary has become more pagan than Christian. 
 His God is but the abstraction of a "Great First 
 Cause" or a personification called "Nature," and all 
 divine works and purposes are to him but "phenom- 
 ena," with their "causes" and "laws." The very 
 notion of a Creator he lias banished from the crea- 
 tion, and thus rendered any unity of knowledge or 
 of research impossible. The sciences, torn In liim 
 from that theology which nurtured them, have gone 
 
20 pniLOSoniiA ultima. 
 
 lurth, ii \vraiigliiig sisterhood, to wander, estranged, 
 and disbanded. 
 
 As tlie loniKT kind of neutral sprang from the re- 
 action against infidelity, so this latter sprang from 
 the reaction against sectarianism. Perplexed at the 
 medley of creeds and churches, he despairs of any 
 certainty, and though the strictest precisian in sci- 
 ence, will be content to become the veriest latitudin- 
 arian upon all theological questions. In bibliology, 
 he is at a loss whether to treat the Bible as the one 
 catholic revelation or as a kind of Hebrew classic. In 
 christology, he cannot decide whether to regard Jesus 
 as the second person in a divine trinity or as a Naza- 
 rene peasant. In anthropology, he is not certain 
 whether mankind are in a state of sin and misery or 
 in a stage of imperfect development. In soterology, 
 he knows not whether the Saviour of the world was 
 the Lamb of God or the most heroic of martyrs. In 
 ecclesiology, he doubts whether the church is a visi- 
 ble organization or an invisible communion of saints. 
 In eschatology, he queries whether the resurrection, 
 judgment, heaven and hell, are solemn realities or 
 oriental metaphors. Sure only of his scientific dis- 
 coveries, he looks with distrust upon all religious 
 inquiries. 
 
 Thus the indifierentists on both sides remain fixed 
 in like seclusion, and in their tendency are alike dis- 
 tracting. So long as the two thus avoid each other, 
 a kind of intellectual duplicity must needs be fostered, 
 
PHILOSOPHIA ULTIMA. 21 
 
 and rival arbiters of truth set up for the decision of 
 the most momentous questions. The experiment 
 they are making, tliough unconsciously, is that of 
 holding one thing in theology and another thing in 
 philosophy, or of rendering philosophy irreligious, 
 and theology irrational, while practically it tends to 
 an utter divorce of Christianity and civilization, with 
 an extravagant development of each, which would 
 only make their collision the more fearful and disas- 
 trous, whenever, in any great social crisis, they should 
 rebound from the forced separation. 
 
 Now^, as Ave found it with extremism, so is it with 
 this indiflferentism : the two parties proceed upon a 
 false view of their normal relations. Though they 
 are not antagonistic, yet neither are they indifferent. 
 Though they need not oppose, still less need they 
 avoid each other. However distinct may be their 
 spheres, there is, notwithstanding, intersection and 
 common ground. However diverse may be their 
 methods and aims, there must be interaction and 
 harmony. They in fact presuppose each other, and, 
 unless mutually complemented, would be alike power- 
 less and dead. Eeason admits and craves revelation; 
 revelation requires and stimulates reason. Whenever 
 then any separation arises between them, like that 
 which now exists as a reaction from their unnatural 
 conflict, this too is to be treated as anomalous, and in 
 various ways may be proven too serious to be over- 
 looked or palliated. 
 
 3 
 
22 PHILOSOPIIIA ULTIMA. 
 
 1. It is of the nature of a schism in the body of 
 truth. Even when it involves no strife of words or 
 of opini(^ns, no collision between creeds and theories, 
 yet, brliind the show of peace and concord, it leaves 
 the natural sundered from the supernatural, the dis- 
 covered from the revealed, the human from the di- 
 vine intelligence. As the connection between nature 
 and scripture insures the connection between philoso- 
 phy and theology, any forced severance of them tears 
 truth from truth which God hath joined together. 
 
 2. It is of an extent involving the whole mass of 
 knowledge. Instead of being partial or occasional, it 
 has become progressive and general. It may be 
 described as a vast schism which had its historical 
 origin in the Keformation and has since grown and 
 spread through all the sciences with a tide of in- 
 creasing disruption and anarchy. The time is passed 
 when theology could be called their nurse and mis- 
 tress. One after another they have been breaking 
 away from their ancient pupilage and running into 
 seclusion and estrangement, until at last the very 
 idea of a God, that only bond which can hold them 
 together, even as it alone can give unity to the 
 totality of phenomena upon which they proceed, has 
 been formally ignored, and it has become the opened 
 secret of the age that infidelity, once metaphysical, 
 is now scientific, and science, once theological, is now 
 all but atheistic. 
 
 If we seek the traces of this great rupture, we find 
 
PHILOSOPHIA ULTIMA. 23 
 
 them conspicuous, not merely in breaches or separii- 
 tions, but also in actual controversies, waged at every 
 point of contact along the entire range of secular 
 and sacred learning. As we have seen, there is 
 no rational science in which are not to be found 
 discovered facts left detached from some needed 
 portion of revealed truth, and no revealed science 
 in which are not to be found fundamental doctrines 
 directly menaced by some scientific theory; while, 
 in the summary department of philosophy itself, we 
 have the two opposing hues marshalled, as if for a 
 last decisive encounter, by systems which array the 
 embodied results of human research against divine 
 revelation upon the avowed principle that science, 
 by the law of its growth, can only subsist upon the 
 extinction of theology and is destined at once to 
 destroy and supersede it. 
 
 Thus that body of knowledge commonly regarded 
 as most exact and certain is fast detaching itself, in 
 jarring fragments, from that body of knowledge com- 
 monly regarded as most sacred and beneficent. And 
 a feeling of the rupture may be said to pervade the 
 whole community of scholars, ranging between the 
 extremes of confident skepticism on the one side 
 and vague misgiving on the other, with an unsatis- 
 factory suspension of judgment among conservatives; 
 while among the masses, following the course of all 
 great intellectual movements, it is already diffusing 
 popular influences which may survive long after it 
 
24 PIIILOSOPHIA ULTIMA. 
 
 shall liave received sentence at the tribunal of phi- 
 losophy. 
 
 3. It is, in its issue, fraught with the direst evils. 
 No mere war of abstractions or strife of logic, it is 
 ahwith- unfolding its disastrous effects in every 
 sphere of human interest. 
 
 As the first cLass of such evils may be cited that 
 very anarchy of the sciences which has been de- 
 scribed. Only the charlatan of the one ]3arty or the 
 bigot of the other could be blind to the wild confu- 
 sion and strife which now reign throughout the intel- 
 lectual domain. The genuine lover of truth for its 
 own sake, on whichever side he may be ranged, in- 
 stinctively recoils from this widening breach between 
 our knowledge of the works and of the word of God, 
 and craves all possible reconciliation, if only as an 
 intellectual necessity and a rational ideal. That 
 human science must yet reflect divine omniscience, 
 or that divine revelation must yet be supported by 
 a human demonstration, is at once a yearning and 
 a presentiment of the philosophic mind. Next in 
 strength and nobleness to the instinct which longs to 
 have all truth is that which longs to have all truth 
 consistent with itself. 
 
 As a second class of evils, and consequent upon 
 the former, may be named that derangement of the 
 educational system, secularization of learning and 
 sectarianism of the professions, in which the great 
 schism has practically expressed itself. The mere 
 
PHILOSOrniA ULTIMA. 25 
 
 pedants of either side, the divines and savans, sun- 
 dered by professional antipathies that render them 
 almost incapable of appreciating each other's peculiar 
 enthusiasm, will indeed be content with routine 
 labors and special researches and seek no intel- 
 lectual commerce beyond their own province; but 
 original seekers for truth and actual contributors to 
 the world's stock of knowledge in all the walks of 
 learning soon find themselves meeting together on 
 the high ground of first principles, and in proportion 
 as they there realize a community of opinions and 
 aims will they escape hurtful collision and further 
 each his own beneficent mission. In seeking thus to 
 found the catholicity of learning upon the unity of 
 science, philosophy puts on the garb of philanthropy 
 and the lover of truth becomes also the lover of his 
 kind. 
 
 As a third and still more obvious class of evils 
 may be mentioned that skepticism in religion, radical- 
 ism in politics, and sensualism in art, (both industrial 
 and aesthetic,) w^hich are the final results of such 
 schismatic knowledge and culture. A few extrem- 
 ists may affect to regard this sore conflict between 
 reason and authority, order and progress, mate- 
 rial and spiritual culture, as normal, necessary, 
 or incurable; but there are, this hour, in all lands 
 and classes, enthusiastic believers in social regenera- 
 tion as at once v>^ithin the vision of prophecy and the 
 scope of history. And it is by the disappearance of 
 
26 PIIILOSOPHIA ULTIMA. 
 
 the soctariaiiism of science alone that they may hope 
 for the disappearance of the sectarianism of learning, 
 religion, and politics. For, since the ideas of philo- 
 sophers at length become the opinions of the people, 
 a logical compact of truth and knowledge among 
 thinlvcrs and scholars must, sooner or later, be fol- 
 lowed by a practical compact of institutions and 
 interests among the masses. In thus striving after 
 the perfection of science, philosophy comes to the aid 
 of humanity in its effort after the perfection of society. 
 
 It is indeed true, as has already been hinted, that 
 each of these great evils may have some incidental 
 and compensating good. This dissection of the sci- 
 ences, in so far as it is merely artificial and logical, 
 may be as convenient as it is unavoidable ; this profes- 
 sional zeal and academic prejudice, by dividing the 
 task of philosophy, may promote research and erudi- 
 tion; and even these social conflicts of diverse creeds, 
 theories, and systems, by carrying the great battle of 
 civilization from the region of abstraction into that of 
 reality, may only the more conspicuously relieve 
 truth and virtue against error and vice. But when 
 we have duly acknowledged such mercies of our tran- 
 sitional state, there still remain the duty and the 
 testimony of further progress and higher improve- 
 ment. Even while we hail these straggling gleams of 
 light, we only see the darkness more plainly and 
 long for the day-spring. 
 
 In this manner it is to be shown that the two 
 
PHILOSOPHIA ULTIMA. 27 
 
 kinds of science, the rational and the revealed, 
 though they may not be in a state of deadly warfare, 
 are nevertheless in a state of direful schism, for the 
 healing of which both parties should yearn and labor. 
 When either the philosopher would dream of dis- 
 pensing with theology or the theologian of dispensing 
 with philosophy, let both remember the vital bonds 
 which join them in a blessed marriage, and dread 
 any coldness between them, as alike with any con- 
 flict fatal to the cause of truth and humanity. 
 
 We next pass, in our hurried review, from those 
 who are averse to those who are inapt to the great 
 reconciliation. There is a large body of scholars, 
 who, while rightly inclined, are still unfit for the 
 work. Though impressed with its necessity and 
 vastness, yet from some defect of mere intellectual 
 temperament or training, they either fail in the effort 
 or relinquish it as hopeless. We divide them into 
 impatients and despon dents. 
 
 As impatients may be classed those theologians 
 and philosophers who are in haste to combine their 
 several fruits of research, but overlook, the one the 
 claims of reason, and the other the claims of reve- 
 lation. No border question can arise which they will 
 not at once force to a settlement. Already sure of 
 the ideal unity of truth, they would also make sure 
 of the ultimate system of knowledge and range over 
 each other's domain in search of materials for its con- 
 struction; while, in the sphere of practice, they will 
 
28 PIIILOSOPHIA ULTIMA. 
 
 Straightway organize upon its basis the ultimate sj^s- 
 tem of society. 
 
 The theologian of this mood is in haste to 
 api)roi)riate the whole existing product of reason. 
 Throughout the rational division of each science 
 he strays, sifting theories and culling facts to be 
 wrought into his exegesis. Astronomy is made to 
 localize his heaven and hell and yield the scenic 
 material of his judgment. Geology simply enacts 
 his dramatic week of the creation. Anthropology 
 merely upholds his Adamite covenant. Psychology 
 shows him the play of his doctrines. Sociology gives 
 him the scaffolding and waste material of his church 
 polity. And even rational theology is taught to pro- 
 nounce his formulas of the trinity and the incarna- 
 tion. Science is degraded by him from a handmaid 
 to a mere slave of theology and put to the drudgery 
 of propagandism. 
 
