Ethics of Literature BY JOHN A. KERSEY "Of bunmii life the time is a point, eiiid the siibstniice is in a flux, and the perception dull, and the composition of the whole body subject to putre- faction, and the soul in a -whirl, and fortune hard to divine, and fame a thing devoid of judgment. * * * PVhat then is that which is able to con- duct a man? One thing and only one, philosophy." — Antoninus. "rJtiid no man knows dhtinctly anything, And no man ever will." — Xenophanes. MARION, IND. E. L. GoLDTHWAiT & Co., Printers and Binders 1894 Copyright by Author, 1894. "Pythagoras, who often teaches Precepts of magic, and with speeches Of long high-sounding diction draws From gaping crowds a vain applause." — Tinwii's Silli. ^500154 DEDICATION. To the candid and energetic Thinker who would not stultify himself for an unintelligible faith, independent without insolence, incredulous without irreverence, who prefers his judgment (con- science?) to fashionable fancies and fanatacisms, and who loathes the gilded rot with which an exclusive regime regales a reading world, the following pages are respectfully inscribed. A VOICE FROM NEW JERSEY. The applause of the thoughtless multitude is not always a safe criterion of the value of any production of human genius, whether in the field of industry, art or science, and, least of all, perhaps, in that of literature. The works of hundreds of authors which, in their day, were lauded to the skies and pro- nounced immortal — yet dropped out of existence as completely as if they had never aroused the ephemeral' applause of confused enthusiasm — furnish a melan- choly illustration of the trustworthiness of contempory ciiticism. Wide pub- licity does not establish intrinsic worth, and the rebuke of one wise man, if sincere, outweighs the frantic approval often thousand fools. But while all error, prejudice and false sentiment is doomed, eo ipso, to be superseded by the recognition of truth as soon as the torch of enlightenment is carried far enough by the foremost minds of the age, yet- some illusions are deliberately retained and fostered beyond their legitimate scope, for reasons which cannot well be expressed here in few words. The exaggerated praise which is still bestowed upon authors who have produced little of intrinsic merit, or who have been put into the shade by those whom the world has but tardily deigned to recognize, must always depressingly affect minds that are capable of adding to this world's store of wisdom, and who fain would expedite the course of general advancement. There are certain authors whose works, nowadays, are practically never read, yet whom everybody deems it his duty to eulogize inordinately. Tradi- tional veneration, misapplied hero-worship and erroneous education are mainly responsible for this. We are taught from infancy to look upon certain writers, poets, philosophers, etc., as paragons, and never to question their genius, or subject their productions to a closer analysis, with a view of determining their real caliber. Ignoring a great mind is bad enough, but placmg a poor one on a pedestal, bestowing unmerited praise upon mediocrity, and setting up a false standard of excellence, are infmitely worse. A careful perusal of Mr. John A. Kersey's "Ethics of Literature'' has brought me to the conclusion that the hour has come at last when the cobwebs of ec- static eulogy, absurd glorification and general hoodwinking, which have gath- ered around some of the literary idols of the last three generations, are about to be swept away, once and forever. Let those who cannot bear the truth stand aside! There will be a great howl raised against these essays by those who are linked to inherited notions by all the ties of interest, prejudice and conceit, but Mr. Kersey wields a formidable scimitar, and i am proud to excercise the privi- lege of recording my opinion that the "Ethics of Literature" will live, and of congratulating this bold and brilliant champion of the cause of truth. Heinrich Hensoldt. Paterson, New Jersey. A GRATUITOUS OPINION. A gratuitous opinion is usually worth just what it costs. So it may be with this, but even a hasty glance at the manuscript of the Ethics of Literatuie reveals some things, which it may not be out of place to mention, and recalls some others which it may not be amiss to note. Many a sentence has fallen from the lips of obscurity which coming from celebrity would be valued as a grain of gold. Many an adage is accepted be- cause of its age. Many a proverb has been accepted because of the must and the mould which years have given it. Many a book has been bought and read and admired because of the name on the title page. This book may neither be bought nor read nor admired, but there are grains of gold in it, nevertheless. It has neither the must nor the mould of age, nor has it the glamour of a great name to recommend it, but there is much in it that is worth attention. He who buys a book because the literary popes have recommended it, will wait for holy sanction before he buys or reads this. He whose digestive appar- atus has been weakened by prescribed diet to a degree that requires gruel as food for thought, will wait for a prescription before he touches this, but he who chews, digests and assimilates for himself needs but to glance at the table of contents to find some things that he wants. The author of this book has been reading. More tlian that, he has been thinking. He has been in search, not for what somebody else says, or thinks, but for what is. He has read "not to contradict nor to believe, but to weigh and consider." It is clear that long ago he had reached that rare condition of mind in which one can be himself. He has read for himself and thought for himself. His work is therefore original. Dullness swallows dogma because it is dogma. Acumen rejects it from sheer inability to accept it, hence there is much in this book to stamp the author with the brand of heresy in the estimation of the literary authorities. It is none the worse for that. To many it will be the better. The value of a production is less in what the author thinks than in the de- gree to which he sets the reader to thinking. In this book there are both tonic and stimulus. He who reads it will thereafter think none the less for himself. Let him read carefully, and he will be all the more himself. The work is not only original, but it appeals to the individuality of the reader. No man is ever free from the bias of preconception, but the author of this book has had neither creed to support nor creed to destroy. He is neither Protestant nor Catholic, neither deist nor atheist. He is neither religious nor anti-religious bigot. He has sought the truth. It is not unlikely that he will be crucified by the critics, for to-day as well as century and a half ago, there are those who "have still an itching to deride." W. H. Sanders. Marion, Ind. PREFACE If men were so concerned to have as they are disposed to affect wisdom, it would not be so rare; and the flood of learned jargon with which the world is deluged would not he so over- whelming. The results of their misguided energies, while less voluminous, might be more edifying to their readers, and possi- bly more gratifying to the ambitious writers. At all events the world would not suffer from an abatement of the prevalent ardor for authorship. My library, selected from time to time, and with a view to literary utility, contains many eubullitions, instances of the inability of the wise to suppress the divine afflatus. From the times of the Socratic Ph^do and the Eucli- dian Phoenix on down through the cycles to those of the Anal- ogy and the Age of Reason, and to the present, there have been few wilful violations of the edict against concealing light under a bushel. In view of the universally inherent communicative- ness of the learned the admonition were quite superfluous; they seldom deserve censure for knowing more than they are willing to impart to or inflict upon their fellows. Were true wisdom commensurate with or if it pervaded the mass of what is written, one of average capacity would grapple but feebly with its immensity, and the meagre allotment of three score and ten would scarcely suffice to invoice the vari- ous and voluminous effluvia. But wisdom and learning are not convertible terms. Great learning may be evinced in the ethereal imagery of the Poet, in the recondite reasoning of the rationalist, and in the carping cavil of the critic, without aug- menting or e.xalting wisdom. As numerous and various as are the subjects of the countless contributions to the immeas- urable mass, slight acumen will suffice to detect the invariable object of their authors. Myriad memorials are left to remind an ungrateful world of its obligations to the illustrious dead. Some seem destined to abide with time and thought. It is dif- 8 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. ficult to conceive why some should endure to stigmatize liter- ature and the memory of their authors. Many of stupid self- conceit are buried in oblivion ere their authors escape to the tomb, and many others should be. A ramble through this field and a view of some of the labor- ers and their works may not be amiss in one whose life has been a contemplation of and devotion to it. A candid inquiry into their various merits may work no more ill than slightly to increase the mass, the bulk of which embarrasses more than it edifies the votary to progress, engenders thought as variegated as the features and complexions of men, and hinders rather than promotes the march of intellect. The paradoxical position that one properly niay write to show that too much is already writ- ten is confidently assumed. The manner in which it is main- tained and its success are matters for the discernment of the reader. One ought not to bespeak charity for such a work as is here proposed. Yet such a plea might be prompted if not excused by a due appreciation of the magnitude of the under- taking. If self-conceit blinds some writers to their own folly, it may sustain others against a humiliating consciousness of infer- iority. Were my position consistent with justification by pre- cedent, it might be observed that one is not far from fashion merely in the fact that his own overweening assurance is the only assurance he has that he will not meet merited mortifi- cation. The boldness of the undertaking will dwindle to diffidence when compared with the effrontery of savants, prescribing the plans and portraying the purposes of Providence. Under their auspices and with a servile sycophancy Religion is found catch- ing at the hem of the garment of Science. Its apologists (not its promoters) assume the authority to enunciate a divine (moral .^) philosophy, to vouch for the veracity of divine verity, and to defend Omnipotence against Impotence, whose assaults derive their chief importance from the concern of pedantic fan- atics. 1 propose to inquire what some great literary luminaries have done, and to show in some instances what were better left undone, for the enlightenment of Mankind. And in this PREFACE. 9 retrospect we will observe the acknowledged Titans engaged in Herculean labors to establish truths which, in the nature of things and of mind, are either self-evident or unprovable. We will observe minds which have given the world some of the most superb thought, grouping the rarest gems in clusters with the veriest peter-funk. We will behold exhibitions of power out of all proportion with principle, in many instances entirely with- out it, — but occasionally we will be refreshed with an instance in which the renown of the author is not the soul of his effort, and his profit is not its stimulus. He who intelligently and conscientiously writes for the bet- terment of Mankind, deserves the abiding respect and gratitude of the race. He who writes to assert himself, or for his own profit, deserves undisturbed oblivion, and to 'Till his belly with the husks that the swine did eat," He who writes to foster fanaticism, sanction superstition, or vindicate vice, especially in its priestly robes, deserves notice only for the purpose of exe- cration. As they pass in review a superficial glance might in some instances betray the beholder into undeserved and ill- advised condemnation, or, commendation. A close examin- ation, a careful consideration, and candid conclusion are due to the subject, to its writer, and to the reader. And they will dis- close that if utility were recognized as an element in the law of literature, thousands of groaning shelves would be relieved of their burdens by bonfires throughout the length and breadth of the civilized world. There should be no statutes of limita- tion in literature. Titles should not be acquired by prescrip- tion. Quackery, imposture, and frivolity, should not be made venerable with mere age. CONTENTS CHAPTER I. PHILOSOPHIC APOLOGETICS. Butler's Argument Presented to the Queen — Erroneously Termed an Analogy — Analogy Would have Suggested Non-resistance— Cause had Flourished Under Opposilion — Inconsistency of Attacks Upon, and Defence of Religion — Religion Necessarily Unreasonable— Spiritual Existence can Neither be Proved nor Disproved — Unaccountable Mystery in Physical Phenomena — The Spiritual Inlinitely more Mysterious — Man, more than Animated Physical Substance — Changed Condition of Substance in Physical Death — Desire for Esteem after Death, Based on Idea of Future Existence — Spiritual Phenomena Infinitely more Abstruse than Physical — Religious Fanaticism Unduly Opposes Skepticism — Sanction of Religion, Necessarily a Future Existence- Analogy must be Continuous — Its Continuity Ruins its Argument — Analogy Between Physical and Spiritual Existence implies eternally Recurring Integ- rations and Diffusions of Soul-substance — Injustice of Punishment — Irrever- ence of Apologetics — Results, the only Reasonable Argument for or Against a Religious System. CHAPTER II. religion's OBSEQ.UIOUS HOMAGE TO SCIENCE. Prefatory Apologies for Theological Discussion Imply its Impropriety — Natural Law in Spiritual World, Based on Analogy Between the Two Spheres — Religion Derives no New Credential from Philosophy — Paul Placed it Above Science — Kant's Idea of Socratic Method — Unfair Methods of Fanat- ics, Requiring Disproof— Nicodemus Put Upon His Own Faith — Analogy Posits Beginning and End of Eternity — Truculence of Theology to Science — Heredity Illustrates Absurdity of Analogy — Periods and Progress Irrecon- cilable With Eternal Spiritual Existence — Inanimate Spirit-Substance Re- quisite to Analogy— Biogenesis Implies Beginning and Ending of Life of Almighty — Apologetics Implies Insufficiency of Divine Authority — Spencer- Religion to Be Such, Must Be an Absolute Mystery — Law of Death — Na- ture Squaring Her Account With Sin — Man and the Lily — Heredity and Environment — Impropriety and Irreverence in Alleged Religious Philosophy. CHAPTER HI. EPIC APOLOGETICS. Paradise Lost, the Grandest of all Metrical Apologetics — Its Purpose to Assert and Justify Eternal Providence — Admits Uncertainty of Existence and Jus- 12 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. tice of the Almighty — Atheist Supposed — Argument Would Confuse More Than Convince Him — Incongruity Obscured by Grandeur, Extravagance, Metaphor, Etc — Occasion and Object of Creation — Imply Free-will and Fatalism — Fall of Man, Bad Economy — Providence Responsible — Philoso- phy of Poem Overrated — Meant to Immortalize Poet — Skepticism Over- rated — Miracle, Prophecy, and Revelation, as Authoritative for One System as Another — Audacity of Theological Reasoning — Question Personal to Each Individual— Neither Freedom Nor Fatalism Can be Made to Appear Reasonable— Gibbon's Tribute to Christianity. CHAPTER IV. DIVINE DISPENSATION VINDICATED IN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY. Prologue to Essay On Man Assumes Marvelous Wisdom of Poet — Dissimula- tion as to Integrity of Purpose — Providential Plan a Confusion— Vindication Necessarily illogical — To Reason About Providence From what we Know is to Reason From Nothing — Necessity of Man to System a Groundless As- sumption — Coherency of System— Freedom and Fatalism irreconcilable — If Whatever is is Right Man's Errors are Right — The Ways of Providence Must be Known Before They Can be Vindicated — All Knowlege is Acquir- ed — Conditions Must be Unknown — Poetry May Flourish in Metaphysics — Taine's strictures on the Poet — Foul Blots on the Poetry of the Essay — Indefinite Purpose and Ambition of the Poet. CHAPTER V. POETICAL PARASITISM. Metropolis of Seventeenth Century Literature — Dominated by a Pensioner of Royalty — Paid Panegyric — Loathsome character of Subjects Praised — Malevolent Satire of Those in Disfavor with Royalty — Catholicism Ridi- culed in the Absalom and Achitophel — The "Chief Justice's Western Campaign'' — Protestantism Ridiculed in the "Hind and Panther" — Kings's Southeastern Campaign — Egotism of the Laureate — Cause of His Popu- larity. CHAPTER VI. PHILOSOPHIC FUME, MYSTICISM, ECCENTRICITY, AND EGOTISM. Literary Heterogeneity — Books Should go Upon Their Own Merit, and Not Upon the Prestige of Their Writers— Style Best Suited to Writer May be Disgusting to the Reader — Folly of Philosophizing in Terms of Buffoonery — Sentiment of the Sartor Resartus Deserves Decent Expression — Author Impersonated in Teufelsdrockh — Art of Printing Disbands Armies and Cashiers Senates — Defiance of Politico-Religious Oppression — Cringing to Royalty — indifference to the Marvellous — Coarse Vulgarity of Allusion — Instance of Similarity to Kant's View of the Cosmology— Nature Not an Aggregate But a Whole— Persistence of Force — Smithy-fire— Matter Exists Spiritually, to Body-forth Ideas — Infancy of Teufelsdrockh— Unprecedented CONTENTS. 13 Egotism of Philosopher — Stricture on European Educational System — Great Ability Squandered in Eccentricity and Buffoonery — The French Revolu- tion, (A History — Norse Jarl — ^John Sterling — Mother Goose in Men's Clothes — Spring Poetry — Witty Criticism of English Biography — Undue Importance Given a Mountebank — Important Historical Fact and Deep Philosoph) Rendered Ridiculous. CHAPTER VII. ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY IN MODERN ATTIRE. Translators Should Translate and not Paraphrase — Historians Should Narrate and not Philosophize — Equivalence of Thought Psychologically Possible — Equivalence of Expression Philologically Possible — Literary Economy — Recriminations of Translators and Editors — Modern Reader's Assurance that He gets the Meaning of the Ancient Writer — Provisional Validity of Lucretius' Philosophy — Economy of Nature in Time and Space — Religion and Superstition — Parallel Between Invocations of Lucretius and Milton — Disagreement Among Translators — Improvised Data of Philosophy — Its Weakness for Parallels — Primordial Atom Impossible — Annihilation and Diminuition Impossible — Self Propulsion Impossible — Nature Only Another Name for the Almighty — Freedom Attributed to Irregularity of Voluntary Atomical Motion — Mediaeval Papacy Attempts to Enslave Thought — Mor- tality and Immortality Conclusively Proved by Reasoning of Lucretius and Socrates — Insuperable Antinomy — Disgusting Allusions of Philosophers — Literary Toadyism. CHAPTER Vlll. nature's poet. Treasures Among Trash — Symmetry of The Ages — The Poets Medium Between Optimism and Cynicism — Civilization a Constant Rhythmical Growth — Good and Evil Necessarily Relative — Poetry of Nature an Effusion of the Soul and not a Product of Genius — Personal Merit an Absurdity — Constitu- tion and Environment — Integration and Diffusion — Mechanical Cause of Feeling and Emotion — Contemptible Spirit that Seeks Consolation for 111 in the Reflection that Others also Suffer — Attention an Effort — Universal Weakness for Flattery — Philosophy Works over the Old More than it De- velops the New — Celestial and Terrestrial Paternity of Man — The Coolest Deductions of Physics as Extravagant as the Wildest Flights ot Poetry — Hymn to Death. CHAPTER IX. • obscurity AND PROFUSION AS INDICATIONS OF GENIUS. Criticism vs. Production — Culture the only legitimate Purpose of Literature — Its Purports not Generally Understood — The Masses Affect a Taste lor that Which they cannot Comprehend — Pedantry Displays Writer's Resources Without Promoting Reader's Intellectual Attainment — Obligations of 14 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. Writers — Scene of the Table Round — Legendary Origin of Arthur — Excali- bur the Cross-Hilted Sword — Poetry's Weakness for Similitudes — Gareth's inspiration — His Mother's Dissimulation — His Exploits — ^Geraint Casually Meets the Queen — Insulted by Dwarf of Stranger Knight — Traces the Ver- min to their Earth — Entertained by Yniol — In Love with Enid — Overcomes Edyrn — Marries Enid — ^Jealousy and Brutality — Absurdity of Plot and De- nouement — Merlin and Vivien — Romance Overdone — Lancelot and Elaine- Over-virtuous Rake — The Holy Grail — Ambrosius and Percivale — The Blunting and Glancing and Shooting of Love — The Nun's Vision — Lance- lot's Bastard Galahad— The Siege Perilous — Second Death of Merlin — Descent of the Grail — The King Fighting on the Frontier While his Knights Revel at the Table Round — Arthur's Return — The Order Disperse in Quest of the Grail — Enoch's Translation Out-done — Percivale Meets a Widow who had been His first Love — Invited to Marry — Pelleas and Ettare — Her Insolence to the Queen — His Persistent Suit— Gawain's Intervention and Perfidy — Pelleas' Magnanimity — Repairs to the Cloister — Rushes There- from, Rides Down a Crippled Beggar, Attacks Lancelot, is Overthrown, Follows Him to Arthur's Hall, and Insults Lancelot and the Queen — Modred Appears— The Last Tournament— Tristram and Dagonet Philoso- phize — Nestling's Rubies, Prize at Tournament — Awarded to Tristrarji — His Amour with Isolt — Mark's Way — Insipidity of Denouement— Guine- vere — Modred Hounds Her Trying to Learn Facts that Everyone Knew — His Hatred to Lancelot — The Queen's Flight to the Sanctuary— Madness of Farewells with Lancelot— Her last Interview with Arthur— Passing of Arthur — Battle in Lyonesse — Chancel and Cross in Heathen Wilderness— Fl.iborated Disposition of Excalibur — High-toned Twaddle— Beauty of The Enoch Arden— Unphilosophic Philosophy of the In Memoriam. CHAPTER X. OBSCURITY AND PROFUSION AS INDICATIONS OF GENIUS. Plain English Amply Sufficient Medium for Expression of all Ideas— Impertin- ency (jt Apologetics — Bishop Blougram's Apology a Learned Vagary — Its Merit with Readers is the Prestige of its Author— Aristocratic Blackguard- ism—Worldly Priest-craft— Money Makes the Spiritual Mare Go— The Skeptic's Ideal too lofty to be realized— Ocean Voyage of a Life— Faith Ab- solute Fixed and Final an Impossibility— Religion Based in Selfishness- Faith Valid Because it Must be So— Cowardice and Dissimulation of Apol- ogetics—Believer Under Surveillance of the World in his Service ol the Lord— Belief not Within Personal Control— Creation Declares Instead of Conceals the Creator. CHAPTER XI. OBSCURITY AND PROFUSION AS INDICATIONS OF GENIUS. Elaboration of Preludes to Literary Productions— Indefinite Impulse to Write— CONTENTS. I S Verifying Inspiration in Reason — Philosophy Rises no Higher than Proba- bility — Pleasure in Being Duped — The Reverence Due to Man — Economy of the Process by which Destiny is Reached — Destiny of Man Hanging Upon Individuals — Individuals Mere Instrumentalities — The Most Myster- ious the Most Easily Discernible — Man's Weakness Due to his Mistrust — If Evidence Divine were Credible to Man he Would Trust — Constitution, Environment, Duty, and Destiny — Self-restraint, an Unreasonable Re- quirement — Defying the Reason whose Sanction was to be Obtained — Reason cannot Live in the Altitudes to which the hnagination Soars. CHAPTER XII. CLASSIFICATION, GENERALIZATION, AND METAPHOR. Extent and Variety of Literary Domain — Individuality of Persons in their Books — Eccentricity taken for Genius — -Philosophy More than Classification — Lit- eratures do not Spring Up — Change the Deepest of all Subjects of Thought — Literature Chief Product of Mind — Taine's Imaginary Revolution, Intel- lectual and Literary — Misuse of Truisms — Unreasonable Account ot Rise of Various Religions — Taine's Compliment to American Intellectuality — His Proposition that Religion is a Human Product — Sources of his Source — Tacit Rage of Scandinavians Still Survives in Sombreness of English La- borer—Puritan Disposition an Outgrowth of Scandinavian Rage — The New Tongue — -Pagan Renaissance, its Civilization — Christianity Connected the Literature of the Time before the Fall of the Roman Empire with that of the Middle Ages — Generalization Resorted to to Avoid Contradiction- -The Philosophic Historian's Nightmare, Change — The Deathly Poetic Spirit — Definitely ascertained Psychology of a People Impossible — Imagination of a Feudal Hero — Intellectual Servitude — Physical Force the Basis of Thought — Imitation and Invention in Nature — Ecclesiastical Oppression — Monothe- ism vs. Polytheism — Methods and Philosophies Arising from Spirit of the Age — r ETHICS OF LITERATURE. ground that it is miraculous, but the defence is vitiated in an attempt to show that it is also reasonable. These two defences are incompatible with each other, so that so far as such argument is concerned the assailant has the advantage. But as above stated the defender could attack and show the fallacy of the reviler's argument. There is the above named standing mir- acle to start from, the facts and circumstances of which must be equally well known by both parties, and. waiving the ver- acity of the disputed account of the earlier ones the zealot should ask the scotfer to account for this with his reason. At that point reasoning controversy would stop. The truth is. it is the glory of the system that it does not have to be reason- able to be divine. It is above and beyond reason. Its apolo- gists belittle it when they attempt to make it appear reason- able. To be reasonable it must be within the comprehension of reasonable creatures, man must be capable of comprehend- ing it. It is arrogance, verging closely to blasphemy, for any mortal man to claim that he can comprehend it. It is cowardly catering to the imperious impotence of un- belief to obsequiously seek the opportunity to reason with it, and attempt to convince its judgment in order to obtain its approval, or to get rid of its objections. The most that can be said against it is that one does not comprehend, and hence will not believe it. The rest that is said against it is mainly scoff and sneer. If that is sufficient not merely to cause doubt, but to produce active disbelief, there is a great deal of that which passes for useful knowledge which is without founda- tion and invalid. Examples are obvious. In a certain familiar science it is established that a certain set of ducts conveys the life-blood from the heart to everv part of the body ; that another set conveys it back again to the heart; that friction, elastic compression and gravitation, are all overcome by some vital power in transmitting it both ways. What is that power ? By whom and how is it generated and maintained } Why is it that a pin-scratch will stop the wondrous working of that power and send a soul to eternity in an instant } On the same principle as that upon which the scoffer denies the existence of his Maker, and with the same propriety, he might PHILOSOPHIC APOLOGETICS. 