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SELECTIONS 
 
 THE WRITINGS 
 
 dr: whately, 
 
 M 
 
 ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN, 
 
 "WITH HIS GRACE'S PERMISSION.'" 
 
 ' " Invenies etiam disjecti membra poetse." — Horace. 
 
 " The perception of analogies— the exercise of that powerful abstraction 
 which seizes the point of agreement in a number of otherwise dissimilar 
 individuals — it is in this that the greatest genius is shewn."— Bishop 
 Copleston. 
 
 LONDON : 
 RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET, 
 
 ^ufclisfjet in ortrtnat:» to f^er i&ajestg. 
 
 1856. 
 

 LONDON : 
 WALTOX AND MITCHELL, PRINTKRS, WARDOUR STREET. 
 
 ^-M0 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The work now presented to the public was originally 
 designed to form the Second Volume of a Selection 
 from the Writings of Archbishop Whately 
 published under the title of Detached Thoughts and 
 Apophthegms ; but an unavoidable delay in the publi- 
 cation has made it advisable that the present Series 
 should appear as a separate Work. 
 
 It will be found, however, to differ from the former 
 chiefly in this respect, that instead of being, like it, 
 confined to one topic, — the all-important topic of the 
 Love of Truth in Keligious Enquiry, — this Selection 
 embraces a great variety of subjects. The Selection, 
 therefore, as designed to be, in many instances, an 
 exposition (however necessarily inadequate) of a sub- 
 ject, and not merely of a single thought, is conse- 
 quently of greater length. 
 
 This feature of the present Selection, it is confidently 
 anticipated, must commend it to those readers whose 
 first introduction it may be to the Works from which 
 it has been made. Nor is the Editor less hopeful of 
 
IV INTRODUCTION. 
 
 obtaining from the class of readers familiar with those 
 Works, that indulgence for this little Volume, which is 
 all that, at their hands, it can claim. That know- 
 ledge of the Works from which a selection has been 
 made, ordinarily so much to be deprecated by an Edi- 
 tor, as involving disappointment at unavoidable omis- 
 sions, is felt in this case to be the best security for 
 indulgence being extended. He who is best ac- 
 quainted with the Works of Archbishop Whately 
 can best appreciate the difficulty of selection, and can 
 most accurately estimate Venibarras de ricJiesses. 
 
 It is hoped that the readers of each class will feel, 
 with the Editor, an especial interest in the thoughts 
 on Scripture and kindred subjects. These have not 
 been selected without earnest prayer, for the influence 
 of that Divine Spirit which can alone make any words 
 of wisdom minister " to the use of edifying." 
 
 It remains only to add, that this Selection, as well 
 as the former, has been made with the Author's full 
 permission, accorded with a prompt and liberal kind- 
 ness which claims the Editor's most grateful acknow- 
 ledgments. 
 
 November UtJi, 1855. 
 
THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 Four kinds of bad examples do us harm : — 1. Those 
 we imitate; 2. those we proudly exult over; 3. 
 those which drive us into an opposite extreme ; and 
 4, those which lower our standard. A man is al- 
 ways in danger of being satisfied, and perhaps, 
 more than satisfied, if he does but excel ; and excel- 
 lence is relative. Whence it comes that bad examples 
 do much the greatest amount of evil among those 
 who do not follow them. For one who is corrupted 
 by becoming as bad as a bad example, there are ten 
 that are debased by becoming content with being 
 better. 
 
 An honest man has, ceteris paribus, a better know- 
 ledge of human nature than a knave ; because he 
 knows that there are knaves ; while the other gene- 
 
 B 
 
2 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 rally disbelieves the existence of honest men. In- 
 ferior motives, self-interest, love of ease, . &c, are 
 understood by all, because they exist in all. The 
 higher motives do not exist in the baser part of man- 
 kind, who, consequently, are apt not to believe in 
 them. It is to this Miss Edgeworth alludes, when 
 she speaks of the class of persons who " divide all 
 mankind into knaves and fools ; and when they meet 
 with an honest man, do not know what to make of 
 him." 
 
 The poet who said, " Little things are great to 
 little men," might have added, " Great things are 
 little to little men." 
 
 As a great part of the pleasure afforded by wit 
 results from a perception of skill displayed and diffi- 
 culty surmounted, jests on sacred subjects afford the 
 least gratification to judges of good taste, for this 
 reason, (apart from all higher considerations,) that 
 they are the most easily produced of any ; the con- 
 trast between a dignified and a low image exhibited 
 in combination, (in which the whole force of the 
 ludicrous consists,) being in this case the most 
 striking. 
 
 Lord Byron, though a dangerous writer to the 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 6 
 
 very thoughtless, may, in his later works, prove a 
 very serviceable writer to a person of tolerable good 
 sense, by furnishing a sort of reductio ad absurdum 
 of the whole system of scoffing. 
 
 A Socinian, we will say, who fancies ridicule the 
 test of truth, thinks he has made the doctrine of 
 the incarnation appear perfectly absurd by having 
 held it up to ridicule and scorn ; professing all along, 
 and perhaps, feeling, the most serious veneration for 
 Christianity. But the Deist finds it very easy to 
 employ the same plan for his purposes ; for, in fact, 
 " everything," says the proverb, " has two handles,' 7 
 and it is not difficult to place Christianity in such a 
 point of view that it shall seem extravagant and 
 ridiculous, and so to interweave with every part of it 
 absurd ideas, and to suggest low and ludicrous associa- 
 tions that it shall seem unworthy of serious notice. 
 Meantime, he is perhaps not at all aware of what 
 he is about, not dreaming that what he calls natural 
 religion may be laughed down, just on the same 
 plan. The Atheist does this for him, making the 
 whole constitution and course of nature appear a joke 
 — the universe, a whimsical and random jumble of 
 atoms ; yet he will still have some ground to stand 
 on, as he will talk very big of conforming to the 
 excellence of human nature, of the perfectibility of 
 the species, and of virtue being its own reward, &c. 
 
 b 2 
 
4 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 Next comes the philosopher, or philosophico- 
 sentimentalist of some of the German schools, who, 
 in like manner, holds np to scorn all rules of ethics — 
 all pretence of acting on fixed principles ; and is all 
 for " listening to the dictates of the heart," " follow- 
 ing the impulse of unsophisticated nature," &c, &c. 
 If, therefore, you ask him whether there is anything 
 at all that is worthy of serious regard, he will refer 
 you to those feelings as what ought to be so con- 
 sidered. Then forth steps Lord Byron, and shews 
 you that it is not a whit more difficult to turn 
 into ridicule all the most natural feelings of the 
 human heart ; thus overthrowing the last stronghold 
 to which reason, or anything partaking of reason, 
 can retire ; extinguishing this last faint glimmer of 
 twilight, on the same principle by which the utmost 
 brilliancy that human wisdom can attain had been 
 quenched. 
 
 A man of any considerate common sense will be 
 apt to pause at this, and reflect, that since there 
 surely is something which is not a mere joke, and 
 since it now appears plain that there is nothing 
 which may not be so represented, by one who has the 
 knack of setting things in an absurd point of view, 
 it may be as well, to try over again, with serious 
 candour, everything which has been hastily given up 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 as fit only for ridicule, and to abandon the system 
 of scoffing altogether ; looking at everything on the 
 right side as well as the wrong, and trying how any 
 system will look standing upright, as well as topsy- 
 turvey. 
 
 There seems to me a considerable resemblance be- 
 tween Lord Byron, Voltaire in his Candide, and 
 Swift in his Houghymns ; viz., that each seems to 
 satirize not merely any class of mankind in general, 
 as they are, but human nature in the" abstract : one 
 might suppose each to be a being (as, I think, Mad. 
 de Stael says of Voltaire) of a different species. 
 Swift does not, however, so fully answer the purpose 
 of a reductio ad absurdum, because though he laughs 
 at, and abuses, everything that is, he seems to have 
 a real value for something that is conceivable. The 
 ridicule, however, which, in his account of Lagoda 
 he throws indiscriminately on all projects of improve- 
 ment, (for he represents his man of sense not as 
 steering a middle course, but as being against all 
 alterations, wishing to let everything remain just as 
 it was,) when compared with the improvements 
 which have, since his time, taken place in agricul- 
 tural implements, machinery of various sorts, gas- 
 lamps, railroads, steamboats, and numberless things 
 connected with chemistry, abundantly prove how 
 possible, and how easy, it is to make what is per- 
 
b THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 fectly rational and highly dignified, assume an air of 
 the wildest and most ludicrous absurdity. Astro- 
 nomy and electricity have been most copiously ridi- 
 culed in their time ; — see a satire of Hudihras — 
 Butler — on the Eoyal Society, soon after its esta- 
 blishment. 
 
 It is a good plan, with a young ]^erson of a cha- 
 racter to be much affected by ludicrous and absurd 
 representations, to shew him plainly, by examples, 
 that there is nothing which may not be so repre- 
 sented ; he will hardly need to be told that every 
 thing is not a mere joke, and he may thus be secured 
 from falling into a contempt of those particular 
 things, which he may, at any time, happen to find 
 so treated. 
 
 Certainly, it cannot be said that Lord Byron has 
 put vice in the most seductive form ; for he always 
 places it in company with acute suffering or dismal 
 gloom. And though, in many instances, he has con- 
 ferred a dignity on his vicious character, nearly (not 
 quite) as seductive as that of Milton's Satan, yet in 
 Don Juan he has robbed it even of dignity. His 
 writings, however, may do harm to the very 
 thoughtless. 
 
 Sophistry, like poison, is at once detected and 
 nauseated, when presented to us in a concentrated 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 7 
 
 form ; but a fallacy which, when stated barely in a 
 few sentences, w^ould not deceive a child, may deceive 
 half the world, if diluted in a quarto volume. It is 
 -true, in a course of argument, as in mechanics, that 
 u nothing is stronger than its weakest part," and 
 consequently a chain which has one faulty link will 
 break ; but though the number of the sound links 
 adds nothing to the strength of the chain, it adds 
 much to the chance of the faulty one's escaping ob- 
 servation. 
 
 It must not be expected that reason will uni- 
 versally make its way. " Medicamenta" says the 
 medical aphorism, u non agunt incadaver." Those 
 in whom indolence is combined with pride, will be 
 induced, by the one, to remain in their position, 
 and, by the other, to fortify it as well as they can. 
 
 A safe man, in the estimation of most people, is 
 one, not whose views are, on the w r hole, most rea- 
 sonable, but one who is free from all errors except 
 vulgar errors. 
 
 Galileo, probably, would have escaped persecution, 
 if his discoveries could have been disproved, and his 
 reasonings refuted. 
 
8 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 A crude theory, in the language of some men, 
 means one, which (being new) has not first occurred 
 to themselves. 
 
 A superfluous truism to one person, may be a re- 
 volting paradox to another. 
 
 An incorrect analogy, constantly before us, is like 
 a distorted mirror in the apartment we inhabit, pro- 
 ducing a fixed and habitual false impression. Such 
 a familiar, seeming analogy between the several pro- 
 fessions, has led men to feel, rather than distinctly 
 maintain, that as they confide the care of their 
 bodily health to the physician, and of their legal 
 transactions to the lawyer, so they may commit to 
 a distinct order of men, the care of their religious 
 concerns, and serve God by proxy. 
 
 Man, except when unusually depraved, retains 
 enough of the image of his Maker to have a natural 
 reverence for religion, and a desire that God should 
 be worshipped ; but through the corruption of his 
 nature, his heart is (except when divinely purified) 
 too much alienated from God to take delight in serv- 
 ing Him. Hence, the disposition men have ever 
 shewn to substitute the devotion of the priest for 
 their own ; — to leave the duties of piety in his hands, 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. \) 
 
 and to let him serve God in their stead. This dis- 
 position is not so much the consequence, as itself the 
 origin, of priest-craft. 
 
 The frequency with which we hear profane dis- 
 course, intemperance, or devotedness to frivolous 
 amusements, characterized as " unbecoming a cler- 
 gyman/ 7 in a sort of tone which implies the speaker's 
 feeling to be, that they are unbecoming merely 
 to a clergyman, not to a Christian, is a proof of 
 the general tendency to vicarious religion, which 
 makes men, who take little care to keep their own 
 lights burning, desirous to have one to whom they 
 may apply in their extremity, " Give us of your 
 oil, for our lamps are going out." 
 
 An exemplary character, according to the notions 
 of some, is one whose example no one is expected 
 to follow. 
 
 To trace any error to its source, w T ill often throw, 
 more light on the subject in hand, than can be ob- 
 tained, if we rest satisfied with merely detecting and 
 refuting it. 
 
 Men delight in everything peculiar, whether an 
 advantage or not. 
 
10 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 It is seldom that a man labours well in his minor 
 department, unless he overrates it. It is lucky for 
 us, that the bee does not look upon the honeycomb in 
 the same light we do. 
 
 That is suitable to a man in point of ornamental 
 expense, not which he can afford to have, but which 
 he can afford to lose. 
 
 Never let a confidence be forced upon you. 
 
 Hard labour is not whenever you are very ac- 
 tively employed, but when you must be. 
 
 To be always thinking about your manners, is not 
 the way to make them good ; because the very per- 
 fection of manners is not to think about yourself. 
 
 The love of admiration leads to fraud, much more 
 than the love of commendation ; but, on the other 
 hand, the latter is much more likely to spoil our 
 good actions by the substitution of an inferior motive. 
 
 The tendency of the love of commendation is to 
 make a man exert himself ; of the love of admiration, 
 to make him puff himself. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 11 
 
 If a man is content with the opinion of virtue or 
 ability, he seems manifestly prizing a mere shadow, 
 and we exclaim against such pure vanity ; but if a 
 person can be universally and constantly believed to 
 possess beauty, or a fine ring, he has all that the 
 actual possession of them could confer ; you cannot 
 therefore so well blame a person for pursuing a 
 shadow, in a case where the substance is valued 
 only for the sake of the shadow. 
 
 As .one of the earliest dawning, and most im- 
 portant, differences between individuals is the degree 
 and manner in which they desire approbation, so it 
 is one of the most striking in their respective be- 
 haviours. As with children, some are anxious to 
 attract notice, and wanting you to observe them 
 when playing, while another even of the same family 
 is quite independent, and satisfied in solitude : so 
 also with grown persons ; one man is considering at 
 every step what people think of him ; the other, 
 comparatively, concerns himself little about it : the 
 one speaks as if he wanted to say something — the 
 other as if he had something to say. The manner 
 generated by the former habit, has been, aptly 
 enough, called conscious, which perfectly accords 
 w T ith Adam Smith's account of conscience ; viz., the 
 judgment which we pronounce on our own conduct 
 by putting ourselves in the place of a by-stander. 
 
12 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 "While we are taking pains with our morals, we 
 are taking pains with that which is the most im- 
 portant ; when about manners, we are attending to 
 the surface, instead of the substance. Take care of 
 the digestion and circulation, if you would keep them 
 sound ; if you would keep the skin clear, take care 
 (not of the skin, but) of the digestion and circu- 
 lation. 
 
 He will please most who is aiming, not to please, 
 but to give pleasure. 
 
 It is remarkable that great affectation, and great 
 absence of it (unconsciousness), are at first sight 
 very similar ; — they are both apt to produce sin- 
 gularity. . 
 
 Though many conscious people are very agree- 
 able, there is a charm in unconscious manners, which 
 endears a person, even when there is nothing else 
 very remarkable in him. Social intercourse is in 
 itself a pleasure, independent of the instruction or 
 entertainment we may derive from the matter and 
 language ; else books would be, which they are not, 
 a complete substitute for society : hence it appears, 
 that the essence of social intercourse is the inter- 
 change of ideas, as they arise actually in the minds 
 of the speakers ; the excellence of it, therefore, in 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 13 
 
 social intercourse, must consist in complete uncon- 
 sciousness ; the further you recede from that, (and 
 there are infinite degrees), however clever your con- 
 versation, the less have you of the nature of a com- 
 panion, and the more of a book ; consequently Con- 
 sciousness is, as it were, the specific poison of that 
 which is the very essence of conversation. All 
 disregard of self also is so amiable, that uncon- 
 sciousness seems to be almost a virtue. In the 
 pulpit, it is quite : an ambassador from heaven 
 should not dare to be thinking of .himself, and trying 
 to be a fine man, when he should only be thinking of 
 his message. How would the practice of this virtue, 
 with singleness of heart, by the clergy increase the 
 effect produced by them ! 
 
 A student of mathematics, after having gone 
 through, and seemingly understood, Euclid's proof, 
 that the squares of the sides containing a right angle, 
 are equal to the square of the side subtending it, re- 
 marked, to the astonishment and dismay of his teacher, 
 " But it is not really so, is it, Sir ?" Many, who would 
 laugh at this query, might yet be found assenting to 
 all the reasoning on which some political or other 
 measure should be maintained, and then coolly re- 
 marking, that it is practically false, though theoreti- 
 cally true : or, themselves maintaining some princi - 
 
14 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 pies of moral conduct, which yet, they consider them- 
 selves as not bound to exemplify in their own prac- 
 tice, though they may be very suitable to a moral 
 tale. And in proportion as men are accustomed 
 (much more, children) to contemplate and admire 
 virtue, without being taught, by example or other- 
 wise, that they are expected to realize the picture, 
 they will become the less fitted for the actual per- 
 formance of their duties. 
 
 A large volume might be composed of moral 
 apophthegms which are commonly uttered, and 
 readily admitted, but which were never practically 
 believed by any one. 
 
 Men's moral maxims, in general, are, like Peter 
 Pindar's razors, made not to shave, but to sell. 
 
 Ethical maxims are banded about as a sort of cur- 
 rent coin of discourse, and being never melted down 
 for use, those that are of base metal are never de- 
 tected. 
 
 The charity of some persons consists in proceeding 
 on the supposition, that to believe in the existence 
 of an injury is to cherish implacable resentment, and 
 that it is impossible to forgive, except where there 
 is nothing to be forgiven. It is obvious that these 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 15 
 
 notions render nugatory the gospel precepts. Why 
 should we be called upon to render good for evil, if 
 we are bound always to explain away that evil, and 
 call it good ? Where there is manifestly just ground 
 for complaint, we should accustom ourselves to say, 
 " That man owes me an hundred pence !" Thus, at 
 once recalling to our mind the parable of him who 
 rigorously enforced his own claims, when he had 
 been forgiven a debt of ten thousand talents. 
 
 To dwell upon the faults of a parent or a friend, or 
 even a stranger, is wrong ; but it is absolutely ne- 
 cessary to perceive and acknowledge them ; for, if we 
 think ourselves bound to vindicate them in another, 
 we shall not be very likely to condemn them in our- 
 selves. Self-love will, most likely, demand fair 
 play, and urge that what is right in another is not 
 wrong in us ; and thus we shall have been pervert- 
 ing our own principles of morality. 
 
 Most precepts that are given are so general that 
 they cannot be applied, except by an exercise of 
 just as much discretion as would be sufficient to 
 frame them. 
 
 Most men will agree that practice without prin- 
 ciple, or vice versa, is not enough ; but they can 
 
16 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 seldom understand, that when both are right, some- 
 thing more may vet be, and often is, wanting ; viz., 
 that the practice should spring from the principle. 
 
 Any Christian minister who should confine him- 
 self to what are sometimes (erroneously) called 
 " practical sermons/ 5 — t. e., mere moral essays, with- 
 out any mention of the peculiar doctrines of Chris- 
 tianity, — is in the same condition with the heathen 
 philosophers, with this difference, that what was 
 their misfortune is his fault. 
 
 It is too generally true, that all that is required 
 to make men unmindful what they owe to God for 
 any blessing, is, that they should receive that bless- 
 ing often enough, and regularly enough. 
 
 Early and long familiarity is apt to generate a 
 careless, — I might almost say, a stupid, indifference 
 to many objects, which, if new to us, would excite 
 a great and a just admiration : and many are inclined 
 even to hold cheap a stranger, who expresses wonder 
 at what seems to us very natural and simple, merely 
 because we have been used to it, while, in fact, per- 
 haps, our apathy is a more just subject of contempt 
 than his astonishment. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. . 17 
 
 The liability to mistake for the wisdom of man, 
 that which is in truth the wisdom of God, is mani- 
 fested in nothing, perhaps, more than in overlooking 
 the evidences of the Divine wisdom in the provisions 
 made for the progress of society. In the bodily 
 structure of man, and in the result of instinct in 
 brutes, we plainly perceive innumerable marks of 
 wise contrivance, in which it is plain that man and 
 the brute can have had no share. But when human 
 conduct tends to some desirable end, and when the 
 agents are competent to perceive that the end is de- 
 sirable, and the means well adapted to it, we are apt 
 to forget that those means were not devised, nor 
 those ends proposed, by the persons themselves who 
 are employed. For instance, let any one propose to 
 himself the problem of supplying with daily pro- 
 visions the inhabitants of such a city as London, — 
 that " province covered with houses." Let any one 
 consider this problem in all its bearings, — reflecting 
 on the enormous and fluctuating number of persons 
 to be fed, the immense quantity, and the variety, of 
 the provisions to be furnished, the importance of a 
 convenient distribution of them, and the necessity of 
 husbanding them discreetly, lest a deficient supply, 
 even for a single day, should produce distress, or a 
 redundancy, from the perishable nature of many of 
 them, produce a corresponding waste ; and then, let 
 
 c 
 
18 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 him reflect on the anxious toil which such a task 
 would impose on a Board of the most experienced 
 and intelligent commissaries, who, after all, would 
 be able to discharge their office but very inadequately. 
 Yet this object is accomplished far better than it 
 could be by any effort of human wisdom, through 
 the agency of men, who think each of nothing be- 
 yond his own immediate interest, — who, with that 
 object in view, perform their respective parts with 
 cheerful zeal, — and combine unconsciously to employ 
 the wisest means for effecting an object, the vastness 
 of which it would bewilder them even to contemplate. 
 Can any of the admirable marks of contrivance and 
 design, in the anatomical structure of the human 
 body, and in the instincts of the brute creation, be 
 more admirable than that beneficient wisdom of Pro- 
 vidence, by which not corporeal particles, but rational 
 free agents, co-operate in systems no less manifestly 
 indicating design, — yet no design of theirs ; and 
 though acted on, not by gravitation and impulse, like 
 inert matter, but by motives addressed to the will, 
 yet advance as regularly and as effectually the ac- 
 complishment of an object they never contemplated, 
 as if they were merely the passive wheels of a 
 machine. 
 
 Human conduct with regard to knowledge, fur- 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 19 
 
 nishes an instance, as far as respects the object not 
 being contemplated by the agent, of a procedure pre- 
 cisely analogous to that of instinct. Knowledge 
 would not have made the advances it has made, if it 
 had been promoted only by persons influenced by 
 pure public spirit. . The greater part of it is the gift, 
 not of human but, of Divine benevolence, which has 
 implanted in man a thirst after knowledge for its own 
 sake, accompanied with a sort of instinctive desire, 
 founded probably on sympathy, of communicating it 
 to others as an ultimate end. 
 
 It is now generally acknowledged that relief af- 
 forded to want, as mere want, tends to increase that 
 • want ; while the relief afforded to the sick, the in- 
 firm, and the disabled, has plainly no tendency to 
 multiply its own objects. Now it is remarkable, 
 that the Lord Jesus employed His miraculous power 
 in healing the sick continually, but in feeding the 
 hungry only twice ; while the power of multiplying 
 food which He then manifested, as well as His direct- 
 ing the disciples to take care and gather up the frag- 
 ments that remained that nothing might be lost, 
 served to mark that the abstaining from any like 
 procedure on other occasions was deliberate design. 
 In this, besides other objects, our Lord had pro- 
 bably in view to afford us some instruction, from 
 
 c 2 
 
20 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 his example, as to the mode of our charity. Cer- 
 tain it is, that the reasons for this distinction are 
 now, and ever must be, the same as at that time. 
 Now to those engaged in that important and inex- 
 haustible subject of inquiry, the internal evidences 
 of Christianity, it will be interesting to observe here, 
 one of the instances in which the super-human wis- 
 dom of Jesus forestalled the discovery of an important 
 principle, often overlooked, not only by the gene- 
 rality of men, but by the most experienced statesmen 
 and the ablest philosophers, even in these later ages 
 of extended human knowledge, and development of 
 mental power. 
 
 One of the most interesting and important points 
 in Natural Theology is, the combination of physical 
 laws with instincts adapted to them. One instance, 
 out of many, of this principle, may be taken as a 
 sample, — that of the instinct of suction, as connected 
 with the whole process of rearing young animals. 
 The calf sucks, and its mother equally desires to be 
 disburthened of its milk. Thus there are two in- 
 stincts tending the same way. Moreover, the calf 
 has an appetite for grass also; it takes hold of the 
 grass, chews and swallows it ; but it does not bite 
 but sucks the teat. But it is also necessary that 
 there should be a physical adaptation of the atmos- 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 21 
 
 phere to the instinct of the animal. It is the pres- 
 sure of the atmosphere upon the part, and the with- 
 drawal of that pressure within the young animal' s 
 mouth, which forces out the milk. Here is an adap- 
 tation of instinct to the physical constitution of the 
 atmosphere. Yet again, all this would be insuffi- 
 cient without the addition of that storge, or instinctive 
 parental affection, which leads the dam carefully to 
 watch and defend its young. The most timid ani- 
 mals are ready to risk their lives, and undergo any 
 hardships, to protect their young, which is a feeling 
 quite distinct from the gratification felt by the dam 
 from her offspring drawing her milk. Here, then, 
 are several instincts, and the adaptation of the at- 
 mosphere to one of those instincts, all combining 
 towards the preservation of the species ; which form, 
 in conjunction, as clear an indication of design as 
 can be conceived. It is hardly possible to conceive 
 any plainer mark of design, unless a person were 
 beforehand to say that he intended to do a certain 
 thing. Yet this is not all ; for the secretion of milk 
 is not common to both sexes, and all ages, and all 
 times. Here is the secretion of milk at a particular 
 time, just corresponding with the need for it. If we 
 found sickles produced at harvest, fires lighted when 
 the weather is cold, and sails spread when favourable 
 winds blow, we should see clearly that these things 
 
22 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 were designed to effect a certain end or object. Now, 
 in the case of the mother and the young, there is a 
 secretion of rnilk at a particular period, and in an 
 animal of a distinct sex — the one which has given 
 birth to the young. Yet the perpetuation of the spe- 
 cies might take place if the milk had been provided 
 so as to be constant in all ages and sexes. But what 
 we do see is, means provided for an end, and just 
 commensurate to that end. 
 
 To perceive a reason for anything that God has 
 done is far different from perceiving the reason. 
 
 A fool can ask more questions than a wise man 
 can answer ; but a wise man cannot ask more ques- 
 tions than he will find a fool ready to answer. 
 
 It usually requires that a man should have some 
 confidence in his own understanding to venture to 
 say, " What has been spoken is unintelligible to 
 
 me," 
 
 He that is not aware of his ignorance, will be 
 only misled by his knowledge. 
 
 Young students should remember, that by a con- 
 fession of real ignorance must real knowledge be 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 23 
 
 gained; and even when that further knowledge is 
 not gained, still even the knowledge of the ignorance 
 is a great thing in itself, — so great, it seems, as to 
 have constituted Socrates the wisest of his time. 
 
 Some of the chief sources of unknown ignorance 
 are to be found in our not being aware, 1. How in- 
 adequate a medium language is for conveying thought. 
 2. How inadequate our very minds are for the com- 
 prehension of many things. 3. How little we need 
 understand a word which may yet be familiar to us, 
 and which we may use in reasoning. This piece of 
 ignorance is closely connected with the two foregoing. 
 (Hence, frequently men will accept as an explana- 
 tion of a phenomenon, a mere statement of the diffi- 
 culty in other words.) 4. How utterly ignorant we 
 are of efficient causes ; and how the philosopher who 
 refers to the law of gravitation the falling of a stone 
 to the earth, no further explains the phenomenon 
 than the peasant, who would say it is the nature of 
 it. The philosopher knows that the stone obeys the 
 same law to which all other bodies are subject, and 
 to which, for convenience, he gives the name of 
 gravitation. His knowledge is only more general 
 than the peasant's, which, however, is a vast advan- 
 tage. 5. How many words there are that express, 
 not the nature of the things they are applied to, but 
 
24 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 the manner in which they affect us : and which there- 
 fore give about as correct a notion of those things, as 
 the word " crooked " would if applied to a stick half 
 immersed in w^ater. (Such is the word chance, with 
 all its family. ) 6. How many causes may and 
 usually do, conduce to the same effect. 7. How 
 liable the faculties, even of the ablest, are to occa- 
 sional failure ; so that they shall overlook mistakes 
 (and those often the most at variance with their own 
 established notions) which, when once exposed see 
 quite gross even to inferior men. 8. How much all 
 are biassed, in all their moral reasonings, by self- 
 love, or perhaps, rather, partiality to human nature 
 and other passions. 9. Dugald Stewart would add 
 very justly, How little we know of matter ; no more 
 indeed than of mind ; though all are prone to attempt 
 explaining the phenomena of mind by those of mat- 
 ter : for what is familiar men generally consider as 
 well known, though the fact is oftener otherwise. 
 The errors arising from these causes, from not calcu- 
 lating on them, — that is, in short, from ignorance of 
 our own ignorance, have probably impeded philoso- 
 phy more than all other obstacles put together. 
 
 "A little learning" is then only (and then al- 
 ways) " a dangerous thing/' when we are not aware 
 of its littleness. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 25 
 
 " A little learning is a dangerous thing," and yet 
 it is what all must attain before they can arrive at 
 great learning ; it is the utmost acquisition of those 
 who know the most, in comparison of what they do 
 not know. The field of science may be compared to 
 an American forest, in which the more trees a man 
 cuts down, the greater is the expanse of wood he 
 sees around him. 
 
 An error in physics and science is nothing so long 
 as it is not taught as a part of religion. If taught 
 as such, it becomes a lever placed underneath a 
 man's religious principles, which will heave up and 
 overthrow them ; for as soon as he discovers it to be 
 error, he thinks he has got a demonstration of the 
 falsity of the revelation, of which he has been told 
 it is a part. 
 
 It is not over education, but misdirected educa- 
 tion, that is to be deprecated. 
 
 It has been objected, that to educate the children 
 of the poor disqualifies them for an humble and 
 laborious station in life, — and it is indeed possible 
 so to educate children as to unfit them for it : but 
 this mistake does not so much consist in the amount 
 of the knowledge imparted, as in the kind and the 
 
26 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 manner of education. Habits early engrafted on 
 children, of regular attention, — of steady application 
 to what they are about, — of prompt obedience to the 
 directions they receive, — of cleanliness, order, and 
 decent and modest behaviour, cannot but be of ad- 
 vantage to them in after life, whatever their station 
 may be. And certainly, their familiar acquaintance 
 with the precepts and example of Him who, when 
 all stations of life were at His command, chose to be 
 the reputed son of a poor mechanic, and to live with 
 peasants and fishermen ; or, again, of His apostle 
 Paul, whose own hands ministered to his necessities, 
 and to those of his companions : — such studies, I say, 
 can surely never tend to unfit any one for a life of 
 humble and contented industry. 
 
 The dangers of knowledge are not to be compared 
 with the dangers of ignorance. Man is more likely 
 to miss his way in darkness than in twilight ; in twi- 
 light than in full sun. 
 
 While the pedantry of learning and science has 
 often been dwelt upon, and deservedly ridiculed, 
 there is another danger on the opposite side, which 
 is rarely, if ever, mentioned ; yet it is a folly quite 
 as great as the other ; of a yet more intolerable cha- 
 racter, and still more hopeless. — I mean what may 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 27 
 
 be called " the pedantry of common- sense and ex- 
 perience. 77 For one person who is overbearing you 
 on account of his knowledge of technical terms, you 
 will find five or six, still more provokingly imper- 
 tinent, w T ith their common- sense and experience. 
 Their common- sense will be found nothing more than 
 common prejudice ; and their experience will be 
 found to consist in the fact that they have done a 
 thing wrong very often,, and fancy they have done 
 it right. In former times, men knew by experience 
 that the earth stands still, and the sun rises and 
 sets. Common- sense taught them that there could 
 be no antipodes ; since men could not stand with 
 their heads downwards, like flies on the ceiling. 
 Experience taught the King of Bantam that water 
 could not become solid. And the experience and com- 
 mon-sense of one of the most observant and intelli- 
 gent of historians, Tacitus, convinced him that for 
 a mixed government to be so framed as to combine 
 the elements of royalty, aristocracy, and democracy, 
 must be next to impossible, and that if such a one 
 could be framed, it must inevitably be ^very speedily 
 dissolved. 
 
 Since the sailor, the physician, and every other 
 practitioner, each in his own department, gives the 
 preference to unassisted common- sense only in those 
 
28 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 cases where he himself has nothing else to trust to, 
 and invariably resorts to the rules of art wherever 
 he possesses the knowledge of them, it is plain that 
 mankind universally bear their testimony, though 
 unconsciously and often unwillingly, that systematic 
 knowledge is preferable to conjectural judgments, 
 and that common- sense is only our second best guide. 
 
 There is a story told of some gentleman who, on 
 being asked whether he could play on the violin, 
 made answer that he really did not know whether he 
 could or not, because he had never tried. There is 
 at least more modesty in this expression of doubt, 
 than those shew who discuss, with the most unhesi- 
 tating confidence, the most difficult questions of Po- 
 litical Economy, while not only ignorant, but pro- 
 fessedly ignorant, and designing to continue so, of 
 the whole subject ; neither having, nor pretending 
 to have, nor wishing for, any fixed principles by 
 which to regulate their judgment on each point. 
 And this glaring absurdity they conceal from them- 
 selves, and from each other, by keeping clear of the 
 title by which the science is commonly designated, 
 while the subjects which constitute the proper and 
 sole province of that science, they do not scruple to 
 submit to extemporaneous discussion. Decisions on 
 questions concerning taxation, tithes, the national 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 29 
 
 debt, the poor-laws, the wages which labourers earn, 
 or ought to earn, the comparative advantages of 
 different modes of charity, and numberless others,' 
 are boldly pronounced, by many who utterly disdain 
 having turned their attention to Political Economy. 
 This is as if the gentleman in the story just alluded 
 to, had declared his inability to play on the violin, 
 at the same time expressing his confidence that he 
 could play on the fiddle. 
 
 Those who are too lazy to take the pains of ac- 
 quiring accurate knowledge on some point on which 
 they are ignorant, and, at the same time, too proud 
 to own their ignorance, shelter themselves under the 
 convenient plea of being adherents of common- sense, 
 and decry speculative doctrines, which would be per- 
 nicious in practice. The censure may, in some in- 
 stances, chance to be right ; and so, perhaps, might 
 the grapes in the fable have been really sour — but 
 the fox would have had a better right to pronounce 
 upon them if he had first contrived to taste them. 
 In fact, every theory which fails in practice, must, 
 if duly examined, be found to contain some flaw in 
 principle ; and the wiser and more effectual (though 
 not the least laborious) procedure, is, to detect its 
 errors, and to condemn it, not for being a theory, 
 but for being an unsound one. Common-sense (at 
 
30 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 least the most common sort of it) seems to be little 
 better than the offspring of pride and indolence. 
 
 Men are often misled by resting on the authority 
 of Experience. Not that Experience ought not to be 
 allowed to have great weight, but that men are apt 
 not to consider with sufficient attention what it is 
 that constitutes Experience in each point; and there- 
 fore need to be warned, first, that time alone does 
 not constitute Experience ; so that many years may 
 have passed over a man's head, without his even 
 having had the same opportunities of acquiring it as 
 another much younger. Secondly, that the longest 
 practice in conducting any business in one way, does 
 not necessarily confer any Experience in conducting 
 it in a different way ; e. g. y an experienced husband- 
 man, or minister of state in Persia, would be much 
 at a loss in Europe. And, thirdly, that merely 
 being conversant about a certain class of subjects, 
 does not confer Experience in a case where the opera- 
 tions, and the end proposed, are different ; as if a 
 man had dealt largely in corn all his life who had 
 never seen a field of wheat growing ; this man would 
 doubtless have acquired by experience an accurate 
 judgment of the qualities of each description of corn, 
 — of the best methods of storing it, — of the arts of 
 buying and selling it at proper times, &c. ; but he 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 31 
 
 would have been greatly at a loss in its cultivation, 
 though he had been, in a certain way, long con- 
 versant about corn. So the experience of practical 
 men, which is often appealed to in opposition to those 
 who are called theorists, will be sometimes found on 
 an attentive examination to be, in fact, the results 
 . of a more confined instead of a wider experience, or to 
 consist in their having for a long time gone on in a 
 certain beaten track, from which they never tried, or 
 witnessed, or even imagined, a deviation. It may 
 be added, that there is a proverbial maxim which 
 bears witness to the advantage sometimes possessed 
 by an observant by-stander over those actually en- 
 gaged in any transaction, " The looker-on often sees 
 more of the game than the players. Now the looker- 
 on is precisely (in Greek Oeapos') the theorist" 
 
 Common notions are not necessarily common-sense. 
 
 The great discrepancy in the results of what are 
 called Experience and Common- sense as contradistin- 
 guished from theory, is accounted for by the fact, 
 that men are so formed as often unconsciously to 
 reason, whether well or ill, on the phenomena they 
 observe, and to mix up their inferences with their 
 statements of those phenomena ; so as in fact to 
 theorize (however scantily or crudely) without know- 
 
32 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS, 
 
 ing it. Hence it is that several different men, who 
 have all had equal, or even the very same, expe- 
 rience, i.e., have been witnesses or agents in the same 
 transactions, will often be found to resemble so many 
 different men looking at the same book : the object 
 that strikes the eye is to all the same ; the difference 
 of the impressions produced on the mind of each is 
 referable to the difference in their minds, and propor- 
 tionate to the different degrees of their knowledge 
 of the characters, the language, and the subject. 
 
 Most, if not all, who attain to a certain point of 
 intellectual excellence have passed through two pre- 
 vious stages. The first is, that in which a man « 
 judges from obvious external appearances, adopts 
 implicitly established notions and practices, assents 
 without enquiry, and sees without much observation 
 or, at least, observes without much ambition to ac- 
 count for phenomena. 
 
 In the second stage, he eagerly examines, and 
 endeavours to account for, everything ; instead of 
 being content with ignorance, he thinks his capa- 
 cities equal to everything 5 he hastily rejects vulgar 
 prejudices, and ridicules established customs, and is 
 for altering, and reforming, and perfecting every- 
 thing. The third state, which is that of mature 
 judgment and enlarged views, though the most re- 
 
MISCELLANEOUS, 33 
 
 mote from the first, yet practically reapproaches to 
 it: he now perceives the origin of many common 
 notions and practices, and the utility even of many 
 which are erroneous ; he does many things and 
 believes many things in common with the vulgar, 
 though on different grounds ; he has just that degree 
 of respect for popular belief as neither to adopt nor 
 reject it hastily; and he discriminates accurately 
 where truth and falsehood, right and wrong, are 
 blended : he perceives the bounds of human capacity, 
 and attempts not to explain what is beyond it; he 
 perceives that many things which appear at first 
 sight (or rather at second sight) faulty, are best as 
 they are ; and of those alterations which are really 
 desirable, he perceives what are, and what are not, 
 attainable. These three states may not unaptly be 
 compared to those of the grub, chrysalis, and but- 
 terfly. The narrow views and lazy, implicit belief 
 of the first state, are closely correspondent to the 
 condition of the crawling grub, confined to the plant 
 on which he was hatched, devouring it leaf after 
 leaf, and minding nothing beyond: the chrysalis, 
 wrapped up in a fine web of his own spinning, neither 
 increasing in bulk nor providing for the continuance 
 of the species, and lost to all useful purposes, except 
 the gradual inward change which is preparing him 
 for a subsequent development, is not unlike some 
 
34 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 modifications of that above-mentioned second stage 
 of intellect ; in which a man is disgusted with com- 
 mon notions and practices, without having yet formed 
 a better system of his own; is entangled and en- 
 closed in fine-spun speculations, which withhold him 
 from practical utility, and is, for a time, withdrawn 
 from the world, in self-sufficient and torpid retire- 
 ment. In some, however, this second stage assumes 
 a more busy and bustling character, and raises them 
 to a higher and more active condition than their 
 first : they take a wider range than before ; they 
 attain general improvement, and approach, not only 
 really but visibly, to their last point of perfection ; 
 these correspond to that more active chrysalis state 
 which some insects, viz., the gnat, experience. The 
 chrysalis of the gnat, instead of lying torpid or 
 crawling at the bottom of the water, like the grub, 
 darts about in that element with an agility, which 
 seems an obvious approach to the brisk and airy 
 range of the finished insect. 
 
 The third state of intellect — that of the sound and 
 enlightened philosopher — is strikingly similar to that 
 of the butterfly and the other various tribes of 
 winged insects : their boundless range through the 
 air ; the brilliant wings, especially of the butterfly ; 
 its delicate diet of honey, and elegant apparatus for 
 procuring it ; its light hovering from flower to flower, 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 35 
 
 with a preference, however, for the plant which it 
 sprung from, and on which it lays the eggs that are 
 to produce a future colony of creatures like itself : 
 all correspond remarkably (as well as the curious 
 Greek name of Y^X 7 /) w ^ n the richly- stored and 
 cultivated mind, the refined and lofty pursuits, the 
 extensive range and enlarged views of the philoso- 
 pher, as also with his partial return, though on new 
 principles and, as it were, hovering on wings, to 
 his first notions and practices, together with his 
 useful exertions for the transmission of knowledge, 
 and enjoyment, and for the general good of his 
 species. 
 
 In using the above comparison, which will be 
 found not only entertaining, but extremely conve- 
 nient, in saving long descriptions by a mere allusion 
 to it, two modifications are to be kept in view ;— 
 First, that the changes from one of these states to 
 another are not (as in the insect) entire and com- 
 plete ; and, second, that they frequently never take 
 place at all. Thus you will find, indeed, most fre- 
 quently, that he who is a butterfly in some points, 
 is in others a chrysalis, and in some, perhaps, still 
 a grub, all at the same time ; that many remain all 
 their lives in the chrysalis state, and many more live 
 and die grubs. They go to church, &c, as if there 
 was a certain magical efficacy in the external forms of 
 
 d 2 
 
36 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 religion ; they have a blind, instinctive veneration 
 for their governors and others, their superiors ; ad- 
 here to the established order of things, because it is 
 established, and perform a certain routine of duties, 
 because they have been accustomed to do so, and 
 have been told that they ought ; these are a very 
 useful set of people, as far as they go, and, fre- 
 quently, act and believe much more wisely than 
 they are themselves aware. The chrysalis, on the 
 contrary, is often a dangerous or useless animal ; for 
 under this head come all w r anton innovators, infidels, 
 democrats, projectors, &c. Such also are hermits, 
 monks, misanthropes, sentimentalists, and castle- 
 builders. Nothing indeed can be more likely to lead 
 to absurd or mischievous conclusions, than a want of 
 self- distrust, and a disposition to reject, with indis- 
 criminate contempt, whatever has a mixture of error 
 and imperfection, without perceiving, selecting, and 
 retaining the good which is to be found in it ; and 
 this is exactly the temper of men in the chrysalis 
 state, — they want candour. 
 
 Children are the to-morrow of society. 
 
 If we would but duly take care of children, grown 
 people would generally take care of themselves. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 37 
 
 Those who discountenance the education of the 
 poor would do well to consider that it was (so to 
 speak) the great boast of the Author and Finisher 
 of our faith, that "to the poor the Gospel was 
 preached ;" so that if His religion be not really cal- 
 culated for these, His pretensions must have been 
 unfounded. Thus the very truth of His divine mis- 
 sion is at issue on this question. 
 
 Any one who says (with Mandeville in his treatise 
 against charity-schools), "If a horse knew as much 
 as a man, I should not like to be his rider," ought 
 to add, " If a man knew as little as a horse, I should 
 not like to trust him to ride." 
 
 It is not the knowledge of something that does 
 harm, but the ignorance of others. It is not the 
 cultivation of this faculty, but the neglect of that. 
 In ricketty children, it is not that the head, or the 
 trunk, has grown too much, but that the limbs have 
 not kept pace with it. 
 
 If any of the mental faculties be overgrown, it is 
 well to amputate it, in order to save the rest. It 
 should be banished by a kind of ostracism, as the 
 best of the Athenian citizens were, for the benefit 
 of the community. 
 
88 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 There is a faculty, or, if you will, a quality of 
 the faculties, which well deserves a distinct name ; 
 for it is in itself distinct ; L e., is not implied in any 
 other. It is of great practical value, and it forms 
 a striking feature in the character of those who 
 possess it. The word " grasp " has been used to 
 express it; perhaps "Totality" would be the most 
 readily understood. But it ought to have some 
 name generally agreed on. It is the power of taking 
 in the whole of a subject, as a whole ; of contem- 
 plating many things together in their mutual rela- 
 tions ; of referring any individual object presented 
 to the mind, to the system, &c, with which it is 
 connected, just as Cuvier, from a single fragment of 
 a bone can describe the whole animal : it is a power, 
 not merely of collecting and recalling the various 
 parts of a subject, but of so arranging and combin- 
 ing them, as to contemplate a single whole. This 
 talent may be compared to that of a general, in 
 whom, perhaps, the chief point of skill is, not to 
 let his troops fight in detail, but to bear in his mind 
 at once the situation of each separate. corps, absent 
 or present, their means of communication and mu- 
 tual support, and the hostile posts which they may 
 command or be exposed to. There is, perhaps, no 
 faculty so much the gift of nature as Totality (or 
 eusynopticity ?) It may be improved by education ; 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 39 
 
 but when it is deficient, all the pains that can be 
 taken will go a less way towards remedying that 
 defect than almost any other. And persons of no 
 education at all, will frequently possess it in a high 
 degree, though, of course, from their limited know- 
 ledge and want of cultivation, they have much less 
 opportunity of using and displaying it. It has been 
 remarked by a very acute observer, that sometimes 
 one peasant will be struck with several brilliant 
 passages in a sermon, and, perhaps, be able to 
 repeat them, without having the least notion of the 
 general outline of argument ; while another, though 
 he cannot repeat a single sentence, will be able to 
 give a correct account of the drift of the whole dis- 
 course. — For it is not, in general, found that this 
 talent is united with a particularly quick perception, 
 and ready recollection of particulars as such, — though 
 it will enable its possessors most wonderfully to outdo 
 those of far better individual memory, in the attain- 
 ment and retention of things which can be formed 
 into a system, and, as it were, tied together into a 
 bunch. In this respect it is like an ear for music, 
 (which indeed in its own way may be called a species 
 thereof,) for I do not know that those who have an 
 ear retain single sounds better than others ; but they 
 are enabled to retain a vast number, by means of 
 their mutual relation in a tune. That their remem- 
 
40 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 brance of a tune is not the collective remembrance 
 of the individual notes, but of their mutual relation, 
 is quite evident from this, that if they begin any 
 tune in a higher or lower note than they heard it, 
 they will go all through, the same, and thus bring 
 out notes which, it is conceivable, they never heard 
 in their lives. 
 
 This talent is in all points of view immensely 
 important : it constitutes almost the whole excellence 
 of some who are universally allowed to be very 
 superior men ; whom ordinary people would be con- 
 tent to call sensible, able, judicious, clever, &c, 
 without being able to fix upon the very circumstance 
 that constitutes them such, or to point out any one 
 quality in which they much surpass others. This 
 is the talent requisite, above all others, to form a 
 politician, or any one who is concerned in any archi- 
 tectonic study. A person who holds any such lead- 
 ing office as that of a statesman, &c, and has not 
 this talent, will be so far from turning to good ac- 
 count the other talents he may possess, that they 
 will only tend to make him more mischievous ; for 
 he will be the better able to accomplish, with skill, 
 the petty and partial schemes, and defend the narrow 
 and short-sighted measures to which he will inevi- 
 tably be inclined. The more clever a man is, if he 
 is not wise, (wisdom, I think, expresses, or at least 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 41 
 
 implies, that species of totality which is concerned in 
 practice,) the more harm he will do, even though his 
 intentions are good. But if a leading man possesses 
 this talent, he will do very well without a large 
 portion of any other ; for there will be found plenty 
 of men capable of conducting the details of business 
 with great skill, though they have not a particle of 
 totality, and are perhaps all the better without it. 
 A good farmer may easily get labourers who can 
 guide a plough or sow turnips better than himself, 
 whereas one who is ever so skilful in these opera- 
 tions may manage the farm very ill. 
 
 Those who do not possess this faculty will some- 
 times admire those who do, without well knowing 
 why : but generally they underrate them, unless 
 they also excel in other points. What is true of 
 some other faculties, (with wit it is, I believe, rather 
 the reverse,) is much more so of this, that no one 
 can estimate it sufficiently but those who possess it 
 themselves ; for it is very closely and naturally con- 
 nected with that candour which puts a fair and full 
 value on each various kind of excellence — on the 
 " diversity of gifts of the same Spirit ;" and those 
 who want it are apt to limit their admiration to ex- 
 cellence in their own province, or, at least, in some 
 one definite province, as they are not qualified even 
 to form an adequate conception of this talent. He 
 
42 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 who feels the want of it, and craves after it, and 
 admires those who are distinguished for it, is not 
 entirely destitute of it. It may be possessed by a 
 man in some particular pursuit, but not generally : 
 it is, perhaps, most common in the mathematical 
 sciences, from the definite, invariable, and demon- 
 strable relation which, in them, one truth bears to 
 another : it is most rare and precious in the affairs 
 of life, from their being of an opposite nature. In 
 these, the faculty assumes a most dignified rank, 
 higher, perhaps, than any other whatever. When 
 very general, and possessed in a high degree, it 
 is, I think, necessarily connected with a very ex- 
 alted tone of piety; the want of it is peculiarly 
 apt to lead men of narrow ingenuity, of confined and 
 partial speculations, into scepticism. In short, To- 
 tality forms the very wings of the butterfly; ac- 
 cording as they are unexpanded or are wanting, you 
 will remain in the chrysalis state, either for the 
 time, or permanently. 
 
 To contemplate any subject in all its relations, 
 and as a part of one great whole, is so far from 
 leading to inaccuracy, that it is the best guard 
 against it. A man of real totality has a microscope, 
 as well as a telescope, always at hand. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 43 
 
 The power of duly appreciating little things belongs 
 to a great mind : a narrow-minded man has it not, 
 for to him they are great things. 
 
 To wander from a subject, and to take an enlarged 
 view of it, are quite distinct. No two things are 
 more different than a rambling and a comprehensive 
 mind. 
 
 The poet's remedies for the dangers of a little 
 learning, 'SJDrink deep, or taste not," are both of 
 them impossible. None can drink deep enough to 
 be anything more than very superficial ; and every 
 human being, that is not a downright idiot, must 
 taste. 
 
 As it is evident that a man cannot learn all things 
 perfectly, it seems best for a man to make some 
 pursuit his main object, according to, 1st, his calling, 
 2nd, his natural bent, or, 3rd, his opportunities ; then, 
 let him get a slight knowledge of what else is worth 
 it, regulated in his choice by the same three circum- 
 stances ; which should, also, determine, in great 
 measure, where an elementary, and where a super- 
 ficial, knowledge is desirable. Such as are of the 
 most dignified and philosophical nature, are the most 
 proper for elementary study ; and such as we are the 
 
44 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 most likely to be called upon to practise for our- 
 selves, the most proper for superficial : e. g., it would 
 be to most men of no practical use, and, consequently, 
 not worth while, to learn by heart the meaning of 
 some of the Chinese characters ; but it might be very 
 well worth while to study the principles on which 
 that most singular language is constructed : contra ; 
 there is nothing very curious or interesting in the 
 structure of the Portuguese language ; but if one 
 was going to travel there, it would be worth while 
 to pick up some words and phrases. If both circum- 
 stances conspire, then, both kinds of information are 
 to be sought ; viz., something at the beginning and 
 something at the end. 
 
 Grammar, logic, rhetoric, and metaphysics, or 
 the philosophy of mind, are manifestly studies of an 
 elementary nature, being concerned about the instru- 
 ments which we employ in effecting our purposes ; 
 and ethics, which is, in fact, a branch of meta- 
 physics, may be called the elements of conduct. 
 Such knowledge is far from shewy : elements do not 
 much come into sight ; they are like that part of a 
 bridge which is under water, and is therefore least 
 admired, though it is not the work of least art and 
 difficulty. On this ground it is suitable to females, 
 as least leading to that pedantry which learned ladies 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 45 
 
 must ever be peculiarly liable to, as well as least 
 exciting tbat jealousy to wbich they must ever be 
 exposed, while learning in them continues to be a 
 distinction. A woman might, in this way, be very 
 learned without any one's finding it out. 
 
 Smattering is applied to two opposites : elementary 
 knowledge and superficial knowledge; some things 
 should be learned a little at both ends. 
 
 To learn a thing because it is easy, is like buying 
 a bargain — purchasing what you do not want because 
 you can get it cheaper than what you do want. 
 
 Some pursuits are more valuable themselves than 
 the object which is pursued, and which gives them 
 their whole value. 
 
 The analytical method is the best to introduce 
 knowledge ; the synthetical, to perfect and retain it. 
 
 Of many parts of learning, it might be said, 
 " Take care of the easy things, and the hard ones 
 will take care of themselves.' ' The way to make 
 out a difficulty is not to puzzle at it, but to fami- 
 liarize yourself with those parts which you under- 
 stand, till they gradually throw light on the more 
 
46 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 obscure. In learning a language, read easy books 
 with great care and attention ; and such a knowledge 
 will be acquired as may be applied, with the greatest 
 advantage, to harder ones : the same rule applies to 
 learning grammar also, e.g., the anomalous verbs 
 should never be learned, until the chime of the regu- 
 lar verbs is as familiar as the alphabet. 
 
 Old Lily's method is too often neglected, who 
 advises, in his preface to his grammar, not to make 
 a boy go through all his rules in the first place, " but 
 rather let him read some pretie booke," so that the 
 rules may be learnt as he sees the want of them. 
 
 Our ancestors (and still more recently the conti- 
 nental nations) were guilty of the absurdity of 
 dressing up children in wigs, swords, huge buckles, 
 hoops, ruffles, and all the elaborate full-dressed 
 finery of grown-up people of that day. It is surely 
 reasonable that the analogous absurdity in greater 
 matters also, — among the rest, in that part of educa- 
 tion, the exercises in composition of young students, 
 — should be laid aside, and that we should in all 
 points consider what is appropriate to each different 
 period of life. 
 
 The young person who, by the exercise of De- 
 
 i 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 47 
 
 bating Societies, is hurried into a habit of fluent 
 
 elocution — of ready extemporaneous speaking, which 
 
 consists in thinking extempore — will be found to 
 
 have been qualifying himself only for "the lion's 
 
 part" in the interlude of Pyramus and Thisbe. 
 
 "Snug. — Have you the lion's part written? Pray 
 
 you, if it be, give it me ; for I am slow of study. 
 
 Quine. — You may do it extempore ; for it is nothing 
 
 but roaring." 
 
 i 
 
 To those engaged in Debating Societies, the 
 temptation is very strong to transgress the rule, 
 which every speaker ought to observe, of never 
 allowing himself, in one of these mock debates, to 
 maintain anything that he himself believes to be 
 untrue, or to use an argument which he perceives to 
 be fallacious; because, to such persons as usually 
 form the majority in one of those societies, — youths 
 of immature judgment, superficial, and half- educated, 
 — specious falsehood and sophistry will often appear 
 superior to truth and sound reasoning, and will call 
 forth louder plaudits ; and the wrong side of a ques- 
 tion will often afford room for such a captivating 
 show of ingenuity, as to be to them more easily 
 maintained than the right. And scruples of con- 
 science, relative to veracity and fairness, are not 
 unlikely to be silenced by the consideration that, 
 
48 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 after all, it is no real battle, but a tournament; 
 there being no real and important measure to be 
 actually decided on, but only a debate carried on for 
 practice sake. 
 
 But, unreal as is the occasion, and insignificant as 
 may be the particular point, a habit may be formed 
 which will not easily be unlearnt afterwards — the 
 habit, so debasing to the moral character, of disre- 
 garding right reason, and truth, and fair argument. 
 
 The defect of mathematics as an exclusive or too 
 predominant study, is, that it has no connection with 
 human affairs, and affords no exercise of judgment, 
 having no degrees of probability. 
 
 The student of any branch of knowledge is liable 
 to seek for a solution of every question on every sub- 
 ject by a reference to his own favourite science ; like 
 a school-boy when first intrusted with a knife, who 
 is for trying its edge on everything that comes in 
 his way. 
 
 To attempt improving, by increased knowledge, a 
 man who dees not know how to make use of what he 
 already has, is like seeking to enlarge the prospect of 
 a short-sighted man by taking him to the top of a 
 hill. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 49 
 
 The first business of a teacher, — first, not only in 
 point of time, but of importance, — should be to ex- 
 cite not merely a general curiosity on the subject of 
 study, but a particular curiosity on particular points 
 in that subject. 
 
 To teach one who has no curiosity to learn, is to 
 sow a field without ploughing it. 
 
 Curiosity is as much the parent of attention, as at- 
 tention is of memory. 
 
 Education, as usually conducted, is addressed to 
 the memory alone ; and that is the reason, one rea- 
 son at least, why clever boys, as they are supposed 
 to be, do not turn out clever men, and vice versa. 
 If a boy remembers all that is told him, he does as 
 much as is usually required of him ; and no wonder, 
 for he is told just everything, and is never called 
 upon to exert his own powers except in retaining ; 
 and then it is made a wonder that a person who has 
 been so well taught, and who, perhaps, was quick 
 in learning and remembering, should not prove an 
 able man : which is about as reasonable as to expect 
 that a capacious cistern, if filled, should be converted 
 into a perennial fountain. 
 
50 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 Many are saved by the deficiency of their memory 
 from being spoiled by their education. 
 
 Among the intellectual qualifications for the study 
 of History, the importance of a vivid imagination is 
 greatly, if not wholly, overlooked. Most persons have 
 been accustomed to consider Imagination as having 
 no other office than to feign and falsify ; and there- 
 fore, that it must tend to pervert the truth of His- 
 tory and to mislead the judgment. — On the contrary, 
 our view of any transaction, especially one that is 
 remote in time or place, will necessarily be imperfect, 
 generally incorrect, unless it embrace something 
 more than the bare outline of the occurrences, — unless 
 we have before the mind a lively idea of the scenes 
 in which the events took place, the habits of thought 
 and of feeling of the actors, and all the circumstances 
 connected with the transaction ; unless, in short, we 
 can in a considerable degree transport ourselves out 
 of our own age, and country, and persons, and ima- 
 gine ourselves the agents or spectators. It is from 
 consideration of all these circumstances that we are 
 enabled to form a right judgment as to the facts 
 which History records, and to derive instruction from 
 it. What we imagine may indeed be merely imagi- 
 nary, that is, unreal ; but it may again be what ac- 
 tually does or did exist. To say that Imagination, 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 51 
 
 if not regulated by sound judgment and sufficient 
 knowledge, may chance to convey to us false im- 
 pressions of past events, is only to say that man is 
 fallible. But such false impressions are even much 
 the more likely to take possession of those whose 
 imagination is feeble or uncultivated. They are apt 
 to imagine the things, persons, times, countries, &c, 
 which they read of, as much less different from what 
 they see around them, than is really the case. 
 