 This kind of impatient is an offspring of modern 
 dogmatism in forced alliance with rationalism. His 
 creed, involving thus a mere crude mass of extraneous 
 knowledge, is cherished by him as the sum of truth; 
 and not content with it as mere dogma, he will some- 
 times be found pressing it through all practical spheres 
 as the only cure of the existing social anarchy. He 
 becomes the zealot, who would heal the divisions of 
 philosoph}- at the fount of ecclesiastical infallibility, 
 or lull the dissensions of politics with peace-societies 
 and world's congresses, or resolve the sects of religion 
 
PHILOSOPHIA ULTIMA. 29 
 
 by himself adding another to the medley, or by 
 gravely inviting the rest of Christendom to flock into 
 his church and proceed to organize the millennium 
 upon his platform. A seducing prophet only, he 
 builds the walls of Zion with untempered mortar, 
 and, amid the clash of opinions and the shock of 
 arms, still cries peace, when there is no peace. 
 
 But not less marked is his mate, the philosopher 
 of the same temper. He would appropriate the 
 whole existing product of revelation. From the 
 revealed portion of each science he draws doctrines 
 and texts for the support of his theories. His latest 
 astronomical speculations he finds hinted at in the 
 Book of Job and the Psalms. His geological epochs 
 he unfolds with scientific j^recision from the first 
 chapter of Genesis. His studies in ethnology he 
 spices with the Mosaic record and doctrine of races. 
 His psychology he is pleased to have foreshadowed 
 by the metaphysical writings of the New Testament. 
 His sociology can take many hints from the propheti- 
 cal scriptures. And even his absolute religion he 
 admits to be only the full outgrowth of Judaism and 
 Christianity. Theology is degraded by him from a 
 queen to a mere vassal of science, and chained to the 
 chariot of progress. 
 
 This kind of impatient differs from the other in 
 being an offspring of modern rationalism in forced 
 alliance with dogmatism. His hasty digest of truth 
 he exalts as the ideal of all philosophic yearning, 
 
30 PIIILOSOPIIIA ULTIMA. 
 
 and, Irst it be thought a mere dream of the clois- 
 ter, he ^\ ill sometimes, guised as a harbinger of so- 
 cial regeneration, emerge with it into actual life and 
 be heard piping its pastorals through all the din of 
 the great battle between truth and error. He be- 
 comes the reformer who, in this wayward youth of 
 ci\ilization, would inaugurate the mature reign of 
 reason and peace, and, taking the common notions of 
 charity, equality, fraternity, first broached in scrip- 
 ture and proper only to the communion of saints, 
 proceeds to erect, over the very embers of revolution, 
 like villages upon the slope of a volcano, his little 
 sequestered arcadias, experimental Utopias, phalan- 
 steries, communities, which we are invited to admire 
 as actual models of Christian society and advanced 
 samples of the millennium. False Messiah of the 
 latter day, he cries lo ! here, or lo ! there, and would 
 force the social passions into a hollow compact which 
 is but like the truce of Herod and Pilate when Christ 
 is to be mocked and crucified. 
 
 Thus the impatients on both sides are running into 
 the like absurdity, and would precipitate the same 
 evils. In so far as they prevail, they only fret the 
 cords already strained between philosophy and the- 
 ology, and threaten to wreck both Christianity and 
 civilization in worse anarchy. 
 
 Against such impatience it need only be urged that 
 the existing are not the normal relations of reason 
 and revelation. While in the abstract they are har- 
 
PHILOSOPHIA ULTIMA. 31 
 
 monious, yet, as at present developed and adjusted, 
 they alike demand of their votaries a spirit of 
 mutual deference and conciliation, and a system of 
 preliminary rules of equal force upon both, in all 
 their joint researches. Any forced combination of 
 their several products, like that now so frequently 
 attempted, overlooks their present anomalous condi- 
 tion, and is, for several reasons, to be discouraged. 
 
 1. It is at best specious and partial. Too often it 
 consists of a mere rude welding of creeds with theo- 
 ries; devoid of any rational consistence, and leaving 
 out large portions of fact or mixing others with mere 
 conjecture. No cognitive system can be real and 
 universal which simply accepts or rejects the results 
 of research at the bidding of prejudice, and then 
 works them into a fantastic composition to please a 
 devout or philosophic fancy. Every attempt at a 
 summation of truth which proceeds in the interest of 
 either party, so far from involving a thorough fusion 
 of know^ledge with knowledge, can only issue in a 
 crude amalgam of fact and hypothesis, of fiction and 
 reality. 
 
 2. It is, in its mode of action, illogical. Instead of 
 patiently waiting for a strict induction and full exe- 
 gesis, it takes the existing, imperfect results of both, 
 and blindly, without any reference to first principles, 
 proceeds to combine them, forcing nature out of its 
 sphere as a mere witness to scripture, and scripture 
 out of its sphere as a mere witness to nature. So long 
 
32 PHILOSOPHIA ULTIMA. 
 
 as a scientific speculation is not verified, or a theo- 
 logical opinion is not demonstrated, the risk must re- 
 main, that, in using either for the benefit of the other, 
 Ave may l)e but driving truth into alliance with error. 
 The knoAvn in both is alone that which can or does 
 become consistent. Only when we have logically 
 adjusted the relations of reason and revelation, and 
 studied all the phenomena, upon which they are 
 respectively exercised, in their vital connections, and 
 without either philosophical or theological prejudice, 
 will we be able to frame that summative system by 
 means of which we may sift the ascertained from the 
 conjectural, fuse the discovered and revealed, and 
 so build the temple of knowledge with the lasting 
 cement of truth. 
 
 3. It is, in its scope, premature. Without project- 
 ing any scheme of logical reconciliation throughout 
 the rational and revealed sciences, but simply because 
 their established portions here and there are coming 
 into harmony, it goes precipitately to work upon the 
 vast remainder, and would mold it at once into a 
 system. And yet, we are now only in the first stages 
 of the great affiliation. Fiercer strifes may still 
 await us, in the more undeveloped sciences, than any 
 we have survived. If astronomy could make such 
 warfare, at the mere outposts of revelation, when it 
 dwarfed the earth into an atom in space ; if geology, 
 at the walls of the fortress, strikes such a panic now 
 that it threatens to reduce man to an ephemeron in 
 
PHILOSOPHIA ULTIMA. 33 
 
 time ; and if ethnology is actually jarring the foun- 
 dations Avith its effort to degrade him to an autocli- 
 thon in the scale of being; what may we expect, 
 when, at length, the citadel is assailed by those 
 sciences which, like biology, psychology, and soci- 
 ology, having human nature for their subject, and 
 involving all the great questions of human duty and 
 destiny, shall impinge upon the most peculiar topics 
 of inspiration, upon the actual contents as w^ell as 
 credentials of the heavenly message ? He would be 
 blind indeed to all the lessons of history, who dreams 
 that reason and revelation have yet reached the limit 
 either of their opposition or contribution to each 
 other; and if we may be cheered by past triumphs, 
 not less should w^e be warned to prepare for coming 
 trials. 
 
 4. It is, in its whole practical aim, visionary. Not 
 only does it presume, without any truly rational 
 process, to have reached the final system of knowl- 
 edge, but it hastens to organize it in defiance of 
 the present social state. Whereas, even if it were 
 the true ideal, it is not to be forced upon the world 
 in the w^ay of artificial reform and social reconstruc- 
 tion. When it comes, as it silently pervades the 
 influential mind, it may bring with it an organizing 
 force of its own, which, without visible concert, pass- 
 ing through and beneath all mere institutions, shall 
 slowly dissolve and recompose the whole existing 
 civilization. For aught we can tell, the present sys- 
 
34 PIIILOSOPHIA ULTIMA. 
 
 tern of church and state, with all its jarring sects and 
 governments, may be left upon the pathway of time 
 as a mere worn chrysalis, out of which society shall 
 have struggled forth into new life and freedom, and 
 the entire political organization of the race, at the 
 time when the nations shall be fused in truth and 
 tranquilized by love, have an aspect of patriarchal 
 simplicity, or be molded into some new and homo- 
 geneous structure of which no type can now be found. 
 But, whatever it may be, we can at least be sure that 
 it is not to be wrought out of existing institutions, or 
 by immediate efforts. Certainly no sect, political or 
 ecclesiastical, now shows the means of assimilating 
 all the rest as by sheer propagandism, or through any 
 plastic force ; and no theory of human perfectibility 
 that has yet been broached could, by the mere dis- 
 play of its charms, lull the social tumult to peace. 
 
 We must therefore grant that the two parties, as 
 now related, cannot at once be brought into a just, safe, 
 and lasting union. By rashly overstepping the limits 
 which still sunder them, and illogically proceeding 
 to a forced compact of their several bodies of knowl- 
 edge, they simply come into false relations, which 
 must sooner or later dissolve and throw them apart 
 again with harsh recoil and estrangement. Let not 
 philosophy offend the oracle it would consult, by an 
 irreverent spirit; and let not theology repel the in- 
 telligence it would claim, by an irrational process; 
 but let each learn the other's virtues and laws, and 
 
I 
 
 PHILOSOPHIA ULTIMA. 35 
 
 only join hands in the oneness of truth and upon 
 the sure footing of mutual faith and love. 
 
 But now, in opposition to this class, and, perhaps, 
 in reaction from it, appears the other, which we have 
 called the despondents. These are the theologians 
 and philosophers who despair of any reconciliation, 
 and can but lament themselves as doomed to their 
 present relations. The strifes and breaches between 
 them they see no way of healing. From the ideal 
 unity of truth they turn away to the actual disorder 
 of knowledge, and wander amid its wilderness as in 
 a maze of contradiction and anomaly; while, in the 
 practical sphere, they are consistently led to disavow 
 all attempts at social amelioration, and to give up 
 even the hope of human progress. 
 
 The theologian of this mood will disparage not 
 less revelation than reason. He looks upon both as 
 belonging to an earthly and transitory state, and 
 hereafter to be merged and lost in the rapt intuition 
 and full apocalypse of truth. The one is so erring 
 and the other so meager, he cannot hope they will 
 ever together yield enough of knowledge to displace 
 all ignorance, or indeed do scarcely aught else than 
 show their own necessary imperfection. To com- 
 l)ine the mysteries of nature with those of scrip- 
 ture, he will maintain, must only breed increased 
 perplexity, and will bewail the present chaos of 
 creeds and theories as but the inevitable and fiiiul 
 state of earthly knowledge. Astronomy, in his view, 
 
3G PHILOSOPHIA ULTIMA. 
 
 is only making the riddle of creation more complex ; 
 geology, vainly trying to be wiser than Genesis ; eth- 
 nology, dragging the inspired genealogy back into the 
 mists of fable; psychology, swaying in the paradox of 
 fate and free-will; sociology, probing questions that 
 belong to prophecy; and even divinity, scaling mys- 
 teries that require another revelation. His theology 
 bids adieu to science as a lorn child of earth, and 
 seeks some mystic elysium in the skies. 
 
 This type of despondent is a growth of modem 
 pietism in its revolt from rationalism. Traversing, 
 it may be, one after another, the speculative theog- 
 onies in which philosophy has striven to swallow up 
 theology, he becomes appalled at her profane attempt 
 to reconstruct the universe by mere logical process, 
 and flies for refuge to some easy creed of paradoxes, 
 retaining the mass of truths in a state of simple con- 
 tradiction. And having thus cut the gordian knot 
 of controversy, he thereby detaches himself in actual 
 life from all resultant social movements. He is the 
 ascetic who despairs of earthly society as hopelessly 
 corrupt and irredeemable, or he becomes in some form 
 and degree the millennarian, whose cure for its intel- 
 lectual and moral disorder is a new miraculous dis- 
 pensation to be inaugurated by the visible return and 
 reign of Messiah, and who therefore takes the present 
 dispensation as simply intercalated in order to sift 
 out the elect from mankind, while all its accumu- 
 lated sciences, arts, and polities are to be viewed as 
 
PHILOSOrniA ULTIMA. 37 
 
 mere splendid rubbish of sin, soon to be wrecked in 
 the flames of a vast judicial conflagration. 
 
 Of like gloomy temper is the philosopher of the 
 same chass. He would disparage not less reason tlian 
 revelation. In his view, they are both occupied with 
 questions which are insolvable, and upon which to- 
 gether they can shed only enough of light to make 
 the darkness visible; the one serving no better pur- 
 pose than to show the unrevealed to be unrevealable, 
 and the other no higher aim than to prove the undis- 
 covered to be undiscoverable. He will even argue 
 that their joint process must have its logical goal in 
 the incomprehensible and unknown, and will cite the 
 meager conclusions in which they unite as proof that 
 all our knowledge is but a laborious learning of our 
 ignorance. He finds no choice between the inspired 
 and the speculative cosmogonies; between the myths 
 of paganism and the miracles of Judaism; between 
 the predestination of scripture and the fatahsm of 
 nature; between the millennium of the prophet and 
 the Utopia of the philosopher; and for him tlie un- 
 searchable Jehovah and the notional Absolute are 
 alike the unknown God. Science is to him but a 
 cruel Sphinx, whose smile only mocks while it charms, 
 and at whose feet even Theology must sit in dumb 
 despair. 
 