27 against his own actual knowledge to the contrary say that no such power exists, or that immediate death would not neces- sarily result from lacerating the heart. No man knows any- thing about that power, nor how nor why so insignificant a thing as a pin-scratch should utterly and instantly destroy it. A great deal of the noblest and most important wisdom with which the world is blest, and much of the learning with which it is cursed, are obtained by visual inspection of parch- ment and paper upon which certain characters were inscribed ages ago. Vv'hich serve as the conduit through which the thought of antiquity is transmitted to us. By beholding cer- tain parcels of such material we can see Sardanapalus doting over his Myrrha. the just indignation of Salamenes. and hear the Greek Slave protest with her royal lover against the reck- less indulgence of his lust which consigned them hand in hand to the pyre, composed of one of the noblest edifices of antiqu- ity. By beholding another we may see the greatest philoso- pher the world has known, lift the fatal cup to his lips, and hear him mildly reprove his friends for weeping at so trifling an affair as his death. When some savant succeeds in reason- ing his Maker out of existence he should then explain these phenomena, or else proceed with his reasoning to show that they are not. We are continuously in contact with, and perception of phenomena of a material type, which cannot be accounted for. No one can tell why a bud swells and bursts, and expands into and forms a leaf. If it is caused by a combination of the influences or effects of a certain temperature with moisture, and the chemical properties of the soil from which it springs, what produces or causes such combination ? If this is motion, which is supposed to vitalize and maintain all organic exis- tence, what produces or causes such motion } Why is it that a clot of blood as large as a pea, lodged on some of the con- volutions of the brain will totally destroy some of the mental powers } These subjects are tangible, physical, and may be apprehended by means of the senses. If their various condi- tions at the various stages and under the various circumstances of their existence cannot be accounted for, when we have the 28 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. facts consisting of the condition, stage, and circumstance, palpably before us to reason from, how can we account for, or know anything about the conditions of the spirit, the exis- tence of which at any stage and under any circumstances, is less, if at all palpable to any of our senses ? The brain may be chemically analyzed and reduced to its ultimate material components, but no one will claim that it is then understood. It is universally recognized as the throne of the kingdom of Mind, but no one will claim to know how it is tenanted. The peculiarity of its substance and construction seems to render it more appropriately adapted to the office of thought than any other organ, but portions of the same, or a precisely similar substance permeate every part of the body; yet no one will attempt to explain why all thought is evolved in the brain. One in the prime of his mental manhood may give utterence to a beautitlil. a grand, a sublime thought, the production or deduction of the brain. A bodkin may pierce his heart, and he is not a man. There would be no physical change in the constituent elements of the brain, but in a mo- ment after it is found to be pure animal substance, having un- dergone no change except having ceased to act as it ceased to be properly acted upon. It cannot thereafter conceive a thought. Something, perhaps not a physical substance, but something has departed from it. Perhaps it departed because the cessa- tion of the inlluence of the heart's action rendered it untenant- able by such occupant, — the being which was there a moment ago. reasoning that there is no God because it could not com- prehend Him. and that its own departure from its tenement of cellular tissue and gray matter terminates its existence, if that occupant which has so departed is a power, condition, or capacity, it may still be as substantial as any one ought to claim that a soul can be, and there is but little in a name. Un- less we know something about that occupant or thing which has so departed, we are not justified in saying that it does- not thereafter exist at all, merely because we no longer find it occu- pying the particular substance which we know it lately occu- pied. We knew too little about it when in personal contact with it to conjecture what became of it in its departure. Some PHILOSOPHICS APOLOGETICS. 2q of the thought it evolved and gave to the world may still exist, retained in some one's memory, or perhaps chronicled in some scoffer's philosophy. Such existence mav not be veiy sub- stantial, yet it mav be sutl^icientlv materialistic to imply the continuous existence of the late occupant of the defunct brain. Unless one knows something definite of a subject his argu- ment relating thereto ought not to alarm anv one. No one can possibly know what it is, or is not. or that nothing is beyond the grave, more certainly than he can know what is, or is not, or that nothing is beyond the limit to which vision has reached in space. Out to a certain limit in space it is demonstrated that certain celestial systems exist. By analogv we may rea- sonably presume that other similar ones exist beyond, and be- yond, until the imagination staggers at the inconceivable vast. Down to a certain point in human existence it is demonstrated that the person is more than a mere animated aggregation of substance. The animated substance itself does not perish, it does not go out of existence, it merely changes place, form and condition; and this it is constantly doing even while it com- poses the substantive part of the person. The othei'. the more, may be a mere impersonal abstraction, and still it is morally certain to exist beyond physical life in the memory of those who knew it in life. it is rational, at least it is almost universal, to desire to be remembered with esteem after death. There would be no basis for such desire if death was absolutely the end of the per- son's existence. Such desire is in the nature of a state or a habit of mind. Then mind would seem to be more than a mere impersonal abstraction, more than a mere state of habit. What is said here, and perhaps all that can be said, may not prove the existence of the soul after physical death, or the claim to superiority or validity of any religious system. But I think it is shown that no one can know anything so inimical to the claims of such systems as to justify him in calling them fraudu- lent, where the most that is known of them is such as the world must recognize as the benign result of the prevalence of Christianity. The prevalence of that system bred and fostered the civilization which made the intellectual attainment possible. ^O ETHICS OF LITERATURE. bv means of which the scoffer is enabled to make an egregious ass of himself in I'eviling the very system to which he owes whatever attainment he has. 1 think it follows that when such system is attacked in a course of reasoning, its adherents should not become its de- fenders. They might point to its workings and effects and ask the scoffer to account for them, or they might ask him to ex- plain and account for physical and mental phenomena such as I have mentioned. Let him e.xplain the power, or whatever it may be. that electrifies the millions of nerve cells and Ilbres, and how it is that intelligence is instantaneously transmitted from the remotest peripheral frontier, to the central ofhce in the optic thalamus, and is thence instantaneously distributed over thousands of lines of communication to incite and direct organic action. Science has discovered the facts, let reason account for them, or else permit their great Author to exist. But unfortunately unbelief has not monopolized egotism. There are those in the faith who are afflicted with an itch for fame that cannot be allayed by rubbing the back against a tombstone. They seem to fancy they know something, and that they are forbidden to bury their talent in the earth. Their self- conceit is not to be gratified by an easy victory, such as 1 have shown can be achieved by calling on the scoffer for his data, or asking him to account for certain well known phenomena. The importance of his assault is first magnified so he may be considered a Ibe worthy the defender's steel, and the validity of his reasoning is so far admitted as to justify the zealot in enter- ing the arena with him. They then lash and thrust each other unmercifully, and the world is editled with an exhibition of personal prowess in a contest which settles nothing beyond its own futility. The zealots vanity (ambition?) will be more gratefully gratified in a display of his own wisdom than in demonstrating that his opponent has none, or has not sut^icient to overthrow the system assailed. In the volume in question the reviler's attack is given its chief importance in the beginning of the book, it is said, "Strange difficulties have been raised by some concerning per- sonal identity, or the sameness of living agents, implied in the PHILOSOPHIC APOLOGETICS. 3 I notion of our existing now and hereafter, or in anv two suc- cessive moments; * * -^^ '''■/■ The objection is admitted to be a difticuUv, and a vcrv deeply learned and labored volume is written to get rid of it. So far as the individual is personally concerned, there woLild seem to be but one object in attempting to show that such personal identity does not continue alter the physical death. That would be to enfranchise the mind, to relieve it of what a so-called atheism seems to regard a slavish subjection to an im- agined superior power, enforced bv fear of ill in an imaginary future. If atheism should establish that there is no such con- tinuous personal identity, it would rationally follow that there could be no present responsibility for future consequences; and hence, so far as the individual is concerned, no system of relig- ion based on the idea of such continuous existence could be valid, it could have no efficacious sanction. So both parties base Christianity on the basest of human motives, — selfishness. The scoffer's object then seems to be to establish that the doc- trine of Christianity is absurd because he does not find it in accord with what he regards the reasonable deductions to be made from his observations of physical phenomena. More accurately, he ridicules it because he cannot understand it. The zealot then attempts to establish the validity of the doctrine of Christianity by reasoning from what he terms the analogy of Nature. It is clear that there can be but one fair way to reason from such supposed analogy. That is to take the whole "constitution and course of nature" so far as it relates to the example cited in drawing the analogy, and then analog- ically trace the inferences and deductions to their final results. To do this one must know all about nature so far as it relates to the example cited, he must know that what he hypothecates or postulates therein must be as he hypothecates or postulates it. Otherwise his starting point is mere quick-sand. To insist on the continuance of personal identity and existence after physical death because of any supposed analogy thereto in nature, one must suppose the subsequent existence and con- tinuance to be analogous to that which we see in physical life. ^2 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. and upon which we base the analogy. Analogy argues noth- ing (much less it proves) further than it extends and applies. The Apologist says. "'From our being born into the present world in the helpless imperfect state of infancy, and having arrived from thence to mature age, we find it to be a general law of nature in our own species, that the same creatures, the same individuals, should exist in different degrees of life and perception, with capacities of action, of enjoyment, and suffer- ing, in one period of their being, greatly different from those appointed to them in another period of it. * * * ^ But the states of life in which we existed formerly, in the womb and in our infancy, are almost as different from our present, in mature age, as it is possible to conceive any two states or de- grees of life can be. Therefore, that we are to exist hereafter in a state as different (suppose) from our present, as this is from our former, is but according to the analogy of nature; accord- ing to a natural order or appointment, of the very same kind with what we have already experienced." Let us test the validity of this so-called analogy. Because we may have had a physical existence for three score and ten years, shall we assume therefrom that we shall have a spiritual existence throughout eternity } If existence after death and throughout eternity is to be proved by analogy with nature, the present existence should, analogically, be shown to be the sequel to an existence prior and analogous to it, and so back- ward to the earliest dawn of eternity. The future existence caimot be analogous to the present existence unless the present is successive to a prior one. If the survival by the living agent of this tluxation. or the continuance therein ol the personal identity argues a future existence to all eternity, it must with the same propriety and tbrce argue a prior existence /ro/// all eternity. That which is never to cease, cannot be imagined to have had a beginning. It is impossible to imagine that any- thing in lime has its parallel in eternity. The apologist says. "Vv'e cannot argue from the reason of the thing, that death is the destruction ofliving agents, because we know not at all what death is in itself: but only some of its effects, such as the dissolution of flesh, skin, and bones: and PHILOSOPHIC APOLOGETICS. 33 these effects do in no wise appear to imply the destruction of a living agent.'" By a parity of reasoning birth, the organization of the flesh, skin and bones into the individual existence does not imply the creation of the living agent. But if such birth, organization, does not imply the creation or bringing into being of the living agent, it is diftkult to conceive how or when it originates. If it does imply the creation or bringing into being of the living agent, then a new soul is created for each and every embryo that reaches the period of gestation at which there is foetal life, and a puerperal accident may land it in eternity with the sins of its guilty progenitors on its head. The organization of the foetus by the coition of the parents must be the creation of the soul, or at least birth must be the production of the soul. Otherwise the soul must have always existed, and, as it goes from the childish prattle and utter irre- sponsibility of infancy in the course of an ordinary lifetime, to the wicked purpose and fatal accountability of mature manhood, it must have been in a very extreme state of un-organization and irresponsibility a few cycles back in eternity. I do not pretend to say what may or may not be. I am not attempting to prescribe or limit Omnipotent Power. I am speaking of reasoning from Analogy. If it appears in such reasoning that the living agent is not atfected by, but continues to exist after the physical death, it ought also to appear that it was not affected by, but had existed before the physical birth. Other- wise the analogy is imperfect and unfair and the reasoning therefrom is necessarily fallacious. As above shown the apologist says that the survival by the individual of the several changes of life is analogy sufficient from which to infer the continuance after death of the same living agent, in form and condition as different from the pres- ent, as the mature is different from the embryonic state. If that is correct, it is also sufficient from which to infer the indi- vidual existence prior to birth of the same living agent, in form and condition as different from any of them as they can be from each other. If it is to exist after physical death to all eternity, it must have existed before physical birth from all eternity. Analogy furnishes as much and as valid argument for one of 34 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. these existences as for the other, and no other anological argu- ment can be valid. The analogical apologist then is committed to the Oriental doctrine of transmigration, which he probably did not contemplate when he started out to authenticate the doctrine of Christianity by reasoning from its supposed "anal- ogy to the constitution and course of nature." it would seem much safer to relv on the disputed account of the miraculous foundation of the Faith, than to attempt to verify its claims to genuineness by reasoning from any such supposed analogy. inferences backward are as legitimate and reasonable as in- ferences forward, especially when all the space and time in which their conclusions are posited are (or relate to affairs) out- side the sphere and period occupied by the facts reasoned from, the facts on which we base the analogv. The apologist him- self says. "Thus in the daily course of natural providence. God operates in the very same manner as in the dispensations of Christianity; making one thing subservient to another; this to somewhat farther; and so on. through a progressive series of means, which extend both backivard and forward, beyond our utmost view." But without this unintended concession, lam confident that no profound and fair rationalist will object to what I have said about fairness and validity in analogical reas- oning. The analogy must be taken entire and not in parts, and must be traced whichever wav it leads to its necessary logical results. If when thus dealt with it proves too much, it is as bad as if when traced in the most favorable direction it fails to prove enough. The apologist says. 'That which makes the question con- cerning a future life to be of so great importance to us. is our capacity of happiness and misery. And that which makes the consideration of it to be of so great importance to us. is the supposition of our happiness and misery hereafter, depending upon our actions here." He proceeds therefrom to write a chapter to show the sup- posed validity of his proposition, that happiness and misery after death depend upon the conduct in life. He adduces alleged analogies in nature, such as dissipation and disease, depravity and degradation, profligacy and penury, and numer- PHILOSOPHIC APOLOGETICS. 35 OLis Others, each in contrast with its respective antithesis. While I think the analogies and the arguments therefrom are not fair, because sufficient attention is not given to personal constitution and environment, yet 1 shall not wholly reject them until they are duly considered. Neither shall 1 deny that future happiness and misery are dependent upon present conduct. But ifthe analogies were fair the reasoning is unfoir, or rather it establishes nothing because it is incomplete. Traced to its necessary analogical results, if future happiness and misery de- pend upon the conduct in this life, and if misery after physical death is the due reward of bad conduct in this life, then the miseries of this life must be the due reward of bad conduct in an existence prior to it. It matters not that we fancy we can attribute present miseries to causes arising in this life. Analog- ically, we may as well hold that bad conduct in a prior exis- tence entailed our present misery through the instrumentality, or as an apparent result of, the causes to which we attribute them, which causes are themselves miseries, and may be like- wise superinduced, as to hold that it should entail it directly, and without the agency of such bad conduct in this life ; or, that bad conduct in this life will entail misery directly or indi- rectly in a future life. Now, there is a cardinal principle of morals which I believe no rationalist ever did, or ever will dispute. It is that punish- ment not understood, and the reasons for which are to the suf- ferer unknown, is unjust. Yet the apologist argues that the miseries of the future life are the deserved punishment of bad conduct in this life. Unless we know the wickedness of which we were guilty in the life prior to the present life, and for which we suffer present pain, the punishment is unjust. Analogical- ly, we have no reason to believe we will in the future life know any more about the reason for its torments, than we now know about the bad conduct of the life prior to the present life which entailed our present miseries. In either case we may know we suffer without knowing that we are punished in retributive justice. So with the child which dies from an inherited dis- ease, — regarded as a punishment for bad conduct, it is not only unjust, it is barbarous and absurd. ^6 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. Thus it appears that while the system defended needs no support, it can derive none from any sound and legitimate rea- soning from any supposed "analogy to the constitution and course of nature." Certainly it has derived none from the great bulwark erected for its defence in the volume in question. While there is quite a good deal of the devotional and e.x- hortative parts of the work which appears to be written in a true Christian spirit, yet I believe that nothing can be much more irreverent and deleterious to Christianity itself, than a complacent affectation of an easy familiarity with the ways of Infinite Wisdom. They are hopelessly and eternally beyond the possibility of human comprehension. It cannot tend other- wise than to belittle the system and doctrine of Christianity, to attempt to reconcile egotistical unbelief by dragging the doc- trine from the zenith of its divinity to the level of a human un<- derstanding. 'if they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead." If eighteen centuries of almost uninterrupted, unprecedented, and otherwise unaccountable progress in civilization, and moral and intellectual attainment, argue nothing to self-conceited philosophy, it certainly cannot be convinced by argument from alleged analogies which do not hold good, but which, traced to their necessary logical results end in palpable absurdity. As above indicated, history conclusively establishes the fact that ever since the foundation of Christianity there has been a phenomenal improvement in the mental, moral, and intel- lectual phases of human life wherever the light of that system has shone. Where it has not shone there has been no such result. There is no analogy to this in nature, and it cannot be e.xplained or intelligibly accounted for by any process of reason- ing from any known fact or supposable analogy. Such a sys- tem in such case cannot need any apologist's defence. It asserts itself, and if it is genuine it manifests its own genuine- ness. If it affords man the opportunity to escape impending and perhaps merited damnation, or. if it supplies him with facilities for. or impetus to a higher and nobler existence, its advocates ought not to enter into a heated debate with those who fancy themselves its opponents, to convince them of its PHILOSOPHIC APOLOGETICS. 