 It is worthy of remark, in reference to that kind 
 of Probability— the " Plausible' 7 or " Natural,"— that 
 men are apt to judge amiss of situations, persons, 
 and circumstances, concerning which they have no 
 exact knowledge, by applying to these the measure 
 of their own feelings and experience : the result of 
 which is, that a correct account of these will often 
 appear to them unnatural, and an erroneous one 
 natural : e.g., a person born with the usual endow- 
 ments of the senses is apt to attribute to the blind- 
 born and the deaf-mutes, such habits of thought, and 
 such a state of mind, as his own would be, if he were 
 to become deaf or blind, or to be left in the dark : 
 which would be very wide of the truth. That a man 
 born blind would not, on obtaining sight, know 
 apart, on seeing them, a ball and a cube, which he 
 had been accustomed to handle, nor distinguish the 
 
 e 2 ' 
 
52 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 dog from the cat, would appear to most persons un- 
 acquainted with the result of experiments much less 
 u natural " than the reverse. So it is also with those 
 brought up free, in reference to the feelings and 
 habits of thought of born slaves ; with civilized men 
 in reference to savages ; and of men living in society, 
 in reference to one who passes whole years in total 
 solitude. I have no doubt that the admirable fiction 
 of Robinson Crusoe would have been not only much 
 less amusing, but to most readers less apparently 
 natural, if Friday and the other savages had been 
 represented with the indocility and other qualities 
 which really belong to such beings as the Brazilian 
 cannibals, and if the hero himself had been repre- 
 sented with that half-brutish, apathetic despondency 
 and carelessness about all comforts demanding steady 
 exertion, which are the really natural results ,of a 
 life of utter solitude, and if he had been described as 
 almost losing the use of his own language instead of 
 remembering the Spanish. 
 
 Again, I remember mentioning to a very intelli- 
 gent man the description given by the earliest mis- 
 sionaries to New Zealand, of their introduction of the 
 culture of wheat ; which he derided as an absurd fa- 
 brication, but which appeared to me what might 
 have been reasonably conjectured. The savages 
 were familiar with bread in the form of ship-biscuit ; 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 53 
 
 and accordingly, roots being alone cultivated by 
 them, and furnishing their chief food, they expected 
 to find at the roots of the wheat tubers, which could 
 be made into biscuits. They accordingly dug up the 
 wheat, and were mortified at the failure of their 
 hopes. The idea of collecting small seeds, pulver- 
 izing these, and making the powder into a paste 
 which was to be hardened by fire, was quite foreign 
 from all their experience. Yet here an unnatural re- 
 presentation would to many have appeared the more 
 natural. 
 
 Much pains, therefore, must in many cases be 
 taken in giving such explanations as may put men 
 on their guard against this kind of mistake, and en- 
 able them to see the improbability, and sometimes 
 utter impossibility, of what, at the first glance, they 
 will be apt to regard as perfectly natural, and to sa- 
 tisfy them that something which they were disposed 
 to regard as extravagantly unnatural is just what 
 might have been reasonably expected. 
 
 In works of fiction there is a distinction to be 
 made between the unnatural and the merely impro- 
 bable. A fiction is unnatural when there is some 
 assignable reason against the events taking place as 
 described, — when men are represented as acting con- 
 trary to the character assigned them, or to human 
 
54 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 nature in general ; as when a young lady of seven- 
 teen, brought up in ease, luxury, and retirement, 
 with no companions but the narrow minded and il- 
 literate, displays (as a heroine usually does) under 
 the most trying circumstances, such wisdom, forti- 
 tude, and knowledge of the world, as the best in- 
 structors and the best examples can rarely produce, 
 without the aid of more mature age and longer ex- 
 perience. — Indeed, one way in which the unnatural 
 is often made to appear, for a time, natural, is by 
 giving a lively and striking description which is cor- 
 rect in its several parts, and unnatural only when 
 these are combined into a whole ; like a painter who 
 should give an exact picture of an English country- 
 house, of a grove of palm-trees, an elephant, and an 
 iceberg, all in the same landscape. Thus, a vivid 
 representation of a den of infamy and degradation, 
 and of an ingenious and well-disposed youth, may 
 each be, in itself, so natural as to draw off for a 
 time the attention from the absurdity of making 
 the one arise out of the other. — But a fiction is still 
 improbable, though not unnatural, when there is no 
 reason to be assigned why things should not take 
 place as represented, except that the overbalance of 
 chances is against it ; the hero meets, in his utmost 
 distress, most opportunely with the very person to 
 whom he had formerly done a signal service, and 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 55 
 
 who happens to communicate to him a piece of in- 
 telligence which sets all to rights. "Why should he 
 not meet him as well as any one else ? All that 
 can be said is, that there is no reason why he should: 
 This distinction may be plainly perceived in the 
 events of real life ; when anything takes place of 
 such a nature as we should call in a fiction merely 
 improbably, because there are many chances against 
 it, we call it a lucky or unlucky accident, a singular 
 coincidence, something very extraordinary, odd, cu- 
 rious, &c, whereas anything which, in a fiction, 
 would be called unnatural when it actually occurs 
 (and such things do occur), is still called unnatural, 
 inexplicable, unaccountable, inconceivable, &c, epi- 
 thets which are not applied to events that have 
 merely the balances of chances against them. 
 
 A novel or tale may be compared to a picture ; a 
 fable to a device. 
 
 Poetry is imitative of prose, in the same manner 
 as singing of ordinary speaking, and dancing of or- 
 dinary action. 
 
 Considering that Proverbs have been current in 
 all ages and countries, it is a curious circumstance 
 that so much difference of opinion should exist as to 
 
56 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 the utility, and as to the design of them. Some are 
 accustomed to speak as if Proverbs contained a sort 
 of concentrated essence of the wisdom of all ages, 
 which will enable any one to judge and act aright 
 on every emergency. But that Proverbs are not 
 generally regarded, by those who use them, as 
 necessarily propositions of universal and acknow- 
 ledged truth, like mathematical axioms, is plain 
 from the circumstance that many of those most in 
 use, are, like the common places of Bacon, oppose 
 to each other; as, e.g., "Take care of the pence, 
 and the pounds will take care of themselves ;" to 
 " Be not penny- wise and pound- foolish ;"- and again, 
 u The more haste, the worse speed ;" or, " Wait 
 awhile, that we may make an end the sooner ;" to 
 "Take time by the forelock/' or, "Time and tide 
 for no man bide," &c. 
 
 It seems, I think, to be practically understood, 
 that a Proverb is merely a compendious expression of 
 some principle which will usually be, in different 
 cases, and with or without certain modifications, 
 true or false, applicable or inapplicable. When then 
 a Proverb is introduced, the speaker usually employs 
 it as a major-premise, and is understood to imply, 
 as a minor, that the principle thus referred to is 
 applicable in the existing case. And what is gained 
 by the employment of the Proverb, is, that his 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 57 
 
 judgment and his reasons for it are conveyed, 
 through the use of a well-known form of expression, 
 clearly, and at the same time in an incomparably 
 shorter space, than if he had had to explain his 
 meaning in expressions framed for the occasion. 
 And the brevity thus obtained is often still further 
 increased by suppressing the full statement even of 
 the very proverb itself, if a very common one, and 
 merely alluding to it in a word or two. 
 
 Proverbs, accordingly, are somewhat analogous 
 to those medical formulas, which, being in frequent 
 use, are kept ready made up in the chemist's shops, 
 and which often save the framing of a distinct pre- 
 scription. 
 
 Cultivate not only the corn-fields of your mind, 
 but the pleasure-grounds also. 
 
 Every faculty and every study, however worth- 
 less they may be, when not employed in the service 
 of God — however debased and polluted, when de- 
 voted to the service of sin — become ennobled and 
 sanctified when directed, by one whose constraining 
 motive is the love of Christ, towards a good object. 
 Let not the Christian then think " scorn of the 
 pleasant land :" — that land is the field of ancient and 
 modern literature — of philosophy, in almost all its 
 
THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 departments — of the arts of reasoning and per- 
 suasion. — Every part of it may be cultivated with 
 advantage, as the land of Canaan when bestowed 
 upon God's peculiar people. They were not com- 
 manded to let it lie waste, as incurably polluted by 
 the abominations of its first inhabitants ; but to 
 cultivate it, and dwell in it, living in obedience to 
 the divine laws, and dedicating its choicest fruits to 
 the Lord their God. 
 
 It is a great mistake, often made in practice, if 
 not in theory, to suppose that a child's character, 
 intellectual and moral, is formed by those books 
 only which we put into his hands with that design. 
 As hardly anything can accidentally touch the soft 
 clay without stamping its mark on it, so hardly any 
 reading can interest a child, without contributing in 
 some degree, though the book itself be afterwards 
 totally forgotten, to form the character; and the 
 parents, therefore, who, merely requiring from him 
 a certain course of study, pay little or no attention 
 to story-books, are educating him they know not 
 how. 
 
 Those works of fiction are worse than unprofitable 
 that inculcate morality, with an exclusion of all 
 reference to religious principle. This is obviously 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 59 
 
 and notoriously the character of Miss Edgeworth's 
 moral tales. And so entire and resolute is this 
 exclusion, that it is maintained at the expehce of 
 what may be called poetical truth : it destroys, in 
 many instances, the probability of the tale, and the 
 naturalness of the characters. That Christianity 
 does exist, every one must believe as an incontro- 
 vertible truth ; nor can any one deny that, whether 
 true or false, it does exercise, at least is supposed to 
 exercise, an influence on the feelings and conduct 
 of some of the believers in it. To represent, there- 
 fore, persons of various ages, sex, country, and 
 station in life, as practising, on the most trying 
 occasions, every kind of duty, and encountering 
 every kind of danger, difficulty and hardship, while 
 none of them ever makes the least reference to a 
 religious motive, is as decidedly at variance with 
 reality — what is called in works of fiction unnatural 
 — as it would be to represent Mahomet's enthusiastic 
 followers as rushing into battle without any thought 
 of his promised paradise. This, therefore, is a 
 blemish in point of art which every reader, possess- 
 ing taste, must perceive, whatever may be his reli- 
 gious or non-religious persuasion. But a far higher, 
 and more important, question than that of taste is 
 involved. For though Miss Edgeworth may enter- 
 tain opinions which would not permit her, with con- 
 
60 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 sistency, to attribute more to the influence of reli- 
 gion than she has done ; and in that case may stand 
 acquitted, in foro conscientice, of wilfully suppress- 
 ing anything which she acknowledges to be true 
 and important ; yet, as a writer, it must still be 
 considered as a great blemish, in the eyes at least 
 of those who think differently, that virtue should be 
 studiously inculcated, with scarcely any reference 
 to what they regard as the mainspring of it — that 
 vice should be traced to every other source except 
 the want of religious principle — that the most radical 
 change from worthlessness to excellence should be 
 represented as wholly independent of that Agent, 
 which they consider as the only one that can accom- 
 plish it — and that consolation under affliction should 
 be represented as derived from every source, except 
 the one which they look to as the only true and sure 
 one : — " Is it not because there is no God in Israel, 
 that ye have sent to enquire of Baalzebub, the God 
 of Ekron ?" This vital defect in such works should 
 be constantly pointed out to the young reader ; and 
 he should be warned that, to realize the picture 
 of noble, disinterested, thorough- going virtue, pre- 
 sented in such and such an instance, it is absolutely 
 necessary to resort to those principles which, in 
 these fictions are unnoticed. He should, in short, 
 be reminded that all these " things that are lovely 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 61 
 
 and of good report," which have been placed before 
 him, are the genuine fruits of the Holy Land; 
 though the spies who have brought them bring also 
 an evil report of that land, and would persuade us 
 to remain wandering in the wilderness. 
 
 In books designed for children, there are two 
 extremes that should be avoided. The one, that 
 reference to religious principles in connection with 
 matters too trifling and undignified, arising from a 
 well-intentioned zeal, causing a forgetfulness of the 
 maxim, whose notorious truth has made it proverbial. 
 " Too much familiarity breeds contempt m " and the 
 other is the contrary, and still more prevailing, 
 extreme, arising from the desire to preserve a due 
 reverence for religion, at the expence of its useful 
 application in conduct. But a line may be drawn 
 which will keep clear of both extremes. We should 
 not exclude the association of things sacred with 
 whatever are to ourselves trifling matters, (for " these 
 little things are great " to children,) but, with what- 
 ever is viewed by them as trifling. Every thing is 
 great or small in reference to the parties concerned. 
 The private concerns of any obscure individual are 
 very insignificant to the world at large ; but they 
 are of great importance to himself. And all worldly 
 affairs must be small in the sight of the Most High ; 
 
62 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 but irreverent familiarity is engendered in the mind 
 of any one, then, and then only, when things sacred 
 are associated with such as are, to him, insignificant 
 trifles. 
 
 Any direct attempt at moral teaching, in a ficti- 
 tious narrative, and any attempt whatever to give 
 scientific information will, unless managed with the 
 utmost discretion, interfere with what, after all, is 
 the immediate object of the writer of fiction, as of 
 the poet, to please. If instruction do not join as a 
 volunteer, she will do no good service. Some tales 
 put one in mind of those clocks and watches which 
 are condemned " a double or a treble debt to pay ;" 
 which, besides their legitimate object, to shew the 
 hour, tell you the day of the month or the week, 
 give you a landscape for a dial plate, with the second 
 hand forming the sails of a windmill, or have a 
 barrel to play a tune, or an alarum to remind you of 
 an engagement ; all very good things in their way : 
 but so it is, that these watches never tell the time 
 so well as those, in which that is the exclusive object 
 of the maker. Every additional movement is an 
 obstacle to the original design. 
 
 I doubt whether Shakspere ever had any thought 
 at all of making his personages speak characteris- 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 63 
 
 tically. In most instances, I conceive — probably in 
 all — he drew characters correctly, because he could 
 not avoid it ; and would never have attained, in that 
 department, such excellence as he has, if he had 
 made any studied efforts for it. And the same pro- 
 bably may be said of Homer, and of those other 
 writers who have excelled the most in delineating 
 characters. Shakspere's peculiar genius consisted 
 chiefly, I conceive, in his forming the same distinct 
 and consistent idea of an imaginary person, that an 
 ordinary man forms of a real and well-known indi- 
 vidual. We usually conjecture, pretty accurately, 
 concerning a very intimate acquaintance, how he 
 would speak or act on any supposed occasion ; if any 
 one should report to us his having done or said some- 
 thing quite out of character, we should at once be 
 struck with the inconsistency, and we often represent 
 to ourselves, and describe to others, without any 
 conscious effort, not only the substance of what he 
 would have been likely to say, but even his charac- 
 teristic phrases and looks. Shakspere could no more 
 have endured an expression from the lips of Macbeth, 
 inconsistent with the character originally conceived, 
 than an ordinary man could attribute to his most 
 respectable acquaintance the behaviour of a ruffian, 
 or to a human being, the voice of a bird, or to a 
 European, the features and hue of a negro. Merely 
 
64 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 from the vividness of the original conception, charac- 
 teristic conduct and language spontaneously suggested 
 themselves to the great dramatist's pen. He called 
 his personages into being, and left them, as it were, 
 to speak and act for themselves. 
 
 It is no fool that can describe fools well. To in- 
 vent indeed a conversation full of wisdom or of wit, 
 requires that the writer should himself possess ability : 
 but the converse does not hold good. Many who 
 have succeeded pretty well in painting superior cha- 
 racters, have failed in giving individuality to those 
 weaker ones, which it is necessary to introduce in 
 order to give a faithful representation of real life : 
 they exhibit to us mere folly in the abstract, forget- 
 ting that to the eye of a skilful naturalist, the insects 
 on a leaf present as wide differences as exist between 
 the elephant and the lion. Slender, and Shallow, 
 and Aguecheek, as Shakspere has painted them, 
 though equally fools, resemble one another no more 
 than Kichard, and Macbeth, and Julius Caesar. 
 
 Biography is allowed on all hands, to be one of 
 the most attractive and profitable kinds of reading : 
 now novels of the highest class being a kind of ficti- 
 tious biography, bear the same relation to the real, 
 that epic and tragic poetry, according to Aristotle, 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 65 
 
 bear to history; they present us (supposing of course, 
 each perfect in its kind) with the general, instead of 
 the particular, — tlfb probable, instead of the true ; 
 and, by leaving out those accidental irregularities, 
 and exceptions to general rules, which constitute the 
 many improbabilities of real narrative, present us 
 with a clear and abstracted view of the general rules 
 themselves ; and thus concentrate, as it were, into a 
 small compass, the net result of wide experience. 
 
 Geologists complain that when they want speci- 
 mens of the common rocks of a country, they receive 
 curious spars ; just so, historians give us the extra- 
 ordinary events, and omit just what we want — the 
 everyday life of each particular time and country. 
 
 He who knows two languages is a higher being 
 than he who knows but one ; and the more dissimilar 
 the better. 
 
 One great advantage in studying philosophical 
 works in a foreign language, is that an idea which 
 one has to comprehend, or express, in a foreign 
 language, is more distinctly understood by the mind, 
 and the errors arising from the ambiguity, and other 
 defects of language, more easily detected. — Many 
 a voluminous treatise, the Author would thow into 
 
 F 
 
66 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 the fire, if he could but be persuaded to translate it 
 into Greek. Besides this prevention of the errors 
 arising from the ambiguity of language, the very 
 difficulty excites the attention so as to fix the thoughts 
 better in the memory; meat that requires a good 
 deal of chewing, is sometimes more digestible and 
 nutritive, than spoon-meat that is swallowed whole. 
 
 In the Portuguese language there are two words, 
 " ser" and " estar," both answering to the English 
 " to be ;" and foreigners are often much perplexed 
 about the proper use of each. The rule, however, is 
 a logical one, easily remembered : " estar' 7 furnishes 
 the copula when the predicate is a separable-accident, 
 and " ser," in all other cases. For instance, " Estar 
 in Inghilteria" is " to be in England ;" Ser Inglez 
 is "to be a native of England." Of these two ex- 
 amples, the former is what logicians call a separable 
 accident, because it may be separated from the indi- 
 vidual: (e.g., he may leave England:) the latter is 
 an inseparable accident, being not separable from the 
 individual, (i.e., he who is a native of England can 
 never be otherwise.) So also " Quern e?" "who is 
 he ?" " Quern esta la ?" " who is there ?" 
 
 Learning a language from its poets is like studying 
 Botany in a garden of double flowers. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 67 
 
 The chief use of the Classics is, that they afford 
 a fixed standard of taste by which we may regulate 
 our judgment, and* this without servilely adhering 
 to the ancient models. — We need not steer direct for 
 the fixed point, but by always observing our bearing 
 to it, many eccentricities of our course will be pre- 
 vented. Besides this, the study of them affords the 
 same advantage, that the acquirement of a foreign 
 language presents, for observing the various modes 
 of thinking in different nations, at different times. 
 
 Language often contains monuments, not noticed 
 till carefully examined, of ancient laws, usages, and 
 modes of thought, ! so old and forgotten, that the 
 revival of them would be regarded as an innovation. 
 The word " edification " is such a monument. There 
 are many such of heathen superstitions, e.g.. Baccha- 
 nalian, Martial, Panic, Jovial, Hearth (from a Saxon 
 Goddess, Hertha,) and the names of the days of the 
 week. In England people talk of being afraid of 
 " Tom Poker." This is Puck, or Pug, or Pooka ; or 
 Bug, or Bogle, or Bugaboo ; in Euss Bog, which, 
 being the word for a spirit, is applied to the Deity. 
 
 The laws of rude nations, in ancient times, decreed, 
 that the next of kin to the person murdered should 
 have satisfaction, either by the death of the murderer, 
 
 f 2 
 
68 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 or by accepting (if he chose) a payment instead, just 
 as if it had been his horse or ox that had been killed. 
 Accordingly, the word u mercy " comes from the 
 atin "merces," a payment ; and originally a man 
 was not said to shew, or to bestow mercy, but to 
 accept mercy ; that is, consent to spare another's life 
 on receiving a ransom. 
 
 The word " punishment " again, is derived from a 
 word which, in Greek and in Latin, signified the 
 payment of a ransom, compensation, or satisfaction. 
 And in those languages they did not speak of inflict- 
 ing and suffering punishment, but of taking vengeance, 
 and paying the penalty for damages) which was 
 done, either in money, (as is the law now,) or by 
 submitting to blows or other personal chastisement, 
 to gratify the desire of the sufferer for retaliation, 
 (from the Latin " talis," like.) Hence also the 
 Greek word, fcaraWaTTiu which originally signified to 
 " exchange/' came to signify to " reconcile ;" since 
 it was, usually, by giving and accepting a compen- 
 sation, or equivalent for an injury, that parties were 
 reconciled. 
 
 It will be often found that two of the meanings of 
 a word will have no connexion with one another, but 
 will each have some connexion with the third. Thus 
 "martyr" originally signified a witness; thence it 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 69 
 
 was applied to those who suffered in bearing testi- 
 mony to Christianity ; and thence again it is often 
 applied to sufferers in general : the first and third 
 significations are not the least connected. Thus 
 " Past " signifies originally a pillar (postum from 
 pono); then, a distance marked out by posts; and 
 then, the carriages, messengers, &c, that travelled 
 over this distance. 
 
 In that phenomenon in language, that both in the 
 Greek and Latin, nouns of the neuter gender, 
 denoting things, invariably had the nominative and 
 the accusative the same, or rather, had an accusative 
 only, employed as a nominative when required ; may 
 there not be traced an indistinct consciousness of the 
 persuasion that a mere thing is not capable of being 
 an agent, which a 'person only can really be, and 
 that the possession of power, strictly so called, by 
 physical causes is not conceivable, or their capacity 
 to maintain, any more than to produce at first, the 
 system of the Universe ? — whose continued existence, 
 as well as its origin, seems to depend on the con- 
 tinued operation of the great Creator. — May there 
 not be in this an admission that the Laws of Nature 
 presuppose an agent, and are incapable of being the 
 cause of their own observance ? 
 
70 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 The heathen mythology contains among a chaos of 
 wild fables, some broken and scattered fragments of 
 true history, like the organic remains of an ancient 
 world, found dispersed and often hard to be ascer- 
 tained, in the midst of the strata formed from the 
 deposits of a deluge. Such a fragment of truth is 
 in the tradition respecting the discovery of fire by 
 Prometheus, i. e., the Provident, — fire being pro- 
 bably no human discovery, but a gift of Provi- 
 dence in the way of a revelation. Again — Phoenix 
 was the name given to an imaginary bird, which 
 was fabled to live a thousand years, and then to 
 take fire and burn to ashes, from which a new 
 Phoenix arose. Now, as the Greek name for a 
 palm was also phoenix, and as it is generally sup- 
 posed that it was in a dwarf palm (one of the com- 
 monest shrubs in the wilderness of Sinai) that Moses 
 saw the manifestation of God, in a flame of fire, 
 may not the fable of the bird have arisen from 
 some obscure tradition of the palm bush, which 
 " burned with fire and yet was not consumed' ' ? It 
 is remarkable, that in the eastern countries (more 
 lately in Spain and Italy also) palm-branches have 
 long been used on occasions of triumph or rejoicing, 
 being reckoned an emblem of victory. 
 
 It has always happened that, when public atten- 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 71 
 
 tion has been first directed to any new branch of 
 knowledge, the result has been something like the 
 exuberant fecundity which Lucretius attributes to 
 the earth at its first formation — a confused assem- 
 blage of mis-shapen monsters, interspersed with a 
 few more perfectly formed beings, whose superior 
 organization enables them to survive the spontaneous 
 destruction of the rest. And when this mixture of 
 truth and falsehood, of sound and unsound theories, 
 is presented to the world, it has ever been found 
 that the timorous, the lazy, and the undistinguish- 
 ing (no inconsiderable portion of mankind), have 
 denied the whole indiscriminately, as a tissue of 
 mischievous absurdities. 
 
 In combating deep-rooted prejudices, and main- 
 taining unpopular and paradoxical truths, the point 
 to be aimed at should be, to adduce what is sufficient, 
 and not much more than is sufficient, to prove your 
 conclusion. If you can but satisfy men that your 
 opinion is decidedly more probable than the opposite, 
 you will have carried your point more effectually 
 than if you go on, much beyond this, to demon- 
 strate, by a multitude of the most forcible argu- 
 ments, the extreme absurdity of thinking differently, 
 till you have affronted the self-esteem of some, and 
 awakened the distrust of others. Some will be 
 
72 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 stung by a feeling of shame passing off into resent- 
 ment, which stops their ears against argument. 
 They would be so sorry to think they had been 
 blinded to such an excess, and are so angry with 
 him who is endeavouring to persuade them to think 
 so, that these feelings determine them not to think 
 it. They try (and it is an attempt which few per- 
 sons ever make in vain) to shut their eyes against 
 an humiliating conviction : and thus, the very tri- 
 umphant force of the reasoning adduced, serves to 
 harden them against admitting the conclusion : much 
 as one may conceive Roman soldiers desperately 
 holding out an untenable fortress to the last ex- 
 tremity, from apprehension of being made to pass 
 under the yoke by the victors, should they surrender. 
 Others, again, perhaps comparatively strangers to 
 the question and not prejudiced against the conclu- 
 sion set forth too strongly, will sometimes have 
 their suspicions roused by this very circumstance. 
 " Can it be possible," they will say, "that such a 
 conclusion, so very obvious as this is made to 
 appear, should not have been admitted long ago? 
 Is it conceivable that such and such eminent philo- 
 sophers, divines, statesmen, &c, should have been 
 all their lives under delusions so gross ?" Hence, 
 they are apt to infer, either that the author has 
 mistaken the opinions of those he imagines opposed 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 73 
 
 to him ; or else, that there is some subtle fallacy in 
 his arguments. A distrust that reminds one of the 
 story related by a French writer, M. Say, of some 
 one who, for a wager, stood a whole day on one of 
 the bridges in Paris, offering to sell a five- franc 
 piece for one franc, and (naturally) not finding a 
 purchaser. In this way, the very clearness and 
 force of the demonstration will, with some minds, 
 have an opposite tendency to the one desired. La- 
 bourers who are employed in driving wedges into a 
 block of wood, are careful to use blows of no greater 
 force than is just sufficient. If they strike too hard, 
 the elasticity of the wood will throw oat the wedge. 
 
 The difficulty of refuting very silly and weak 
 arguments, reminds one of the well-known difficult 
 feat of cutting through a cushion with a sword. 
 
 Eloquence is relative. One can no more pro- 
 nounce on the eloquence of any composition than 
 the wholesomeness of a medicine, without knowing 
 for whom it is intended. 
 
 It is usual to call an argument, simply, strong or 
 weak, without reference to the purpose for which it 
 is designed; whereas, the arguments which afford 
 the most satisfaction to a candid mind, are often 
 
74 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 such as would have less weight in controversy than 
 many others, which, again, would be the less suitable 
 for the former purpose, — for instance, there are some 
 of the internal evidences of Christianity, which, in 
 general, are the most satisfactory to a believer's mind, 
 but are not the most striking in the refutation of 
 unbelievers : the arguments from Analogy on the other 
 hand, which are (in refuting objections) the most 
 unanswerable, are not so pleasing and consolatory. 
 
 It may serve to illustrate what has been said, to 
 remark that our judgment of the character of any 
 individual, is often not originally derived from such 
 circumstances as we should assign, or could ade- 
 quately set forth in language, in justification of our 
 opinion. When we ^undertake to give our reasons 
 for thinking that some individual, with whom we are 
 personally acquainted, is, or is not, a gentleman, — 
 a man of taste, — humane, — public spirited, &c, — 
 we of course appeal to his conduct, or his distinct 
 avowal of his own sentiments ; and if these furnish 
 sufficient proof of our assertions, we are admitted to 
 have given good reasons for our opinion ; but it may 
 be still doubted whether these were, in the first 
 instance, at least, our reasons which led us to form 
 that opinion. If we carefully and candidly examine 
 our own minds, we shall generally find that our 
 judgment was originally, (if not absolutely de- 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 75 
 
 cided), at least, strongly influenced by the person's 
 looks, tones of voice, gestures, choice of expres- 
 sions, and the like ; which, if stated as reasons for 
 forming a conclusion, would in general appear frivo- 
 lous, merely because no language is competent ade- 
 quately to describe them ; but which are not neces- 
 sarily insufficient grounds for beginning, at least, to 
 form an opinion ; since it is notorious that there are 
 many acute persons who are seldom deceived in such 
 indications of character. 
 
 In all subjects, indeed, persons unaccustomed to 
 writing or discussion, but possessing natural saga- 
 city, and experience in particular departments, have 
 been observed to be generally unable to give a satis- 
 factory reason for their judgments, even on points 
 on which they are actually very good judges. This 
 is a defect which it is the business of education 
 to surmount or diminish. After all, however, in 
 some subjects no language can adequately convey 
 (to the inexperienced at least) all the indications 
 which influence the judgment of an acute and prac- 
 tised observer. And hence it has been justly and 
 happily remarked, that " he must be an indifferent 
 physician, who never takes any step for which he 
 cannot assign a satisfactory reason." 
 
 To speak perfectly well, a man must feel that he 
 
76 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 has got to the bottom of the subject ; and to feel this 
 on occasions when, from the nature of the case, it is 
 impossible he really can have done so, is inconsis- 
 tent with the character of great profundity. There- 
 fore, it may fairly be doubted, whether a first-rate 
 man can ever be a first-rate orator, if at least he is 
 to be accounted such, who (as Cicero lays down) can 
 speak the best and most persuasively on any subject 
 whatever that may arise. 
 
 That kind of skill by which, in oral examination 
 of witnesses, a cross examiner succeeds in alarm- 
 ing, misleading, or bewildering an honest witness, 
 may be characterized as the most, or one of the 
 most, base and depraved of all possible employments 
 of intellectual power. Nor is it by any means the 
 best mode of eliciting truth. Generally speaking, 
 a quiet, gentle, and straightforward, though full 
 and careful, examination, will be the most adapted 
 to elicit truth ; and the manoeuvres, and the brow- 
 beating, which are the most adapted to confuse an 
 honest, simple-minded, witness, are just what the 
 dishonest one is the best prepared for. The more 
 the storm blusters, the more carefully he wraps 
 round him the cloak, which a warm sunshine will 
 often induce him to throw off. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 77 
 
 It is no uncommon manoeuvre of a dexterous 
 sophist, when there is some argument, statement, 
 scheme, &c, which he cannot directly defeat, to 
 assent with seeming cordiality, but with some ex- 
 ception, addition, or qualification, (as e.g., an ad- 
 ditional clause in an act), which, though seemingly 
 unimportant, shall entirely nullify all the rest. 
 This has been humourously compared to the trick of 
 the pilgrim, in the well-known tale, who "took the 
 liberty to boil his peas." 
 
 It is not only the fairest, but also the wisest, plan 
 for an advocate to state objections in their full force. 
 It is but a momentary and ineffective triumph that 
 can be obtained by manoeuvres like those of Turnus's 
 charioteer, who furiously chased the feeble stragglers 
 of the army, and evaded the main front of the battle. 
 
 Gibbon affords the most remarkable instances of 
 that kind of style, in which the assumption of the 
 point in question is never stated distinctly, but some 
 other proposition inserted which implies it. He 
 keeps it out of sight (as a dexterous thief does 
 stolen goods), at the very moment he is taking it 
 for granted. His way of writing reminds one of 
 those persons who never dare look you full in the 
 face. 
 
/8 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 That style which is composed chiefly of the words 
 of French origin, while it is less intelligible to the 
 lowest classes, is characteristic of those who, in 
 cultivation of taste, are below the highest. As in 
 dress, furniture, deportment, &c, so also in lan- 
 guage, the dread of vulgarity, constantly besetting 
 those who are half conscious that they are in danger 
 of it, drives them into the opposite extreme of 
 affected finery. 
 
 Words derived from the Saxon are better under- 
 stood by the lower orders of the English than those 
 derived from the Latin (either directly or through 
 the medium of the French), even when the latter 
 are more in use among persons of education. A 
 remarkable instance of this is, that while the chil- 
 dren of the higher classes always call their parents 
 " Papa I" and " Mamma ! " the children of the pea- 
 santry usually call them by the titles of "Father!" 
 and "Mother!" For those who wish to be under- 
 stood by them, there is a remarkable scope for such 
 a choice, from the multitude of synonymes derived 
 respectively from the two elements of which our 
 language is composed. The compilers of our Li- 
 turgy, being anxious to reach the understanding of 
 all classes, at a time when our language was in a 
 less settled state than at present, availed themselves 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 79 
 
 of this circumstance, in employing many synony- 
 mous, or nearly synonymous, expressions, most of 
 which are of the description just alluded to. Take, 
 as an instance, the Exhortation : " acknowledge" and 
 "confess," — " dissemble" and "cloke," — " humble," 
 and "lowly,"—" goodness" and " mercy," — " assem- 
 ble" and "meet together." 
 
 Young writers of genius ought especially to be 
 admonished to ask themselves frequently, not whether 
 this or that is a striking expression, but whether it 
 makes the meaning more striking than another phrase 
 would. • 
 
 Unpractised composers are apt to fancy that they 
 shall have the greater abundance of matter, the 
 wider extent of subject they comprehend ; but ex- 
 perience shows that the reverse is the fact : the more 
 general and extensive view will often suggest nothing 
 to the mind but vague and trite remarks ; when, 
 upon narrowing the field of discussion, many in- 
 teresting questions of detail present themselves. The 
 applying a microscope to a small space, will give 
 to view much that a wider survey would not have 
 exhibited. 
 
 Many writers have diminished the effect of their 
 
80 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 works by being* -scrupulous to admit nothing into 
 them which had not some absolute, intrinsic, and 
 independent merit, They have acted like those who 
 strip off the leaves of a fruit tree, as being of them- 
 selves good for nothing, with the view of securing 
 more nourishment to the fruit, which in fact cannot 
 attain its full maturity and flavour without them. 
 Let any one cut out from the Iliad, or from Shak- 
 spere's plays, everything to which the only objection 
 is, its being devoid of importance or of interest in 
 itself; and he will find that what is left will have 
 lost more than half its charms. 
 
 To attempt to make everything emphatic is to 
 make nothing emphatic. 
 
 To brighten the dark parts of a picture produces 
 much the same result as if one had darkened the 
 bright parts ; in either case there is a want of relief 
 and contrast ; and Composition, as well as Painting, 
 has its lights and shades, which must be distributed 
 with no less skill, if we would produce the desired 
 effect. 
 
 The appearance of a too uniform elegance or state- 
 liness of style, is apt to clog ; like a piece of music 
 without any discord. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 81 
 
 The word i frigid' has been properly applied to 
 that style, in which ornaments that might seem to 
 border on the poetical, are adopted in prose, because 
 we are, in poetical prose, reminded of, and for that 
 reason, disposed to miss, the " warmth" and " glow" 
 of poetry. It is on the same principle, that we are 
 disposed to speak of coldness in the rays of the moon, 
 because they remind us of sunshine but want its 
 warmth ; and that (to use an humble and more fa- 
 miliar instance) an empty fire-place is apt to sug- 
 gest an idea of cold. 
 
 Johnson's style, unfortunately, is particularly easy 
 of imitation, even by writers utterly destitute of his 
 vigour of thought ; and such imitators are intolerable. 
 They bear the same resemblance to their model, that 
 the armour of the Chinese, as described by travellers, . 
 consisting of thick quilted cotton covered with stiff 
 glazed paper, does to that of the ancient knights ; 
 equally glittering and bulky, but destitute of the 
 temper and firmness which was its sole advantage. 
 
 Some writers abound with a kind of mock-antithe- 
 sis, in which the same, or nearly the same, sentiment 
 which is expressed by the first clause, is repeated in 
 a second ; or at least, in which there is but little of 
 real contrast between the clauses which are ex- 
 pressed in a contrasted form ; and which have been 
 
 G 
 
82 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 compared to the false handles and keyholes with 
 which furniture is decorated, that serve no other pur- 
 pose than to correspond to the real ones. Much of 
 Dr Johnson's writings is chargeable with this fault. 
 
 Energetic brevity is best attained by what may 
 be called a suggestive style ; such, that is, as without 
 making a distinct, though brief, mention of a multi- 
 tude of particulars, shall put the hearer's mind into 
 the same train of thought as the speaker's, and sug- 
 gest to him more than is actually expressed. Such 
 a style may be compared to a good map, which 
 marks distinctly the great outlines, setting down the 
 principal rivers, towns, mountains, &c, leaving the 
 imagination to supply the villages, hillocks, and 
 streamlets ; which, if they were all inserted in their 
 due proportions, would crowd the map, though, after 
 all, they could not be discerned without a microscope. 
 
 As a side view of a faint star, or, especially, of a 
 comet, presents it in much greater brilliancy than a 
 direct view ; so by an oblique description, by the in- 
 troducing circumstances connected with, and affected 
 by, the main object, but not absolutely forming part 
 of it, a more striking impression shall be produced 
 of anything that is in itself great and remarkable, 
 than could be produced by a minute and direct de- 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 83 
 
 scription. Thus, the woman's application to the 
 king of Samaria, to compel her neighbour to fulfil the 
 agreement of sharing with her the infant's flesh, gives 
 a more frightful impression of the horrors of the fa- 
 mine than any more direct description could have 
 done ; since it presents to us the picture of that hard- 
 ening of the heart to every kind of horror, and that 
 destruction of the ordinary state of human sentiment, 
 which is the result of long continued and extreme 
 misery. Nor could any detail of the particular vex- 
 ations to be suffered by the exiled Jew^s for their dis- 
 obedience, convey so lively an idea of them as that 
 description of their result contained in the denuncia- 
 tion of Moses : "In the evening thou shalt say, 
 Would God it were morning ! and in the morning 
 thou shalt say, Would God it were evening !" 
 
 In the poem of Rokeby, a striking exemplifica- 
 tion occurs of what has been said : Bertram, in de- 
 scribing the prow r ess he had displayed as a Buccaneer 
 does not particularise any of his exploits, but alludes 
 to the terrible impression they had left ; 
 
 " Panama's maids shall long look pale, 
 When Risingham inspires the tale ; 
 Chili's dark matrons long shall tame 
 Thefroward child with Bertram's name." 
 The first of dramatists, who might have been 
 perhaps the first of orators, has offered some excel- 
 
 g2 
 
 
84 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 lent exemplifications of this rule ; especially in the 
 speech of Antony over Caesar's body. 
 
 It is a fault, carefully to be avoided, to express 
 feeling more vehemently than that the audience can 
 go along with the speaker ; who would, in that case, 
 as Cicero observes, seem like one raving among the 
 sane, or intoxicated in the midst of the sober. And 
 accordingly, except where from extraneous causes, the 
 audience are already in an excited state, we must 
 carry them forward gradually, and allow time for 
 the fire to kindle. The blast which would brighten 
 a strong flame would, if applied too soon, extin- 
 guish the first faint spark. 
 
 Almost every one is aware of the infectious na- 
 ture of any emotion excited in a large assembly. 
 The power of this reflex sympathy in increasing any 
 feeling — whether pity, indignation, contempt, bash- 
 fulness, the sense of the ludicrous, &c. — may be 
 compared to the increase of sound by a number of 
 echoes ; or of light, by a number of mirrors ; or to the 
 blaze of a heap of firebrands, each of which would 
 speedily have gone out if kindled separately, but which 
 when thrown together, help to kindle each other. 
 
 Action, in public speaking, should always precede 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 85 
 
 somewhat the utterance of the words. That is 
 always the natural order of action. An emotion, 
 struggling for utterance, produces a tendency to a 
 bodily gesture, to express that emotion more quickly 
 than words can be framed ; the words follow as soon 
 as they can be spoken. And this being always the 
 case with a real, earnest, unstudied speaker, this 
 mode of placing the action foremost, gives (if it be 
 otherwise appropriate), the appearance of earnest 
 emotion actually present in the mind. And yet, 
 boys are generally taught to employ the prescribed 
 action either after, or during, the utterance of the 
 words it is to enforce. This circumstance alone 
 would be sufficient to convert the action of Demos- 
 thenes himself into a feeble affectation, into un- 
 successful and ridiculous pantomime. 
 
 He is usually regarded as a powerful speaker, who 
 is proclaimed as such by all his hearers, in conse- 
 quence of their having all admitted, or being ready 
 to admit, his conclusion, and thence, affording, at 
 least, no proof of his power. 
 
 It is worth observing that Arguments from Exam- 
 ple, whether real or invented, are the most easily 
 comprehended by the young and the uneducated; 
 because they facilitate the power of abstraction — a 
 
86 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 power which, in such hearers, is usually the most 
 imperfect. This mode of reasoning corresponds to 
 a geometrical demonstration by means of a diagram ; 
 in which the figure placed before the learner, is an 
 individual, employed, as he soon comes to perceive, 
 as a sign, though not an arbitrary sign, representing 
 the whole class. The words, written or spoken, 
 of any language are arbitrary: the characters of 
 picture-writing, or hieroglyphics, are natural signs. 
 The algebraic signs, again, are arbitrary; each 
 character not being itself an individual of the class it 
 represents. These last therefore correspond to the 
 abstract terms of a language. 
 
 The pleasure derived from taking in the author's 
 meaning, when an ingenious comparison is employed, 
 (referred by Aristotle to the pleasure of the act of 
 learning), is so great, that the reader or hearer is apt 
 to mistake his apprehension of this for a perception of a 
 just and convincing analogy. The aptness and beauty 
 of an illustration sometimes leads men to overrate, and 
 sometimes to underrate, its force as an argument. 
 
 Our Lord's parables are mostly explanatory — 
 introduced for Illustration, not for Argument. His 
 discourses, generally speaking, are but little argu- 
 mentative. " He taught as one having authority ;" 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. ' 87 
 
 stating and explaining his doctrines, and referring 
 for proof to his actions" "The works that I do in 
 my Father's name, they bear witness of me." 
 
 The non-existence of a case brought forward as 
 an illustration of our meaning, no more affects the 
 soundness of our argument than the mistake of a 
 physician, as to the disorder of a patient, affects the 
 fact that such a disorder exists. 
 
 I can well sympathize with the contempt mingled 
 with indignation expressed by Cicero against certain 
 philosophers, who found fault with Plato for having, 
 in a case he proposes, alluded to the fabulous ring 
 of Gyges, which had the virtue of making the 
 wearer invisible. They had found out, it seems, 
 that there never was any such ring. 
 
 The Arrangement of Arguments is not perhaps of 
 less consequence in Composition than in the Military 
 Art ; in which it is well known, that with an equality 
 of forces, in numbers, courage, and every other point, 
 the manner in which they are drawn up, so as either 
 to afford mutual support, or on the other hand, even 
 to impede and annoy each other, may make the 
 difference of victory or defeat. 
 
 E. G. In the statement of the Evidences of our 
 Religion, so as to give them their just weight, much 
 
58 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 depends on the Order in which they are placed. The 
 Antecedent-probability that a Revelation should be 
 given to Man, and that it should be established by 
 miracles, all would allow to be, considered by itself, 
 in the absence of strong direct testimony, utterly 
 insufficient to establish the conclusion. On the other 
 hand, miracles considered abstractedly, as represented 
 to have occured, without any occasion or reason for 
 them being assigned, carry with them such a strong, 
 intrinsic improbability as could not be wholly sur- 
 mounted even by such evidence as would fully 
 establish any other matters of fact. But the evi- 
 dences of the former class, however inefficient alone 
 towards the establishment of the conclusion, have 
 very great weight in preparing the mind for receiving 
 the other arguments ; which again, though they 
 would be listened to with prejudice if not so sup- 
 ported, will then be allowed their just weight. The 
 writers in defence of Christianity have not always 
 attended to this principle ; and their opponents have 
 often availed themselves of the knowledge of it, by 
 combating in detail, arguments, the combined force 
 of which would have been irresistible. If any one 
 out of a hundred men throw a stone which strikes a 
 certain object, there is but a slight probability, from 
 that fact alone, that he aimed at that object ; but if 
 all the hundred threw stones which struck the same 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 89 
 
 object, no one would doubt that they aimed at it, 
 It is from such a combination of argument that we 
 infer the existence of an intelligent Creator, from 
 the marks of contrivance visible in the universe, 
 though many of these are such as, taken singly, 
 might well be conceived undesigned and accidental ; 
 but that they should all be such is morally impossible. 
 Yet opponents argue respecting the credibility of the 
 Christian miracles abstractedly, as if they were in- 
 sulated occurrences, without any known or conceiva- 
 ble purpose ; as e.g., what testimony is sufficient to 
 establish the belief that a dead man was restored to 
 life ?" And then they proceed to shew that the pro- 
 bability of a Revelation, abstractedly considered, is 
 not such at least as to establish the fact that one has 
 been given. Whereas, if it were first proved (as 
 may easily be done) merely that there is no such ab- 
 stract improbability of a Revelation as to exclude the 
 evidence in favour of it, and that if one were given, 
 it must be expected to be supported by miraculous 
 evidence, then, just enough reason would be assigned 
 for the occurrence of miracles, not indeed to estab- 
 lish them, but to allow a fair hearing for the argu- 
 ments by which they are proved. 
 
 A great advantage in the arrangement of argu- 
 ments, is possessed by the speaker over the writer. 
 
90 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 The speaker compels his hearers to consider the se- 
 veral points brought before them, in the order which 
 he thinks best. Readers, on the contrary, will some- 
 times, by dipping into a book, or examining the 
 table of contents, light on something so revolting to 
 some prejudice, that though they might have admit- 
 ted the proofs of it, if they had read it in the order 
 designed, they may at once close the book in disgust. 
 
 The arrangement of Words is of no little impor- 
 tance to style. It is like the proper distribution of 
 the lights in a picture ; which is hardly of less con- 
 sequence than the correct and lively representation 
 of the objects. 
 
 It is no uncommon trick with some writers, by 
 the invention and adoption of complete new sets of 
 technical terms, to pass off long-known truths for 
 prodigious discoveries, and gain the credit of uni- 
 versal originality by the boldness of their innova- 
 tions in language ; — like some voyagers of discovery, 
 who take possession of countries, whether before 
 visited or not, by formally giving them new names. 
 
 By a multiplicity of words, the sentiment, like 
 David in Saul's armour, is incumbered and op- 
 pressed. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 91 
 
 The completeness of a library does not consist in 
 the number of volumes, especially if many of them 
 are duplicates, but in its containing copies of each 
 of the most valuable works. Nor was Lucullus's 
 wardrobe, which, according to Horace, boasted five 
 thousand mantles, necessarily well-stocked, if other 
 articles of dress were wanting. And in like manner, 
 true copiousness of language consists, not in a mul- 
 titude of synonyms and circumlocutions, but in 
 having at command, as far as possible, a suitable 
 expression for each different modification of thought. 
 The greater our command of language, the more 
 concisely we shall be enabled to write. 
 
 Many a speaker is lauded as " having a fine com- 
 mand of language/ 5 of whom it might better be said, 
 that " his language has a command of him." He has 
 the same " command of language' 5 that a rider has of 
 a horse that is running away with him. 
 
 The censure of frequent and long parentheses, has 
 led writers into the preposterous expedient of leaving 
 out the marks by which they are indicated It is no 
 cure to a lame man to take away his crutches. 
 
 Fine writing ought not to be looked for in the 
 treatment of scientific subjects. There is a neatness, 
 
92 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 indeed, and a sort of beauty resulting from the 
 appearance of healthful vigour in a well-tilled corn- 
 field ; but one which is overspread with blue and red 
 flowers, gives no great promise of a crop. 
 
 Pope's rhymes too often supply the defect of his 
 reasons. 
 
 What is said of human approbation as compared 
 with intrinsic rectitude — that it is a very good 
 thing when it happens to come incidentally, but 
 must never be made an object — may be said of forci- 
 ble or elegant expressions as compared with Truth. 
 The desire of Truth must reign supreme, and every- 
 thing else be welcomed only if coming in her train. 
 
 When the moon shines brightly, we are apt to say, 
 " How beautiful is this moon-light I" — but in the day- 
 time, " How beautiful are the trees, the fields, the 
 mountains V' — and, in short, all objects that are illu- 
 minated : we never speak of the sun that makes them 
 so. Just so, the really greatest orator shines like the 
 sun, making you think much of the things he is speak- 
 ing of; the second-best shines like the moon, making 
 you think much of him and his eloquence. 
 
 Without undertaking to maintain, like Quinti- 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 93 
 
 lian, that no one can be an orator who is not a vir- 
 tuous man, yet, as the orator is bound as such, on 
 rhetorical principles, to be exclusively intent on 
 carrying his point, there certainly is a kind of moral 
 excellence implied in that renunciation of all effort 
 to gain approbation, or even avoid censure, except 
 with a view to that point, — in that forgetfulness of 
 self, which is absolutely necessary, both in the 
 manner of writing, and in the delivery, to give the 
 full force to what is said. The orator should adopt 
 as his motto the reply of Themistocles, — " Strike, 
 but hear me." 
 
 Men of uncultivated minds generally admire the 
 profundity of what is mystical and obscure- — mistak- 
 ing the muddiness of the water for depth, and mag- 
 nifying in their imagination what is seen through a 
 fog. But this tendency becomes a grave evil, when 
 this cloudy style is made use of, as it now is, by 
 modern infidels, to conceal from the unwary the fact 
 of their being decidedly anti-christian. The dark 
 sayings of such writers may be compared to a fog- 
 bank at sea, which the mariner, at first glance, 
 takes for a chain of majestic mountains, but which, 
 when he turns his glass upon it, proves nothing 
 more than a heap of noxious vapours. 
 
94 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 The taste of many, in the present day, sets very 
 strongly in favour of a sort of mystical sublimity,— 
 of a style full of high-sounding words, sometimes 
 hardly English, — which dimly expresses, or ob- 
 scurely hints at, doctrines supposed to be above the 
 reach of ordinary mortals, and such as ordinary 
 language could not express at all. And such a 
 style is admired, not only as very eloquent,- — not 
 only as displaying originality of genius, — but as 
 highly u philosophical r ," and as placing the writer 
 far above anyone who condescends to be " practi- 
 cal/' that is, who writes so that his hearers may un- 
 derstand distinctly what he says, and learn some- 
 thing from it, and become the wiser or the better 
 for it. 
 
 " A fico for the world," (says Ancient Pistol) 
 " and worldlings base ! 
 I speak of Africa and golden joys." 
 Thus the gorgeous visions which floated before the 
 imagination of the alchemists, of the philosophers' 
 stone and the universal medicine, made them regard, 
 with impatient scorn, the humble labours of metal- 
 lurgy and pharmacy. 
 
 And it is not, as might at first sight be supposed, 
 that men are, in each case, led by their favourite 
 writers to mistake falsehood for truth. The fault 
 lies deeper. Truth — which used to be regarded as 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 95 
 
 the first point, in all Philosophy, — is, according to 
 this new school, a matter of secondary consideration. 
 The ingenious, the splendid, the original, the a poetic 
 and ideal" — everything that may enable a man to 
 be the " founder of a school/ 7 by dazzling a host of 
 idolizing followers, and converting (to use Bacon's 
 language), his own "Idola Species" into " Idola 
 Theatri " — all this is regarded as more philosophical 
 than the attainment of Truth ; and high enconiums 
 are actually lavished on " the freshness of spirit, and 
 breadth of view " of a writer's religious speculations, 
 even when erroneous f 
 
 Now if, even in what relates to revealed religion, 
 to that which comes from the Most High, and which 
 concerns man's eternal welfare, — if in these matters, 
 Truth is regarded as of less account than " glorious 
 imaginations " and " eloquent sublimity," — we may 
 well expect that, in all other subjects, the striking 
 and showy w ( ill be more thought of, than the right 
 and true; and that Poetry and Oratory will not 
 merely be preferred to Philosophy, but will usurp 
 her place and assume her name. 
 
 It may always be anticipated that Truth when it is 
 once understood, and when it is allowed on which 
 side it lies, will before long prevail. Error, on any 
 
96 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 point, may indeed bear rule for any length of time, 
 while undetected ; but when its real character is fully 
 exposed, the days of its reign is numbered. Not 
 that its practical overthrow is even then immediate, 
 Sound principles must not only be brought into 
 notice, and clearly explained, but must be allowed 
 some time to become familiar to men's minds, before 
 they will be acted on. The words which Shakspere 
 puts into the mouth of Dogberry, probably in mere 
 sport, may be taken as a correct description of what 
 actually takes place in many departments of life. 
 " It hath been proved already that you are stark 
 knaves ; and it will go near to be thought so 
 shortly." 
 
 It often happens that, before a popular audience, 
 a greater degree of skill is requisite for maintaining 
 the cause of truth than of falsehood, from the diffi- 
 culty of exhibiting, in their full strength, the delicate 
 distinctions on which truth sometimes depends. 
 
 Many are misled by their admiration of what is 
 called a powerful discourse, forgetting that that is 
 the most powerful which best effects the object pro- 
 posed. The power of a sample of gunpowder, or of 
 a piece of ordnance, is. tested, not by the loudness 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 97 
 
 of the report, but by the depth of the impression 
 made on the target. 
 
 Many a meandering discourse one hears, in which 
 the preacher aims at nothing, and — hits it. 
 
 " Words," says Hobbes, " are the counters of 
 wise men, and the money of fools." Hence, the 
 latter can never distinguish a verbal, from a real, 
 question. 
 
 The true meaning of a word, is that which it 
 expresses ; and the right name of a thing, is that 
 which it is called by. 
 
 One of the most common sources of dissension, is 
 the mistaking the meaning of others ; and hence, the 
 word misunderstanding is applied to disagreements 
 in general. 
 
 All men, except idiots, reason in some sort or 
 another, consciously or unconsciously — many being 
 in the condition of Moliere's Bourgeois Gentilhomme, « 
 who had been talking prose all his life, without know- 
 ing it. Now what most men will do, whether well 
 or ill, it must be of the utmost importance they should 
 be qualified for doing well. 
 
 H 
 
98 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 As it is an advantage in algebraical calculations, 
 to employ a letter of the alphabet, as a symbol to 
 denote some unknown quantity, while remembering, 
 that this does not make it become at once a known 
 quantity ; so it is a convenience, to affix names to our 
 own indistinct and imperfect notions, provided, when 
 grown familiar with these names, we do not forget 
 how little we know of the things themselves. 
 
 Long and habitual attention to the different mean- 
 ings of the same word, and assiduous vigilance in 
 the use of it, is necessary to prevent our sliding 
 insensibly from one meaning into another, and fancy- 
 ing that we are still speaking of the same thing, 
 because we are employing the same sound. 
 
 It is to be observed, that the words whose ambi- 
 guity is the most frequently overlooked, and is pro- 
 ductive of the greatest amount of confusion of thought 
 and fallacy, are among the commonest, and are those 
 of whose meaning the generality consider there is 
 the least room to doubt. Familiar acquaintance is 
 perpetually mistaken for accurate knowledge. 
 
 There is no mistake more common than the mis- 
 take of the unquestioned for the unquestionable. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 99 
 
 The ambiguity in all languages of almost all the 
 words relating to the Physical Cause and the Logical 
 Proof of anything, has produced incalculable confu- 
 sion of thought, and from which it is the harder to 
 escape, on account of its extending to those very 
 forms of expression, which are introduced to clear 
 it up. 
 
 " Chaos umpire sits, 
 
 And by deciding, worse embroils the fray." 
 
 To cease to use words in their transferred sense, 
 from the primary to the secondary, would, if it 
 were desirable, be utterly impracticable ; but there 
 cannot be too great attention to the ambiguity thus 
 introduced, nor too constant watchfulness against the 
 errors thence arising. l It is with words as with 
 money. 1 Those who know the value of it best are 
 not therefore the least liberal. We may lend readily 
 and largely; and though this be done quietly and 
 without ostentation, there is no harm in keeping au 
 exact account in our private memorandum-book, of 
 the sums, the persons, and the occasions on which 
 they were lent. It may be, we shall want them 
 again for our own use ; or they may be employed by 
 the borrower for a wrong purpose ; or they may 
 have been so long in his possession, that he begins to 
 look upon them as his own. v In either of which 
 
 h2 
 
100 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 cases, it is allowable, and even right, to call 
 them in. 
 
 All use is not the standard for a word, but good use. 
 Those who have a right of suffrage in this matter 
 are, first, educated people ; — secondly, those who are 
 careful in their use of language, — yet, thirdly, free 
 from affectation ; — fourthly, having no particular 
 theory (like Home Tooke's) on the subject of lan- 
 guage, — nor, fifthly, on the subject to which the 
 terms in question belong ; — sixthly, the appeal must 
 be made to their intentional and established practice, 
 not to their occasional and incidental deviations from 
 it. Arguments from analogy, convenience, etymo- 
 logy, &c. are, in this matter, to be then only listened 
 to, when use is doubtful or indifferent : they are like 
 the counsellors of a despot, whose office is to sway 
 his deliberations when he is in doubt, but not to 
 oppose his decisions. 
 
 Nothing, perhaps, has contributed more to the 
 error of Realism than inattention to the ambiguity 
 of the word " Same/ 7 which is employed to denote 
 great similarity ; a sense very different from its pri- 
 mary one, as applicable to a single object. When 
 several persons are said to have One and the Same 
 opinion — thought — -or idea, — many men, overlooking 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 101 
 
 the true simple statement of the case, which is, that 
 they are all thinking alike, look for something more 
 abstruse and mystical, and imagine there must be 
 some one thing, in the primary sense, though not 
 an individual, which is present at once in the mind 
 of each of these persons : and thence readily sprung 
 Plato's theory of ideas •, each of which was, accord- 
 ing to him, one real, eternal, object, existing entire 
 and complete in each of the individual objects that are 
 known by one name. Hence, first in poetical my- 
 thology, and ultimately, perhaps, in popular belief, 
 Fortune, Liberty, Prudence (Minerva), a boundary 
 (Lerminus), and even the Mildew of corn (Rubigo), 
 &c, became personified, deified, and represented by 
 statues 5 somewhat according to the process which 
 is described by Swift, in his humorous manner, in 
 speaking of Zeal (in the Tale of a Tub), "how from 
 a notion it became a word, and from thence, in a hot 
 summer, ripened into a tangible substance." An' 
 old story is told of a learned gentleman, who, de- 
 spising female intellect, lent to a lady, as a joke, 
 Locke's Essay. When she returned it, he asked her 
 what she thought of it : she replied that there seemed 
 to her very many good things in it, but there was 
 one word she did not clearly understand — the word 
 idea (as she pronounced it, which, by the way, is 
 just as we do pronounce it in the original Greek) ; 
 
102 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 he told her it was the feminine of "idiot." Now it 
 is more than doubtful whether the learned gentleman, 
 or Locke himself, understood in what sense he used 
 the word, any more than the lady ; only, that she 
 had the sagacity to perceive that she did not. 
 
 Whatever personal identity does consist in, it is 
 plain that it has no necessary connexion with simi- 
 larity ; since, when we say of any man that he is 
 greatly altered since such a time, we understand, 
 and indeed imply, by the very expression, that he 
 is one person, though different in several qualities ; 
 else it would not be he. Every one would be ready 
 to say " When I was a child, I thought as a child, 
 I spake as a child, I understood as a child; but 
 when I became a man, I put away childish things." 
 
 The ambiguity of the word " plain" has, probably, 
 produced many indifferent sermons. A young divine 
 perceives the truth of the maxim, that "for the 
 lower orders one's language cannot be too plain" 
 (that is, clear and perspicuous, so as to require no 
 learning nor ingenuity to understand it) : and when 
 he proceeds to practice, the word " plain" indistinctly 
 flits before him, as it were, and often checks him in 
 the use of ornaments of style, such as metaphor, 
 epithet, and antithesis, &c, which are opposed to 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 103 
 
 ' plainness 7 in a totally different sense of the word ; 
 being by no means necessarily adverse to perspi- 
 cuity, but rather, in many cases, conducive to it ; 
 as may be seen in several of the clearest of our 
 Lord's discourses, which are the very ones that are 
 the most richly adorned with figurative language. 
 This ambiguity often causes men to write in a dry 
 and bald- style, which has no advantage in point of 
 perspicuity, and is least of all suited to the taste of 
 the vulgar, who are pleased with an ornamental style, 
 even in excess. 
 