 This type of despondent diflers from the other in 
 being a growth of modern skepticism in its revolt 
 from dogmatism. Long familiar, it may be, with 
 
 4 
 
38 PITILOSOPHIA ULTIMA. 
 
 those mystic theodicies by which theology has 
 striven to supersede philosophy, he becomes disgusted 
 at her fond effort to array the universe as a mere 
 didactic marvel, and lapses to some bald creed of 
 negations retaining in itself the merest fragment 
 of truth. And having thus shorn away his whole 
 faith, he loses all motive to humane exertion. He 
 becomes the cynic, who sneers at the present social 
 state as but a kind of tragic farce; or the optimist, 
 who accepts it as fixed and unimprovable; or the 
 fatalist, who dooms it to certain vast cycles or recur- 
 rences, like the stages of growth and decline in 
 nature, and pensively sighs over the grandeur and 
 decadence of empires, arts, and sciences as but the 
 melancholy lesson of all human history. 
 
 Thus the despondents on both sides are falling into 
 apathy, and would alike paralyze all effort. If they 
 can be said to admit any question between theology 
 and philosophy, it is only to adjourn it at once to 
 another life, or reduce it to a nullity; while the 
 whole existing civilization and Christianity they 
 treat as simply experimental and abortive. 
 
 Against this last and most specious of the errors 
 under review, it only remains to urge that the pros- 
 pective must grow out of the existing relations of 
 reason and revelation. Though neither is now in 
 full harmony with the other, yet both are in an 
 actual process of reconciliation. Far distant as may 
 seem their destined coincidence, yet we are at least 
 
PIIILOSOPHIA ULTIMA. 39 
 
 at its beginnings, and may already strive for its ac- 
 complishment. The despair that, on account of some 
 first failures, would abandon it, or postpone it to an 
 ideal heaven or a future dispensation, is to be re- 
 buked for several reasons : — 
 
 1. Its spirit is weak and ignoble. What if it ha 
 true, that all present knowledge must soon be lost in 
 beatific vision, or be eclipsed by millennial glory, or 
 is at best but confused and meager, — shall we there- 
 fore despise it, and make no effort to purge and in- 
 crease it? Had the generations before us so thought 
 and acted, where now would have been the Chris- 
 tianity and civilization which adorn our era? So 
 long as we are on the earth, and memJDers of the 
 race it nourishes, it will be a high duty, as well as 
 instinct, to swell the tide of truth in all lands 
 through all time. Better far to toil after even an 
 impossible ideal of knowledge, than to sink in supine 
 ignorance; better to yearn after the boundless un- 
 known as ever knowable, than to despair of it as 
 unknowable. The worthy aim and rational goal of 
 science is not nescience, but omniscience. 
 
 2. Its premises are narrow and unfounded. Be- 
 cause the rational and revealed sciences are as yet 
 imperfect and discordant, it does not follow that 
 reason and revelation themselves are defective and 
 in need of some miraculous readjustment. We can- 
 not, in fact, conceive of any better, or any other 
 modes of cognition, than those with which we are 
 
40 niiLOSorniA ultima. 
 
 now familiar. A future state, wherein the soul is to 
 seize tlir whole infinitude of truth by one swift intui- 
 tion, or in one blazing apocalypse, is but the chimera 
 of a devout fancy. As the Infinite mind has been 
 gradual in unfolding the universe, so must the finite 
 mind be gradual in reviewing it; and if the Creator 
 passes through chaos to cosmos in the process of 
 creation, shall not the creature, retracing that pro- 
 cess, be ofttimes bewildered and worn ere he reach 
 the vision and sabbath of perfect knowledge? It 
 would seem to result from their logical relations to 
 one another, that it is the function of the finite 
 reason to recapitulate the Infinite Reason; that in 
 this endless effort after the divine rationale of the 
 universe, the sciences must ever proceed as now by 
 joint intuition and experience, and in the order of 
 the creative logic from the simpler to the more 
 complex phenomena, from the radical to the com- 
 posite forces, from mathematics through physics and 
 ethics to theology — each resuming the one behind it, 
 and requiring the one before it; that since this prob- 
 lem of creation, upon which they are engaged, has 
 immensity for its scene and eternity for its scope, 
 both celestial and terrestrial races are combined in 
 the mighty argument on the basis of their present 
 material and spiritual organization; and that there 
 can be no pause nor retreat in their progress, but 
 only an eternal approximation of that fullness of 
 knowledge which shall be gained when all the 
 
PHILOSOPniA ULTIMA. 41 
 
 worlds of space shall have given up their secrets, 
 and all the ages of time shall liave unfolded then- 
 marvels, and God shall l)e all in alL 
 
 3.- It ignores past progress. Appalled at the vast- 
 ness of the unknown, it overlooks the known, and is 
 blind to the immense advance of the present over 
 former generations. Whereas, the actual history of 
 the sciences shows that they involve a logical unfold- 
 ing of the Infinite by the finite mind, and that the 
 law of their evolution is a gradual return into tliat 
 theology out of which they may seem to have Ijeen 
 departing, whereby, through their own discoveries, 
 they but authenticate the facts and prove the truths 
 of revelation. Astronomy has already emerged from 
 the mists of infidel criticism with an overwhelming 
 exhibition of the God of scripture as also the God of 
 nature, and the reasonable presumption is, that the 
 whole train of the sciences in their normal order 
 will follow, until the entire Deity as revealed shall 
 be also demonstrated; that illustration of his natural 
 attributes afforded by physics at length finding its 
 crown and complement in a still more glorious illus- 
 tration of his moral attributes at the hands of ethics. 
 Even geology may yet elucidate Genesis, and sociology 
 forecast the Apocalypse: the one by a scientific revi- 
 sion of the course of nature, and the other by a scien- 
 tific prevision of the course of humanity. And when 
 at length the terrestrial physics and ethics are thus 
 complete, there will be the means of projecting that 
 
42 PHILOSOPIIIA ULTIMA. 
 
 system of celestial physics and ethics, through which 
 to mount, in endless progression, toward the perfect 
 theology, or science of omniscience. To suppose that 
 this grand series could be rudely broken by a miracu- 
 lous millennium, and so much of it as already lies in 
 the past left without its logical sequel and comple- 
 ment in the future, would be to suj)pose an anomaly 
 for which all nature could give no analogy, precedent, 
 or palliation. 
 
 4. It mistakes the present social exigency. In all 
 ages, the vulgar mind has craved prodigies and catas- 
 trophes rather than the ordinary means of Providence 
 for the world's regeneration, and can still think of no 
 better corrective of its existing moral and intellectual 
 evils, than some new divine economy to be forced 
 upon it by means of destructive judgments, involving 
 vast planetary or political convulsions. In this re- 
 spect, the despondent differs from the impatient only 
 in seeking a miraculous rather than an artificial 
 reconstruction of society. It may be vain to argue 
 against such a vice of thought, blended as it often is 
 with the purest faith and zeal; and yet there will, 
 notwithstanding, always be those, having like faith 
 and zeal, whom it fails to satisfy, and who are con- 
 tent to look for a millennium which shall be an 
 intelligible triumph of the divine through the human 
 reason, over all error and sin ; a growing demonstra- 
 tion of truth, before which all false opinions and in- 
 stitutions shall slowly fade like mists and clouds of 
 
PHILOSOPHIA ULTIMA. 43 
 
 sunrise, until the whole race is transfigured and the 
 earth full of the glory of God. This view is to 
 be preferred for several reasons. 
 
 (1.) It is more in keeping with the analogies of 
 prophecy. No principle is plainer than that the tran- 
 sition of prophecy into histor}^ appears violent and 
 dramatic only in prospect. As the Christian economy 
 quietly resumed and carried forward the Hebrew 
 economy, so the milennial economy may prove to be 
 but the existing world as matured and perfected. Or 
 if a destruction of the present physical system be 
 within the scope of scripture and of nature, it would 
 seem that it could only be with a view to some more 
 glorious reconstruction, whereby the whole past shall 
 be taken up again into the future, even as Providence 
 has already erected the modern out of the ante-dilu- 
 vian world, and yet left both the individual and the 
 social constitution of the race unimpaired. 
 
 (2.) It is more in keeping with the analogies of 
 history. All philosophic historians are beginning to 
 conceive of the career of humanity as spiral rather 
 than circular, marked by average progression rather 
 than mere fruitless recurrences. Great men may live 
 and die, empires may rise and fall, civilizations may 
 flourish and decay; but the race itself, inheriting and 
 transmitting from one generation to another, always 
 survives, and, phenix-like, springs for bolder flights 
 and grander prospects. Hebrew, Greek, and Roman 
 ideas are still powerful in modern society, though the 
 
44 PHILOSOPHIA ULTIMA. 
 
 nations which wrought them out have ages since 
 perished. Can we believe, in the face of six thousand 
 years of such progress, that the social system is to be 
 arrested or destroyed? After all the advance that 
 has been made in the lapse of time, will any millen- 
 nium seem too distant or Utopian to have its growth 
 out of even this present world? 
 
 (3.) It is demanded by the organization of society. 
 According to that organization, the progress of the 
 arts depends upon the progress of the sciences, and 
 the former come to fruition in the order of the latter. 
 Already the physical arts are shedding a millennial 
 splendor in the marvels of printing, steam, and tele- 
 graphy, while the remaining series begin to presage 
 the decline of caste, war, and superstition, through 
 the agency of commerce, diplomacy, and philan- 
 thropy. And it enters into the very notion of social 
 regeneration, that this social structure should con- 
 tinue to be developed until its ideal is fully realized 
 and the whole race is intellectually, morally, and 
 physically transformed. Upon any other terms, a 
 millennium, properly speaking, is simply inconceiv- 
 able. 
 
 (4.) It harmonizes the otherwise conflicting inter- 
 ests which science and religion have fostered. In- 
 stead of abandoning both, or postponing both to some 
 vague, far hereafter, it begins at once to practically 
 unite the natural and the supernatural, the terres- 
 trial and the celestial, the human and the divine. In 
 
PHILOSOPIIIA ULTIMA. 45 
 
 its light, heaven is found to be but the full llower of 
 earth. Tlie kingdom of the heavens is that reahn of 
 planets, suns, and stars to which the earth is hotli 
 spiritually and materially linked, of which now we 
 have only some hints from celestial mechanics and 
 chemistry, but which shall yet be more fully unfolded 
 by celestial sociology and theology, as the abode of 
 our Father who is in the heavens, of whose Son the 
 whole family both in heaven and earth is named. 
 The world to come is to be thought of as being his- 
 torically developed out of the world that now is, and 
 the life of the individual so bound up in the life of 
 the race that both have their resurrection together, 
 whensoever the spiritual so predominate over the 
 material forces of the planet as to transfigure it into 
 an abode of truth and righteousness. Even the 
 coming of the Son of Man to judge both quick and 
 dead, and the triumphal meeting of saints and angels 
 in the skies, may be viewed as not less a crisis than a 
 pageant; the rational blending of the earthly into the 
 heavenly history; the winged globe bursting from its 
 chrysalis and blazoning its cross among the stars. 
 
 We therefore now conclude, after a full survey of 
 all modern opinion, that the two kinds of knowledge 
 by which it is divided are not only reconcilable, but 
 actually being reconciled. Let neither the philoso- 
 pher nor the theologian despair of their ultimate 
 coincidence, but rather let both strive together to 
 effect it, and therein hail at once the thorough fusion 
 
46 PHILOSOPIITA ULTIMA. 
 
 of Christianity and civilization, and the practical 
 union of earth and heaven. 
 
 And now, in the course of ages, through the divine 
 wisdom and goodness, the time seems at hand when 
 this great truth is by them both to be seized and 
 applied. The world is fast ripening for the issue. 
 After six thousand years, it presents at length the 
 two realms of Heathendom and Christendom under 
 the two phases of barbarism and civilization, mar- 
 shalled as if for the last conflict of error and truth ; 
 and it remains to be seen whether, through the union 
 of religion and science, civilization is not to be trans- 
 fused with Christianity, heathendom supplanted by 
 Christendom, earth joined to the kingdom of the 
 heavens, and mankind brought into the family of the 
 Universal Father. 
 