37 merit or validity on the ground of any supposed analogy between it and something else in which we see more of ill than of good. If a remedy has cured a disease or produced a good result, no argument is necessary to show that it was adapted to the case. If it has been tried for eighteen centuries and has not cured the disease nor produced a good result, no argument can show that it is adapted to the case. Such light and beneficence, if any, as have come from Providence to man, have been imparted to him as a matter of grace and condescension. There is no logic in the story of Jacob's wrestle with the Angel. The Angel could have thrown him every fall, and if he intended to bless him he could not logically have provoked his evil passions by tantalizing him to impatience and strife. 1 cannot believe that Omnipotence has ever authorized, or will ever countenance any truckling in its behalf, or any disparaging comparisons to be made by its advo- cates. While they might appropriately urge mankind to see their own interests and "flee the wrath to come," 1 am confi- dent that they usurp the authority to contend with impotent Egotism for the validity Of Christianity and the existence of its Founder. The most of such instances are the frantic efforts of a counter egotism to assert itself rather than well advised argu- ments for divine authority. They are especially censurable where, as in the volume under consideration, the analogies and arguments are so palpably fallacious as to tend to the discredit of the system advocated, if it were susceptible to injury at human hands. If the cause needs defence at all, it is against the effects of the impotent and incoherent ravings of its zealots. Among the last, and probably the most sincere expressions of one of the greatest minds of modern times was this, "I die adoring God, loving my friends, not hating my enemies, but detesting superstition." His life was a devotion to human liberty, personal, intellectual, and moral. When such a char- acter is assailed by the great galaxy of frenzied fanatics, and the cause which he has not impugned is defended in an elaborate process of unsound reasoning, from unreal and illegitimate analogy, it would seem that the superstition waslhe object of deepest solicitude, next after the name and fame of the apologist. 38 ETHICS OF LITERATURE, Note. — In passing from a consideration of the philosophy of Butler's Analogy to that of Drummond's Natural Law in the Spiritual World, the transition is much greater in point of time than in respect of the subject matter of the discussion. It will be observed that Bishop Butler argues that his religion may be valid because it cannot be demonstrated that the Spiritual exis- tence bears no resemblance in any respect to the Physical. He labors to show that the mind may suppose an analogy between the two existences. Drummond carries the argument still further, even into assertion that the Physical is a working model of the Spiritual; and attempts to avert the consequences of the use of analogy by intensifying the analogy itself into identity. Their arguments, however, as arguments, are so nearly identi- cal that their logical results will be found to be the same. They are equally intent on making the Spiritual respectable by reason of a supposed kinship or resemblance to the Physical. CHAPTER II. religion's obsequious homage to science. Prefatory Apologies for Theological Discussion imply its Impropriety — Natural Law in Spiritual World, Based on Analogy Between the Two Spheres — Religion Derives no New Credential from Philosophy — Paul Placed it Above Science — Kant's Idea of Socratic Method — Unfair Methods of Fanat- ics, Requiring Disproof — Nicodemus Put Upon His Own Faith — Analogy Posits Beginning and End of Eternity — Truculence of Theology to Science — Heredity Illustrates Absurdity of Analogy — Periods and Progress Irrecon- cilable With Eternal Spiritual Existence — Inanimate Spirit-Substance Re- quisite to Analogy — Biogenesis Implies Beginning and Ending of Life of Almighty — Apologetics Implies Insufficiency of Divine Authority — Spencer, Religion to Be Such, Must Be an Absolute Mystery — Law of Death — Na- ture Squaring Her Account With Sin — Man and the Lily — Heredity and Environment — Impropriety and Irreverence in Alleged Religious Philosophy. To apologize for having inflicted upon the reading world an addition to its multitude of books, implies a consciousness that for some reason it should not have been done. In most preludes to modern ebullitions of genius, such apologies are so blended with aimless eloquence in the platitudes announcing, or rather disguising the purpose, that they are barely discerni- ble. Still, they are frequently deducible from the learned vag- aries and glittering generalities with which such prologues are embellished. There are few authors who. bent on airing themselves on some point at issue between different schools of thought, desire to be understood as maintaining that such sub- ject ought not to be regarded as open to discussion, especially when introducing to the reader an elaborate work in support of a party to the controversy. To do so is to condemn the purpose of the work. Such self-imposed and merited condem- nation is not obviated by a mere change in name of the under- taking, from that of others which may have disappointed the hopes of the zealous. To attempt to maintain the validity of any religious system, by improvising and discussing such a subject as Natural Law In The Spiritual World, is an attempt to maintain such validity on the ground of a supposed analogy between the two spheres. 40 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. The remark in a preface to such an undertaking that Science and Religion never should have been contrasted, and that "the critics have rightly discovered that, in most cases where Science is either pitted against Religion or fused with it, there is some fatal misconception to begin with as to the scope and province of either, '" is a reflection upon the apologist's prede- cessors in that field. At the same time it places his own un- dertaking at a disadvantage not to be obviated by merely claim- ing "that the fact of the subject matter being law, — places it on a somewhat different footing." To attempt to "identify the natural laws, or any of them in the Spiritual Sphere," is to insist upon an analogy between the two spheres. Natural Laws are the manifestation of the con- stitution and course of nature, or thev are nothing. To main- tain that "the laws of nature are simply statements of the order- ly condition of things in nature, what is found in nature by a sufficient number o{ competent observers," implies a purpose to argue the supposed analogy. To follow such declaration with the assertion that, "What these laws are in themselves is not agreed, that they have any absolute existence even is far from certain," reflects somewhat unfavorably upon the competency of the observers who are said to have discovered them. Such self-inflicted blows are not to be parried after they are received, nor is their effect to be meliorated by any process of irrelevant abstraction, nor by comparison with such distinctions as are supposed to obtain between latitude and its parallels, and grav- ity and gravitation. Having made natural law appear as un- substantial as words can express, and having almost denied its existence, the apologist says, "if the analogies of natural law can be extended to the Spiritual World, that whole region at once falls within the domain of Science and secures a basis as well as an illumination in the constitution and course of nature." He proposes to authenticate what the Almighty has left in doubt, and to illumine what He has left obscure, by tracing in the Spiritual Sphere the laws whose "existence even is far from certain." There is but little logic in the attempt to remove one doubt by the expression of another, or in attempting to trace a sys- religion's obsequious homage to science. 41 tern of laws whose very "existence is far from certain," into a Sphere concerning which nothing definite can be imagined. The assertion that '7/ the analogies of natural law can be ex- tended to the Spiritual World, that whole region at once falls within the domain of Science," is the statement of a monstrous //. and involves the reduction of the absolute to the relative. It also involves the proposition to construct a science of law, for a System which cannot be conceived of as subject to any law of which the mind can conceive. The words Spiritual World mean the intniite spiritual existence of the beings who migrate from the natural world to and inhabit it. To be infinite it can have neither beginning nor ending. To have either it must have both; it must be subject to vicissitude and time, and be finite. If Spiritual does not imply eternal, it cannot imply or be more than physical ; nor different from physical, unless it be attribute or condition of physical. If it is infinite it must be absolute, and cannot be relative. If it is absolute it cannot be conceived of as subject to any law of which the mind can con- ceive. In its utmost the mind can only conceive of things as relative. It can no more conceive of the infinite and absolute as subject to any law of which it can conceive, than it can con- ceive of a limit beyond which space cannot extend, or a time beyond which eternity cannot endure. The assertions that if natural law can be traced in the Spiritual World it would offer Religion a new credential, and that the effect of the introduction of law among the scattered phenomena of nature has simply been to make science, to trans- form knowledge inta eternal truth, and that the same crystaliz- ing touch is needed in religion, stigmatize religion in a manner and to a degree which is not divinely authorized. To argue that the phenomena of the Spiritual World are scattered, from the fact that the religious opinions of mankind are in a state of flux, to assert that the one thing thinking men are waiting for is the introduction of law among the phenomena of the Spiritual world, and that on their part this is a reasonable demand, are only equalled in truculence by the proposition to offer such men a truly scientific theology. "Because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto 42 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. babes,"" thinking men may wait too long if they will have none but a truly scientific theology. The wayfaring man if he were a fool might err in the truly scientific theology, as egregiously as the apologist, who. determined not to be out-done by Christ in the reconciliation of God to him. now proposes to reconcile Science to Christ, or at least to propitiate it in his favor. Christ may regard it a complimentary exhibition of the spirit of reci- procity, or possibly a favor, to be tendered a proposition to swap zior/{ on terms involving an engagement to offer think- ing men a truly scientific theologv. But Paul would seem to have misconceived his mission when he said he was sent to preach the gospel ; not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ be made of none effect. it was never at Paul's instance that Religion fawned at the feet of Philosophv. or sought a new credential in any supposed analogy to nature, or courted a comparison with the things of this world. He said, "we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom which God ordained l^efore the world unto our glory. * * * Which things also we speak, not in the words which man"s wisdom teacheth. but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing spiritual things with spiritual."" When the pupil of Gamaliel was called, and found the faith ridiculed by the prevailing wisdom, he made no attempt to give it a new credential by tracing natural law in the Spiritual World. It might have been difficult to find in nature an anal- ogy to the incarnation, the cross, the transfiguration, or the ascension, if Science is more important to Christianity than these, it is still a radical religious reform that goes from the justification of man by faith to the justification of God by analogy. The analogy is alternately argued and assumed throughout the course of the treatise. The herculean efforts to disguise or mask the purpose to urge it in the usual vein of apologetics, under layers of learning relating to 'several of the subjects of natural law, and by tracing such law in the Spiritual World on the authority of discoveries made in chemical and microscopical analysis in modern Biology, fail as signally as the effort to establish the divine authority of the Creator, on the empirical religion's obsequious homage to science. 43 knowledge of the creature. All the prefatory disavowals of such purpose that can be written, together with all the nom de plumes by which such work can be called, cannot, in the light of the foregoing extracts, and the frequent comparisons in the body of the work, successfully conceal its real purpose. In one place the apologist says, "the position we have been led to take up, is not that the Spiritual laws are analogous to the natural laws, but that they are the same laws. It is not a question of analogy but of identity — Analogous phenom- ena are not the fruit of parallel laws, but of the same laws — laws which at one end, as it were, may be dealing with matter, at the other end with spirit." Then after a great deal of cir- cumlocution and artistic evasion, the apologist seems to have wearied with the effort to get rid of the odium which he seems to think attaches to that which properly should have been the title of his book, and says, "as there will be some inconven- ience, however, in dispensing with the word analogy, we shall continue occasionally to use it." The proposition that the same laws deal at one end with matter and at the other end with Spirit, is exceedingly vision- ary. If they are the same laws they must have the same or similar effects. But we are not told what species of Spirit it is which, according to natural law, preys upon and devours another species. Nor are we told that the apologist selects and extends only certain ones of the natural laws into the Spiritual World. Nor, if he does so, by what standard he makes the selection. If analogous phenomena are necessarily the fruit of the same laws, the same laws necessarily produce analogous phenomena. This involves eternally recurring procreations, births, growths, diseases, deaths, decays, and additional and eternally recurring future Spiritual Worlds. It is by a law of nature that man is begotten and born, grows for a time, halts a while, and finally dies. If that natural law extends into the Spiritual World and produces analogous phenomena, it would be interesting to conjecture the number of ghostlets which the spirit departing from the body here will beget there, before it yields up its more attenuated evanescence to another and more unsubstantial Spiritual World. If we attempt to trace natural 44 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. law in the Spiritual World on scientific biological principles, so as to be prepared to offer thinking men a truly scientitlc theo- logy, we must take it with its indispensable concomitants and consequences, its births, growths, diseases, deaths, decavs. and successive existences. Future existence must be a fruit of natural law. if such law deals at one end with matter and at the other end with spirit, it must have its analogy in the future or spiritual world, in still further existences, if it is not a fruit of natural law, such law does not extend into the Spirit- ual World. The apologist says, "Science deals with known facts; and accepting certain known facts in the Spiritual World we pro- ceed to arrange them, to discover their laws, to inquire if they can be stated in the terms of the rest of our knowledge." But he names no known fact in the Spiritual World which is so ac- cepted, or which as a phenomenon is the fruit of natural law in the Spiritual World, nor does he state how any such fact could be known. He had just stated that it is not agreed what natural laws are, and that it is far from certain that they exist. But he seems to be proof against discomfiture. He boldly de- clares that "Nature is not a mere image or emblem of the Spiritual. In the Spiritual World the same wheels revolve — but without the iron. The same figures flit across the stage, the same processes of growth go on, the same functions are dis- charged, the same Biological laws prevail — only with a different quality of Bios." And again that "Biogenesis is the law for all life, and for all kinds of life, and the particular substance with which it is associated is as different to Biogenesis as it is to gravitation. * * * The conclusion finally is, that from the nature of law in general, and from the scope of the principle of continuity in particular, the laws of the natural life must be those of the spiritual life." If the work in question has a foundation, this is its chief corner stone. Whatever is said herein against the validity of the argument, is said upon the hvpothesis that the apologist meant to maintain these propositions. That the same figures flit across the stage in the Spiritual as in the physical sphere, implies that no others do, and that those leave that stage. RELIGION S OBSEQL'IOL'S HOMAGE TO SCIENCE. 45 That the same processes ot growth go on implies the same or similar causes for the growth, the same or similar beginning, duration, results, and termination of it. Accordingly a twenty- one year old spirit would be full grown, because by virtue of the natural law which extends into the Spiritual World it could not grow any more. It might become more corpulent, but it would not grow taller. Should it escape contagion, and not catch cold or be crossed in love, it might live to a green old age, and dandle its grandchildren on its knees in the late even- ing of a well spent spiritual life. That the natural is a working model of the Spiritual World, implies that the workings of the one are duplicated, or that analogous ones are done in the other. That the same functions are discharged, the same biological laws prevail, implies that the inhabitants of the Sphere Spiritual beget, multiply, grow, die. decay, and yield up other and still more vapory evanescences of themselves, to other and still more ethereal Spiritual Worlds. Bv no other means could the same functions be discharged, and the same biological laws prevail. And when the same figures flit across the stage, they may leave it for some other stage, or they mav merely retire to the green- room. Now if the doctrine is apparent, it may be interesting to know the occasion of the great undertaking, to inquire if it justifies the tugging of the Old Ship of Zion in the wake of the dredge-boat of Science. The apologist says, "What then has Science done to make Theologv tremble ? It is its method. It is its system. It is its reign of law. It is its harmony and continuitv. The attack is not specific. No one point is assail- ed. It is the whole system which when compared with the other and weighed in /ts balance is found wanting. An eve which has looked upon the first cannot look upon this. To do that and rest in the contemplation, it has first to uncentury itself So Science is leaving the Lord in the lurch. In their rivalry for the favor and approval of man science is too much for Re- ligion. For Religion to have a shadow of hope, the doctrine of Christ and his Apostles must be remodeled. St. Paul's methods must be abandoned, and religion must be taught "in terms of 46 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. the rest of our knowledge," even if the cross of Christ be made of none effect. Religion must be made a truly scientific theol- ogy, for v/hich purpose knoivn facts in the Spiritual World must be learnedly surmised, stated in the terms of the rest of our knowledge, and shown to be analogous to facts which science denominates the fruit of natural law, which, forsooth, at one end operates on matter, and at the other end on spirit. But a difficulty appears. We are not told who it is that has authorized the weighing of Christ's religion in the balance of Science. We think that this religion has wrought the greatest civilization, intellectual attainment, and best system of morals ever known. It is in the balance of Science that the apologist says it is weighed when it is found wanting. Had he given the authority for its submission to such test, and if it were suffi- cient, his argument might have been more cogent. If on the other hand there is no authority therefor, his argument is not only gratuitous supererogation, — it is an impiously arrogant affectation of familiarity with the Almighty, an egotistical assumption of authoritv, and a childish display of wordy wis- dom, which lacks little of blasphemy. I find no author to whom the apologist refers with more frequency and apparent approval than St. Paul, who, as above shown must have been in error if the apologist is right. This leaves nothing to be said on that part of the subject, further than to recall attention to the foregoing extracts from the Epistles. The c]uestion thus resolves itself into one of authority between the Apostle and the apolo- gist. The greatest modern metaphysician, speaking of his favorite science has said, "it will confer an inestimable benefit on mor- ality and religion by showing that all objections urged against them, may be silenced forever by the Socratic method, that is to say, by proving the ignorance of the objector." But egotis- tic zeal is seldom satisfied until it proves its own ignorance. In the case under consideration this is proved by the apologisfs alarm for religion at the method, the system, the reign of law, the harmony and continuity of Science. The proof is strength- ened in his effort to trace these characteristics in the Spiritual World. Having painted a vivid verbal picture of a world of religion's obseql'Ious homage to science. 47 chance the apologist says, "Now this is no more than a real picture of what the world would be without law, or the uni- verse without continuity. * * * As the Natural Laws are continuous throughout the universe of matter and space, so will they be continuous throughout the universe of spirit. * * * Those who denv it must furnish the disproof." This supposes a strange rule of evidence, one that no person on trial for his life would wish to see signalized for its continuity. Litigants are required to furnish the proof, but never in the first instance, the disproof. \v\\a\v^ a prima facie case must be first made, and it is never made by disproof. Had the apologist shown an analogy between the physical and Spiritual Worlds sufficient to raise the presumption that the natural law of the former prevails throughout the latter, he might with more propriety have called for the disproof. But both spheres must be known in order to know that there is any analogy between them. It would be ridiculous in any one to claim to know even the physical sphere. If either of the spheres is unknown no analogy between them can be shown. Until such analogy is shown there is not even a suspicion to be removed by either proof or disproof He says his •'argument is based upon a principle which is now acknowledged to be universal. "' But if the principle is not universally so acknowledged, or invulnerably established, it may be more in the nature of an assumption than a principle. One may as well assume the whole matter in controversy, as 10 assume the basis of his argument. The principle of continu- ity in natural law throughout the physical sphere may be uni- versally acknowledged to be universal, but to show that it pre- vails in the Spiritual Sphere by reason of such laws extending to the Spiritual Sphere, a knowledge of that sphere and an analogy between it and the physical sphere are requisite. If continuity of such law remains continuous the individual exis- tences will be as nearlv analogously duplicated in all respects, as the spiritual, wliich is supposed to be omnipotent, is capable of duplicating the physical. Those who in this world die the youngest, will there flit across the stage the quickest. This is natural law here, and continuity, to be continuous, must con- tinue it the same way or analogously there. St. Paul was not 48 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. aware of this principle of continuity when he thought he was declaring to the Corinthians a mystery; that "we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump." Insisting that the eiui of natural law which deals with spirit is not supplemented by purely spiritual laws, the apologist says, "But if the objection is pressed that it is contrary to the anal- ogy, and unreasonable in itself, that there should not be new laws for this higher sphere, the reply is obvious. Let these laws be produced. If the spiritual nature, in inception, growth, and development, does not follow natural principles, let the true principles be stated and explained." This might be dffi- cult to do, but if the spiritual nature does follow natural princi- ples in inception, growth, and development, it must, under the principle of continuity, also follow them in decline, disease, death, decay, and the yielding up of another and correspond- ingly more spiritiielle spirit, to another and correspondingly more ethereal spiritual world. Modesty may decline the chal- lenge to produce the purely spiritual laws with which the spiritual end of the natural laws are supplemented in the Spirit- ual World. But it may with as much propriety offer to pro- duce them, as to reason that they extend there, when their very existence "is far from certain. When Nicodemus had his memorable interview with the Son he was put upon his own responsibility and faith, and there is no authentic precedent for anything like a solution of the apologist's problem. He was told that "the wind bloweth where it listeth. and thou hearest the sound thereof but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth ; so is every one that is born of the spirit. "" St. Paul said "And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing v/ords of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and of power, that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of man, but in the power of God. '^' * * even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the spirit of God." But the "wisdom of God in a mystery" had not then been tested on principles of reversion to Type, nor had it been subjected to chemical and microscopical tests. The ignorance or reserve of Christ and St. Paul was com pen- religion's obsequious homage to science. 