 The word ' Contingent,' though applied to events 
 only, not to persons, yet denotes no quality in the 
 events themselves, only the relation in which they 
 stand to a person, who has no complete knowledge 
 concerning them. For the same thing may be, at 
 the same time, both certain and uncertain to different 
 individuals; e.g., the life or death at a particular 
 time of any one is certain to his friends on the spot ; 
 uncertain or contingent to those at a distance. It is 
 from overlooking this principle, obvious as it is when 
 once distinctly stated, that Chance or Fortune has 
 come to be regarded as a real agent, and to have 
 been by the ancients personified as a goddess and re- 
 presented by statues. 
 
104 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 An undetected ambiguity in the word l tendency ' 
 has led to the doctrine, as mischievous as it is, I con- 
 ceive, unfounded, that since there is a tendency in 
 population to increase faster than the means of sub- 
 sistence, hence, the pressure of population against 
 subsistence may be expected to become greater and 
 greater in each successive generation, (unless new 
 and extraordinary remedies are resorted to,) and 
 thus to produce a progressive diminution of human 
 welfare ; — whereas it is well known, that all civilized 
 countries have a greater proportionate amount of 
 wealth, now, than formerly. By a " tendency " to- 
 wards a certain result is sometimes meant u the exist- 
 ence of a cause which, if operating unimpeded, would 
 produce that result.' 7 In this sense, it may be said 
 with truth that the earth, or any other body moving 
 round a centre, has a tendency to fly off at a tangent, 
 /. e., the centrifugal force operates in that direction, 
 though it is controlled by the centripetal. But some- 
 times again " a tendency towards a certain result " 
 is understood to mean the existence of such a state of 
 things that that result may he expected to take place" 
 Now it is in these two senses that the word is used 
 in the two premisses of the argument in question. 
 But in this latter sense, the earth has a greater ten- 
 dency to remain in its orbit than to fly off from it ; 
 and (as may be proved by comparing a more bar- 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 105 
 
 barous with a more civilized period in the history of 
 any country) in the progress of society, subsistence 
 has a tendency to increase at .a greater rate than 
 population. In this country, for instance, much as 
 our population has increased within the last five cen- 
 turies, it yet bears a less ratio to subsistence (though 
 still a much greater than could be wished) than it 
 did five hundred years ago. 
 
 It is a common logical error, to suppose that what 
 usually belongs to the thing is implied by the usual 
 sense of the word. Although most noblemen pos- 
 sess large estates, the word 4 nobleman ' does not im- 
 ply the possession of a large estate. Although most 
 birds can fly, the ordinary use of the term ' bird ■ 
 does not imply this ; since the penguin and the os- 
 trich are always admitted to be birds. And though, 
 in a great majority of cases, it so happens, by the 
 appointment of Providence, that wealth is acquired by 
 labour, the ordinary use of the word l wealth ■ does 
 not include this circumstance ; since every one would 
 call a pearl an article of wealth, even though a man 
 should chance to meet with it in eating an oyster. 
 It is not that pearls fetch a high price because men 
 have dived for them ; but, on the contrary, men 
 dive for them because they fetch a high price. 
 
106 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 There are two different applications of the word 
 4 Experience/ which, when not carefully distinguished, 
 lead in practice to the same confusion as the employ- 
 ment of it in two senses : viz., we sometimes under- 
 stand our own personal Experience, sometimes Gene- 
 kal Experience. Hume has availed himself of this 
 (practical) ambiguity, in his Essay on Miracles ; in 
 which he observes, that we have Experience of the 
 frequent falsity of testimony ; but that the occurrence 
 of a Miracle is contrary to our Experience, and is 
 consequently what no testimony ought to be allowed 
 to establish. Now had he explained whose Experi- 
 ence he meant, the argument would have come to 
 nothing : if he means the Experience of mankind 
 universally, that is, that a Miracle has never come 
 under the experience of any one ; this is palpably 
 begging the question : if he means the experience 
 of each individual who has never himself witnessed 
 a miracle, this would establish a rule (viz., that we 
 are to believe nothing of which we have not ourselves 
 experienced the like), which it would argue insanity 
 to act upon. Not only was the king of Bantam jus- 
 tified, (as Hume himself admits) in listening to no 
 evidence for the existence of Ice, but no one would 
 be authorized, on this principle, to expect his own 
 death : his experience informs him, directly, only that 
 others have died, while every disease under which 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 107 
 
 he himself may have laboured his experience tells him 
 has not terminated fatally; if he is to judge strictly oi* 
 the future by the past, according to this rule, what 
 should hinder him from expecting the like of all fu- 
 ture diseases? 
 
 Much sophistry has been founded on the neglect 
 of the distinction between three senses of the word 
 " Impossibility,' ' — or three kinds of Impossibilities, 
 the mathematical, the physical, and the moral. A 
 mathematical impossibility is that which involves an 
 absurdity and a self-contradiction ; which may be 
 called a mathematical impossibility, being irrecon- 
 cilable with propositions, the truth of which is neces- 
 sary and eternal ; since it amounts only to a confor- 
 mity to the hypothesis we set out with. Every such 
 Impossibility must be implied — though we may not 
 perceive it — in the terms employed, — in short, it 
 must be properly a contradiction in terms. For 
 instance, that two straight lines should enclose a 
 space, is not only impossible but inconceivable, as it 
 would be at variance with the definition of a straight 
 line. And it should be observed, that inability to 
 accomplish anything which is in this sense, impos- 
 sible, implies no limitation of power, and is com- 
 patible even with omnipotence, in the fullest sense of 
 the word. If it be proposed, to construct a triangle 
 
108 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 having one of its sides equal to the other two, it is 
 not from a defect of power that we are precluded 
 from solving such a problem as this ; since in fact 
 the problem is in itself unmeaning and absurd : it is 
 in reality, nothing that is required to be done. 
 
 Secondly — What may be called a Physical Impos- 
 sibility, is something at variance with the existing 
 Laws of Nature, and which consequently no Being 
 subject to those Laws (as we are) can surmount, but 
 we can easily conceive a Being capable of bringing 
 about what in the ordinary course of Nature is 
 impossible. For instance, — To multiply five loaves 
 into food for a multitude, or to walk on the surface of 
 the waves, are things physically impossible, but imply 
 no contradiction ; on the contrary, we cannot but 
 suppose that the Being, if there be such an one, who 
 created the Universe, is able to alter at will the 
 properties of any of the substances it contains. And 
 an occurrence of this character we call miraculous. 
 Not but that one person may perform without super- 
 natural power what is to another physically impos- 
 sible ; as, for instance, a man may lift a great weight, 
 which it would be physically impossible for a child to 
 raise ; because it is contrary to the Laws of Nature 
 that a muscle of this degree of strength should over- 
 come a resistance which one of that degree is equal 
 to. But if any one perform what is beyond his own 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. * 109 
 
 natural powers, or the natural powers of Man uni- 
 versally, he has performed a miracle. Now as has 
 been above observed much sophistry has been founded 
 on the neglect of the distinction between these two 
 senses. It has even been contended that no evidence 
 ought to induce a man of sense to admit that a mira- 
 cle has taken place, on the ground that it is a thing 
 impossible to man ; in other words, that it is a mira- 
 cle ; for if it were not a thing impossible to man 
 there would be no miracle in the case ; so that such 
 an argument is palpably begging the question ; but 
 it has often probably been admitted from an indis- 
 tinct notion being suggested of Impossibility in the 
 first sense ; in which sense (viz., that of self-contra- 
 diction) it is admitted that no evidence would justify 
 belief. 
 
 Thirdly — Moral Impossibility signifies only that 
 high degree of improbability which leaves no room 
 for doubt. In this sense we often call a thing impos- 
 sible, which implies no contradiction, or any viola- 
 tion of the Laws of Nature, but which yet we are 
 rationally convinced will never occur merely from 
 the multitude of chances against it ; as, for instance, 
 that unloaded dice should turn up the same faces one 
 hundred times successively. The performance of 
 anything that is morally impossible to a mere man, 
 is to be reckoned a miracle, as much as if the impos- 
 
110 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 sibility were physical. It is morally impossible for 
 poor Jewish fishermen to have framed such a system 
 of ethical and religious doctrine as the Gospel ex- 
 hibits. It is morally impossible for a man to foretell 
 distant and improbable future events with the exac- 
 titude of many of the prophecies in Scripture. 
 
 Hume disputes against miracles as contrary to the 
 course of Nature, whereas, according to him, there 
 is no such thing as a course of Nature. His scepti- 
 cism extends to the whole external world, — to every- 
 thing except the ideas or impressions on the mind of 
 the individual ; so that a miracle which is believed, 
 has, in that circumstance alone, on his principles, as 
 much reality as anything can have. 
 
 It is not denial, but doubt, that is opposed to cre- 
 dulity. To disbelieve is to believe. And there may 
 be cases in which doubt itself may amount to the 
 most extravagant incredulity, For instance, if any 
 one should " doubt whether there is any such country 
 as Egypt,' 7 he would be, in fact, believing this most 
 incredible proposition, — that "it is possible for many 
 thousands of persons unconnected with each other to 
 have agreed, for successive ages, in bearing witness 
 to the existence of a fictitious country, without being 
 detected, contradicted, or suspected." 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. Ill 
 
 All this, though self-evident, is, in practice, fre- 
 quently lost sight of : the more, on account of our 
 employing, in reference to the Christian religion, the 
 words "Believer and Unbeliever ;" whence unthink- 
 ing persons are led to take for granted that the rejec- 
 tion of Christianity implies a less easy belief than 
 its reception. 
 
 A i Presumption ' in favour of any supposition, ac- 
 cording to the most correct use of the term, means, 
 not, (as has been sometimes erroneously imagined) a 
 preponderance of probability in its favour, but, such 
 a pre- occupation of the ground as implies that it must 
 stand good till some sufficient reason is adduced 
 against it ; in short, that the Burden of Proof lies on 
 the side of him who would dispute it. The impor- 
 tance of deciding on which side lies the onus pro- 
 bandi is very gfeat : on the determination of this 
 question the whole character of a discussion will often 
 very much depend. A body of troops may be per- 
 fectly adequate to the defenee of a fortress against 
 any attack that may be made on it ; and yet, if, igno- 
 rant of the advantage they possess, they sally forth 
 into the open field, they may suffer a repulse. At any 
 rate, even if strong enough to act on the offensive, 
 they ought still to keep possession of their fortress. 
 In like manner, if you abandon your position, by suf- 
 
112 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 fering the Presumption on your side to be forgotten, 
 which is in fact leaving out one of, perhaps, your 
 strongest arguments, you may appear to be making 
 a feeble attack, instead of a triumphant defence. 
 
 There is a Presumption in favour of every exist- 
 ing institution. No one is called on (though he may 
 find it advisable) to defend an existing institution, 
 till some argument is adduced against it : and that 
 argument ought in fairness to prove, not merely an 
 actual inconvenience, but the possibility of a change 
 for the better. 
 
 Every book, again, as well as person, ought to 
 be presumed harmless (and consequently the copy- 
 right protected by our courts), till something is 
 proved against it. 
 
 There is a " Presumption" against anything para- 
 doxical, that is, contrary to the prevailing opinion : 
 it may be true, but the Burden of Proof lies with 
 him who maintains it ; since men are not expected 
 to abandon the prevailing belief till some reason is 
 shewn. Hence it is, probably, that one often hears a 
 charge of "paradox and nonsense' ' brought forward, 
 as if there were some close connexion between the 
 two. And, indeed, in our sense this is the case . 
 for, to those who are too dull, or too prejudiced, to 
 admit any notion at variance with those they have 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 113 
 
 been used to entertain, that may appear nonsense, 
 which, to others, is sound sense. Thus, " Christ cru- 
 cified" was "to the Jews a stumbling-block' ' (para- 
 dox), " and to the Greeks, foolishness ;" because 
 the one "required a sign" of a different kind from 
 any that appeared ; and the others " sought after 
 wisdom" in their schools of philosophy. 
 
 Accordingly, there was a presumption against the 
 Gospel in its first announcement. The burden of 
 proof lay with the Jewish peasant, who claimed to 
 be the promised Deliverer, in whom all the nations 
 of the Earth were to be blessed. No one could be 
 fairly called on to admit his pretensions, till He 
 shewed cause for believing in Him. If He "had 
 not done among them the works which none other 
 man did, they had not had sin." 
 
 Now the case is reversed. Christianity exists ; 
 and the burden of proof lies plainly with him who 
 rejects it; which, if it were not established by 
 miracles, demands an explanation of that still greater 
 miracle — its having been established, in defiance of 
 all opposition, by human contrivance. It is indeed 
 highly expedient, to bring forward more proofs of 
 the divine origin of Christianity than may fairly be 
 demanded of you ; but it is always desirable that it 
 should be known, that all this is an argument ex 
 abundanti — over and above what can fairly be called 
 
 i 
 
THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 for — and the strength of the cause should be esti- 
 mated accordingly. 
 
 In the case of any doctrines professing to be essen- 
 tial parts of the Gospel-revelation, the fair presump- 
 tion is, that we shall find all such distinctly declared 
 in Scripture. If any one maintains, on the ground 
 of tradition, the necessity of some additional article 
 of faith, (as, for instance, that of purgatory), or the 
 propriety of a departure from the New Testament 
 precepts (as, for instance, in the denial of the cup 
 to the Laity in the Eucharist), the burden of proof 
 lies with him. We are not called on to prove that 
 there is no tradition to the purpose ; — much less, that 
 no tradition can have any weight at all in any case. 
 It is for him to prove, not merely generally, that 
 there is such a thing as tradition, and that it is en- 
 titled to respect, but, that there is a tradition rela- 
 tive to each of the points which he thus maintains ; 
 and that such tradition is, in each point, sufficient to 
 establish that point. For want of observing this 
 rule, the most vague and interminable disputes have 
 often been carried on respecting tradition, generally. 
 
 There is (according to the old maxim of u peritis 
 credendum est ice arte sua") a presumption, (and a 
 fair one,) in respect of each question, in favour of 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 115 
 
 the judgment of the most eminent men in the de- 
 partment it pertains to, — of eminent physicians, e. g., 
 in respect of medical questions, — of theologians, in 
 theological, &c. And by this presumption, many of 
 the Jews in our Lord's time seem to have been in- 
 fluenced, when they said, " Have any of the rulers 
 or of the pharisees believed on Him?" 
 
 But there is a counter-presumption, arising from 
 the circumstance that men, eminent in any depart- 
 ment, are likely to regard with jealousy any one 
 who professes to bring to light something unknown 
 to themselves ; especially if it promise to supersede, 
 if established, much of what they have been accus- 
 tomed to learn, and teach, and practise. And more- 
 over, in respect of the medical profession, there is 
 an obvious danger of a man's being regarded as a 
 dangerous experimentalist, who adopts any novelty, 
 and of his thus losing practice, even among such as 
 may regard him with admiration as a philosopher. 
 In confirmation of this, it may be sufficient to advert 
 to the cases of Harvey and Jenner. Harvey's dis- 
 covery of the circulation of the blood, is said to have 
 lost him most of his practice, and 'to have been 
 rejected by every physician in Europe, above the age 
 of forty. And Jenner' s discovery of vaccination 
 had, in a minor degree, similar results. 
 
 There is also this additional counter-presumption 
 
 i2 
 
116 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 against the judgment of the proficients in any de- 
 partment, that they are prone to a bias in favour of 
 everything that gives the most palpable superiority 
 to themselves over the uninitiated (the Idiotse), and 
 aftords the greatest scope for the employment and 
 display of their own peculiar acquirements. Thus, 
 e. g n if there be two possible interpretations of some 
 clause in an Act of Parliament, one of which ap- 
 pears obvious to every reader of plain, good sense, 
 and the other can be supported only by some ingeni- 
 ous and far-fetched legal subtlety, a practised lawyer 
 will be liable to a bias in favour of the latter, as 
 setting forth the more prominently his own pecu- 
 liar qualifications. And on this principle, in great 
 measure, seems founded Bacon's valuable remark ; 
 u Harum artium saepe pravus fit usus, ne sit nullus" 
 Rather than let their knowledge and skill lie idle, they 
 will be tempted to misapply them ; like a school- 
 boy, who, when possessed of a knife, is for trying 
 its edge on everything that comes in his way. On the 
 whole, accordingly, I think that of these two opposite 
 presumptions, the counter-presumption has often as 
 much weight as the other, and sometimes more. 
 
 u Men imagine," says Bacon, "that their minds 
 have the command of language ; but it often happens 
 that language bears rule over their mind." Some 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 117 
 
 of the weak and absurd arguments which are often 
 urged against Suicide, may be traced to the influence 
 of words on thoughts. When a Christian moralist 
 is called on for a direct Scriptural precept against 
 Suicide, instead of replying that the Bible is not 
 meant for a complete code of laws, but for a system 
 of motives and principles, the answer frequently 
 given is, " Thou shalt do no murder" and it is 
 assumed in the arguments drawn from reason, as 
 well as in those from Eevelation, that Suicide is a 
 species of murder ; viz., because it is called self- 
 murder : and thus, deluded by a name, many are 
 led to rest on an unsound argument, which, like all 
 other fallacies, does more harm than good, in the 
 end, to the cause of truth. Suicide, if any one 
 considers the nature and not the name of it, evi- 
 dently wants the most essential characteristic of 
 murder, viz., the hurt and injury done to one's 
 neighbour, in depriving him of life, as well as to 
 others, by the insecurity they are in consequence 
 liable to feel. And since no one can, strictly speak- 
 ing, do injustice to himself, he cannot, in the literal 
 and primary acceptation of the words, be said either 
 to rob or to murder himself. He who deserts the 
 post to which he is appointed by his great Master, 
 and presumptuously cuts short the state of probation 
 graciously allowed him for " working out his salva- 
 
118 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 tion" (whether by action or hy patient endurance), 
 is guilty indeed of a grievous sin, but of one not the 
 least analogous in its character to murder. It implies 
 no inhumanity. It is much more closely allied to 
 the sin of wasting life in indolence, or in trifling 
 pursuits, — that life which is bestowed as a seed time 
 for the harvest of immortality. What is called, in 
 familiar phrase, " killing time/' is, in truth, an ap- 
 proach, as far as it goes, to the destruction of one's 
 own life ; for u Time is the stuff life is made of." 
 
 The best argument against duels is, that they con- 
 fer a character of daring spirit, which all in some 
 degree admire, on such conduct as would otherwise 
 degrade a man. If one gives another the lie, he 
 would be cut as an unmannerly brute, but for the 
 rule which allows you to " call him out." He is 
 ready to give satisfaction, and is somewhat admired 
 for his courage. But for duelling, he could give no 
 satisfaction for such an offence to society, which 
 would accordingly send him to Coventry. 
 
 The defence, certainly the readiest and most con- 
 cise, frequently urged by the sportsman, when accused 
 of barbarity in sacrificing unoffending hares or trout 
 to his amusement, is to reply, as he may safely do, 
 to most of his assailants, w Why do you feed on the 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 119 
 
 flesh of the harmless sheep and ox?" and that this 
 answer presses hard, is manifested by its being 
 usually opposed by a palpable falsehood; viz., that 
 the animals which are killed for food are sacrificed 
 to our necessities, though not only men can, but a 
 large proportion (probably a great majority) of the 
 human race actually do, subsist in health and vigour 
 without flesh-diet ; and the earth would support a 
 much greater human population, were such a practice 
 universal. When shamed out of this argument, they 
 sometimes urge, that the brute creation would over- 
 run the earth, if we did not kill them for food ; an 
 argument which, if it were valid at all, would not 
 justify their feeding on fish ; though, if fairly fol- 
 lowed up, it would justify Swift's proposal for keep- 
 ing down the excessive population of Ireland. The 
 true reason, viz., that they eat flesh for the gratifi- 
 cation of the palate, and have a taste for the plea- 
 sures of the table, though not for the sports of the 
 field, is one which they do not like to assign. 
 
 The word " expect" is liable to an ambiguity 
 which may sometimes lead, in conjunction with 
 other causes, to a practical bad effect. It is some- 
 times used in the sense of " anticipate/' " calculate 
 on," &c. (e'/W/fw), in short, " consider as probable" 
 sometimes for " require or demand as reasonable," — 
 
120 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 u consider as right" (af uD). Thus, I may fairly, 
 "expect" (agiiv) that one who has received kindness 
 from me, should protect me in distress ; yet I may 
 have reason to expect (e^sr/gea?) that he will not. 
 " England expects every man to do his duty;" but 
 it would be chimerical to expect, that is, anticipate, 
 a universal performance of duty. Hence, when men 
 of great revenues, whether civil or ecclesiastical, 
 live in the splendour and sensuality of Sardanapalus, 
 they are apt to plead that this is expected of them ; 
 which may be perhaps sometimes true, in the sense 
 that such conduct is anticipated as probable; not 
 true, as implying that it is required or approved. 
 What may reasonably be expected (in one sense of 
 the word), must be precisely the practice of the 
 majority ; since it is the majority of instances that 
 constitutes probability: what may reasonably be 
 expected (in the other sense), is something much 
 beyond the practice of the generality ; as long, at 
 least, as it shall be true, that u narrow is the way 
 that leadeth to life, and few there be that find it." 
 
 The expressions u Matter (or question) of Fact," 
 and u Matter of Opinion," are not employed by all 
 persons with precision and uniformity. Decidedly 
 it is not meant, by those, at least, who use language 
 with any precision, that there is greater certainty, 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 121 
 
 or more general and ready agreement, in the one 
 case than in the other. By a u Matter (or ques- 
 tion) of Opinion," is understood anything respecting 
 which an exercise of judgment would be called for 
 on the part of those who should have certain objects 
 before them, and who might conceivably disagree in 
 their judgment thereupon : for instance, that one of 
 Alexander's friends did, or did not, administer 
 poison to him, every one would allow to be a 
 question of fact, though it may be involved in inex- 
 tricable doubt ; while the question, What sort of an 
 act that was, suppposing it to have taken place, all 
 w r ould allow to be a question of opinion, though 
 probably all would agree in their opinion thereupon. 
 
 Again, it is not apparently necessary that a 
 " Matter of Fact," in order to constitute it such, 
 should have ever been actually submitted — or likely 
 to be so — to the senses of any human being ; only, 
 that it should be one which conceivably might be so 
 submitted : for instance, whether there is a lake in 
 the centre of New Holland, — whether there is land 
 at the South Pole — whether the moon is inhabited, 
 - — would generally be admitted to be questions of 
 fact, although no one has been able to bear testi- 
 mony concerning them; and, in the last case, we 
 are morally certain that no one ever will. 
 
 And in this, and many other cases, different 
 
122 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 questions, very closely connected, are very apt to 
 be confounded together, and the proofs belonging 
 to one of them brought forward as pertaining to the 
 other : for instance, a case of alleged prophecy shall 
 be in question : the event, said to have been foretold, 
 shall be established as a fact ; and also the utterance 
 of the supposed prediction before the event ; and this 
 will perhaps be assumed as proof of that which is 
 in reality another question, and a " question of 
 opinion;" whether the supposed prophecy related 
 to the event in question ; and again, whether it were 
 merely a conjecture of human sagacity, or such as 
 to imply superhuman prescience. 
 
 Again, whether a certain passage occurs in certain 
 Manuscripts of the Greek Testament, is evidently a 
 question of Fact ; but whether the words imply such 
 and such a doctrine, — however indubitable it may 
 justly appear to us, — is evidently a " Matter of 
 Opinion.' ' 
 
 It is to be observed also, that, as there may be 
 (as I have just said), questions of Opinion relative to 
 Facts, so there may also be questions of Fact relative 
 to Opinions ; that is, that such and such Opinions 
 were, or were not, maintained at such a time and 
 place, by such and such persons, is a question of Fact. 
 
 It is no wonder that the longest mathematical de- 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 123 
 
 monstration should be so much more easily con- 
 structed and understood than a much shorter train 
 of just reasoning concerning real facts. For, not 
 only are the mathematical definitions very few, but 
 the axioms are still fewer, and always employed in 
 the same simple form ; and both are, for the most 
 part, laid down and placed before the student in the 
 outset ; while, on the other hand, in all reasonings 
 that regard matters of fact, fresh and fresh facts 
 are introduced almost at every step to a "very great 
 number ; and the maxims employed admit of, and 
 require, continual modifications in the application of 
 them. The former has been aptly compared to a 
 long and steep, but even and regular, flight of steps, 
 which tries the breath, and the strength, and the 
 perseverance only ; while the latter resembles a short 
 but rugged and uneven ascent up a precipice, which 
 requires a quick eye, agile limbs, and a firm step ; 
 and in which we have to tread, now on this side, now 
 on that,— ever considering, as we proceed, whether 
 this or that projection will afford room for our foot, 
 or whether some loose stone may not slide from un- 
 der us. 
 
 The knowledge of facts, whether much or little, 
 will often be worse than useless to those who are de- 
 ficient in the power of discriminating and selecting ; 
 
124 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 just as food is to a body, whose digestive system is so 
 much impaired as to be incapable of separating the 
 nutritious portions. 
 
 Men of very inferior powers, sometimes, by im- 
 mediate observation, discover perfectly new facts em- 
 pirically ; and may thus be of service in furnishing 
 materials to those master minds that, by their skil- 
 ful selection and combining of truths long and gene- 
 rally known, elicit important, and hitherto unthought 
 of, conclusions. Theirs are master minds, to whom 
 the others stand in the same relation as the brick- 
 maker or stone quarrier to the architect. 
 
 Information, as to matters of fact, may easily 
 be referred in the mind to the person from whom 
 we have derived it : but scientific truths, when 
 thoroughly embraced, become much more a part 
 of the mind, as it were ; since they rest," not on the 
 authority of the instructor, but on reasoning from 
 data, which we ourselves furnish : they are scions 
 engrafted on the stems previously rooted in our own 
 soil ; and we are apt to confound them with its 
 indigenous productions. 
 
 Information gives us absolutely new knowledge ; 
 Instruction developes what we had. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 125 
 
 The office of a philosopher is to infer ; of an ad- 
 vocate, to prove. 
 
 The number of those who are, not only qualified 
 to appreciate justly the force of arguments, but who 
 are also accustomed to this employment of their 
 faculties, is probably less than is supposed. When 
 a man maintains, on several points, opinions which 
 are true, and assigns good and sufficient reasons for 
 them, both he himself and others are apt to conclude 
 at once that he is convinced by those reasons ; 
 whereas the truth will often be, that he has taken 
 upon trust both the premises and the conclusion, as 
 well as the connexion between them ; that he is 
 indolently repeating what he has heard, without 
 performing any process of reasoning in his own 
 mind ; and that, if he had not been early trained or 
 predisposed to admit the conclusion, and it had been 
 presented to him as a novelty, the arguments which 
 support it, though in themselves valid, would have 
 had little or no weight with him. If such a man 
 then enters on any new field of enquiry, his de- 
 ficiencies at once become apparent. He is in a situa- 
 tion analagous to that of children, taught by a 
 negligent or unskilful master, who are often found 
 able, apparently, to read with great fluency in a book 
 they have been accustomed to, though, in reality, they 
 
126 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 are not so much reading, as repeating by rote the 
 sentences they have often gone over ; and, if tried 
 in a new book, are at a loss to put two syllables 
 together. 
 
 People often read good books because it is a good 
 thing to read good books ; and because everything 
 they have read is perfectly good and true, they set 
 it down among the praiseworthy actions of their life ; 
 instead of regarding such studies as means, and 
 means only, towards a further end, the non- attain- 
 ment of which renders them as utterly worthless as 
 the act of sowing the land with seed which never 
 comes up. This fully accounts for the approbation 
 bestowed on religious and moral books, when they 
 are utterly undeserving of it. If a farmer was paid 
 for sowing his seed merely, and had no anxiety to 
 get a good crop, he would not distinguish very 
 accurately between good seed and bad. Some may 
 think that a book of this kind, if it does no good, 
 can at least do no harm : not so ; for whatever 
 furnishes a man with the pretence of performing a 
 duty when he is not, so far does harm. 
 
 It is so very easy to gain the approbation of those 
 who are already of your opinion, and so very diffi- 
 cult to change any one's opinion, that nearly the 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 127 
 
 whole effect of writing, as far as concerns propaga- 
 tion of doctrines, is upon minds on that point fallow 
 — not preoccupied by an opinion, or wavering. 
 
 The effect produced by any book or speech of an 
 argumentative character, on any subjects on which 
 diversity of opinion prevails, may be compared — 
 supposing the argument to be of any weight — to the 
 effects of a fire-engine on a conflagration. That 
 portion of the water which falls on solid stone walls, 
 is poured out where it is not needed. That, again, 
 which falls on blazing beams and rafters, is cast off 
 in volumes of hissing steam, and will seldom avail 
 to quench the fire. But that which is poured on 
 wood work that is just beginning to kindle, may stop 
 the burning ; and that which wets the rafters not yet 
 ignited, but in danger, may save them from catching 
 fire. Even so, those who already concur with the 
 writer as to some point, will feel gratified with, and 
 perhaps bestow high commendation on an able defence 
 of the opinions they already held ; and those, again, 
 who have fully made up their minds on the opposite 
 side, are more likely to be displeased than to be 
 convinced. But both of these parties are left nearly 
 in the same mind as before. Those, however, who 
 are in a hesitating and doubtful state, may very 
 likely be decided by forcible arguments. And those 
 
128 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 who have not hitherto considered the subject, may 
 be induced to adopt opinions which they find sup- 
 ported by the strongest reasons. But the readiest 
 and warmest approbation an author meets with, will 
 usually be from those whom he has not convinced, 
 because they were convinced already. And the 
 effect, the most important and the most difficult to 
 be produced, he will usually, when he does produce 
 it, hear the least of. Those whom he may have 
 induced to reconsider, and gradually to alter, pre- 
 viously fixed opinions, are not likely, for a time at 
 least, to be very forward in proclaiming the change. 
 
 If there could be a book (on moral or religious 
 subjects) which every one thought very convincing, 
 this would be a sign that it had convinced nobody. 
 
 "What most people most readily and most cordially 
 approve, is the echo of their own sentiments ; and 
 whatever effect this may produce, if any, must be 
 short-lived. We hear of volcanic islands thrown up 
 in a few days to a formidable size, and, in a few 
 weeks or months, sinking down again or washed 
 away ; while other islands, which are the summits of 
 banks covered with weed and drift sand, continue 
 slowly increasing year after year, century after cen- 
 tury. The man that is in a hurry to see the full 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 129 
 
 effects of his own tillage, should cultivate annuals 
 and not forest trees. 
 
 Observation digs the materials ; Reasoning erects 
 the building. 
 
 The idea of enlightening incorrect reasoners by 
 supplying them with additional facts, is an error 
 similar to that of the two boys, in the tale of Sand- 
 ford and Merton, who, having put to a house a flat 
 roof, through which, of course, the rain came, 
 vainly thought to remedy their mistake by laying 
 on more straw. 
 
 Susceptibility is the foundation of attachment ; 
 but it is strength of feeling that ripens it into a 
 genial and durable friendship. 
 
 So far as any human fault or folly is peculiar to 
 any particular age or country, its effects may be ex- 
 pected to pass away soon, without spreading very 
 widely ; but so far as it belongs to human nature in 
 general, we must expect to find the evil effects of it 
 reappearing, again and again, in various forms, in all 
 ages, and in various regions. Plants brought from 
 a foreign land, and cultivated by human care, may 
 
130 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 often be, by human care, extirpated, or may even 
 perish for want of care ; but the indigenous product 
 of the soil, even when seemingly eradicated, will 
 again and again be found springing up afresh : 
 
 " Sponte sua quae se tollunt in luminis oras 
 Infecunda quidern, sed laita et fortia surgunt, 
 Quippe sola natura subest." 
 
 Ten thousand of the greatest faults in our neigh- 
 bours, are of less consequence to us than one of the 
 smallest in ourselves. 
 
 The relief that is afforded to mere want, as want, 
 tends to increase that want. 
 
 Vices and frailties correct each other, like acids 
 and alkalies. If each vicious man had but one vice, 
 I do not know how the world could go on. 
 
 The power of duly appreciating little things, be- 
 longeth to a great mind : a narrow-minded man has 
 it not ; for to him they are great things. 
 
 Many a one is apt to conclude that whatever is 
 left to a man's discretion, is left to his indiscretion. 
 
 Many a would-be great knave is, from intellectual . 
 deficiency, only a small knave. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 131 
 
 What is very clearly demonstrated will often 
 appear to a superficial reader so evident as to need 
 no demonstration ; and the ability which has been 
 employed to make it thus plain and evident, is dis- 
 paraged in consequence of its own success. When 
 the hills are completely cut away, and the chasm 
 bridged over, and the swamps rendered firm, so that 
 the steam-carriage glides smoothly along, the travel- 
 ler is apt to think lightly of the obstacles that were 
 to be overcome. 
 
 The task allotted to the Christian in all human 
 transactions, is not to obtain men's gratitude and 
 good- will ; but to deserve it. 
 
 It is not enough for the Christian to conform his 
 faith to the doctrines of his religion ; but he must 
 also conform his temper to its spirit. 
 
 A member of any Church that acknowledges the 
 divine authority of Scripture, and yet maintains 
 persecuting dogmas, must be inconsistent, whether 
 he hold to the Gospel against his Church, or to his 
 Church against the Gospel. 
 
 As so many men are in several points, worse than 
 
 k2 
 
132 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 their principles, so men may occasionally be found 
 better than some of their principles. 
 
 Some who are continually calling attention to the 
 empty or half- empty churches in some parishes, 
 while wholly overlooking the three times as many 
 parishes in which there is a distressing want of 
 church accommodation, seem to proceed in the way 
 that Balak did with Balaam, " Come now and I will 
 bring thee to another place, where thou shalt see but 
 the uttermost part of them and shalt not see them all ; 
 and curse me them from thence/' 
 
 Every page of history furnishes instruction where- 
 with to judge of the future by the past, and to supply 
 rules, not only of public expediency, but also of 
 private duty. 
 
 In considering remote events, too, little allowance 
 is made, while in recent cases, too much is made, for 
 the circumstances in which the agents were placed. 
 
 We ought never to look back on our emancipation 
 from a corrupt system, without also looking forward 
 to guard vigilantly against the like corruptions. 
 
 Every instance of a man's suffering the penalty of 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 133 
 
 the law, is an instance of the failure of that penalty 
 in effecting its purpose, which is, to deter. 
 
 Many a man renounces the shackles of Papal 
 infallibility, as it were in a spirit of rivalry, that he 
 may become a Pope to himself. 
 
 No general principles can ever teach their own ap- 
 plication, or supersede the exercise of practical good 
 sense, cautious deliberation and Christian candour. 
 
 It is one thing to wish to have Truth on our side, 
 and another thing to wish to be on the side of Truth. 
 
 A preacher should ask himself, " Am I about to 
 preach because I want to say something, or because 
 I have something to say ?" 
 
 There are some persons who are ready to denounce, 
 as persecuting, every system which does not leave 
 them at liberty to persecute others. 
 
 To inflict, or to denounce, punishment, must be 
 either a duty or a sin. 
 
 Stumbling-blocks in religion will always be found 
 by those who seek them. 
 
134 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 Charity is not to be attained, at the expense of 
 our faith and our hope. 
 
 The ordinary popular use of the words " moral " 
 and "morality" is much more limited than what 
 may be called the philosophical sense of them : the. 
 latter comprehending the tempers, as well as the 
 outward acts to which the popular sense is, usually, 
 restricted. 
 
 It is too often forgotten, that better does not neces- 
 sarily imply " good." 
 
 He only is exempt from failures, who makes no 
 
 efforts. 
 
 Some persons see no medium between regarding a 
 point as absolutely essential, or absolutely indifferent. 
 
 Men find self- congratulation more agreeable than 
 self-examination. 
 
 Good manners are a part of good morals. 
 
 Though a course of action be in itself better than 
 the one a man judges to be right, it would not be 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 135 
 
 right for him to take it, if at variance with his own 
 convictions. 
 
 We must beware of hastily taxing with wilful 
 blindness, those whose views are limited only by 
 the lowness of their position. 
 
 Never, while the world lasts, will the inconsiderate 
 and the violent be prevented from confounding to- 
 gether things, which differ only in the point which 
 is of most essential importance, or from indiscrimi- 
 nately censuring whatever has been much abused. 
 
 Falsehood is difficult to be maintained. When the 
 materials of a building are solid blocks of stone, very 
 rude architecture will suffice ; but a structure of rotten 
 materials needs the most careful adjustment to make 
 it stand at all. 
 
 He who points out the improbability of a current 
 story, is not bound to suggest an hypothesis of his 
 own. One may surely be allowed to hesitate in ad- 
 mitting the stories, which the ancient poets tell, of 
 earthquakes and volcanic eruptions being caused by 
 imprisoned giants, without being called upon satis- 
 factorily to account for these phenomena. 
 
136 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 The very difference between the cases of those in 
 different ages and countries from our own, makes 
 the examples adduced from them more instructive, 
 by proving that they are not copied the one from the 
 other, but originate in a common and deep-seated 
 source. 
 
 Men underrate the danger of any evil that has 
 been escaped. 
 
 Xo original and essentially inherent principle of 
 the human mind, any more than any organ of the 
 human body, is in itself either mischievous or useless. 
 The maxim that Nature does nothing in vain, is not 
 more true in the material, than in the moral, world. 
 
 It is a folly to expect men to do all that they may 
 reasonably be expected to do. 
 
 Most men are admirers of justice, — when justice 
 happens to be on their side. 
 
 We should ever regard that as the worst extreme, 
 to which we are by nature the more prone. 
 
 In proportion as we approach towards a state of 
 anarchy, we are always approaching to the condition 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 137 
 
 of the worst kind of oligarchy, — the domineering of 
 a few violent and unscrupulous men over the rest. 
 
 Csesar was not the only man who would rather be 
 the first in a village than the second at Eome. 
 
 To detect the excess of a disposition totally unlike 
 our own, is as easy as it is of little concern to us ; 
 while to guard against our own peculiar propensities, 
 is at once the hardest task, and, to ourselves, incom- 
 parably the most important. 
 
 The more confidently secure we feel against our 
 liability to any error, to which in fact we are liable, 
 the greater must be our danger of falling into it. 
 
 In our judgment of human transactions, the law 
 of optics is reversed ; we see the most indistinctly, 
 the objects which are close around us. 
 
 Of all hostile feelings, Envy is perhaps the hardest 
 to be subdued, because hardly any one owns it, even 
 to himself ; but looks out for one pretext after another 
 to justify his hostility. 
 
 The mistake a man makes by a false statement 
 advantageous to his views, is like the mistake a man 
 
138 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 sometimes makes of taking a better umbrella by 
 chance, instead of his own, and then, not thinking it 
 worth while to return it. 
 
 Whatever is worth mentioning at all, is worth 
 mentioning correctly. 
 
 He who has trumpeted forth an accusation, ought 
 not to think it sufficient to whisper his recantation. 
 
 Some are satisfied with not cherishing faults in 
 themselves, while they are quietly tolerating them. 
 A plant may be in a garden from two causes, either 
 from being planted designedly, or found there and 
 left there. Either implies some degree of approval. 
 
 To enquire how w r e would act in any supposed 
 case, even when such as could not possibly occur, is 
 to apply a test which decomposes, as the chemists 
 say, the complex mass of our motives, and enables 
 us to ascertain on what principle we are acting. 
 
 Men often regard as zeal for God's honour, what 
 is perhaps, in truth rather zeal for their own honour. 
 
 An evil propensity confessed is half cured : people 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 139 
 
 irritate themselves, by trying to prove that they are 
 not irritable. 
 
 So intimate is the connection of different errors, 
 that they will generally be found, if not directly to 
 generate, yet mutually to foster and promote, one 
 another. 
 
 So strong is the combined attraction of Antiquity 
 and Novelty, that any system that offers gratification 
 to the desire for both, needs a very small portion of 
 truth to gain it eager and general acceptance. 
 
 Men are not always right in their use of their rights. 
 
 The imprudent spendthrift, finding that he is able 
 to afford this, or that, or the other, expence, forgets 
 that all of them together will ruin him. 
 
 A statesman, without wisdom, does mischief in 
 proportion as he is clever. 
 
 Some men's reputation seem like seed-wheat, 
 which thrives best when brought from a distance. 
 
 Our best feelings should ever be under the control 
 of our best judgment. 
 
140 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 Affectation seems rather a sign of modesty, than 
 of conceit. Who would paint if they thought their 
 natural complexion good ? But many confound to- 
 gether vanity and self-conceit, which are different in 
 themselves, and often tend to opposite results. 
 
 In the strong objections to every plan that may be 
 proposed, men are apt to forget the strong objections 
 there are to adopting no plan at all. A man may 
 have it in his power to go to a place where he wishes 
 to be, either by sea or by land, and there may be 
 advantages in each mode of travelling, but if he is 
 resolved to forego none of those advantages, he can 
 never set out. 
 
 If a man is not too mad to intend what he does, 
 he is not too mad to be punished for it. 
 
 Some speak so vehemently of their feeling no 
 anger and very great contempt for any attack made 
 upon them, as to raise a suspicion that they feel just 
 the reverse. 
 
 It is remarkable that a man is usually less offended 
 with those who profess to understand what he does 
 not, than with those who acknowledge their inability 
 to comprehend what he holds to be clearly intelli- 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 141 
 
 gible ; since these last will appear to entertain a 
 suspicion, at least, of what is, probably, the truth, 
 that he has been deluding himself with empty fal- 
 lacies, and grasping a phantom. 
 
 How easy it is to forgive injuries, compared with 
 many things that are no injuries ! But people may 
 object to this use of the word forgive ; we will not 
 insist on using it, though Miss Elizabeth Smith says, 
 " A woman has need of extraordinary gentleness and 
 modesty to he forgiven for possessing superior ability 
 and learning/ ' And she, I believe, was forgiven, 
 accordingly. 
 
 But not to insist on a word, — -instead of "forgive" 
 say "judge fairly, and feel kindly," towards 
 
 (1.) One who adheres to the views which were 
 yours, and which you have changed (this was one 
 of Paul's trials). 
 
 (2.) One who had proved right in the warning and 
 advice he gave you, and which you rejected. 
 
 " I bear you no ill will Lizzy," says Mr. Bennett 
 in Miss Austen's Pride and Prejudice, "for being 
 justified in the warning you gave me : considering 
 how matters have turned out, I think this shows 
 some magnanimity." 
 
 (3.) One who is preferred to you by the woman 
 you are in love with ; or has carried off some other 
 
142 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 prize from you : especially if he has attained with 
 little or no exertion, what you have been striving 
 hard for, without success. (Vid. Arist. Rhetoric, 
 (pOvj/09), 
 
 (4.) One who has succeeded in some enterprise 
 when you had predicted failure. 
 
 In all these and some other cases, there is evi- 
 dently no injury : and therefore " I hate v some will 
 say, "to hear forgiveness spoken of, when in fact 
 there is nothing to forgive." Be it so : but do not 
 go on to imagine that you have therefore no need to 
 keep down, with strong effort, just the same kind of 
 feelings that you would have, if there had been an 
 injury. 
 
 If you take for granted because there is no injury, 
 therefore there is no care needful to repress such feel- 
 ings, inasmuch as they are so manifestly unjust, the 
 result will be that you will not repress, but indulge 
 them. You will never acknowledge to yourself the 
 real ground of your resentful feelings, (as you do, 
 in the case of an injury) but you will find out some 
 other ground, real or imaginary : " it is not that the 
 man adheres to his own original views ; but that he 
 maintains them with uncharitable violence : it is not 
 that I grudge him his success; but that he is too 
 much puffed up with it ; or he is not fully deserving 
 ofit"&c, 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 143 
 
 If you cultivate, in the right way, the habit of 
 forgiving injuries, you will acquire it ; and not else. 
 And if you are content with thiSj and do not cultivate 
 that candour which I have been speaking of, you will 
 be deficient in that : for be assured it does not grow 
 wild in the soil of the human heart. And the 
 groundlessness and injustice of the feelings which 
 will grow wild there, is a reason, not why you 
 should neglect to extirpate them, but why you should 
 be the more ashamed of not doing so. 
 
 To expect to tranquillize and benefit a country by 
 gratifying its agitators, would be like the practice of 
 the superstitious of old, with their sympathetic pow- 
 ders and ointments ; who instead of applying medi- 
 caments to the wound, contented themselves with 
 salving the sword which had inflicted it. Since the 
 days of Dane-gelt downwards, nay, since the world 
 was created, nothing but evil has resulted from con- 
 cessions made to intimidation. 
 
 Conflicting prejudices serve as an imperfect substi- 
 tute for impartiality. And if no wise and moderate 
 measures were framed and adopted, except by wise 
 and moderate men, the world would go on much 
 worse than it does. 
 
144 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 That is, in a great degree, true of all men, which 
 was said of the Athenians, that they were like sheep, 
 of which a flock is more easily driven than a single one. 
 
 Kindle the dry sticks, and the green ones will 
 catch. 
 
 If you begin by attempting to reform, and to in- 
 struct, those who need reformation and instruction the 
 most, you will often find them unwilling to listen to 
 you. Like green sticks, they will not catch fire. 
 But if you begin with the most teachable and best 
 disposed, when you have succeeded in improving 
 these, they will be a help to you in improving the 
 others. 
 
 Children and fools should not see a work that is 
 half done. They have not the sense to see what the 
 artist is designing. The whole of this world that 
 we see, is a work half done ; and thence fools are 
 apt to find fault with Providence. 
 
 Clouds afar look "black or gay ; 
 Closely seen, tliey all are grey. 
 
 It is just so with many a public man, who will be 
 found by those immediately around him, neither so 
 detestable nor so admirable, as perhaps he is thought 
 by opposite parties. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 145 
 
 A character which will not defend itself, is seldom 
 worth defending. 
 
 Silver gilt "ndll often pass, 
 Silver for gold, or else for brass. 
 
 Some men who, at the first glance, give the idea 
 of something very superior indeed, rather beyond 
 what they really are, are ultimately either under- 
 rated or overrated. 
 
 The generality of mankind are as good and as 
 wise as the generality. 
 
 A man's coat may well fit him, when it is made 
 to his measure. 
 
 Never is the mind less fitted for self-examination, 
 than when most occupied in detecting the faults of 
 others. 
 
 To deprecate the utility of secondary motives, is 
 to betray an ignorance of human nature. 
 
 Mankind are not formed to live without ceremony 
 and form : The " inward, spiritual grace 57 is very apt 
 to be lost without the " external, visible sign.' 7 
 Many are continually setting up for the expulsion of 
 ceremonies from this or that, and often, with advan- 
 
 L 
 
146 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 tage, when they have so multiplied as to grow bur- 
 densome ; but if ever they have carried this too far, 
 they have been either forced to bring back some cere- 
 monies, or have found the want of them. The same 
 is found in the minor department of manners ; when 
 form is too much neglected, true politeness suffers 
 diminution ; then, we are obliged to bring some back 
 and when these again grow burdensome, we lay them 
 aside again ; so that there is a continual flux and 
 reflux. Upon the whole, we may conclude that cere- 
 mony and form of every kind derive their necessity 
 from our imperfection. If we were perfectly spiritual, 
 we might worship God without any form at all, with- 
 out ever uttering words ; as we are not, it is a folly 
 to say, " One may be just as pious on one day as 
 another, in one place or posture as another, " &c, 
 I answer, angels may ; man cannot. Again, if we 
 were all perfectly benevolent, good-tempered, atten- 
 tive to the gratifying of others, &c, we might dis- 
 pense with all the forms of good-breeding ; as it is, 
 we cannot ; we are not enough of heroes to fight 
 without discipline. Selfishness will be sure to assail 
 us if we once let the barriers be broken down. At 
 the same time it is evident from what has been said, 
 that the higher our nature is carried, the less form 
 we need. 
 
 But though we may deservedly congratulate so- 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 147 
 
 ciety on being able to dispense with this er that 
 ceremony, do not let us be in a hurry to do so, till 
 we are sure we can do without it. It is taking away 
 crutches to cure the gout. The opposite extreme of 
 substituting the external form for the thing signified, 
 is not more dangerous or more common, than the 
 neglect of that form. It is all very well to say, 
 " There is no use in bidding good-morrow or good- 
 night to those who know I wish it; of sending 
 one's love, in a letter, to those w T ho do not doubt it," 
 &c. All this is very well in theory, but it will not 
 do for practice. Scarce any friendship, or any po- 
 liteness, is so strong as to be able to subsist without 
 any external supports of this kind ; and it is even 
 better to have too much form than too little. 
 
 Men are admired for what they are, commended 
 for what they do, and macarized for what they have. 
 
 He that assails error because it is error, without 
 respect of persons, must be prepared for a storm 
 from the party who were fanning him with the 
 gentle breath of applause, so long as he had been 
 dealing with the errors of the party opposed to them. 
 They say with the rat, — 
 
 " This cat, if she murder a rat, 
 Must needs be a very great sinner, 
 
 L 2 
 
148 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 But to dine upon mice, cant be counted a vice ; 
 I myself like a mouse for my dinner."* 
 
 Men often earnestly, but not very successfully, 
 endeavour to put down that party which they have 
 themselves fostered into strength and popularity. 
 The little birds — according to the proverb — which 
 are vainly chasing about the full-grown cuckoo, had 
 themselves reared it as a nestling. And the horse 
 in the fable, who, seeking aid against his enemy 
 the stag, had allowed an insiduous ally to mount, 
 and to put his bit into his mouth, found it afterwards 
 no easy matter to unseat him. 
 
 Xo appellation, however honourable in itself, and 
 however fairly applicable, can be innocently assumed 
 as the badge of a party. Those of the Corinthians, 
 who said, " I am of Christ," using the title to dis- 
 tinguish them from other members of the same Church, 
 were no less censured than those who said, "I am 
 of Paul," or "I jam of Apollos." 
 
 Men become attached to a party in whose ranks 
 they have fought. 
 
 The stream of truth is gentle, but permanent; 
 
 * Quoted from recollections of a ludicrous poem on a house much in- 
 fested with rats, into which a cat had been introduced. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 149 
 
 while passionate party-clamour is like a winter tor- 
 rent, — impetuous, but transitory. 
 
 Unhappily, a great portion of our species are not 
 very wise, and a good many of them not very honest. 
 The former, if they hear of a person who does not 
 admit the grounds on which they believe something, 
 take for granted that he does not believe it at all ; 
 and the latter think it meritorious to take advantage 
 of the silliness of the others, to garble and misre- 
 present their opponent's expressions, in order to ex- 
 pose him to odium, thus acting like those tyrannical 
 emperors, who used to dress up their victims in the 
 skins of wild beasts, and then set dogs at them to 
 worry them to death. 
 
 It is worth remarking that Party Spirit, in its 
 violation of Shakespere's maxim, " Nothing extenu- 
 ate, nor set down aught in malice," generally unites 
 the two opposite extremes. For, it is the tendency 
 of party- spirit to pardon anything in those who 
 heartily support the party, and nothing in those who 
 do not. 
 
 Those who, from single sentences and passages 
 apart from the context, represent an author as fa- 
 vouring Socinian, Sabellian, or Arian views, should 
 
150 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 recollect that the same is notoriously the case with 
 the Bible itself; since otherwise, those sects — each 
 appealing to Scripture, which they interpret according 
 to their own respective views — never could have arisen. 
 
 To misrepresent the argument of an opponent, is 
 virtually to admit that what he has really said, is 
 not open to refutation. 
 
 The principal cautions to be observed in the treat- 
 ment and judgment of those who differ from us, 
 whether on minor or essential points, are, first, to 
 beware of mistaking the meaning of any one, and 
 imputing to him sentiments which he does not really 
 entertain ; secondly, to make due allowance for weak- , 
 ness of intellect, backwardness in knowledge and 
 inaptitude for accurate statements; and thirdly, to 
 allow also for such differences of natural or acquired 
 temper and taste, as imply nothing sinful; differences 
 which even divine inspiration, as we may perceive 
 from the characteristic style of composition of each 
 of the sacred writers, does not entirely do away. 
 
 The difference between self-love and selfishness 
 has been well explained by Aristotle ; though he has 
 not accounted for the use of the word (fiikavria. It 
 is clear that selfishness exists only in reference to 
 
MISCELLANEOUS, 151 
 
 others, and could have no place in one who lived 
 alone on a desert island, though he might have of 
 course every degree of self-love; for selfishness is 
 not an excess of self-love, and consists not in an 
 over -desire of happiness, but in placing your happi- 
 ness in something which interferes with, or leaves 
 you regardless of, that of others. 
 
 It is a mistake to suppose, that selfishness and 
 want of feeling are either the same, or inseparable. 
 Now, on the one hand, I have known such as have 
 had very little feeling, but felt for others as much 
 nearly as for themselves; and were, therefore, far 
 from selfish : and, on the other hand, some of very 
 acute feelings, feel for no one but themselves, and 
 indeed, are sometimes amongst the most cruel. 
 
 Again, some are capable of making grand and 
 generous sacrifices on great occasions, who yet in- 
 dulge an habitually selfish temper in trifles. 
 
 It is remarkable, that freedom from selfishness is 
 not a virtue that is particularly well learned from 
 example, but rather the contrary ; e. g., a parent 
 who is never thinking of her own convenience, but 
 always of her children's advantage, will be likely 
 to let that too plainly appear, so as to fill the child 
 with an idea that everything is to give way to him, 
 
152 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 and that his concerns are an ultimate end. Nay, 
 the very pains taken with him in strictly controlling 
 him, heighten his idea of his own vast importance 
 whereas a parent who is selfish, will be sure to ac 
 custom the child to sacrifice his own convenience 
 and to understand that he is of much less import 
 ance than the parent ; and so in some other cases 
 Accordingly, selfishness is caught from those who 
 have least of it. 
 
 Aristotle had the eye of a bird, both telescopic 
 and microscopic. 
 
 One of the most exalted and least acquirable ta- 
 lents is Totality ; not every one who has bricks, has 
 a house. 
 
 The more a man knows, the more he will feel of 
 admiration, and the less of surprize. 
 
 Though the word " Pedantry " is applied, almost 
 exclusively, to the introduction in ordinary conversa- 
 tion of learned technicalities ; yet the thing is found 
 in all professions ; and chiefly in those which are 
 not learned ; no one has it more than the sailor. 
 
 The most ordinary and unimportant actions of a 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 153 
 
 man's life, will often shew more of his natural cha- 
 racter and his habits than more important actions, 
 which are done deliberately, and sometimes against 
 his natural inclinations. And again ; what is said 
 or done by very inferior persons, who seldom think 
 for themselves, or act resolutely on their own judg- 
 ment, is the best sign of what is commonly said or 
 done in the place and time in which they live. A 
 man of resolute character and of an original turn 
 of thought, is less likely to be led by those around 
 him, and, therefore, does not furnish so good a sign 
 of what are the prevailing opinions and customs. 
 
 Concealment is the great spur to curiosity, which 
 gives an interest to investigation. The celebrated 
 Letters of Junius would, probably, have long since 
 been forgotten, if the author could have been clearly 
 pointed out at the time. 
 
 Men are never so ready to study the interior of a 
 subject, as when there is something of a veil thrown 
 over the exterior. 
 
 Every precaution not to offend the pride of others 
 has an obvious tendency to allay it. The less the 
 wound is chafed, the more likely it is to heal. 
 
154 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 It is worth remarking, that many persons are of 
 such a disposition as to be nearly incapable of re- 
 maining in doubt on any point that is not wholly 
 uninteresting to them. They speedily make up their 
 minds on each question, and come to some conclu- 
 sion, whether there are any good grounds for it or 
 not. And judging — as men are apt to do, in all 
 matters — of others, from themselves, they usually 
 discredit the most solemn assurances of any one 
 who professes to be in a state of doubt on some ques- 
 tion ; taking for granted that if you do not adopt 
 their opinion, you must be of the opposite. 
 
 Others again there are, who are capable of re- 
 maining in doubt as long as the reasons on each side- 
 seem exactly balanced ; but not otherwise. Such a 
 person, as soon as he perceives any — the smallest — 
 preponderance of probability on one side of a ques- 
 tion, can no more refrain from deciding immediately, 
 and with full conviction, on that side, than he could 
 continue to stand, after having lost his equilibrium, 
 in a slanting position, like the famous tower at Pisa. 
 And he will, accordingly, be disposed to consider 
 an acknowledgment that there are somewhat the 
 stronger reasons on one side, as equivalent to a con- 
 fident decision. 
 
 The tendency to such an error is the greater, from 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 155 
 
 the circumstance, that there are so many cases, in 
 practice, wherein it is essentially necessary to come 
 to a practical decision, even where there are no suffi- 
 cient grounds for feeling fully convinced that it is the 
 right one. A traveller may be in doubt, and may 
 have no means of deciding, with just confidence, which 
 of two roads he ought to take ; while yet he must, 
 at a venture, take one of them. And the like hap- 
 pens in numberless transactions of ordinary life, in 
 which we are obliged practically to make up our 
 minds at once to take one course or another, even 
 where there are no sufficient grounds for a full con- 
 viction of the understanding. 
 
 The infirmities above mentioned are those of or- 
 dinary minds. A smaller number of persons, among 
 whom, however, are to be found a larger proportion 
 of the intelligent, are prone to the opposite extreme ; 
 that of not deciding, as long as there are reasons to 
 be found on both sides, even though there may be 
 a clear and strong preponderance on the one, and 
 even though the case may be such as to call for a 
 practical decision. As the one description of men 
 rush hastily to a conclusion, and trouble themselves 
 little about premises, so, the other carefully examine 
 premises, and care too little for conclusions. The 
 one decide without enquiring, the other inquire 
 without deciding. 
 
156 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 A charge without proof, as a verdict without evi- 
 dence, must always be unjust ; whether the accused 
 be, in fact, innocent or guilty. 
 
 The imperfect and confused sympathy we have 
 with others, in respect of their feelings towards us, 
 and indeed universally, may be likened to nothing 
 so well as to the mixture of transparency and reflec- 
 tion in plate-glass. We sympathize, as Adam Smith 
 observes, with an idiot or a madman ; forming an 
 indistinct idea of being in his situation, and at the 
 same time retaining (which is a contradictory suppo- 
 sition) our present views of his actions. Just as 
 one looks through the window at a tree, and sees, 
 by an imperfect reflection, his own face as if placed 
 in the midst of the tree ; which if it were, he could 
 not have that view of the tree. And even so, we 
 cannot imagine people talking of us after our death, 
 without the idea presenting itself of our hearing 
 what they say. 
 
 We never can be sure what would be our impres- 
 sion derived from such and such a passage alone, 
 and without any reference to our pre- conceived no- 
 tions. It is one of the most difficult exercises of 
 imagination to fancy yourself ignorant of what you 
 really know, and a mere white sheet of paper in 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 157 
 
 reference to some subject on which you have actually 
 formed opinions. A Jury is often exhorted by the 
 Judge to give a verdict entirely from the evidence 
 given in court, without any regard to what they 
 may have heard or thought previously ; all which, 
 they are to divest themselves of, and lay aside. But 
 this is a precept easier to give than to observe : e. g., 
 if you had never at once handled and looked at a 
 globe and a cube, or a dog and a cat, you would 
 not, on seeing them for the first time, know which 
 was which. Bishop Berkeley undertook to prove 
 this ; but it was thought a monstrous paradox till 
 experiments proved that he was right. Words ex- 
 pressing some tiling seem to us to imply what has 
 been in our minds associated with that thing. 
 