 Nor could there be conceived a problem more sub- 
 lime and momentous than that which is thus given to 
 our age to solve. To ascertain the respective spheres, 
 prerogatives, and methods of human reason and 
 divine revelation; to adjust their reciprocal rela- 
 tions on principles binding upon the adherents of 
 both; to apply such principles throughout the 
 sciences to all pending controversies, with the view 
 of sifting error from truth; to gather by this means 
 evidence of a growing harmony between the two 
 great bodies of knowledge, as they accumulate and 
 advance, supporting, interpenetrating, and illustrating 
 each other; in a word, to gradually heal that im- 
 
PIIILOSOPHIA ULTIMA. 47 
 
 mense schism which for centuries has been stealthily 
 invading the most cherished opinions and interests of 
 mankind, and thenceforward to link the divine and 
 human reason, in their joint process through coming 
 ages, against all earthly error and sin, — these are ob- 
 jects which have only to be stated in order to be felt 
 in all their moral value and grandeur. They are not 
 the transient concerns of any calling, sect, or party, 
 but the lasting and catholic interests of humanity. 
 And though no single mind or generation may achieve 
 them, yet the bare conception and attempt would 
 themselves be their own sufficient reward. To be 
 simply living at a time when such an ideal is but 
 beginning to dawn among men, must seem to one 
 who rises to its full comprehension, the richest boon 
 that has yet been conferred upon them, and, in the 
 first joy of its discovery, he might almost tremble 
 lest it be too good and glorious ever to become real, 
 or through some fault or want in nature, should fall 
 short of fulfillment, could he not find, on surveying 
 the scale and resources of creation, that the order of 
 the world is not less fixed than is its progress sure. 
 
 What is now needed is no new system or school of 
 philosophy, but rather the discovery and announce- 
 ment of vast movements of the philosophic mind, 
 involving all schools and systems in their sweep, 
 and destined, after centuries of hidden growth, to 
 be brought into conscious activity and visible co- 
 operation. The field of research, like a quarry 
 
48 PIlILOSOrillA ULTIMA. 
 
 wrought by successive generations, already lies 
 strewn with fragmentary truths, which are as the 
 chiseled stones of a structure hitherto without model 
 even in the fancy of the builders, as they wrought 
 apart each at his own task; but now, at last, the 
 plan of the Divine Architect is to be displayed, the 
 master-workmen in each science marshalled, and the 
 perfect temple of knowledge reared, to the glory of 
 God and for the good of mankind. 
 
 This mature effort and final task of the human 
 mind may be anticipated under the name of the 
 ultimate philosophy, or that last summative science 
 which is to be the fruit and goal and crown of all 
 the sciences, as well as the means of their highest 
 use and grandeur. Before the cognitive instinct can 
 be satisfied, and the mass of knowledge rendered 
 exact, coherent, and operative, the sciences them- 
 selves must be made the subject of science; must be- 
 come the material, as well as instrument, of research, 
 and their product, like other phenomena, be brought 
 within the sphere of rational prevision and control. 
 If we could imagine them perfected singly and apart, 
 there would still remain the work of bringing them 
 into logical connection, organizing them as a compact 
 system, and concentrating them intelligently upon the 
 social well-being; but this work really enters into their 
 growth as well as fruition, and is so essential, they 
 may as little thrive without it as branches severed 
 from a common tree. To discover these vital relations 
 
PlIILOSOPIIIA ULTIMA. 49 
 
 among them, to arrange them in their normal order, 
 to distinguish their kinds, measure their resources, 
 ascertain the laws of their evohition and interaction, 
 and at length frame a theory by means of which 
 their whole historic procedure may not only be re- 
 viewed and foreseen, but itself corrected, guided, and 
 matured, — this is the ideal of the ultimate philoso- 
 phy. Itself the latest offspring of science, equipped 
 with all means and modes of knowledge, it aims to 
 traverse the entire domain of intelligence, everywhere 
 sifting the known from the unknown, and gathering 
 the fragments of truth into an intelligible and consist- 
 ent whole. It is, in a word, that science of science 
 which science itself shall yield, and wherefrom are to 
 be shed upon the world the full flower and fruitage of 
 reason. 
 
 The conception, the necessity, the utility, the rise 
 and growth, and the method of this ultimate philoso- 
 phy, are topics which may be discussed at length 
 hereafter. Three great works or efforts are included 
 in its project: 1. Its construction out of the sciences. 
 2. Its application to the sciences. 3. Its consumma- 
 tion of the sciences. These we here simply propound 
 as themes, condensing into sentences what may be 
 expanded into volumes. 
 
 The work of constructing the ultimate philosophy 
 may be projected as follows : — 
 
 It must begin with an Expurgation of the Sciences, 
 By this is meant the sifting from them ol' those pre- 
 
50 PHILOSOPHIA ULTIMA. 
 
 judices, physical, metaphysical, and theological, (the 
 icMa theatri of Bacon,) which are the offspring of 
 their own rank growth and schismatic culture, and 
 which now hinder direct access to the whole body of 
 knowledge as it lies scattered among the different 
 professions and in various departments of learning. 
 When the eye of reason is thus purged of all films of 
 conceit and passion, and the prospect cleared of every 
 mist and cloud of error, it will be ready to embrace 
 in one view the whole field of truth, of whatever sort 
 and wherever found. 
 
 The next step will therefore be this Survey of the 
 Sciences, or particular examination of their several 
 provinces and products. This will include the his- 
 tory and logic of each species, and a consequent 
 classification or arrangement of them, which shall 
 be accurate, complete, and consistent, which shall 
 neither degrade the physical sciences as in German 
 philosophy, nor the metaphysical as in English philo- 
 sophy, nor the theological as in French philosophy, 
 but annexing the physical to the metaphysical, and 
 complementing both with the theological, shall exhibit 
 them together in the order of nature, of history, of 
 reason, and of sound culture. They will thus be 
 fully digested and prepared as the material of induc- 
 tion, or as the intellectual phenomena to be studied 
 and explained. 
 
 It will then only remain to frame a Theory of the 
 Sciences, or doctrine of perfect knowledge. This 
 
PHILOSOPHIA ULTIMA. 51 
 
 may here be brielly stated in the form of several 
 postulates: 1. There are, and can be, but two kinds 
 or modes of knowledge, with their correspondent 
 spheres of cognition; the one a know^ledge of the 
 laws of phenomena, and the other a knowledge of 
 their causes; the one empirical, and the other intui- 
 tional; the one derived from reason, and the other 
 from revelation. Astronomy is the most perfect 
 example of the former, and theology of the latter. 
 
 2. These two modes of knowledge are neither re- 
 pellent nor indifferent, but connected and comple- 
 mental, and together form the sum of the knowable 
 in respect to every class of facts. Astronomy, for 
 example, is both discoverable and revealable, though 
 in unequal porportions, being at once a human sys- 
 tem of celestial physics and a divine manifestation of 
 our Father who is in the heavens; and either would 
 be incomplete or unsupported without the other. 
 
 3. These two modes of knowledge correct each other 
 by their own interaction, and, both logically and his- 
 torically, tend to ultimate coincidence and harmony. 
 Revealed theology already accepts the discovered 
 astronomy which it once repelled; and discovered 
 astronomy still requires the revealed theology which 
 it has abandoned. 4. The knowledge of laws and the 
 knowledge of causes must both, at last, be resumed in 
 the knowledge of God, the First Cause and Highest 
 Law, in whom all phenomena rest and move with 
 perpetual and manifold reflection of his glory. In 
 
52 PHILOSOPHIA ULTIMA. 
 
 other words, ontology or theology is the keystone of 
 that nomology and a}tiology which must meet in it 
 to form the triumphal arch of perfect knowledge, or 
 else remain a mere fragmentary mass of truths with- 
 out rational support and consistency. 
 
 Thus, according to our doctrine of knowledge, the 
 sciences, when thoroughly expurgated and surveyed, 
 may be reduced from a mere medley to a system in 
 which their procession shall correspond to that of the 
 phenomena with which they are concerned ; the law 
 of their growth shall be a gradual coincidence of 
 reason and revelation; their perpetual effort shall be 
 a logical review of the divine by the human intelli- 
 gence through all the categories of fact from the 
 mathematics, in which the universe has its primordial 
 root, to the theology, in which it finds its perennial 
 flower; and their goal, ever to be approached but 
 never attained, shall be that omniscience wherewith, 
 looking back as with the eye of God through all his 
 word and works and ways, we shall know even as 
 also we are known. 
 
 With the formation and verification of a theory of 
 the sciences, the work of constructing the ultimate 
 philosophy would be accomplished. And it would 
 mark the utmost limit of human cognition. Reason 
 will have entered its last province when it thus retires 
 to reflect upon its own product. The speculative 
 propensity will have attempted its crowning task 
 when it thus seeks the law of its own action and 
 
PHILOSOPHIA ULTIMA. 53 
 
 clearly proposes to itself tlie ideal of its own eeascless 
 aspiration. Science will liave no other, as it conld 
 have no higher aim, when it thns strives to know 
 itself. Let this first work therefore be called the 
 science of the sciences. 
 
 But if we now suppose such a theory to have been 
 propounded, we will not be content to cherish it as a 
 mere toy of speculation or creature of the philosophic 
 fancy, but be ready to return Avitli it among the 
 sciences from which it was drawn, and apply it as an 
 organ of their further culture, or as the means not 
 merely of observing and explaining, but also of cor- 
 recting and maturing their processes, of making the 
 imperfect profit by the mistakes of the perfect, and 
 giving them, as a whole, a more precise, concerted 
 and accelerated action. In other words, having framed 
 our doctrine of the cognitive and the cognizable, it 
 will then remain to bring the former systematically 
 to bear upon the latter. 
 
 This next work of applying the ultimate philosophy 
 may be projected as follows : — 
 
 As a preliminary labor, there should be a Logical 
 Partition of the Sciences, with a view to their more 
 systematic culture. The arbitrary divisions and as- 
 sumptions which now prevail among them not only 
 dismember the body of truth, but lead to ill-directed 
 researches and strifes of words; but when they are 
 cultivated in their normal order and with reference to 
 their ideal unity, their growth will be more regular, 
 
 5 
 
54 PHILOSOPHIA ULTIMA. 
 
 vigorous, and fruitful. Now, according to our theory, 
 their normal order corresponds to that of the inter- 
 dependent phenomena which are their material; and 
 their ideal unity results from two opposite modes 
 of knowing or explaining those phenomena, ever 
 tending to logical union in a third. When, therefore, 
 we have thus mapped out the intellectual domain as 
 it lies in nature itself rather than in our crude fancy, 
 we may proceed to devise three sets of rules for the 
 three kinds of intellectual labor to be performed 
 therein. 
 
 The first will consist of Axioms of Nomology, or 
 precepts for pursuing and perfecting our knowledge 
 of natural laws. They will be of various classes: 
 
 1. Those which apply to nomological science in gen- 
 eral, the philosophy of inductive or positive research. 
 
 2. Those which apply to the physical sciences in par- 
 ticular, as mechanics, chemistry, and biology, in both 
 their celestial and terrestrial divisions. 3. Those 
 which apply to the metaphysical sciences in partic- 
 ular, as psychology, sociology, and theology, in both 
 their celestial and terrestrial divisions. This part of 
 the scientific discipline, when complete, would include 
 a system of rules for connecting every class of facts 
 with their laws. 
 
 The second part will consist of Axioms of Etiology, 
 or precepts for pursumg and perfecting our knowledge 
 of causes. They also will be of various classes: 1. 
 Those which apply to aetiological science in general, 
 
PniLOSOPHIA ULTIMA. 55 
 
 or the philosophy of both specuhitivc iind exc'gctical 
 research. 2. Those which apply to the pala^tiological 
 sciences, as cosmology, geology, anthopology. 3. 
 Those which apply to the telastiological sciences, as 
 soterology, ecclesiology, eschatology. Tliis part ol' 
 the scientific discipline, when complete, would include 
 a system of rules for connecting every class of f\icts 
 with their causes, both first and final. 
 