49 sated for by miracle. — it is now proposed to give them a new credential in the results of recent research in the domain of Biology. Arguing the principle of continuity the apologist says, "With the gradual aggregation of mass the energy of the universe has been slowly disappearing, and this loss of energy must go on until none remains. There is, therefore, a point in time when the energy of the universe must come to an end; and that which has its end in time cannot be infinite, it must also have had a beginning in time." If we trace this natural law from the end which deals with matter to the end which deals with spirit, the beginning and end of Eternity are unequivocally posited. If nature is a working model of the spiritual it must of course work in like manner with the spiritual, and the spirit- ual has had a beginning, and is destined to lose all its energy and come to an end. In other words, eternity is not eternal. If, as the apologist says, "the origin in time of the visible uni- verse is implied from known facts with regard to the dissipa- tion of energy;" if there is a point in time when the universe must come to an end; and if all this is the necessary result of natural law, one end of which deals with spirit; and if the natural is a working model of the spiritual, and hence works in the same manner. Eternity must have begun in time, and must come to an end in time. Perhaps the Lord may then be brought in line with science. The apologist says that "for two hundred years the scien- tific world has been rent with discussion upon the origin of life;" that one school maintains that it is spontaneously gener- ated from matter, the other that it must come from pre-exis- tent life; and that "it is now recognized on every hand that life can only come from the touch of life." And further that "for more than two hundred years a similar discussion has dragged its length through the religious world. Two great schools have also defended exactly opposite views — one that the spiritual life in man can come only from pre-existent life, the other that it can spontaneously generate itself." The doctrine of Biogenesis having triumphed over that of spontan- eous generation in the physical sphere,' the apologist proposes so ETHICS OF LITERATURE. to trail Elijah's chariot of fire at the tail gate of the Ox-wain of science, and give religion a new credential by bringing the Lord in line with the punctilious intelligence of His creatures, which seems now to have discovered a parallel for His wis- dom, and to have solved His mystery by certain manipulations of matter in an hermetically sealed tube. The effort to solve this question, as it is supposed to relate to spiritual life, im- plies that it is important; to insist on its solution in accord with the doctrines of physical Biogenesis, is to insist on an analogy between the physical and spiritual spheres. And both are degrading to and unworthy the cause. They involve many manifest absurdities, one of which occurs in considering the subject with relation to heredity. Heredity is unquestion- ably a natural law. If one end of it extends into the spiritual sphere, the apologist ought to inform us what particular breed of spirits it is, from which the stiff-necked spirit of man inher- its its obstancy. Unless man is endowed with a spirit which is inclined to evil, there can be no occasion for any religion. If man is endowed with a spirit so inclined, and if the natural law of Biogenesis operates at one end on spirit, then the per- verse spirit of man must inherit its evil propensities from the Celestial progenitor who dallies with the matron spirHiielle at the time of the inception of the spiritual nature. He says this inception, together with the growth and development of the spiritual nature, follows natural principles. One of the apolo- gist's fovorite authors, from whom he quotes with great confi- dence has said, "Understood in its entirety, the law is, that each plant or animal produces others of like kind with itself * * * The circumstance that the tendency to repetition is, in a slight degree qualified by the tendency to variation (which as we shall hereafter see, is but an indirect result of the ten- dency to repetition) leads some to doubt whether heredity is unlimited. A careful weighing of the evidence, however, and a due allowance for the influences by which the minuter mani- festations of heredity are obscured will remove the grounds for this skepticism." If the apologist should trace this law, as to which there is said to be no ground for skepticism, from the end which deals with matter to the end which deals with religion's OBSEaUIOUS HOMAGE TO SCIENCE. 5 1 spirit, and then identify the begetters of the great generation of vipers, he would give his argument a new credential, equal to that which he proposes for religion. Without specifically defining the danger of the heresy the apologist says. "If the doctrine of spontaneous generation of spiritual life can be met on scientific grounds, it will mean the removal of the most serious enemy Christianity has to deal with, and especially within its own border, at the present day," In view of the manner in which he proceeds to overthrow the heresy, and the sentiment manifest in the above extracts from his work, it is apparent that he regards the doctrine of spon- taneous spiritual generation deleterious to Christianity, because it is not parallel with the doctrine of generation of physical life. He does not show what difference it could make, which of the two doctrines, or, whether either of them prevails. If the Founder of Christianity changed water into wine in an open vessel, it could be of no consequence to his religion what were the results of Bastian's and Huxley's experiments with hay in- fusions in hermetically sealed tubes. If the One called back from the grave in Bethany the corpse that had been buried four days, it would matter little to his religion whether we might or might not reasonably "expect a hay infusion to be- come gradually more and more living until in the course of the process it reached vitality." If modern investigators should claim for their discoveries a spiritual significance, and enforce the claim by the performance of such miracles as rising from the tomb, restoring sight, life, and health in others, and then going bodily to Glory, it might become important to harmon- ize the Christian religion with the doctrines deducible -from their experiments. But the doctrines of the Apostles, especial- ly St. Paul, would have to be abandoned, as too primitive for the progressive and scientific theology. The idea of progress is itself destructive of the validity of any claim for analogy between the spiritual and physical spheres. Progress implies advancement from rudeness toward refinement. It is practicable to think this of physical phenom- ena in a physical sphere which begins and ends ; but it is im- practicable to think it of spiritual phenomena in a spiritual 52 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. sphere which neither begins nor ends. The germs in the hay in- fusion may show signs of life, and finally develope life. But they soon die and decompose, thereby perhaps generating suc- cessive germs to repeat the manifestation, and possibly attain to a higher organization and degree or iile. Man progresses through various stages, from an embryo in the womb, to a foul mass of corruption in the tomb. Life and manners have progressed from a naked barbarism in the cave to an adorned civilization in the mansion. These are phvsical phenomena in time, traceable from their causes to their effects in time. The mind cannot conceive of parallel or analogous phenomena in spiritual existence in eternitv. produced bv parallel or analog- ous causes, beginning at some point or period in eternity, operating analogously for a while until a certain stage of pro- gress is reached and then ending. It cannot think such thing as a point, or period, or sVdg-e of progress in eternitv. Inter- mediate points, periods, and stages of progress imply begin- ning, and ending, and final results. And nothing in the eter- nal sphere can be thought as beginning, being, and ending in a manner analogous to any thing in the temporal sphere. Analogy, to be analogous, should harmonize and find its counterparts or parallels in all supposable conditions. To in- sist on the principle of continuity for any purpose, is to avow the necessitv of continuity in the alleged analogy. If the con- tinuity of the alleged analogy is once broken, there is no more of an analogy than if there had never been even a coincidence or resemblance among the data of the two systems or states being compared. It is now claimed that all physical motion, including all life, vegetal as well as animal, is the result of the persistence of force which is very learnedly traced back through the phvsical processes and phenomena in which it manifests itself to the radiation of light and heat from the sun. If this is correct the sun is the generator or creator of all physi- cal life. One of the apologist's favorite authors, in a chapter entitled the transformation and equivalence of forces has pre- sented this doctrine very forciblv. But in generating physical life, the intluences of the sun must be brought to bear upon inanimate physical substance. It is impossible to imagine a religion's obsequious homage to science. 5^ not-living spiritual substance to be animated by the Giver, Generator, or Creator of all spiritual life. So there is no anal- ogy here. It is impossible to imagine that the Giver, Gener- ator or Creator of all spiritual life is constantly losing his energv so as to imply that there is a point in eternity at which all spiritual life must cease. So there is no analogy here. The apologist savs there is '"a point in time when the energy of the universe must come to an end," and he very positively declares the natural law by virtue of which he says it must come to an end. He also insists on the continuity of natural law in the spiritual sphere. If he succeeds in establishing the supposed analogv between the two spheres, and in tracing natural law into the spiritual sphere, and in establishing the principle of continuity there, he necessarily terminates eternity. Science is supposed to demonstrate that there is neither in- crease nor diminution of matter, and that the processes which appear to be such are integration and diffusion. The continu- ous tangible existence of the bulk of all matter composing the bodies of all animal and vegetal existences that have been in time, would have materiallv enlarged the mass of tangible mat- ter. If all the bodies that have apparently grown from germs (which were next to nothing) were actual additions to the volume of matter, the mass would now be many times larger than it is, and every cycle would perceptibly increase its vol- ume. The mind cannot conceive such supposed increase as coming from nothing, which it n.iust do to be actual increase. It can, however, conceive the integration and diffusion, which, superficially observed may appear to be increase and diminu- tion, but actual increase and diminution of matter cannot be thought. If natural law extends into the spiritual world, and the principle of continuity prevails, this, or an analogous inte- gration and diffusion, is there going on; and the tenuous com- ponents of the spiritual beings there existing, are integrated and diffused in their successive births, growths, deaths, and decays; while the ultimate quantity of that which in the spirit- ual sphere is equivalent or analogous to matter in the physical sphere, remains intact. If the existence of all the solid and tluid portions of matter 54 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. in their tangible forms, is due to the motion generated by the diffusion of light and heat from the sun, and if the result of such process must be the rediffusion of all such tangible mat- ter, and the final dissipation of the sun's heat, substance, and force, then all material existence in any form or condition of which the mind can conceive must cease, or at least revert to the intangible element from which, by virtue of the primary force it was integrated into and became tangible matter. If, under the principle of continuity, force is, and remains persis- tent notwithstanding the destruction of the sun, masses of tangible matter may be again integrated from such intangible element. While the process may be of incalculable duration, yet the fact that it is a process which science insists is actually going on, renders physical existence unfit for analogy with anything the mind can conceive of as spiritual existence. Such an analogy traced to its necessary logical results, ends in such an absurdity as innumerable endless eternities in succes- sion. The apologist frequently cites the authority of the Founder of Christianity and his chief apostle, and thereby vouches for their credit. But he inconsistently admits, or rather asserts, 'their insufficiency in proposing to fortify them by harmonizing their doctrine with the wisdom of this world. He certainly has no precedent therefor in either their teaching or example. One of them expressly refused the Pharisees and Sadducees a sign, and the other said he was sent to "preach the gospel, not with the wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ be made of none effect. * * * Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual." He is here forbidden to trail the banner of the cross in the dust of science. The only logi- cal theory of the vindication of one doctrine by virtue of its analogy to another, implies that the doctrine being vindicated is of inferior authority. If this is so, its authors are no author- ity for anything further than what it may be in and of itself, religion's obsequious homage to science. 55 and regardless of its validity. They cannot properly be cited in an attempt to vindicate their doctrine by virtue of an alleged analogy which they have repudiated. If Christ and St. Paul are authority for anything it is for the validity of their religion in and of itself and upon its own merit. According to them it is the religion of the cross and the resur- rection, or it is nothing. No analogy for these can be found in nature, and they cannot be accounted for, or compared with anything ever discovered by man within the range of scientific investigation. All the learned vagaries, elaborate and nicely rounded periods, scientific and mystified allusions, and reckless assumptions, that can be wrought in language, cannot obviate the apparently trifling difficulty which the apologist himself creates, but which breaks the back of his laboriously learned effort, — that is. his apparent confidence in authority which his very apology implies is not authentic. If he is under contract to furnish thinking men a truly scientific theology, he should not go to Christ or St. Paul for any of the material out of which to construct it. He should not cite them as authority when the fact that he regards a vindication necessary, implies their insufficiency. He should not cite them to establish an analogy which they have repudiated. If there is a religion of the cross and the resurrection, it need not trem>ble at the frown or the sneer of any rationalist or chemical analysist. Egotistic zealots with more learning than wisdom need not rush to the rescue of such religion from the clutches of the germ microscopically detected in a hay infusion. The apologist quotes frequently from the writings of a phil- osopher whose credit with the thinking world seems to be pretty well established. He has said sufficient, if he is author- itative, in one brief paragraph to show, not only that religion need not tremble at the method, the system, the reign of law, or the harmony and continuity of science ; but that any attempt to harmonize it with anything knowable in nature is impossible and illogical, as well as belittling to the religion. He says, "Not only is the omnipresence of something which passes com- prehension, that most abstract belief which is common to all religions, which becomes the more distinct in proportion as 56 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. they develope, and which remains after their discordant ele- ments have been mutually cancelled ; but it is that belief which the most unsparing criticism of each leaves unquestionable — or rather makes ever clearer. It has nothing to fear from the most inexorable logic ; but on the contrary is a belief which the most inexorable logic shows to be more profoundly true than any religion supposes. For every religion, setting out though it does with the tacit assertion of a mystery, forthwith proceeds to give some solution of this mystery; and so asserts that it is not a mystery passing human comprehension. But an exam- ination of the solutions they severally propound, shows them to be uniformly invalid. The analvsis of every possible hypo- thesis proves, not simplv that no hypothesis is sufhcient. but that no sufficient hopothesis is even thinkable. And thus the mystery which all religions recognize, turns out to be a far more transcendent mvstery than any of them suspect — not a relative but an absolute mystery." These are the words of an author sufficiently modest and sincere to admit that there is a limit to the capacity of the human mind. I am not contending for either spontaneous generation or biogenesis in any kind of life. But 1 insist that no hypothesis is thinkable in which either doctrine can be of any consequence to the Christian religion. The alleged natural law, "that all life is the gift of life," when projected into the spiritual world is absurdly illogical. If all spiritual life is the gift of spiritual life, the Almighty has himself been begotten. On the author- ity of a microscopical examination of a hay infusion in an hermetically sealed tube, the apologist says this law is victor- iously established in the phvsical world. To trace it in the spiritual world is the object of his collossal labor. If the spirit- ual life of the Almightv was not given to him, then all spiritual life is not the gift of spiritual life, and the alleged analogy is not analogous. The apologist's author whom 1 last above quoted says, the mystery, which all religions recognize is not a rela- tive, but an absolute mystery. If it is not relative it can have no analogy in any thing knowable or thinkable. Everything knowable or thinkable, can be known and thought only in RELIGION S OBSEC^yiOUS HOMAGE TO SCIENCE. S7 relation. If it is absolute no law of which the mind can con- ceive can extend to or affect it. Speaking of degeneration, and tracing an alleged analogy between the physical and spiritual types of it the apologist says, "The bible view is that man is conceived in sin. and shapen in iniquity. And experience teJls him that he will shape himself into further sin and ever deepening iniquity without the smallest effort, without in the least intending it. and in the most natural way in the world if he simply let his life run." If this is done without his intending it, and in the most natural way in the world, it must be the /r//// of some natural law. it must be natural tor man to go that way. he must be going in conform- ity with natural law as he does so. in other words, without doing violence to natural law. he soon finds himself in further sin and ever deepening iniquity, without in the least intending it, and in the most natural way in the world, if he simply let his life run. This is as absurd as the doctrine of original sin and damnation to infants. A creature subject to natural law, endowed with certain natural propensities, environed in a man- ner arranged /or and not by him. without intending himself or any one else any wrong, or in fact intending anything, shapes himself into further sin and ever deepening iniquity. If the result of this is just retribution for wrong he has not done nor intended it is very unfortunate for man that he is born. It might interest him to know whose sin he is conceived in. whose iniquity it is he is shapen in. and who made it so natural for him to shape himself into further sin and ever deepening iniquity. The apologist says, "Apart even from the law of degener- ation, apart from reversion to type, there is in every living or- ganism a law of death. * * * -This law which is true for the whole plant world, is also valid for the animal and for man. Air is not life, but corruption — so literally corruption that the only wav to keep out corruption when life has ebbed, is to keep out air." He does not show, however, that life would be prolonged, or that corruption would be kept out by keeping out air before life has ebbed. His analogy to this in spiritual life is interesting. It is that the "Spiritual life in like manner, 58 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. is the sum total of the functions which resist sin. The soul's atmosphere is the daily trial, circumstance, and temptation of the world. And as it is life alone which gives the plant pow- er to utilize the elements, and as, without it, they utilize (de- stroy ?) it, so it is the spiritual life alone which gives the soul power to utilize temptation and trial, and without it they de- stroy the soul." Unless air is not necessary to physical life, and unless the soul's atmosphere (trial and temptation) is nec- essary to spiritual life, this analogy is not very analogous. In view of the fact that the soul's atmosphere, trial and tempta- tion, would destroy the soul if it were not for spiritual life, and that they are active working opponents of each other, it is difficult to conceive how such atmosphere can be as essential to spiritual life as air is to physical life. But the assumption and analogy are both false and frivolous. To maintain that air is corrupting because it facilitates the decomposition of matter when life has ebbed is too childish to be found in anything but a fervent ebullition of fanaticism. The alleged parallel is be- tween physical and spiritual life. That which is indispensable to either cannot be destructive of it. If the soul's atmosphere is as necessary to its life as air is to the physical life, the soul ought to be kept pretty constantly exposed to trial and tempta- tion. The nitrogen and oxygen of the physical air have their counterparts in the trial and temptation of the soul's atmosphere. The Almighty blew the former compound into man's nostrils, whereby he became a living soul. For the sake of the analogy the Devil blew the latter compound into the soul's nostrils, whereby it became a dying spirit. To trace any of these alleged analogies to their legitimate results, leads to palpable absurdity. Take for instance the vindication of divine wrath and its visitations. The apologist says, "'We have looked around the wards of a hospital, a prison, or a madhouse, and seen there nature at work squaring her accounts with sin." He had seen in some hospital a sufferer who had been accident- ally exposed to some contagion, or caught in some explosion or railroad disaster; or who had inherited consumption or scro- fula from some ancestor; he had seen in some prison persons who had dared to have and express political and religious con- RELIGIONS OBSEaUIOUS HOMAGE TO SCIENCE. 