 Writers of great note have declaimed on the much 
 stricter observance, in the Universe, of the laws of 
 Nature, than, in mankind, of the divine and human 
 laws, overlooking the yet obvious distinction, that, 
 in the former case, it is the observance that consti- 
 tutes the law, whereas in the other case, the law is 
 not more or less a law from the conformity, or non- 
 conformity, of individuals to it. 
 
 Weak men, having been warned that u wisdom 
 and wit' 7 are not the same thing, and that ridicule 
 
158 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 is not the test of Truth, distrust everything that 
 can possibly be regarded as witty ; not having judg- 
 ment to perceive the combination, when it occurs, of 
 Wit with sound Reasoning. The ivy-wreath con- 
 ceals from their view the point of the Thyrsus. He 
 that can laugh at what is ludicrous, and at the same 
 time, preserve a clear discernment of sound and un- 
 sound reasoning, is no ordinary man. 
 
 Many are sometimes scandalized when some folly 
 that has been forced into connection with religion is 
 laughed at as if religion itself were ridiculed. It 
 is true, indeed, that to attack even error in religion 
 with mere ridicule, is no wise act, because good 
 things may be ridiculed as well as bad. But it 
 surely cannot be our duty to abstain from shewing 
 plainly that absurd things are absurd, merely be- 
 cause people cannot help smiling at them. If so, 
 the more directly absurd anything is, the more se- 
 cure it is from refutation ; since it is impossible to 
 refute such things, without placing them in a lu- 
 dicrous point of view. A tree is not impaired by 
 being cleared of mosses and lichens, nor Truth, by 
 having folly or sophistry torn away from around it. 
 
 The essence of a Jest is its mimic sophistry — a 
 sophistry so palpable as not to be likely to deceive 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 159 
 
 any one, but yet bearing just that resemblance of 
 argument which is calculated to amuse by the con- 
 trast ; in the same manner that a parody does, by 
 the contrast of its levity with the serious production 
 which it imitates. There is, indeed, something laugh- 
 able even in fallacies which are intended for serious 
 conviction, when they are thoroughly exposed. 
 
 There are several different kinds of joke and rail- 
 lery which will be found to correspond with the dif- 
 ferent kinds of fallacy. The Pun (to take the sim- 
 plest and most obvious case) is evidently, in most 
 instances, a mock argument founded on a palpable 
 equivocation of the middle-term. It is probable, 
 indeed, that all jests, sports, or games, properly so 
 called, will be found, on examination, to be imitative 
 of serious transactions, as of War or Commerce. 
 
 That censure and commendation should, in many 
 instances be indiscriminate, can surprize no one who 
 recollects how rare a quality discrimination is ; and 
 how much better it suits indolence, as well as igno- 
 rance, to lay down a rule than to ascertain the ex- 
 ceptions to it. 
 
 How many act like Sinbad's monkeys, who pelted 
 their enemies with cocoa-nuts ! 
 
160 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 He that is truly wise and great, 
 Lives both too early and too late. 
 
 A very eminent man comes too late for some pur- 
 poses, and too early for others. 
 
 True generosity seems to consist chiefly in stand- 
 ing by, as it were, to contemplate all your own ac- 
 tions in the character of an unconcerned and judicious 
 spectator ; imperiously dictating to yourself, in spite 
 of all individual feelings, that conduct which would 
 appear to such a spectator the most beautiful. 
 
 It is a curious circumstance, when persons 
 forty before they were at all acquainted, form together 
 a very close intimacy of friendship. For grafts of 
 old wood to take, there must be a wonderful conge- 
 niality between the trees. 
 
 Two people, who are each of an unyielding temper, 
 will not act well together ; and people who are all 
 of them of a very yielding temper, will be likely to 
 resolve on nothing ; just as stones without mortar 
 make a loose wall, and mortar alone, no wall. So 
 says the proverb — 
 
 " Hard npon hard makes a bad stone wall, 
 But soft upon soft makes none at all. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 161 
 
 Increase of a thing is often confounded with our 
 increased knowledge of it. When crimes or acci- 
 dents are recorded in newspapers more than formerly, 
 some people fancy that they happen more than for- 
 merly. But crimes, especially (be it observed) such 
 as are the most remote from the experience of each 
 individual, and therefore strike him as something 
 strange, always furnish interesting articles of intel- 
 ligence. I have no doubt that a single murder in 
 Great Britain has often furnished matter for discourse, 
 to more than twenty times as many persons as any 
 twenty such murders would in Turkey. 
 
 Some foreign traveller in England is said to have 
 remarked on the perceptible diminution in the number 
 of crimes committed during the sitting of Parliament 
 as a proof of our high reverence for that assembly ; 
 the fact being, as we all know, that the space occupied 
 in the newspapers by the Debates causes the records 
 of many crimes to be omitted. 
 
 This tendency to overrate the amount of whatever 
 is known, seen, and definite, as compared with what 
 is (either from the nature of the case, or accidentally) 
 unknown or less known — unseen — indefinite, is a 
 most important principle to keep in mind for the 
 correction of a whole class of errors in popular judg- 
 ment. — Under this head, comes the supposed su- 
 periority of wisdom attributed to cautious, reserved, 
 
 M 
 
162 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 non- confiding, do-nothing characters, as compared 
 with the more open, unreserved, energetic and pari- 
 hesiastic characters. Of course, every one will ad- 
 mit that there may be an extreme either way. But 
 take the average,* the moderate description, of each 
 class, and you will find that a dozen of the more 
 open and daring character, supposing an equality 
 in other points in respect of ability, will have had, 
 though they do commit a greater number of actual 
 tangible errors and meet with a greater number of 
 distinct failures, have had altogether full as much 
 success, have got on as well, if not better, than a 
 dozen of the other. 
 
 Whence then the over-estimate of those who are 
 called the "prudent?" Because their failures are, 
 in general, indefinite, and are neither known nor 
 distinctly existing. If I never go on horseback, I 
 never incur the definite evil of being stopped in a 
 journey by a fall from a horse, or by a runaway or 
 restive horse : I may exult over the rider's accidents 
 of this kind, but in the long run he will have ac- 
 complished, in spite of all, more journeys than I 
 could on foot. If I let my land be waste, I shall 
 not have to reckon, this year and that year, a failure 
 of crop, but my neighbour, with all his losses, will 
 perhaps, make more of his farm. He who thinks 
 it always best not to mention things, and thus trusts 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 163 
 
 no one, is never betrayed, but he loses all the ad- 
 vantages of friendship. u There are other motes be- 
 side those in the sun-beam." 
 
 Men are liable to form an over-estimate of the 
 purity of morals in the Country, as compared with 
 a Town ; or in a barren and thinly-peopled, as com- 
 pared with a fertile and populous district. On a 
 given area, it must always be expected, that the 
 absolute amount of vice will be greater in a Town 
 than in the Country ; so also will be that of virtue : 
 but the proportion of the two must be computed on 
 quite different principles. A physician of great 
 skill and in high repute, probably loses many more 
 patients than an ordinary practitioner: but this 
 proves nothing, till we have ascertained the com- 
 parative numbers of their patients. Mistakes such 
 as this (which are very frequent) remind one of the 
 well-known riddle, " What is the reason that white 
 sheep eat more than black ones?" 
 
 There is no good reason for calling the condition 
 of the rudest savages "a state of nature/ 7 unless 
 the phrase be used (as perhaps in strictness it ought) 
 to denote merely ignorance of Arts. A plant would 
 not be said to be in its natural state, which was 
 growing in a soil or climate that precluded it from 
 
 m2 
 
164 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 putting forth the flowers and the fruit for which its 
 organization was destined. In like manner, the na^ 
 tural state of man must, according to all fair analogy, 
 be reckoned, not that in which his intellectual and 
 moral growth are, as it were, stunted, and perma- 
 nently repressed, but one in which his original en- 
 dowments are, not indeed brought to perfection, but 
 enabled to exercise themselves and to expand, like 
 the flowers of a plant ; and, especially, in which that 
 characteristic of our species, the tendency towards 
 progressive improvement, is permitted to come into 
 play. 
 
 Melancholy as it is to see, as we may, for instance, 
 in our own country, multitudes of Beings of such 
 high qualifications and such high destination as Man, 
 absorbed in the pursuit of merely temporal objects — 
 occupied in schemes for obtaining wealth and worldly 
 aggrandizement, without any higher views in pur- 
 suing them,- — we must keep in mind that such a 
 devotedness to temporal objects is no characteristic 
 of a more wealthy and civilized, as distinguished 
 from a more barbarian, state of society ; and that 
 the savage is not above such a life, but below it. It 
 is not from preferring virtue to wealth — the goods 
 of the mind to those of fortune — the next world to 
 the present — that he takes so little thought for the 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 165 
 
 morrow ; but, from want of forethought and of ha- 
 bitual self-command. The civilized man, too often, 
 directs those qualities to an unworthy object ; the 
 savage, universally, is deficient in the qualities them- 
 selves. The one is a stream flowing, too often, in 
 a wrong channel, and which needs to have its course 
 altered ; the other is a stagnant pool. 
 
 The declaimers upon the incompatibility or dis- 
 cordancy of natural Wealth and Virtue, are, by 
 their own shewing, mere declaimers, and nothing 
 more: Seneca's discourses in praise of poverty 
 would, I have no doubt, be rivalled by many writers 
 of this island, if one-half of the revenues he drew 
 from the then inhabitants of it, by lending them 
 money at high interest, were proposed as a prize. 
 Such declaimers against wealth resemble the Har- 
 pies of Virgil, seeking to excite disgust at the 
 banquet of which they are themselves eager to 
 partake. 
 
 The goods of this world are by no means a trifling 
 concern to Christians, considered as Christians. They 
 are, in themselves, goods ; and it is our part, instead 
 of affecting ungratefully to slight or to complain of 
 God's gifts, to endeavour to make them goods to us, 
 by studying to use them aright. Whether indeed 
 
166 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 we ourselves shall have enjoyed a large or a small 
 share of them, will be of no importance to us a 
 hundred years hence ; but it will be of the greatest 
 importance, whether we shall have employed the 
 faculties and opportunities granted to us, in the in- 
 crease and diffusion of those bounties of Providence 
 among others. 
 
 Of the two evils connected with a high degree 
 of division of labour, which may prove unfavourable 
 to national morality — the evil of reducing each man 
 too much to the condition of a mere machine, or ra- 
 ther one part of a machine, by the too great con- 
 centration of the attention on the performance of a 
 single, and sometimes very simple, operation, re- 
 sulting in the contraction of the faculties and conse- 
 quent debasement of mind — and the danger of being 
 thrown out of work — the appropriate remedies are, 
 I think, to be found in judicious education and habits 
 of provident frugality. And in another expedient, 
 which provident good sense would suggest, as a safe- 
 guard against the last danger, that the several mem- 
 bers of a family should betake themselves, as far as 
 that is possible, to different occupations. That ad- 
 vanced state of society, which is the most exposed 
 to the evils, is also the most favourable to the appli- 
 cation of the remedies. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 167 
 
 Among the classes of persons to whom emigration 
 seems peculiarly appropriate, may be mentioned that 
 description of workmen, not so frequent in this 
 country now as formerly : viz., a Jack- of- all-trades : 
 the perfection to which the subdivision of labour has 
 been brought, having caused them to fall into dis- 
 repute. As Plato remarks of a certain class of phi- 
 losophers (who, notwithstanding the lofty appella- 
 tion bestowed on them, were neither more nor less 
 than artists of this description), no one chooses to 
 employ the one man who can do many things toler- 
 ably, when he can have access to several who can 
 do each of them excellently ; and hence, though in 
 general, men of superior ingenuity, their poverty is 
 become proverbial. They have, accordingly, the more 
 reason to try their fortune in a young settlement, 
 which is exactly their proper field. A scattered 
 population, bad roads, remoteness from towns, and 
 a novel situation, leave in a most helpless condition 
 the man who has concentrated all his powers in 
 learning to perform some one operation very skil- 
 fully, and who has no resources. A new country, 
 and a young settlement, is the best place, likewise, 
 for many who may have been goaded by the pressure 
 of distress, combined with the inflammatory decla- 
 mations of designing men, to feel impatient of the 
 burden of taxes and poor-rates Thus irritation will 
 
168 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 have time and opportunity to subside, in a country 
 where there are no tumultuous meetings, in populous 
 towns, of unemployed manufacturers ; but where all 
 their neighbours, as well as themselves, have some- 
 thing better to do, than to set about new modelling 
 the constitution, — where the chief reform called for 
 is to convert forests into corn-fields, in which no one 
 will hinder them from laying the axe to the root of 
 the evil, — and in which the desire of novelty may 
 be fully gratified, without destroying established in- 
 stitutions, — where, in short, the whole structure of 
 society is to be built up, without being previously 
 pulled down. 
 
 Every settler in a foreign colony is, necessarily, 
 more or less, a missionary to the aborigines — a 
 missionary for good, or a missionary for evil — oper- 
 ating upon them by his life and example. 
 
 It is often said that our Colonies ought to provide 
 for their own spiritual wants. But the more that is 
 done for them in this way, the more likely they w T ill 
 be to make such provision ; and the more they are 
 neglected, the less likely they are to do it. It is 
 the peculiar nature of the inestimable treasure of 
 Christian Truth and Religious Knowledge, that the 
 more it is withheld from people, the less they wish 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 169 
 
 for it ; and the more bestowed upon them, the more 
 they hunger and thirst after it. If people are kept 
 upon a short allowance of food, they are eager to 
 obtain it ; if you keep a man thirsty, he will become 
 the more and more thirsty ; if he is poor, he is ex- 
 ceedingly anxious to become rich ; but if he is left 
 in a state of spiritual destitution, after a time he 
 will, and still more his children, cease to feel it, 
 and cease to care about it. It is the last want men 
 can be trusted, in the first instance, to supply for 
 themselves. 
 
 The direct effects of religion on national character, 
 few will be disposed to deny, even of those who be- 
 lieve in no religion, since of several different forms 
 of superstitious error, supposing all religions to be 
 such, one may at least be more compatible with 
 moral improvement than another. 
 
 Not, however, that religion has not an indirect 
 effect also, through its influence on national pros- 
 perity. To take one point out of many, War, which, 
 if Christianity were heartily and generally embraced, 
 would be wholly unknown, has been, even as it is, 
 much mitigated by that humanizing influence. Now 
 "War is, in the present day, generally regarded, 
 though to a far less degree than it really is, as a 
 great destroyer of wealth. But the direct demoral- 
 
170 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 izing effect of War is probably still greater than its 
 impoverishing effect. The same may be said of 
 Slavery, in its various forms, including the serf- 
 ship of the Kussians and the Hungarians. If both 
 Slavery and War were at an end, the wealth of na- 
 tions would increase, but their civilization in the 
 most important parts would increase in a still greater 
 ratio. 
 
 It is characteristic of the puerile and the semi- 
 barbarian condition of mind to be disposed to violate 
 the wise maxim of "pas trop gouverner." 
 
 In Legislative Punishment, the point that should 
 rank first of, and above, all other considerations, 
 is that it should be formidable, i. e., that the appre- 
 hension of it should operate, as much as possible, 
 to deter men from crime, and thus to prevent the 
 necessity of its actual infliction ; — secondly, that it 
 should be humane ; i.e., that it should occasion as 
 little as possible of useless suffering — of pain or in- 
 convenience, that does not conduce to the point pro- 
 posed ; — thirdly, that it should be corrective, or at 
 least not corrupting; tending to produce in the 
 criminal himself, if his life be spared, and in others, 
 either a moral improvement, or, at least, as little as 
 possible of moral debasement; — and lastly, that it 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 171 
 
 should be cheap. . . . This last point is of far less 
 consequence than the others. - 
 
 The preventive effects of any system, whether for 
 good or evil, are hardly ever duly appreciated. We 
 see the crimes that are actually committed, and we 
 see the men who are hanged for them ; we do not 
 see the crimes that would be committed if there were 
 no hanging. 
 
 The occasions for the exercise of a certain power 
 may be very few, and yet the existence of the power 
 not the less important ; because when such an occa- 
 sion does arise, (and it is the more likely to arise if 
 there be no provision to meet the emergency,) the 
 consequence of not being prepared for it may be 
 most disastrous. If any one should be so wearied 
 with the monotonous " All's well" of the nightly 
 guardians of a Camp, hour after hour, and night 
 after night, as to conclude that their service was 
 superfluous, and, accordingly, to dismiss them, how 
 much real danger, and how much unnecessary appre- 
 hension, would be the result. 
 
 An evil is not necessarily unreal, because it has 
 been often feared without just cause ; the wolf does 
 
172 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 sometimes enter in, and make havoc of the flock, 
 although there have been many false alarms. 
 
 As custom will often blind men to the good, as 
 well as to the evil effects, of any long established 
 system, we should never alter for the mere sake of 
 altering. 
 
 As it would not tend much to the improvement 
 of the regular public high-roads, or to amend the. 
 direction of them, should each man be ready to 
 break a pathway for himself, as his own convenience 
 may suggest ; so nothing tends more to prevent the 
 regular abrogation, or alteration, of unwise laws r 
 than the irregular infringement or evasion of them. 
 
 The truest friend to liberty, is the supporter of 
 regular and moderate government ; and the firmest 
 bulwark of royal authority, is the judicious advo- 
 cate of the subject's rights. 
 
 Oppression is a false step, which it is peculiarly 
 difficult to retrace. As its brutalizing effects cannot 
 immediately be done away by its removal, they at 
 once furnish a pretext for justifying it, and make 
 relief hazardous. Kind and liberal treatment, if 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 173 
 
 very cautiously and judiciously bestowed, will, gra- 
 dually and slowly, advance men towards the condi- 
 tion of being worthy of such treatment : but treat 
 men as aliens or enemies, — as slaves, as children, 
 or as brutes, and they will speedily and completely 
 justify your conduct. 
 
 The sense of wrong and insult is often felt more 
 than injury. It is unpleasant in going through a 
 wood, to have the wet boughs bang against one's 
 face ; but who feels this, as he should a man's spit- 
 ting in his face, and slapping him at pleasure. This 
 should be remembered, when comparisons are insti- 
 tuted between the condition of the most hard- 
 worked labourer in Europe, and that of a Slave. 
 
 Some Systems are defended — and Negro Slavery 
 amongst the rest — by saying, that the evils are 
 merely incidental, and form no part of the design. 
 If this means merely, that no system should be at 
 once condemned, solely because some incidental evils 
 are connected with it, as some must be with every 
 system, in this we heartily concur. Navigation is 
 a good thing, although ships are occasionally 
 wrecked, and men drowned. But to put out of ac- 
 count, altogether, the greater or less liability to 
 abuses, and the greater or less enormity of them, 
 
174 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 and quietly to ignore every incidental evil, would 
 be, in the ordinary concerns of life, regarded as a 
 proof of insanity. Who, for instance, would leave 
 children at play in a room full of loaded fire-arms, 
 and edge-tools, and open casks of gunpowder ? Yet 
 the tools were not designed to cut them, or the guns 
 to shoot them. If they maim, kill, or blow up one 
 another, these are only abuses. The best mode we 
 can think of, for disabusing one who holds such an 
 opinion, is, that he should take up his abode next 
 door to a soap-boiler, with a brazier on the other 
 side of his house, a slaughter-house over the way, 
 and a store of gunpowder in the vaults beneath him ; 
 being admonished at the same time, to remember 
 that if his eyes, nose, and ears, are incessantly an- 
 noyed, and he is ultimately blown up, these are 
 only incidental evils. 
 
 Some, even Englishmen, who have visited Slave 
 States, are satisfied at being told that the Slaves 
 are far better off, and more civilized there, than in 
 their own barbarian countries, which is, probably, 
 for the most part true. But, why have the African 
 countries continued so long in gross barbarism? 
 They have long had intercourse with Europeans, 
 who might have taught them to raise Sugar and 
 Cotton, &c, at home for the European markets, and 
 
MISCELLANEOUS . 175 
 
 in other ways might have civilized them. And it 
 cannot be said that they are incapable of learning, 
 since free Negroes in various countries, though they 
 have the disadvantage of being a degraded caste, 
 are yet (however inferior to us), far advanced be- 
 yond the savage tribes of Africa. But it is the very 
 Slave-trade itself that has kept them barbarians, by 
 encouraging wars for the purpose of taking captives 
 to be sold as slaves, and the villainous practices of 
 kidnapping, and trading in each other's happiness 
 and liberties. It is the very system itself which 
 men seek to excuse, by pointing out the comfortable 
 state of Slaves when they are caught and sold, that, 
 to a great extent, produces, and must, if persisted in, 
 perpetuate, the barbarous condition with which this 
 comparative comfort is contrasted. The whole of 
 these African tribes might, under a better system, 
 have enjoyed, in freedom, far, very far, greater 
 comfort in their native land, than that which some 
 of them now possess, as slaves, in a foreign land. 
 
 * 
 The advocates of Slavery, as it still exists in the 
 "Western Hemisphere, are accustomed to appeal to 
 the non-prohibition of it in the express commands 
 of Scripture, forgetting, that whatever sanction this 
 implies, is equally given to the despotism of the 
 Roman Emperors. 
 
176 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 In the Slave States, among those who defend and 
 justify Slavery, no Dealer in Slaves is ever admitted 
 into good society. He is regarded in much the same 
 light as a smuggler is, by those who do not scruple 
 to buy his goods. In all these cases, men uncon- 
 sciously pronounce their own doom. 
 
 Though it may not depend on each of us, whether 
 this, or that, evil shall take place; it does depend 
 on us, whether we shall have any share in it. 
 
 It is curious to observe the odd limitations of 
 power, in those who seem despotic, and yet cannot 
 do what seem little things : e. g., when the Romans 
 took possession of Egypt, the people submitted, 
 without the least resistance, to have their lives and 
 property at the mercy of a foreign nation. But one 
 of the Roman soldiers happening to kill a cat in the 
 streets of Alexandria, they rose on him and tore 
 him from limb to limb ; and the excitement was so 
 violent that the generals overlooked the outrage for 
 fear of insurrection ! — Claudius Csesar tried to in- 
 troduce a letter which was wanting in the Roman 
 Alphabet ; the consonant V as distinct from U, they 
 having but one character for both. He ordained 
 that ^ (an F reversed) should be that character. 
 It appears on some inscriptions in his time ; but he 
 
MISCELLANEOUS, 17 7 
 
 could not establish, it ; though he could kill or plunder 
 his subjects at pleasure ! So can the Emperor of 
 Russia : but he cannot change the style. It would 
 displace the days of saints whom his people worship, 
 and it would produce a formidable insurrection ! 
 Other instances of this strange kind of anomaly 
 might doubtless be produced. 
 
 It is supposed by most people, that Trial by 
 Jury, as it now exists, is one of our most ancient 
 institutions. But there is good reason to believe, 
 that, originally, causes were decided, not by the Jury, 
 but intirely by the Judge. In order to aid him in 
 the Trial, twelve men of respectable character were 
 taken from the neighbourhood where the witnesses 
 lived, as being likely to know something of them, 
 and to be able to form a judgment how far each of 
 them was to be trusted. And after these witnesses 
 had been examined in their presence, they gave their 
 opinion on the whole of the evidence, and the Judge, 
 decided. By degrees, however, the opinion [or 
 verdict] of the Jury came to be regarded as decisive ; 
 and the Judge merely " pronounced judgment," (as 
 is done now) according to the Verdict. 
 
 So little do Historians dwell on those ordinary 
 transactions of human life, which furnish the data 
 
 N 
 
178 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 from which the social progress of nations may be 
 estimated, that this kind of information is introduced, 
 for the most part, only incidentally and obliquely ; 
 and is to be collected, imperfectly, from scattered 
 allusions. So that if you will give a rapid glance, 
 for instance, at the history of these islands from the 
 time of the Norman conquest to the present day, 
 not only do we find little mention of the causes of 
 social progress, but what we chiefly do read of is, the 
 counteracting causes ; viz., wars, revolutions, and 
 disturbances of every kind. Now, if a ship had per- 
 formed a voyage of 800 leagues, and the register of 
 it contained an account chiefly of the contrary winds 
 and currents, and made little mention of favourable 
 gales, we might well be at a loss to understand how 
 she reached her destination, and might even be led 
 into the mistake of supposing that the contrary winds 
 had forwarded her in her course. Yet such is His- 
 tory. — It may be said to be the record of the impedi- 
 ments to social progress. 
 
 It has often occurred to me, that the Longevity of 
 the Antediluvians may have been a special provision 
 to meet the difficulty in the way of social progress, 
 which in those early ages must have existed before 
 the invention, and the familiar use, of writing had 
 enabled each generation to record, for the use of the 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 179 
 
 next, not only its discoveries, but its observations, and 
 incomplete experiments. For the more you specu- 
 late on the probable origin of the various arts, which 
 are the most universal among mankind, the more 
 you will be struck with this consideration that many 
 of the commonest arts, and which appear the simplest, 
 and require but a very humble degree of intelligence 
 for their exercise, are yet such, that we must suppose 
 various accidents to have occurred, and to have been 
 noted — many observations to have been made, and 
 combined — and many experiments to have been 
 made, in order to their being originally invented. 
 Even now that writing is in use, a single individual, 
 if he live long enough to follow up a train of experi- 
 ments, has a great advantage, in respect of dis- 
 coveries, over a succession of individuals ; because 
 he will recollect, when the occasion arises, many of 
 his former observations, and of the ideas that had 
 occurred to his mind, which, at the time, he had not 
 thought worth recording. But previous to the use of 
 writing, the advantage of being able to combine, in 
 one's own person, the experience of several centuries, 
 must have been of immense importance ; and it was 
 an advantage which the circumstances of the case 
 seemed to require. 
 
 The absence of written records is, though a very 
 
 n2 
 
180 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 important, rather a secondary, than a primary, ob- 
 stacle, to any forward movement in a Community. 
 It is one branch of that general characteristic of the 
 Savage, — improvidence. If you suppose the case of 
 a savage taught to read and write, but allowed to 
 remain in all other respects, the same careless, 
 thoughtless kind of Being, and afterwards left to 
 himself, he would most likely forget his acquisition, 
 and would certainly, by neglecting to teach it to his 
 children, suffer it to be lost in the next generation. 
 On the other hand, — if you conceive such a case — 
 (which certainly is conceivable, and I am disposed 
 to think it a real one :) as that of a people ignorant 
 of this art; but acquiring in some degree a thoughtful 
 and provident character, I have little doubt, that 
 their desire, thence arising, to record permanently 
 their Laws, practical maxims, and discoveries, would 
 gradually lead them, first, to the use of memorial- 
 verses ; and afterwards, to some kind of natural 
 symbols, such as picture writing, and the hiero- 
 glyphics ; which might gradually be still further 
 improved into writing, properly so called. 
 
 We have no direct information as to the immediate 
 cause of the great longevity of the earliest genera- 
 tions of men. But it seems likely it may have been 
 produced by the influence of u the Tree of Life ;" 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 181 
 
 a vestige of an early tradition respecting which 
 appears in Homer, representing his gods as support- 
 ing perpetual life and vigour by drinking nectar, and 
 eating Ambrozia (that is, immortality.) 
 
 That the produce of this tree, (whether its fruits 
 or its leaves) was endued by the Creator with some 
 property of warding off death, we are plainly taught, 
 both by its name, and by the exclusion of Adam 
 from the Garden of Eden, " lest he should eat of the 
 tree of life, and live for ever/' 
 
 It is likely that it had the medicinal virtue, when 
 applied from time to time, of preventing, or curing, 
 the decay of old age ; just as our ordinary food pre- 
 serves men from dying of exhaustion by famine ; 
 and as several well-known medicines prevent, or cure, 
 certain diseases. We know indeed, that there does 
 not exist now any medicine that has the virtue of 
 keeping up, or renewing, youthful health or vigour. 
 But such a medicine would not be, in itself, at all 
 more strange than many things which we are familiar 
 with, but whose effects we cannot explain, and could 
 never have conjectured. 
 
 For example, that opium and some other drugs 
 should produce sleep, and strong liquors, a kind of 
 temporary madness, is what no one would ever have 
 thought of, if he had never heard of it, nor seen 
 the experiment tried of swallowing those substances. 
 
182 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 Nor, even if he were a skilful chemist, would he be 
 able, by analysing them, to conjecture what their 
 effects would be. If then the Tree of Life were such 
 a medicine as we have supposed, a person who always 
 continued the use of it, from time to time, would 
 continue exempt from decay and death. 
 
 But supposing some persons, who had been in the 
 habit of using it (as our first parents doubtless had, 
 since there was nothing to prevent them) should 
 afterwards cease to use it, their constitution would, 
 probably, have been so far fortified, that though 
 they would at length die, yet they would live much 
 longer than man's natural term. And they would 
 even be likely to transmit to their descendants such 
 a constitution, as would confer on those, also, a great 
 degree of longevity, which would only wear out 
 gradually, in many successive generations. 
 
 Now it is remarkable, that this exactly agrees 
 with what we do find recorded. If we look into those 
 parts of the Bible history, which relate to this sub- 
 ject, we shall find man's life, in the earliest genera- 
 tions, extending to eight or nine centuries, and 
 upwards. And we shall find longevity gradually 
 diminishing in each generation, down to the times of 
 Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who lived rather less 
 than two hundred years ; and again, down to the 
 time of Moses, who began his mission apparently in 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 183 
 
 the full vigour of life at four score, and lived to one 
 hundred and twenty, Joshua, who succeeded him, 
 lived one hundred and ten years. And from thence 
 forward, human life appears to have been brought 
 down to about its present limit. 
 
 The above seems to be the most clear, easy, and 
 natural interpretation of those parts of Scripture we 
 have been examining. There is not, however, any 
 such distinct revelation on the subject as to authorise 
 our pronouncing confidently that such must be the 
 right interpretation, and making this an article of 
 faith. 
 
 The subject of Animal Instinct seems to form a 
 point of contact between Natural History and the 
 Philosophy of the Human Mind. And yet, bene- 
 ficial and interesting as this circumstance alone might 
 make this particular branch of study, a treatise upon 
 Instinct is still a desideratum ; something like a 
 philosophic or systematic view of the subject — a 
 distinct and satisfactory answer to the question ; 
 u What do you mean by Instinct ?" — is still wanting. 
 It seems, that however far advanced we may be in a 
 Dictionary on the subject of Instinct, a Grammar 
 is a thing very much wanted. 
 
 To say, as many are accustomed to do, that Brutes 
 
184 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS, 
 
 are actuated solely by Instinct, and Man by Reason, 
 is contrary to the implied rule, that a Being is acting 
 instinctively when impelled blindly towards some 
 end which the Agent does not aim at or perceive ; 
 and on the other hand, that it is acting rationally, 
 when acting with a view to, and for the sake of, some 
 end which it does perceive. For, as some things 
 felt and done by Man are allowed to be purely in- 
 stinctive — as hunger and thirst for instance; are 
 evidently instincts — so many things done by brutes, 
 at least by the higher description of brutes, would 
 be, if done by man, regarded as resulting from the 
 exercise of Reason. 
 
 In many instances we know this is not the case. 
 A man builds a house from Reason — a bird builds a 
 nest from Instinct ; and no one w r ould say that the 
 bird, in this acted from Reason. But in other in- 
 stances, Man not only does the same things as the 
 brutes, but does them from the same kind of impulse, 
 which should be called instinctive, whether in man 
 or brute. And again, several things are done by 
 brutes, which are evidently not instinctive, but, to 
 all appearance no less rational than human acts : 
 being not only the same actions, but done from the 
 same impulse. The domestic animals exhibit many 
 instances of this. There is an incident upon record, 
 and there seems no ground for doubting it, of a dog, 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 185 
 
 which being left on the bank of a river by his master 
 who had gone up the river in a boat, attempted to 
 join him. He plunged into the water, but not making 
 allowance for the strength of the stream, which car- 
 ried him considerably below the boat, he could not 
 beat up against it. He landed, and made allowance 
 for the current of the river, by leaping in at a place 
 higher up. The combined action of the stream and his 
 swimming, carried him in an oblique direction, and 
 he thus reached the boat. I do not vouch for the 
 accuracy of this anecdote ; but I see no grounds for 
 disbelieving it, as it is of a piece with many other 
 recorded instances. 
 
 There is another instance of this nature, which did 
 come under my own observation, in which the actor 
 was a cat — a species of animal generally considered 
 very inferior in sagacity to a dog. This cat was 
 known, not merely once or twice, but habitually, to 
 ring the parlour-bell whenever it wished the door to 
 be opened. Some alarm was excited on the first 
 occasion that it turned bell-ringer. The family had 
 retired to rest, and in the middle of the night the 
 parlour bell was rung violently : the sleepers were 
 startled from their repose, and proceeded down stairs, 
 with pokers and tongs, to intercept as they thought, 
 the predatory movements of some burglar ; but they 
 were agreeably surprised to discover that the bell 
 
186 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 had been rung by Pussy, who frequently repeated 
 the act whenever she wanted to get out of the 
 parlour. 
 
 Here are two clear cases of acts done by a cat and 
 dog, which, if done by a man, would be called reason. 
 Every one would admit that the actions were rational 
 — not, to be sure, proceeding from a very high ex- 
 ertion of intellect : but the dog, at least, rationally 
 jumped into the stream at a distance higher up from 
 the boat into which he wished to get, because, having 
 made the trial, and failed, he apparently judged from 
 the failure of the first attempt, that his course was to 
 go up the stream, make allowance for its strength, 
 and thus gain the boat ; he found that it would then 
 carry him to it instead of from it ; and the cat 
 pulled the parlour-bell, because she had observed, 
 that when it was rung by the family, the servant 
 opened the door. 
 
 It appears, then, that we can neither deny Reason 
 universally and altogether to brutes, nor Instinct to 
 Man; but that each possesses a share of both, 
 though in very different proportions. And yet the 
 difference between man and brute, in respect of 
 intelligence, appears plainly to be not a difference in 
 mere degree but in hind. An intelligent brute is 
 not like a stupid man. The intelligence and sa- 
 gacity shown by the elephant, monkey, and dog, 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 187 
 
 are something very different from the lowest and 
 most stupid of human beings. 
 
 In fact, in the most striking instances in which 
 brutes display reason, all the intellectual operation 
 seems to consist in the combination of means to an 
 end. The dog , who swam from a higher part of the 
 river to reach the boat ; the cat who rang the bell to 
 call the servant ; these, and many other similar in- 
 stances of sagacity appear to consist but in this. 
 
 But the great difference between Man and the 
 higher brutes appears to me to consist in the power 
 of using SIGNS — arbitrary signs — and employing 
 . language as an instrument of thought. We are 
 accustomed to speak of language as useful to man, to 
 communicate his thoughts. I consider this as only 
 one of the uses of language. That use of language 
 which, though commonly overlooked, is the most 
 characteristic of Man, is as an instrument of thought. 
 Man is not the only animal that can make use of 
 language to express what is passing within his mind, 
 and that can understand, more or less, what is so 
 expressed by another. Some brutes can be taught 
 to utter, and many others, to understand, more or 
 less imperfectly, sounds expressive of certain emo- 
 tions. Every one knows that the dog understands 
 the general drift of expressions used; and parrots 
 can be taught not only to pronounce words, but to 
 
188 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 pronounce them with some consciousness of the 
 general meaning of what they utter. They call for 
 food ; when displeased, scold ; and use expressions in 
 reference to particular persons which they have 
 heard applied to them. Almost every animal which 
 is capable of being tamed, can, in some degree, use 
 language as an indication of what passes within. 
 But no animal has the use of language as an " in- 
 strument of thought." Man makes use of general 
 signs in the application of his power of Abstraction, 
 by which he is enabled to reason ; and the use of 
 arbitrary general signs, what logicians call " common 
 terms" with a facility of thus using Abstraction at 
 pleasure, is a characteristic of Man. 
 
 The implanting and modification of Instinct in 
 animals, in consequence of the education received by 
 many generations of their predecessors, is a point 
 well worthy of inquiry. The most widely diffused 
 of all implanted and modified Instincts is that of 
 Wildness or Tameness. Whether the original 
 Instinct of brutes was to be afraid of man, or familiar 
 with him, I will not undertake to say. My own 
 belief is, that it is the fear of man that is the im- 
 planted instinct. But at any rate, it is plain that 
 either the one or the other — wildness or tameness — 
 must be an implanted, and not an original, Instinct. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 189 
 
 All voyagers agree, that when they have gone into 
 a country, which had not apparently been visited by 
 man, neither bird nor beast exhibited fear. ,The 
 birds perched familiarly upon their guns, or stood 
 still to be knocked on the head. After the country 
 had been for some time frequented, not only indi- 
 vidual animals become afraid of man, but their off- 
 spring inherit that fear by Instinct. 
 
 There are many cases in which it cannot be ascer- 
 tained towards what the immediate impulses of ani- 
 mals tend. "We do not know through the medium 
 of what organs birds are induced to put food into the 
 mouths of their young. We see a pair of birds 
 searching all day long for food; and, in many in- 
 stances, the food they seek is such as they do not 
 feed on themselves — for example, granivorous birds 
 hunt after caterpillars for their young : in other cases 
 they seek for food which their own appetite incites 
 them to eat ; but they treasure it for their young, and 
 are impelled by an instinctive appetite to put it into 
 its mouth when opened. And this instinct is not 
 peculiar to birds. The mammalia partake of it ; for 
 we find wolves, dogs, and other carnivorous animals 
 bringing home meat, and leaving it before their 
 young ones. If a bitch or wolf has pups, and cannot 
 bring food to them otherwise than by first swallow- 
 ing it, she swallows it, and then disgorges it ; for the 
 
190 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS- 
 
 animal has the power of evacuating its stomach at 
 pleasure. Pigeons invariably swallow their food be- 
 fore they give it to their young. — Take the case of 
 migratory birds — even those which have been caged : 
 when a particular season arrives, they desire to fly 
 in a certain direction ; but what leads them in that 
 direction cannot be understood. That direction is 
 pointed out to them by God ; but how pointed out is 
 only known to Him. And how delightful to a pious 
 mind is it to contemplate every proof of the wisdom, 
 goodness, and power of God — to mark everywhere 
 the work of that same Creator's hand who has filled 
 the universe with the monuments of His wisdom !* 
 
 There is a remarkable phenomenon connected with 
 insect life which has often occurred to my mind 
 while meditating on the subject of preparedness for 
 a future state, as presenting a curious analogy. 
 
 Most persons know that every butterfly (the Greek 
 name for which, it is remarkable, is the same that 
 signifies also the Soul, — Psyche] comes from a grub 
 or caterpillar ; in the language of naturalists called a 
 larva. The last name (which signifies literally a 
 mask) was introduced by Linnaeus, because the cater- 
 pillar is a kind of outward covering, or disguise, of 
 
 * For proceedings of rational agents analogous to Instinct, see pages 
 18, 19. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 191 
 
 the future butterfly within. For, it has been ascer- 
 tained by curious microscopic examination, that a 
 distinct butterfly, only undeveloped and not full- 
 grown, is contained within the body of the cater- 
 pillar ; that this latter has its own organs of diges- 
 tion, respiration, &c, suitable to its larva-life, quite 
 distinct from, and independent of, the future butterfly 
 which it encloses. When the proper period arrives, 
 and the life of the insect, in this its first stage, is to 
 close, it becomes what is called a Pupa, enclosed in 
 a Chrysalis or Cocoon (often composed of silk ; as is 
 that of the silkworm which supplies us that impor- 
 tant article), and lies torpid for a time within this 
 natural coffin, from which it issues, at the proper 
 period, as a perfect butterfly. 
 
 But sometimes this process is marred. There is 
 a numerous tribe of insects well known to naturalists, 
 called Ichneumon-flies ; which in their larva- state 
 are parasitical ; that is, inhabit, and feed on, other 
 larva. The Ichneumon-fly, being provided with a 
 long sharp sting, which is in fact an ovipositor (egg- 
 layer), pierces with this the body of a caterpillar in 
 several places, and deposits her eggs which are there 
 hatched, and feed, as grubs (larvae) on the inward 
 parts of their victim. — A most wonderful circum- 
 stance connected with this process is, that a cater- 
 pillar which has been thus attacked goes on feeding 
 
192 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 and apparently thriving quite as well during the 
 whole of its larva-life, as those that have escaped. 
 For, by a wonderful provision of instinct, the ichneu- 
 mon-grubs within do not injure any of the organs of 
 the larva, but feed only on the future butterfly en- 
 closed within it. And consequently, it is hardly 
 possible to distinguish a caterpillar which has these 
 enemies within it from those that are untouched. — 
 But when the period arrives for the close of the 
 larva-life, the difference appears. You may often 
 observe the common cabbage -caterpillars retiring, to 
 undergo their change, into some sheltered spot — such 
 as the walls of a summer-house ; and some of them 
 — those that have escaped the parasites — assuming 
 the pupa- state, from which they emerge butterflies. 
 Of the unfortunate caterpillar that has been preyed 
 upon, nothing remains but an empty skin. The 
 hidden butterfly has been secretly consumed. Now 
 is there not something analogous to this wonderful 
 phenomenon in the condition of some of our race : — 
 may not a man have a kind of secret enemy within 
 his own bosom, destroying his Soul, — Psyche, — 
 though without interfering with his well-being dur- 
 ing the present stage of his existence; and whose 
 presence may never be detected till the time arrives 
 when the last great change should take place? — 
 Every man should reflect whether this may not be 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 193 
 
 his case ; remembering that it is in his power now, 
 through the help that is promised, to detect and de- 
 stroy these secret but deadly enemies within him ! 
 
 The great difficulty is, not to make men believe in 
 a future state of rewards and punishments, but to 
 make them seriously and earnestly think about it : 
 and this will be the hardest task in the case of those 
 whose serious thoughts are taken up with worldly 
 pursuits. There is more hope of converting a sen- 
 sualist than an avaricious, or ambitious, calculating, 
 worldly man. Accordingly, during the ministry of 
 our Lord such men rejected Him whilst the publi- 
 cans and sinners heard Him gladly. The voluptuary 
 does very often heartily despise the whole world, and 
 everything in it, his own pursuits included. One 
 reason, indeed, for this may be, that he has tried the 
 value of his own objects : whereas, those who are 
 pursuing distant objects, are always likely to over- 
 rate them, from the dazzling colours in which hope 
 decks them out. 
 
 Many a man, who may admit it to be impossible 
 to serve God and Mammon, at one and the same 
 time, yet wishes to serve Mammon and God ; first 
 the one, as long as he is able ; and then, the other. 
 
 o 
 
194 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 There occurs in a late number of a leading Perio- 
 dical a remark, which one may find also in the mouths 
 of many, and in the minds of very many more ; that 
 the great diversity of religious opinions prevailing in 
 the world, and the absence of all superhuman provi- 
 sion against them, is a proof that it is the will of the 
 Almighty that such should be the case ; — that men 
 were designed to hold all diversities of religious be- 
 lief. Now, the inference which will naturally be 
 drawn, on further reflection, from this is, that it is 
 no matter whether we hold truth or falsehood ; and 
 next, that there is no truth at all in any religion. 
 
 But this is not all. The same reasoning would go 
 to prove that since there is no infallible and univer- 
 sally-accessible guide in morals, and men greatly 
 differ in their judgments of what is morally right 
 and wrong, hence we are to infer that God did not 
 design men to agree on this point neither, and that 
 it matters not whether we act on right or wrong 
 principles ; and, in short, that there is no such thing 
 as right and wrong ; but only what each man thinks. 
 The two opposite errors (as we think them) from the 
 same source, are, " If God wills all men to believe, 
 and to act rightly, He must have given us an infal- 
 lible and accessible guide for belief and practice. 
 (1.) But He does so will; therefore, there is such a 
 guide: and (2.) He has not given us any such 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 195 
 
 guide : therefore, He does not will all men to believe 
 and act rightly." 
 
 Now this is to confound the two senses of WILL, 
 as distinguished in the concluding paragraph of the 
 17th Article of the Church of England. In a cer- 
 tain sense, the most absurd errors, and the most 
 heinous crimes may be said to be according to the 
 Divine Will ; since God does not interpose His om- 
 nipotence to prevent them. But "in our doings" 
 says that Article, " that will of God is to be followed 
 which we have expressly declared in Holy Writ." 
 
 Men only delude themselves by giving way to 
 that craving after infallibility, which is part of our 
 corrupt nature. — For it is plainly not God's intention 
 to exempt us from all danger of mistake, and all 
 labour of inquiry, and the responsibility of exercis- 
 ing our own judgments, whether good or bad, in 
 matters of the greatest importance. 
 
 In all the most important affairs of this life, we 
 are obliged to act upon mere probabilities, and some- 
 times, very weak probabilities. With respect to this 
 life, as well as the life to come, our highest interests 
 require us to act continually with regard to the fu- 
 ture. Yet, we have no infallible guidance at all 
 with respect to what will happen to-morrow. We 
 are left to calculate, as we best can, what is most 
 
 o2 
 
196 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 likely; and consider carefully what is, under all the 
 circumstances, the most prudent course for us to take. 
 Nay, it is very remarkable that our knowledge is 
 much more full and complete of things which do not 
 directly concern us, than of those which do. We 
 can foretell the motions of the heavenly bodies for 
 centuries to come ; but, as to things at our own doors, 
 we " know not what a day may bring forth. " The 
 things within our foresight and certain knowledge 
 are out of our power ; and the things within our 
 power are out of our foresight 
 
 It has been objected to Prayer that it is unneces- 
 sary, because God must know our wants, whether 
 we supplicate Him or not. — True; He knows our 
 wants, but not our humble supplications to Him for 
 aid, unless we make such supplications. Now, it is 
 to our prayers, not to our wants, that His gifts are 
 promised. He does not say " Need, and ye shall 
 have ; want, and ye shall find ;" but, " Ask, and ye 
 shall have ; seek, and ye shall find." 
 
 A well-framed Liturgy in constant use, is not only 
 a help to public worship, but a standing monitor, 
 both to the Minister and his Congregation; the 
 Minister, when he is reading it, testifying, with his 
 own mouth, against the errors, if such there be, of 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 197 
 
 his own preaching; and the Congregation being 
 warned either to supply what is wanting, or to re- 
 ject what is faulty, or to inquire respecting what is 
 doubtful. . 
 
 That Infidelity is daily spreading, fe a complaint 
 one hears on all sides. It behoves every good Chris- 
 tian to look narrowly for the spring of that bitter 
 stream which is welling fast, though often silently, 
 all around us. Now r , any one who considers the 
 tendency of much of the teaching abroad in the pre- 
 sent day to create and foster, irreligion, will see 
 rather less reason to wonder at the amount of it that 
 now exists, than ground for alarming apprehensions 
 of its increase. — For, let a man be but once con- 
 vinced — 1st, that Christianity cannot stand the test 
 of inquiry — 2ndly, that he has no ground for cer- 
 tainty as to the real belief of those who teach it, — 
 3rdly, that Scripture need not be studied; — 4thly, 
 that he had better withdraw his thoughts as much 
 as possible from the subject, since otherwise, he 
 could not but exercise that private judgment which 
 is forbidden ; — and 5thly, that Christianity is mainly 
 a system of outward ordinances, — let him but adopt 
 all these notions, and what is there to stand between 
 him and Infidelity, or Indifferentism ? 
 
 When men talk of the necessity of accommodat- 
 
198 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 ing the religion preached by the Apostles to the 
 tastes and manners of men, they forget that the great 
 aim of Christianity is to regenerate plan's Nature. 
 Christianity does not (as the law of Moses did) per- 
 mit things on account of the "hardness" of men's 
 hearts ; because it brings the promise of the Spirit, 
 which is given to change our hearts, and make us 
 " new creatures." Accordingly, though the Pagans 
 in Italy were, in Paul's time, fond of altars and sac- 
 rifices, images, shows, and gaudy processions, that 
 Apostle never thought of accommodating the simple 
 worship of the Church to their tastes ; and the Greeks 
 at Corinth were quite as fond as the modern school- 
 men of subtle and abstruse inquiries. Paul was so 
 far from indulging them therein, that, for that very 
 reason, he determined to "know nothing among 
 them, but Jesus Christ, and Him crucified." 
 
 The liberality of some men, is but indifference 
 clad in the garb of candour. 
 
 Tenderness towards the faulty, is charity; tender- 
 ness towards the fault, is indifference about right 
 and wrong. 
 
 If our religion is not true, we are bound to change 
 it ; if it is true, we are bound to propagate it. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 199 
 
 The same kinds of error which at first were 
 against the Christian religion, found their way into 
 it afterwards, in corresponding corruptions of it. 
 
 It has been said that in former times, and for 
 those times, Monasteries were commendable institu- 
 tions. But those who say this, when contrasting the 
 learning, peace, and piety of the Monasteries with the 
 ignorance and irreligion and perpetual wars of " the 
 Middle Ages," forget that it was the very system of 
 which these were a part, which made the world so dark 
 and unquiet ; and then, like the ivy, which has re- 
 duced a fine building to a shattered ruin, they held 
 together the fragments of that ruin. 
 
 Nothing is really harmless that is mistaken for a 
 virtue. In all pursuits, but most of all in the great 
 one of religion, to think that we are advancing when 
 we are not, is a positive evil. 
 
 Too religious, in the proper sense of the word, we 
 cannot be. We cannot have the religious sentiments 
 and principles too strong, or too deeply fixed, if only 
 they have a right object. We cannot love God too 
 warmly — or honour Him too highly — or strive to 
 serve Him too earnestly — or trust Him too impli- 
 citly ; because our duty is "to love Him with all our 
 
200 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 heart, and all our soul, and all our mind, and all our 
 strength. 7 ' But too religious, in another sense, we 
 may, and are very apt to be — that is, we are very 
 apt to make for ourselves too many objects of reli- 
 gious feeling. 
 
 The difference between religious knowledge, pro- 
 perly so-called, and what may be more properly 
 styled theological philosophy, may be thus illus- 
 trated. — The printed tables in our almanacks, shew- 
 ing the times of the sun's rising and setting at each 
 period of the year — the appearances of the moon — 
 the times of eclipses — the variations of the tides in 
 different places, and the like, supply to plain un- 
 learned men that needful information upon many 
 points of daily practical use which they can under- 
 stand ; whereas, the explanations which modern dis- 
 coveries in natural philosophy have established of 
 most of those points, would be wholly unintelligible 
 to them. — It is not the less possible, nor the less use- 
 ful, for any one to know the times when the sun gives 
 light to this earth, even though he should not know 
 whether it is the sun that moves, or the earth. 
 
 Now, it is just such practical knowledge as this 
 that the Scriptures give us of the Christian Dispen- 
 sation. — They afford practical directions, but no 
 theory. But there is this important difference be- 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 201 
 
 tween the two cases — the human faculties could, and 
 at length did (though it is beyond the great mass of 
 mankind) discover the true theory of the appearances 
 and motions of the heavenly bodies. In matters 
 pertaining to divine revelation, on the contrary, 
 though there must actually be a true theory (since 
 there must be reasons, and those known to God Him- 
 self, even if hidden from every creature, why He 
 proceeded in this way, rather than in that), this 
 theory never can be known to us ; because the whole 
 subject is so far above the human powers, that we 
 must have remained, but for revelation, in the darkest 
 ignorance concerning it. Many curious and valuable 
 truths has the world discovered by philosophy (or, 
 as our translators express it, "wisdom"); but "the 
 world" (says Paul,) "by wisdom knew not God:" 
 of which assertion, the writings of the ancient hea- 
 then philosophers now extant, afford sufficient proof. 
 
 When the Sacred Writers speak with commenda- 
 tion of " knowing God," they always mean such a 
 knowledge as is attended with the practical effects 
 of fearing, loving and obeying Him. " The fear of 
 the Lord, that is wisdom ; and to depart from evil, 
 that is understanding" (Job. xxviii. 28). "He 
 judged the cause of the poor and needy, then it was 
 well with him : was not this to know Me t saith the 
 Lord" (Jer. xxii. 16). " He that loveth is born of 
 
202 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 God, and Tcnoweth God : he that loveth not hath not 
 known God" (1 John iv. 7). 
 
 The Gospel substitutes for precise rules sublime 
 principles ; thus leaving the Christian to be " a law 
 unto himself." 
 
 All lawgivers forbid us to steal our neighbour's 
 goods ; but it is only the Divine Law Giver who 
 looks, not merely on the outward appearance, but 
 looks upon the heart, that can effectually forbid us 
 to covet them. 
 
 All Gaming, since it implies a desire to profit at 
 the expense of another, involves a breach of the tenth 
 Commandment. 
 
 The King, who proposed a reward to the man who 
 should invent a new pleasure, would have deserved 
 well of the world, if he had stipulated that it should 
 be innocent. 
 
 Much of the declamation, by which popular as- 
 semblies are often misled, against what is called, 
 without any distinct meaning, the " doctrine of ex- 
 pediency," (as if the "right" and the "expedient" 
 were in opposition) might be silenced by asking the 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 203 
 
 simple question, u Do you then admit that the course 
 you recommend is inexpedient?" 
 
 To avoid the two opposite evils, — the liability to 
 sudden and violent changes, and the adherence to 
 established usage, when inconvenient or mischievous, 
 — to give the requisite stability to governments and 
 other institutions without shutting the door against 
 improvement, this is a problem which both ancient 
 and modern legislators, have not well succeeded in 
 solving. Some, like the ancient Medes and Per- 
 sians, and like Lycurgus, have attempted to pro- 
 hibit all change ; but those who constantly appeal 
 to the wisdom of their ancestors, as a sufficient reason 
 for perpetuating everything these have established, 
 forget two things ; first, that they cannot hope for 
 ever to persuade all successive generations of men, 
 that there was once one generation of such infallible 
 wisdom as to be entitled to dictate to all their de- 
 scendants for ever, so as to make the earth, in fact, 
 the possession, not of the living but of the dead ; 
 and, secondly, that, even supposing our ancestors 
 gifted with such infallibility, many cases must 
 arise in which it may be reasonably doubted whether 
 they themselves would not have advocated, if living, 
 changes called for by altered circumstances ; even as 
 our own forefathers, who denoted the southern quarter 
 
204 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 from meridies (noon), would not have been so foolish 
 as to retain that language had they come to live in 
 this hemisphere, where the sun at noon is in the north. 
 
 Nature does not give the same degree of strength 
 to the footstalks of the leaves of a tree, — destined as 
 these are, to be shed every year, — and to the roots, 
 which are designed to hold the trunk fast in the 
 ground — If she did, either the one would be far too 
 strong, or the other far too weak, or both of these in- 
 conveniences might take place at once ; yet this is 
 the error committed by almost all governments. 
 The same machinery is provided to facilitate or to, 
 impede every change alike, in great or in small mat- 
 ters ; the same mode is prescribed for the main- 
 taining, or abrogating, or introducing of every law 
 and every institution alike. In Great Britain, for in- 
 stance, an Act for regulating the manufacture of soap, 
 or an Act which should introduce a complete change 
 into the Constitution — which should take away or 
 restore the liberties of half the nation, — must go 
 through exactly the same forms, and be passed or re- 
 jected by the same authorities under the same regu- 
 lations : in short, in this respect, the Government is 
 like a tree whose leaf- stalks and main roots, have 
 neither more nor less toughness and stoutness the 
 one than the other. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 205 
 
 A political prediction publicly uttered will often 
 have had, or be supposed to have had, a great share* 
 in bringing about its own fulfilment. He who gives 
 out, for instance, that the people will certainly be 
 dissatisfied with such and such a law, is, in this, 
 doing his utmost to make them dissatisfied. And 
 this being the case in all unfavourable, as well as 
 favourable, predictions, some men lose their deserved 
 credit for political sagacity, through their fear of 
 contributing to produce the evils they apprehend; 
 while others, again, contribute to evil results by 
 their incapacity to keep their anticipations locked up 
 in their own bosoms, and by their dread of not ob- 
 taining deserved credit. It would be desirable to 
 provide for such men a relief like that which the 
 servant of King Midas found, due care, however, being 
 taken that there should be no whispering reeds to 
 divulge it. 
 
 To love both Power and Liberty is not very 
 consistent. 
 
 In forming a judgment of any one's character, the 
 first thing to be looked at, is to see whether he have 
 any perceptible, ruling passion; for it is evident 
 that, though the whole of a man's character does 
 not depend upon it, since it may be variously modi- 
 
206 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 fied by otter passions, and by principle, yet it must 
 ever be an important feature. A man might give a 
 very full detail of the business and transactions of 
 each separate department of our government, and yet 
 convey but a faint idea of our Constitution, compared 
 with one who should in a few lines point out the 
 Xvpwv of it, and the checks upon that. So also, it 
 is not enough to be able to enumerate a man's good 
 and bad qualities, without adverting to his ruling 
 passion. It is a point of some nicety, since we are 
 not to be led altogether by a man's conduct ; for the 
 same conduct is not only consistent with, but may 
 spring from, different passions ; nor by his profes- 
 sions, nor what his reason assents to ; yet, each of 
 these, though it may not be precisely conformable to 
 his ruling passion, will, generally be, in some mea- 
 sure, tinged by it. Perhaps, one of the best cri- 
 terions (when a man can, as in the case of himself, 
 obtain knowledge of it) is his castles-in-the air. A 
 reverie is, on the one hand, not regulated by the 
 corrections of sober reason, and yet, on the other 
 hand, is not usually influenced by the sudden inter- 
 ruption of those casual passions, which, in practice, 
 so often interrupt a man's general plan of life; it is 
 in a reverie, therefore, that the ruling passion bears 
 the most complete sway. Some men's day-dreams 
 terminate (for that is the main point) in glory * 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 207 
 
 some, in power; some in beneficence; some stop 
 short at wealth ; some in comfort, and tranquil re- 
 tirement. This last case seems to bear reference to 
 a sort of negative ruling passion, which is by no 
 means uncommon. 
 
 It is generally easier, and better, to direct and 
 modify the ruling passion, than to extirpate it ; and 
 there is scarce any that may not be engaged on 
 the side of virtue : Laudis amove times f What is 
 the praise of men compared with the praise of jiGod ? 
 Is a man eager for knowledge ? Heaven must be 
 set before him, as the place where we shall " see 
 face to face" and " know even as we are known " — Is 
 he ambitious? Such an one may be made to be 
 eager to rise to a more exalted state of existence — 
 Is his ruling passion philanthropy ? Heaven presents 
 itself as a place where multitudes will be happy 
 around him ; and, especially, w^here the distressing and 
 perplexing appearance of evil will be explained, and 
 the Divine Benevolence clearly made manifest. 
 
 Abstain from the amusements, which are the 
 most congenial to your peculiar, innate disposition, 
 or your peculiar, professional pursuits. A man 
 should never do that in jest, which he may be sus- 
 pected of doing in earnest. 
 
208 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 There is not so much pleasure in gaining, as in 
 the act of gaining. — If all our wishes were gratified, 
 most of our pleasures would be destroyed. 
 
 No flattery — to use the word in the sense of un- 
 due praise merely — has such influence as the daily 
 droppings of domestic flattery. Laudari a laudato 
 viro, is what every one would prize most ; but other 
 praises may make up in tale what they want in 
 weight. 
 
 Attachment to Relations, is the earliest and the 
 latest. 
 