 The third part will consist of Axioms of Ontology^ 
 or precepts for pursuing and perfecting our knowl- 
 edge of both laws and causes as combined in God. 
 These, of course, will be the complement of the two 
 previous systems of rules, and designed to support 
 them both in a course of consistent application 
 throughout the border fields of rational and revealed 
 science. They, too, will be of various classes which 
 are here only named in connection with one or two 
 examples. 1. Axioms which apply to the normal 
 relations of reason and revelation; such as, (1.) The 
 proper interaction of reason and revelation e\Qv in- 
 volves the expansion of science toward omniscience. 
 (2.) As we ascend the scale of the sciences, the need 
 of revelation increases while that of reason decreases. 
 In the basic science of astronomy, reason is para- 
 mount; in the summary science of theology, revela- 
 tion is paramount; while in the midway science of 
 psychology, the two are equal. (3.) Throughout 
 the scale of the sciences they complement and m\> 
 port each other. 2. Axioms which apply to the 
 
56 PHILOSOPHIA ULTIMA. 
 
 existing relations of reason and revelation; such as, 
 (1.) Exegesis and induction are mutually corrective, 
 according to the normal right of either to ascendency 
 in any common sphere of research. (2.) Creeds are 
 mere theories to the philosopher; theories are mere 
 creeds to the theologian; and, so long as they are in 
 conflict, all that can be attempted is a provisional 
 reconciliation by exhibiting the problem of opinion. 
 (3.) To whatever extent philosophical and theological 
 opinions modify each other, and the technical dialect 
 in which they speak, the language of scripture only 
 gains rather than loses in veracity, expressiveness, 
 and power. 3. Axioms which apply to the pros- 
 pective relations of reason and revelation; such as, 
 (1.) The law of their historical evolution is that of 
 decreasing opposition and increasing contribution to 
 each other. Not only do discovered facts, in every 
 science, already both require and uphold revealed 
 truths; but even its antagonistic theories are only 
 "oppositions of science, falsely so called," and des- 
 tined, by their own self-destroying conflict, to sift the 
 true from the false and blend the discovered with the 
 revealed. In geology, for example, we now have the 
 two rival theories of the Catastrophists and the Uni- 
 formitarians, one of which would leave existing inter- 
 pretation undisturbed, the other of which would call 
 for its modification, while both can only issue in some 
 new illustration of the great truth, that "In the 
 beginning God created the heavens and the earth." 
 
PIIILOSOPHIA ULTIMA. 57 
 
 (2.) The cumulative evolution of the sciences in the 
 order of the connected phenomena to which t\wy 
 refer, involves a cumulative illustration of the divine 
 attributes in the order of their manifestation and 
 dignity, beginning with the astronomy wliicli dis- 
 covers a celestial Mechanician, infinite in power, and 
 ending wdth the theology which reveals a celestial 
 Father, infinite in love. (3.) As all natural plienom- 
 ena are but divine manifestations, their beginnings, 
 courses, and ends must, in the last analysis, be re- 
 ferred to that divine reason from which the universe 
 has logically proceeded, and through which alone it 
 can be logically recapitulated. This third and last 
 part of the scientific discipline, in order to be com- 
 plete, would include a system of rules for connecting 
 every class of laws and causes with the one supreme 
 cause and law of all facts, the Author and Ruler of 
 the universe. 
 
 Thus the true organon of knowledge, whensoever 
 attained, wdll rescue the cognitive mind from those 
 irregular and conflicting researches with wliich it is 
 now blindly sallying over the field of tnitli. and. 
 everywhere adjusting the system of thought to the 
 system of things, and leading the finite upon the 
 track of the Infinite Reason, will slowly realize, 
 through endless ages, in the soul of the creature, for 
 the glory of the Creator, the grand ideal of the 
 whole creation. 
 
 By means of a complete organ of the sciences, the 
 
58 PHILOSOPHIA ULTIMA. 
 
 ultimate philosophy would be thoroughly applied. 
 And the discipline of the human intellect would 
 then be perfect. Keason will have become a fault- 
 less instrument of research w^hen it thus moves by a 
 trained logic as well as with a true aim. Science 
 will have grown to be its own master when it thus 
 jxuides as well as knows itself. Let this second work 
 therefore be called the art of the sciences. 
 
 But so soon as we imagine such a scheme of axioms 
 devised and employed among the sciences, we shall 
 see that the tendency will be not merely to build 
 them up into an ideal system as for philosophic pas- 
 time, but to effect their logical organization, practical 
 equipment, and the actual endowing of mankind with 
 all material and moral as well as intellectual riches. 
 Such is the connection between theory and practice, 
 science and art, truth and goodness, that whenever 
 the whole cognitive shall have thoroughly acted upon 
 the whole cognizable there must issue a vast and 
 homogenous body of knowledge, fraught with incon- 
 ceivable utility and grandeur. In other words, the 
 science of the sciences and the art of the sciences 
 will need to be crowned with a science of their corre- 
 sponding arts, or doctrine of perfect knowledge, as 
 practically applied. (See Appendix.) 
 
 This last work of consummating the ultimate 
 philosophy may be projected as follows : — 
 
 In its initiatory stage there will no doubt be a 
 clearer and more general apprehension of those social 
 
PHILOSOPIIIA ULTIMA. 59 
 
 laws by which science or exact knowledge becomes 
 eiFective in moulding human opinions and institu- 
 tions. So long as the artificial organization of society 
 proceeds blindly, its action must be abnormal and 
 wild ; but when the intellectual and moral condi- 
 tions of true order and progress are demonstrated, 
 we may at least foresee, if not actually hasten, the 
 grand issues of the whole human development in its 
 vital connections with all terrestrial and even celes- 
 tial influences. 
 
 The first of these issues may be termed the 
 Ultimate Cyclopedia of the Sciences, All previous 
 organizations of the body of knowledge share in its 
 existing schismatic and fragmentary state. Instead 
 of building the temple of truth after the model of 
 things, they exhibit creation as but a disjointed fiibric, 
 wrought out of the crude and composite material of 
 creature fancy. Instead of exactly imaging the outer 
 world of fact into the inner world of thought, they 
 show it only in dim and broken reflection as marred 
 by conceit and error. But when all phenomena are 
 studied in their actual successions and coexistences, 
 and not in mere detached portions, and the sciences 
 are partitioned and cultivated accordingly, as an 
 organic whole, then will the chaos which the uni- 
 verse seems to the human mind be changing to the 
 cosmos which it is to the divine mind, and reason 
 be fairly embarked in her career of ever nearing, 
 thoudi never reaching, that height of infinite kiiowl- 
 
60 I'lIILOSOPlIIA ULTIMA. 
 
 edge from whence, by means of lier mechanics, 
 chemistry, and biology, she could review and fore- 
 cast all material life, whether of atoms or of orbs, 
 and, by means of her psychology, sociology, and 
 theology, she could review and forecast all spiritual 
 life, whether of terrestrial or of celestial races. " Now 
 we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face ; 
 now we know in part, but when that which is perfect 
 is come, that which is in part shall be done away." 
 
 In close connection with this issue will also be un- 
 folded the Ultimate Cyclopedia of Arts. At present, 
 anything like a more systematic control of nature, by 
 means of a more systematic knowledge of her con- 
 nected laws, is scarcely thought of as open to human 
 aspiration. As the sciences, broken and jarring, ex- 
 tend only to detached phenomena, without including 
 their vital relations, so the corresponding arts, or 
 means of modifying those phenomena, are in like 
 manner partial, irregular, and conflicting. The frame 
 of nature is forced to work but in piecemeal for her 
 still unskillful master; and it is only in the electric 
 telegraph that we have any hint of a more cosmical 
 power. But when the sciences are logically organ- 
 ized, and the arts begin to flow from them as foregone 
 aims rather than mere incidental trophies, and with 
 concerted action furthering each other, then will our 
 increasing knowledge be ever yielding increasing con- 
 trol of all surrounding phenomena, and man be rising 
 toward the predicted dominion over creation. The- 
 
PHILOSOPIIIA ULTIMA. 61 
 
 ology will be giving that art of religion by wliich 
 Providence predominates over society, and sociology 
 that art of politics b}^ which society predominates 
 over the individual, and psychology that art of 
 ethics by which mind predominates over matter, and 
 biology, chemistry, and mechanics, those arts of ter- 
 restrial economy by which the whole material system 
 is wrought anew for human service and divine glory. 
 And last of all, as the grand aggregate result, there 
 will issue the Ultimate System of Socletfj. Both the 
 sciences and the arts are but functions of society, and 
 by their degree of perfection determine its state and 
 progress. As yet the most advanced civilization, 
 racked and torn by conflicting ideas and interests, 
 only reflects the existing disorder and defectiveness of 
 knowledge and consequent waste and turmoil of skill. 
 The whole modern organization of mankind is crude, 
 forced, and heterogeneous, though already an im- 
 mense advance upon that of antiquity. But when 
 the seried sciences shall be shedding forth their seried 
 arts, and all human societies be growing together in 
 the knowledge and the mastery of their own pheno- 
 mena, and of the cosmical phenomena upon wliicli 
 they act, until they are brought into harmony with 
 nature and with God, then will a regenerate race be 
 installed as the living head of the whole terrestrial 
 organism, and the reins of the orlj be exultingly 
 gathered in its hands as it careers in the oh nipic 
 race of worlds. 
 
62 PHILOSOPHIA ULTIMA. 
 
 Then, too, may even the celestial sciences begin to 
 blossom with celestial arts that shall knit together, 
 in spiritual sympathy, all celestial races. Terrene, 
 solar, and stellar influences, wielded by human 
 prowess and prayer, may unfold the commerce of 
 heaven, the telegraph of the skies, and the worship 
 of the one universal Father, until the ripe, scient 
 earth echoes back the anthem that erst hailed her 
 novitiate, when "the morning stars sang together 
 and all the sons of God shouted for joy." 
 
 Thus, in the consummation of the ultimate philoso- 
 phy, will be involved the consummation of all things 
 earthly. Science will then have triumphed over 
 error, and art over nature. Reason will then have 
 unfolded the whole riddle of the world, from its 
 genesis to its apocalypse; and that cosmic ideal 
 toward which the Creator has been moving through 
 mighty epochs of creation, from the primordial 
 planetary germ, by means of successive strata, florae, 
 faunae, and human nations and races, will at length 
 stand forth revealed in the fullness of its life and 
 glory. 
 
 At the height we have now reached, how wide the 
 horizon ! how grand the prospect ! As from a lone emi- 
 nence of faith, where the whole past and present and 
 future of our race is spread out at one view, we look 
 down upon that divine system of the world in which 
 the end is known from the beginning. We see long 
 ages rolling onward ere it shall all be fulfilled, vast 
 
PHILOSOPHIA ULTIMA. 68 
 
 literatures and civilizations shed like forest leaves in 
 its fulfilling, and unspeakable glories crowding thick 
 and fast to its fulfillment, until, blinded by the vision, 
 we almost wonder that mortal may gaze and live. But 
 we wall not doubt His fatherly goodness, who, having 
 showai unto his human children even the far-off stars 
 in their destined courses and periods, will surely deign 
 not less that they should scan the track of his earthly 
 promises, and give them some Pisgah where they may 
 lie down and die content that other generations shall 
 enter into that for which they have toiled. 
 
 And hence it behooves us next to consider, as being 
 our part in this ultimate philosophy, the more prac- 
 tical questions of the time, the scene, and the mode 
 of its inauguration. 
 
 For the time of its inauguration, all history points 
 to the present age. An era, so fraught wdth marvels 
 and rife in great movements, might well be crowned 
 with this last and best birth of time. And we have 
 only to review the past and survey the present in 
 order to see that what could not hitherto, may at last 
 now be hopefully attempted. 
 
 It could not have been undertaken at any previous 
 period. The two great reformations, the one theo- 
 logical and the other philosophical, of which Luther 
 and Bacon were the leaders, had first to proceed apart 
 to their extremes, and so develop the existing need 
 of their combination. At their spring and while in 
 their incipiency neither feared or craved the other. 
 
64 PIIILOSOPHIA ULTIMA. 
 
 Both were intent only upon freeing reason from its 
 trannnels, whether ecclesiastical or scholastic, and 
 could not then foresee its j^resent license or discord, or 
 the necessity which has thus arisen, of training it to 
 study science itself, with the same directness, patience, 
 and candor, wherewith they trained it to study nature 
 and scripture. 
 
 It is indeed true, that in advance of the exigency, 
 that august and prescient mind which planned the 
 Instauratio Magna would seem to have propounded 
 the very task which is now imminent, or at least so 
 much of it as relates to the natural sciences, though 
 with no real expectation of seeing it then accom- 
 plished. "The sixth and last part of our work, to 
 wdiich all the rest are subservient, is to lay down that 
 philosophy which shall flow from the just, pure, and 
 strict inquiry hitherto proposed. But to perfect this 
 is beyond both our abilities and our hopes; yet we 
 shall lay the foundations of it and recommend the 
 superstructure to posterity." And it is now easy to 
 see that the "universal and complete theory" which 
 with just forethought he pretended not to offer, could 
 not have been framed or even attempted, until the 
 sciences should have reached some measure of perfec- 
 tion, and out of their own lack of consistency and 
 order clamored for law and system. 
 
 But now at last this need and preparedness for the 
 great effort have arrived. If we examine, we shall 
 find that each of the three works here projected as 
 
PIIILOSOPIIIA ULTIMA. 65 
 
 necessary to tlie completion of philosophy may at 
 least be begun, if not pursued to a good degree of for- 
 wardness. 
 