59 victions, or avenge the ruin of a near relative ; and in a mad- house he had seen some poor lunatic driven to his deplorable condition by misfortune in business or love, or by disease, or by disgrace in his family ; or who had inherited the malady. If divine punishment is uniform, inevitable, and only in just retribution for actual wrong, it has a remarkable parallel here. Had the apologist lived a little earlier he might have seen hosts of men, women and children butchered by legal authority for adhering to what they seemed to regard a religion, for which he now tries to find a parallel in nature. He says, "And we knew as we looked that if no Judge sat upon the throne in heaven at all there was a judgment there, where an inexorable nature was crying aloud for justice, and carrying out her heavy sentences for violated laws." A poor creature driven by neces- sity to his daily toil, is sun-struck in the busy thoroughfare of some great city. He is hurriedly loaded into a patrol wagon and delivered to the authorities at some hospital, and Nature cries aloud for justice and carries out her heavy sentences for violated laws. Perhaps one of the most grotesque similes in all this alleged analogy is in the chapter devoted to the subject of growth. It opens with the text, "Consider the lilies of the field how they grow." If spiritual growth is the result of, and only to be attained by, the constant spiritual effort he had been thereto- fore urging, it would have injured this particular illustration to have quoted the residue of the sentence from which the above was taken : — "They toil not, neither do they spin." Speaking of the Savior he says, "He made the lilies and He made me — both on the same broad principle. * * * He points to this companion-phenomena to teach us how to live a free and natural life, a life which God will unfold for us, without our anxiety, <-\s He unfolds the tlower. " If the doctrine of this chapter is true, it is pretty hard on that of the one next preced- ing it, where we are asked, "if we neglect the soul, how shall it escape the natural retrograde movement, the relapse into barrenness and death ?" If the Almighty will unfold our spirit- ual life for us, without our anxiety, as he unfolds the flower, we need not be alarmed on account of our neglect. The 6o ETHICS OF LITERATURE. learned vagaries with which this chapter is replete are finally summed up in the proposition that '"the problem of the Chris- tian life tinallv is simplified to this — Man has but to preserve the right attitude, to abide in Christ, to be in position, that is all." If there were anv analogv between man and the lily in anv respect, and man should once establish his abode in Christ, or be in position, he need not be alarmed about pre- serving the right attitude. The lily does not preserve its atti- tude. Were there such analogy man need not concern him- self about obtaining the abode or being placed in position in the first instance. He would have about as much to do with it and be about as responsible for it as the lilv. If there is no such analogy it would seem supremely silly, to so learnedly elaborate such an allusion in an alleged scientific parallel be- tween the physical and the spiritual. The chapter on death covering thirty pages, contains two brief sentences which, if true and traced to their necessary log- ical results, show the utter absurdity of the entire undertaking. They are, "Of course what death is depends upon what life is. * * * Its (life's) mysterious Cjuality evades us; and we have to be content with outward characteristics and accompani- ments, leaving the thing itself an unsolved riddle." And yet the apologist proposes to trace M^ alleged parallel between this unsolved riddle and the alleged spiritual Hie. Constantly in contact with and observation of the life whose mysterious equal- ity evades us. that which remains an unsolved riddle in spite of ail the experience that has been had with it. and ail the learned speculation that has been had upon it, and yet devot- ing more than four hundred pages of learned guess-work to an idle effort to trace an alleged analogy between it and the alleged spiritual life, the life beyond the Styx! In the chapter on environment the apologist says. "We are dealing therefore with universal law. * * * These two. Heredity and Environment, are the' master influences of the organic world. These have made all of us what we are. * * * In the spiritual world, also, the subtle influences which form and transform the soul, are Heredity and Environment." Here the entire argument and all excuse for making it are religion's obsequious homage to science. 6 1 argued away. Man. physical and spiritual, is made what he is by two intluences. the (irst of which he can bv no possibility avert, and it is suft^kient to prevent him from averting the second. The sillv simile of the gizzard of the grain-fed pigeon may serve to show the apologist's acquaintance with natural history, but the individual responsibility he has urged so sedul- ously would seem to render man an inappropriate subject of such a comparison. If heredity and envii"onment make us what we are. we havc nothing to do with it. The apologist says that while we cannot escape heredity, we may change or make our own environment. But if heredity is the univei'sal law he says it is. the environment we change to or make will be ac- cording to such heredity. If we cannot escape heredity we must inherit just what is transmitted to us, even if it is an un- controllable tendency to evil and a perverse predilection to in- jurious environment. One may with propriety attempt to vindicate a system or doctrine of known inferiority, or of doubtful authenticity, by showing its analogy to another of known superiority or certain authenticity. The true and the only logical theory of vindica- tion by analogy involves the idea that the subject of the at- tempted vindication is of authenticity inferior to that of the one by comparison with which it is to be vindicated. The book called Natural Law In The Spiritual World is an exhibition of irrational and illogical irreverence of its author to the Almighty. It exhibits him as affecting an easy familiarity with the Being, of any one of whose attributes man is utterly helpless to conceive. One may think of goodness, greatness, wisdom, and power; but no one can think either of them as infinite and absolute; without limit and without relation. Until that shall be intelli- gently done, the tracing of natural law in the spiritual world will be at least premature. But while the apologist is so pert with his Maker he goes to the opposite extreme with Science. He obsequiously proposes to furnish thinking men a truly scien- tific theology. He attempts to justify them in rejecting an un- scientific theology, and urges the reformation of the religion to suit the fastidious tastes of the learned in this world's wisdom. He says that "an eye which has looked upon that cannot look 62 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. upon this. To do so and rest in the contemplation it has first to uncentury itself." He seems to regard this a very precocious and imperious century. The Lord should uncrown himself in its presence. Calvary and Gethsemane are not in it. If Sampson carried away the gate of Gaza, the microscopically discovered germ in a hay infusion has carried away the gate of Zion; it has rendered "the cross of Christ of none effect." CHAPTER III. EPIC APOLOGETICS. Paradise Lost, the Grandest of all Metrical Apologetics — Its Purpose to Assert and Justify Eternal Providence — Admits Unceitainty of Existence and Jus- tice of the Almighty — Atheist Supposed — -Argument Would Confuse More Than Convince Him — Incongruity Obscured by Grandeur, Extravagance, Metaphor, Etc — Occasion and Object of Creation — Imply Free-will and Fatalism — Fall of Man, Bad Economy — Providence Responsible — Philoso- phy of Poem Overrated — Meant to Immo-talize Poet — Skepticism Over- rated — Miracle, Prophecy, and Revelation, as Authoritative fur One System as Another — Audacity of Theological Reasoning — Question Personal to Each Individual —Neither Freedom Nor Fatalism Can be Made to Appear Reasonable — Gibbon's Tribute to Christianity. Early in the period in which some have placed the so-called Christian Renaissance the blind Bard of Albion who has sung the grandest of all metrical apologetics, invoked the heavenly Muse to aid his adventurous song in pursuit of things thereto- fore unattempted in prose or rhyme; that he might assert eter- nal Providence, and justify the ways of God to men. Such an avowal of such a purpose is sufficient to put a reader to think- ing. The manner in which the purpose is prosecuted, and said to be executed, may suggest the thought which will result in a correct estimate of the proposed assertion and justification. If we can conceive that eternal Providence has not already sufficiently asserted itself, possibly we may then imagine that some inspired enthusiast might assert it, and justify the ways of the Almighty to men. But the questions occur: — what is any one of those ways.^ and — by what standard are they to be jus- tified ? If they are to be justified in reason, the effort is a fore- gone failure at its inception. The further questions occur: — Does any rational creature really doubt either the existence or justice of the Almighty ? When and where has man existed without worship ? What was ever argued in isolated cases of irreverence ? Why should a learned zealot dignify the inco- herent scoffer with undeserved attention ? Why is one of the greatest Epopees devoted to and disfigured by a chimerical scheme in nature ? Why in such scheme is man, for whom it 64 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. is wrought, predisposed to his own ruin ? Whv was he cre- ated with evil propensities, and menaced with his Creator's wrath if he yields to them ? Whv were the objects of his dangerous desires placed temptinglv in his wav ? It it was to fix him with responsibilitv for his own inevitable ruin, is there a human mind in which the conception of his free-agencv can be clearlv arranged ? If the fall was pre-determined does man elect, or is he not destined to his part in the performance ? Is* not the idea of man's creation entirely incompatible with the idea of his free-agencv ? If he was created, he must have been created bv his Creator. If he was created by his Creator, he must have been created as his (jeator created him. Learned vagaries, glittering generalities, and ethereal flights may please a fancy, but they elude rather than answer such inquiries. To try the validity of the proposed assertion and justifica- tion, as addressed to the human understanding, an intelligent atheist may be supposed. Then suppose Raphael should say to him : — "To ask or search 1 blame thee not, tor heaven Is as the book of God before thee set, Wherein to read his wonderous works, and learn The seasons, hours, or days, or months, or years — " and then rebukt- his inciuisitiveness with the admonition to "Solicit not thy thoughts with matters hid;" would his skeptical nature content itself in Adam's response "That not to know at large of things remote From use, obscure and subtle, but to knovV That which before us lies in daily life Is the prime wisdom?"' Or would it not rather prompt the petulant protest of Eve, that " * * good unknown sure is not had, or had And yet unknown, is not had at all ?" Is not the philosophic (?) speculation of the proposed assertion and justification itself interdicted in the sentiment of the angelic behests ? Then suppose the intelligent atheist whose judgment is to be convinced is further admonished to — EPIC APOLOGETICS. 65 "Accuse not nature; she hath done her part, Do thou but thine, and be not diffident of wisdom — " would not the incoherency of the admonitions confuse instead of convince ? One might be expected to lose sight of the in- coherency in the maze of metaphor and allegory in which it is involved ; but if he is to be not diffident of wisdom, and is to solicit not his thoughts with matters hid, it might be interest- ing to him to know whose wisdom he is to confide in, and how he is to distinguish it from folly, if that which before us lies in daily life is the prime wisdom, the atheist might think that the inscrutable ways of God to men are of minor import- ance. He may have no right to accuse nature, because she may have done her part, but it is difficult for him to regard it very well done if she created him with all his evil tendencies and placed him where he would be morally certain to yield to them. There may be instances in which it is unfair to excerpt dis- tinct passages for the purpose of showing inconsistency in the propositions of a doctrine; but when such parts plainly present the ideas upon which the doctrine is based it is not unfair. If the system evolved in the rhapsody is without system, and if the incongruity of its propositions is obscured by weird words, one may with sufficient propriety analyze the fustian, and if he discerns its sacred foibles he should disclose them. The halo of sanctity that shrouds gross absurdity should be removed. The righteousness of no cause can justify either the perpetra- tion of fraud or resort to sophistry. If it was meant that the multitude should only hear and be horrified by the thunders from Sinai's summit, and that a peculiarly gifted one should hold the key to interpretation, mir- acle is said to have supplied the want of reason in enforcing the meteoric monitions. But here the effect of the absence of both reason and miracle is aggravated by inconsistency in the propositions. As if discord and debility could be conceived of as pervading infinite harmony and power, the celestial Emis- sary declares that the creation of the world and of man was solely to retrieve a loss sustained by the Almighty by means of an intestine war in His own realms. 66 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. "Know then, that after Lucifer from heaven (So call him, brighter once amidst the host Of angels, than that star the stars among) Fell with his flaming legions through the deep Into his place, and the great Son returned Victorious with his saints, the Omnipotent Eternal Father from his throne beheld Their multitude, and to his Son thus spake: * * * heaven yet populous retains Number sufficient to possess her realms Though wide, and this high temple to frequent With ministeries due and solemn rites; But lest his heart exalt him in the harm Already done, to have dispeopled heaven. My damage fondly deemed, I can repair That detriment, if such it be to lose Self lost; and in a moment will create Another world, out of one man a race Of men innumerable, there to dwell. Not here; till by degrees o( merit raised They open to themselves the way Up hither; Under long obedience tried." If these are the occasion and object of the creation of the world and of man, they are an exhibition of petty resentment and envy on the part of the Creator, who, lest Lucifer"s heart exalt him in the harm already done, would undertake so much, and involve so many in hopeless ruin, merely to neutralize the exultation of His vanquished Rival. It might be irrelevant, possibly irreverent, to inquire what Lucifer could exult over. It is obvious that man would have just such merit as his Crea- tor would endow him with; and it is impossible to imagine a limit to that with .which He could have endowed him. He could have so endowed him as to have insured that he would open to himself the way up hither, and to have been proof against all the wiles of wickedness. It is evident that it would not repair the detriment resulting from the defection of Lucifer and his hosts, to create out of one man a race of men innumer- able to be decoyed to damnation. Fate can not be thought consonant with the free agency implied in the proposition that man by degrees of merit raised should open to himself the way up hither. The will of the Almighty is fate, and fate is the EPIC APOLOGETICS. 67 will of the Almighty. If this is correct there is no free agency, and there can be no intelligent idea of obedience or duty. The Almighty declares, "Though 1, unciiCLimscribed myself, retire, And put not forth my goodness, which is free To act or not; necessity and chance Approach not me, and what I will is fate." It is strange that a Being of infinite goodness wisdom and power would place the Cherubim with flaming swords to guard paradise, and still allow the destroyer to enter and effect the ruin in His sight. "Meanwhile the heinous and despiteful act Of Satan done in Paradise, and how He in the serpent had perverted Eve, Her husband she, to taste the fatal fruit, Was known in heaven; for what can 'scape the eye Of God all-seeing, or deceive His heart Omniscient ?" If man was created sufficient to have stood though free to fall, endowed with intelligence and reason, and warned of his danger, he need not have been guarded at all. If he was nevertheless to be guarded by the invincible forces of heaven, against a foe so lately vanciuished, it ought to have been more effectively done. If it was already known that he would fall a prey to the Destroyer and drag down to damnation countless millions of his "faithless progeny," it was a senseless display of insincere solicitude to have the celestial sentries doing guard duty in the purlieus of paradise. "Assembled angels and ye powers returned From unsuccessful charge, be not dismayed, Nor troubled at these tidings from the earth Which your sincerest care could not prevent; Foretold so lately what would come to pass, When first the Tempter crossed the gulf from hell I told you then he should prevail, and speed On his bad errand." It was a Strange principle of economy upon which the world was peopled and damned twice, to save Enoch in the first instance and Noah in the second. 68 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. "But he, the seventh from thee, whom thou beheldest The ©nly righteous in a world perverse, ***** Him the most high Rapt in balmy clouds with winged steeds Did as thou sawest, receive to walk with God. ************* The one just man alive; by His command Shall build a wsnderous ark, as thou beheldest. To »ave himself and household from amidst A world devote to universal wrack." The creature was by his Creator endowed with just such propensities as would tend him to ruin, which was not only foreknown and foretold, but was foreordained. The decoy to destruction was placed temptingly in his way, and he was so constituted as to be morally certain to yield to the temptation. With the feigned solicitude of infinite wisdom he was admon- ished of danger, and guarded against the Tempter by the same Power which had already ordained that he should fall, and foretold that the Tempter would speed on his bad errand. Man was by his Creator armed with just such resolution as Would be easily overcome, and the infinite power of his Crea- tor was helpless to protect him from the toils of a Fiend by the same power endowed with just sufficient art to overcome. Countless millions of his fliithless progeny are involuntarily thrust into being, each personally accountable for the wicked weakness of the creature who had no voice or choice as to his existence, or in the determination of either his endowment of environment. And when he fell, as it was from all eternity ordained that he should, he dragged all mankind down with him, victims ofthe Fiend by heaven empowered to work the veiy destruction by heaven so deplored. Satan's power for evil is said to have been given him by the infinitely wise and good and benevolent Creator of Man. "Satan, 1 know thy strength, thou knowest mine, Neither our own, but given; what folly then, To boast what arms can do; since thine no more Than heaven permits, nor mine, ^ ^ * ." Interjections in the nature of undertone disavowals of re- sponsibility for foreknown and foreordained results, argue noth- EPIC APOLOGETICS. 69 ing. If it was known from all eternity that man, when creat- ed, would fall, then he was created solely that he might fall; if not, his creation was an exhibition of shortsightedness on the part of his Creator. If the fall was foreknown it comes with a bad grace to attempt to shift the responsibility to the creature, who was not only just what he was made, but was also after a great show of protection, purposely exposed to the fiend by the same power purposely empowered and ordained to effect the ruin. "Whose fault : Whose but his own? Ingrate, he had of me All he could have : I made him just and right, Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall. They therefore as to right belonged, So were created, nor justly can accuse Their Maker, or their making or their fate, As if predestination overruled Their will, disposed by absolute decree Or high foreknowledge; they themselves decreed Their own revolt, not I, if I foreknew Foreknowledge had no influence on their fault Which had no less proved certain unforeknown." That man is at fault in his fall implies free-agency. That his fall was foreknown, and had no less proved certain unfore- known, implies predestination. The effort is to compound a mixture of freedom and fatalism, and they will not mix. There is no affinity between them. If man was made fust and right and sufficient to have stood, he would never have fallen, no matter how free to do so. The fiict that he fell is conclusive proof that he was not made just and right. If he were made sufficient to have stood, he fell from his own choice, and if he was made just and right such could not have been his choice. No one deliberately choosing that which he knows to be in- finitely the worse for himself — besides entailing eternal damna- tion on countless millions of "his faithless progeny" — can be either just or right. It is absurd to say that they themselves decreed their own revolt, when even their will is made for 70 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. them, disposed by absolute decree, and their fall foreknown by the Power which created them and gave them their will. in human affairs personal safety is a fundamental principle. If a man should place a deadly agency in the way of a child, he would not be regarded a powerful, wise, and beneficient person. It would not avail him in case of injury to say that the child was forewarned, nor that it meddled from its own caprice. Had he previously inculcated in the child a propens- ity to meddle, and then while pretending to protect it, should cause or permit it to be tempted to its destruction, he could not shift the responsibility to the child by saying it was fore- warned. The disparity between the Almighty and the strong- est imaginable man, is infinitely greater than that between such man and the weakest imaginable child. It is impossible to think of the Almighty as a being of limited power. It is impossible to think that he created man without constituting him just as he is constituted, and with the tendencies to what- ever changes he has made or suffered. The Power which created man gave him the very propensities to evil with which he is cursed, and endowed him with just sufficient firmness to yield, and placed him where he was certain to be tempted. We can not believe that part of this is done by one Power and the residue by another. We cannot believe that these rival Powers are of equal force; indeed we know they cannot be of equal force if either is infinite, any more than two solid bodies can occupy precisely the same space at precisely the same time. If the Creator is infinitely powerful the Destroyer cannot be, and Raphael declares that the Creator hurled the Destroyer from heaven to hell. Then the part which he took in the ruin of man could have been prevented, and the ruin was by the permission, or rather the purpose of the Creator, who, lest it should fail of consummation, constituted man so that he would hearken to the Devil's glossing lies — and so would fall, he and his faithless progeny. Man cannot conceive that he is accountable for inborn pro- pensities; and he cannot escape hereditary disease, any more than the Ethiopian can change his skin, or the leopard his spots. It is said that Lucifer himself was "brighter once amidst the EPIC APOLOGETICS. 7 1 host of angels, than that star the stars among." He must then have been holy and perfect. We are not informed who tempted him, nor that he was tempted. If, without being beguiled he fell from perfect holiness in highest heaven to grossest guilt in lowest hell, merely to exercise the free-will with which he was endowed, it would seem that free-will was a dangerous quality with which to endow the creature newly created for the pur- pose of repairing the detriment occasioned by his defection. If that was the purpose of man's creation the peril of his position should not have been increased by the addition of propensities to evil, and the placing of the objects of his dangerous desires temptingly in his way. and then causing him to be beset with a Fiend whom it was already known he would not resist. The mind cannot comprehend the beneficence that creates of one, millions of millions of souls, and exposes them all in the one to the toils of a Tempter, well knowing that man would "hearken to his glossing lies, and so will fall, he and his faithless pro- geny," and that the Tempter would "speed on his bad errand." This great assertion and justification, has received the tribute of amazed admiration for more than two hundred years. But it implies infinitely less effrontery in one to candidly examine it, than for its author to transcend human thought in a poetical process of reasoning, predicating the existence and justice of the Almighty on improvised principles hopelessly inapplicable in any known or supposable phase of human affairs. There is nothing in it tending to elucidate any vexed question, or to re- solve any doubt. The capacity essential to read and compre- hend it, is sufficient to detect its fallacies and incongruities when once it is duly appreciated. It is then discerned that it neither asserts eternal providence, nor justifies the way of God to men. No rational being has ever really doubted either the existence or justice of the Almighty, nor can such one account for His being, or comprehend His justice. There is no logic in atheism. If it were possible for a rational creature to so doubt, he could not be convinced by irrational argument or extravagant asser- tion. A mind capable of the thought expressed in the alleged assertion and justification, probably might have estimated its effect on other minds. If so, its purpose was not to assert 72 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. eternal Providence nor justify the ways of God to discerning mert. It was written for some other purpose. There is no passion stronger than ambition. Nothing more gratefully gratifies this than fame. No fame is so enviable as that for mental attain- ment. In no province in mental attainment is superiority so enviably famous as in poetry. The real purpose of the Paradise Lost becomes apparent. If not, the reader can find in a biog- raphy of its author, that he had declared he would write a poem which would perpetuate his memory while language and liter- ature shall last. Perhaps it may. But it argues very little for the intelligence of a race that such memory is so perpetuated on account of the philosophy of the poem. Many beautiful things therein are beautifully said, but when candidly tested on prin- ciples of universal application its alleged system is no system, its ostensible object has no basis. The tendency to skepticism is intensified by vehement op- position. It assumes proportions as it is dignified by contro- versial attention. Obvious truths may be made debatable to some minds by the use of circuitous and importunate argument in their support. To seriously urge any proposition implies in- telligence on the part of the auditor, and plausibility in the con- verse of the proposition urged ; and upon the theory that only desperate causes require extreme measures, intense fervor and grotesque metaphor discredit the apologist and his cause in ad- vance. The assertion and justification are a challenge to debate upon the validity of principles which admit of no debate, simply because they are beyond the possibility of human comprehen- sion. The judgment of discerning men is not to be convinced by the expression, how grandly or learnedly soever, of pro- positions irreconcilable with the essential results of their obser- vation and experience, and repugnant to their instincts. But the effort is not addressed to such judgment. It is a magnificent mausoleum to the memory of a man of letters, in which he has immortalized himself in really disparaging the cause he has assumed to advocate. It smacks somewhat of assurance in one helpless to conceive of the principle of vitality which animates the minutest insect, to attempt to assert eternal Providence and justify the ways of God to men. If palpable EPiC APOLOGETICS. 