 It is a fact, and a very curious one, that many 
 people find they can best attend to any serious mat- 
 ter, when they are occupied with something else, 
 that requires a little, and but a little, attention ; such 
 as, working with the needle (which, by the bye, 
 gives the woman a great advantage over men), 
 cutting open paper leaves, or for want of some such 
 employment .. fiddling any how with the fingers 
 (which most are prone to when earnestly engaged). 
 Now, as the best philosophers are agreed, that the 
 mind cannot actually attend to more than one thing 
 at a time, but when it so appears, is, in reality, 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 209 
 
 shifting with prodigious rapidity, backwards and 
 forwards from one to the other, it seems strange, 
 that attention to one train of ideas should be aided 
 by this continual, though unperceived, distraction to 
 another. The truth is, I conceive, that it is next 
 to impossible to keep the mind closely fixed to any 
 one train of thought, except for a very short time ; 
 and that, when we suppose this to be the case, there 
 are, in reality, continual little digressions ; which 
 frequently do not (often do) leave a trace on the 
 memory ; which are excited, either by some casual 
 association with one of the ideas of the train, or by 
 bodily sensations, and from which, the attention is 
 continually returning to its former course. If any 
 one first attends to any subject, as he thinks, ex- 
 clusively, and afterwards beginning to cut open 
 paper-leaves, finds that he attends no w T orse than 
 before, it seems quite evident that he did not before 
 attend more exclusively than after ; and consequently 
 that he had then, though he knew it not, his at- 
 tention as much drawn off by extraneous objects. 
 Taking it then for granted, that we seldom, or 
 never, can prevent entirely those occasional wander- 
 ings of attention, and never can wholly confine our 
 thoughts to the main object, the best way, therefore, 
 must be to present to them some subordinate object, 
 which shall be just interesting enough to withhold 
 
210 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 our attention from those objects, which our roving 
 senses are perpetually apt to present to us, and yet 
 not enough to draw off much of our attention (such 
 as needlework, to one who is familiar with it, but 
 not to a child who is just learning it) : and this sub- 
 ordinate object will, not only, draw off our attention 
 from the surrounding objects of sense, but will also 
 check those wandering thoughts which are suggested 
 by the principal train of ideas ; for being associated 
 with this principal train, it will form a sort of topical 
 memory, and will thus perpetually recall us to what 
 we are about. Hence, the great advantage of some 
 such employment as needlework, turning, &c. Hence 
 too, though it is reckoned uncivil, when another is 
 reading or speaking to you, to look out of the win- 
 dow, or play with a dog, as implying inattention, 
 yet we should be aware, that it does not necessarily 
 imply any such thing. Hence, too, the chief ad- 
 vantage of meditating on paper ; the act of writing 
 withholds the attention ; and the words written are 
 more even than the above topical kind of memory, 
 for they present to you the past part of the trains, 
 first, in regular order; secondly, connected with 
 them, not by an extemporaneous association, as 
 above, but by an established and habitual one. 
 
 In Affliction, Labour and Duty have been found to 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 211 
 
 have a soothing effect, when an attempt at seeking 
 amusement would excite loathing. 
 
 If you wish to shew how well you would undergo 
 trials from which you are exempt, shew it by your 
 way of sustaining those to which you are subjected* 
 
 Gay Spirits are always spoken of as a sign of 
 happiness, though every one knows to the contrary. 
 A cockchafer is never so lively, as when a pin is 
 stuck through his tail ; and a hot floor makes Bruin 
 dance. 
 
 Happiness is no laughing matter. 
 
 Disgust, contempt, and laughter are nearly akin ; 
 he who enjoys nothing and values nothing, will 
 laugh at everything. 
 
 Of all secondary motives, there are, certainly, 
 none that have more influence, on faith, and feeling, 
 and practice, than the example and sympathy of 
 others. Where indeed is the man, who can presume 
 to say, that his faith would be equally firm, if no 
 one held it beside himself? or that his feelings and 
 his conduct, would be the same, if he found that, in 
 both, he stood perfectly single ? 
 
 P2 
 
212 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 To take the same steps with another, in widely- 
 different circumstances, is to depart from, not to 
 follow, his example. 
 
 It may be said, almost without qualification, that 
 Wisdom consists in the ready and accurate percep- 
 tion of analogies. Without the former quality, 
 knowledge of the past is uninstructive ; without the 
 latter, it is deceptive. 
 
 • There is a kind of man, that may be called the 
 mirror of a wise man ; which gives a perfect repre- 
 sentation, only left-handed. He knows that a wise 
 man is neither too hasty nor too slow — too trustful 
 nor too distrustful — keeps the mean between timidity 
 and rashness, &c. ; and so he resolves to have just 
 enough, and not too much, of each quality ; — only 
 he takes the wrong occasions for each; cautious, 
 where he ought to be bold, and daring, where he 
 ought to be cautious ; distrusting those worthy of 
 confidence, and trusting those who are not ; dilatory, 
 where promptitude is called for, and hasty, where he 
 should take time ; obstinate, where concession would 
 be right, and yielding, where firmness is needed ; in 
 short, acting like Hans with Grettel, who stuck a 
 knife in his sleeve, because that was the proper place 
 for the needle ; and put a kid in his pocket, because 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 213 
 
 that was the place for a knife/' &c. Such is the 
 left-handed representation of a wise man. 
 
 A man who, in conjunction with other qualities, is 
 remarked for a simple and natural way of speaking 
 and acting, and whose opinions and conduct are 
 marked by independence and originality, will, per- 
 haps, be admired and imitated by others, who for- 
 get that an imitation of one who is no imitator, 
 must, in one most important point, be quite unlike ; 
 and that one who does not think for himself, must 
 differ greatly from one who does. 
 
 People in general judge of every separate action 
 as good or bad, and seem to have a very imperfect 
 idea of character. Virtuous or vicious are terms not 
 strictly applicable to any action, but to the agent, 
 and his disposition and design, of which the acts are 
 only the indicative. Thus, if a man be found guilty 
 of a cool and deliberate falsehood, or of a designed 
 malicious misrepresentation, and equivocation (which 
 is a lie guarded), his good actions might, in other 
 respects, be beneficial ; but they no more deserve the 
 name of virtuous, than the services of rooks in rid- 
 ding the field of grubs, or of vultures in draining 
 away carrion. 
 
214 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 A lobster (and the same may be seen in a prawn) 
 always faces you, as if ready to maintain bis post, 
 and do battle ; but when you approach, be gives a 
 flap with bis tail, and flies back two or three feet ; 
 and so on, again and again; always shewing his 
 assailants a bold front, and always retreating. — -I 
 have met with many such men. 
 
 There are snakes as venomous as the rattle- snake, 
 only they have no warning rattle. 
 
 There are some rare instances, and as curious as 
 rare, of men who, from their youth up, have lost so 
 little, and gained so little, that at any age, they are 
 neither less nor more than clever boys, with all the 
 mental and bodily elasticity of a lively youth, and 
 with all the mental immaturity and unsteadiness of 
 thought likewise. Their' s is a perpetual spring-time, 
 which keeps everything fresh and green, and ripens 
 nothing. 
 
 " A knave is one knave, but a fool is many." A 
 w r eak man, in a place of authority, will often do more 
 mischief than a bad man. For an intelligent, but 
 dishonest man, will do only as much hurt as serves 
 his own purpose ; but a weak man is likely to be 
 made the tool of several dishonest men. A lion only 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 215 
 
 kills as many as will supply him with food ; but a 
 horse, if ridden by several warlike horsemen, may 
 prove the death of more than ten lions would kill. - 
 
 To attempt to convince some men by even the 
 strongest reasons and most cogent arguments, would 
 be like King Lear putting a letter before a man 
 without eyes, and saying, " Mark but the penning 
 of it;' 7 to which he answers, " Were all the letters 
 suns I could not see one," 
 
 Some persons have an excessive dread of being- 
 misled by the eloquence of another. A man has 
 been known to shun the acquaintance of another, of 
 whom he knew no harm, solely from his dread of 
 him as a man who, he imagined, " could prove any-, 
 thing." Men of a low tone of morality, judging 
 from themselves, take for granted, that whoever 
 "has a giant's strength will not scruple to use it 
 like a giant." 
 
 It seems to be commonly taken for granted, that 
 whenever the feelings are excited they are, of course, 
 over -excited. Now, so far is this from being true — 
 so far is it from being the fact — that men are 
 universally, or even generally, in danger of being 
 misled in conduct by an excess of feeling, that the 
 
216 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 reverse is, at least, as often the case. The more 
 generous feeling, such as Compassion, Gratitude, 
 Devotion, nay, even rational and rightly -directed 
 Self Love, Hope, and Fear, are oftener defective 
 than excessive : and that, even in the estimation of 
 the parties themselves, if they are well-principled, 
 judicious, and candid, men. Do the feelings of 
 such a man, when contemplating, for instance, 
 the doctrines and the promises of the Christian 
 Religion, usually come up to the standard which he 
 himself thinks reasonable? And not only in the 
 case of Religion, but in many others also, a man 
 will often wonder at, and be rather ashamed of, the 
 coldness and languor of his own feelings, compared 
 with what the occasion calls for : and even make 
 efforts to rouse in himself such emotions as he is 
 conscious his reason would approve. But the feel- 
 ings, propensities, and sentiments of our nature, 
 are not, like the Intellectual Faculties, under the 
 direct control of Volition. The distinction is much 
 the same as between the voluntary, and the involun- 
 tary, actions of different parts of the body. One 
 may, by a deliberate act of the Will, set himself to 
 calculate, — to reason, — to recall historical facts, &c, 
 just as he does to move any of his limbs : on the 
 other hand, a Volition to hope or fear, to love or 
 hate, to feel devotion or pity, and the like, is as 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 217 
 
 ineffectual as to will that the pulsations of the heart, 
 or the secretions of the liver, should be altered. 
 Good sense suggests, in each case, an analogous 
 remedy. It is in vain to form a Will to quicken or 
 lower the circulation ; but we may, by a voluntary 
 act, swallow a medicine which will have that effect ; 
 and so also, though we cannot, by a direct act of 
 volition, excite or allay any Sentiment or Emotion, 
 we may, by a voluntary act, fill the understanding 
 with such thoughts as shall operate on the Feelings. 
 Such being the state of the case, why is it that the 
 idea of unfair artifice should be so commonly asso- 
 ciated, not only with Rhetoric in general, but most 
 especially with that part of it known as the address 
 to the Feelings or Active Principles of our nature, and 
 usually stigmatized as " An Appeal to the Passions 
 instead of the Reason ?" — though no other artifice is 
 necessarily employed by the Orator than a man of 
 sense makes use of towards himself. Many different 
 circumstances combine to produce this effect. In the 
 first place, the intellectual powers being, as has been 
 said, under the immediate control of the "Will, which 
 the Feelings, Sentiments, &c, are not, an address 
 to the Understanding is consequently from the na- 
 ture of the case, direct; to the Feelings, indirect. 
 The conclusion you wish to draw, you may state 
 plainly, as such ; and avow your intention of pro- 
 
218 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 ducing reasons which shall effect a conviction of that 
 conclusion : you may even entreat the hearer's steady 
 attention to the point to be proved, and to the pro- 
 cess of argument by which it is to be established. 
 But this, for the reasons above mentioned, is widely 
 different from the process by which we operate on 
 the Feelings. No passion, sentiment, or emotion, 
 is excited by thinking about it, and attending to it ; 
 but by thinking about, and attending to, such ob- 
 jects as are calculated to awaken it. Hence it is, 
 that the more oblique and indirect process, which 
 takes place when we are addressing ourselves to this 
 part of the human mind, is apt to suggest the idea 
 of trick and artifice ; although it is, as I have said, 
 just such as a wise man practises towards himself. 
 
 When, however, it is said, that a good and wise 
 man often has to act the part of an orator towards 
 himself, in respect of that very point — the excite- 
 ment of the Feelings — it must not be forgotten that 
 there is danger of a man's being misled by his own 
 ingenuity — of exercising on himself, when under the 
 influence of some passion, a most pernicious oratori- 
 cal power, by pleading the cause, as it were, before 
 himself, of that passion. And the man of superior 
 ingenuity and eloquence, will do this more skilfully 
 than an ordinary man, and will thence be likely to 
 be the more effectually self-deceived : for though he 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 219 
 
 may be superior to the other in judgment, as well as 
 in ingenuity, it is to be remembered that, while his 
 judgment is likely to be, in his own cause, biassed 
 and partially blinded, his ingenuity is called forth to 
 the utmost ; and though it requires greater skill to 
 mislead him than an ordinary man, he himself pos- 
 sesses that superior skill. It is no feeble blow that 
 will destroy a giant ; but if a giant resolve to kill 
 himself, it is a giant that deals the blow. 
 
 The like takes place if it be anger, selfish cu- 
 pidity, unjust partiality in favour of a relative or 
 friend, party- spirit, or any other passion, that may 
 be operating. For, universally, men are but too 
 apt to take more pains in justifying their propensities 
 than it would cost to control them ; and a man of 
 superior powers will often be, in this way, entrapped 
 by his own ingenuity, like a spider entangled in the 
 web she has herself spun. There is no one whom he 
 is likely so much, and -so hurtfully, to mislead as 
 himself, if he be not sedulously on his guard against 
 this self-deceit. 
 
 If a man, who feels himself capable of generous 
 and exalted conduct (I do not mean, feels that he 
 shall always act thus, — for who dares promise him- 
 self this ? — but who feels that it is not beyond his 
 conception, or unnatural to him), measures others 
 
220 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 by his own standard, he must be first disappointed, 
 and then dissatisfied, with almost all the world, 
 and if he then comes to measure himself by their 
 standard, and to be content with coming up to it, it 
 is evident he will act below what he is capable of, 
 and what is consequently expected of him; for every 
 man shall be judged " according to that he hath, and 
 not according to that he hath not." His only way, 
 then, is to fancy himself the only generous being in 
 the world. I say to fancy, because there is no reason 
 he should not believe in the abstract, that there are 
 others ; but he should never expect it, in any one 
 instance, till it has been most copiously and clearly 
 proved by experience. It may be objected that this 
 will make him think over highly of himself, and 
 "despise others." I deny both — for he is not to 
 think his conduct better than others, only his capa- 
 bilities ; and thus, feeling that more is required of 
 him, as being placed in a higher walk of duty, he 
 will even be the less satisfied with his conformity to 
 so lofty a standard. But, though his frequent failures 
 will humble him, yet, as a fair and due sense of 
 dignity, which arises from a consciousness of su- 
 perior station, is not only right, but needful, in a 
 gentleman, a peer or a king, to make them fill 
 their stations gracefully ; so it is here : that proper 
 sense of his own moral dignity, is necessary for 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 221 
 
 a great and generous disposition, if he would act 
 up to his character. The excess thereof will be 
 checked by habits of true piety, which cannot but 
 make him feel his own littleness, in the strongest 
 manner ; and by continually asking himself " Who 
 made thee to differ from another ?" or, " What 
 hast thou that thou didst not receive ?" he will 
 be guarded against despising his inferiors. For ge- 
 nerous and ungenerous pride are, not only different 
 (as all would allow), but, in most points, opposite : 
 a man of the former character makes allowances for 
 others, which he will not make for himself; the 
 latter, allowances for himself, which he will not for 
 others : he is ready enough to think that this, and 
 that, is not good enough for him; but the other 
 thinks a base action not good enough for him, and 
 does not regard his superiority as a privilege to act 
 in a manner which, in his view, would degrade him 
 from it ; and while doing the most generous actions 
 himself, as things of course, he will make the 
 readiest allowance for others' deficiencies. He will 
 do good without calculating upon much gratitude ; 
 yet will be grateful, with most generous ardour, 
 himself. To take any unfair advantages, or even 
 to take all fair ones — to press his rights to the 
 utmost — to press close to the limits of what is 
 wrong, and anxiously consider whether he may be 
 
222 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS, 
 
 allowed to do this, or omit that, — he disdains and 
 would feel degraded by it. 
 
 Some men are so excessively acute at detecting 
 imperfections, that they scarcely notice excellencies. 
 In looking at a peacock's train, they would fix on 
 every spot where the feathers were worn, or the 
 colours faded, and see nothing else. 
 
 Men, in general, are apt to consider him as the 
 wisest who professes to explain the most ; and him 
 as the most ignorant who is the most ready to con- 
 fess his ignorance. 
 
 Those who are ambitious of originality, and aim 
 at it, are necessarily led by others, since they seek 
 to be different from them. 
 
 There is many a rashly -cautious man. A moth 
 rushes into a flame, and a horse obstinately stands 
 still in a stable on fire ; and both are burnt. Some 
 men are prone to moth-rashness, and some to horse- 
 rashness, and some to both. 
 
 The generality of readers give a man credit for as 
 much, and only as much, superiority as he assumes ; 
 and conclude anything to be contemptible which they 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 223 
 
 see treated with great contempt ; unless indeed that 
 the writer assures his readers over and over again, 
 and with strong observations, that a work is utterly 
 contemptible. In this case they begin, at least some- 
 times, to suspect that it is not, This is like some 
 of the over- done bulletins which annihilate a corps 
 of the enemy to-day, and then rout them again to- 
 morrow, and then again announce a third victory 
 over them next day, till at last people begin to doubt 
 whether they have gained any victory at all. 
 
 One sometimes meets with an " ill-used man;" a 
 man with whom everything goes wrong ; who is 
 always thinking how happy he should be to exchange 
 his present wretched situation for such and such 
 another ; and when he has obtained it, finding that 
 he is far worse off than before, and seeking a remove ; 
 and as soon as he has obtained that, discovering that 
 his last situation was just the thing for him, and 
 was beginning to open to him a prospect of unbroken 
 happiness, far beyond his present state, &c. To 
 him a verse of Shakespere well applies : — 
 
 " O thoughts of men accurst ! 
 
 Past, and to come, seem "best, things present worst." 
 
 One is reminded of a man travelling in the African 
 desert surrounded by mirage, with a (seeming) lake 
 behind him, and a lake before him, which, when he 
 
224 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 has reached, he finds to be still the same barren and 
 scorching sand. A friend aptly remarked M that 
 man's happiness has no present tense." 
 
 If a thing is right to be done, it must be right 
 that somebody should do it. Is there any reason 
 why I should not be that somebody ? 
 
 There may be great faults in reference to small 
 things. 
 
 The peculiarities of women dawn at so very early 
 an age, and are so much less variable than their 
 education, that I cannot believe them to be entirely, 
 or even chiefly, artificial. Even their education 
 itself, is, in a great degree, to be traced up to 
 nature; for, if Eve had the education of her own 
 daughters, they would, of course, learn to think, 
 feel, and act as she had been taught by nature, and 
 so on. 
 
 It may be affirmed as a general rule, that women 
 have much less totality than men. 
 
 Woman is like the reed, which bends to every 
 breeze, but breaks not in the tempest. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 225 
 
 Shakespere has, I think, in great measure reversed 
 the male and female characters in Macbeth and his 
 wife. He is readily open to the impressions of fear, 
 pity, remorse, &c, and yet bears up against them 
 to the last. She is unmoved, and when she does at 
 length feel, she dies of it 
 
 Mushroom-celebrity is the result of puzzle-headed- 
 ness. A man hardly can rise to very sudden popu- 
 larity without being (along with some cleverness), 
 somewhat puzzle-headed. For the way to rise to 
 rapid celebrity is to be a plausible advocate of pre- 
 vailing doctrines ; and especially to defend, with 
 some eloquence and novelty, something which men 
 like to believe, but have no good reason for believing. 
 And this a skilful dissembler will never do so well 
 as one who is himself the dupe of his own fallacies, 
 and brings them forward, therefore, with an air of 
 simple earnestness which implies his being, with 
 whatever ingenuity and eloquence, puzzle-headed. 
 A very clear-headed man must always perceive some 
 of the truths which are generally overlooked, and 
 must have detected some of the popular fallacies ; in 
 short, he must be somewhat in advance of the ol 
 woXkol of his contemporaries : and if he has the 
 courage to speak his mind fairly, he must wait till 
 the next generation, at least, for his popularity. 
 
 Q 
 
226 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 The fame of clever, but puzzle-headed, advocates of 
 vulgar errors will be like a mushroom which springs 
 up in a night and rots in a day ; while that of the 
 clear-headed lover of truth will be a tree " seris 
 factura nepotibus umbram" He must take his 
 chance for the result. If he is wrong. in the doc- 
 trines he maintains, or the measures he proposes, 
 at least it is not for the sake of immediate popular 
 favour. If he is right, it will be found out in time, 
 though perhaps not in his time. The preparers of 
 the Mummies were (Herodotus says) driven out of 
 the house, by the family who had engaged their 
 services, with execrations and stones ; but their 
 work remains sound after three thousand years. 
 
 If human nature were not, always and everywhere, 
 in the most important points, substantially the same, 
 history could furnish no instruction ; if men's man- 
 ners and conduct, circumstantially and externally, 
 were not infinitely varied in various times and regions, 
 hardly any one could fail to profit by that instruc- 
 tion. As it is, much diligence is called for in recog- 
 nizing, as it were, the same plant in different stages 
 of its growth, and in all the varieties resulting from 
 climate and culture, soil and season. 
 
 The use of estimating rightly the temptations of 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 227 
 
 others, is in order the better to understand our own. 
 If we look only to the mote in our brother's eye, no 
 improvement in knowledge can answer any purpose 
 but to increase our condemnation. 
 
 When the sun's rays are let into a room, clouds 
 of dust will be seen floating in the air which before 
 were unseen, and. various stains and spots will 
 appear, which were before unnoticed. So it is with 
 the spiritual and moral light of the Gospel, by which, 
 as the conscience becomes more tender, more vigilant, 
 and better regulated, we shall be given increased 
 insight into our own defects. 
 
 The distinct uses of Scripture, in all that relates 
 to morals, and of natural conscience, may be illus- 
 trated by the comparison of a sun-dial and a clock. 
 The clock has the advantage of being always at 
 hand to be consulted at any hour of the day or 
 night. But then the clock is liable to go wrong, 
 and vary from the true time. And it has no power 
 in itself of correcting its own errors, so that these 
 may go on increasing to any extent, unless it be 
 from time to time regulated by the dial, which is 
 alone the unerring guide. Thus our consciences are 
 liable to deceive us even to the greatest extent, or 
 to give wrong judgment, if they are not continually 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 corrected and regulated by a reference to the Word 
 of God, which alone — like his Sun in the natural 
 world — affords an infallible guide. But while pro- 
 fessing to take Scripture as such a guide, we should 
 beware, when we consult it, of acting like a man who 
 should pretend to regulate his clocks and watches by 
 the sun-dial, and should go to it in the night time 
 with a candle which would throw the shadow which- 
 ever way he would. 
 
 All virtuous actions are actions of the mind. 
 From overlooking the truth, so obvious when stated, 
 that outward actions are only so far morally good or 
 evil as they are a sign of what is within. Casuists, 
 in particular, have often fallen into hurtful errors by 
 distinguishing venial from mortal sins, according to 
 the amount, for instance, of money stolen or the like, 
 rather than according to the disposition of the agent. 
 Indeed so irregularly and promiscuously introduced, 
 in general, are the philosophical and popular senses 
 of the words " moral and immoral, vicious and vir- 
 tuous," that while every one would allow modesty, 
 gentleness, liberality, &c, to be " moral virtues;" 
 yet a man would not usually be said to lead an 
 immoral life, who was clear of all offences against 
 the laws, and also chaste and temperate ; though he 
 might indulge the worldly, and the more truly dia- 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 229 
 
 bolical propensities, such as covetousness, vanity, 
 falsehood, arrogance, envy, malice and cruelty. 
 
 The very definition of a moral duty implies its 
 universal obligation, independent of all enactment 
 A positive precept concerns a thing that is right 
 because commanded ; a moral precept respects a 
 thing commanded because it is right. A Jew, for 
 instance, was bound both to honour his parents, and 
 also to worship at Jerusalem, but the former w^s 
 commanded because it was right ; and the latter was 
 right because it was commanded. 
 
 Some persons seem to submit to the laws of their 
 country in the same manner as they do to the 
 changes of the seasons, and the rising and setting 
 of the sun, merely because they cannot help it ; and 
 not as any part of religious and moral duty ; not- 
 withstanding the commands so forcibly laid down in 
 Scripture to "be subject to the powers that be, as 
 ordained of God; not only for wrath, but also for 
 conscience sake." 
 
 The king is entitled to more obedience than a 
 justice of the peace, but is not more entitled to 
 obedience. For we are to " submit ourselves to 
 every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake.' 7 If 
 
230 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 you owe fivepence to one man, and five pounds to 
 another, you are equally bound to pay both debts, 
 though the debts themselves are not equal. 
 
 Right and Obligation must be reciprocal ; what- 
 ever the lawful magistrate has a right to enjoin, the 
 subject must be bound to obey. 
 
 It is remarkable that two opposite extremes with 
 respect to Law, are sometimes found in the same 
 person : the one is the extreme of not regarding 
 obedience to it as a duty, of not regarding anything 
 as right because commanded, or wrong because for- 
 bidden ; and the other is the extreme of regarding 
 it as the whole duty, of looking only to what is 
 commanded and forbidden by law, from a persuasion 
 that in any proceeding allowed by law there can be 
 nothing morally wrong. At one time, if it suits his 
 convenience to infringe positive regulations, he will 
 plead the law of nature, and urge, for instance, that 
 wild animals are the natural property of any one 
 who can seize them ; or that all men have a natural 
 right to import whatever goods they please, without 
 making any payment, except to the seller ; and that 
 though the law has limited these rights, and guarded 
 the limitation by penalties, yet if he chooses to risk 
 the penalty, he is doing nothing morally wrong : 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 231 
 
 forgetting that whatever property he possesses is his 
 by the law of the land and by nothing else : and yet 
 at another time, perhaps, the same man, when press- 
 ing his legal rights to the most unfair extreme, will 
 justify his hard dealing by urging that he does 
 nothing contrary to law. 
 
 Of all abuses of law, the greatest and most per- 
 nicious, because to it all the rest may generally be 
 referred, is the setting up of the laws as a system of 
 morality, and making them the guide of our con- 
 science, which a law never can be. And for these 
 reasons: 1st, it omits whatever is not an object of 
 compulsion, and whatever cannot be clearly defined ; 
 2nd, its punishments are not proportioned to the 
 moral guilt of offences ; 3rd, it looks only to the 
 outward action, not to the heart. This error is the 
 more dangerous, because there is so much of truth 
 incorporated with it. It is certainly true, that we 
 ought to do what the law enjoins ; and hence the 
 mistake of supposing that this is sufficient, though 
 we do nothing more. It is true, that we ought not 
 to do what the laws forbid ; the error is in reckoning 
 everything right that is not forbidden by them, and 
 everything that is, as wrong in exact proportion, to 
 the punishment they denounce against it. 
 
 Men are apt to think, that because the mode and 
 
232 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 occasion of undefined duties, such as contribution to 
 charitable objects, are left to their discretion, it is 
 therefore left to their choice to practise them or not. 
 They seem to think, that he who is responsible 
 only to God, has no responsibility at all. 
 
 Christian motive makes (so to speak) duties of the 
 most ordinary actions of life, as done " unto the 
 Lord and not unto man;" even of those which, done 
 on worldly motives by worldly men, would have 
 nothing virtuous in them. u Whether he eats or 
 drinks, or whatsoever he does, he does all to the 
 glory of God." 
 
 A life cannot be said to be a Christian life that 
 does not spring from Christian faith and Christian 
 principle, any more than brute animals can- be called 
 religious, though conforming to the design of their 
 Maker, and acting suitably to the nature with which 
 He has endowed them. No one would commend a 
 machine for industry because it is in perpetual motion ; 
 or a torrent for courage because it rushes impetuously 
 along. 
 
 It is not enough that the faith should be sound 
 and the conduct right also, unless that conduct be 
 made to arise out of that faith. It is not enough 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 233 
 
 that the inward works of a clock are well- constructed, 
 and also the dial-plate and hands ; the one must act 
 on the other ; the works must regulate the move- 
 ments of the hands. 
 
 The Christian serves the only Master who takes 
 the effort alone for the deed. 
 
 A son who loves his father so well as to be ready 
 to die for him, is as truly loving a child as he who 
 actually dies for his parent ; and he that is ready to 
 forsake all for Christ, is as dear to Christ, as if he 
 had actually forsaken all for Him. 
 
 So far from any good works being intrinsically 
 meritorious, there are none that can be even intrin- 
 sically virtuous. To be acceptable in God's sight, 
 they must be " the fruits of the Spirit," the fruits 
 of the branches which grow on u the True Vine," 
 without whom we can do nothing. The branch 
 cannot boast itself independent of the vine, even 
 Christ, on whose body we are engrafted through 
 faith, and by whom we are enabled to bring forth 
 fruit. 
 
 The absurdity involved in the idea of being reli- 
 gious by proxy — of having good works done for us 
 
234 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 — would be obvious, i£ men would remember that 
 our divine Master can have no need of the services 
 of his creatures. "Can a man/' asks Job, "be 
 profitable unto God, as a man that is wise may be 
 profitable unto himself? . ... or is it gain to him 
 that thou makest thy ways perfect." The good 
 works, therefore, which he requires of us must be 
 entirely for our own benefit, and not for His, and 
 designed as a training and exercise in order to our 
 moral improvement. This distinction between works 
 required for their own value to the requirer, and 
 those which are required for the exercise of a learner 
 is very obvious : for instance, if I offer a map for 
 sale, it is nothing to any one whether I draw it 
 myself, or get another to do it for me, provided the 
 map is a good one ; but if a schoolmaster sets a boy 
 to draw a map, he would punish him for getting 
 another boy to do it for him ; because he values the 
 map merely for the pupil's proficiency, as he could 
 draw a better map himself, or buy it at a shop. 
 Now as there can be no doubt that this latter case 
 answers to ours in reference to our Divine Master, 
 it must be a mere groundless fancy to think that 
 another person can perform our duty for us, or that 
 his good works, real or supposed, can be imputed to 
 us, and considered as done by ourselves. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 235 
 
 Though a man may go beyond what is required of 
 some other men, no one can go beyond his own duty, 
 It is plain, therefore, that no human virtue can have 
 merit in God's sight, or any natural claim to reward. 
 
 Some persons have fallen into perplexity and 
 mistake on the subject of the rewards promised in 
 Scripture, and the merit which some suppose good 
 works to possess in God's sight, An illustration 
 from the case of a school will serve to explain it. 
 Suppose, for instance, some rich and liberal man 
 should found a school for the children of his poor 
 neighbours ; and suppose that besides building a 
 school-house, and providing teachers and school- 
 books, he should also provide prizes for such of the 
 scholars as should behave w r ell, and make good pro- 
 ficiency in their learning. Every one would under- 
 stand that the children and their parents ought to be 
 very grateful to such a patron for his kind bounty. 
 And the children would easily be made to under- 
 stand that they ought to shew their thankfulness by 
 taking pains to profit by the advantages afforded 
 them. And when it was said that these prizes were 
 to be the reward of good behaviour, no one would be 
 so stupid as to think that those who gained them 
 could claim them as something earned by themselves, 
 as a matter of right, and for w* hich they owed no 
 
236 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS, 
 
 thanks to any one. All would understand that the 
 proposing of the prizes was from the free bounty of 
 the kind patron ; and that the proficiency in learning 
 of the children thus rewarded was no benefit to him, 
 but only to them ; and that it was entirely for their 
 sakes that they were encouraged to take pains in 
 learning. But they would fully calculate on re- 
 ceiving the promised rewards in case of good conduct ; 
 though not as what they had originally any claim 
 to, but because it had been promised. For though 
 the offer of the prize came from the patron's free 
 bounty, the fulfilment of a promise once made is a 
 matter of justice. 
 
 And accordingly we read that God is not un- 
 righteous (unjust) to forget our work or labour of 
 love, not that He was originally bound in justice to 
 reward any good works of ours, or that they can be 
 a benefit to Him, but because He has graciously 
 promised to be a " rewarder of them that diligently 
 seek Him." The offer of a reward to any of his 
 creatures is a free gift of his bounty, but we may 
 trust to his justice to make good what He has said. 
 
 If you could imagine the patron of a school such 
 as we have been describing, to have supplied to the 
 children not only a school-room, and teachers, and 
 books, but also the eyes with which they read the 
 books, and the ears with which they hear what is 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 237 
 
 said to them, and the brain by which they under- 
 stand it, then the case would answer more closely 
 to that of ourselves in reference to our Maker, " in 
 whom we live, and move, and have our being." For 
 He has supplied to us all our powers of mind and 
 body, and He requires us, as He certainly has a 
 full right to do, to employ them in devoting ourselves 
 to His service. And He has held oat to us the 
 promise of the prize of our high calling, the " crown 
 of glory which the Lord the righteous Judge shall 
 give at that day unto all that love his appearing." 
 
 To this we could have no natural claim ; and 
 though we may fully rely on His justice for the 
 fulfilment of His promises, all that we can receive 
 from Him is not the less a free and bountiful gift, 
 since the promises themselves proceed from His 
 bounty alone. 
 
 Some Christians admire giving up something, un- 
 der the notion of its being for Christ, when they are 
 not called upon to give it up ; which is just as if a 
 son were, without any reason in the world, to stab 
 himself in order to shew his affection for his father. 
 — This is a theatric kind of perfection, of which the 
 Apostles knew nothing. 
 
 Sufferings are only really admirable when God's 
 
238 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 providence calls us to undergo them in the path of 
 duty. But men are apt to forget this, and to con- 
 found together the thought of merit and of pain, be- 
 cause they see the two things often joined together ; 
 and when for no good reason at all, they inflict suf- 
 fering on themselves, they think they are imitating 
 Paul, forgetting that it was forced upon him. When 
 our Lord says, u Let him take up his cross and fol- 
 low me," He draws His metaphor from the Roman 
 custom of condemning criminals to carry their own 
 cross, and would teach His disciples to endure pa- 
 tiently whatever sufferings may be laid on them in 
 their Christian course. The precept is not, it should 
 be observed, "Let him bear a cross" or "the cross," 
 but his cross, z. e., that which is allotted to him. 
 So also in the parable of a man going to build, and 
 of a king about to make war, and who do not fail, if 
 they are prudent to count the cost beforehand, we 
 may observe that the cost to be computed is the un- 
 avoidable expense of the undertaking. They do not 
 regard the expenditure as a thing desirable in itself, 
 and to be sought on its own account, or incurred 
 unnecessarily ; but they consider how much it is 
 requisite to sacrifice in order to accomplish the ob- 
 ject. 
 
 And the very strength of some of our Lord's ex- 
 pressions, the hyperbolical and paradoxical form 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 239 
 
 which they often assume, serves, and was doubtless 
 designed to serve, the purpose (in this, as in many 
 other cases) of guarding us against mistaking his 
 meaning. If He had bid us merely " hate " riches, 
 and ease, and comfort, He might have been under- 
 stood to mean that Christians would be the more ac- 
 ceptable to Him for renouncing private property and 
 exposing their bodies to the sufferings of cold and 
 hunger, and scourging themselves with knotted 
 cords according to the ' discipline 5 (as it is called) of 
 some fanatic, or, like the Hindoos of this day, plung- 
 ing into their flesh iron hooks, by which they are 
 suspended and violently swung round. But when He 
 says that a man must "hate his father and mother/ ' 
 and all those to whom duty as well as affection most 
 bind him, " yea, and his own life also/' we plainly 
 see, since He evidently could not have been enjoining 
 both unnatural cruelty and suicide, that He must 
 have been inculcating the duty of being ready to sacri- 
 fice our strongest attachments, when called on to do 
 so in his cause, when regard for friends, or love of 
 life, shall stand in the way of our devotedness to 
 Him, — when, as it would often happen in the times 
 of persecution, a man was obliged to make choice 
 between the two, and renounce either the Gospel or 
 the most valued good of this life and life itself. 
 And fully did the Apostles act up to the spirit of 
 
240 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 their Lord's instructions, ready to " pluck out the 
 eye," or u cut off the hand/ 7 if it "offend," but not 
 otherwise ; ready each to bear his cross — his own 
 cross — the burden of affliction which Providence 
 might see fit should be laid on him ; but no other. 
 We find them, in their Christian warfare, acting the 
 part of good and faithful soldiers ; whose duty is to 
 endure cheerfully hardship and toil, to brave wounds 
 and death, when summoned to do so in the course of 
 service, — to shrink from nothing that they are com- 
 manded to do or to bear ; but never to expose them- 
 selves wantonly to danger when not commanded, 
 nor to inflict on themselves, merely in ostentation of 
 their fortitude, any sufferings or privations that have 
 no other object. 
 
 The word "mortify," in our ordinary language, is 
 commonly applied to any kind of suffering, simply 
 as suffering ; in which sense, either scanty or un- 
 pleasant food, or lying on a bed of stones, scourging, 
 wearing of hair cloth, or any gratuitous endurance 
 of pain, would be called mortification. But the 
 word mortify originally signifies — as well as the two 
 Greek words of which it is a translation — to "put to 
 death." And it is invariably used by the Sacred 
 "Writers (doubtless in allusion to the death of Christ 
 for his people, whom He came to " save from their 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 241 
 
 sins") in the sense of suppressing and subduing sin- 
 ful propensities, and bringing the body into subjec- 
 tion to the Spirit. For instance, " Mortify your 
 members which are upon the earth," " If ye through 
 the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall 
 live." And in the same sense, " They that are 
 Christ's have crucified the flesh with its affections 
 and lusts." 
 
 That the " fastings " of which Paul speaks in the 
 Second Epistle to the Corinthians (xi. 27) is an in- 
 voluntary act, and not any kind of religious exer- 
 cise, is plain from the context ; as he is manifestly 
 enumerating, not his devotional practices, but his 
 hardships and trials. His " fastings" are mentioned 
 not along with prayers and meditations, but with 
 "perils," and " stripes," and " stoning." And it is 
 observable also, that the " watchings" which he like- 
 wise mentions in the same place, have no reference 
 to any sort of voluntary exercise. In our version, 
 indeed, the word corresponds with that in our Lord's 
 exhortation to " watch and pray ;" but in the origi- 
 nal, quite different words are employed. In the ex- 
 hortation, to watch {^pY(opeLv) is to be vigilant like 
 a sentinel ; in Paul's description of his sufferings ; 
 "watching" (ap^vwvla) means "privation of sleep," 
 4 w ant of repose." And the same words are em- 
 it 
 
242 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 ployed in the same manner, when he speaks in an- 
 other place of being "in distresses, in stripes, in 
 imprisonments, in tumults, in labours, in watehings, 
 in fastings." 
 
 It is evident that self-discipline, the bringing the 
 body into subjection to the spirit, was not regarded 
 by our Lord as the legitimate purpose of u fasting," 
 (a notion which did not arise till several ages after ;) 
 for in that point of view the disciples would have 
 needed it while their Lord was with them as well as 
 afterwards ; and thus, his reply to the reproachful 
 enquhy why his disciples did not practise fasting, — 
 u Can the children of the bride chamber fast while 
 the bridegroom is with them?" — would have been 
 nothing to the purpose. The next clause, " When 
 the bridegroom is taken away, then shall they fast," 
 contains no precept as to what his disciples were 
 enjoined to do : only a prophecy of what would take 
 place in the days when to mourn would be, — not 
 indeed a thing commanded, but natural and suitable 
 for Christ's disciples. Those days were the interval 
 of desponding sorrow between his crucifixion and 
 resurrection, and not, as some have thought, the life 
 of hardship and privation and suffering which awaited 
 them ; for these were a kind of trial which He pre- 
 pared them not to mourn for, but to endure joyfully. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 243 
 
 " Blessed are ye when men shall persecute you for 
 righteousness sake .... rejoice in that day, and leap 
 for joy." And well did the Apostles learn and 
 practise, and inculcate on their converts, the lesson 
 He had taught them. " My brethren, count it all 
 jog when ye fall into divers temptations ;" that is, 
 trials by persecution. "They rejoiced that they 
 were counted worthy to suffer them for his sake." 
 u l am filled/ ' says Paul, "with comfort; I am 
 exceeding joyful in all our tribulation." 
 
 That class of superstitious practices, painful suf- 
 ferings, voluntarily undergone, — such as fasting, 
 scourging, watching, filthy dress, or nakedness,—- 
 springs, partly from the tendency to confound merit 
 with pain, and that which is, in some cases, a mark 
 of true piety, with true piety itself; and partly 
 from such sufferings being regarded as necessary to 
 atone for sin. We are naturally averse from the 
 company of God; not only because we are unlike 
 Him, but because we feel that we have offended 
 Him, and may expect punishment. Conscience not 
 only upbraids us for what we do amiss, but — to use 
 the words of Bishop Butler, — " if not forcibly stopped 
 naturally, and always, of course, goes on to antici- 
 pate a higher and more effectual sentence, which 
 shall hereafter second and affirm its own." Hence 
 
 b 2 
 
244 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 we find that, among the very heathens, there was in 
 wicked men often a keen sense of having deserved 
 vengeance, and a vague solicitous looking round, as 
 it were, of the mind in every direction, expecting 
 that, from some point or other, vengeance would 
 assuredly overtake them; and a starting at every 
 unlucky accident, as if it were " a judgment for their 
 sins." This notion of something being wanted to 
 appease the wrath of heaven for past transgressions, 
 as distinct from reformation for the time to come, is 
 probably one great source of the immorality of the 
 heathen religions. Men's thoughts were turned away 
 from reformation for the future to atonement for the 
 past. The anger of the higher powers, already 
 incurred, was the foremost thought, and the means 
 of averting that were the great object of anxiety. 
 Now it is quite true (as we know from revelation), 
 that, though the good and merciful God cannot thirst 
 for revenge like the weakest of His creatures, yet 
 there was something more required than mere repent- 
 ance on our part ; not indeed to make us objects of 
 God's mercy, for that we were when He gave his 
 Son to die for us, but to make it wise and just for 
 Him to treat us with favour as his dear children. 
 But the mischief was, that men's minds fixed them- 
 selves almost wholly on that something more ; and, 
 pursued by a continual dread of punishment, they 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 245 
 
 sought, by self-inflicted penances and hardships, or 
 costly offerings and sacrifices, to satisfy the divine 
 justice. The issue was, that religion came to wear 
 the shape of a plan for tolerating vice at the expense 
 of paying certain fines, and suffering certain penal- 
 ties ; and this will be, in the end, the shape of any 
 religion which regards sin as something still to be 
 atoned for by man himself, in the practice of rites 
 different from ordinary right conduct. Christianity 
 met the difficulty by teaching us that an atonement 
 has been made ; but an atonement in making which 
 we have no share. It tells us that sin (considered 
 as an obstacle to full pardon on repentance), has 
 been so for ever put away, as that nothing remains 
 for us to do, but to accept the offer of eternal life by 
 turning to God ; and knowing now that our " labour 
 is not in vain in the Lord," set ourselves, with his 
 help, to that practice of virtue which is, and must 
 be at all times our duty, and without which we 
 M shall never see God." And the only pain God 
 requires us to undergo, not as an atonement for sin, 
 but as a natural consequence of it, is, the pain and 
 toil which a man has to undergo in reforming his 
 life, a pain and toil which will always be the greater 
 the more sinful his life has been, and the longer he 
 has continued in sin. Hence it leads us to regard 
 the sufferings of this mortal life, not as vengeance 
 
246 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 taken on our sins, but as fatherly corrections, and a 
 painful discipline necessary for our improvement; 
 in which -" God dealeth with us as with children; for 
 what son is he whom his father chasteneth not ?" 
 
 Christian self-denial consists, not in volunteering 
 self-torture, but in u denying ungodliness and worldly 
 lusts/' and in "living" (not at this or that particular 
 season, but always) " soberly, righteously and godly 
 in this present life." For he who is a Christian at 
 all must be one constantly ; because he is, as such, 
 a living stone of the temple of the Holy Ghost, and 
 should therefore live — not on this day or that, but 
 every day — as becomes those who are preparing for 
 the coming of Him u who shall change our vile body, 
 that it may be made like unto his glorious body, 
 according to the mighty working whereby He is 
 able to subdue all things unto himself," and who, 
 " having this hope," strive to "purify themselves, 
 even as He is pure." 
 
 But though this is plainly the teaching of Christ 
 and his Apostles, yet it is well known how much, 
 and how soon, Christians of later ages perverted 
 their teaching, and departed from their example. 
 Early introduced, and widely spread, and hard to be 
 eradicated, and easily revived, is the notion of a 
 man's becoming, by a presumptuous M will- worship," 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 247 
 
 by performance of supposed services that have not 
 been enjoined — a sort of saviour to himself; or of 
 atoning, himself, for his own, and even for his neigh- 
 bours' sins. And the introduction of such notions 
 and practices into the Gospel, contrary to its original 
 and proper character, shews, more plainly even than 
 the instances of the Pagan religions, how suitable 
 to the " natural man " is this kind of will- worship. 
 It appears everywhere — in corrupted Christianity, 
 and in all the forms of heathenism in ancient and in 
 modern times. The notion, evidently, is not derived 
 either from Christianity as such, or from Maho- 
 metanism, or from Paganism, or from any particular 
 form of Paganism ; but from some tendency in human 
 nature itself. 
 
 Since the two, seemingly most opposite, tendencies, 
 a desire for temporal victory, glory, wealth, and en- 
 joyment ; and the other much more strange tendency, 
 a craving for self-torture, are natural to man ; since 
 the two apparently most opposite desires — that for 
 worldly success, complete self-indulgence, and free- 
 dom from moral restraint ; and that for ascetic morti- 
 fication, are found to exist in human nature; one 
 might expect that any one teaching a religion either 
 invented or modified by man, would have been likely 
 to accommodate himself to these dispositions of the 
 human mind. A superstitious enthusiast or a design- 
 
248 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 ing impostor, . would have led his zealous followers 
 to expect temporal success as a mark of diviue favour 
 (as was done by Mahomet, who was probably a mix- 
 ture of the two characters) ; and allowed to them a 
 relaxation of moral obligation ; or he would have 
 recommended self-inflicted sufferings as a laudable 
 service of God, or most likely combined both ; pro- 
 mising them, along with the consolations of piety, 
 the free gratification of their natural desires ; by 
 permitting them to compensate, by austerities at 
 particular seasons, for habitual self-indulgence at 
 other times. Jesus, on the contrary, does neither. 
 He laboured to repress all expectations of worldly 
 prosperity, and held forth the prospect of persecu- 
 tions and hardships. He allows of no exemption 
 from moral duty, no shrinking from dangers and 
 sufferings to be encountered in his cause ; no refusal 
 to bear the cross that may be allotted to each ; and 
 yet never enjoins or encourages any self-inflicted 
 pain, or needless exposure to danger. His religion, 
 therefore, as taught by Himself, differs in a most 
 important point from any that ever was devised by 
 men ; or mixed, and modified, and corrupted with 
 human inventions. And this is one of the proofs 
 open to any man of plain common sense, which may 
 furnish an answer to the question, "Was it from 
 heaven, or of men ?" 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 249 
 
 The danger is not only so great, but likewise so 
 palpable, of giving way to intemperance or to 
 luxurious self-indulgence, that many are apt to dis- 
 believe or overlook all danger on the side of asceti- 
 cism, and consider that as being, at the worst, no 
 more than a harmless error, leading to no evil beyond 
 the unnecessary bodily suffering undergone ; as some- 
 thing superfluous, but no wise mischievous. But, 
 in truth, whatever is practised and admired as a 
 Christian duty, when it is none, is likely to be worse 
 than useless. While the practice of any truly Chris- 
 tian virtue tends to cherish every other Christian 
 virtue, purifying and elevating the moral taste, and 
 Christianizing the whole character, because the 
 genuine " fruits of the spirit" all come from the same 
 root ; the practice, on the contrary, of any spurious 
 imitation of virtue, is more likely to be substituted 
 for general Christian morality than to prove a help 
 towards it ; and thus gradually to debase, instead of 
 exalting the character. Every superstition tends, as 
 far as it goes, to divert religious sentiments into a 
 wrong channel. 
 
 True Christian sanctity is not the sanctity which 
 shews itself in self-inflicted mortification or outward 
 signs of humility, or in the pomp and splendour of 
 ceremonies. It is that sanctity which consists in 
 
250 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 the sober and consistent practice of Christian morals 
 — that real virtue which is u comely, honest, and of 
 good report/' always and everywhere — that " mo- 
 deration " which uses this world without abusing It," 
 which is ready to sacrifice all when duty requires 
 it ; but is not afraid temperately to enjoy what God 
 gives richly, — that sanctity which consists in walk- 
 ing "righteously, soberly, and godly in this pre- 
 sent world," and which, borrowing no help from 
 enthusiasm, or pride, or vanity, relies, in the meek- 
 ness of a rational and serious faith, on the unseen 
 help of God's grace. Such is Christian sanctity, 
 and such a sanctity is strong and convincing evidence 
 of the divine origin of that faith from which it 
 springs. 
 
 There are some who seem to think that in moral 
 questions, as well as in doctrinal questions, their 
 judgment is infallibly right ; and that though, in 
 practice, they are liable to go wrong, this can only 
 be when they offend against the dictates of their own 
 conscience. This is to claim a great superiority over 
 the Apostle Paul, and to reverse his procedure. He 
 did not set up his own conscience as an infallible 
 standard of right and wrong; for he says, u I judge 
 not mine own self; for I know nothing by (against) 
 myself" (that is, I am not conscious of any wrong) ; 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 251 
 
 " yet am I not hereby justified : but lie that judgeth 
 me is the Lord." 
 
 The meritorious sacrifice of Christ is the only 
 foundation of the Christian's hope, and the aid of 
 His Spirit, the only support of the Christian's virtue. 
 
 What is it of which the devout communicants are 
 really partakers in the sacrament of the Lord's Sup- 
 per? Surely, of the Spirit of Christ. The bread 
 and wine, not only are merely a sign, but they are 
 a sign of a sign; that is, they represent our Lord's 
 flesh and blood, and his flesh and blood represent 
 the benefits procured by his death. To eat and 
 drink the symbols, represents our feasting on the 
 sacrifices — our being made sharers of those benefits. 
 " It is the Spirit that quickeneth ; the flesh profit- 
 eth nothing." And as it is the soul or spirit of a 
 man that animates (quickeneth) his body, which 
 would otherwise be lifeless ; so Christians who are 
 themselves the figurative body of Christ are quick- 
 ened — receive life and vigour, " strength and re- 
 freshment" — from the Spirit of Christ which dwell- 
 eth in them ; — " the last Adam was made a quick- 
 ening Spirit" 
 
 We must " watch " as if all depended on our own 
 
252 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 vigilance ; we must " pray " as if nothing depended 
 on it. 
 
 The natural, hearty, fervent prayer of a child 
 cannot but be childish; so that to teach children 
 prayers they cannot understand, while neglecting to 
 teach them other prayers suitable to their age, is to 
 supply them with a promise of strong meat, which 
 they may hereafter be able to bear, while withhold- 
 ing the necessary immediate nourishment of milk. 
 
 The Apostle sets Love above Faith and Hope, 
 not merely as the greatest of the three, but as in- 
 cluding the other two ; because it " hopeth all things 
 and believeth all things. 5 f 
 
 The Christian must be prepared to believe all that 
 his divine Master has taught, — to hope all that He 
 has promised, — and to endure and do all that He has 
 commanded. 
 
 He who taught us by precept to " seek first the 
 kingdom of God and his righteousness/ ' has taught 
 us, in His own form of prayer, before we ask for 
 " our daily bread," to pray that His kingdom may 
 come," and His " will be done on earth as it is in 
 heaven." 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 253 
 
 i 
 
 The true Christian is most emphatically and pre- 
 eminently public- spirited. " None of us," says the 
 Apostle Paul, "liveth unto himself." And he who 
 is the most sedulously occupied in working out on 
 Gospel principles his own salvation, will always be 
 found the most devotedly active in promoting the 
 welfare of his brethren. 
 
 When praying that God's servants may be hurt 
 by no persecutions," let us not forget to pray for the 
 still more important blessing of being preserved from 
 hurting others by persecution. 
 
 Most heretics are made so by the orthodox. 
 
 Heresies are indefinitely multiplied by injudicious 
 controversy — like the prolific heads of the fabulous 
 hydra, by the unskilful attempt to destroy the first. 
 
 Many a one has been led, by an unjust and inju- 
 dicious charge of heresy, to suppose that to be a 
 distinct mode of faith which, in fact, is rather a de- 
 ficiency of faith, and has thus been partly alarmed, 
 partly provoked, and partly flattered into embody- 
 ing, maintaining and propagating, as a peculiar sys- 
 tem, what is merely the result of his own slight and 
 inaccurate acquaintance with Scripture. 
 
254 THOUGHTS AXD APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 
 Many heresies have gone out of themselves, as 
 soon as men have ceased to blow them. Great is 
 the noise when every one is crying " Silence I" 
 
 Some men are very zealous for the reformation of 
 a religion, while indifferent to the religion itself that 
 is reformed. 
 
 The strongest term of detestation that can be 
 applied to a man — the term " miscreant'' affords, in 
 its etymology (misbeliever), a curious instance of 
 the fact, that our hostility against the rejection of 
 our religion by infidelity is greater than against the 
 disgracing of it by immorality. 
 
 The irreligious, or profligate, or worldly-minded 
 professor of religion is more chargeable with impiety 
 than the unbeliever, who is, at any rate, not living 
 in the habitual defiance of a God and Saviour whom 
 he acknowledges. If two men receive each a letter 
 from his father, and one of them, on very insuffi- 
 cient grounds, reject it as a forgery, he is not surely 
 more undutiful than the other who, recognizing it as 
 a genuine letter from his father, puts it away, and 
 utterly disregards all the injunctions it contains. 
 
 There is no presumption in the idea of a Christian 
 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 255 
 
 in the present day becoming as perfect as one of the 
 apostles ; the presumption lies in his being content 
 to remain inferior. 
 
 In every Christian duty, improvement is a good 
 sign only when it is a promising sign. 
 
 If no more is required of a Christian than to do 
 his utmost, so no less is required of him* 
 
 He who is not the better for his religious know- 
 ledge, will assuredly be the worse for it. 
 
 Confident trust in unimproved spiritual privileges 
 will avail to secure their advantages as little as will 
 a confidence in the possession of once fertile land, 
 whose tillage is neglected, avail to make it a source 
 of wealth. 
 
 As a frightfully large proportion of the world are, 
 undeniably, practical Antinomians, living as if they 
 did not expect to be hereafter accountable for their 
 conduct, the fact that so very few of them are found 
 to adopt the Antinomian theory, furnishes the most 
 powerful testimony against the truth of that hypo- 
 thesis. 
 
256 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 The fruits of the Spirit is the only test of being 
 led by the Spirit, 
 
 As the behaviour of a family will be influenced 
 by the character of the master of the house, so the 
 religion of men will be influenced by the character 
 which they suppose to be that of the Being whom 
 they worship. Thus " he that hath hope in Jesus 
 purifieth himself even as He is pure." 
 
 Many a one trusts to the mercy of God, who 
 has never thought seriously of the conditions of that 
 mercy. 
 
 When men talk of preparing for death, they 
 mean preparing for the next life. 
 
 Those who have doubted of the life to come, or 
 studied to keep the consideration out of sight, are 
 generally found to believe it the most firmly at the 
 awful moment when they would be most glad to dis- 
 believe it ; and then to think most of it, when the 
 thought is most intolerable. 
 
 A strong sense of the uncertainty and shortness 
 of life, tends to make a man either a thorough-going 
 voluptuary, or a thorough- going Christian. 
 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 257 
 
 For the dying man, the death-bed is the best time 
 for seeking to make his peace with God ; simply 
 because he has no other : for any one else, it is the 
 very worst 
 
 He who is a sincere Christian never can die 
 suddenly ; and he who lives otherwise, necessarily 
 must 
 
 It is very difficult for those advanced in life, who 
 have hitherto been deaf to their Saviour's call, not 
 merely to receive a new impression for the moment, 
 but to make a total change in all their habits, 
 thoughts and feelings ; but it will be still more dif- 
 ficult every moment they delay it; and in that 
 change is their only hope. Let not such then " grieve 
 any longer, the Holy Spirit," who alone can enable 
 any to surmount the difficulty; for "with God all 
 things are possible.' 7 Let them consider their Lord 
 as addressing to them the question, " Why stand ye 
 here all the day idle ?" They cannot indeed answer, 
 " Because no man hath hired us ;" for they have 
 been summoned to go and labour in the vineyard, 
 and have refused : but they can answer by throwing 
 themselves immediately on his mercy, and with deep 
 repentance for their past neglect of Him, accepting, 
 though late, the gracious offers they have hitherto 
 
258 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 disregarded ; striving the more earnestly before "the 
 door is shut," to gain admittance to the presence of 
 Him who will "abundantly pardon" those that return 
 unto Him. 
 
 Though it may never be too late to repent, it is 
 always too late to think of deferring repentance. . 
 
 False security in the great mass of mankind, 
 arises not from a too confident expectation of the 
 glories of a better world, but from thinking too little 
 of any world but this ; not from their insensibility 
 to the danger of falling from a state of grace, but 
 to that of never striving to be in such a state. 
 
 To say " we are not expected to be saints," is to 
 forget that the Gospel promises are limited to those 
 who live " as becometh saints." 
 
 Instead of inquiring whether there is any harm 
 in this or that, we should rather ask, whether it 
 becomes the redeemed of Christ and the heirs of 
 immortality. 
 
 The doctrine of man's immortality, when once 
 the mind can be brought to dwell intently on the 
 subject, is certainly the most interesting and the 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 259 
 
 most important that can be presented to him. Other 
 objects may, and often do, occupy more of our atten- 
 tion, and take a stronger hold of our feelings ; but 
 that, in real importance, all those objects are com- 
 paratively trifles, no one can doubt. Other matters 
 of contemplation, again, may be, in themselves, not 
 lass awful, stupendous, and wonderful • but none of 
 these can so intimately concern ourselves. Admirable 
 as is the whole of God's creation, no other of his 
 works can be so interesting to man, as man himself ; 
 sublime as is the idea of the eternal Creator Himself, 
 our own eternal existence after death is an idea 
 calculated to strike us with still more overpowering 
 emotions. That man, feeble and short-lived as he 
 appears on earth, is destined by his Maker to live 
 for ever — that ages hence, when we and our remotest 
 posterity shall have been long forgotten on earth — 
 and countless ages yet beyond, when this earth 
 itself, and perhaps a long succession of other worlds, 
 shall have come to an end — we shall still be living ; 
 still sensible of pleasure or pain, to a greater degree 
 perhaps than our present nature admits of, and still 
 having no shorter space of existence before us than 
 at first. These are thoughts which overwhelm the 
 imagination the more, the longer it dwells upon 
 them. The understanding cannot adequately em- 
 brace the truths it is compelled to acknowledge; 
 
 s 2 
 
260 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 and when, after intently gazing for some time on 
 this vast prospect, we turn aside to contemplate the 
 various courses of earthly events and transactions, 
 which seem like rivulets trickling into the boundless 
 ocean of eternity, we are struck with a sense of the 
 infinite insignificance of all the objects around us 
 that have a reference to our present state alone; 
 while every, the most minute, circumstance that may 
 concern the future life, like a seed from which some 
 mighty tree is to spring, rises into immeasurable 
 importance, as the awful reflection occurs that per- 
 haps something which is taking place at this very 
 moment, may contribute to fix our final destiny. 
 There is no one truth, in short, the conviction of 
 which tends to produce so total a change in our 
 estimate of all things. 
 