 Have we not already the materials of a theory or 
 doctrine of perfect knowledge? The map of the 
 intellectual, like that of the physical globe, is almost 
 complete, with scarcely a terra incognita to be ex- 
 plored, and philosophy might well reach her ultima 
 thule in conjunction with geography. In other words, 
 the exact limits of research may be said to have been 
 ascertained and its several provinces defined. All the 
 sciences at least have a name, are in various stages of 
 progress, and fast coming into new and fruitful rela- 
 tions. Attempts even have been made to discover 
 and impose upon them that system to which they 
 are presumed to be tending. And if such forward 
 minds have hitherto failed, it has been partly because 
 it is only through repeated failures we can pass to 
 success, and also because they have not brought to 
 their task that catholicity, candor, and patience 
 which are the cardinal virtues of the philoso})hy 
 they espouse, but have allowed some metaphysical or 
 theological prejudice to hinder a just induction, and 
 vainly tried to force upon science, as the old scholas- 
 tics tried to force upon nature and scripture, some 
 partial and foregone theory. They have either ex- 
 scinded the knowledge which has been revealed or the 
 knowledge which has been discovered, and .^o an- 
 nounced pretended laws of scientific development 
 
66 PHILOSOPHIA ULTIMA. 
 
 which both history and reason falsify. But the very 
 fact that efforts in this direction are put forth, and 
 that even these crude, tentative hypotheses have 
 yielded such brilliant results, augurs the full success 
 that is at hand. After long ages of philosophical 
 discipline and the accumulation of a mass of sciences 
 extending to every class of phenomena, what now 
 remains but that the inductive spirit should return 
 upon its own intellectual product, in search of that 
 sublime theory of cognition which is to be its crown- 
 ing triumph, and at length set forth as the matured 
 reason of the race and the destined apex of the pyr- 
 amid of knowledge? 
 
 Have we not also, in large measure, the means of 
 framing an organ of perfect knowledge? The cogni- 
 tive mind, now grown experienced in all modes of 
 research, has already garnered a store of principles 
 and precedents wherewith to enter intelligently and 
 authoritatively the more imperfect sciences, and pre- 
 clude the waste and error and confusion which marked 
 its infancy. Master builders in the art of constructing 
 science, one after another, have tried their hand upon 
 the model, and given well-tested rules for the actual 
 building. In inductive philosophy we have a line 
 extending from Bacon to Comte, and in speculative 
 philosophy, another from Kant to Hegel; while the 
 very extreme into which the two latest thinkers have 
 pushed their respective methods has already created 
 the need of that third and last philosophy which 
 
PHILOSOPHIA ULTIMA. 67 
 
 shall mediate between them, and lead them back from 
 their errant courses within the just and safe limits 
 which they impose upon each other. Thougli our 
 philosophical literature is as yet wanting in this 
 latter department of sciential thought, and there 
 exists scarcely a treatise which can command the 
 equal respect of both sects of disciples, those of 
 reason and those of revelation, yet there is a craving 
 among each after the laws of their latent affinity and 
 the terms of their ultimate agreement. Now that so 
 much of thorough drill has been infused among the 
 different votaries of science, who doubts but that the 
 logical spirit shall soon enter also their border feuds, 
 and at length devise and publish those perfect canons 
 of research by which the whole host of seekers for 
 truth shall be marshalled as one mighty phalanx for 
 the final career of eternal progression? 
 
 And may we not even begin to forecast the actual 
 scheme and issue of perfect knowledge? Although 
 that matured humanity which must result from 
 matured intelligence has hitherto been aspired after 
 only by elect minds, as but a vague ideal, and with 
 faint presentiment; yet now, at last, the prospect 
 grows clearer and surer and thrills even the popular 
 heart. By a few, at least, the vital connection be- 
 tween society and science is seen to insure the per- 
 fection of the one in that of the other. And as we 
 feel that pulse of humanity which ever beats on- 
 ward, and survey the wreck of systems in which Ibiid 
 
68 PHILOSOPHIA ULTIMA. 
 
 visionaries have sought some airy tower of prospect, 
 we can but devoutly hail, even if still afar off, the 
 dawn of that era which the seers and saints and 
 sages of all time have longed to see; and, entering 
 with new joyfulness into their sacred prescience and 
 prayer, proceed to labor as well as yearn for the 
 great consummation. 
 
 Thus have we been brought to that fullness of 
 time when Providence seems waiting to give the 
 reins of the world to ripe reason, and is summoning 
 us to enter with faith and hope upon the impending 
 task. 
 
 For the scene of its inauguration, philanthropy 
 selects the western hemisphere. A clime so strangely 
 hidden for ages from mankind, would seem but the 
 destined theater of these later acts of history. And 
 we have but to scan the map of the world to find 
 that what could not elsewhere may here be practi- 
 cally initiated. 
 
 It could not originate in the eastern hemisphere. 
 The two diverse civilizations — the oriental and occi- 
 dental — representing the practical issues of the two 
 diverse philosophies — the intuitional and the logical — 
 having proceeded apart for six thousand years on 
 opposite sides of the globe, must meet as in completed 
 circuit on some virgin soil and common ground ere 
 their joint mission can be accomplished. While still 
 in their native seats neither can thoroughly sift and 
 appropriate the other. Both are there hampered by 
 
PHILOSOPIIIA ULTIMA. (;0 
 
 inveterate prejudices and contracted relations, and 
 must continue to have something of extravagance in 
 their development; the one toward mysticism, and 
 the other toward skepticism; until thrown together 
 on a new arena where they can find ampler scope and 
 freer action. 
 
 It need not, indeed, be denied that in European 
 civilization the eastern and the western mind, the 
 religious and the scientific spirit, have already for 
 eighteen centuries been combined; but this very 
 combination has at length only shown an exigency 
 which it cannot meet, and materials which it cannot 
 use upon its own soil. The rigid social, national, 
 and poUtical distinctions of the Old World, to say 
 nothing of its meager physical location and struc- 
 ture, preclude that collection and fusion of all the 
 elements of humanity which is to be the work of 
 the true cosmopolite philosophy. 
 
 But in this western hemisphere not only are such 
 elements far more varied and abundant, but the fiicil- 
 ity for their recomposition is perfect. The Ameri- 
 can geography, genealogy, politics, and religion are 
 simply unparalleled, either in ancient or in modern 
 civilization, and together form an aggregate of all 
 that is peculiar to Europe, Asia, and Africa. Such a 
 medley of climates, of races, of institutions, of creeds 
 and systems, fusing under one political system, affords 
 materials for a philosophy which cannot but be final, 
 
 6 
 
70 PHILOSOPHIA ULTIMA. 
 
 and, by its projection on a grander scale and with 
 fuller conditions of all the time-worn issues of his- 
 tory, shows that here, if anywhere, the whole cos- 
 mical problem is at length to be solved. Who that 
 surveys this wide intellectual and social anarchy and 
 the swift and intense passions pervading it, but must 
 feel that, sooner or later, the plastic spirit of human 
 opinion which, ever strengthening with the growth of 
 reason, has wTOught through all the past, disorgan- 
 izing and reorganizing successive civilizations, must 
 at last educe order from this chaos, and mould the 
 ideal reign of truth and virtue? 
 
 Thus has Providence already opened and garnished 
 the stage whereon to unfold that consummate system, 
 which, as it is to be the flower of all thought and 
 fruit of all climes and ages, can be called after no 
 name, however worthy, and claimed by no people, 
 however illustrious. 
 
 For the mode of its inauguration, philosophy ordains 
 the academic curriculum. The educational system, 
 being the primal fount of knowledge and influence, 
 affords the normal method of turning the grand ideal 
 into a reality. And but a glance at the existing 
 social structure will show that it alone is competent 
 to the task. 
 
 There is an obvious unfitness in all other agencies. 
 The professions and the press, being distributors 
 rather than contributors of new ideas, and reflectors 
 
PHILOSOPHIA ULTIMA. 71 
 
 rather than manufacturers of opinion, as w ell as liabk' 
 to be swayed by disturbing interests and passions, are 
 too low down in the scale of social influence to reach 
 the springs of existing evils. A movement which is 
 to cure them by harmonizing philosophy and theology, 
 must originate beyond the sphere of popular preju- 
 dice, in that quiet circle of thinkers and scholars 
 where truth is prized for her own sake, and sought 
 with the zeal of the votary. The tactics and tlio 
 drill of this warfare are not to be learned amid the 
 smoke of battle, by the mere tyros and bigots who 
 are in such haste to practice them, but nmst be 
 brought thither by those who have been schooled 
 into philosophic tastes and habits. 
 
 This at least, it may be safely affirmed, is the 
 judgment of intelligent conservatives, who are in the 
 field and acquainted with its wants. There is a 
 growing feeling throughout the educated classes that 
 the crisis has become too grave to be continued as a 
 mere topic of periodical review or theme of profes- 
 sional declamation. What pastor, lawyer, or physi- 
 cian, if he has the time or taste, feels competent to 
 grapple with the great question in any of its branches ? 
 He encounters at once the suspicion of having got 
 beyond his province, and is sure of the contempt of 
 one or both parties, if only because of his su[)p()se(l 
 unfitness and prejudic(\ The work has plainly 
 reached the importance of a special cause, calling for 
 
72 PHILOSOPHIA ULTIMA. 
 
 special qualifications and the devising of new appli- 
 ances, more fixed and organic than any now in use. 
 
 It should not indeed be overlooked, that this 
 craving has already been long expressing itself in a 
 rich and growing literature, partly in the interest of 
 philosophy, and partly in the interest of theology, 
 and sometimes by the institution of prize-essays 
 and lectureships, which are directly aimed at the 
 work of their conciliation; but whatever success 
 has hitherto attended such scattered and irregular 
 efforts only lights the way to others that may be 
 more direct, lasting, and effective. 
 
 It is by means of academic training alone that the 
 whole social organism can be reached and cured of its 
 present vicious and morbid action. The true univer- 
 sity is its brain, receiving from professorships and 
 distributing through the professions ideas that rule 
 the masses; and according as it is sophisticated or 
 purified will the whole body be either depraved or 
 ennobled. In other words, we have only to recur to 
 the social evils described as the issue of the great 
 schism in modern philosophy, to see that they can 
 only be met educationally, by special courses of study 
 and instruction, at the seats of culture where they 
 stealthily and unwittingly originate and are often 
 unconsciously harbored. 
 
 It is there that we must seek the unity of science. 
 She gathers thither her votaries to endow them with 
 
riiiLosoPTiiA rLTi>rA. 73 
 
 her riches, and assign them their tasks, and so long as 
 she presents but a divided front and ranges them in 
 opposite ranks, must the breach between tlieni be 
 only widened; l)ut in proportion as botli the rational 
 and the revealed sciences are studied in tlieir actual 
 connections, and brought into some logical relation- 
 ship; as fast as the former are made to illustrate the 
 character, policy, and purposes of the God of revelation 
 and the latter are established in harmony with all 
 the discoveries of reason, will they be found to be Init 
 branches from one root of knowledge, living and 
 growing in the truth. 
 
 It is there, also, we must seek the catholicity of 
 learning. From thence the youthful mind, while 
 forming its intellectual habits, and ere it has been 
 narrowed by professional prejudice, receives its life- 
 long bias; and only by diverting it from its present 
 tendencies toward either skepticism or bigotr}^, can 
 the whole educated class be imbued with a spirit of 
 large and generous culture. 
 
 And it is there, too, we must seek a salutary influ- 
 ence upon all the great interests of religion, politics, 
 and art. Let the salt of truth be cast into these 
 living fountains, and the stream of intellectual and 
 moral corruption will be cleansed; the evils of the 
 church, the state, and the life will be cured; and a 
 current of new and vitalizing ideas poured throuLilioiit 
 the whole social body. Though now all surrounding 
 
74 PHILOSOPHIA ULTIMA. 
 
 civilization seems based in error and ignorance and 
 swayed by conflicting o^Dinions and prejudices, still we 
 need not fear but that the spirit of truth, training and 
 marshalling her votaries in such sequestered haunts 
 of culture, shall yet lead them forth as a disciplined 
 host, even into the thick of this great conflict, and 
 there proclaim her destined rule of order, law, and 
 love. 
 
 The practical objection may here be raised that an 
 academic field, so wide and rich, would demand an 
 amount of research and erudition in the teacher, and 
 a degree of maturity and scholarship in the pupil, 
 which are quite impossible. 
 