73 phenomena are hopelessly inscrutable, if the bursting of a bud cannot be intelligibly traced up to first principles, it would be a desperate undertaking to attempt to ascertain and declare the relations existing between man and his Maker. Unless it can be done successfully and incontrovertibly, there is no utility in the attempt. Such affected familiarity with the inscrutable wisdom of divine Power tends more to debase the mind with irreverence, than to ennoble it with respect for the Power which it must believe exists somewhere and in some way, yet, which it must also realize is forever beyond its compre- hension. When, in the thunderstorm, the untutored savage prostrates himself upon and kisses the bosom of his mother earth, ex- claiming the Great Spirit is angry, he manifests a reverential awe. it may be mingled with a base and servile fear, but it has the merit of sincerity, and is devoid of arrogant f^imiliarity with that which he cannot conceive of Yet there is as much philosophy in his ejaculation as in all the dogmatical apologetics ever written. No one is known to be divinely authorized to measure the devotion and prescribe the ritual by which the savage is to propitiate the Almighty and appease his wrath at the offence of ancestors, done five or six thousand years ago, and of which he has not even a tradition. If something within prompts him to adoration, and if in simplicity and awe he sin- cerely adores, it is worse than unprofitable that a deeply laid scheme of Providence be learnedly elaborated, and based upon assumptions which shock the sense of justice, and strain credu- lity with a violence only equalled by the amazement with which one beholds the weird extravagance in which it is as- serted. If it were objected that his devotion is blind and his tenets unintelligible, the objector can only offer his own con- victions, if he has any, in their stead. Unless he proposes something superior in point of sincerity, and more intelligible to the savage in reasonableness of doctrine, he certainly confers no favor upon him by disturbing him in his primitive faith. Beauty of expression, epithet, nicely rounded periods, and fault- less measure, may be used in the expression of any one doc- 74 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. trine, as well as any other. Metaphor, allegory, and analogy, are just as appropriate in Fetichism as in Christianity. The scheme conceived in the alleged assertion and justifica- tion will not bear investigation according to any criteria avail- able to the human mind. The doctrine, though educed and proclaimed in thought ever so sublime, and language ever so grand, reasons around in a mist of confusion, and comes back to the assumptions from which it started : and they are so gro- tesquely absurd as to provoke the derision of every one who candidly considers them. Revelation is invoked, but we are not informed whv anvone instead of any other person was selected as the Spokesman of the Almighty; nor upon what authority, other than that of the Spokesman himself, we are to rely for the fact that he was so selected. TlTe crudely impro- vised principles of an alleged theology, which are themselves repugnant to every one's sense of justice and all practical utility, are not validated in Revelation which is itself not only more repugnant to natural justice and utility, but depends for its authenticity upon the ipse dixit of the alleged medium through which divine Power is said to have expressed itself. Miracle and prophecy are also invoked. But so far as human cognition is concerned the existence of each and every atom of matter is miraculous: the loss and subsequent recovery by the Egyptian King Pheron of his sight was miraculous; the delivery of the French by a country girl in 1428 was miracul- ous; and the dream of Cyrus that he saw the eldest son of Hystaspes with wings overspreading Europe and Asia was pro- phetic. But we know of no creed that has been founded or doc- trine that is authenticated on such data. We are credibly in- formed in recent history, that in the year 1682 one of the most licentious rakes who ever dominated and debased a government, performed the rite of laying on hands to cure scrofula eight thousand five hundred times, and that the ablest men of his time solemnly professed their faith in his miraculous power, and their belief that any failure was due solely to a want of faith on the part of the afflicted. We are not informed what it is which distinguishes these phenomena from the events, visions, and prophecy recorded in EPIC APOLOGETICS. 75 Holy Writ; and to the popular mind there is more difference in the media by which they are respectively commemorated, than there is in the phenomena themselves. That they cannot be understood ought not to deter a thrifty zealot from utilizing one kind as v^ell a,s another in promulgating some fanciful faith, if eternal Providence is in need of human assertion and justification, if its credit is on the decline, here are some unused phenomena inscrutable, from vyhich something might be proved if some great genius should go into the appropriate ecstasy, and evolve the scheme to which, or to some part of which, they might be made to appear apposite. Instead of assuming to help Heaven out of a supposed dif- ficulty, it were better, at least it were in better taste, to candid- ly admit that eternal Providence is eternally too much for our comprehension. The inward monitor that approves virtue and eschews vice, according to the generally accepted standards of right and wrong, is probably the most efficient promoter of civilization and its essential concomitant — good life. Fear for personal safety may emphasize the zeal with which the good {?) are sedulously laboring to make the world better. But when poetry becomes philosophical and attempts in Eolean strains to tell us all about how and why the Almighty has done thus and so. it finds itself involved in interminable discord. When evil is shunned because it is abhorred ; when good is done for its own sake ; the conduct will be more acceptable to Him to whom we instinctively ascribe every perfection, than when it is exacted under the intimidation of frightful ghost stories and the menaces of divine wrath. Self-respect is not necessarily self-conceit. Yet, to avoid the imputation of pusil- lanimity in the creature submitting under the denunciation of damnation, the Creator condescends to confer upon the creature he has created and cursed, the privilege of transforming the curse into a blessing, on terms which it was already known the creature would reject; and negotiating with him as with a responsible equal, the terms upon which divine wrath might be changed to divine love. An infinitely wise and powerful Cre- ator, creates a creature in a certain manner, knowing from all eternity that such creature will provoke Him to wrath and be 76 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. damned for his temerity; and the world is flooded with learned nonsense on the purpose and plan of the Creator in such cre- ation. The observation and experience of man teach that something within admonishes and ever hath admonished that he is the creature of some Power infinitely above him, and beyond the possibility of his comprehension, it is audacious and absurd to speak of the Power in terms of affected familiarity, when the mind staggers at the thought of any one of its attributes. No human mind ever existed that could conceive of omnipresence, nor of the immensitv of the space occupied by the Omnipresent. The mind which is inadequate to such a thought certainly has no business with the purposes or plans, of the divine Architect, who, by analogy may be supposed to be infinitely more super- ior to the work of his hands, than the Sculptor to the lifeless marble. The difference between Polytheism and Monotheism, indeed between any of the isms, is of little importance when environ- ment and educational prejudices are considered. The test of character is sincerity, and the object of religion is rectitude. Individual salvation and damnation as results of merit and de- merit cannot be woven into any system or scheme of which the mind can conceive; and if either is to any extent a matter of grace or of wrath, the whole subject is at Sea, and no argu- ment of any kind can be intelligibly applied to it. it would be a singular sort of grace that damns a world to create the occasion to save here and there an individual out of its perish- ing multitude. In the domain of physical phenomena we think we see a perfect system. Nothing appears to depend upon a capricious favor or grace — nothing appears to go slipshod here. The tides and the seasons, growths and decays, recur with appar- ently unvarying, almost monotonous regularity ; and gravita- tion still tends its subjects toward the great centers. Matter is still within the jurisdiction and control of its Great Author, who from all eternity hath kept, and to all eternity will keep the rotations of the Systems in accord with the Music of the Spheres. EPIC APOLOGETICS. 77 Neither Mind nor Matter can be understood by any human mind. But, if they are distinct entities, it seems that Mind would be of at least equal, if not of greater importance to the Creator of both. When Lucifer, the Lord's whilom lieutenant, was hurled from Heaven to Hell and had sworn eternal ven- geance, he might have interfered in some way with the order pervading the material universe. Man was not yet created, and the Rebel has evinced no such magnanimity as to raise the suspicion that he would slight an opportunity for revenge. He may have waited for a more favorable, and, to his diaboli- cal instincts, a more agreeable opportunity; knowing perhaps that man with mind was to be created for the glory of the Creator and to repair the detriment of his. defection, and that ninety-nine of every hundred were to become his victims. If so, he must have regarded the Lord a very obliging enemy. Or, his power may not have been so effective against the ma- terial universe as against the contemplated town of Mansoul, to be erected and garrisoned against him by the same Power which had "hurled him through the deep into his place." Mind, the soul of Man, created for the glory of the Creator, the last, the greatest and dearest of all His works, and yet the only one made vulnerable to the attacks of the recalcitrant rebel! The Power that created the human mind in the beginning ap- pears to have directed its trend for futurity. It may not be absolutely enslaved, but if it works in accordance with a plan devised for it before its creation, all the poetical philosophy that can possibly be written, can never give color to the idea of indi- vidual responsibility and duty. And the ways of such Provi- dence to man cannot be justified in reason, because they can- not be understood. Fanatics frequently accuse of atheism, those whose manli- ness spurns the solicitous authority of their superstitions. One of the greatest historians, and one who is frequently charged with atheism, has paid to Christianity, one of the highest tri- butes it ever received in either history or philosophy. Coming from such source it alTirms more in one brief paragraph than is argued in the three hundred pages of rhapsody under consid- eration. He says, "A candid but rational inquiry into the pro- 78 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. gress and establishment of Christianity mav be considered as a very essential part of the history of the Roman Empire. While that great body was invaded by open violence, or undermined by slow decay, a pure and humble religion gently insinuated itself into the minds of men, grew up in silence and obscurity, derived new vigor from opposition, and finally erected the triumphant banner of the Cross on the ruins of the Capitol." A parish priest of the EstablisJied Church has edited the philosophical history written by this great master of thought and language, and he petulantly complains that, "Christianity alone receives no embellishment from the magic of Gibbon's language ; his imagination is dead to its moral dignity ; it is kept down by a g.eneral tone of jealous disparagement, or neutralized by a painfully elaborated exposition of its darker and degenerate periods." It may be presumed that the priest was acquainted with the history or he would not have assumed to edit it. in such case the malignity of his stricture is not mitigated or excused by its veracity. The historian was no enthusiast, and it seems not to have occurred to him that he might ingratiate himself in divine favor either by suppressing the truth, or by positively lying. His logic may have restrain- ed him from a futile attempt to embellish that which, if it is what it purports to be, is above and beyond embellishment. If he noted the faults of professed Christians, his logic may have rejected the idea that real Christians have faults, if, however, they have faults, forming factors in history, his candor may have forbidden him to whitewash or disguise them, even in the in- terest of Christianity. Perhaps he thought so holy a cause would not countenance even its own advancement by the per- petration of a pious fraud, if his imagination was dead to the moral dignity of Christianity, he may not have regarded Chris- tianity so much a matter of imagination as the philosophy of some of its apologists would make it appear. in spite of its exhibition of ill nature, the stricture is a com- pliment to the candor of the historian, the main objection to whom is, he would tell the truth. If he kept Christianity down "by a general tone of jealous disparagement," his method was at least a strange one. He says, "Our curiosity is natur- EPIC APOLOGETICS. 79 ally prompted to inquire by what means the Christian faith ob- tained so remarkable a victory over the established religions of the earth. To this inquiry an obvious but satisfactory answer may be returned ; that it was owing to the convincing evidence of the doctrine itself, and to the ruling providence of its great Author." And yet the enthusiast says, "the divine origin of the religion is dexterously eluded, or speciouslv conceded." it is true he did not attempt to justify or palliate the canting hypocrisy and fanaticism which, in the guise of Christianity at times became the scourge and reproach of mankind; nor did he attempt to justify the doctrine of the system on crudely im- provised principles which were incompatible with universal ex- perience and observation, and repugnant to the universal sense of justice and idea of utility. He mav have thought he found it an established self-evident fact. He left it just where, and just as he found it; and for the good of the cause and of man- kind, it were better its zealots and apologists had followed his example. In the estimation of the fervid enthusiast, the man whose manliness spurns fanaticism and superstition is a skeptic, an intldel, an atheist. If the doctrines of the apologists had to be accepted as the philosophy of Christanitv, atheism would keep pace with the manliness and intelligence of the race. In the Paradise Lost one thing is achieved. The fame of the Bard, if not of the Philosopher, is fixed. How badly it is marred, and how unsightly the poetry is made by fanatical and fallacious philosophizing, are questions depending in some measure upon the development of candid discrimination and manly indpen- dence in both relitrion and literature. CHAPTER IV. DIVINE DISPENSATION VINDICATED IN POETICAL PHILOSOPHY. Prologue to Essay On Man Assumes Marvelous Wisdom of Poet — Dissimula- tion as to integrity of Purpose — Providential Plan a Confusion — Vindication Necessarily Illogical — To Reason About Providence From what we Know is to Reason From Nothing — Necessity of Man to System a Groundless As- sumption — Coherency of System — Freedom and Fatalism Irreconcilable — If Whatever Is is Right Man's Errors are Right — The Ways of Providence Must be Known Before They Can be Vindicated — All Knowlege is Acquir- ed — Conditions Must be Unknown — Poetry May Flourish in Metaphysics — Taine's strictures on the Poet — Foul Blots on the Poetry of the Essay — Indefniite Purpose and Ambition of the Poet. In 1752 one of the greatest Poets who ever attempted to promulgate a poetical philosophy awoke his St. John to " « * * leave all meaner things To low ambition and the pride of Kings. Let us (since life can little more supply Than just look about us and to die) Expatiate free o'er all this scene of Man; A mighty maze: but not without a plan; A wild, where weeds and flowers promiscuous shoot, Or garden tempting with forbidden fruit. Laugh where we must, be candid where we can; But vindicate the ways of God to man." This is a distinct declaration of a purpose to treat philo- sophically of the relations supposed to exist between man and his Maker, including his moral attributes and characteristics, his appropriate place and sphere in nature, and the divine pur- pose in his creation and environment. The announcement, with an assurance truly admirable, claims for the philosopher a kind and degree of wisdom which is marvellous, infinitely transcending all our reasonable expectations of a mere man. It is also prefaced by what is meant as a voucher for all the knowledge necessary to enable him to advise his fellow mortals, and even his Maker, of the plan and purpose of Providence, so far as it concerns mankind. He says— "Having proposed to write some pieces on human life and manners, such as (to use DIVINE DISPENSATION VINDICATED IN POETICAL PHILOSOPHY. 8 I my Lord Bacon's expression) come home to men's business and bosoms, I thought it more satisfactory to begin with consider- ing man in the abstract, his nature and state ; since to prove any moral duty, to enforce any moral precept, or to examine the perfection or imperfection of any creature whatsoever, it is necessary first to know what condition and relation it is placed in, and what is the proper end and purpose of its being." If he knew all this, and he was pledged to the proposition that he did, he was eminently qualified to teach the doctrine and im- part the information. As he was further pledged to be candid where he could, the manner in which he has dealt with the subject, and the actual result of his reasoning, will disclose what if anything he really knew about it. It is an elementary principle in moral philosophy that there can be no duty where there is no choice. In such case the per- formance whatever it may be is done, if not automatically, yet, in fulfillment or discharge of a function, and not as a duty. Choice, to rise to the dignity of the name, must be an option to do or forbear; it must be absolute, not only unfettered, but un- prejudiced by any natural bent for which the individual is not directly and wholly responsible. The tact that the vindication is written is equivalent to a declaration of the free-agency of man, that he is possessed of a discerning and choosing mind which is to be convinced by appropriate reasoning, and that he is to be held liable for failure in duty and not in function. The above exordium is a bad start for a treatise assuming the airs and proportions of a doctrine in morals, or statement of a scheme in nature, or of the purpose of Providence, or of the relation in which man is placed. The first requisite in such an undertaking is consistency, without which it will itself become "A wilJ where weeds and flowers promiscuous shoot." Without descending to captious objections on account of mere verbal inaccuracies, such as appear in the above prefatory promise, there is sufficient ground for valid objection to the substance of the general statement of the dilemma as couched in various parts of the poem. Weeds and fiowers (evil and good) are not likely to shoot promiscuously in any well arrang- 82 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. ed plan of tl-ie Almighty, nor can such plan be a wild, if the scene of man is planned at all it is very badly planned, if it is a garden tempting with forbidden fruit, unless man is absolutely free from fate and wholly responsible for all the consequences of his inherited and inherent qualities and propensities. He cannot understand why he should be tempted unless it is to in- sure his ruin. If it is to test his fortitude, he cannot under- stand that it is really his fortitude ; he does not know what he ever had to do or say in the acquisition thereof, or of his sus- ceptibility to temptation. He finds himself endowed and en- vironed by some power which has never deigned to consult him, and if he had been consulted, he cannot understand how he would have been called upon to exercise any other than the faculties with which he is so endowed, to express the choice to which such faculties and his native tendencies incline him. He cannot understand how he is to be improved by anything like moral instruction, unless he is able to accept or reject the doc- trine according to his own judgment and of his own choice, in the formation of such judgment and exercise of such choice, he cannot understand that he is actuated^by any other than the faculties and propensities with which he is endowed by the Power which has made and environed him. Proceeding as the above quotations authorize one to do, to examine the vindication on the hypothesis that its author knew (or claimed he knew) and understood' man's sphere in nature, his relation to his Maker, and the proper end and purpose of his being, one v/iil bepuzzled at the dissimulation of design apparent in the last couplet of the above quoted exordium; "be candid where we can, but vindicate the ways of God to man." A fond father once started his hopeful son out into the world with the admonition to make money, "make it honestly if you can, but make money." A devout worshipper would not like to think that his God wants a vindication on such terms, or at all events. To say the couplet was written to round out a period or phrase, or to fill a measure, is no co.mpliment to one of the greatest poets. There is little of the pure jingle in anything from his pen. He seldom sacrificed sense to sound. The couplet contains a faithful expression of an unfaithful purpose— DIVINE DISPENSATION VINDICATED IN POETICAL PHILOSOPHY. 