 And this doctrine, so sublime in contemplation, 
 so important in practice, is peculiar to the Gospel. 
 There it was first proposed to us ; by it " life and 
 immortality were brought to light :" proposed, not 
 as a matter of curious speculation and interesting 
 conjecture, but of general and well-grounded, and 
 practical belief ; brought to light, not as an ingenious 
 and pleasing theory, but as an established truth ; 
 displayed to us, not as a wandering meteor that 
 serves but to astonish and amuse us, but as the 
 great luminary which is destined to brighten our 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 261 
 
 prospects, and to direct our steps. " Jesus Christ 
 brought life and immortality to light, through the 
 Gospel." 
 
 The Christian's hope, as founded on the promises 
 contained in the Gospel, is the resurrection of the 
 body, and that hope depends not on the resurrection 
 of the very same particles of matter, — an idea which 
 has needlessly exposed it to cavils from infidels to 
 which neither reason nor revelation afford means of 
 replying. For, as during this life all the particles 
 of a man's body are undergoing a perpetual and 
 rapid change, that which constitutes it, his body, is 
 not the identity of the materials, but their union 
 with the same soul, and performance of similar 
 functions. And that there should be such a change 
 in the raised body, is no more inconsistent with the 
 promise made to the Christians, than it would be 
 if a kind benefactor, who had engaged to rebuild for 
 a poor man his house that had been destroyed, em- 
 ployed in the erection other and different materials ; 
 it would suffice that he had, as before, a house; 
 and one that was suitable for all the same purposes. 
 
 It seems not improbable that the change which 
 shall take place in the body at the resurrection of 
 man from the dead, may be itself the appointed 
 means for bringing about a change in the powers 
 
262 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 and tendencies of the mind. It is plain that the 
 mind greatly depends on the body as its instrument ; 
 and on the several members of the body depend the 
 exercise of several distinct powers of the mind ; so 
 that the loss or imperfection of any one particular 
 organ, — of the eye for instance, or of the ear, — will 
 shut out one particular kind of knowledge and of 
 thought from the mind ; — that of colours, for in- 
 stance, — or that of sounds. It is quite possible, 
 therefore, that our minds may at this moment 
 actually possess faculties which have never been 
 exercised, and of which we have no notion what- 
 ever ; which have lain inactive, unperceived, and 
 undeveloped, for want of such a structure of bodily 
 organs as is necessary to call them forth, and give 
 play to them. A familiar instance of this kind, is 
 the case of a man born blind ; whose mind or spiri- 
 tual part is as perfect in itself as another man's ; his 
 mind is as capable even of receiving impressions of 
 visible objects by the eyes, as if the eyes themselves 
 (the bodily part) were perfect ; for it is plainly not 
 the eyes that see, but the mind by means of the eyes ; 
 yet through this imperfection one whole class of 
 ideas, — all those of objects of sight, — are completely 
 wanting in such a man. Nor could he ever even 
 find out his imperfection, if he were not told of it. 
 He learns from others that there is such a thing as 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 263 
 
 seeing, and as light and colours, though he cannot 
 comprehend what they are. And if you could sup- 
 pose such a case as blind persons brought up from 
 childhood without ever being taught that others pos- 
 sessed a sense more than themselves, they would 
 never suspect anything at all on the subject ; should 
 they then obtain sight, they would be astonished at 
 discovering that they had all along been in posses- 
 sion, as far as the mind is concerned, of a faculty 
 which they had had no opportunity to exercise, and 
 of whose very existence they had never dreamed, — 
 the faculty of perceiving the visible objects presented 
 to the mind by the eye. 
 
 In the expressions and thoughts of most persons 
 on the subject of a future state, it seems to be sup- 
 posed and implied, though not expressly stated, that 
 the heavenly life will be one of inactivity, and per- 
 fectly stationary, — that there will be nothing to be 
 done, nothing to be learnt, no advances to be made, 
 nothing to be hoped for, nothing to look forward to, 
 except a continuance in the same state. Now this 
 is not an alluring view to minds constituted as ours 
 are. The ideas of change, hope, progress, improve- 
 ment, acquirement, action, are so intimately connected 
 with all our conceptions of happiness, — so interwoven 
 with the very thought of all enjoyment, — that it is 
 
264 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 next to impossible for us to separate them, and to 
 contemplate a state from which they are excluded, 
 without an idea of tediousness and wearisomeness 
 forcing itself upon them. Even with the most 
 perfect assent of the understanding to the assertion 
 that it will be exquisitely happy, such a state can 
 never be interesting to our feelings as they now are, 
 involving as it does a change of our nature so total 
 as to reverse every point in it. To suppose this total 
 difference between the true Christian's life on earth, 
 and the Christian's life in heaven, is to suppose that 
 a tree which we had been carefully cultivating while 
 a sapling, and assiduously rearing to maturity, was 
 destined, immediately on attaining maturity, to be- 
 come another tree of a totally different kind — a plant 
 of some distinct species. Now the very idea of a 
 change so total as to reverse every point in our 
 nature, whether good or bad, must necessarily take 
 away our interest in the reward promised, because 
 no one can bring himself to feel (though he may to 
 believe) that it is he himself the very person he now 
 is, that will obtain that reward. To illustrate this 
 last remark more fully : the ancient heathens had 
 many fables of men being transformed into brutes of 
 different kinds, by the power of their gods ; now I 
 cannot think that any one of them who firmly be- 
 lieved in such occurrences, if he imagined to himself 
 
MISCELLANEOUS, 265 
 
 the case of his being thus changed into an animal of 
 some other species, could take any lively interest in 
 the thought of what should then befal him. 
 
 But I can see nothing either in reason or Scripture, 
 to compel us to believe that there is any further 
 change to be expected than is necessary to qualify 
 the faithful for a state, where what is evil will 
 be taken away ; what is imperfect, made complete ; 
 and what is good, extended and exalted. Surely, 
 this supposed reversing of the dispositions, and whole 
 constitution of the human character, are utterly 
 inconsistent with those statements of Scripture which 
 represent this life, as not only a state of trial, but 
 of preparation also, for a better world. For if the 
 condition into which the Christian is required to 
 bring himself in this life, bear no degree of resem- 
 blance to that which is promised in the next ; surely 
 there could be nothing of preparation in the case. 
 But that there is a resemblance, is expressly asserted 
 in Scripture; a resemblance between heaven and 
 everything most pure and virtuous, noblest and 
 greatest in the true sense, — most sublimely good 
 and happy,— most heavenly, in short — on earth; 
 and a resemblance also between Christ's sincere 
 followers and Himself, " who shall change our vile 
 bodies, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious 
 body, according to the mighty working whereby He 
 
266 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 is able even to subdue all things unto Himself." 
 Thus when the apostle John exhorts his hearers to 
 imitate the example of Jesus, and to become as like 
 Him as possible, he does so, on the very ground, 
 that hereafter they may hope for a greater degree of 
 resemblance to Him. "We know not what we shall 
 be ; but we know that when He shall appear, we 
 shall be like unto Him ; for we shall see Him as 
 He is ; and every man that hath this hope in Him, 
 purifieth himself even as He is pure." Now, if the 
 Christian be called upon in this life to employ him- 
 self actively in promoting God's glory, and the 
 happiness of his brethren, if he be encouraged, also, 
 to keep continually advancing in knowledge and in 
 goodness ; to improve in acquaintance with the 
 written Word of God, to grow in grace and in the 
 knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ ; is it likely 
 that all this advancement should be totally stopped, 
 that all this activity should be quenched, that all 
 these dispositions should be changed — in a glorified 
 state ? And if the wishes and inclinations of the 
 blest are still to remain, in these respects, similar to 
 what they are now, of course the life they are to 
 lead (since it cannot be supposed their wishes will 
 be vain, — their desires wngratified) must be of a 
 corresponding nature. And the hope that it will be 
 so, is a hope as well founded, as it is cheering and 
 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 267 
 
 delightful. To be ever advancing nearer and nearer 
 to the nature of our Great Master, though we can 
 never reach it, — to gaze ever closer and closer on 
 those glorious and lovely qualities, of which we can 
 never understand the full perfection, — to advance 
 ever further into the inexhaustible treasury of the 
 knowledge of God's mighty works, seems one of the 
 sublimest and most interesting, and most encourag- 
 ing, and, at the same time, one of the most rational 
 expectations that a zealous Christian can form re- 
 specting the blissful state prepared for him. 
 
 I see no reason why those who have been dearest 
 friends on earth, should not, when admitted to the 
 future happy state, continue to be so, with full 
 knowledge and recollection of their former friend- 
 ship. If a man is still to continue (as there is every 
 reason to suppose) a social being, and capable of 
 friendship, it seems contrary to all probability that 
 he should cast off or forget his former friends, who 
 are partakers with him of the like exaltation. He 
 will indeed be greatly changed from what he was on 
 earth, and unfitted perhaps for friendship with such 
 a being as one of us is now ; but his friend will have 
 undergone, by supposition, a corresponding change. 
 And, as we have seen, those who have been 
 loving playfellows in childhood, grow up, if they 
 
268 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 grow up with good, and with like dispositions, into 
 still closer friendship in riper years, so also it is 
 probable that when this our state of childhood shall 
 be perfected, in the maturity of a better world, the 
 like attachment will continue between those com- 
 panions who have trod together the Christian path 
 to glory, and have " taken sweet counsel together, 
 and walked in the house of God as friends." A 
 change to indifference towards those who have fixed 
 their hearts on the same objects with ourselves during 
 this earthly pilgrimage, and have given and received 
 mutual aid during their course, is a change as little, 
 I trust, to be expected as it is to be desired. It 
 certainly is not such a change as the Scriptures teach 
 us to prepare for. 
 
 And a belief that under such circumstances our 
 earthly attachments will remain, is as beneficial as 
 it is reasonable. It is likely very greatly to influence 
 our choice of friends, which surely is no small matter. 
 A sincere Christian would not indeed be, at any 
 rate, utterly careless whether those were sincere 
 Christians also with whom he connected himself: 
 but his care is likely to be much greater, if he hopes 
 that, provided he shall have selected such as ai# 
 treading the same path, and if he shall have studied 
 to promote their eternal welfare, he shall meet again, 
 never to part more, those to whom his heart is most 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 269 
 
 engaged here below. The hope also of rejoining in 
 a better state the friend whom he sees advancing 
 toward that state, is an additional spnr to his own 
 virtuous exertions. Everything which can make 
 heaven appear more desirable, is a help towards his 
 progress in Christian excellence ; and as one of the 
 greatest of earthly enjoyments to the best and most 
 exalted Christian is to witness the happiness of a 
 friend, so, one of the brightest of his hopes will be, 
 that of exulting in the most perfect happiness of 
 those most dear to him. As for the grief which a 
 man may be supposed to feel for the loss — the total 
 and final loss — of some who may have been dear to 
 him on earth, as well as of vast multitudes, I fear, 
 of his fellow-creatures, I have only this to remark, 
 — that a wise and good man in this life, though he 
 never ceases to use his endeavours to reclaim the 
 wicked and to diminish every kind of evil and suffer- 
 ing ; yet in cases where it is clear that no good can 
 be done by him, strives as far as possible (though 
 often without much success) to withdraw his thoughts 
 from evil which he cannot lessen, but which still, 
 in spite of his efforts, will often cloud his mind. We 
 cannot at pleasure draw off our thoughts entirely 
 from painful subjects which it is in vain to meditate 
 about. The power to do this completely, when we 
 will, would be a great increase of happiness ; and 
 
270 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 this power therefore it is reasonable to suppose the 
 blest will possess in the world to come ; that they 
 will occupy their minds entirely with the thought 
 of things agreeable, and in which their exertions can 
 be of service ; and will be able, by an effort of the 
 will, completely to banish and exclude every idea 
 that might alloy their happiness. 
 
 The appearances of angels served to prepare men's 
 minds, in some degree, for the doctrine of a resur- 
 rection, and to aid their conception of a new and 
 exalted state of existence in another world. And 
 this connexion between the appearances of angels 
 and the doctrine of a resurrection is confirmed by the 
 fact that the Sadducees who denied the one, denied 
 the other also. " For the Sadducees say there is no 
 resurrection, neither angel nor spirit, but the Phari- 
 sees confess both." There were exhibited to the 
 senses of men created beings in many respects like 
 men, in others more refined and elevated ; having a 
 human form and speech, and something of human 
 affections, but without the grosser attributes of mor- 
 tals. This served to form and to keep up the idea, not 
 only that man is not the highest of God's creatures, 
 but moreover that there is a state of existence, ex- 
 alted indeed and glorified beyond that in which we 
 now are, yet not so utterly remote from our present 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 271 
 
 condition but that we may conceive something re- 
 sembling it to be reserved for us hereafter, and may 
 be led to aspirations after something higher and 
 better than man's life on earth, and which yet shall 
 not be inconsistent with our consciousness of personal 
 identity, with our being, and feeling ourselves to 
 be, the same individuals. The angels, in short, in 
 their visits to this world of ours, gave man a glimpse 
 of a higher and better world. They were specimens, 
 so to speak, of what is to be found in the heavenly 
 Canaan, our Land of Promise, answering to those 
 fruits which the spies, sent by Moses into Canaan, 
 brought to the Israelites in the dreary and barren 
 wilderness, in order to convince them of the good- 
 ness of "that pleasant land," and to encourage them 
 to enter into it. 
 
 It is worth while to remark that, in all the cases 
 recorded of angels bringing messages from heaven, 
 a sufficient test was provided to secure the persons 
 concerned from being misled by any delusions of ima- 
 gination, and to assure them sufficiently of its being 
 a real communication from heaven that they had 
 received. The finding of a babe lying in the manger 
 at the inn, as the shepherds had been told by the 
 angel, saying, "this shall be the sign unto you," 
 proved clearly that they had not been dreaming, or 
 
272 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS, 
 
 deluded by any fancy. Again, the absence of the 
 body of Jesus from the sepulchre, and afterwards 
 his own appearance to the disciples, attested the 
 truth of the announcement of his resurrection, And 
 again, the actual release of the Apostles from prison 
 was of course a proof perfectly decisive that there 
 was no delusion. And, as Dr. Paley has justly re- 
 marked, either Cornelius's vision, or Peter's — taking 
 each separately — might, conceivably, have been a 
 delusion : taking the two conjointly and connected, 
 as they were, with each other, there could be no 
 doubt of the reality of either. 
 
 The members of Christ's Church, as it now exists, 
 must not suppose that they are less favoured than 
 God's people were formerly, on account of their not 
 having, like those, sensible communications from 
 heaven by thunderings, and supernatural flames, and 
 voices, and visits of angels. We who have a religion 
 less addressed to the senses, and more spiritual, than 
 the earlier dispensations, have, no less than God's 
 people of old, a promise of divine presence, and aid, 
 and guidance. Our divine Master is present with us 
 by his Spirit. He visits us, in the thoughts that 
 arise in our hearts, — in the occurrences that happen 
 around us. Let any one suppose the case of an 
 angelic vision presenting itself to his bodily senses. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 273 
 
 Let him imagine himself visited by a superhuman 
 being, clad in celestial light, and announcing himself 
 as a messenger from heaven. And suppose him to 
 remind him that the Saviour who died on the cross 
 for his redemption, is risen from the dead, and is 
 gone to prepare a place for him in the mansions of 
 eternal bliss ; but that he will forfeit this rich inhe- 
 ritance, and lose all that He has done for him, unless 
 he gives proof of his love to Him by keeping His 
 commandments ; by striving to be led by His Spirit 
 into an imitation of Him. The angel also admo- 
 nishes him perhaps respecting some known sin in 
 which he is indulging, or some known duty he is 
 habitually neglecting. Or the heavenly messenger 
 points out to him, how little he practises self-exami- 
 nation, or how much he is devoted to the cares and 
 pleasures of this life, which is so soon to come to 
 an end ; and how little, in comparison, his thoughts 
 dwell on the life beyond the grave, and the account 
 he will have to render at the last day, of all that he 
 shall have done, or left undone, — of all the advan- 
 tages he shall have used, or wasted — among the rest, 
 of the very warnings the angel is addressing to him. 
 Now imagine such a resplendent vision, and such 
 a message, were actually brought before his senses. 
 He would surely be awe-struck ; he would be roused 
 from carelessness ; he would be filled with earnest 
 
274 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 
 good resolutions to profit by the heavenly warning, 
 by devoting himself henceforth more than ever to 
 the care of his eternal salvation. And now, how 
 does the case actually stand? Everything that I 
 have been supposing the angel to have said to him, 
 he already knows as it is. Why not then act, at 
 once, as if he had received this angelic message ? 
 
 Instead of indulging in any vain cravings after a 
 more complete system of divine guidance than we 
 have any reason for expecting, for we are required 
 to walk by faith and not by sight, it is for us to 
 make the most of the advantages we do possess, by 
 studying prayerfully the Holy Scriptures which are 
 able to make us wise unto salvation, and (knowing 
 that " every good and perfect gift is from above, and 
 eometh down from the Father of lights "), by listen- 
 ing to and following as a voice from heaven — as an 
 angel of the Lord — every suggestion that would lead 
 us to Him — every warning that would keep us in 
 His paths. 
 
 Ask yourself, each one who sincerely desires 
 divine help and guidance, whether you may not, 
 like some holy men of old, have u received angels 
 unawares ;" whether you may not have been visited, 
 though not by a divine messenger in bodily shape, 
 yet by some thought or feeling which in some hour 
 of trial, has led you — or would have led you — out 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 275 
 
 of evil company, or some other such danger ; even 
 as the angels led Lot out of the city doomed to de- 
 struction, and would have saved his sons-in-law, had 
 they not refused the guidance. May not some tem- 
 poral loss, or mortification, or alarm, have occurred 
 opportunely to shake off from you the chain of over- 
 devotedness to worldly objects, or to rouse you from 
 indolent carelessness, like the angel which visited 
 Peter in the prison, bidding him arise and gird him- 
 self, and causing his fetters to fall off, and the prison 
 gates to open ? Or may not the ordinary course of 
 events — that is, of God's providence, which makes 
 " all things work together for good to them that love 
 Him" — have sometimes introduced you to somei)ook, 
 or some teacher, fitted to supply to you just the 
 instruction, or the consolation, you were most in 
 need of ; even as the angel brought Cornelius to the 
 knowledge of Peter, who should " tell him what he 
 ought to do?" In these and similar cases, you may 
 have been receiving angelic visits unawares ; since 
 every person or thing through which God communi- 
 cates with us, is, so far, his angel or messenger. 
 
 It is remarkable that there are, in the New Testa- 
 ment, much more frequent notices of evil than of 
 good angels. The cause of this may probably have 
 been, that whatever good offices men may receive 
 
 t 2 
 
276 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 from these latter, are never to be sought from them. 
 And it is likely therefore that their existence and 
 agency are the less frequently mentioned, for fear 
 men should be led into the error of false worship. 
 On the other hand, the dangers to which any one 
 may be exposed from evil spirits, it was right to 
 give warning of, and frequently to remind men to 
 be on their guard against them. But though in the 
 Old Testament the allusions to such beings are much 
 less frequent than in the New, yet there is no such 
 entire omission of the subject as a hasty reader 
 might be led to suppose. For the gods worshipped 
 by the ancient heathen were believed by the Jews, 
 and by the early Christians also, to be really existing 
 evil-demons. For we find the Jews speaking, for in- 
 stance, of " Beelzebub as the Prince of the demons;" 
 and we know that Beelzebub was the Philistine god 
 worshipped at Ekron. (2 Kings i. 2 ; See also 2 
 Chron. xi. 15; Levit. xvii. 7, and Psalm cvi. 37.) 
 And we find the Apostle Paul saying (1 Cor. x. 19, 
 20), " the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they 
 sacrifice unto demons, and not unto God." Demons, 
 it is to be observed, is the term used in the original, 
 which our translators have in several places (unfor- 
 tunately) translated "devils;' 7 not recollecting that 
 devil is the proper name of an individual, and accord- 
 ingly is never used by the Sacred Writers in the 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 277 
 
 plural number, as applied to evil- spirits, whom they 
 designate by the terms "unclean spirits " and "de- 
 mons." And this title, "demons," is the very one 
 given by the Pagans themselves to the objects of 
 their worship. Thus, though to the Jews these 
 beings were an abomination, and the worship of 
 them regarded as impious, while the Pagans built 
 temples and offered sacrifices and prayers to them, 
 their real existence was admitted by both. And 
 therefore, whether this belief was a delusion or 
 well-grounded, it was therefore quite necessary that 
 Jesus and his Apostles should make some mention 
 of beings which were, in fact, the very gods the 
 heathen intended to worship, for the purpose of 
 putting men on their guard against either being 
 seduced into the worship of them ; and also for the 
 purpose of dispelling any false terrors, and of giving 
 assurance of Christ's effectual protection, and final 
 triumph over these adversaries. Accordingly, we 
 find frequent mention made by the Sacred Writers 
 of evil angels or demons, and from various allusions 
 we gather that these evil spirits are " angels who 
 kept not their first estate," that is, who by disobe- 
 dience and rebellion against God, fell from the con- 
 dition (perhaps, a state of trial, such as we are in 
 now) in which they had once existed, and becoming 
 pre-eminently depraved, and enemies to the Lord, 
 
278 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 sought, and still seek, to corrupt mankind — watching 
 to seduce men to their ruin ; " seeking,"" as the 
 Apostle Peter expresses it, "whom they may devour." 
 And it appears, moreover, that these evil beings have 
 a Prince or Leader, called Satan (the Adversary), the 
 Wicked One, the Devil, of whom our Lord expressly 
 speaks as exercising authority over a host of evil 
 spirits, called by him the angels of the devil, (as 
 when he speaks of " everlasting fire prepared for the 
 devil and his angels,") and exercising influence by 
 their agency ; and thus being present to the minds 
 of many men at the same time ; since a leader of a 
 numerous host may be said (and commonly is said) 
 to do that which is actually performed by his servants 
 or soldiers under his direction. Numerous are the 
 references to the existence of the great spiritual per- 
 sonal enemy of mankind, see for instance, among 
 many others, Matt. xiii. 25, 39 ; John viii. 44 ; 1 
 Tim. iii. 6 ; 2 Tim. ii. 26 ; 1 Peter v. 8 ; 1 John 
 iii. ; Heb. ii. 14 ; Kev. xx. 2. Surely it is an 
 awful, an appalling thought, that we may be this 
 moment and every moment, in the presence of ma- 
 lignant spirits, who are watching occasions for our 
 destruction. 
 
 And yet, notwithstanding all these express and 
 reiterated statements, there are persons professing 
 belief in the Sacred Writings who yet deny the 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 279 
 
 existence of any evil spirits ; maintaining that it is 
 a thing utterly impossible that God should permit 
 any such beings to exist. And as for what Christ 
 and his Apostles have said, their expressions, it is 
 contended, are to be understood as a mere accommo- 
 dation to the popular notions of the day. "When 
 they speak of any temptation, or any affliction, 
 bodily or mental, as proceeding from Satan or his 
 angels, this we are told is only a condescension to 
 vulgar prejudices, and what is meant is merely a 
 "personification" of moral evil ; a metaphorical de- 
 scription of man's vicious propensities or natural 
 diseases. Thus they explain away the narrative 
 given by three of the Evangelists of the temptation 
 of our Lord in the wilderness, from the direct assaults 
 of Satan, into a parable, or figurative description. 
 Now it is observable, that this is not one o£ those 
 transactions which are mentioned incidentally in the 
 course of the narratives of other matters, nor is it a 
 transaction which the Sacred Writers had witnessed, 
 and which they might be supposed to have mentioned 
 merely because they had witnessed it, but it must 
 have been brought to their knowledge by Jesus him- 
 self ; either relating it orally to his disciples while 
 he remained on earth, or else communicating it by 
 the inspiration of his Spirit afterwards. And yet 
 we are told that we are to regard this narrative as a 
 
280 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 poetical figure of speech, representing Satan as a 
 real personal agent, while in reality no such being 
 had any part in the transaction, or ever existed at 
 all. But, even supposing the language employed to 
 be such as might, conceivably, bear such an inter- 
 pretation, still Jesus knew that his hearers would 
 not so interpret it, but would understand it in the 
 literal obvious sense, in which indeed it has been 
 understood by nearly all Christians for eighteen cen- 
 turies. Now when we remember that he who speaks 
 that which is false in the sense in which he is aware 
 he will be understood, is manifestly a deceiver 5 not 
 the less, though he may have some hidden meaning 
 which is true : what are we to think of the moral 
 notions of those who can assert, that he, whom they 
 profess to acknowledge as the heaven-sent Teacher 
 of the^ Truth, led his disciples to believe that he 
 was tempted by a personal agent, when he knew 
 that no such being was concerned? Him whom 
 these bold interpreters profess to venerate as having 
 " come into the world to bear witness of the truth :" 
 Him and his Apostles they represent as not merely 
 conniving at, but deliberately confirming and esta- 
 blishing a superstitious error ! For it must be re- 
 membered, that this belief of both Gentile and Jew 
 in the existence of evil spirits, if an error, is certainly 
 one which the Lord and his Apostles decidedly incul- 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 281 
 
 cated. They do not merely leave uncontradicted, 
 or merely assent to what is said by others as to this 
 point, or merely allude to it incidentally, but they 
 go out of their way, as it were, to assert the doctrine, 
 and most plainly and earnestly dwell upon it. Not 
 only do they make distinct mention of a single indi- 
 vidual evil being as the great enemy of man, and of 
 his angels or . emissaries, but numerous instances of 
 their agency are recorded by them. Indeed, among 
 the miracles related by the Sacred Writers, as 
 wrought by Jesus and his disciples, none are more 
 prominently put forward than the cures of persons 
 possessed by evil spirits, or demons ; (whence the 
 word demoniac) and our Lord himself and his disci- 
 ples earnestly dwell upon this class of miracles, as a 
 distinguishing mark of the Messiah. "If I," said 
 He, " by the Spirit of God cast out demons, jlien is 
 the kingdom of God come upon you," And so fully 
 was this recognized as a distinguishing mark of the 
 Messiah, that on the occasion of one of those cures, 
 (recorded in Matt, xii, 22) we find the people ex- 
 claiming, "Is not this the Son of David?" And 
 when Jesus sent forth the seventy disciples to pro- 
 claim "the kingdom of God is at hand," we are 
 told that the seventy returned from their mission 
 with joy, saying, " Lord, even the demons are sub- 
 ject to us through thy name," to which he replies, 
 
282 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 saying, " I beheld Satan as lightning fall from 
 heaven. " 
 
 And yet, plainly as these narratives set forth the 
 reality of demoniacal possession, there are persons 
 found to deny it even among those who acknowledge 
 the existence of evil Spirits ; and by these still 
 greater violence, if possible, is done to the words of 
 the Sacred Writers. These rash and profane inter- 
 preters require us to believe that when Jesus spoke 
 of "casting out demons," he meant curing natural 
 diseases, and was merely accommodating himself to 
 the prevailing superstition. They proceed on the 
 assumption that the Jews alone, of all nations, had 
 this belief in demoniacal possession, which is utterly 
 contrary to the fact. And yet this notion is not 
 uncommonly entertained even by educated persons, 
 not unacquainted with the works of the Classical 
 Writers ; though the Greek word used by them, and 
 by the New Testament Writers is the same ; and 
 though the allusion by the heathen authors are fre- 
 quent to possession by a demon (or by a god ; the 
 two words being employed by them with little or no 
 distinction) as a thing of no uncommon occurrence. 
 The Greek word, from which our word enthusiast is 
 derived, signified a person thus possessed. We read 
 also in the book of Acts (xvii.) of a damsel — not in 
 Judea but at Philippi of Macedonia, a Roman colony 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 283 
 
 — possessed by a " Spirit of divination."— And the 
 heathen Writers represented the priests and priest- 
 esses of their celebrated oracles as possessed by a 
 like spirit of divination. The reality of the exist- 
 ence of demoniacal possession, in connection with these 
 oracles, matters not to our present purpose, for which 
 it is sufficient to be fully aware and keep steadily 
 in mind, that such was the belief among those Pagans, 
 no less than among the Jews. The only difference 
 was (and this also has aided in misleading many as 
 to the fact) that the heathen, as already observed, 
 worshipped as their gods, the beings, or supposed 
 beings, which the Jews held in detestation as u un- 
 clean spirits." Proceeding, however, on this assump- 
 tion, which we see to be entirely gratuitous, that 
 the belief in demoniacal possession was peculiar to 
 the Jews, these modern interpreters maintain that 
 the supposed " demoniacs" were no other than mad- 
 men whose insane fancies led them to believe them- 
 selves possessed. Now this supposition is utterly at 
 variance with the Sacred History. For though it is 
 certainly not an improbable thing in itself, that some 
 madmen should entertain a groundless fancy of being 
 thus possessed, yet that the Jews did not attribute 
 madness generally to evil spirits and that they dis- 
 tinguished it from cases of "possession" is quite 
 certain. We read, for instance (in Matt, x.), that 
 
284 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 " they brought unto Hini all sick people that were 
 taken with divers diseases and torments, and those 
 that were possessed with demons, and those who 
 were lunatics, and those that had the palsy, and He 
 healed them." And what is more we find on the 
 other hand, that the cases recorded are far from 
 being exclusively those of madness ; for we read (in 
 Luke xiii. 11) of "a spirit of infirmity," and (in 
 Matt, xii.) of a case of blindness and dumbness. The 
 belief of the Jews therefore, — be it in any case 
 correct or erroneous — as to this agency of evil spirits, 
 could not have been founded on what was said by 
 insane patients concerning their own condition. 
 And as the fact that madness and infirmity, and 
 blindness, and dumbness, may be caused by bodily 
 diseases was as well known by the Jews as by us, 
 there must have been some marks — we cannot at all 
 tell what, as there is no record of any such — which 
 led them to distinguish — as they undoubtedly did dis- 
 tinguish whether rightly or wrongly — what afflictions 
 were, and were not, caused by the direct agency of 
 demons. 
 
 Such are some of the gratuitous assumptions upon 
 which a theory is based that represents our Lord 
 and his apostles as accommodating themselves to a 
 popular superstition in calling the curing of natural 
 diseases the casting out of demons, leaving the 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 285 
 
 shocking consequence to follow that they are answer- 
 able for all the mischiefs that have arisen from an 
 error which they fostered instead of removing it. 
 And this error, supposing it to be such — one * not 
 relating to speculative points of natural science — for 
 instruction in which Scripture was not given, and 
 therefore upon which popular language was used as 
 the only intelligible one — but on a point intimately 
 connected with religion, and moreover, a matter in 
 which the contradiction of the popular belief would 
 have been easy and intelligible; being, in fact, the 
 very doctrine then held by the Sadducees. If such 
 a connivance at religious error can be in any case 
 justifiable, in this, at least, it would have been 
 most completely inexcusable. It would not have 
 had even " the tyrant's plea" — necessity, in its fa- 
 vour. For supposing the Jews to be ever so much 
 wedded to their belief in demoniacal possession, and 
 to have been disposed to reject with scorn any one 
 who should have merely told them that those patients 
 whom they supposed to be possessed were not so, 
 and that the popular opinion was all a delusion, — 
 supposing this, still if any one who gave them such 
 an assurance did, at the same time, cure those very 
 patients, every one would have readily believed him. 
 To take a parallel case : there are districts in Eu- 
 rope, and even in our own country, where the vul- 
 
286 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 gar sometimes believe that children or others, af- 
 flicted with some unusual kind of disease, are be- 
 witched by some malicious neighbour, and they 
 would be highly displeased with any one who should 
 simply tell them that this is groundless. But if we 
 could go among these superstitious people, and give 
 them assurance, at the same time instantly and com- 
 pletely restoring the sufferers to health by a word or 
 a touch, — and this not merely in one instance, but 
 in all the cases, and these very numerous ones that 
 were brought before you, no one can doubt that you 
 would readily be believed. 
 
 The connivance, therefore, at superstitious error, 
 the confirmation and propagation of religious delu- 
 sion, which these interpreters impute to Jesus and 
 his followers, would have been one of the most gra- 
 tuitous and most inexcusable of all the " pious frauds" 
 that ever were committed. Now, if they judged 
 such a "pious fraud" as this justifiable and right, 
 any man of common sense and common honesty 
 must distrust them altogether. For " how can one 
 be sure," he may say, at what point these pious 
 frauds are to stop ?" How, in short, can one be 
 justified in giving any credit at all to those whom 
 we suppose to have been knowingly and wilfully 
 deceiving their hearers ? 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 287 
 
 There are two cases of the agency of evil spirits 
 recorded in the New Testament sufficient to prove 
 to all who sincerely admit the truth of our Scriptures, 
 that the power attributed to demons was not a mere 
 description in figurative language of natural disease, 
 no mere delusion of a superstitious and enthusiastic 
 imagination, but literally and undoubtedly a fact. 
 The one is, our Lord's temptation by Satan in the 
 wilderness ; and the other, the case in which Jesus 
 is recorded by three of the evangelists to have re- 
 lieved a demoniac, and permitted the demons to enter 
 into a herd of swine. In the temptation of the Son 
 of God, and in the possession of brute animals, — such 
 as the entrance of the demons into the herd of swine, 
 the influence of imagination could have no place. In 
 the first, the divine patient was above its delusions, 
 in the other the brute was as much below it. 
 
 The narrative of the transaction among the Gada- 
 renes is perfectly decisive in proving the reality of 
 demoniacal agency, and hence it is that those who 
 are resolved to maintain, at all hazards, a contrary 
 theory, have found in their attempts to explain away 
 the words of the sacred writers, their ingenuity, and 
 I may add, their credulity, not a little taxed. Some 
 of these rash and profane interpreters explain the 
 transaction by saying, that it was the maniac him- 
 self — the man who imagined himself possessed by a 
 
288 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 legion of demons, who in a paroxysm of frenzy (of 
 course before his cure), drove the herd of swine over 
 a precipice into the lake, and who, immediately 
 afterwards was cured of his malady by Jesus, 
 
 Now this is completely at variance with the nar- 
 rative of all three of the evangelists. For they all 
 agree in describing the herd as driven over the pre- 
 cipice after the demons were gone out of the man ; 
 that is, after his cure was completed. And the 
 whole transaction must have passed before the eyes 
 of the Apostles and other disciples, who were in 
 attendance on Jesus, as well as of the keepers of the 
 swine ; so that we must, if this theory is received, 
 suppose all of these to have combined to falsify the 
 narrative in a most important point. No one — even 
 a retired student more conversant with books than 
 with the habits of different kinds of animals — can 
 doubt that it must have been at least a very strange 
 and striking spectacle to see a man driving — not 
 such animals as sheep, but a herd of two thousand 
 swine, — not from one field to another, but, over a 
 cliff, into a lake ! One can hardly pronounce, per- 
 haps, what is or is not possible to be effected by a 
 furious maniac, with terrific cries and frantic ges- 
 tures. But certainly if such a thing had taken 
 place, it must have been what none of the spectators 
 could be deceived in, and must have made a strong 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 289 
 
 impression on them. Yet all the Evangelists agree 
 that no such thing did take place ; all giving a to- 
 tally different account of the transaction. 
 
 Moreover, they all agree in saying that the Ga- 
 darenes came and " besought Jesus to depart from 
 their country;" considering that it was He who 
 had caused the destruction of the herd. But if the 
 keepers of the swine had seen that it was the maniac 
 himself who had done them this damage, they could 
 never have felt this displeasure and dread, towards 
 the very person who had cured that maniac. One 
 might as well suppose they would have been dis- 
 pleased with a man for quenching a destructive fire, 
 or stopping a raging pestilence. 
 
 We must suppose, therefore — according to the 
 above theory — this portion also of the narrative to 
 have been a fabrication. 
 
 Now one may fairly ask any one who believes the 
 Evangelists to have falsified their history in such 
 material points, whether he can trust them at all, 
 for anything ? and whether such witnesses would be 
 received at all in any court, or rejected with indig- 
 nant scorn? 
 
 To take a parallel case : suppose some witnesses 
 to declare that a certain individual had been seized 
 and carried off as a slave by a band of murderous 
 robbers, who compelled him to aid them in their 
 
 u 
 
290 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS, 
 
 outrages ; that at length he escaped out of their 
 hands ; and that after this escape, they went without 
 him and committed some remarkable burglary, or 
 other such crime ; and then, suppose it to come out 
 afterwards, that it was he himself who committed 
 that very crime, and that those witnesses had ac- 
 tually seen him with his own hands breaking open 
 the house, and robbing and murdering the inmates ; 
 would not any man of common sense and common 
 honesty decide that they were utterly unworthy of 
 credit, and deserved to be branded with infamy ? 
 
 Any one then who adopts the theory I have been 
 alluding to, may as well go on to maintain that the 
 tempest which — just before — our Lord is said to 
 have quelled with a word, had at length abated, as 
 all storms do ; and that his disciples represented it 
 as having suddenly ceased, on his speaking; and 
 that the sick persons He was said to have cured, 
 some of them had recovered long before, and some, 
 long afterwards, and some, not at all : and in short, 
 that the disciples originally joined Jesus for no reason 
 at all, and afterwards fabricated the accounts of his 
 mighty works. 
 
 This theory, little deserving of notice as it is in 
 itself, becomes important to be dwelt upon as shew- 
 ing how decisively this narrative proves the reality 
 of demoniacal agency, if understood in the plain 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 29 1 
 
 sense of the words, and as the writers knew they 
 would be understood ; since those who are resolved 
 at all hazards to reject the doctrine, are obliged to 
 explain away the narrative by resorting to the most 
 extravagantly forced interpretations, and the most 
 revolting conjectures. 
 
 The modern theories of some professed Christian 
 writers leave us wholly at a loss to decide where 
 Christianity ends and Infidelity begins. They for- 
 get one great and important distinction between the 
 works of any writers who do not pretend to divine 
 revelation, and the books of the Sacred Writers. 
 We may hold such works, for instance, as those of 
 Aristotle, or Cicero, or Bacon, in great esteem, 
 without believing what we find in them any further 
 than our own reason approves ; and even, if we 
 reject, without sufficient reason, some part of what 
 these authors teach, and thus lose a part of the truths 
 they inculcate, we may yet profit by another part, 
 and be in no danger of continually rejecting more 
 and more. But it is not so with a writer who pro- 
 fesses (as the Apostles do) to be communicating a 
 divine revelation imparted to him through the means 
 of miracles. In matters, indeed, unconnected with 
 religion, such as points of history, or natural philo- 
 sophy, he may be as liable to error as other men, 
 
 v 2 
 
292 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 without any disparagement to his pretensions; but 
 if we reject as false any part of the religion which 
 he professes himself divinely sent to teach, we can- 
 not, consistently, believe but that his pretensions 
 . are either an imposture or a delusion, and that he is 
 wholly unworthy of credit. So difficult is it to stop 
 short of a rejection of Scripture, if we once begin, 
 by making our own conjectures the standard by which 
 to try Scripture, instead of taking Scripture as the 
 standard for ourselves. 
 
 Any man of honesty, and candour, and common 
 sense, is competent clearly to perceive two things — 
 first, that Jesus did not accommodate Himself to the 
 religious prejudices of His time and country ; else 
 He would not have been rejected and crucified by 
 His countrymen ; who would have received Him 
 gladly if He would have have consented to fall in 
 with their notions, and to become such a king as 
 their expectations were fixed on. 
 
 And secondly, that His followers would never 
 have knowingly exposed themselves as they did, to 
 scorn, and persecution, and violent death, but in the 
 cause of a religion which they believed true, and in 
 attestation of what they had plainly seen and heard ; 
 and that consequently we must, if we would be 
 Christians indeed, and fellow-disciples with them, 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 293 
 
 receive their words (in all that relates to religion) 
 as true, and true in the sense in which they them- 
 selves knew that they were understood. 
 
 What is revealed to us, therefore, in Scripture on 
 various points, is to be received, (however different 
 it may be from what we might have conjectured,) 
 with humble faith, and reverent docility 
 
 Excessive eagerness to get over some perplexing 
 difficulty often leads rash men to overlook entirely 
 the difficulties — perhaps much greater — which may 
 lie on the opposite side. In the case, however, of 
 those who reject all belief in the existence or agency 
 of evil spirits, they do not even go one step towards 
 removing or lessening the difficulty. The permission 
 of evil spirits is only one branch of that great and 
 insuperable difficulty — the permission of evil in the 
 universe. The difficulty is just as great to explain 
 how any evil, however small, should exist, as to ex- 
 plain all that does exist in the world. The mortify- 
 ing and distressing consequences, indeed, of any evil 
 may be greater, but the difficulty of explaining it, 
 when that difficulty amounts to an impossibility, 
 must be the same in one case as in another. Hence 
 total impossibility does not admit of different degrees, 
 the smallest amount of misery and the greatest are 
 equally inexplicable. All that we can say is, that 
 
294 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 for some unknown cause evil is unavoidable : and 
 that being the case, it would be folly to set limits to 
 the operation of an unknown cause, or to wonder at 
 one of its effects more than at another. Surely 
 there is no greater difficulty — great though it un- 
 doubtedly is — in the permission of evil- spirits than 
 of evil men. For instance, that so many should be 
 sold as slaves, and often to tyrannical masters, is as 
 hard to explain, as that any one should have been 
 exposed to any kind of affliction from demons. We 
 need not wonder that an evil being — whether man 
 or demon — should endeavour to degrade others into 
 his own condition, but that either should be per- 
 mitted to succeed, is a difficulty we cannot at all 
 explain, though yet no greater in the one case than 
 in the other. 
 
 And yet, obvious as this is, the principal person 
 in a tale by an author of considerable repute, is 
 represented as being at length convinced of the non- 
 existence of evil demons by the argument, that God 
 would never permit any evil being to have power to 
 molest mankind ; and this argument is represented 
 as being urged — and successfully urged — while a 
 pirate- ship was actually in sight, the crew of which 
 had just been ravaging the country, and committing 
 all kinds of atrocities ! The speaker and the hearer 
 of the argument are represented as having this before 
 
MISCELLANEOUS . 295 
 
 their very eyes, and yet without perceiving that it 
 completely refuted what was urged ! Whatever, 
 therefore, any one may decide as to the actual exist- 
 ence of evil spirits, this particular objection to it 
 must completely fall to the ground; since it is an 
 objection which lies equally against what every one 
 knows to be true. If we suppose some happy world 
 far distant from our own, in which sin and suffering 
 have always been wholly unknown, and if the in- 
 habitants of such a world were to doubt the possible 
 existence of either bad spirits or bad men, there 
 would, in this, be nothing very absurd. But for 
 those who have the experience of the various evils 
 produced by bad men, to deny the possibility of any 
 other evil beings, as a thing which could never have 
 been permitted, is an absurdity which, to be refuted, 
 needs only to be plainly stated. 
 
 Though an enquiry why evil- spirits exist would 
 be fruitless and presumptuous, an enquiry why it 
 was made known to us in Scripture may be both 
 allowable and profitable. Whether anything be 
 made known or not concerning the existence of evil- 
 spirits makes indeed no difference as to the difficulty 
 of explaining the existence of evil, — but it may 
 make a great difference as to the avoiding of evil. 
 And the great object of Scripture-revelations through- 
 
296 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 out, seems to be to assist us not in accounting for 
 evil, but in escaping it. Now I would appeal to 
 the feelings of any right-minded man, whether the 
 greater dread and detestation of sin is not likely to 
 be produced by our being plainly informed that there 
 are evil spirits striving to seduce and deceive — or to 
 urge and drive us into rebellion against God — 
 whether we are not so constituted, as to be more 
 watchfully careful against being over-reached and 
 deceived by a personal enemy than against any other 
 kind of temptation — more zealously active in resist- 
 ing the attacks of a living being who seeks our 
 destruction than in counteracting our own inclina- 
 tions. It is true that the thought of being given up 
 to the base and brutish propensities of the meaner 
 portion of man's nature — of losing the proper dignity 
 of a rational being — of forgetting God and living as 
 strangers and aliens before Him : — and of forgetting 
 immortal happiness, — all this is indeed very shocking 
 to a well-disposed mind, but yet not so horrible and 
 appalling as the thought of being ruled over and 
 directed by an evil spirit — of cherishing in our bosom 
 the great enemy of mankind, or agents of his, who 
 hate both God and us, and who are busied in pre- 
 paring men to share in their final ruin. Now the 
 very unpleasantness of these thoughts, which is per- 
 haps what has led some men to deny the agency of 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. "297 
 
 evil spirits altogether, and to explain the Scripture 
 language as a mere personification of moral evil, is 
 the reason why God has revealed it. He would not 
 have taught us the existence of Satan and his angels 
 merely to alarm us, if it had not been true: but, it 
 being true, it is in His mercy He has set before us 
 all the horrible reality, that we may be the more 
 active and resolute in seeking to escape and to guard 
 against such an enemy. He knows that there is a 
 kind of ardour and energy infused into the human 
 breast by th,e thought of a contest with an enemy ; 
 not with a mere thing, but a person — an active 
 being, who hates us, and 'who seeks our destruction, 
 but whom God has given us power to resist, if we 
 contend firmly, and over whom we shall finally 
 triumph, under the banner of our great leader, 
 Christ, if we are not wanting in our own de- 
 fence. 
 
 It is well known how common it is to find Satan 
 and his angels, and everything connected with them, 
 including the " everlasting fire prepared " for them, 
 and for those who are seduced by them, considered 
 as something ludicrous, as something that can hardly 
 be mentioned or alluded to with gravity, as some- 
 thing that not only excites mirth when incidentally 
 referred to, but is even frequently forced in, for the 
 
298 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 joke's sake, and made to furnish a subject for 
 pleasantry. 
 
 Now surely this is a remarkable and a strange 
 thing ; for generally speaking, right-minded persons 
 — all who have any pure sentiments and delicacy of 
 taste — are accustomed to regard wickedness and 
 misery as most unfit subjects for jesting. They 
 would be shocked at any one who should find amuse- 
 ment in the ravages and slaughter perpetrated by a 
 licentious soldiery in a conquered country ; or in the 
 lingering tortures inflicted by wild Indians on their 
 prisoners ; or in the burning of heretics under the 
 Inquisition. Nay, the very Inquisitors themselves, 
 who have thought it their duty to practise such 
 cruelties, would have been ashamed to be thought 
 so brutal as to regard the sufferings of their victims 
 as a subject of mirth. And any one who should 
 treat as a jest the crimes and cruelties of the French 
 Revolution, would generally be deemed more de- 
 praved than even the perpetrators themselves. 
 
 Yet so it is, that the wickedness, and the misery, 
 past and future, of evil spirits, and of such of our 
 fellow- creatures as are seduced by them, are com- 
 monly treated as a jest ! 
 
 Now suppose a rational being — an inhabitant of 
 some other planet — could visit this our earth, and 
 witness the gaiety of heart with which Satan and 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 299 
 
 his agents, and his victims, and the dreadful doom 
 reserved for them, and everything relating to the 
 subject, are, by many persons, talked of and laughed 
 at, and resorted to as a source of amusement, what 
 inference would he be likely to draw ? 
 
 Doubtless he would, at first, conclude that no one 
 believed anything of all this, but that we regarded 
 the whole as a string of fables, like the heathen 
 mythology, or the nursery-tales of fairies and en- 
 chanters, which are told to amuse children. But 
 when he came to learn that these things are not only 
 true, but are actually believed by the far greater part 
 of those who, nevertheless, treat them as a subject 
 of mirth, what would he think of us then? He 
 would surely regard this as a most astounding proof 
 of the great art, and of the great influence of that 
 Evil Being who can have so far blinded men's under- 
 standings, and so depraved their moral sentiments, 
 and so hardened their hearts, as to lead them, not 
 merely to regard with careless apathy their spiritual 
 Enemy, and the dangers they are exposed to from 
 him, and the final ruin of his victims, but even to 
 find amusement in a subject of such surpassing hor- 
 ror, and to introduce allusions to it by way of a jest ! 
 
 May the Holy Spirit implant in us all a more 
 Christian temper of mind, and more sober and ra- 
 tional thoughts, and more humane and purer senti- 
 
300 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 inents ! May He deliver us from all those supersti- 
 tious delusions with which the great Enemy of Man 
 seeks to mislead us, and to turn our attention from 
 real dangers, to false and imaginary alarms ! And 
 may we have grace to "watch and pray" as we 
 have need to do, "that we enter not into temptation :" 
 to watch in the right place, and to pray to that all- 
 powerful spiritual Friend, who alone is able to deliver 
 and to guard us in every spiritual danger, and who 
 has promised to be at hand to all who earnestly seek 
 Him! 
 
 It is not to be supposed that our spiritual Adver- 
 sary will always present the same temptation again 
 and again in the same shape ; even beasts of prey 
 have more sagacity than to lurk always in the same 
 spot of the same thicket. 
 
 The temptations of Satan are to be detected by 
 their character — were he to appear in his proper 
 person the temptation would be recognized by the 
 tempter — the fruits by the tree ; but in the tempta- 
 tions which actually occur, the tempter is to be 
 recognized by the temptation, — the tree by its fruits. 
 
 It is remarkable that it was about the time of the 
 Kedeemer's coming, that men were most familiar 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 301 
 
 with the fact of the agency of Satan and his angels. 
 But it was necessary to display His superiority over 
 moral evil, as over physical, by a sensible and per- 
 ceptible victory, not only over disease and death, 
 but also over "him who had the power of death/ ' 
 in short, by exhibiting u the seed of the woman " 
 bruising the serpent's head. Hence, we may sup- 
 pose it was, that the great Enemy was permitted, at 
 that time more especially, to exercise a direct, per- 
 ceptible, and acknowledged agency, in order to 
 render his defeat the more conspicuous ; that we 
 might, as it were, behold him "like lightning fall 
 from heaven." And He who for our sake encoun- 
 tered and vanquished him, is now ready and " able 
 to save to the uttermost, all that come unto God by 
 Him." 
 
 In the Old Testament history, the angels that are 
 mentioned as appearing are generally not created 
 persons, but immediate manifestations of the Lord 
 Himself, even in those places in which the human 
 form is assumed; so that the expressions, " the 
 Lord," and "the Angel of the Lord," are used in- 
 discriminately ; and accordingly, in most of these 
 passages, you read of divine worship being offered 
 and accepted. To the angels, on the contrary, men- 
 
302 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 tioned in the New Testament — the ministering spirits 
 recorded as appearing — divine worship either is not 
 offered, or is carefully rejected. " See thou do it 
 not I" says the angel to John in the Book of Kevela- 
 tion ; " for I am thy fellow-servant/ 5 It is impor- 
 tant to observe that by the Lord Jesus, on the 
 contrary, such worship was accepted. 
 
 Almighty God has revealed Himself as the proper 
 object of religion — as the one only power on whom 
 we are to feel ourselves continually dependent for all 
 things, and the one only Being whose favour we are 
 continually to seek ; and, lest we should complain 
 that an infinite Being is an object too remote and 
 incomprehensible for our minds to dwell upon, He 
 has manifested himself in his Son, the man Jesus 
 Christ, so that to love, fear, honour, and serve 
 Jesus Christ, is to love, fear, honour, and serve 
 Almighty God : Jesus Christ being " one with the 
 Father," and "all the fulness of the Godhead" 
 dwelling in Him. 
 
 In the beginning of his Gospel John tells us, 
 " God, no man hath seen at any time ; the only 
 begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, 
 He hath declared Him." Now, the declaration 
 which John here speaks of, cannot be understood as 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 303 
 
 merely an authoritative announcement of God's will, 
 such as was made by the prophets, because the con- 
 text evidently shews that he is speaking of some- 
 thing peculiar to the only begotten Son ; eVe?j/o9 
 i^rjaaro : " It is He that hath declared Him :" this 
 declaration therefore does not refer to a mere message 
 sent from God, but to a manifestation of God him- 
 self in Jesus Christ : which the Apostle has just 
 described by saying, u The Word was made flesh, 
 and dwelt among us ;" and which another Apostle, 
 Paul, describes by saying, " God was manifest in 
 the flesh ;" and again, Christ was " the brightness 
 of his glory, and the express image of his person." 
 Again, the same Apostle says of Him, " Who is 
 over all, God blessed for ever ;" and besides Thomas's 
 confession, and St. Jude's expression, " The only 
 wise God our Saviour Jesus Christ," we have the 
 form of words prescribed to be used in baptism, 
 which even alone are of irresistible weight. But 
 not to multiply quotations, I only add that we have 
 the prophetic title of " Immanuel, God with us j" 
 which, if it had been meant of mere inspiration, 
 would have been no mark of distinction for the Mes- 
 siah, but would have been equally applicable to all 
 the prophets, and which not applying to his name, 
 must have applied to his nature. 
 
304 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 Jesus was tried, in the first place before the Jew- 
 ish Sanhedrim, and was found guilty of blasphemy, 
 because He confessed himself " the Son of the living 
 God." By this title the Jews understood Him to 
 claim a divine character, and upon his own confes- 
 sion they adjudged Him worthy of death. Unless, 
 therefore, we conceive Him capable of knowingly 
 promoting idolatry, — unless we can consider Jesus 
 himself as either an insane fanatic or a deliberate 
 impostor claiming divine honor not belonging to Him, 
 — unless we come to a conclusion involving a diffi- 
 culty so revolting to all notions of Divine purity and 
 indeed of common morality, that all difficulties on 
 the opposite side are as nothing, we must assign to 
 Him " the Author and Finisher of our Faith/ 5 the 
 only begotten Son of God, who is one with the Fa- 
 ther, — that divine character which He and his apos- 
 tles so distinctly claimed for Him ; and acknowledge 
 that " God" truly " was in Christ reconciling the 
 world unto Himself." In short, if we would believe 
 in Him at all, we must believe in Him as perfect 
 God no less than perfect man. 
 
 The same revolting difficulty is involved if we 
 suppose our Lord to have received, without any at- 
 tempt to undeceive him, Thomas's confession of faith 
 in his divine nature, for that the words " my Lord 
 and my God " were an ascription of Deity, and not 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 305 
 
 a mere exclamation of surprise, is evident both from 
 the original Greek (which is, literally, the Lord of 
 me, and the God of me) and from our Lord's answer 
 to him. 
 
 So fully did the Jews understand Jesus to claim to 
 be the Son of God, in a sense so peculiar as to make 
 them charge him with making himself " equal with 
 God," that not only did they take up stones to cast 
 at him for making himself God, being a man, but it 
 was on this very claim He was condemned. As soon 
 as He acknowledged Himself to be " the Son of the 
 living God," His judges cried " What need we any 
 further witness ? we ourselves have heard of his own 
 mouth," and immediately, they pronounced Him 
 guilty of death. And it is worthy of remark, that 
 his being thus convicted on his own testimony alone, 
 was perhaps in order to fulfil more emphatically his 
 own declaration — " No man taketh my life from me, 
 but I lay it down of myself; I have power to lay 
 it down, and I have power to take it again." 
 
 When the disciples were censured for rubbing out 
 the grains of corn on the Sabbath, the Lord's defence 
 of them plainly turns on His own especial and divine 
 authority. He alludes to the case oi David and his 
 companions, who ate, not without the permission of 
 
306 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 the Priest, the shew-bread, which it was not lawful 
 for any but the priests to eat. This was, 1st, tacitly 
 acknowledging that the act of His disciples was, in 
 itself, as unlawful as the eating of the shew-bread 
 by any but a priest ; 2ndly, it was claiming for Hhn- 
 self, at least, equal authority with the priest, who 
 dispensed with the rule in David's favour ; 3rd, it was 
 claiming rather more authority ; because there was 
 not, in this case, as in David's,, the plea of urgent 
 necessity. But then, he proceeds to compare this 
 case with that of the "priests in the temple," who 
 were permitted to profane the Sabbath, by doing the 
 necessary work for the Temple- service : now, this 
 could not mean that the example of the priests in the 
 temple authorized all men to go about their ordinary 
 business on the Sabbath ; but that example did apply 
 to the disciples who were occupied in ministering to 
 Him who was Himself the Temple, in whom " all the 
 fulness of the Godhead dwelt" (Mark ii. 23—28; 
 Matt. xii. 6) ; and who, on another occasion, to which 
 I conceive He was in this place alluding, claims for 
 Himself the very title of the " Temple" (John ii. 19 
 — 22). Lastly, He declares that the " Son of Man 
 is Lord of the Sabbath, inasmuch as the Sabbath 
 was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath." 
 
 On this passage, which has often been but indis- 
 tinctly understood, it may be remarked, 1st, that it 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 307 
 
 Implies an actual violation of the Sabbath ; else it 
 would have been needless to plead a supreme power 
 over that ordinance : 2ndly, that it not only cannot 
 imply that any other man had a similar dispensing 
 power, but implies the very reverse ; else it would 
 have been nugatory to claim for the " Son of Man" 
 (the title by which Jesus distinguished Himself) a 
 power which others might equally claim : 3rdly, that 
 these are not (as some have represented) two distinct 
 remarks, but stand in the relation of Premiss and 
 Conclusion; "the Sabbath was made for man, and 
 not man for the Sabbath ; therefore the Son of Man 
 is Lord also of the Sabbath." He evidently means 
 that though He made no pretensions to a dispensing 
 power in respect of moral duties (man being made 
 for them), positive ordinances, on the contrary, being 
 a made for man" (i. e., designed as means — often as 
 local or temporary means — to facilitate man's im- 
 provement), might be dispensed with, or abrogated 
 by, the same authority which established them ; viz., 
 by the divine authority which He claimed. The 
 reasoning, at full length, and stated regularly, will 
 stand thus : — " Any positive ordinance (i. e., one 
 made for man, and not man for it) may be dispensed 
 with by my (divine) authority : the Sabbath is such 
 an ordinance; therefore the Sabbath may be dis- 
 pensed with by my authority." 
 
 x 2 
 
308 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 Christ's being very often, and pointedly, spoken 
 of as a man, has been urged as an argument that 
 He was no more than man ; whereas it is a very- 
 strong confirmation of the arguments on the very- 
 opposite side ; for if Christ were but a man, and if 
 nobody had ever supposed Him divine, what need 
 could an Apostle have to insist on His humanity any 
 more than on his own, or any one's else? but if all 
 readily believed that Christ was divine, it then be- 
 came important to enforce the belief that He was a 
 man. Indeed it appears to have been a very early 
 error to maintain that Christ was a man in appear- 
 ance only, and his body a phantom. Hence St. 
 John makes it a test of orthodoxy to confess that 
 "Jesus Christ is come in the flesh," but if they were 
 mistaken in thinking Christ divine, they would surely 
 have been told expressly that He was not; since to 
 tell them merely that He was human, was mani- 
 festly insufficient to disabuse them. 
 
 The Apostles do indeed direct our worship exclu- 
 sively to God; but to u God in Christ, reconciling 
 the world unto Himself; 77 nor do they dwell on the 
 necessity of making in our devotions, any mental 
 separation of the two natures of that person who is 
 the object of our worship. They addressed their 
 prayers to a being whom they regarded as both 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 309 
 
 divine and human; "the man Christ Jesus," in 
 whom "dwelleth" (not some emanation or portion 
 of the Deity, but) " all the fulness of the Godhead 
 bodily," They addressed Him in their worship by 
 his human name, as " Lord Jesus, receive my 
 spirit." Nor could they, indeed, have invoked him 
 as their intercessor and mediator, by virtue of his 
 meritorious sacrifice, keeping out of their minds the 
 human nature which those offices imply. Observe 
 how, in the. epistle to the Colossians, Paul presents 
 to our view the divine and the human attributes of 
 our Saviour almost simultaneously; "in whom," 
 says he, "we have redemption through his blood, 
 even the forgiveness of sins ; who is the image of 
 the invisible God, the first-born of every creature, 
 (7rpix)T07oicos iraan^ tcriGews, born before all creatures) 
 for by Him were all things created, that are in heaven 
 and that are in earth, visible and invisible." (Col. i. 
 14, 15, 16.) That the notions conveyed by such 
 expressions to a plain reader are philosophically 
 correct, I will not undertake to maintain : it is suffi- 
 cient that they are Scriptural. And the Scriptures 
 being designed, by unerring wisdom, for the instruc- 
 tion of the simple unphilosophical minds of the mass 
 of mankind, differ in this important respect from 
 any philosophical treatise ; that while the latter is 
 liable to be utterly misunderstood by those destitute 
 
310 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 of the advantages of education and learning, they 
 cannot, though they may contain passages not in- 
 telligible to the unlearned, be calculated to mislead 
 them as to important matters, by conveying to their 
 minds an obvious sense which yet shall not be the 
 true one. 
 