 To the former part of the objection it is enough to 
 reply: 1st. That the aim need not be to traverse the 
 two great divisions of knowledge throughout their 
 whole extent, but merely that intersected portion of 
 them where they are involved in a kind of border 
 warfare. 2d. That into this common field it would 
 be needful to enter only with a resume of established 
 truths and jDi'inciples, rather than with special re- 
 searches and acquisitions. 3d. That to master the 
 abstract part of any of the sciences, what may be 
 termed their philosophy or logic, does not require 
 learning so much as thought and study. 4th. That 
 those very faculties of abstraction, generalization, and 
 comparison which w^ould qualify for such a task, 
 would almost disqualify for any other, and be hin- 
 
PHILOSOPHIA ULTIMA. 75 
 
 dered rather than stimulated by minute investigations. 
 There are, moreover, abundant helps to the work to 
 be found in standard treatises of authority with 
 both schools, in compends of their several attainments, 
 and in a current literature, teeming with the richest 
 and most varied contributions. 
 
 To the latter part of the objection it may ])e re- 
 plied : 1st. That it enters into the scope of all 
 academic life to increase as well as diffuse the existing 
 stock of knowledge. 2d. That in fulfilHng this latter 
 aim, there is always a vast amount of instruction 
 which is simply stored rather than at once digested 
 in the mind of a student. 3d. That the efficiency 
 of such teaching would, after all, depend upon the 
 stage in the curriculum at which it should be intro- 
 duced, and the personal enthusiasm with which on 
 both sides it is conducted. 
 
 We are thus led next to inquire as to the particular 
 form which such academic training should assume, or 
 the best method of incorporating it in existing systems 
 of education. 
 
 And here the general principle is obvious, that it 
 belongs to the more advanced stages of pupilage, and 
 should accompany or follow special training in the two 
 departments it aims to unite. It could only, in order 
 to be directly effective, come after a gymnastic or siil)- 
 graduate course, and would defeat its own aim if 
 addressed to immature and unfurnished minds. 
 
76 PHILOSOPIIIA ULTIMA. 
 
 According to the theory of the true university, it 
 would be the proper supplement or complement of 
 the three faculties of law, medicine, and theology, 
 and might appear among them in the form of a sum- 
 mary professorship, designed to take the results of 
 other professorships, and, after recombining them, 
 transmit them through the professions into the 
 sphere of practice. Such a device would not only 
 act as a fixed, aggregating center of those border 
 topics by which the professions are logically joined 
 together, fostering the commerce of ideas among 
 them, though without hindering that division of 
 labor in which they thrive, but it would also, by its 
 bearing upon all contemporary intellectual move- 
 ments, remain as a watch-tower and bulwark of 
 truth on the field of error. 
 
 If the theory seem somewhat visionary as applied 
 to our American system, this may only serve to show 
 at once our danger and remedy. There could not, in 
 fact, be more striking proof of our need, motive, and 
 opportunity for the great reconciliation, than is 
 yielded by the history and present state of the aca- 
 demic curriculum. That schism, which in the Euro- 
 pean universities has issued in no outward dissocia- 
 tion of the band of scholars, has spread through our 
 whole scheme of education as a visible breach, until 
 at last both philosophy and theology seem to have 
 lost their normal rank and power, and the very words 
 
PHILOSOnilA ULTIMA. 77 
 
 are turned by their respective followers against each 
 other with something of suspicion. We have two 
 classes of institutions — the secular and the sacred, 
 the civil and the ecclesiastical; and in both tlie work 
 of disruption has been going forward. Theology has 
 been driven from the former by the gradual ascend- 
 ency of the classics or mathematics over the old 
 metaphysics with which it was once associated; and 
 philosophy has been driven from the latter by the 
 degradation of the study of divinity to a mere profes- 
 sional and sectarian training of the clergy. 
 
 And hence the first question to be met in attempt- 
 ing their educational fusion is as to wdiich party the 
 initiative should be given; wdiether the movement 
 should come from the theological or from the philo- 
 sophical side, in the interest of religion or of science, 
 as an ecclesiastical or as a catholic effort. The whole 
 effect of such academic study will plainly be modified 
 according as one or the other of these points of de- 
 parture is taken. 
 
 In a purely theological course, it would appear as a 
 branch of apologetics or polemics ; and the aim would 
 be not merely to uphold the general authority of 
 scripture, but also of some 23articular creed or confes- 
 sion drawn from scripture in its contact and conflict 
 with the human sciences. And this chiefly as a kind 
 of armor and drill, for the battle with heresy and in- 
 fidelity. 
 
78 PPIILOSOPHIA ULTIMA. 
 
 In a purely philosophical course, it would appear 
 as a branch of logic or metaphysics; and the aim 
 would be, ignoring all creeds and sects, and placing 
 the revealed on a footing with the rational sciences, 
 to define and defend the prerogatives of each in its 
 own domain, and to exhibit their joint product under 
 a scientific rather than a practical aspect, and in its 
 due place and connections in the general body of 
 learning. 
 
 In favor of the latter as compared with the former, 
 several reasons may be urged. 
 
 1. It is the more natural and reasonable method. 
 A work of mediation involves mutual concession ; and 
 if this great movement must be initiated at either ex- 
 treme, it has a clear right to come from the scientific 
 side, where it originated, and should be met and 
 welcomed. It is in fact a concession which we not 
 only can afford to make but must make, that revealed 
 truths are as susceptible as natural truths of rational 
 support and confirmation, and may also be safely 
 taught without regard to their practical applica- 
 tions, or to the transcendent interests they involve, 
 and in entire freedom from all prejudice, as pure mat- 
 ters of abstract rather than of applied science. If 
 the great fundamental tenet of inspiration cannot 
 base itself in scientific discovery, but is doomed to be 
 steadily undermined, then the whole superstructure 
 of the revealed sciences must crumble with it into 
 
PniLOSOPHIA ULTIMA. 79 
 
 ruins, as mere superstition and bigotry. While we 
 are unwilling that savans should force their theories 
 upon us as creeds, we must permit them to treat our 
 creeds as theories until found consistent with science. 
 We need not fear, that practically and personally the 
 one party will be any the less moral, religious, and 
 orthodox, or the other any the less learned, humane, 
 and philosophical, on account of such a problematical 
 state of their relations. 
 
 So long, indeed, as theology, in a course of educa- 
 tion, is forced into any warlike bearing, offensive or 
 defensive, apologetic or polemic, even her own inter- 
 ests may be damaged; but when she is allowed her 
 due place among the sciences, as alike entering with 
 them all into the training of an accomplished scholar, 
 and it is made the recognized vocation of both teacher 
 and pupil to address themselves to her lessons with 
 philosophic candor and conscientious enthusiasm, 
 truth will at least be in the way of gaining the 
 homage of reason, and from the first have the van- 
 tage over error. 
 
 2. It would reach a larger and more varied mass 
 of the forming mind of society. Instead of being 
 confined to one calling, it would include candidates 
 for all the three learned professions, who, viewed re- 
 spectively as votaries of physical, metapliysical, and 
 theological science, are the real parties first interested 
 in the reconciliation, and by their presence together 
 
80 PIIILOSOPIITA ULTIMA. 
 
 in the same audience might yield a wholesome stimulus 
 and check upon both professor and student. 
 
 3. It would be preventive, rather simply remedial, 
 as to existing social perils. However desirable it may 
 be to equip the church with new apologetic appli- 
 ances in view of modern scientific skepticism, yet 
 these after all would not reach the evil at its hidden 
 springs. It has its origin in the very methods, habits, 
 and acquirements of science, and by means of these 
 alone can be mastered and corrected. 
 
 4. It would have the high character and even 
 the impressive appearance of an effort to follow the 
 revolted sciences into their own haunts of estrange- 
 ment and error and win them back again by their 
 own logic and laws. It would be leading forth the 
 young and eager thought of the time on a new mis- 
 sion of truth and love, rather than in the old and 
 crooked ways of prejudice and passion. What are 
 most of the existing treatises or even professorships 
 put forth in the interest of theology, as viewed by 
 her foes, but weak confessions that she is on the 
 defensive, and base signals of defeat? It is not by 
 polemics, apologies, or evidences, that she will ever 
 resume her rightful dominion in the seats of learning. 
 It is not by any sacred sophistry that she is to con- 
 vince the disciples of reason, or with mere dogmatic 
 assertion that she can reclaim the homage of phi- 
 losophy. Science, like nature, can only be controlled 
 
PIIILOSOrillA ULTIMA. 81 
 
 through a knowledge of lier huvs. These oiiee round 
 and imposed, she will prove no wayAvard seeker of 
 the truth, but as her Eastern sages once read a gospel 
 in the stars, will come by her own researches to the 
 manifested God, and worship him with fair and costly 
 art. 
 
 But from whichever side, or at whatever point of 
 the academic system, the work of affiliation shall 
 proceed, as it advances it cannot but be met with a 
 wdde and hearty welcome. He has but illy scanned 
 the present state of learning Avho takes the wordy 
 strife of mere bigots and savans as a fair reflection of 
 the general mind upon the question. There runs 
 through the catholic thought of the age, however 
 seldom expressed, a deep undertone of sadness and 
 misgiving rather than of mutual anger and defiance. 
 True philosophy takes no delight in this sore feud, 
 w^iich has rent the body of her disciples in twain, 
 but in their midst still secretly yearns for a just re- 
 conciliation. And when once any movement shall 
 have gone forth among them that shall seem to com- 
 mand them with a voice of reason and love, it nuist 
 sooner or later be hailed with joy, however obscure 
 and feeble may have been its beginnings. 
 
 Thus has Providence prepared the soil, as well as 
 disclosed the field, and sifted the seed for a mighty 
 harvest of truth, in which we may be the sowers and 
 the latest posterity the reapers. A great work may 
 
82 PHILOSOPHIA ULTIMA. 
 
 at least be commeuced by us : the time is at hand ; 
 the scene is ready; and the mode is obvious. In 
 these last days and at these ends of the earth, we 
 have the means not merely of projecting, but also 
 of inaugurating that scheme of perfect knowledge 
 through which the dissevered hosts of philosophy are 
 to be thoroughly organized, and at length science 
 matured, art perfected, society renewed, and the 
 whole world filled with a glory of which it is not 
 possible now to conceive. 
 
 Here let us rest in this difficult ascent of thought 
 which we have climbed. Though the way may have 
 seemed uncertain and tedious, yet the prospect gained 
 is sure. That which can now only be called the ulti- 
 mate philosophy may rise under another name and in 
 other ways; but whenever, wherever, and however 
 inaugurated, it is itself inevitable. Every species of 
 pledge, the word of God, the law of facts, and the 
 voice of reason, combine to proclaim it. It is that 
 perfect system of knowledge and of society which 
 both logically and providentially results from the 
 whole previous development of humanity. It is the 
 goal of history, seen with the eyes of prophecy and 
 philosophy, and yearned after by the heart of phi- 
 lanthropy. It is the millennium projected upon 
 rational sequence as well as divine decree; and could 
 
PlIILOSOPIIIA ULTIMA. 83 
 
 it fail to come to pass, it would not simply ].)e as if a 
 great human hope had perished, Ijut as if the divine 
 reason had falsified its own premises, laid through all 
 the past, and left the problem of the world unsolved. 
 Astronomers tell us that were this material globe to 
 reel from its orbit, it could only be by a miracle, sus- 
 pending the very laws of mathematics; but how much 
 less conceivable that the moral world should ever 
 recoil in mid-progress and the whole work of time 
 become a meaningless fragment! The flower of the 
 planetary life, rooted in extinct marvels and blooming 
 through long ages of sin and sorrow^, will not thus be 
 blighted at its budding. The fairest ideal that lives 
 in divine and human fiincy will not thus be turned to 
 naught. 
 
 Behold then at one glance the issue to which we 
 are come. The summary want of the age is that last 
 philosophy into which shall have been sifted all other 
 philosophy, which shall be at once catholic and eclec- 
 tic, which shall be the joint growth and fruit of 
 reason and faith, and which shall shed forth, through 
 every walk of research, the blended light of discovery 
 and revelation ; a j^hilosophy which shall be no crude 
 aggregate of decaying systems and doctrines, but their 
 distilled issue and living effect, and which shall not 
 have sprung, full-born, from any one mind or people, 
 but mature as the common work and reward of all ; a 
 philosophy which, proceeding upon the unity of truth. 
 
84 PHILOSOPIIIA ULTIMA. 
 
 shall establish the harmony of knowledge through the 
 intelligent concurrence of the human with the divine 
 intellect, and the rational subjection of the finite to the 
 Infinite reason; a philosophy, too, which shall be as 
 beneficent as it is sacred, which, in the act of healing 
 the schisms of truth, shall also heal the sects of the 
 school, of the church, and of the state, and while re- 
 generating human art, both material and moral, shall 
 at length regenerate human society ; a philosophy, in 
 a word, which shall be the providential means of sub- 
 jecting the earth to man and man to God, by grouping 
 the sciences, with their fruits and trophies, at the feet 
 of Omniscience, and there converging and displaying 
 all laws and causes in God, the cause of causes and 
 law of laws, of whom are all things and in whom all 
 things consist; to whom alone be glory. 
 