8^ a determination to accomplish his end, candidly if he could, but to accomplish it. If he knew all he assumed to know, there was no occasion for verbal or mental reservation as to the rectitude and philosophic integrity of the proposed argu- ment. Having announced his ability and intent to vindicate the ways of God to man, he proceeds therewith,, leaving us v/ith but little assurance of sincerity in the reasoning to be em- ployed, and when // is tested, the announcement will appear to be the most striking exhibition of his candor. That the Almighty should be vindicated implies that he owes his creatures an apology or explanation. If he does, and if it is properly made in the vindication in question, it is done somewhat in the spirit and manner of the rustic who said : "If I have done anything to be sorry for, I am glad of it." But if infinite power and wisdom were brought by the Almighty to his work in the creation of man, .who was made in his own image and endowed with reason and some wisdom, it is diffi- cult to imagine M/hy he was not gifted with sufficient to know that the ways of the Almighty were right and could need no vindication. Man would naturally suppose that the work of infinite wisdom, goodness, and power, is necessarily perfect. If that work was in part the creation of man, in which he finds much that is evil, his reasonable expectations are disappointed, and the entire subject is at sea. There is then no available starting point from which he can proceed to reason out to an intelligible and satisfactory conclusion concerning it. Unless the work of the Almighty is imperfect; left unfinish- ed, to be completed by an individual specimen of the work itself, it is decidedly arrogant for man to oiter to take it up v/here He leaves it and iuiish it for Him. In the prologue or introduction to the vindication, where its object is stated, its course outlined, and its character foreshadowed, the philoso- pher is involved in a labyrinth of inconsistency of postulation, and insincerity of design so far as concerns the attaining of his object. And when the argument is reached the first postulate (which is interrogatively put) is another assumption of all the knowledge necessary to enable the cognoscente, by the use of the usual processes of ratiocination, to make clear and intelligi- 84 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. ble to the average mind, the whole system, scheme, and pur- pose of Providence — so there is neither occasion nor excuse for dissimulation in stating the purpose, or confusion in stating the dilemma. "Say first, of God above, or man below, What can we reason, but from what we know? Of man, what see we but his station here From which to reason or to which refer ? Thro' World's unnumbered tho' the God be known, 'Tis ours to trace Him only in our own. ********* Of systems possible, if 'tis confest That wisdom infinite must form the best, Where all must full or not coherent be, And all that rises, rise in due degree; Then in the scale of reasoning life "tis plain. There must be somewhere such a rank as man; And all the question (wrangle e'er so long) Is only this, if God has placed him wrong ? Respecting man, whatever wrong we call, May, must be right, as relative to all." If the doctrine of the last couplet is true, there can be no question as to whether God has placed man wrong. If it is not true, the basis goes from under the entire argument. If the only question is, whether God has placed man wrong, there can be no other to argue. If whatever respecting man we call wrong, must as relative to all be right, he cannot be placed wrong, and there is no question whatever to argue. There is however a very bold assertion, and perhaps it is the purpose of the piece to fortify and sustain it by reasoning; and it appears to be the philosopher's idea that such reasoning '< * * * must full or not coherent be." Unless the reasoning is both full and coherent, this is a singular dilemma to get into at the beginning of a learned and elaborate philosophical discussion. What is it which makes it plain that there must be somewhere such a rank as man } is it because all that rises must rise in due degree '? What is due degree ? What is next to man in the descending scale } What is next above him } How many degrees from man to the Almighty ? How many from man to the mollusk ? Unless DIVINE DISPENSATION VINDICATED IN POETICAL PHILOSOPHY. 85 the degrees are known, how may it be known whether they are due ? If all must full or not coherent be, what is the nec- essary consequence of the extinction of the myriads of species whose fossil foot prints on the shores and shelves of time, are the only (yet conclusive) evidence of their having sometime occupied a place (degree) in the system ? To what other species or degree is man necessary ? How is he necessary to the system, or to any part of it ? Is it that the system may be full, coherent, and rise in due degree from the mollusk to the Maker ? Is not the system still coherent, notwithstanding the known extinction of many species having once occupied as many places or degrees ? It cannot still be full. What and how many species in the ascending scale, between man and his Maker have become extinct ? Does not the rule work both ways ? Are we to argue that none have, simply because we find none of their fossil ? Have we found all there is to be known ? How do we know the present existence of the in- termediate degrees in the ascending scale ? Are we to reason that there are such, because from what we know, there are in- termediate degrees in the descending scale.? If so, we may plausibly proceed and reason from what we know of the ex- tinction of several species in the one, that some species in the other scale have also become extinct. This would be tracing Him only in our own, and reasoning from what we know, with as much plausibility as to reason and infer the existence of the Almighty himself from anything we know. It seems to be a stolid sort of philosophy, that extracts com- fort or consolation from the dispensation that endows man with an insatiable curiosity, and then mysteriously veils from him the sight of the object of his deepest solicitude. It requires as much ingenuity in reasoning to show that this is really prefer- able, as it would to ascertain (if it can be done by reasoning) what it is that is kindly kept from his eager eyes. "Oh blindness to the future ! Kindly given, That each may fill the circle marked by Heaven; Who sees with equal eye, as God of all, A hero perish, or a sparrow fall, 86 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. Atoms or systems into ruin hurled, And now a bubble burst, and now a world." If we can reason of God and man only from what we know, it seems a difficult undertaking to attempt to show of the former that He is no more concerned in the fall of a hero than of a sparrow, in the ruin of a system than of an atom, or in the bursting of a world than of a bubble. To carry conviction such assertion should be enforced by the statement of some fact known and reasoned from; and the philosopher interroga- tively predicates his reasoning on what he knows. If it is ours to trace Him only in our own world, we can. know nothing of the Almighty. How are we to know anything of Him ? Not from any palpable demonstration certainly. All alleged mani- festations of everything divine, have ever been, and in all prob- ability will ever be, interpreted as variously as the several faiths and creeds of their several beholders. If we are to reason upon the subject of the concern or indifference of the Almighty in regard to such catastrophes only from what we know, it is clear that unless we know He is in some measure affected as man, we are to reason from nothing. Unless the philosopher knew He was so affected, the vindication becomes a contra- diction of the very postulate upon which the argument is based. What affection or characteristic in any creature do we know of, from which to reason that such indifference is attri- butable to the Almighty .^ If it is ours to trace Him only in our own, how are we to know that in all, or any, of His attri- butes He is to be characterized by divine perfection and good- ness ? Do we not in our own, see more of evil than good ? How are we to know that, as relative to all, this not only may, but must be right ? If, as an eminent psychologist has said, " * * * as we can only prove by means of premises we must at length come to premises which cannot be proven, and which must be assumed as being either primitive cognitions or primitive faiths;" and if the necessary sequence to such premise is the doctrine reasoned out and deduced therefrom, why not assume the whole matter in controversy at the beginning ? If the entire structure is based on assumptions, either of primitive cognition or of primitive faith, what is the doctrine itself but DIVINE DISPENSATION VINDICATED IN POETICAL PHILOSOPHY. 87 assumption ? Philosophical apologists tell us we must have faith — in what ? Why in this instance, in the Being we are only to trace in our own world; and then the philosopher pro- ceeds to portray Him in all respects as unlike any thing we know of, as light is unlike darkness. Where is the evidence which convinces the judgment .^ Whence the information by which we know the fiicts ? We are. only to reason from what we know; now on that, or any kindred subject what do we know ? and hov/ ? We know in some instances what we regard reasonable and right; but do we know zvhy we so regard it ? Is it within any instinct or feeling we know of,, for it to be a matter of indifference whether a bubble or a world burst ? We /;nozc it is not. If it is ours to trace Him only in our own, how can we attribute such indifference to Him ? For all we know He may be so indifferent, but are we not reasoning against, instead of from what we know, to argue that He is ? Could such things be viewed with equal eye (concern) by any intelligent and reasonable being ? Or is the God whose ways to man are being-vindicated, an unreasonable Being ? What do we know, or what can we trace in our own, from which to reason that He is ? To argue that He beholds such catastrophes with equal eye, is to argue that He is not in any manner affected by, or concerned in them. Concern is a comparative or relative quantity or affection, and to be capable of it one must necessarily be susceptible to the deeper or more intense concern in the greater, than in the lesser catastrophe. This is unquestionably the experience and observation of all (we call) reasonable creatures, and the phil- osopher says it is ours to trace Him only in our own, and to reason only from what we knozv. If concern is not character- ized by susceptibility to various degrees of intensity, then all reasoning is idle, and there remains not even a poor apology for the vindication. What reason have we to suppose that blindness to the future was kiiuily given } That otherwise each would not fill the circle marked by Heaven .? Is not the vindication itself a protest against the propriety of such a dispensation } If such blindness is kindly given, is it not ingratitude to be prying in- 88 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. to the future, and neutralizing the effects of such kindness by telling mankind what one sees there ? Does not the vindica- tion involve a prophetic forecast of human destiny ? "So man, who here seems principal alone, Perhaps acts second to some sphere unknown. Touches some wheel, or verges to some goal; * * * * -X- * -K- * * * The soul uneasy and confined, from home, Rests and expatiates in a life to come. *•»**** *** * If to be perfect in a certain sphere What matter, soon or late, or here or there ? ********** Submit. — In this, or any other sphere, Secure to be as blest as thou canst bear." This is an incongruous commingling of the elements of prophecy and declaration ; prophetic of everything except ulti- mate bliss, and certainty of that, no matter what the denoue- ment. If the future state or condition is itself problematical, how can its happiness be a certainty ?" " * * X nothing stands alone; The chain holds on, and where it ends unknown." Is it to be reasoned out to a moral certainty from anything we know ? Is it the necessary result of the progress of man- kind .'' If man was originally perfect and happy, his progress seems to have been the other way. Perhaps different influ- ences are at work now. But what are they ? When did they begin ? At what period has the ratio of wretchedness to bliss, present or prospective, been greater than it is now ? What has reduced it ? Was it the " * w * Christian's thirst for gold ?" To be philosophical a treatise should contain a doctrine, and have a purpose which could be discerned in its perusal. There should be an end in view, an object to be accomplished by its teaching. It should proceed upon a definite, distinct, and an intelligible theory, and consistently adhere to it. How is it with the vindication in question ? What is its object ? How are we to ascertain it ? It is broadly asserted to be, to DIVINE DISPENSATION VINDICATED IN POETICAL PHILOSOPHY. 89 vindicate the ways of God to man. But the name or avowed purpose has little, if anything, to do with determining the character of or classifying a pleading. This must be ascer- tained from its substance; it must be determined from its gen- eral scope and tenor. In vindicating the ways of God to man, so as to convince the judgment of persons not assuming the infinite wisdom essential to know and understand the ways themselves, what should be first done ? Should they not first be made known and understood ? Would not a mere statement of them, if one were sufficiently wise and candid to make it correctly, be their complete vindication ? If man is reasonable and capable of correct judgment, and, if the Almighty is infinitely powerful, wise, and good, it certainly would be. If man is not reason- able and capable of correct judgment it is waste of time trying to convince him of anything, or to vindicate anything to him. If God is infinitely powerful He can do just as He desires. If He is infinitely wise He need make no mistakes. If He is in- finitely good He will not do anything wrong. Then a mere statement of His ways to man, if understood, would be their vindication. Man cannot understand their vindication more readily or more easily than he can understand the ways them- selves. If he cannot comprehend and understand the ways, he cannot know when they are vindicated in argument or philosophy. And no one knows what they are, or understands them. Many different views or theories as to what they are prevail to-day. Where such several views and theories con- flict, which are right and which are wrong ? How is this question to be settled ? Is it to be done by reasoning ? If so, from what are we to reason ? If we are to reason only from what we know, what is it we know, from which to deduce the correctness of any one of such theories, and the necessary fallacy of all others ? We know only what we learn, not what we assume; and the phrase "primitive cognition" means nothing. In the nature of things there can be no such cognition. Whatever is cognized (known) must be first learned. We learn in being taught. We are taught by others, and by our own experience go ETHICS OF LITERATURE. and observation. Reason may aid in the assimilation, but its office is not until a fact is cognized. And even then what assurance have we that reason is so enlightened as to make the proper deduction ? If, as McCosh has said, something must be assumed before the process of reasoning is in order, what are the criteria by Vv'hich to ascertain the validity of the assump- tion ? Unless that is known, how are we to know that the reasoning adopted is germain to the assumption ? Unless this is all known, what right have we to urge the validity of the result.? To illustrate, we assume something; for instance that "whatever is, is right." We then proceed by reasoning to erect thereon a magnificent Pile, for instance, an Essay on Man. But unfortunately in building it we use material that is incompatible with the assumption, for instance, the ideas that the "scene of man" is "A wild, where weeds and flowers promiscuous shoot, Or garden tempting with forbidden fruit;" and that 'Mn pride, in reasoning pride our error lies;" and either the assumption or the idea is wrong because they conjlict. We flatter our vanity that we may increase our knowledge, and perhaps wisdom, by means of our own reasoning. But if of the Almighty we are only to reason from what we know, we are only to reason from what we have learned, and not from what we assume, nor from what we may fancy we have reasoned into our quantum, of knowledge or wisdom. We are not to spin out the reasoning process to any such unreasonable length. The facts, the things known and so reasoned from, might not be very reliable. Their validity would depend upon that of some prior assumption, and the course of reasoning by which they were educed; and so backward ad infinitiun. So if we are to reason only from what we know, it must not be from anything we assume, nor from what we may fancy we know by means of any inference, guess, or process of reason- ing. An eminent psychologist has said, " * * * ]f we have not knowledge in the premises, we are not entitled to put it into the conclusion." We do not know that the course of nature includes, or in DIVINE DISPENSATION VINDICATED IN POETICAL PHILOSOPHY. 9 I any manner or to any extent consists of, or affects, or relates to, the ways of God to man. We may very reasonably believe that it does; but according to the philosopher we must knoiv, not assume it, before- we start therefrom to vindicate those ways in a process of reasoning. That which we believe to be evil, we cannot at the same time know to be good. As relative to all it may be right, but unless we know and understand the relation, we cannot know it is so. The philosopher says these ways are right, that "whatever is, is right." To be right, a way must be good. It cannot be right and be evil. If the Creator had created and continued His creature in His alleged primitive perfect condition, it would have been better than that which we now know him to be in. An infinitely powerful, wise, and good Creator could have made man perpetually exempt from all tendency to and liabil- ity on account of disease and death and- sin. If He could not, there must have been a limit either to His power or to His wisdom. If He could and would not, there must have been a limit to His goodness — to man at least. Whatever is may be right, but we do not know that it is. We are only to reason from what we know ; and we know nothing from which to reason that it is right, and that the Creator in His inhnite good- ness to His creature, created him, a million to one, to suffer all the accursed consequences of disease, and death, and damna- tion. But the philosopher says, "Submit: — In this, or any other sphere Secure to be as blest as thou canst bear." This may be correct, but observation leads us to believe that man could eiufitie more blessing than we generally see imposed upon him. If he could not he is not responsible for the meagerness of his capacity. Some Power made and equipped him, and blessed him with fatal tendencies, with a mind whose prime propensity is to reason and rebel, and if he is not capable of, or susceptible to, greater bliss than he actu- ally enjoys, his capacity is thrust upon him by the same Power that made and environed him. If, as relative to all, whatever in man we call wrong must be right, then it must be the pecu- liar relation of man to all that makes these ways right. What 92 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. is that relation ? and what is its peculiarity ? Unless one can explain this he is overreaching himself to attempt to vindicate the ways so made right. If it were objected that if man were created as an infinitely powerful, wise, and good Creator cotild have made him, there would be no free agency, still we know nothing from which to reason and infer the necessity, or even propriety, of free agency. It is certainly not essential to, nor compatible with, the fatalism couched in the following: — "As man, perhaps the moment of his breath, Received the lurking principle of death; The young disease that must subdue at length, Grows with his growth, and strengthens with his strength, So cast and mingled with his very frame. The minds disease, its ruling passion came. ********** Nature its mother, habit is its nurse, Wit, spirit, faculties, but make it worse." histead of being a free agent, man is born with the fatal disease of mind which must subdue at length, cast and mingled with his very frame ; and to aggravate the case, he is endowed with the very qualifications, wit, spirit, faculties, which make it worse. How is he armed against the consequences of these fatal gifts ? Unless that shall be shown, what becomes of free agency } Unless there is free agency and absolute freedom of choice, there is no propriety in any effort at moral instruc- tion. The vindication thus appears to be an effort to promul- gate two irreconcilable doctrines, free agency and fatalism. "In pride, in reasoning pride, our error lies, All quit their spheres, and rush into the skies. ****7r***** And spite of pride, in erring reasoning's spite, One truth is clear, whatever is, is right." The first of these couplets implies free agency. There can be no blameworthy error where there is no choice whether one will quit his sphere and soar in the forbidden realms above him. Yet the fatalism unqualifiedly and unequivocally denounc- ed in the last couplet, ought to be sufficient to relieve man of 'all liability to censure for the error of reasoning pride which is mentioned in the first one. If reasoning pride is not natural DIVINE DISPENSATION VINDICATED IN POETICAL PHILOSOPHY. Q ^ to man, it would be interesting to know how he is endowed with it. It is said to be the mind's disease, its ruling passion, the lurking principle of death, which he receives the moment of his breath, cast and mingled with his very frame. If it is natural to him, it is part of the general order, to wish to invert the laws of which is to sin against the eternal cause. If it is part of such general order it cannot be man's error. If it came the moment of his breath, and is natural to him, and part of the general order, then he who suppresses it in order to submit, " * * * inverts the laws Of order, sins against the eternal Cause." If it is the mind's disease, its ruling passion, cast and mingled with his very frame, and came the moment of his breath, it is natural. If respecting man whatever we call wrong must as relative to all be right, and if whatever is is right, then this very reasoning pride is right, and therein our error does not lie. If there fiuist be somewhere such a rank as man, if man is born as perfect as he ought, if the general order since the whole began is kept in nature and is kept in man, if man is born with a ruinous ruling passion, of which Nature is the mother and habit the nurse, and with wit, spirit, faculties, which make it worse; then there can be no such free agency as to warrant any attempt at moral instruction, or any censure for the alleged error in reasoning pride. If to reason right is to submit, the reasoning of the vindication is itself rebellion. It reasons against the ruling passion which it shows to be a part of the general order. If to reason right is to submit, we are cursed in the gift of the reasoning faculties and propensities. Then man is not as perfect as he ought. If these faculties and propensities are natural and part of the general order, and if we must suppress them in order to submit, then in their suppression we rebel against and subvert the laws of this general order, and submis- sion itself becomes rebellion. We should not pretend to comprehend the ways of God to man, nor to know that all that is, is right. It may be, but we 94 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. find nothing in nature that may be kiiozvn from which to reason that it is. ''hi the midst of life we are in death." In our boasted civilization we are in crime that would disgrace bar- barism. Blood may not flow so profusely, but the shrinkage in that respect is compensated by wickedness of more heinous, corrupt, and cowardly types. Indeed this seems to be the general order, and if it is kept in nature and is kept in man. if plagues and earthquakes break not Heaven's design, nor the butcheries of a Borgia or a Cataline, if all subsists by elemental strife, and passions are the elements of life, it requires a remark- able philosophical acumen to educe the blessing to man, to realize that he's as perfect as he ought, or to understand how or why all that is. is right. A person obliged to reason only from what he knows, should never attempt to reach such a conclusion ; if he were proceeding to reason it out from some- thing assumed, he should assume the whole matter at once; which, so far as valid reasoning is concerned, is just what the philosopher has done in the vindication in question— his poetry, figures, metaphor, allegory, and assumption, forming no factor in right reasoning. When we confess that, "The chain holds on, and where it ends unknown," we confess away the whole case. If the end is unknown, we certainly cannot know its condition. If we are to reason only from what we know, and if what we know consists of ninety- nine parts of wretchedness and wickedness to one of imagined happiness and goodness, it seems more like assertion than argument to declare that man is, " * * * hi this or any other sphere, Secure to be as blest as he can bear." If the object of the reasoning in the vindication is to authen- ticate the divinity of Christianity, it is no" only a miserable fail- ure in a philosophical point of view; it is a sacrilegious sneer at the greatest of all miracles, the fact that unlearned peasants and fisherman evolved the scheme of a r.^iiofiDn, that makes the greatest conquests and most rapid anJi ex ensive progress in localities where flourish the most refined civilization and the highest order of intelligence. DIVINE DISPENSATION VINDICATED IN POETICAL PHILOSOPHY. 