 This consideration the Socinians appear to have 
 always overlooked. Finding that this or that text 
 may possibly be so explained as to avoid the ob- 
 noxious doctrine, they try another, and finding that 
 this also may be explained away, they so go through 
 them all ; not considering how immensely the im- 
 probability is multiplied, of such a series of texts, — 
 such a chain of testimony — being all to be under- 
 stood, according to a forced interpretation, and not 
 according to the obvious sense. If I have to make 
 one hundred throws with dice, it is not very impro- 
 bable that I may throw sixes the first time, nor is 
 it very improbable that I may the second time ; and 
 so on, of any other single throw : but who would 
 infer from thence that it is not improbable I may 
 throw sixes one hundred times running ? which 
 every one will allow to be a moral impossibility. 
 At the best they will have made out the Sacred 
 Writers to be laying a snare for their readers. 
 Even admitting that every passage in Scripture 
 would, considered in itself, bear their interpretation, 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 311 
 
 still if the simple and obvious meaning to plain 
 readers be the reverse of the truth, how can the 
 Scriptures convey a revelation ? If, as they contend, 
 the worship of Christ be idolatry, must not the 
 Scriptures themselves be charged with leading ordi- 
 nary Christians into idolatry? 
 
 To explain the atonement of Christ I do not pre- 
 tend ; but as for the fact, I cannot conceive how a 
 man can doubt it who really believes the Scriptures, 
 and searches them with a candid mind, without any 
 predetermination to believe nothing but what he can 
 understand. To quote every passage in which this 
 doctrine is stated and alluded to, would be to tran- 
 scribe the bulk of the Sacred Writings. 
 
 He was the begotten of his Father from all 
 eternity, as He was our Redeemer from all eternity ; 
 (whence He is called " the Lamb slain from the 
 foundation of the world ") for it must be borne in 
 mind that there is not with God, as with us, a dis- 
 tinction of past, present, and future / but all things 
 are eternally and simultaneously present to the 
 divine mind: hence the name of God is I AM 
 (Jehovah), and hence Christ says, (not that He 
 was from all eternity, but) " before Abraham was, 
 I am." 
 
312 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 We can comprehend this eternal presence of all 
 things only as we can the divine nature in general ; 
 i.e., by negatives : e. g., all that we can comprehend 
 of eternity is, that it has no beginning, and no end : 
 in like manner, as all our idea of duration is de- 
 rived from the succession of ideas, (vide Locke,^ 
 which a being perfectly omniscient cannot have, we 
 are led by the feeble glimmer of reason, as well as 
 by Scripture, to conclude that with God there can 
 be no distinction of past, present, or future ; and 
 that is all we know or can conceive about it. 
 
 In treating of the Trinity, I wish hypostasis had 
 been used instead of person, because it would have 
 conveyed none but the right sense. Person in its 
 ordinary sense, always implies a distinct substance ; 
 in its theological sense, it is a literal, or rather, 
 perhaps, an etymological translation of the Latin 
 word persona, which has not that meaning, and is 
 applied by the Church to express the distinction 
 which she affirms to exist between Those whose 
 identity of substance she expressly maintains. 
 
 God is in a certain sense one, and in a certain 
 sense three, and the Apostles were commanded to 
 baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, and the 
 Holy Ghost; because no man can be a Christian, 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 313 
 
 unless lie not only acknowledge God, but acknow- 
 ledge Him, 1st, in his simply divine nature, and as 
 the Creator of the world who sent into the world 
 that being of two natures, Jesus Christ ; 2ndly, as 
 united with the human nature in that very being 
 who redeemed and who intercedes for us ; and 3rdly, 
 as entering into, sanctifying, and otherwise spi- 
 ritually operating upon his creatures. 
 
 The circumstance, that the first Christian writers 
 neither mentioned the Trinity nor alluded to any 
 hard or revolting mystery in that point, from which, 
 in after ages, arose so much difficulty, controvers}^ 
 and schism, is briefly and readily accounted for by 
 the Socinians, by their denying that the Apostles 
 taught any such doctrine ; but this is to remove one 
 difficulty by raising another much greater ; for on 
 this hypothesis we must suppose that the disciples 
 baptized in the name of God, of a man, and of a 
 quality or operation ; and that both they and Christ 
 Himself applied to a mere man many attributes of 
 the Deity ; or at least said enough to put their con- 
 verts (whom they never cautioned on this head) in 
 great danger of attributing divinity to one who was 
 really but a man ; conclusions so revolting that it is 
 wonderful how a candid mind can submit to them. 
 
314 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 The doctrine of the Trinity, (which is, perhaps, 
 the oftenest of any treated as a speculative truth, 
 about which none but learned divines need trouble 
 themselves,) as it is a summary of that faith into 
 which we are baptized, and the key- stone, of the 
 Christian system, ought to be set forth continually 
 and universally, as the support of every part of the 
 building of the Christian faith, and the Christian 
 life ; reference should be made to it, not merely on 
 some stated solemn occasions, as to an abstruse tenet 
 to be assented to, and then laid aside, but perpetually, 
 as to a practical doctrine, connected with every other 
 point of religious belief and conduct, and the foun- 
 dation of the Christian faith, and hope, and love. 
 
 As the doctrine of the Trinity may be considered 
 as containing a summary and compendium of the 
 Christian faith, so its application may be regarded 
 as a summary of Christian practice. As we believe 
 God to stand in these relations to ws, we also must 
 practically keep in view the three corresponding 
 relations in which, as is plainly implied by that 
 doctrine, we stand towards Him ; as, first, the child- 
 ren of God ; and " if children, then heirs ; heirs of 
 God, and joint-heirs with Christ, " by adoption : 
 secondly, as the redeemed people of the Lord Jesus 
 Christ ; purchased to Himself for His service ; and 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 315 
 
 thirdly, as being "the temple of the Holy Ghost," 
 our Sanctifier, remembering that " if any one defile 
 the temple of God, him will God destroy." This 
 threefold relation kept before us, in heart and life, 
 we shall find in God a Father, a Saviour, and a 
 Comforter, now and for ever. 
 
 It is a common error, to acknowledge in general 
 terms, the necessity of the ordinary operation of the 
 Spirit, but to explain them away in each particular 
 case ; thus completely nullifying the doctrine of 
 spiritual influence. 
 
 Redemption by Christ, and the other doctrines 
 immediately connected with this, are exposed to be 
 rejected, from their being by no means flattering to 
 the pride of human nature. Men are apt to be pre- 
 judiced against them, from wishing to believe only 
 such truths as their own reason can discover, and to 
 be saved solely by their own merits ; and especially 
 is this prejudice the besetting sin of men whose 
 reason is cultivated, and who are free from the pro- 
 pensity to gross vices. Some such men bring them- 
 selves to withstand the evidence of Christianity ; 
 others think it easier (though both are, in truth, 
 equally hard) to explain away those doctrines they 
 object to ; and which are, in reality, all that make 
 the essential difference between Christianity and In- 
 
316 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 fidelity. But I would not attribute this temper to 
 all Socinians, many of whom, I trust, would scorn 
 the uncandid artifices and gross cheats (such as," I 
 believe, were never exceeded in any controversy) by 
 which too many of their leaders seek to maintain 
 their cause. And many Socinians have, I am con- 
 vinced, been scared from belief by the harsh, revolt- 
 ing, self-contradictory statements, the dogmatical 
 violence, and the futile explanations, into which too 
 many of the orthodox have fallen. It should be 
 remembered, among other things, that a professed 
 explanation may always be fairly objected to, if 
 unintelligible ; not so, if you keep to the words of 
 Scripture, for what we cannot comprehend may 
 nevertheless be true, and must be, if God has ex- 
 pressly revealed it. 
 
 To have ascertained, and to perceive a reason for 
 anything that God has done, is far different from 
 perceiving the reason ; though the two are often con- 
 founded. We are sure that the sun gives light and 
 heat to the world ; and many ignorant savages, per- 
 haps, conclude from thence, that it was created for 
 no other purpose ; doubtless we are as much called 
 on for gratitude as if the case were so ; but we are 
 well assured that many other planets partake of the 
 same advantages, and we should be very much to 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 317 
 
 blame, were we to conclude positively that even this 
 is the only, or indeed the principal, purpose for 
 which the sun was created. So, whatever benefits 
 to mankind we may perceive from the manifestation 
 of God in the flesh, we have no right to infer that 
 there may not be other, and even greater objects 
 effected by it, of which, for the present at least, we 
 must remain ignorant. 
 
 If, with due reverence, we enquire — not, why the 
 incarnation of God in Christ was necessary — an 
 enquiry both fruitless and presumptuous, — but (as 
 what it cannot but behove us to know) why He 
 thought fit to reveal this incarnation, to announce 
 Himself as the eternal "Word made flesh," we shall 
 find good reason for concluding that it was, in part 
 at least, for two purposes most important to man- 
 kind ; first, by a softened and endearing, as well as 
 impressive, manifestation of the Deity, to aid and 
 exalt our piety, engaging our affections in the cause 
 of religion ; and secondly, by a bright example of 
 superhuman virtue, seconded by the promise of spi- 
 ritual aid, to instruct and encourage us in our duty 
 — to illuminate and direct our Christian course — 
 to purify and elevate our nature. The one purpose, 
 in short, may be said to have been to bring down 
 God to man, the other to lift up man towards God. 
 
318 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 Jesus Christ, as " the image of the invisible God," 
 declared God to man by manifesting, as far as our 
 feeble faculties well permit, the divine glory, and 
 shadowing forth the attributes of the unsearchable 
 God, exhibiting a more impressive and endearing 
 picture of them than we could in any other way 
 attain ; and thus drawing our whole heart and affec- 
 tions towards Him. 
 
 When Christ fed a multitude with five loaves, He 
 made not indeed a greater, or a more benevolent dis- 
 play of power, than He does in supporting, from 
 day to day, so many millions of men and other 
 animals as the earth contains ; but it was an instance 
 far better calculated to make an impression on men's 
 minds of his goodness and parental care. I speak 
 not now of this miracle as an evidence of his pre- 
 tensions ; for that purpose would have been answered 
 as well by a miracle of destruction ; but of the 
 peculiar beneficent character of it. The same may 
 be said of his healing the sick, raising the dead, 
 and teaching the people. 
 
 Many, it is true, of the qualities which our Lord 
 displayed, such as his patience under provocation, 
 and fortitude against pain and danger, are such as 
 can belong to Him in his human nature alone, and 
 can present us but a very faint shadow of the attri- 
 butes of God considered as such ; but still these are 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 319 
 
 attributes of one and the same Person, in whom we 
 believe the divine and human natures to have been 
 united ; though we can no more comprehend that 
 union than we can that of the human soul and body; 
 and they are well fitted to fix our affections on that 
 Person. 
 
 If, as is notoriously the fact, our only notion of 
 the divine attributes, and our terms for expressing 
 them, are, and always must be, borrowed from such 
 human qualities as have the most analogy to them, 
 it seems to follow inevitably, that the more excellent 
 man would give us ever the more adequate notion of 
 the divine excellence ; and, consequently, that the 
 life of that Man who was altogether perfect, by 
 union with the Godhead, must afford us the very 
 best idea (however imperfect that best may be) that 
 we can attain of the moral attributes of God. 
 
 As it may be said to have been one purpose of the 
 revelation, of the stupendous work of the incarnation 
 to bring down God to man ; so we have reason to 
 conclude another purpose to have been to lift up 
 man to God, by exhibiting, seconded by the pro- 
 mise of spiritual aid, a perfect and exalted model 
 of human excellence, and proposing it for our imi- 
 tation. 
 
320 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 It is an old and well-established maxim, that men 
 learn better from example than from precept. But 
 the difficulty is to find an example fit for imitation. 
 Mere human models are all, more or less, imperfect ; 
 and the faults and the virtues of each individual 
 are, in general, so intimately blended, that there 
 must always be a certain degree of danger in copy- 
 ing even the best men. And an ideal model, such 
 as the Sapiens, the wise man, or perfectly good and 
 happy character, whom the Stoics held forth as a 
 pattern, even if we suppose it unexceptionable, 
 wants, as ideal, the power of inspiring that interest 
 and sympathy — that affectionate reverence — that 
 emulation which a really existing person can alone 
 inspire ; and, being represented to us only by general 
 description, is but one short step removed from ab- 
 stract moral precept. The mode by which this dif- 
 ficulty is met by Christianity, is absolutely peculiar 
 to it. By it — and by it alone — an example is pro- 
 posed to us, superior by its living reality to all ideal 
 models however perfect, and to all real but human 
 ones, in its superhuman perfection. 
 
 If, while some of the ancient moralists were em- 
 ployed in recounting the actions, and holding forth 
 the examples, of really existing illustrious men, to 
 stimulate the emulation of their hearers, — and while 
 others were pointing out, in the grave and lofty de- 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 321 
 
 scriptions of the philosopher, or the vivid representa- 
 tions of the poet, an ideal exemplar of perfect ex- 
 cellence ; — & man exhibited, such as men should be, 
 not such as they are, — what would these sages, I say, 
 have thought, had they been assured on sufficient 
 evidence that such a man had actually appeared on 
 earth ; not having his virtues tarnished with defects, 
 like the heroes of their histories ; not a phantom of 
 imagination, like the persons of their theatre, or the 
 w T ise men of their schools ; but a real, living, su- 
 blime and faultless model of god-like virtue ? Surely 
 they would have acknowledged, with one voice, that 
 such a character, and such a one only, was exactly 
 suited to their wishes, and to the wants of their 
 hearers ; if they were at all sincere in their profes- 
 sions, they would have hailed with rapture the 
 announcement of his existence ; but would have 
 wondered at the same time, and doubted, how human 
 nature could ever have attained this pitch of excel- 
 lence. We might have answered them, human 
 nature by itself is indeed far too weak for the task ; 
 but in Christ the divine nature was united to it ; in 
 Him " dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily f 
 the Deity was ever present in an especial manner 
 to direct and support his human soul ; and thus pre- 
 sented to his creatures a perfect pattern, which 
 through the promised aid of the Spirit of Christ, 
 
322 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 they may copy ; that by imitating the divine excel- 
 lence, as far as it is possible for a creature to do so, 
 we may become, as Christ himself expresses it, 
 " like unto our Father which is in heaven/' and be 
 thus fitted for enjoying a more near approach to his 
 presence in a better state ; that we also may be, 
 more completely than in this life, u sons of God, 
 brethren, and joint-heirs of Christ/ ' and partakers 
 of his glory. " Beloved," says the Apostle John, 
 "now are we the sons of God; and it doth not yet 
 appear what we shall be ; but we know that when 
 he shall appear we shall be like unto Him ; for we 
 shall see Him as He is." 
 
 Whatever may be our station in life, or peculiar 
 circumstances, we shall still find that Jesus Christ 
 has "left us an ensample that we should follow his 
 steps •/' because the principle of devoted obedience 
 to God, love towards man, and abjuration of all 
 selfish objects, is one which is called for, and must 
 be put in practice, in every situation. Besides 
 which, it is very remarkable, that while all the 
 illustrious characters which are usually held up to 
 Dur imitation, are persons who occupied such exalted 
 stations, that their lives afford but little instruction 
 to those in humbler and more private situations, 
 (that is, in fact, to the great mass of mankind,) our 
 Saviour's life, on the contrary, though he had so 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 323 
 
 high an office to execute, yet, from the humble sta- 
 tion in which he appeared, contains lessons for every 
 description of mankind. And if the student's own 
 heart be not in fault, his character will not fail to 
 receive some tincture from the character he is con- 
 templating. Every Christian who deserves the name 
 makes it his attentive study ; and those who have 
 learned the most of it, are ever the most desirous, 
 and the most capable, of learning yet more. Many 
 valuable writers have treated of the subject ; but 
 the Gospels themselves (as those very writers w^ould 
 be the first to admit), will teach more of the imita- 
 tion of Jesus than all other books together, Each 
 man may do more for himself in this study than the 
 ablest theologian can do for him. He will find in 
 every page such active yet unpretending benevolence 
 — such exalted generosity and self-devotedness — 
 such forbearing kindness and lowliness, combined 
 with dignity — such earnest and steady, yet calm 
 and considerate, zeal — such quiet and unostentatious 
 fortitude — such inflexible yet gentle resolution — that 
 he must acknowledge with the Jewish officers, " never 
 man spake like this man :" never did man, he will 
 add, act like this man ;" " truly/ 7 as the centurion 
 remarked, " this was a righteous man ; truly this 
 was the Son of God j" it was " Emmanuel, God 
 with us." 
 
 y 2 
 
324 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 The birth of Him who came into the world to 
 save his people from their sins, will be remembered 
 by each one of us thousands of ages hence, and for 
 ever. It behoves us to reflect, in time, how it will 
 be remembered by us in eternity. 
 
 There is but one mediator between God and man, 
 — Christ Jesus — between him and man — none. He 
 is ever near us — ever ready to hear us. 
 
 Those who deny the divine character of Christ 
 and the Atonement by his blood, and reckon Him 
 as no more than a great prophet while yet dwelling 
 on his resurrection as the chief part of the Gospel 
 which they profess to receive, would do well to re- 
 ceive the instruction it affords to all who are willing 
 to learn. His rising merely from the dead, and 
 preaching the doctrine of a general resurrection to 
 others, would not, certainly, prove Him to be more 
 than man ; but if He raised himself from the dead 
 by his own power, and promised to his faithful 'fol- 
 lowers not merely that they should rise again, but 
 that He would " raise them up at the last day," it is 
 surely plain He could be no less than divine. " No 
 man,' 7 said he, " taketh my life from me, but I lay 
 it down of myself; I have power to lay it down, and 
 I have power to take it again." The same Scrip- 
 

 MISCELLANEOUS. 325 
 
 tures that tell us "Him God raised up," plainly 
 shew that this was that u fulness of the Godhead" 
 which, as the Apostle tells us, " dwelt in Jesus 
 Christ bodily." For He is everywhere represented 
 as himself overcoming and triumphing over death. 
 This He did by leading the way to immortal life ; 
 by being " the first fruits of them that slept ;" hav- 
 ing, as man, been subject to death, and as God 
 " manifest in the flesh " raised himself from death to. 
 confirm his promise that He would raise up his faith- 
 ful followers ; suffering the penalty of sin in his own 
 person, and entering first into the glory prepared for 
 his disciples — the reward which He, not they, had 
 earned. Hence it is stated by the Apostle that He 
 " was delivered for our offences, and rose again for 
 our justification." 
 
 The Scriptures present to us the Resurrection of 
 Jesus in three points of view. — I. It was a decisive 
 evidence of the truth of his Gospel. II. It explained 
 in a great degree the doctrines of that Gospel and 
 its whole character. III. It furnishes a type, re- 
 presentation, or emblem of the new and spiritual life 
 required of the Christian ; that we, being dead in- 
 deed unto sin and alive unto God through Jesus 
 Christ our Lord, we may become new creatures, — 
 " that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by 
 
326 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 the glory of the Father, even so we also should 
 walk in newness of life." 
 
 The doctrine of salvation by the meritorious sacri- 
 fice of Christ, is objected to as dangerous ; but there 
 is hardly anything that is not, if men will but de- 
 termine to pervert and misapply it. It is urged, 
 that a man may give himself up to sin, and call this 
 trusting in the merits of Christ : true ! and so may 
 a Deist, trusting in like manner to the mercy of 
 God ; for who can set bounds to that ? The misin- 
 terpretations of perverseness and folly we disavow, 
 but cannot prevent ; the fault is in the men, not in 
 the doctrines. " Abusus non tollit usum." 
 
 As the cloudy pillar which stood between the 
 camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel 
 was a cloud and darkness to those, but gave light 
 by night to these ; even thus, Paul found the Gospel 
 of " Christ crucified" was "to the Jews a stum- 
 bling block, and to the Greeks foolishness ;" but to 
 them that believe, " the wisdom of God and the 
 power of God." 
 
 The Christian faith is not merely to believe what 
 Christ has taught, but to believe in Him. Jesus did 
 not come to make a revelation so much as to be the 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 327 
 
 subject of a revelation. He was only so far the re- 
 vealer and teacher of the great doctrines of Christi- 
 anity, as we might call the sun and planets the dis- 
 coverers of the Newtonian system of astronomy. He 
 is not merely the teacher of the true way to eternal 
 life,— He is " the Way, the Truth, and the Life." 
 He is not merely the preacher of the resurrection 
 and immortal life, — He is the Resurrection and the 
 Life. 
 
 May his Holy Spirit implant this faith in our 
 affections, and enable us to display it in our lives ; 
 and bring us to be partakers of the blessing He has 
 promised to those who, having "not seen," have 
 yet believed ; " that believing, we might have life 
 through his name." 
 
 The Socinian's argument weighs against himself 
 in several points. For instance, it is urged, that 
 the meritorious sacrifice of Christ is a most unintel- 
 ligible and mysterious means of salvation ; whereas, 
 if we suppose that the establishment of a pure and 
 authoritative system of morality was the object o£ 
 his mission, the whole is quite conceivable and rea- 
 sonable. Such is the Socinian's argument. Now, 
 I should be inclined to conjecture, a priori, that a 
 revelation would probably contain something which 
 unassisted reason would never have devised. It is 
 
328 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 surely not inconceivable, at least, that God may see 
 a fitness in our believing some truths which are, to 
 our present faculties, incomprehensible ; supposing", 
 as I do, that this is the state of the fact I readily 
 perceive the necessity of a revelation, which I could 
 not perceive, if I thought this revelation contained 
 nothing but what was discovered or discoverable 
 without it. 
 
 It has been alleged by objectors to Christianity, 
 that God would never interfere with the course of 
 his own creation, and therefore that a divine revela- 
 tion and miracles are, a priori, impossible. But 
 they forget, that it is not in our power to determine 
 what are interruptions of the course of Nature. If 
 one of the ephemeral insects which only exist a sin- 
 gle day, were to be endowed with reason, and to 
 have his life so prolonged as to behold the approach 
 of night, he would imagine the sinking sun and the 
 darkness were a wonderful and terrible interruption 
 to the course of nature, instead of part of that regu- 
 lar course. And so, if a clock could be so con- 
 structed as to strike once in a century, each striking 
 would seem to those who knew nothing of its work- 
 manship, a curious phenomenon or accident. Again, 
 it was at first thought that comets moved at random 
 through the skies, and were mere accidents in the 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 329 
 
 system of the universe ; now it is known that their 
 revolutions are subject to definite laws. And so 
 much in the scheme of God's providence which we 
 imagined to be interruptions, may, in fact, be 
 merely parts of that great system, of which we can 
 only dimly understand a small portion. 
 
 Whoever rejects as incredible the notion of there 
 having been any direct communication between God 
 and man at any time, because we have no visible 
 proof of any such communication taking place now, 
 must believe that Man at first civilized himself. 
 Now everything that we know of the laws of the 
 human mind lead us to judge that this is impossible ; 
 and all experience tends to prove that such a thing 
 has never happened ; nor can a single instance be 
 alleged, without manifestly begging the question, of 
 any nation that ever of itself made the first steps 
 from a savage to a civilized state. When, indeed, 
 men have arrived at a certain stage in the advance 
 towards civilization (far short of what exists in Eu- 
 rope), it is then possible for them, if nothing occurs 
 to keep them back, to advance further and further 
 towards a more civilized state. Human society may 
 be compared to some combustible substances which 
 will not take fire spontaneously, but when once set 
 on fire will burn with continually increasing force. 
 
330 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 A community of men requires to be kindled, but 
 requires no more. And tbis it is tbat misleads some 
 persons in tbeir notions respecting savages. For, 
 finding tbat tbere is no one art wbich migbt not bave 
 been invented by unassisted Man ^ supposing him to 
 have a certain degree of civilization to start from, 
 tbey bence conclude tbat unassisted Man migbt bave 
 invented all tbe arts, supposing him left originally in 
 a completely savage state. But tbis will be found 
 to be contradicted by all bistory, and inconsistent 
 witb tbe character of sucb beings as savages actually 
 are. Tbe turbulent and unrestrained passions, tbe 
 indolence — and above all, tbe want of forethought, 
 wbich are characteristic of savages, naturally tend 
 to prevent, and, as experience seems to shew, always 
 bave prevented, any process of gradual advancement 
 from taking place, except when the savage is stimu- 
 lated by tbe guidance and instruction of men superior 
 to himself. 
 
 Any one who dislikes the conclusions to wbich 
 these views lead, will probably set himself to con- 
 tend against the arguments which prove it unlikely 
 that savages should civilize themselves; but how 
 will be get over the fact that they never yet have 
 done this ? That they never can, is a theory ; and 
 something may always be said, well or ill, against 
 any theory ; but facts are stubborn things ; and that 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 331 
 
 no authenticated instance can be produced of savages 
 that ever did emerge, unaided, from that state, is no 
 theory, but a statement, hitherto uncontradicted, of 
 a matter of fact. 
 
 Now if this be the case, when, and how, did 
 civilization first begin ? If Man, when first created, 
 was left, like the brutes, to the unaided exercise of 
 those natural powers of body and mind, which are 
 common to the European and to the New- Hollander 
 — how comes it that the European is not now in the 
 condition of the New- Hollander? As the soil itself and 
 the climate of New-Holland are excellently adapted to 
 the growth of corn, and yet (as corn is not indi- 
 genous there) could never have borne any to the end 
 of the world, if it had not been brought thither from 
 another country, and sown ; so, the savage himself, 
 though he may be, as it were, a soil capable of re- 
 ceiving the seeds of civilization, can never, in the 
 first instance produce it, as of spontaneous growth ; 
 and unless those seeds be introduced from some other 
 quarter, must remain for ever in the sterility of 
 barbarism. And from what quarter, then, could 
 this first beginning of civilization have been supplied, 
 to the earliest race of mankind ? According to the 
 present course of nature, the first introducer of 
 cultivation among savages, is, and must be, Man, 
 in a more improved state : in the beginning therefore 
 
332 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 of the human race, this, since there was no man to 
 effect it, must have been the work of another Being. 
 There must have been, in short, a Revelation made 
 to the first, or to some subsequent generation, of our 
 species. And this miracle (for such it is, as being 
 an impossibility according to the present course of 
 nature), is attested, independently of the authority 
 of Scripture, and consequently in confirmation of 
 the Scripture accounts, by the fact, that civilized 
 Man exists at the present day. 
 
 Taking this view of the subject, we have no need 
 to dwell on the utility, the importance, the antece- 
 dent probability— of a Revelation ; it is established 
 as a fact, of which a monument is existing before 
 our eyes. Divine instruction is proved to be neces- 
 sary, not merely for an end which we think desirable, 
 or which we think agreeable to divine wisdom and 
 goodness, but for an end which we know has been 
 attained. That Man could not have made himself, 
 is appealed to as a proof of the agency of a divine 
 Creator: and that Mankind could not, in the first 
 instance, have civilized themselves, is a proof, exactly 
 of the same kind, and of equal strength, of the 
 agency of a divine Instructor. 
 
 Some are apt to suppose from the copious and 
 elaborate arguments that have been urged in defence 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 333 
 
 of the authenticity of the Christian Scriptures, that 
 it is harder to be established than that of other sup- 
 posed ancient books. But the importance and the 
 difficulty of proving anything, are very apt to be 
 confounded together, though easily distinguishable. 
 We bar the doors carefully, not merely when we 
 expect an unusually formidable attack, but when we 
 have an unusual treasure in the house. 
 
 The authority on which we rest our conviction of 
 the genuineness of the New Testament Scriptures, 
 is of the same kind with that on which we acknow- 
 ledge the works of Cicero and other classical authors, 
 though incomparably stronger in degree. For it is 
 not to the Roman world, in its widest acceptation, 
 but to the literary portion of it, that we appeal in 
 respect of any volume of the classics. On the con- 
 trary, the Christian Scriptures were addressed to all 
 classes (the doctrine of what is called " Reserve/' 
 of putting the light of the Gospel under a bushel, 
 being no part of the apostolic system), so that pro- 
 bably for one reader of Cicero or Livy, there were 
 more than fifty persons, even in a very early period 
 of the Church, anxious to possess copies of the New 
 Testament Scriptures ; and careful, in proportion to 
 the high importance of the subject, as to the genuine- 
 ness and accuracy of what they read. There are 
 
334 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 not a few, who being accustomed to hear the authority 
 of the primitive church spoken of as that on which 
 we receive the New Testament Scriptures, are led 
 to fancy it the authority of some one society acting 
 collectively, and in its corporate capacity ; and thus, 
 they lose sight of the very circumstance on which 
 the chief force of this testimony depends, namely, 
 that there never was a decree or decision of any one 
 Society ; but, what has far more weight, the con- 
 curring independent convictions of a great number 
 of distinct churches in various regions of the world. 
 
 The testimony which the works of the early 
 Fathers bear to the facts and doctrines of the sacred 
 books, as Christians now have them, has been well 
 compared to that afforded by the fossil remains of 
 antediluvian animals, which prove that, at a certain 
 remote period, animals such as are now known to us 
 have inhabited the earth. 
 
 The credibility of our Scriptures is established by 
 several distinct arguments, each separately tending 
 to shew that those books were, from the earliest ages 
 of Christianity, well known and carefully preserved 
 among Christians '; namely: — (1) They were quoted 
 by ancient Christian writers (2) with peculiar respect, 
 (3) collected into a distinct volume, and (4) distin- 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 335 
 
 guished by appropriate names and titles of respect, 
 (5) publicly read and expounded, and (6) had com- 
 mentaries, &c, written on them; (7) were received 
 by Christians of different sects ; &c., &c. 
 
 The Lord's day is observed all over the world, by 
 different and even hostile bodies of Christians, in 
 memory of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And 
 not only so, but it is observed by them as a day 
 which has been always thus kept, from the very day 
 when the Lord Jesus is recorded to have risen, and 
 to have appeared to his disciples. Now had the 
 observance of it not been from the very first, but 
 introduced in some later age, those among whom it 
 was thus introduced, would have been able to testify 
 that they had never heard of such a festival before. 
 Here then is a monument of the truth of the Sacred 
 History. 
 
 The existence of a Christian ministry generally, 
 or the unbroken apostolical succession of an order of 
 men, is perhaps as complete a moral certainty as any 
 historical fact can be. For if a century ago, or ten 
 centuries ago, or at any other time, a number of 
 men had arisen, claiming to be the immediate suc- 
 cessors of persons holding this office, when, in fact, 
 no such order of men had ever been heard of, such a 
 
336 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 silly pretension would have been immediately ex- 
 posed and derided. And consequently the Christian 
 ministry is a standing monument to attest the public 
 proclamation of those miraculous events at the very 
 time when they are said to have occurred, and when 
 there were numbers of persons able and willing to 
 expose the imposture had there been any. And this 
 argument for the truth of the Sacred History, is quite 
 independent of any particular mode of appointing 
 Christian ministers. It turns entirely on the mere 
 fact of the constant existence of a certain order of 
 men. 
 
 This apostolical succession of a Christian ministry 
 generally is, however, to be carefully distinguished 
 from the apostolical descent, in an unbroken line, of 
 this or that individual minister. There is not a 
 minister in all Christendom, who is able to trace up 
 with any approach to certainty his own spiritual 
 pedigree. The sacramental virtue (for such is im- 
 plied, whether the term be used or not, in the 
 principle) dependent on the imposition of hands, 
 with a due observance of apostolical usages, by a 
 bishop, himself duty consecrated and previously rightly 
 ordained deacon and priest, and rightly baptized, this 
 sacramental virtue, if a single link of the chain be 
 faulty, must, on the above principle, be utterly nul- 
 lified ever after, in respect of all the links that hang 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 337 
 
 on that one. And wholly to exclude such irregularity, 
 during the long period usually designated as the 
 dark ages, would have required a perpetual miracle ; 
 and that no such miraculous interference existed we 
 have even historical proof, in the recorded descrip- 
 tions, not only of the profound ignorance and pro- 
 fligacy of life of many of the clergy during those 
 ages, but also of the grossest irregularities in respect 
 of discipline and form. To suppose the occurrence 
 of a perpetual miracle in this case, when no such 
 miraculous interference came in to secure the " apos- 
 tolical succession" of right faith and right conduct, 
 is to represent Christianity as mainly a system of 
 outward ordinances ; and to compel alike those who 
 believe and those wiio disbelieve the plea, to come 
 eventually to the conclusion that, what some regard 
 as its essentials, a Christian faith, and a Christian 
 heart, are comparatively a small part of it. 
 
 In the case of the books of the Old Testament, 
 we have a remarkable proof of their genuineness. 
 They could never have been forged by Christians at 
 all, because they are preserved and highly reverenced 
 by the unbelieving Jews in various parts of the world 
 at this day; although these books contain what 
 appear, to Christians, most remarkable prophecies of 
 Jesus, whom the Jews reject. These are the Scrip - 
 
 z 
 
338 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 tures which the Jews at Berea were commended for 
 searching with diligent care, and the consequence of 
 which searching we are told, was, that "many of 
 them believed/ 5 Yet, though the people who lived 
 in the times of the Apostles had seen these pro- 
 phecies so far fulfilled in Jesus, as to afford good 
 reason for receiving Him, we have an advantage 
 over them in seeing the more complete fulfilment of 
 the prophecies that have since taken place. For 
 instance, that a religion should arise among the 
 Jews, which would have a wide spread among the 
 Gentiles, but yet that it should be a new religion, 
 not the same as taught by Moses ; and that this 
 religion should spring, not from the whole nation, 
 but from one individual of that nation, and he a 
 person despised, rejected, and persecuted even to 
 death, by his own people. All this, which is so 
 unlike what any one would have foretold from mere 
 guess, and which we see actually come to pass, is 
 prophesied in books, which enemies of Christianity 
 (the unbelieving Jews of this day) reverence as 
 divinely inspired. 
 
 And the proof from these prophecies is made very 
 much the stronger by the number of distinct parti- 
 culars which they mention ; some of them seeming, 
 at first sight, at variance with each other ; but all 
 of them agreeing with what has really taken place. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 339 
 
 Such a prophecy is like a complicated lock, with 
 many and intricate wards, when you have found a 
 key that opens it. An ordinary simple lock may 
 be fitted by several different keys, that were not 
 made for it : just as a loose general kind of pre- 
 diction — of the coming of some great conqueror, or 
 the like, — may have been made by guess ; and may 
 be found to agree with several different events. But 
 the more numerous and complicated are the wards of 
 a lock, the more certain you are that a key which 
 exactly fits it must be the right key ; and that one 
 of them, the key or the lock, must have been made for 
 the other. And so it is with prophecies that contain 
 many distinct, and seemingly opposite particulars, 
 when we see the event fulfilling all those particulars. 
 
 The Jewish people, in their present condition, are 
 a kind of standing miracle ; being a monument of 
 the wonderful fulfilment of the most extraordinary 
 prophecies that were ever delivered; which pro- 
 phecies they themselves preserve and bear witness 
 to, though they shut their eyes to the fulfilment of 
 them. No other account than this of the present 
 state, and past history, of the Jews ever has been, 
 or can be, given, that is not open to objections ; 
 greater than all the objections put together, that 
 have ever been brought against Christianity. 
 
 z 2 
 
340 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 The testimony — whether positive or negative — of 
 adversaries and of indifferent persons is generally 
 regarded to have great weight ; and the historic 
 details, wonderful and miraculous as they are, of 
 the Christian Scriptures are not without this impor- 
 tant evidence of their truth. Not only have they 
 the confirmatory negative testimony of the noncon- 
 tradiction of their statements, though publicly put 
 forth and generally known, but they have also the 
 positive testimony of opponents. It is clear from 
 the fragments remaining of the ancient arguments 
 against Christianity, and the allusions to them in 
 Christian writers, and also from the Jewish accounts 
 of the life of Jesus, which are still extant, under 
 the title of Toldoth Jeschu, that the original oppo- 
 nents of Christianity admitted that the miracles 
 were wrought, but denied that they proved the 
 divine origin of the religion, and attributed them 
 to magic. It is remarkable that in this book,- Toldoth 
 Jeschu, one, and only one, of the alleged miracles 
 is denied ; so closely does it agree, in this respect, 
 with our Sacred Writers, who describe the unbeliev- 
 ing Jews as denying the fact of Christ's resurrection, 
 but admitting the other miracles, and ascribing them 
 to the agency of evil spirits. The prevailing notion 
 among the ancients seems to have been, that a ma- 
 gician's power, however great, lasted only for his 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 341 
 
 life. The resurrection, therefore, of Jesus utterly 
 overthrew, in the minds of those who were convinced 
 of the fact, a supposition of his being a magician. 
 Now the Toldoth Jeschu must have been compiled 
 (at whatever period) from traditions existing from the 
 very first ; for it is uncredible that if those cotem- 
 poraries of Jesus who opposed Him had denied the 
 fact of the miracles having been wrought, their de- 
 scendants should have admitted the facts, and resorted 
 to the hypothesis of magic. And this admission of 
 persons living so much nearer the time assigned to 
 the miracles, is a most important evidence ; for, 
 credulous as men were in those days respecting 
 magic, they would hardly have resorted to this ex- 
 planation, unless some, at least plausible, evidence 
 for the miracles had been adduced ; and they could 
 not but be sensible that to prove (had that been 
 possible) the pretended miracles to be impostures, 
 would have been the most decisive course ; since 
 this would at once have disproved the religion. 
 
 The admission by unbelievers of old of the mira- 
 cles which attest the Christian religion, while deny- 
 ing that a religion so attested was from God, is 
 remarkable as a reverse of what is the case in 
 modern times, when persons have been found, who, 
 while professing themselves believers in Christianity, 
 
342 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 
 represent the disciples (how they came to he disciples 
 these persons do not tell us) as having been led by 
 zeal for their Master's honour, to exaggerate and 
 misrepresent some of the occurrences which they 
 record, and to invent others. The sick persons, for 
 instance, healed by Him, they represent as having 
 accidentally recovered just at the time when they 
 were brought to Him. His walking on the water 
 was, they tell us, merely a mode of expressing that 
 He waded along a shallow portion of the lake ! 
 And the five thousand were fed, not with the bread 
 distributed to them by the disciples, but with what 
 some of themselves had brought with them ; which, 
 on that supposition, must have amounted to about 
 fifty hundred-weight; a quantity too conspicuous, 
 certainly, to have admitted of any deception. 
 
 All this would be simply ridiculous, from its ex- 
 cessive absurdity, if it were not so profanely pre- 
 sumptuous. And yet men are to be found, professedly 
 at least, believing such things, and, all the while, 
 imagining themselves not credulous ! 
 
 Then, again, come others, who sweep away with 
 merited contempt all this tissue of extravagance, 
 and declare that all the miraculous accounts in the 
 Gospels were invented in the third or fourth century, 
 after the religion had been firmly established in 
 men's minds, and when it was received with such 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 343 
 
 reverential awe, that stories of miracles connected 
 with it were received with ready credence. 
 
 These theologians (for such they call themselves) 
 forget that they have substituted for those absurd 
 interpretations which they discard, another absurdity 
 quite equal to any of them. They tell us of what 
 they suppose happened in the Christian world, when 
 the Gospel had been fully established; but they 
 forget to tell us how it came to be established ! 
 
 Suppose some historian maintaining that the vast 
 armies which Napoleon Buonaparte is described as 
 bringing into the field, and his prodigious trains of 
 artillery, and his wonderful victories, are far beyond 
 the bounds of credibility, and are to be set down as 
 legendary fables, or what are in modern times called 
 myths ; and adding, that these splendid legends were 
 gradually invented, and more and more exaggerated, 
 in order to do honour to this Napoleon, after he had 
 attained an empire, he having raised himself from a 
 very humble station to that empire, and subjugated 
 the greater part of Eurtfpe, at the head of a handful 
 of unarmed followers, and without fighting any 
 battles at all. If any one were supposed serious in 
 maintaining such a theory, he would be reckoned an 
 idiot or a madman. And yet such silly credulity 
 has its parallel in that of those who, while rejecting 
 the evidence of miracles, must believe that Christ 
 
344 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 and His Apostles did, without any superhuman 
 powers, what we have the best reason for thinking 
 no man without such powers could do, and what, 
 certainly, without such powers, no other men, in 
 like circumstances, have ever done. That a handful 
 of Jewish peasants and fishermen should undertake 
 to abolish the religion of the whole civilized world, 
 and introduce a new one, in defiance of all the pre- 
 judices, and all the power of this world arrayed 
 against them ; — that they should think to effect this 
 by pretending to miraculous powers which they did 
 not, and knew they did not, possess ; — and that they 
 should succeed in the attempt ; — all this is, surely, 
 many times more incredible than anything recorded 
 in the Scriptures. For extraordinary, and in them- 
 selves improbable, as are the miraculous circum- 
 stances, all of them put together are as nothing in 
 point of strangeness compared with the only alter- 
 native ; with what must be believed by any one who 
 should, therefore, resolve to reject these miraculous 
 narratives. 
 
 Is it not, cceteris paribus, a greater effort of faith 
 to expect a miracle before hand, than to believe in 
 the narrative of a past one ? For in this latter case 
 there is, on the opposite side, the difficulty, whatever 
 it may be, of accounting for a false narrative of a 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 345 
 
 matter of fact ; whereas, in regard to what is future, 
 how much sooner some may expect it, then expecta- 
 tion is a matter of opinion. And a groundless ex- 
 pectation or other opinion, is, as a general rule, less 
 strong than a groundless narrative. And yet many 
 there have been who have professed to disbelieve, or 
 to reject all miraculous narrative, and many more 
 who find in these their chief difficulty, yet possess 
 a firm expectation, unencumbered by any sense of 
 difficulty, of the greatest of all miracles, — a future 
 life. 
 
 Parallels have been drawn by Hume, in his Essay 
 on Miracles, and by writers professing themselves 
 Christians, between the miracles recorded in the 
 New Testament, and those in the legends of pre- 
 tended saints, which last were received ; just as 
 counterfeit coin is from its resemblance to genuine* 
 
 The credibility of the New Testament Scriptures 
 is established not alone by external evidence, but 
 by internal marks of trutli — by those peculiarities 
 which distinguish the Christian revelation, alike 
 from natural religion and all pretended revelations. 
 Some few of these internal evidences, derived from 
 the characteristics of the Scriptures themselves, may 
 be thus summed up : — 
 
346 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 I. Not one of the books of the New Testament is 
 attributed to Jesus himself; had there been any 
 forgery, the forged books, or at least the principal 
 of them, would naturally have been put forth as 
 written by the very founder of the new religion, 
 laying down the principles and precepts of that reli- 
 gion, and answering to the books of the law written 
 by Moses. 
 
 II. The omission of the title of Christians as ap- 
 plied by the earliest Christians to themselves, proving 
 the antiquity of the books. The term which was 
 manifestly of Roman origin occurs but three times 
 in the New Testament ; and in each case, manifestly, 
 as employed by those who were not Christians. This 
 fact, (however it is to be accounted for, or whether 
 we can account for it at all or not,) is one that would 
 alone be a sufficient disapproval of the notion of 
 some daring speculators, that the New Testament 
 writings were composed in the second, third, or 
 fourth century, from some vague floating traditions, 
 and then, fathered upon the apostles and evangelists 
 by fraud, carelessness, and ignorance. Had this 
 been the case, the title of " Christians," which was 
 then in as common use as it is now, would un- 
 doubtedly have been found in the books of the New 
 Testament, in its present application by Christians 
 to each other. This omission, then, alone furnishes 
 
 LIS 
 
 5S, 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 347 
 
 even to a plain unlearned reader, a complete proof 
 of their antiquity. And the anxiety of infidels to 
 disprove that antiquity, shews plainly how they 
 despair of contending, in any other way, against 
 their truth. Such books could never possibly, if 
 false, have been circulated without detection, at the 
 very time when the wonderful events related in 
 them, are described as occurring. 
 
 III. The character of Jesus himself, as drawn by 
 the Evangelists. It is quite unlike all that had ever 
 before appeared, or been described, or imagined ; 
 and the picture is evidently an unstudied one. There 
 is nothing in it of the nature of eulogium and 
 panegyric. 
 
 IV. The brief, calm, unadorned style in which 
 the miracles and sufferings of Jesus and his apostles 
 are narrated ; and the candid and frank simplicity 
 with which the weakness and faults of the disciples 
 are described. 
 
 V. The clear revelation of a future state, and the 
 promise of eternal life through the resurrection of 
 the body. 
 
 VI. The different nature of that kingdom of 
 heaven, proclaimed by our Lord and the apostles, 
 from that glorious worldly empire which the Jews 
 expected ; and the total absence of all attempt to 
 accommodate the doctrines to the prejudices, or to 
 
348 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 flatter the pride, of the Jews, by holding out hopes 
 of national or spiritual supremacy. 
 
 VII. The absolute requisition of a morality stricter 
 and superior in kind to any hitherto practised, or 
 even approved ; and by this opposition, not merely 
 to men's natural inclinations, but also in some points 
 to their ideas of what is praiseworthy, proving the 
 utter incredibility of mere ordinary human beings 
 contriving a religion which condemns not only men's 
 conduct but their principles. 
 
 VIII. The mode by which that morality is incul- 
 cated, so peculiar, 1st, in the motives supplied ; 
 2ndly, in the examples proposed ; 3rdly, in the 
 precepts delivered, 
 
 IX. The omission not merely, but the exclusion, 
 of any sacrifice save that offered up by the founder 
 of the religion in his own person ; of any sacrificing 
 priest (Hiereus or Sacerdos) except Him, the great 
 and true High Priest, and consequently the exclusion 
 of any priest, in that sense, on earth ; except so far 
 as every one of the worshippers was required to 
 present himself as " a living sacrifice, holy, accept- 
 able unto God ;" and the exclusion of any temple, 
 except the collected congregation of the worshippers 
 themselves. When it is remembered that the Gospel 
 religion was introduced by men and among men, 
 whether Jews or Pagans that had never heard of, or 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 349 
 
 conceived, such a thing as a religion without priest, 
 sacrifice, altar, or temple, is it credible that Chris- 
 tianity should have been without them, if it had 
 been invented by men ? 
 
 X. The practical character of the revelation, and 
 the careful avoidance of all that could serve to mere 
 speculative knowledge, or the gratification of cu- 
 riosity, however natural or excusable, the ministering 
 to which is a marked characteristic of all other reli- 
 gious systems. 
 
 These characteristics, and many others that might 
 be pointed out, would be very remarkable if met 
 with in any one book ; but it is still more so when 
 it is considered that they run through all the books 
 of the New Testament, which are no less than 
 twenty- seven distinct compositions, of several dif- 
 ferent kinds, written apparently at considerable 
 intervals of time from each other, and which have 
 come down to us as the works of no less than eight 
 different authors. Infidels may reasonably be called 
 upon to explain how, if Christianity be the invention 
 of man, the Christian Scriptures, the production of 
 uninspired men, it comes to pass that they differ so 
 materially from all other religions invented by man, 
 and all pretended revelations put forward by man. 
 And when they ask, is it likely that Christianity 
 came from God ? they may be fairly met with the 
 
350 THOUGHTS AND AFOPHTHEGM3. 
 
 question , is it likely that Christianity came from 
 man ? And the latter is much the fairer and more 
 rational kind of enquiry, because we are much better 
 able to judge what might reasonably be expected 
 from man than from God. For human nature is our 
 own nature, "but God's ways are not as our ways, 
 nor his thoughts like our thoughts." It is much 
 safer, consequently, to argue that Christianity did 
 not come from man, because it is not such as might 
 reasonably be expected from man, than to argue 
 that it did not come from God, because it seems to us 
 not such in all respects as the Deity would be likely 
 to deliver to us. 
 
 The dependence of the unlearned on the learned 
 for translations of Scripture, is very far from amount- 
 ing to a submissive reliance on their word, for all 
 that Scripture contains and for the very existence of 
 the Sacred Books. On the contrary, the known ex- 
 istence of several distinct, and even rival, versions 
 of the Scriptures into English and many other mo- 
 dern languages, all substantially agreeing where 
 there could not have been any concert, — all, even 
 the most imperfect, exhibiting all the main facts and 
 doctrines of our religion, — this affords to the un- 
 learned reader a perfectly good ground for his accep- 
 tance of that religion, and a ground quite indepen- 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 351 
 
 dent of any implicit reliance on the good faith and 
 on the wisdom of the translators. All these trans- 
 lations, in short, are in the condition of witnesses 
 placed in a witness-box in a court of justice ; ex- 
 amined and cross-examined by friends and enemies, 
 and brought face to face with each other, so as to 
 make it certain that any falsehood or mistake will 
 be brought to light. Thus the strongest possible 
 evidence of the general fidelity and trustworthiness 
 of the translations of the Bible which they read, is 
 afforded to unlearned Christians in a free country, 
 where, every man being allowed to publish his sen- 
 timents on religious matters, any attempt to palm off 
 a false translation of the Scriptures, would be imme- 
 diately detected and exposed. It is just the same 
 sort of evidence as that on which you believe that 
 the earth is round, or that there is such a city as 
 Paris, though you may have never been at Paris, 
 nor ever sailed round the world. 
 
 The prevalence of figurative language in Sacred 
 Writers, may be regarded as something exhibiting 
 marks of design. It is a remarkable circumstance, 
 that a figurative style is perfectly retained in trans- 
 lation, in which every other excellence of expression 
 is liable to be lost. It may be said with truth, that 
 the book most necessary to translate into every 
 
352 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 language is chiefly characterized by that kind of 
 excellence in diction which is least impaired by 
 translation. 
 
 In the Scriptures we have, as it were, a lasting 
 picture of the Spirit of Truth, which we must con- 
 sult in order that we may recognize Him, and reject 
 false appearances. 
 
 It is not in the Holy Scriptures alone that the 
 Holy Ghost is present with the Church ; but it is by 
 them, as a test, that his presence is in each case to 
 be known. Whatever suggests to us anything not 
 agreeable to God's written word, we may be sure is 
 not from Him. 
 
 He who studies the Scriptures is consulting the 
 Spirit of Truth ; and if he would hope for His aid, 
 must remember this, and search honestly and ear- 
 nestly for the truth. 
 
 All Scripture is in itself invulnerable ; and they 
 who attack it, do but dash themselves to pieces 
 against a rock. 
 
 Christian conduct must be founded on Faith — a 
 faith drawn from the Scriptures ; supported by Hope 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 353 
 
 —a hope based on the Scriptures ; and guided by 
 Charity- — a charity learned from the Scriptures. 
 
 The Scriptures venerated, yet not used, are no 
 longer like the daily shower of manna to supply 
 daily wants, but the pot of manna stored up with 
 reverent care in the ark, as a curiosity. 
 
 He who should think to make a voyage in safety, 
 hj having on board the ship a chart of the coasts he 
 was to pass, shut up in a chest and never consulted, 
 or, if taken out, merely glanced at, without any at- 
 tempt to understand it, or to steer his course by it, 
 would not be more a madman or an idiot than is the 
 possessor of a Bible that he never reads, or reads at 
 certain stated times, without endeavouring to learn 
 anything from it, or to apply it to his own improve- 
 ment. To such, the words of Scripture, whether 
 in a strange language, or in his own, are no more 
 than empty sounds, or mere black marks on w r hite 
 paper. 
 
 The stream of religious knowledge should be con- 
 tinually traced up to the pure fountain-head, the 
 living waters of the Scriptures. 
 
 The admission of the necessity of human teaching, 
 
 A A 
 
354 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 and the deference due to the judgment of the learned 
 and pious, is quite consistent with the demand of 
 Scripture proof. A town clock is of excellent use in 
 making publicly known with authority the correct 
 time — making it known to many who, perhaps, at 
 no time, and certainly not at all times, would find 
 it convenient to verify its correctness for themselves. 
 And yet it is clear, that one who maintained the 
 great use and importance of having such a clock, 
 would not be in the least inconsistent, if he also 
 maintained that it might possibly go astray, and if 
 he inculcated the necessity of frequently comparing 
 it with, and regulating it by, the dial which receives 
 its light from heaven. 
 
 Offering to the people proof of doctrines from the 
 works of the Fathers — works mostly untranslated, 
 and far too voluminous for above one person in a 
 hundred thousand to master — is something like offer- 
 ing to pay a large bill of exchange in farthings, 
 which, you know, it would be intolerably trouble- 
 some to count or carry. 
 
 By "ancient" some persons understand what be- 
 longs to the first three centuries of the Christian era ; 
 some, the first four ; some, seven ; — so arbitrary 
 and uncertain is the standard by which some, who 
 
MISCELLANEOUS, 355 
 
 tell us that we are bound to seek for a distinct au- 
 thoritative sanction in some ancient writings, some 
 tradition, would persuade us to try questions on which 
 they, at the same time, teach us to believe our 
 Christian Faith and Christian Hope are staked. 
 
 " Scire velim, pretium chartis quotus arroget annus ; 
 
 Est vetus atque probus, centum qui perfecit annos. 
 Quid ? qui deperiit minor uno mense vel anno, 
 Inter quos referendus erit ? veterisne ?" . . . 
 
 Horace, Epist., i., b. 2. 
 
 To interpret the less known by the better known 
 is reasonable ; but to reverse the process, as is done 
 in interpreting the Scriptures by the writings of the 
 Ancient Fathers, is as if a naturalist should take a 
 fossil elephant as a standard by which to correct and 
 modify the description of the animal now existing 
 among us. 
 
 The tendency to teach for doctrines the command- 
 ments of men, and to acquiesce in such teachings, 
 is not the effect, but the cause, of their being taken 
 for the commandments of God. 
 
 The implicit deference due to the declarations and 
 precepts of Holy Scripture, is due to nothing else. 
 
 a a2 
 
356 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 Tradition is not the interpreter of Scripture, but 
 Scripture is the interpreter of tradition. What has 
 come down to us for tradition, if agreeable to Scrip- 
 ture, is to be received ; if opposed to it, to be re- 
 jected ; if neither, is to be left in uncertainty. 
 
 It is a foolish thing to say that tradition is to be 
 held to, rather than Scripture, because tradition was 
 before Scripture; since Scripture (that is, written 
 records ) # were used on purpose, after tradition had 
 been tried, to guard against the uncertainties of 
 mere tradition. Thus Luke tells. Theophilus that 
 he had w r ritten an account of our Lord's life and 
 teaching, that Theophilus u might know the certainty 
 (the exact state of the case) of those things wherein 
 he had been instructed." And John and Paul, upon 
 two occasions (John xxi. 23 ; 2 Thess. ii. 1 — 5), 
 correct false reports (that is, traditions), which had 
 gone abroad among Christians even in their own day. 
 
 To believe that the Apostles would leave the 
 essentials of Christianity to be collected from in- 
 cidental allusions, or from doubtful traditions quite 
 inaccessible to the generality of Christians, and 
 about which the learned few are far from being 
 agreed, is surely not to shew reverence for them, 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 357 
 
 either as inspired servants of God, or even as men 
 of ordinary good sense. 
 
 To found faith on an appeal to tradition, is to base 
 it on the report of a report of a report of a report 
 
 Discussions, one sometimes meets with, as to the 
 "credibility of tradition" generally, are as idle as 
 Hume's respecting the credit due to testimony. One 
 might as well inquire, "What degree of regard 
 should be paid to books ?" as common sense would 
 dictate in reply, "What book?" so also, "Whose 
 testimony ? what tradition ?" As each particular 
 testimony and each particular book, just so, should 
 each alleged tradition be examined on its own merits. 
 
 Many defend oral tradition on the ground that we 
 have the Scriptures themselves by tradition. Would 
 they think that because they might trust servants to 
 deliver a letter, however long or important, therefore 
 they might trust them to deliver its contents by 
 word of mouth in a message? A footman brings 
 you a letter from a friend, upon whose word you 
 can perfectly rely, giving an account of something 
 that has happened to himself, and the exact account 
 of which you are greatly concerned to know. While 
 you are reading and answering the letter, the foot- 
 

 358 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 man goes into the kitchen, and there gives your 
 cook an account of the same thing ; which, he says, 
 he overheard the upper- servants at home talking 
 over, as related to them by the valet, who said he 
 had it from your friend's son's own lips. 
 
 The distinction attempted to be set up between 
 co-ordinate and subordinate tradition is but a falla- 
 cious one ; the real difference being only that every 
 usurped and arbitrary power is usually exercised 
 with comparative leniency at first Let but the prin- 
 ciple which is common to both systems be established, 
 and the one may easily be made to answer all the 
 purposes of the other. 
 
 Tradition and Church Interpretation are made by 
 a certain system, subordinate to, and dependent on, 
 Scripture, much as some parasite plants are de- 
 pendent on the tree, that supports them, gradually 
 overspreading it with their own foliage, till by little 
 and little they weaken and completely smother it. 
 
 "Miraturque novas frondes, et non sua poma." 
 
 As a man directed to take two medicines, as being 
 both essential for his health, would most likely not 
 take the pains to analyze the one, when it was out 
 of his power to analyze the other : but would rather 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 359 
 
 take his physician's word for both, — or at once re- 
 ject both : so those, who blindly and uninquiringly 
 trust to a human spiritual guide, will be induced to 
 take his word for everything alike. 
 
 Some advocates of authoritative tradition who, 
 while loudly proclaiming that they do not require 
 assent to anything that may not be proved by Scrip- 
 ture, would yet have us receive a point of faith oh 
 their word and on their conviction that it is Scrip- 
 tural, act in the same way, and produce the same 
 effect, that a Government would do that should 
 make a paper currency legal tender, and require 
 belief of the existence and amount of the represented 
 bullion or land, and of its ability to produce it, not 
 on the test of payment demanded and obtained, but 
 on its own word — the word of the very Government 
 issuing this paper currency ; which thus made incon- 
 vertible would supersede the precious metals, till 
 they gradually disappear and leave nothing but a 
 profusion of worthless paper. 
 
 The Christian minister should ever remember, 
 that the Apostles and Evangelists can teach Chris- 
 tianity better than he can, and carefully lead his 
 flock to the study of their writings. He should in- 
 struct them, to the best of his ability, out of the 
 
360 THOUGHTS AXD APOPHTHEGMS, 
 
 Scriptures. He should teach them to search the 
 Scriptures for themselves to see " whether those 
 things be so," which they shall have heard from 
 him ; and should warn them to trust in God, and 
 not to transfer their allegiance to any uninspired 
 man, and should caution them against being led 
 away, by bold assertions and arrogant pretensions, 
 into those corruptions of Gospel truth, which will 
 always, from time to time, be found arising within 
 the Church. So shall they be enabled to " take up 
 the serpents" they will meet with, and " if they 
 drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them." 
 
 The fact that the Scriptures contain things hard 
 to be understood, is no reason for laying them aside, 
 but a very strong one for taking the more pains to 
 understand them. 
 
 If the Scriptures could properly be understood 
 without any trouble, and could not be perverted to 
 bad purposes, they would be extremely unlike the 
 rest of God's gifts. 
 