APPEiS'DIX. 
 
f wjiTt ol ilu MWmxk ^^hilo.^ophy, 
 
 PROLEGOMENA. 
 
 The existing anarchy of the sciences consequent upon the schism 
 between reason and revelation : its historical origin, progress, 
 extent and evils. 
 
 The question of a logical affiliation of reason and revelation, 
 and consequent logical organization of the mass of knowl- 
 edge. 
 
 The great interests involved in the question. 
 
 Present state of opinion and parties upon the question: 
 
 1. The Extremists, both theologians and philosophers. 
 
 2. The Indififerentists, " " 
 
 3. The Impatients, " " 
 
 4. The Despondents, " " 
 
 Need and prospects of the Ultimate Philosophy : its idea, utility, 
 rise and growth, and method. Three general works or 
 efforts included in its project. 
 
 PART I.— SCIENCE OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 1. EXPURGATION OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 Misconceptions as to the origin, value, and dignity of science. 
 Of science as the function of the social or collective mind. 
 Of science as distinguished from ordinary or popular knowl- 
 edge. 
 
 Of science as distinguished from art. 
 
 Of science as distinguished from philosophy. 
 
 8 (89) 
 
90 PHILOSOPniA ULTIMA. 
 
 Its essential unity amid artificial divisions. 
 
 Its steady progress through human vicissitudes and adverse 
 influences. 
 
 Yarious popular, professional, and philosophical prejudices, 
 which now hinder the unity and growth of the sciences : their 
 source and remedy. 
 
 Yarious intellectual and moral qualifications for pursuing the 
 sciences demanded by their present state. 
 
 Conditions and resources of a science of the sciences. 
 
 2. SURVEY OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 German, French, and English classifications or systems of the 
 sciences : their merits and defects. 
 
 Principles of the true system : 1st. That they should be ar- 
 ranged according to the actual order of phenomena, the terres- 
 trial being associated with the celestial, and the material preced- 
 ing the moral. 2d. That they should be divided by the modes or 
 kinds of cognition : in each of them the inductive being distin- 
 guished from the intuitive, or the rational from the revealed ; as 
 follows : — 
 
 Physical Sciences. 
 
 Mechanics, or science of inorganic matter. 
 Chemistry, or science of organic matter. 
 Biology, or science of vital matter. 
 
 Psychical Sciences. 
 
 Psychology, or science of individual mind. 
 Sociology, or science of associate mind. 
 Theology, or science of infinite mind. 
 
 Each of the series being as to its field of cognition, both celes- 
 tial and terrestrial, and as to its mode of cognition, both induc- 
 tive and intuitive, though in unequal portions and degrees. 
 
 Characteristics of material as distinguished from moral science. 
 
PniLOSOPIIIA ULTIMA. 91 
 
 Characteristics of inductive as distinguished from intuitive 
 science. 
 
 Relative advancement of the sciences. 
 
 Brief summary of tlieir results : in the expansion of the intel- 
 lect, in the accumulation of truth, and in new accessions of human 
 power, dignity, and hajipiness. 
 
 Their need and readiness for some logical organization and 
 more systematic culture. 
 
 8. THEORY OF THE SCIENCES, OR DOCTRINE OF COGNITION. 
 
 (1) Of the cognitive, or the means of cognition. 
 
 False theories, which would reject either reason or revelation, 
 or would derange their normal relations. 
 
 The true theory, that of their gradual coincidence and ultimate 
 harmony. 
 
 Foundation for this theory in both the nature and the history 
 of the human intellect. 
 
 Its accuracy and fitness. 
 
 (2) Of the cognizable, or the material of cognition. 
 
 False theories, which would ignore celestial or spiritual phe- 
 nomena as inaccessible or imaginary. 
 
 The true theory, that which would be cognizant of both in their 
 actual coexistences and successions, and claim as the ideal domain 
 of science the whole aggregate of worlds throughout all ages. 
 
 Foundation for this theory in both the structure and the devel- 
 opment of the universe. 
 
 Its completeness and grandeur. 
 
 (3) Of the cognitive in action upon the cognizable, or the 
 process of cognition. 
 
 False theories, which would cither confine reason to terrestrial 
 and material phenomena, or confine revelation to spiritual and 
 celestial phenomena. 
 
 The true theory, that which would combine both modes of cog- 
 nition in all fields of cognition as involving a joint process of 
 
92 PHILOSOPHIA ULTIMA. 
 
 finite and infinite intelligence throngliout immensity and eternity, 
 toward the goal of omniscience. 
 
 Foundation for this tlieory in the relations of finite and Infinite 
 mind, and in the history of the human sciences. 
 
 Procession of the sciences in correspondence with the proces- 
 sion of phenomena, as involving an endless review of. the crea- 
 tion, by the creature, for the glory of the Creator. 
 
 Ideal perfectibility of knowledge as contrasted with its actual 
 imperfection. 
 
 Means and motives for ever striving after perfect knowledge. 
 
 PART II.— ART OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 Need of precepts for pursuing and perfecting the sciences. 
 Preliminary work of a logical partition of the sciences, with a 
 view to their systematic culture. 
 
 1. Axioms of Nomology, or organon of inductive science. 
 
 2. Axioms of JEtiology, or " of intuitive " 
 
 3. Axioms of Ontology, or " of omniscience. 
 
 The ideal of a full equipment of the sciences for their work of 
 endless progression toward perfect knowledge. 
 Prospect of its realization. 
 
 PART III.—SCIENCE OF THE ARTS. 
 
 Practical issue of the sciences in their correspondent arts. 
 
 This growth of the arts out of the sciences, from having been 
 spontaneous and irregular, may become more and more logical 
 and systematic. 
 
 Logical partition of the arts to be adjusted to that of the sci- 
 ences. 
 
 1. Science of the Material Arts, or principles which regu- 
 late the rational control of man over mechanical and chemical 
 phenomena in both the terrestrial and celestial spheres of action. 
 
 2. Science of the Moral Arts, or principles which regulate 
 
PIIILOSOPniA ULTIMA. 93 
 
 the rational control of man over individual and social phenomena 
 in both the terrestrial and cck'sdul sj)heres of action. 
 
 3. Science op the Reliuious Arts, or principles which regu- 
 late the rational control of man, in co-operation with God, over 
 both material and spiritual phenomena. 
 
 Procession of the arts from and witli the sciences as involviiif^ 
 the progressive dominion of the creature over tlie creation, and 
 his participation in the glory of the Creator. 
 
 Ideal perfectibility of the arts as contrasted with their actual 
 imperfection. 
 
 Consummation of the ultimate philosophy in three grand issues 
 of human history : 
 
 (1) The ultimate system of sciences. 
 
 (2) The ultimate system of arts. 
 
 (3) The ultimate system of society. 
 
 Means and motives for ever striving after this great consumma- 
 tion. 
 
 Inauguration of the ultimate philosophy : 
 The time, the present age. 
 ■ The scene, the Western Hemisphere. 
 The mode, the academic curriculum. 
 Scheme of academic study for its inauguration, based upon the 
 foregoing project, and arranged with reference to the existing and 
 prospective state of the sciences, as follows : — 
 
 I. RATIONAL AND REVEALED ASTRONOMY. 
 
 Illustration by celestial mechanics of the Divine omnipotence, 
 omnipresence, eternity, and immutability. 
 
 Antagonistic theories of cumulative forces and of successive 
 creations in their bearing upon the Scripture doctrine of the 
 origin and destiny of the material universe. 
 
 Astronomical miracles of Divine art. 
 
 Astronomical marvels of human art. 
 
94 PHILOSOPIIIA ULTIMA. 
 
 The millennium of mechanics, or of the mechanical arts, both 
 celestial and terrestrial. 
 
 II. RATIONAL AND REVEALED GEOLOGY. 
 
 Illustration by terrestrial chemistry of the Divine wisdom and 
 goodness. 
 
 Antagonistic theories of the Catastrophists and TJniformita- 
 rians in their bearing upon the Scripture doctrine of the genesis 
 and renovation of the earth. 
 
 Cosmical miracles of Divine art. 
 
 Cosmical marvels of human art. 
 
 The millennium of chemistry, or of the cosmical arts, both ter- 
 restrial and celestial. 
 
 III. RATIONAL AND REVEALED ANTHROPOLOGY. 
 
 Cumulative illustration by terrestrial biology of the physical 
 attributes of the Creator. The recapitulation of the whole plan- 
 etary organism in man as the flower and head of nature. 
 
 Antagonistic theories of the Monogenists and Polygenists in 
 their bearing upon the Scripture doctrine of the First and Second 
 Adam. 
 
 Corporeal miracles of Divine art. 
 
 Corporeal marvels of human art. 
 
 The millennium of biology, or of the physical arts, both ter- 
 restrial and celestial. 
 
 IV. RATIONAL AND REVEALED PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 Illustration by terrestrial psychology of the Divine justice and 
 mercy. 
 
 Antagonistic theories of the Libertarians and Necessarians in 
 their bearing upon the Scripture doctrine of the depravity and 
 regeneration of the soul. 
 
 Antagonistic theories of the Spiritualists and Materialists in 
 
PIIILOSOrillA ULTIMA. 95 
 
 their bearinc: upon tlio Si'riptiiro aocti'ine of the proseiil and 
 future relations of soul and hody. 
 
 Antagonistic theories of the Naturalists and Supcrnaturalists 
 in their bearing upon the Scripture doctrine of satanic and an- 
 gelic influence. 
 
 Psychical miracles of Divine art. 
 
 Psychical marvels of human art. 
 
 The millennium of psychology, or of the psychical arts, both 
 terrestrial and celestial. 
 
 V. RATIONAL AND REVEALKD SOCIOLOGY. 
 
 Cumulative illustration by terrestrial sociology of the moral 
 attributes of Providence. 
 
 Antagonistic theories of Divine economies and human progress 
 in their bearing upon the Scripture doctrine of the apostacy and 
 the millennium. 
 
 Antagonistic theories as to the relation of the temporal to the 
 eternal, or of the spiritual to the material, in their bearing upon 
 the Scripture doctrine of church and state. 
 
 Antagonistic theories as to the inhabitation of the planets 
 in their bearing upon the Scripture doctrine of the kingdom of 
 the heavens, and the commerce of earthly and heavenly races. 
 
 Millennium of sociology, or of the political arts, both terres- 
 trial and celestial. 
 
 VL RATIONAL AND REVEALED THEOLOGY. 
 
 Climacteric illustration by terrestrial theology of all Divine 
 perfections. The recapitulation of the whole material and spir- 
 itual organism in the Second Adam, the Son of God and the Son 
 of man. 
 
 Antagonistic theories as to the Infinite or the Absolute in their 
 bearing upon the Scripture doctrine of the Being of God. 
 
 Antap-onistic theories of the Monotheists and Pantheists in 
 
96 PHILOSOPniA ULTIMA. 
 
 their bearing upon tlie Scripture doctrine of creation and re- 
 demption. 
 
 Antagonistic theories as to the relation of the finite to the 
 Infinite Spirit in their bearing upon the Scripture doctrine of the 
 destiny of the creature. 
 
 The millennium of theology, or of the religious arts, both ter- 
 restrial and celestial. 
 
 The general millennium of terrestrial sciences and arts, both 
 material and spiritual, as involving a union of the human with 
 the Divine mind and will in the knowledge and control of all ter- 
 restrial phenomena. 
 
 The universal millennium of celestial sciences and arts, both 
 spiritual and material, as involving the endless return, through all 
 worlds and ages, of the finite into the Infinite Reason and effort 
 after the one perfect religion or relUjature of the creature to the 
 Creator, through and by means of the creation. 
 
 Aims of such a course of studies : 1st. To preserve through- 
 out the scale of the sciences the vital connection of the terrestrial 
 with the celestial material of cognition, and the logical distinc- 
 tion between the empirical and intuitional modes of cognition. 
 2d. To combine in each science all that is established as discov- 
 ered with all that is established as revealed, and as to all that is 
 still theoretical and doctrinal, to show the problem of opinion. 
 3d. To connect logically the ascertained portions of one science 
 with those of another, and problematically their theoretical por- 
 tions. 4th. To display with the series of the sciences their corre- 
 sponding series of arts as ever tending to enhance the Divine 
 glory and human welfare. And lastly, to organize, by this means, 
 that proximate system of sciences, arts, and societies upon which 
 to project, in endless perspective, the ultimate system. 
 
A*