 As the laws of nature are in themselves invariable, 
 but yet are sometimes imperfectly known and some- 
 times mistaken by natural philosophers, so the Scrip- 
 tures are intrinsically infallible, but do not impart 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 361 
 
 infallibility to the student of them. To complain of 
 this, — to reject or undervalue the revelation God has 
 bestowed, urging that it is no revelation to us, or 
 an insufficient one, because unerring certainty is not 
 bestowed also — because we are required to exercise 
 patient diligence, and watchfulness, and candour, 
 and humble self- distrust, — this would be as unreason- 
 able as to disparage and reject the bountiful gift of 
 eye- sight, because men's eyes have sometimes de- 
 ceived them ; — because men have mistaken a picture 
 for the object imitated, or a mirage of the desert for 
 a lake ; and have fancied they had the evidence of 
 sight for the sun's motion ; and to infer from all this 
 that we ought to blind ourselves, and be led hence- 
 forth by some guide, who pretends to be himself not 
 liable to such deceptions. 
 
 Peter's implied censure of those who are unlearned 
 (that is, ill acquainted with truths revealed in the 
 Bible), and, as will naturally follow, "unstable," 
 and likely to be " blown about with every wind of 
 doctrine," should operate as a caution, not against 
 the study of the Scriptures, but against the faults 
 which would lead us to wrest them to our destruction. 
 
 Any suggestion or persuasion that the Scriptures 
 need not be read, or that the right interpretation of 
 
362 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 them requires no- diligent care, and that we have 
 such an infallible guide within us, or that some 
 boastful pretender has such, as does away the neces- 
 sity of candid, humble, patient study of the Bible, 
 or that we are at liberty to receive, or reject, or alter 
 the sense of each passage, in conformity with what 
 seems to our minds reasonable or not, in the same 
 manner as when we are reading the work of any 
 human writer; every such suggestion comes from 
 the proud and disobedient spirit who would lead us 
 to imitate his presumptuous rebellion. Faith in 
 ourselves, faith in the pretensions of man, are the 
 very opposite to Christian faith, which is faith in 
 God only. 
 
 If we receive the heavenly light of God's Word, 
 through the discoloured medium of our own preju- 
 dices and infirmities, its rays will give an unnatural 
 tinge to everything on which they are shed, con- 
 firming, it may be, preconceived notions, or leading 
 to false conclusions. 
 
 To find in a passage of Scripture an argument in 
 favour of a doctrine, is a very different thing from 
 finding jn it a revelation of the doctrine. 
 
 We should search the Scriptures, not to defend 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 363 
 
 our opinions, but to form them ; not merely for 
 argument but for truth. 
 
 An erroneous doctrine may sometimes spring from 
 the misinterpretation of a text of Scripture, oftener 
 the misinterpretation from the doctrine. 
 
 It is one thing to desire to have Scripture on our 
 side, and another thing to desire to be on the side of 
 Scripture. 
 
 The passages quoted from Scripture in behalf of 
 some practice, are often excuses, and not reasons 
 for it. 
 
 Many and various are the objections (some of 
 them more or less plausible, and others very weak), 
 that have been brought — on grounds of science, or 
 supposed science — against the Mosaic accounts of 
 the creation, of the state of the early world, and of 
 the flood. And when answering these objections, it 
 is important to lay down the principles on which 
 either the Bible, or any other writing or speech, 
 ought to be studied and understood, namely, with a 
 reference to the object proposed by the writer or 
 speaker. For example, if we bid any one proceed 
 in a straight line from one place to another, and to 
 
364 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 take care to arrive before the sun goes down, he will 
 rightly and fully understand us in reference to the 
 practical object which alone we had in view. Now 
 we know that there cannot really be a straight line 
 on the surface of the earth ; and that the sun does 
 not really go down, but whether the other party 
 knows all this or not, matters nothing to our present 
 object, which was not to teach mathematics or astro- 
 nomy, but to make him conform to our directions, 
 which are equally intelligible to the learned and the 
 unlearned. 
 
 Now the object of the Scripture revelation is to 
 teach men not astronomy, or geology, or any other 
 physical science, but Religion. 
 
 In what relates to Divine Revelations, reason 
 should be confined to those two points : — 1st, to judge 
 of the grounds on which any professed revelation 
 should be received or rejected, as being "from heaven 
 or of men;" and, 2ndly, to determine what it is 
 that we are enabled and required to learn from the 
 revelation which God has actually given. 
 
 Men are too apt to treat Scripture as the poor 
 dupes of Medea did their aged parent, in hopes of 
 making him come out of the cauldron with increased 
 vigour. They chop it up into separate texts, and 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 365 
 
 stew it with the poisonous weeds of human specula- 
 tions, in hopes of their producing a complete and 
 beautiful body of divinity. 
 
 The object of revelation is to teach religion, pro- 
 perly so called, which does not consist in the know- 
 ledge of human nature in itself, or of the divine 
 nature in itself, but in the knowledge — and the 
 practical application of the knowledge — of God in 
 relation to man, and man in relation to God. To go 
 beyond this, is to teach " philosophy and vain deceit, 
 after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of 
 the world and not after Christ.' ' 
 
 It is an important general rule in interpreting 
 Scripture, that the most practical interpretation is 
 ever likely to be the truest. In the precepts as 
 well as the parables of Scripture, it is to the practical 
 result that the attention is intended to be directed. 
 For instance, this is the case even in the precept to 
 "love. thy neighbour as thyself;" for it is only 
 figuratively that a man is said to love himself ; the 
 regard which he has for his own happiness being not 
 in degree merely, but in kind very different from 
 any benevolent affections towards another ; but the 
 force of the precept is, that as we diligently seek 
 to promote our own welfare without having any fur- 
 
366 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 ther object in view, so we ought also diligently 
 to promote the welfare of others, looking to nothing 
 beyond. And this is practically sufficient. 
 
 Amid all our ignorance and weakness what we 
 best know is our duty. 
 
 As the peasant who may be utterly ignorant 
 respecting the progress of germination in the seed 
 which he sows, the growth of the plant and its 
 fructification, may yet have practical knowledge 
 sufficient to enable him to prepare the soil for the 
 seed, to raise the corn, and to gather in the harvest ; 
 or as the ancient mariners steered their course in 
 safety by those heavenly bodies whose magnitude, 
 and distance, and motions they so imperfectly under- 
 stood ; so also may the Word of God be a lantern 
 to our steps, and " a light unto our path," even 
 though we may have but a very imperfect under- 
 standing of the divine dispensation. 
 
 If none of the doctrines necessary to be revealed 
 for other practical purposes, were of sufficiently 
 mysterious character to serve also for trials of faith, 
 humility, and candour, in assenting to them on 
 sufficient grounds, (a purpose which, as producing 
 moral results, may be fairly reckoned a worthy and 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 367 
 
 fit purpose, and a practical one,) we might then, 
 perhaps, expect that some things should be proposed 
 to our belief, solely and singly for this latter purpose. 
 But if both objects can be fully accomplished by the 
 same revelation — if our faith be sufficiently tried by 
 the admission of such mysterious doctrines as are 
 important for other practical ends also — then the 
 revelation of any further mysteries, which lead to 
 no such practical end, is the less necessary, and 
 consequently the less to be expected. So that an 
 exclusively practical character, is a probable mark 
 of a true revelation. 
 
 All pretended revelations which have been the 
 basis of distinct religions, and all corruptions of 
 Christianity, all systems of religion — whether Pagan 
 or Mahomedan, and all modifications of our own, 
 however dissimilar they may be in other respects, 
 however they may differ in the greater or less ab- 
 surdity, or the greater or less immorality of their 
 fables, legends and traditions; in the number of 
 them, or the degree of credit they obtain — all agree 
 in this one general characteristic, the general want 
 of reference to human conduct, and in the leading 
 or, at least, one leading, object being to gratify 
 human curiosity, to minister to that desire of know- 
 ledge for its own sake without any reference to its 
 
368 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 utility, which is obviously a part of our nature. An 
 ancient writer who well understood human nature, 
 justly observes that things hidden, and things ad- 
 mirable, are what men especially covet to know. 
 Now nothing can be more hidden, nothing more ad- 
 mirable than the nature and the works of God. The 
 origin and constitution of the world we inhabit — of 
 man himself, the nature of angels and of various 
 orders of beings which may exist, superior to man, — 
 and of the Supreme Being Himself ; each of these 
 subjects suggests innumerable matters of inquiry 
 whose grandeur fills the most exalted, and whose 
 difficulty baffles the most intelligent mind. Again, 
 nothing could have been more deeply interesting 
 than minute details of everything relating to the life 
 of our great Master, however little connected with 
 his ministry — such as his personal appearance, his 
 domestic habits, and all particulars relative to his 
 parents. Is it not then natural, that men should 
 eagerly seek for some superhuman means of infor- 
 mation on subjects so interesting to their curiosity, 
 and so much beyond their unaided powers ? And is 
 it not consequently to be expected, that both the 
 devices of an impostor, and the visions of an enthu- 
 siast should abound in food for this curiosity ? What 
 then is in this respect the character of the Christian 
 revelation ? It stands distinguished from all other 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 369 
 
 religions, and even from all modifications of itself in 
 its exclusively practical character, and its omission 
 of everything that would serve merely to pamper 
 vain curiosity. We have in the contrast thus pre- 
 sented in the wisdom and dignified simplicity of the 
 Scriptures with the idle and arrogant pretensions of 
 human fraud and folly, a plain proof that our Scrip- 
 tures were not of man's devising, that no impostor 
 would, and no enthusiast could, have wTitten them. 
 Praised be the superhuman wisdom that has thus 
 proved the divine origin of the Scriptures ! for what 
 cannot have come from man must have come from 
 God. 
 
 When Paul describes the Gospel as being "to the 
 Jews a stumbling block, and to the Greeks foolish- 
 ness/ ' he supplies a practical rule wherewith to test 
 any representation of it. Whenever, then, such a 
 representation of Christianity is made, as would not 
 have been a " stumbling-block to the Jews," or such 
 as w r ould not have been "foolishness to the Greeks," 
 it may at once be concluded that this cannot be the 
 Gospel which Paul preached. 
 
 He who would be of those who (in the words of 
 the apostle Peter) " desire as new born babes the 
 sincere (unadulterated) milk of the Word, that they 
 
 B B 
 
370 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 may grow thereby :" he who would learn the very 
 Gospel which the apostles taught, just as it was 
 received by their hearers, must in heart and spirit 
 accompany the simple shepherds in their visit to 
 Bethlehem to u see," not what human philosophy 
 has devised, but — what u the Lord hath made known 
 unto us." 
 
 Doctrines, whether true or false, that are not re- 
 vealed in Scripture can constitute no part of the 
 Christian faith 5 and those who teach them as Gos- 
 pel truths are answerable for the effects produced, 
 not only on those who adopt the opinions, but also 
 on those who reject them. 
 
 The question concerning the Origin of Evil is left 
 by the Scriptures just where they found it. They 
 neither introduce the difficulty, as some weak oppo- 
 nents contend, nor account for it, as is imagined by 
 some not less weak advocates ; who having under- 
 taken to explain it, and having, perhaps, satisfied 
 themselves and others that they have done so, are 
 sure to be met by the very same difficulty re- appear- 
 ing in some different form ; like a resistless stream, 
 which when one of its channels is dammed up, im- 
 mediately forces its way through another. He who 
 professes to account for the existence of Evil by 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 371 
 
 tracing it up to the first evil recorded as occurring, 
 would have no reason to deride the absurdity of an 
 atheist who should profess to account for the origin 
 of the human race, by simply tracing them up to the 
 first pair. 
 
 It is a folly to regard the difficulty as to the Origin 
 of Evil in the light of an objection, either to our 
 religion or to any other ; since it would lie equally 
 against all, as indeed it does against any system of 
 philosophy likewise ; for the ancient heathen were as 
 much perplexed with doubts as to the origin of evil 
 as we are. Even atheism does not lessen, it only 
 alters, the difficulty ; for as the believer in a God 
 cannot account for the existence of evil, so the be- 
 liever in no God cannot account for the existence of 
 good ; or, indeed, for anything at all that bears 
 marks of rational design. 
 
 The Bible acts the part of a judicious physician, 
 who, instead of entertaining his patients with a long 
 and curious dissertation on the nature and origin of 
 their disease, employs himself in actively adminis- 
 tering remedies, and teaching them how to avoid 
 them. Just so the Apostle Paul does not attempt to 
 explain, e. g., to the Athenians the cause of the 
 principal evil, the state of enmity against God, and 
 
 be 2 
 
372 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 exposure to divine displeasure, but proceeds at once 
 to the practical point of describing the evil, and 
 offering the cure. — "The times of this ignorance 
 God winked at ; but now commandeth all men every- 
 where to repent." 
 
 To distort the plain meaning of Scripture, for the 
 sake of defending religion against unsound objections, 
 is to expose it to more powerful ones, which we have 
 left ourselves without the means of answering. 
 
 The true sense of each word is that which is under- 
 stood by it; and as a reader will naturally conclude 
 a writer's meaning to be just what his words express 
 in their simple, ordinary, and obvious sense, (except 
 when some other passage from the same writer is 
 produced, shewing that his opinion was something 
 different,) so, in interpreting Scripture, we are not 
 to consider what sense the words can be brought to 
 bear, but what sense they actually bore to the very 
 hearers of Christ and his apostles, which we may be 
 sure was that which they meant to convey, as being 
 that in which they knew that the hearers understood 
 them. 
 
 The interpretation of any particular word occur- 
 ring in Scripture, must not be dwelt upon so as to 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 373 
 
 imply that each term must have, like one of the tech- 
 nical terms of any science, exactly the same meaning 
 in every passage where it is employed. The works 
 of the Sacred Writers are popular, not scientific. 
 
 What was to the early Christians of plain common 
 sense and moderate education, the natural and un- 
 strained sense of the writings and discourses of the 
 Apostles and Evangelists, whose works have come 
 down to us, as what we should seek to understand 
 and to believe, if we would have our faith the same 
 as theirs. If later Christians had been satisfied 
 humbly to pursue this study, instead of human 
 theories ; if Christian instructors had sought to fit 
 themselves to explain, not those things concerning 
 God which the Scriptures omit, but what they con- 
 tain, — not what God has thought fit to keep secret, 
 but what He has revealed, — there would have been 
 less of what is reckoned abstruse theology, but more 
 of pure Christian faith. Had they all thus honestly 
 relied on Scripture, the mysterious doctrines of our 
 religion would have been received in Christian sim- 
 plicity, as Scripture reveals them, without any 
 farther definitions and explanations than Scripture 
 itself supplies ; and this would have been " able to 
 make us wise unto salvation, through faith which is 
 in Christ Jesus." But for vain philosophical systems 
 
374 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 of divinity, heresies would, probably, not have been 
 multiplied as tbey have been. This, at least, is 
 certain, that as scientific theories and technical 
 phraseology gained ground, party animosity raged 
 the more violently. Those who lose sight of the 
 real character and design of the Christian revela- 
 tion, generally lose the mild, patient, and forbear- 
 ing spirit of the Gospel. " The servant of the Lord," 
 says the Apostle, "must not strive, but be gentle 
 unto all men, in meekness instructing those that 
 oppose themselves." 
 
 t 
 "Whenever we approach, in imagination, the 
 
 mighty Lord of all things, humbled, and become an 
 infant lying in the manger, we should be reminded 
 to " desire the sincere milk of the Word, that we 
 may grow thereby ;" and that, receiving " the king- 
 dom of heaven as a little child," with a pure, and 
 humble, and teachable mind, we may, at his second 
 coming to judge the world, be found an acceptable 
 people in his sight. 
 
 So limited are our faculties for comprehending 
 things as they are in themselves, that did not the 
 Scriptures present dim and faint pictures of them, 
 they could not otherwise be revealed at all. The 
 "light which no man can approach unto," if pre- 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 375 
 
 sented, in unmitigated blaze, to eyes too weak to 
 endure it, would blind instead of enlightening ; we 
 now " see by means of the reflection of a glass/' 
 what we could not otherwise see at all. 
 
 As analogy is the resemblance of ratios (or rela- 
 tions), two things may be connected by analogy, 
 though they have in themselves no resemblance ; thus 
 as a sweet taste gratifies the palate, so does a sweet 
 sound gratify the ear, and hence the same word, 
 "sweet," is applied to both, though no flavour can 
 resemble a sound in itself. To bear this in mind 
 would serve to guard us against two very common 
 errors in the interpretation of the analogical language 
 of Scripture. 1. The error of supposing the things 
 themselves to be similar, from their bearing similar 
 relations to other things. 2. The still more common 
 error of supposing the analogy to extend further than 
 it does, or to be more complete than it really is, from 
 not considering in what the analogy in each case 
 consists. 
 
 The only truth essential in a Parable, is the truth 
 of the moral or doctrine contained in it. 
 
 Parables commonly use the analogy the most 
 remote in all points but the one to be illustrated, on 
 
376 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 purpose to guard against following out analogy too 
 far ; so unjust judge, unjust steward, unkind neigh- 
 bour, asked to lend three loaves. 
 
 The picture and image of heavenly things, fur- 
 nished by the analogical language and the types and 
 figures of revelation, cannot in all points completely 
 correspond with the original, any more than a pic- 
 ture can, in all respects, resemble the solid body 
 which it is designed to imitate. 
 
 To interpret too literally the analogical expres- 
 sions with which Scripture teaches, just as a blind 
 man is instructed about sight and the objects of sight 
 by comparing them with the other senses and their 
 objects, is as absurd as to dissect a statue in order 
 to find out what the inside of a man is like. 
 
 When Paul says, respecting the glorified state, 
 u whether there be knowledge it shall vanish away,' 7 
 we might have expected him, perhaps, to promise 
 rather an increase of our knowledge ; but it appeared 
 to him, probably, that the knowledge we now pos- 
 sess concerning several points not fully compre- 
 hensible to us, is so utterly different in kind from 
 that which is reserved for us, that the change 
 might more properly be called an entire vanishing 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 377 
 
 of the notions we are at present able to form, and 
 a substitution of others in their place; just as the 
 analogical notions of seeing a blind man had formed, 
 would, on his obtaining sight, fade away, and be 
 succeeded by others incomparably more direct and 
 clear. 
 
 The apparent contradictions in the doctrinal and 
 moral precepts of Scripture are not to be regarded 
 merely as difficulties to be surmounted, but as a 
 mode of instruction peculiar to it — the employing 
 of different analogies, each, severally, serving to 
 correct the other, and all, jointly, conveying a notion 
 as nearly as possible approaching the reality. 
 
 The liability, so prevalent in all men, to imagine 
 that a literal obedience to certain definite precepts is 
 all that is required, is guarded against by the mode 
 of conveying moral instruction adopted by our Lord. 
 First, the precepts are often apparently contradictory 
 to each other ; secondly, they are often such that a 
 literal compliance would be, in many cases, either 
 impossible, or at least extravagant and irrational: 
 and thirdly, this literal compliance would, in many 
 instances, amount to so insignificant a point of duty, 
 as could not be supposed deserving of a distinct in- 
 culcation for its own sake. Men are thus thrown on 
 
378 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 the application of a general principle to each parti- 
 cular case; for a literal compliance with precepts 
 which, literally taken, are inconsistent, would be im- 
 possible ; where that literal compliance would be 
 wrong or absurd, it is manifest it could not be in- 
 tended ; where it would be trifling, it is manifest 
 that it cannot be all that is intended. 
 
 Two apparently opposite passages of Scripture 
 may together enable us to direct our faith or our 
 practice aright, as in mechanics, the combined effect 
 of several impulses in various directions will propel 
 a body in the direction required. 
 
 When the Mosaic code was abolished, the Lord 
 and His Apostles did not substitute in its place any 
 other system of rules ; they laid down Christian 
 principles ; they sought to implant Christian disposi- 
 tions. And this is the more remarkable, inasmuch, 
 as we may be sure, from the nature of Man, that 
 precise regulations, even though somewhat tedious 
 to learn and burdensome to observe, would have 
 been highly acceptable to their converts. It is much 
 more agreeable to the natural Man (though at first 
 sight the contrary might be supposed) to have a 
 complete system of laws laid down, which are to be 
 observed according to the letter, not to the spirit, — 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 379 
 
 and which, as long as a man adheres to them, afford 
 both a consolatory assurance of safety, and an un- 
 restrained liberty as to every point not determined 
 by them, — than to be left to his own discretion, no 
 restraint being so irksome to him as this, while still 
 required to regulate his conduct according to certain 
 principles, and to steer his course through the in- 
 tricate channels of life, with an incessant watchful- 
 ness and studious exercise of his moral judgment. 
 
 Accordingly, most, if not all systems of Man's 
 devising (whether corruptions of Christianity, or 
 built on any other foundation) will be found, even 
 in what appear their most rigid enactments, to be 
 accommodated to this tendency of the human heart ; 
 when Mahomet, for instance, enjoined on his disci- 
 ples a strict fast during a certain period, and an 
 entire abstinence from wine and from games of 
 chance, and the devotion of a precise portion of 
 their property to the poor, leaving them at liberty, 
 generally, to follow their own sensual and worldly 
 inclinations, he imposed a far less severe task on 
 them than if he had required them constantly to 
 control their appetites and passions, to repress covet- 
 ousness, and to be uniformly temperate, charitable, 
 and heavenly-minded. And had Paul been (as a 
 false teacher always will be) disposed to comply with 
 the expectations and wishes which his disciples 
 
380 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 would naturally form, he would doubtless have re- 
 ferred them to some part of the Mosaic Law as their 
 standard of morality, or would have substituted 
 some other system of rules in its place. Indeed, 
 there is strong reason to think (especially from what 
 we find in 1st Corinthians) that Paul had been 
 applied to for more precise rules than he was 
 willing to give. After such brief directions as the 
 occasion rendered indispensable, he breaks off into 
 exhortations to "use this world as not abusing it;" 
 and speedily recurs to the general description of the 
 Christian character, and the inculcation of Christian 
 principles. He will not be induced to enter into 
 minute details of things forbidden and permitted, — ; 
 enjoined and dispensed with ; and even when most 
 occupied in repelling the suspicions that Gospel- 
 liberty exempts the Christian from moral obligation, 
 instead of retaining or framing anew any system of 
 prohibitions and injunctions, he urges upon his 
 hearers the very consideration of their being exempt 
 from any such childish trammels, as a reason for 
 their aiming at a more perfect holiness of life, on 
 purer and more generous motives ; u Sin," he says, 
 " shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not 
 under the law, but under grace ;" and he perpetually 
 incites them to walk " worthy of their vocation/' on 
 the ground of their being " bought with a price/' 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 381 
 
 and bound to " live unto Him who died for them ;" 
 — " as risen with Christ " to a new life of holiness, — 
 exhorted to " set their 1 affections on things above, 
 not on things on the earth;" — as "living sacrifices" 
 to God ; — as " the temple of the Holy Ghost/ 7 
 called upon to keep God's dwelling-place undefiled, 
 and to abound in all " the fruits of the Spirit," and 
 as "being delivered from the Law, that we should 
 serve in newness of the Spirit, and not in the old- 
 ness of the letter." These, and such as these, are 
 the sublime principles of morality laid down by 
 Paul, as everywhere in Scripture, into a conformity 
 with which the Christian is required to fashion his 
 heart and his life, through that most effectual aid 
 and guidance of the Spirit of Truth, who will enable 
 us daily to profit by the teaching of the Word of 
 Truth, to follow the example of Christ, and to purify 
 ourselves even as He is pure ; that " when He shall 
 appear, we may be made like unto Him, and may 
 behold Him as He is." 
 
 There are two things, each of which he will sel- 
 dom fail to discover who seeks for it in earnest ; the 
 one, the knowledge of what he ought to do ; and the 
 other, a plausible pretext for doing what he likes. 
 The latter of these the carnally- minded might find 
 in any set of precepts that could have been framed, 
 
382 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 the former the spiritually- minded will not fail to ob- 
 tain in the Gospel. 
 
 Wisely designed for the spiritual exercise and 
 training of the Christian's mind as was the absence 
 in the New Testament of a precise code of laws and 
 the substitution of sublime principles, a not less 
 striking instance of divine wisdom and goodness is 
 presented to us in the absence of all formularies — 
 the total omission of Liturgies, Catechisms and Creeds, 
 Yet all these things we are sure must have existed. 
 Now this omission is a fact which will appear the 
 more remarkable, humanly speaking, the more the 
 subject is considered. It is on all natural principles 
 unaccountable, and, indeed, incredible, that none of 
 the Apostles should have committed them to writing, 
 or any of their numerous fellow-labourers, hundreds 
 of whom must have been quite competent to the 
 task, which would have been merely to write down 
 what they heard, and once written they would be 
 eagerly read, carefully preserved, and copied. Yet, 
 what would have been seemingly so natural and so 
 easy to do was done hj no one. This or that indi- 
 vidual might have been prevented from doing so by 
 accidental circumstances ; but that every one of some 
 hundreds should have been so prevented amounts to 
 a complete moral impossibility. And as the drawing 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 383 
 
 up of such records would have naturally occurred to 
 men of any nation, situated as the Apostles and their 
 companions were, so it seems doubly strange that 
 this should not have occurred to Jews, — to men 
 brought up under that law which prescribed, with 
 such minute exactness, all the ceremonials of their 
 worship, all the articles of their belief, and all the 
 rules they were to observe. 
 
 There is no mode of explaining such an omission, 
 except by concluding that the apostles and their at- 
 tendants were super naturally restrained from drawing 
 up any such canons, liturgies, or creeds. And this 
 conclusion is confirmed by the fact, that soon after the 
 age of inspiration, and when men were left to act on 
 their own judgment, they did draw up such Formula- 
 ries, several of which have come down to us. We have, 
 therefore, in this omission a Monument of a Miracle. 
 The Christian Scriptures are in themselves a proof of 
 their having been composed under superhuman guid- 
 ance ; since they do not contain what we may be 
 sure they would have contained, had the writers 
 been left to themselves. Every argument against 
 the human origin of the Christian Scriptures is an 
 argument in favour of their divine origin. 
 
 And the argument is complete, even though we 
 should be quite unable to perceive the reasons for 
 this ordinance of Providence : but it is not difficult 
 
384 THOUGHTS AXD APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 to discern the superhuman wisdom of the course 
 adopted. We may be sure that, had the Apostles or 
 their attendants recorded the particulars of their own 
 worship, their forms of prayer, and their ecclesiasti- 
 cal regulations, these would all have been regarded 
 as parts of Scripture : and even had they been ac- 
 companied by the most express declaration of the 
 lawfulness of altering or laying aside any of them, 
 they would have been, in practice, most scrupulously 
 retained, however inappropriate through changes of 
 manners, tastes, and local and temporary circum- 
 stances, they might have become. The Jewish 
 ritual, designed for one Nation and Country, and 
 intended to be of temporary duration, was fixed and 
 accurately prescribed : the same Divine Wisdom rfrom 
 which both dispensations proceeded, having designed 
 Christianity for all nations and ages, left these points 
 to be determined according to the principles which 
 had been distinctly laid down by divine authority ; 
 while the application of those principles in particu- 
 lar cases was left (as is the case with our moral con- 
 duct also) to the responsible judgment of Man. 
 
 With regard to Catechisms, again, nearly the same 
 reasons will hold good. For though the Christian 
 religion is fundamentally " the same yesterday, to- 
 day, and for ever," yet as it is impossible that 
 any one mode of introducing its truths can be uni- 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 385 
 
 versally appropriate, they would have been like pre- 
 cise directions for the cultivation of some plant, 
 admirably adapted to some particular soil and climate, 
 but inapplicable in those of a contrary description. 
 And as to Creeds or Confessions of faith, these are 
 (not as some regard them, summaries of the most 
 intrinsically important points of Christian doctrine, 
 but) such compendiums as, standing opposed to the 
 particular heresies in each age and country respec- 
 tively, serve to test the professed orthodoxy of those 
 who adopt them. And, therefore, had the apostles 
 left Creeds or Symbols, they would have stood, like 
 ancient sea walls, built to repel the encroachments of 
 the waves, and still scrupulously kept in repair, when 
 perhaps the sea had retired from them many miles, 
 and was encroaching on some different part of the 
 coast. 
 
 But supposing such a summary of Gospel truths 
 had been drawn up and contrived with such exquisite 
 skill as to be sufficient and well adapted for all, of 
 every age and country, what would have been the 
 result of its being provided in Scripture? Both would 
 have been regarded, indeed, as of divine authority ; 
 but the Compendium, as the fused and purified metal, 
 the other as the mine containing the crude ore. And 
 the Compendium itself, being not, like the existing 
 Scriptures, that/rom which the faith is to be learned, 
 
 c c 
 
386 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 but the very thing to he learned, would have ren- 
 dered needless the laborious searching of the rest of 
 Scripture to ascertain its agreement with a human 
 exposition of the faith ; and, consequently, would 
 have left no room for that excitement of the best 
 feelings, and that improvement of the heart, which 
 are the natural, and doubtless the designed result of 
 an humble, diligent, and sincere study of the Chris- 
 tian Scriptures ; and without which our orthodoxy 
 would be, as it were, petrified, like the bodies of 
 those animals we read of incrusted in the ice of the 
 polar regions ; firm-fixed, indeed, and preserved un- 
 changeable, but cold, motionless, lifeless. 
 
 Proofs of any doctrine, obtained by a bringing 
 together of passages from different, and apparently 
 unconnected, parts of the sacred Volume, are far 
 more important towards conviction than those derived 
 from a single direct statement. Occasionally, one 
 text affording the strongest confirmation of a doc- 
 trine, had no force at all in that respect until com- 
 pared with another, and that perhaps with a third, 
 each separately incapable of bearing upon the point 
 in question, but all, together, composing an indisso- 
 luble argument, of so much the more force, indeed, as 
 it precludes the possibility of having been inserted 
 by human design. The proofs from a single text 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 387 
 
 may be compared to a piece of precious ore found on 
 the surface of the ground, which we cannot be sure 
 might not have been dropped by some chance tra- 
 veller ; the other kind of proof, to the same ore dug 
 with labour from a mine, which is, we may be con- 
 fident, derived from the place where we found it. 
 
 An instance of complex proof of doctrines from 
 the collation of scattered texts of Scripture might 
 be the comparison of the following passages : " All 
 Scripture/ 7 says St. Paul to Timothy, "is given by 
 inspiration of God" (2 Tim, iii. 15, 16), and is "able 
 to make thee wise unto Salvation, through faith 
 which is in Christ Jesus ;" "of which salvation," 
 says St. Peter (1 Peter i. 10), "the prophets have 
 enquired and searched diligently — searching what or 
 what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was 
 in them did signify — unto whom it was revealed, 
 that unto us they did minister the things which are 
 now reported unto you by them that have preached 
 the Gospel unto you, with the Holy Ghost sent down 
 from heaven ;" and in this the apostle confirms the 
 promises in St. John's Gospel (John xiv. 26 ; xv. 
 26 ; xvi. 13) ; whilst in another Epistle he declares 
 the inspiration of the old prophets also to have pro- 
 ceeded from the Holy Ghost; "For the prophecy 
 came not in old time by the will of man ; but holy 
 
 c c 2 
 
388 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS, 
 
 men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy 
 Ghost" (2 Peter i. 21). It is only in combination 
 with each other, that these passages throw light upon 
 the inspiration of both the Old and New Testaments 
 by the same Supreme Being : and attest, at the same 
 time, the unity of the three persons in the Divine 
 nature. 
 
 How admirable do the provisions of Divine "Wis- 
 dom appear, even from the slight and indistinct 
 views we obtain of it ! It has supplied to us, by 
 revelation, the knowledge of what we could not have 
 discovered for ourselves : and it has left us to our- 
 selves, precisely in those points in which it is best 
 for us that we should be so left. 
 
 The division into chapters and verses, which were 
 introduced, merely for the convenience of reference, 
 many hundred years after the sacred Books were 
 written, are by some persons ignorantly supposed to 
 be, like the chapters in modern books, the work of 
 the authors themselves. And even those who do not 
 fall into this mistake, are led, by their habit of at- 
 tending to those divisions, unconsciously to separate 
 in their minds passages which, in sense, are closely 
 connected; and thus to break up, as it were, the 
 sacred books into disjointed fragments, so as to ob- 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 389 
 
 scure, and often pervert, the meaning* of the writers. 
 One instance, among many, is the disjoining of the 
 four last verses of the nineteenth chapter of Matthew 
 from the first sixteen verses of the twentieth. 
 
 A regular paraphrase of Scripture expands every 
 passage, easy or hard, nearly to the same degree : it 
 applies a magnifying glass of equal power to the 
 gnat and to the camel. 
 
 Of the sacred Writers, no two write precisely 
 alike. Though all of them Jews, though all taught 
 one and the same Gospel, by one and the same Spirit, 
 yet the variations of individual character are per- 
 ceptible, even when in national character they all 
 agree. 
 
 It was requisite for the propagation of the Gospel 
 in its purity, and for the edification of the infant 
 Church, that the Holy Spirit should " lead the apos- 
 tles into all (the) truth,' 7 and should pour out other 
 supernatural gifts on other Christians ; so far there- 
 fore did his influence extend. But it was not neces- 
 sary that all distinction of character among Chris- 
 tians should be done away, where these peculiarities 
 had no evil in them ; or that similar spiritual gifts 
 should be bestowed on all. Our religion w T as de- 
 
390 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 signed to renew indeed and ameliorate, but not to 
 subvert, our nature, — to amend mankind in general, 
 but not to contradict the essential principles of the 
 human character, — to exalt and purify each indivi- 
 dual, but not to destroy his individuality. Here, 
 therefore, the diversity was both permitted, and even 
 augmented. This divine work may be compared to 
 that which took place " in the beginning :" " God 
 saw everything that He had made, and, behold, it 
 was very good " but all things were not made alike; 
 the variety in the creation is infinite. 
 
 The man who did not like details of the things 
 that concerned his friends might be a philanthropist, 
 but could hardly have private attachments. The 
 Gospel records meet this feeling of our nature, being 
 not merely historical, but strictly biographical. Brief 
 as they are, they are fitted to introduce us personally 
 to Him who called his disciples his " friends." 
 
 He who is disposed to think that this or that 
 transaction which we find in the Gospels, is not of 
 sufficient consequence to deserve a very attentive 
 study, should recollect that every one we dp find 
 there is one out of a thousand — is selected by the 
 writer, as being peculiarly striking, out of all that 
 was said and done, during the short but most mo- 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 391 
 
 mentous period of our Lord's life on earth. We are 
 to consider, not merely why such and such an oc- 
 currence took place, but why it was selected, in pre- 
 ference to a hundred others that were passed by. 
 
 Our Lord's miracles may be said to be acted 
 parables ; for, not only are they designed to answer 
 their first and most important purpose, the proof of 
 his divine authority, and the other purpose of the 
 immediate relief of suffering, but they also conveyed 
 some figurative representation of his character and 
 office, an exhibition of some emblem or token of the 
 Gospel and its effects. 
 
 An interpretation of actions as symbolical, that is, 
 as conveying an instructive meaning is (in Scripture) 
 so far from being a fanciful departure from the plain 
 literal sense of what we find there, that it is in fact, 
 keeping to the established meaning of the language 
 ordinarily employed by the sacred writers. To 
 speak by significant actions, may be called a part of 
 the language of the prophets and other sacred writers, 
 with which, of course, the Jews were familiar. For 
 instance, the mode of conveying the prophecy to 
 Jeroboam; and the prophesying of Jeremiah and 
 Ezekiel during the greater part of their lives more 
 by symbolical actions than by words. Thus, also, 
 
392 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 Jesus teaches his disciples humility, by placing a 
 little child in the midst of them, and by washing 
 their feet ; and most of his miracles are explained 
 by Him, as having an instructive meaning. 
 
 The miracle at the marriage at Cana had, as from 
 being the first miracle performed by our Lord, it 
 might be expected to have, a more extensive and 
 important signification than any of the rest ; — was 
 not merely, like the rest, significant of some parti- 
 cular doctrine, but generally expressive of His whole 
 Gospel, — of the great object of His coming into the 
 world. 
 
 To perceive the symbolical character of the open- 
 ing miracle of our Lord, its circumstances (remark- 
 able, were it only for the minute details thought 
 worthy of being recorded by writers who are, on 
 the whole, so scanty and concise), must be atten- 
 tively considered, together with several other circum- 
 stances in the life and death of Jesus, and in the 
 expression used by Himself and His Apostles relative 
 to these events. 
 
 It is to be observed that the water which our Lord 
 converted into wine, was put, by his command, into 
 those water-pots, which were designed for the pur- 
 pose of ceremonial purification by washing, according 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 393 
 
 to the rites of the Jewish religion ; which rites, the 
 Apostle Paul, when contrasting them with the real 
 and efficacious purification through the sacrifice of 
 Christ, calls " carnal ordinances." As Jesus might 
 as easily, after having directed the servants to bring 
 water in their other vessels, have converted that, at 
 once, into wine, and sent it to the governor of the 
 feast, he, doubtless, adopted this particular mode of 
 performing the miracle, to indicate that He was come 
 to substitute the Gospel for the law, — to do away the 
 Old Dispensation of outward ceremonial cleansings, 
 and to put in their place the true atonement and 
 expiation of his great sacrifice which " taketh away 
 the sins of the world." For, as the water which 
 was placed in vessels intended for purification, was 
 aptly chosen by Him to represent the whole of the 
 ceremonial law, so it is to be observed in the next 
 place, that wine, into which the water was changed, 
 represented the blood of Christ, being the symbol of 
 it which He Himself appointed at the last supper ; 
 saying, " Drink ye all of this, for this is my blood 
 of the New Testament which is shed for many." 
 And again, " My flesh is meat indeed, and * my 
 blood is drink indeed;" signifying by this, as he 
 tells us, his life, which he offered up for the redemp- 
 tion of the world. " For the blood" says Moses, 
 "is the life, and I have given it upon the altar to 
 
394 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 be an atonement for your souls ;" that is, for your 
 lives ; the blood being the symbol of life. And thus 
 too Paul, u The cup which we bless, is it not the 
 communion " (that is, joint participation) " of the 
 blood of Christ?" The allusions, accordingly, in 
 the writers of the New Testament, to the purifying 
 and sanctifying influence of the blood of Christ, on 
 all who have a lively faith in Him, are innumerable. 
 Peter addresses Christians as " elect, through sancti- 
 fication of the Spirit unto obedience and sprinkling 
 of the blood of Jesus Christ." " If we walk in the 
 light/' says John, " we have fellowship one with 
 another, and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us 
 from all sin." And the same Apostle was told, con- 
 cerning the blessed whom he saw in his vision clothed 
 in white robes, " These are they which came out of 
 great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and 
 made them white in the blood of the Lamb. 7 ' 
 
 II. Jesus did not (as He might have done) cause 
 wine to appear in vessels which were empty, nor 
 direct that the water should be cast away, and then 
 replenish the vessels with wine ; but He changed the 
 water into wine ; thus indicating that He " came 
 not (as He Himself tells us) "to destroy the law 
 and the prophets, but to fulfil them." He did not 
 cast away and abolish, as something evil in itself, 
 or wanting in divine authority, the system of Jewish 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 395 
 
 rites and sacrifices ; but He changed them for that 
 which they signified, and foreshewed, — even the 
 Gospel. He substitutes the substance for the shadow, 
 and brought the types to an end by putting in their 
 stead the thing typified; "the blood/ 7 as Paul ex- 
 presses it, " of the everlasting covenant,' 7 that is, of 
 that which was not, like the Mosaic, to come to an 
 end, and be superseded by another, but was to last 
 for ever. And since " the law," as Paul says, " is 
 holy, and just, and good," it was fitting that what 
 was chosen to represent it, should not be anything 
 of a vile or impure nature, though it were changed, 
 — and changed for something more precious. Ac- 
 cordingly, the water on which Christ wrought this 
 miraculous change, is a thing clear indeed, and pure 
 and refreshing, but was converted into wioe, which 
 is invigorating and refreshing, and which was there- 
 fore ordained by our Lord as a token, a pledge, and 
 a means of receiving the spiritual benefit of his 
 sacrifice. Whenever, therefore, we see the sacra- 
 mental cup filled for us in commemoration of Christ's 
 death, and according to his holy Institution, we 
 should remember that He deigned to sanctify that 
 fruit of the vine, not only in the last (before He 
 suffered), but in the first remarkable manifestation 
 of Himself to his Disciples ; and that He who once 
 changed the water into wine, literally, is able and is 
 
396 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 ready now, by an inward and spiritual working of 
 the same divine power, to change the outward sign 
 of partaking of the cup, into the partaking of his 
 atoning sacrifice, and receiving of His Holy Spirit 
 into our souls, of which spirit his flesh and blood 
 are themselves the sign; for "it is the Spirit," 
 says He, " that giveth life ; the flesh profiteth 
 nothing. " 
 
 III. The introduction of a change of the Mosaic 
 Law for something far more excellent, was not only 
 unexpected by the Jews (notwithstanding the express 
 declarations of their Prophets) but unacceptable and 
 matter of offence to them. This circumstance, there- 
 fore, — the reservation of the more glorious dispensa- 
 tion for the time of the Lord's own coming, — was 
 not left unnoticed among the significant circumstances 
 which accompanied this remarkable miracle. It was 
 intimated in the mystical meaning of the words of 
 the governor of the feast (not understood by himself) 
 when, expressing his surprise, he says, "Every 
 man at the beginning dofch set forth good wine, and 
 when men have well drunk, then that which is worse ; 
 but thou hast kept the good wine until now J 9 
 
 IV. It is to be observed, that the symbols of both 
 our Lord's Sacraments were present on the occasion 
 of this his first miracle, — water, by which He him- 
 self had just before been baptized, and which He 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 397 
 
 chose as the emblem of the spiritual cleansing, and 
 purifying efficacy of the Holy Spirit (as was indicated 
 by the visible appearance of the Spirit descending 
 on Him on that occasion), and wine, the appointed 
 emblem of his blood ; and into which the water was 
 changed, to point out that it is through his sacrifice 
 that we are made partakers of the spiritual purifica- 
 tion which Baptism denotes. 
 
 V. Again, there are in the Sacred Writers per- 
 petual allusions to the union between Christ and the 
 Church (of which He is the Head), under the figure 
 of a marriage ; to denote the affectionate regard 
 which He bears towards this his spouse, his watch- 
 ful protection and constant presence with her ( u lo, 
 I am with you always, even unto the end of the 
 world"), and also the spotless purity and devoted 
 love which He looks for from her. In many of his 
 parables, He alludes to Himself under the character 
 of a Bridegroom ; and often describes the Kingdom 
 of Heaven by the parable of a wedding feast. And 
 as there can be no doubt, I think, that in so doing 
 He alluded to this His mystical union with the 
 Church, which was afterwards to be, by His Apostles, 
 so strongly dwelt upon, and set forth, under that 
 figure ; so it is more than probable our Lord had in 
 view when He chose a marriage-feast for the scene 
 of this most significant miracle, His own marriage 
 
398 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 with the Church, which He " purchased for Him- 
 self/ ' and sanctified with his own blood; with whom 
 hereafter, in her glorified and triumphant state in 
 heaven, He will celebrate anew his mystical union, 
 according to the vision seen by John in the Revela- 
 tions (the>very apostle who records the marriage at 
 Cana); "Let us be glad and rejoice, for the marriage 
 of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself 
 ready ; and to her was granted that she should be 
 arrayed in fine linen, clean and white ; for the fine 
 linen is the righteousness of the saints. And he 
 saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are 
 called unto the marriage -supper of the Lanib," 
 
 The Law and the Gospel, like the flower and the 
 fruit of a plant, correspond in almost every point, 
 but coincide in very few. 
 
 Many are the points in which " the law was our 
 schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ ;" and many an 
 error prevailing among Christians might be cured, if 
 they would but diligently listen to the voice of this 
 schoolmaster, and profit by the lessons, which the 
 Old Testament, if rightly understood, is capable of 
 affording. 
 
 It appears to have been part of the design of the 
 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 399 
 
 Mosaic dispensation to exhibit to mankind a sensible 
 specimen, or rather representation, by way of proof, 
 of that moral government of God, the system of 
 which is but imperfectly displayed in the world at 
 large ; and which is to be completed, and fully 
 realized, only in a future state. Without entering 
 into a full explanation and defence of this hypothesis, 
 let it be allowed to adopt for the present the sup- 
 position, merely as a supposition, that the Mosaic 
 dispensation was, in part, designed for the purpose 
 just mentioned ; that we may examine how far the 
 peculiar circumstances of that dispensation correspond 
 with, and are explained by, it. 1. It would mani- 
 festly be necessary then, with a view to the object 
 in question, that the Israelites should be exhibited 
 as uniformly and regularly rewarded or punished, 
 according to their obedience or disobedience to the 
 divine commands. 2. And moreover, in order that 
 the correspondence of their situation with their con- 
 duct might be more conspicuously displayed, it was 
 necessary that they should be nationally as well as 
 individually prosperous or unfortunate, in conse- 
 quence of their good or ill conduct ; since the fate 
 of individuals would have been too obscure to engage 
 general attention. 3. It was requisite, for the 
 same reason, that the obedience required of them 
 should not consist in moral rectitude alone ; because 
 
400 THOUGHTS AND AFOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 in that case the correspondence of their circumstances 
 to their behaviour would not have been sufficiently 
 manifest For moral virtue consists, chiefly, in 
 purity of motives, and propriety of inward feelings ; 
 concerning which other men cannot with any cer- 
 tainty form a judgment, It was requisite, therefore, 
 that their obedience should be tried in the practice 
 of external rites, and in a conformity to certain 
 positive ordinances. For these observances, though 
 originally matters of indifference, assume a moral 
 character, and become duties when enjoined by 
 divine authority ; and the obedience or disobedience 
 of a People on such points, is a matter open to 
 general observation, and one which no one would be 
 liable to mistake. 4. Lastly, with the same view, 
 it was no less requisite that the rewards and punish- 
 ments also, which should be the sanction of such a 
 law, should be of a nature no less palpable, and 
 open to general observation; and should therefore 
 not consist in anything inward and invisible, as in 
 peace of mind, and in horrors of conscience ; nor in 
 the hopes and fears of a future state ; but in the 
 immediate and conspicuous distribution- of outward 
 worldly prosperity and adversity. 
 
 The close correspondence, in all points, of the 
 dispensation actually given, with the forgoing des- 
 cription, is no slight presumption that the object of 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 401 
 
 that dispensation was, in part at least, such as I have 
 supposed, viz., to exhibit to mankind, (to those, 
 that is, who should be, in early times, neighbours 
 to the Israelites, or have any intercourse with them, 
 and subsequently to us, and to all others who should 
 read their history, and view their present fate,) to 
 exhibit, I say, a striking picture of God's moral 
 government, — to convince all men of his superin- 
 tending providence, — and to instruct them in the 
 principles of justice, by which his dealings with 
 them will be regulated. 
 
 Nor is it any valid objection to the explanation 
 here offered, to say, that the national blessings and 
 national chastisements sent upon the Israelites, as a 
 people, independent of what was enjoyed or suffered 
 by individuals, could be no instance of the divine 
 administration of justice; inasmuch as a nation, 
 considered as a nation, is no real personal agent, nor 
 capable of reward or punishment. For though it can- 
 not properly be said to afford an instance or example of 
 God's moral government, it may nevertheless serve 
 equally well to furnish a figure and representation 
 of that government for our instruction, which is the 
 object we have been supposing designed. Its not 
 being really a distinct Being, does not render it the 
 less fit for that purpose ; since men are able to form 
 a distinct conception of it; which is all that is 
 
 D D 
 
402 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 requisite. A sufficient knowledge respecting a coun- 
 try may be obtained from a map, although that 
 consists of paper and ink, and the other of land and 
 water. 
 
 In fact there are, throughout the Mosaic law, innu- 
 merable cases in which representations or figures are- 
 given of the divine justice which cannot be regarded 
 as themselves instances of it. There are for example 
 many occasions on which beasts are commanded to 
 be put to death, as if criminal; as when a beast 
 approached the holy mountain, or occasioned the 
 death of any man ; not that a brute -can be supposed 
 a moral agent, and in itself a lit object of divine 
 punishment ; but yet the lessons of justice, of reve- 
 rential piety, and of purity, which were by this 
 means conveyed, were not the less intelligible. 
 Thus a lamb without bodily blemish could have no 
 real and intrinsic merit in the sight of God, but the 
 sacrifice of this represented the meritorious sacrifice 
 of Christ. The same remark applies to the other 
 types, figures, representations, in the Jewish ritual, 
 of the various parts of that more perfect and final 
 dispensation, whereof we enjoy the reality. 
 
 So far were Christian ministers from being in- 
 structed by their divine Monitor to keep the Old 
 Testament out of sight, that there is no point more 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 403 
 
 strenuously and uniformly insisted on, than the con- 
 nexion of the Old and New Dispensations. Even in 
 those places in which the great majority of the 
 Christian brethren being converted Gentiles, it might 
 have been supposed that the Old Testament would 
 have been but little studied or thought of, Paul was 
 so far from allowing the Jewish Scriptures to be de- 
 preciated, that he seems to have expected in all his 
 converts, an intimate acquaintance with the Old 
 Testament ; and to have earnestly, and not unsuc- 
 cessfully, inculcated the necessity of interpreting the 
 one scheme by the other, as two parts of one great 
 whole, and of considering " whatsoever things were 
 written aforetime as written for their learning." 
 And the frequent allusions he makes to them as 
 familiar to his hearers, and of acknowledged value 
 in their eyes, convey his judgment on the subject 
 far more strongly than so many direct admonitions ; 
 they indicate what was the early, the habitual, and 
 the universal mode of instruction employed by him- 
 self and all the Christian teachers. No Christian, 
 therefore, who would copy the pattern of this inspired 
 teacher will leave the Old Testament out of sight ; 
 but will learn from him that the former dispensation 
 must be carefully attended to by one who would 
 rightly understand the Gospel. 
 
404 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 He who studies, and leads others to study, the 
 whole Word of God, as his inspired servants have 
 left it, has at least good reason to hope, that he and 
 they may, through God's spirit, attain truth without 
 error ; whereas he who confines himself to a part 
 of the Scriptures, is sure to be wrong, and to lead 
 others wrong if they are guided by him. 
 
 An ambiguity in the word " Gospel," is deserving 
 of notice, as it has been the source of much evil in 
 leading to the neglect of the apostolic epistles. The 
 word, which signifies according to its etymology, as 
 well as the Greek term of which it is a translation, 
 '•good tidings," and is thence applied especially to 
 the joyful intelligence of salvation for fallen man 
 through Christ, has come to be applied, naturally 
 enough, to each of the histories of the life of Him, 
 the Author of that salvation. Hence men are fre- 
 quently led to seek exclusively, or principally, in 
 those histories for an account of the doctrines of the 
 Christian religion ; for where should they look, they 
 may say, for " Gospel-truth," but in the " Gospels?" 
 And because it is said that our Lord preached the 
 Gospel, many are led to look to his discourses alone, 
 or principally, as the store-house of divine truth to 
 the neglect of the other Scriptures of the New 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 405 
 
 Testament. But u the Gospel of the Kingdom" 
 which He preached was, that the " Kingdom of 
 Heaven was at hand" not that it was actually esta- 
 blished, which was the Gospel preached by his 
 Apostles, when Christ " having been made perfect 
 through sufferings," having laid the keystone of the 
 Gospel scheme of salvation, in his meritorious sacri- 
 fice, as an atonement for sin, and his resurrection 
 from the dead, had entered into his Kingdom — had 
 " ascended on high, and led captive" the Oppressor 
 of men, and had " received gifts" to bestow upon 
 them. Our Lord's discourses, therefore, while on 
 earth — though they teach, of course, the truth — 
 do not teach, nor could have been meant to teach, 
 the whole truth as afterwards revealed to his disci- 
 ples. They could not, indeed, even consistently 
 with truth, have contained the main part of what 
 the apostles preached, because that was chiefly 
 founded on events which had not then taken place. 
 He did indeed hint at these events in his discourses 
 to his disciples, and to them alone, by way of pro- 
 phecy ; but we are told that u the saying was hid 
 from them, and they comprehended it not, till after 
 that Christ was risen from the dead." Had our 
 Lord's discourses contained a full account of the 
 Christian faith, there would have been no need of 
 his saying, " I have yet many things to say unto 
 
406 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 you, but ye cannot bear them now, Howbeit when 
 He, the Spirit of Truth is come, He will guide you 
 into all (the) truth. 7 ' And when, through inspira- 
 tion from on high, the apostles did understand the 
 Gospel, the true character of the redemption, and 
 of the faith by which we must partake of it, they 
 taught its doctrines in their discourses and in their 
 epistles. Our chief source of instruction, then, 
 must be in the Apostolic Epistles. They contain all 
 the doctrines of the Gospel, as far as they have 
 been revealed to men; furnishing us with the means, 
 by a careful and diligent study of those precious 
 remains, of attaining sufficient knowledge of all 
 necessary truth, and of becoming " wise unto salva- 
 tion, through faith which is in Christ Jesus." 
 
 To confine attention to the four gospels, as con- 
 taining all important truth, and to neglect or explain 
 away the remainder of the New Testament is to act 
 like one who should destroy and reject ds spurious 
 excrescence every part of the fruit of a tree which 
 was not fully developed in the blossom that preceded 
 it. 
 
 The most precious part of the treasure of Christian 
 doctrine contained in the epistles we have from the 
 pen of the apostle Paul. Those who prize the purity 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 407 
 
 of the Gospel should value his writings the more, 
 as there is no one of the Sacred Writers whose ex- 
 pressions have been so tortured, whose authority 
 has been set so much at naught as Paul's, by those 
 who reject many of the most characteristic doctrines 
 of the Gospel ; which is a plain proof that they find 
 him a formidable opponent ; not, indeed, as the only 
 authority for these great truths but as particularly 
 full and clear in enforcing them. The Mahometans 
 who acknowledge the authority of the four Gospels, 
 though they pretend the Christians have interpolated 
 them, hold the name of Paul in detestation. And 
 besides the especial hatred of his writings by infidels, 
 and by some description of heretics, no part of the 
 Scriptures of the New Testament has been so unjustly 
 neglected by some Christians, and so much perverted 
 by others. 
 
 There is good reason to believe that the objection 
 to Paul's writings is not from the " things hard to 
 be understood' } which they contain, but from the 
 things easy to be understood, the doctrines so plainly 
 taught by him that "by grace we are saved ;" that 
 " the wages of sin is death, but eternal life is the 
 gift of. God through Jesus Christ;" that our most 
 perfect righteousness can never enable us to claim 
 reward at the hand of God, nor our own unaided 
 
408 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 strength enable us to practise that righteousness ; 
 but that the meritorious sacrifice of Christ is the 
 only foundation of the Christian's hope, and the aid 
 of his Spirit, the only support of the Christian's 
 virtue. It is on account of these doctrines that 
 Paul's writings are objected to, because they are 
 humbling to the pride of the human heart, and 
 therefore unacceptable to the natural man. 
 
 There appears to be a very remarkable analogy 
 between the treatment to which Paul was himself 
 exposed during his personal ministry on earth, and 
 that which his writings have met with since. In 
 both he stands distinguished in many points among 
 the preachers of the Gospel ; and it is possible that 
 this distinction may in some way be connected with 
 the peculiar manner in which he became one of that 
 number. The same Apostle who had been originally 
 so bitter a persecutor of the Christians, was exposed 
 after his conversion, to a greater variety of afflictions 
 in the gospel-cause than any of the others. 
 
 It is not unlikely that his Lord designed thus to 
 place him foremost in fight, thus to assign to him, 
 both the most hazardous and also the most harassing 
 and distressing offices in the Christian ministry, on 
 account of his having once been a blasphemer and 
 persecutor. Not as a punishment, or again that he 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 409 
 
 might atone and make compensation for his former 
 sin (which no man can do) ; but that he might have 
 an opportunity of completely retracing his steps, and 
 of feeling that he did so ; that he might display a 
 zeal, and firmness, and patience, and perseverance, 
 above all the rest, in the cause which he had once 
 oppressed ; that by having his own injurious treat- 
 ment of Christians continually brought to his mind 
 by what he himself endured, he might the more 
 deeply and deliberately humble himself before God 
 for it ; that he might find room to exercise in his 
 dealings with unbelievers, all that full knowledge 
 of the perverse prejudices of the human mind, with 
 which his own memory would furnish him by reflect- 
 ing on his own case ; and, finally, that both he and 
 the other Apostles might feel that he was placed 
 fully on a level with them, notwithstanding his 
 former opposition to the cause ; by enduring and ac- 
 complishing in it more than all the rest, by suffering 
 more than he had ever inflicted, by forwarding the 
 cause of Truth more than he had ever hindered it, 
 and by bearing with him this pledge that God had 
 fully pardoned him, the pledge of his being counted 
 worthy not only to suffer in his Master's cause, but 
 to suffer more than any other, and with greater effect. 
 He who had been accessory to the stoning of 
 Stephen, himself, alone of Apostles, as far as we 
 
410 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS,' 
 
 know, suffered stoning ; he who had been so zealous 
 in behalf of the law of Moses, was destined to en- 
 counter not only unbelieving Jews, but those Chris- 
 tians also who laboured to corrupt Christianity by 
 mixing the law of Moses with it ; he who had been, 
 as he expresses it, " exceedingly mad against the 
 disciple*, and persecuted them even unto strange 
 cities/' was himself driven from city to city by 
 enemies whose fury knew no bounds, both of his own 
 countrymen, and of the senseless rabble of idolaters, 
 who assailed him like " wild beasts at Ephesus." 
 He who had misinterpreted the ancient prophecies 
 respecting the Messiah, and despised his disciples, 
 had to endure not only the contradiction and derision 
 of unbelievers, but also the wilfulness and perversity 
 of " false brethren," who misrepresented and distorted 
 the doctrines he himself taught, and of arrogant 
 rivals who strove to bring him into disrepute with 
 those who had learnt the faith from him. In all 
 these struggles, he was "more than conqueror, 
 through Christ that strengthened" him. 
 
 I 
 
 , Still may Paul be said to stand in his works, as 
 
 he did in person while on earth, in the front of the 
 
 battle : to bear the chief brunt of assailants from 
 a ' 
 
 the enemies' side, and to be treacherously stabbed 
 
MISCELLANEOUS, 411 
 
 by false friends on his own. And still do his works 
 stand, and will ever stand, as a mighty bulwark of 
 the true Christian faith. He, after having himself 
 u fought the good fight, and finished his course/ ' 
 has left behind him a monument in his works, where- 
 by, "he being dead, yet speaketh ;" — a monument 
 which his Master will guard (even till that day 
 when its author shall receive the " crown of righte- 
 ousness laid up for him ") from being overthrown by 
 the assaults of enemies, and from mouldering into 
 decay through the negligence of friends. His labours 
 can never be effectually frustrated except by being- 
 kept out of sight. Whatever brings him into notice 
 will, ultimately, bring him into triumph. All the 
 malignity and the sophistry of his adversaries will 
 not only assail him in vain, but will lead in the end 
 to the perfecting of his glory, and the extension of 
 his Gospel. They may scourge him uncondemnned, 
 like the Roman magistrates at Philippi ; they may 
 inflict on him the lashes of calumnious censure, but 
 they cannot silence him ; they may thrust him, as 
 'it were, into a dungeon, and fetter him with their 
 strained interpretations, but his voice will be raised 
 even at the midnight of unchristian darkness, and 
 will be heard effectually ; his prison-doors will burst 
 open as with an earthquake, and the fetters will fall 
 

 412 
 
 THOUGHTS AND APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 from his hands ; and even strangers to Gospel-truth 
 will fall down at the feet of him — even Paul, to make 
 that momentous inquiry, " What shall I do to be 
 saved?" 
 
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