05 I come now to a more agreeable part of the present under- taking. If any one should say that I have sneered at the phil- osopjier it shall not be said that 1 am disrespectful to the poet. A memorialist of his has said that he was "aware that the metaphysical was but an indifferent field in which to expect the flowers of poetry to flourish. " But I can agree with iiim in this with respect to the Essay on Man, if at all, only on the hypothesis that in its composition the reasoning is so hopeless- ly at fault, the poet was not in the field of metaphysics. The same memoralist has said, "it is doubtful, indeed we may add more than doubtful, if Pope ever had any definite system of philosophy." 1 am obliged to agree with him in this. If the poet ever had any such system he must have forgotten it before, or con- structed it after, he composed the vindication, as no trace of it is to be found therein. But the memorialist is wrong in saying that "the metaphysical is but an indifferent field in which to expect the flowers of poetry to flourish." No matter how faulty or unsound the reasoning ma.y be, the poet, in the com- position of the Essay was in the field of metaphysics. It is no more essential to that, that the assumptions, postulates, and reasoning should be faultless, than that they should be so in an argument to a court or jury, to render it forensic. If the poet has balked or frustrated his main object, and marred the symmetry of the vindication by unwarranted assump- tion, by monstrous hypotheses and illogical dedu:tion, it only a.rgues the unsoundness of his philosophy, or perhaps that he had no definite system thereof; and not that if he had had such system, he could not have adorned it as profusely and beauti- fully as he has done the Essay. And to say that it is not beau- tiful, grand, sublime, is simply to assert the ignorance and coarseness of the caviler. Indeed many of his postal. itioiis, assumptions, and deduc- tions, interrogatively as well a«s affirmatively put, are metaphys- ically perfect, and peerless in poetry — such for instance as these : — 96 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. "Born but to die, and reasoning but to err; *7<-* ******* Great lord of all things, yet a prey to. all, Sole Judge of truth, in endless error hurled, The glory, jest, and riddle of the world. * * * •:;• * ***** Could he, whose rules the rapid comet bind, Describe c fix one movement of his mind ? Who saw its fires here rise and there descend, Explain his own beginning, or his end ?" "Meanwhile opinion gilds with varying rays. Those painted clouds that beautify our days; Each want of happiness by hope supplied And eacii vacuity of sense by pride; These build as last as knowledge can destroy; in folly's cup still laughs the bubble, joy; One prospect lost, another still we gain; And not a vanity is given in vain." "Man cares for all * * * * ********** Nay, feasts the animal he dooms his feast, And, til! he ends the being, makes it blest. Which sees no more the stroke, or feels the pain. Than fjvorcd man by touch ethereal slain. The creature had his feast of life before; Thou too must perish, when thy feast is o'er." "God, in the nature of each being, founds Its proper bliss, and sets its proper bounds; But as he framed the whole the whole to bless. On mutual wants built mutual happiness." "Learn each small people's genius, policies, The ant's republic, and the realm of bees; ****** * * * * In vain thy reason finer webs shall draw, Entangle justice in her net of law, And right, too rigid, harden into wrong, Still for the strong too weak, the we.ik too strong "For modes of faith let graceless zeal ts fight; His can't be wrong whose lite is in the right; in faith and hope the word will disagree, But all mankind's concern is charity; All must be false that thwart this one gr^at end; And all of God, that bless mankind or mend." DIVINE DISPENSATION VINDICATED IN POETICAL PHILOSOPHY. 97 "Condition, circumstance, is not the thing; Bliss is the same in subject or in king, in who obtain defence, or who defend, in him who is, or him who finds a friend; Heaven breathes thro' every member of the whole One common blessing, as one common soul." "Who wickedly is wise, or madly brave, Is but the more a fool, the more a knave. Who noble ends by noble" means obtains, Or failing, smiles in exile or in chains. Like good Aurelius let him reign, or bleed Like Socrates, that man is great indeed."" "If parts allure thee, think how Bacon shined. The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind; Or, ravished with the whistling of a name, See Cromwell, damned to everlasting fame. * .>t ******* * In each how guilt and greatness equal ran. And all that raised the hero, sunk the man; * * * * * * •"- * * * The whole amount of that enormous fame, A tale, that blends their glory with their shame." "The broadest mirth unfeeling folly wears. Less pleasing far than virtue's very tears."" The sense of these selections could not be prosaically ex- pressed in anything near the same or equivalent terms. No linguistic artist living can paint in prose a picture of Bacon and Cromwell, exhibiting the ethical tints of the above in twenty times its space. Its equal cannot be painted in prose. When its equal shall be done, it will be poetical regardless of rhythm, rhvme. and measure. To say that the flowers of poetry may not be expected to nourish in the field of metaphysics, is to say that the finest style IS inappropriate in a discussion of the loftiest theme. If metaphysics is a science of mind or intelligence, it is difficult to imagine a more supernal atmosphere for the spirit of poetry to breathe in. It was certainly the burden of the bulk of the thought ex- pressed in the great Essav. That the assumptions are false, and the argument fallacious, detracts nothing from the merit, 98 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. the beauty, and the grandeur of some parts of the poetry, which have seldom been equalled. Still, the piece is blotted over with some coarse compari- sons and irrelevant allusions. Of pride, the ruling passion, no one would have expected the poet to say, "Reason itself but gives it edge and power; As Heaven's blest beam turns vinegar more sour.'^ Perhaps this is one of the ornaments with which Taine says the poet's style is burdened. This author speaking of the poet says, "when he had written a work, he kept it at least two years in his desk. From time to time he read and corrected it; took counsel of his friends, fhen of his enemies;" and it is pre- sumably upon the advice of the latter that he left the above ornament in the Essay. in justifying the relative physical constitution of man and things, how insignificant, as compared with accompanying passages, is his reason for the coarseness of the human vision. "Why has not man a microscopic eye? For this plain reason, man is not a flj'.'^ And recurring to pride, the nightmare of the vindication; "She but removes weak passions for the strong; So, when small humors gather to a gout. The doctor fancies he has driven them out." And, showing the mutual dependence of all creatures upon each other, the relative advantage and disadvantage of their several situations, and the subordination and servitude in man's supremacy; "The hog that ploughs not, nor obeys thy call, Lives on the labors of this lord of all." The porcine pungency of this couplet is perhaps intended to intensify the severity of the rebuke to pride, but compared with other passages in the poem, the couplet seems more like a grunt of the swine than an ornament to poetic style. As a "speaking picture," it is remarkable, with what celer- ity the Essay occasionally goes from the sublime to the ridicu- lous and frivolous, sometimes making the decent in one breath DIVINE DISPENSATION VINDICATED IN POETICAL PHILOSOPHY. 99 "Superior beings, when of late they saw A mortal man unfold all nature's law, Admired such wisdom in a human shape, And showed a Newton as we sbo-w a)i ape." ■'Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow, The rest is all but leather or prunella." Such samples sound slightly, if at all. like the "concrete and artistic expression of the human mind in emotional and rhythmical language." They seem more like the frenzy of a dazed or wearied mind which might be supposed to have over- taxed its energy and resources in accompanying flights, the altitude of which has been reached by few. if anv other writ- ers. What could be more pertinent or philosophical, than the above allusion to .Aurelius and Socrates ? Who has ever so powerfully put three paradoxes in three so short and consecu- tive lines as these. "Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all, Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled, The glory, jest, and riddle of the world ?" Poetic beauty is not marred by power and grandeur. It is not necessarily effeminate sweetness of expression. Magnifi- cence, grandeur, and splendor are beauty. The Apollo Belvi- dere is more beautiful than the Eros, or Cupid.. It is said, ''his great cause for writing was literary vanity; he wished to be admired, and nothing more; — Pope has no dash, no naturalness or manliness, he has no more ideas than passions ; at least such ideas as a man feels it necessary to write, and in connection with which we lose thought of words. * * * In reality, he did not write because he thought, but he thought in order to write; manuscript and the noise it makes in the world, when printed, was his idol ; if he wrote verses, it was merely for the sake of doing so." The memorialist closes the paragraph from which the above is quoted, with a compro- mising compliment to the poet, which, taken in' the connec- tion in which it is found, suggests that he himself was not writing because he had thought, unless he had thought both favorably and unfavorably of his subject. If instead of "literary vanity" the caviler had used the term ambition, he would have been nearer the truth, and would have shown more of the dis- lOO ETHICS OF LITERATURE. cernment and candor, to say nothing of charity, that charac- terize the great man, than of the envy and cynicism that mark the midget. But consistency is a jewel with which many of them frequently fail to adorn themselves. This same memor- ialist further says of the same poet, "A great writer is a man who, having passions, knows his dictionary and grammar; Pope thoroughly knew his dictionary and his grammar, but stopped there.'" In other words, he had no passions. Less than ten pages before this, he said the poet "had no more ideas than passions, at least such ideas as a man feels it necessary to write, and in connection with which we lose thought of words." The mathematical result is that the poet was barren of such ideas as his critic thought proper for poetical suprem- acy. But according to his formula, (passions, dictionary and grammar) ideas would be a superfluity. In view of the critic's assertion that "we trouble ourselves no more about adornment, but about truth," it is difficult to conceive why he directed his fusilade of invective against the poetrv of the poet, and never noticed the philosophy of the philosopher. It may be as Taine says; Pope may not have written be- cause he had thought ; he may have thought solely to write. His doctrines cannot be concatenated into a doctrine. But his poetry is conclusive evidence of ambition, and does not raise a suspicion of vanity. If he wrote from personal vanity why was it, as the critic says, that "when he had written a work he kept it at least two years in his desk." correcting it from time to time, and consulting both friends and enemies about it } As discordant as the Essay is, the evident intent of its auth- or was, to so vindicate the ways of God to man, as to eclipse all the apologists who had preceded him, and left the deleter- ious influence of their alleged reasonings to stigmatize their cause; and as his vaulting ambition could not brook the society of the limited capacities that could occupy themselves in the advocacy of a prescribed faith or sectarianism, he attempted to comprehend all nature, and found himself "Placed on this isthmus of a middle state," and so impotent and dazed, as to be utterly unable to "Describe or fix one movement of his mind." blVINE DISPENSATION VINDICATED IN POETICAL PHILOSOPHY. 10 1 If he was vain, it is not so apparent in the way he wrote, or in his motive, as his ambition is in his selection of a subject. To attempt to justify what it is impossible to understand, or even to know anything of. may be vanity; but if it is, it is of a kind that verges verv near if not into ambition. Whoever attempts such a task must (logically and reasonably) admit the debatability of his hypothesis, and all the poetry of all the poets, and all the reasoning they have mangled in meter, is insufficient to restore the apologist, in the estimation of candid judgment, to the position he must lose by such an admission. The nec- essary legitimate tendency of all apologetics, poetical or other, (if they are allowed to have any effect) is to arouse suspicion; and in cool practical reasoning minds, something more than poetry is necessary to convince the judgment. There is no definite philosophy, nothing but poetry, in the vindication; and while there are hideous blots on the poetry, it is in the main, one of the grandest, most sublime and beautiful poems in the English language. CHAPTER V. POETICAL PARASITISM. Metropolis of Seventeenth Century Literature — Dominated by a Pensioner of Royalty — Paid Panegyric — Loathsome character of Subjects Praised — Malevolent Satire of Those in Disfavor with Royalty — Catholicism Ridi- culed in the Absalom and Achitophel — The "Chief Justice's Western Campaign" — Protestantism Ridiculed in the "Hind and Panther" — Kings's Southeastern Campaign — Egotism of the Laureate — Cause of His Popu- larity. At the time of the Restoration there was between Covent Garden and Bow Street in London, a place called Will's Coffee- House, which was noted as a resort of the elite in politics and literature. Its habitues were classified in castes, grades, and de- grees, varying in consequential airs as well as literary authority- Politics embraced church affairs, and ecclesiastical polity was a matter of as much concern and as learned discussion as divine right, the coronal succession, or the relation of the several estates of the realm. It was the Hub of the literary universe, in the metropolis of civilization ; where wit learning and genius were supposed to be concentered, and where they cer- tainly were well represented. Here the Magnate swayed the sceptre as imperiously as his royal patron and prototype in the sphere of his dominion. "To bow to the Laureate and hear his opinion * * * was thought a privilege. A pinch from his snuff-box was an honor sufficient to turn the head of a young enthusiast." If talent could afford to aftllliate with candor this was cer- tainly the place where, above all others, they might reasonably have been expected to consort. The Autocrat of this domain might be expected to embody all that was excellent in letters, if not in philosophy. But the literary lick-spittle frisked about and fawned upon his literary Lord, with the same servility as that with which he in turn courted the favor of the Sovereign of a more substantial kingdom. At the time mentioned the realm of Letters was dominated by a phenomenal genius, whose guerdon was not only a support, but the wherewith to gratify POETICAL PARASITISM. IO3 an exquisite relish for princely dissipation. His stipend of two hundred pounds per annum was from the fund wrung by divine right from the toil of the millions, the hewers of wood and carriers of water. It was the price for which he sung the praises of the hereditary oppressors of a people, and he earned it by toadying to royalty in strains inspired by the quid pro quo, rather than by a sincere respect for the objects of his prodigal homage. This is apparent in several flicts, one of which was his change of fliith when political power passed from Protest- antism to Catholicism in 1685. Another one is the disgusting tlattery with which — for five hundred guineas — he sung the Countess whom he had never seen in such strains as these : — "A second Eve, but by no crime accurst, As beauteous, not as brittle as the first. Had she been first, still Paradise had been And death had found no entrance by her sin." In his Annus Mirabilis, predicting a golden era, and attribut- ing it to the energy, valor, and virtue, of as indolent, cowardly, and licentious a rake as was ever by fortuity of birth the scourge and reproach of a nation, he said: — "Then we upon our globe's last verge shall go, And view the ocean leaning on the sky; From thence our rolling neighbors we shall know, And on the lunar world securely pry. This 1 foretell from your auspicious care, Who great in search of God and nature grow, Who best your wise Creator's praise declare, Since best to praise His works is best to know." This search of God and nature, in which the King grew great, may have been going on when, in February 1685, some of his decent subjects repaired to Whitehall to pay him their respects, and found him surrounded with gamblers, and toying with courtezans whose lecheries were the disgrace of their sev- eral countries. It may have been when he was receiving a paramour by the back-stairway conducted thither and intro- duced into the royal bed-chamber by Chiffinch, the official pimp. Possibly it was when he was transforming a scrofu- lous quaker into a healthy and sound churchman, by laying on 104 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. the same hands that had dallied with the most notorious and libidinous strumpets that had ever profaned their sex. Per- haps it was when he procured some ruffians to mutilate the person of a country member, who. in discharge of his political duty had disapproved of the profligacy which squandered on favorites and concubines, the money wrung from his subjects by an oppressive tax, under color of providing for the safetv of the realm. At all events, the greatest genius of the age pre- dicts a senseless something in his Country's impending rela- tions with the man in the moon, because a prurient caricature on Kings grows great in search of God and nature. Adulation is erected into an art, and extravagance is com- monplace with the stipendiary wheedler. The Astrea Reddux. on the return of his sacred majestv in 1660. is so full of tlunk- eyism that the beauty of many of the most beautiful passages in poetry is obscured and rendered disgusting in the use that is made of them. It would certainly disgust a prince not infatu- ated with inordinate self-conceit. In the light of historical truth concerning the character it apotheosizes, one can have no respect for the integrity of the inspired parasite. He could not have been ignorant of the vices of his idol. No truly great and consciencious man would so eulogize a dissembling volup- tuary who had sanctioned the execution of obscure priests for performing the rites enjoined by their faith. In the Threnodia Augustalis we are shown how beautifully and majestically a monarch can die, but not how the one in question did die, although the bard says; — "The same assurance all his words did grace; The same majestic mildness held its place; Nor lost the monarch in his dying face.'' But history has his majesty's soul snatched from perdition at the eleventh hour, by the dexterous daring of his paramour, who "could not enter his room without giving scandal." She caused the French Ambassador to have a priest brought up the same back-stairway (to the royal bed-chamber) which she had so often climbed, but not on such an errand as that of the Portuguese ecclesiastic. Adulation of royalty was not the only point in which POETtCAl. PARASITISM. I05 the poet excelled. Virulent invective was another ready resource. Paid panegyric kept his soul and body together, but vilification immortalized him. Having long inveighed against fickleness in faith, in the post-meridan of his day he gave the lie to his long life, renounced the doctrine of the pa- trons of his former prosperity, and cringed to a new regime with more obsequiousness than to the first. Of the Rev. Sam- uel Johnson he says: "Let Hebron, nay let Hell produce a man So made for mischief as Ben-)ochanan. * "- -.r * Inspired by want was made a factious tool; They got a villain, and we lost a fool." This alleged villain and fool is not famed for truckling to pelf or power. Something had sustained him under the inflic- tion of three hundred and seventeen lashes at the tail of a cart from New Gate to Tyburn. It may have been character. He had earned the honor by urging the soldiery to defend — not the mass — the Bible. Magna Charta, and the Petition of Right. He had preferred his conscience and personal integrity to royal favor. His traducer however could portray his own apostasy in milder terms — in the contrite colors of conversion. "My thoughtless youth was winged with vain desires; My manhood, long misled by wandering tires, Followed false lights, and, when their glimpse was gone, My pride struck out new sparkles of its o'wn." The force of this compunction overtook the professional calumniator only after he had sinned and sneered away his thoughtless youth of more than half a century in the faith which he thenceforth (for ^200 per annum) denounced heretical. At the age of fifty years, and when he supposed his King was a Hebrew, he had allied thejebusites with the Devil. But his Patron on his death-bed had declared himself a Jebusite and the Successor was already an avowed one. Perhaps he had not the magnanimity to forgive and forget the insolent invective of the mercenary muse against thejebu- sites and the Devil, exhibited in the Absalom and Achitophel; subsequent events leave no other explanation of the sus-pension of his pension. lo6 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. The ancient and unscrupulous slave of royalty, who had lived so long by pandering to might and mammon, found him- self in a dilemma. The new regime was openly Jebusitic. Royal favor was the aliment to which his system was so ad- dicted that without it life were but a protracted fast, in de- fault of the annual ^200 a precarious subsistence was for a time eked out by catering to the foul frailties of the pit, and by the adulation of aristocracy. But the tlesh pots had to be recovered. Their new dispensers had lately been classed with the Devil in the bitterest terms of the maligner, whose vocabul- ary consisted mainly of opprobrium. Royal favor was still to be had, and at the old price; payable however in a different specie. The price was the manliness of the famishing bard ; the specie, was to give the lie to more than fifty years of his own life. To remove all doubt of genuineness in the purchase, he proposed to make good his late asseveration that renegadoes ne'er turn by halves. He ridiculed the faith in vindication of which, while he supposed his former patron adhered to it, he had immortalized himself in one of the greatest satires ever written. So far Papacy had trained with the Devil, and for the smiles and the ducats of the new potentate, he then proposed to train with Papacy. He forsook his former faith and declar- ed that, "Her faults and virtues lie so mixed that she, Nor wholly stands condemned nor wholly free." Having declared himself a Jebusite his pension was restored, the arrearages paid up, and he enlisted in the service of the Milk-White Hind, immortal and unchanged and so lately allied with the Devil. If there were no prior negotiations for the thirty pieces of silver the promptness of their payment indicates a due appreciation of the obligation of an implied contract. Judas Iscariot had the urbanity to betray with a kiss, and the sense of propriety to hang himself. We are not informed that he hounded the victim of his perfidy with contumely and insult. The high priest of English literature of the seventeenth century was of a different mould. He had already sung : — "For renegadoes, who ne'er turn by halves. Are bound in conscience to be double knaves.'' POETICAL PARASITISM. IO7 Had "He chose the apostate for his proper theme" he might, "With proper pains" have "made the picture true" "And from retlection took the rogue he drew." Discreetly bidding for the favor of the successor, on the death of his first patron, he exclaimed : — ''A warlike prince ascends the regal state. Heroes in Heaven's peculiar mould are cast, They and their poets are not formed in haste. In all the changes of his doubtful state, His truth like Heaven's, was kept inviolate. For him to promise is to make it fate." The brazen assurance in the proposition that heroes and their poets are not formed in haste is so difficult to distinguish from effrontery, as to suggest a more particular notice of the inordinate egotism which is only equalled by the extravagance of the flattery, and the vituperation of the censure. "To make quick way I'll leap o'er heavy blocks Shun rotten Uzza as 1 would the pox; And hasten Og and Doeg to rehearse, Two fools that crutch their feeble sense on verse ; Who, bf my muse, to all succeeding times Shall live in spite of their own dogg'rel rhymes." These lines occur in a satire in a part which is said to have been written by another. But the piece is said to have been corrected throughout by the bard himself, and an exquisite sense of his own importance is clearly discernible in the twenty-six consecutive lines, which assure us of the justice and mildness of his reproof, and that: — "With wonder late posterity shall dwell On Absalom and false Achitophel." It contains four distinct declarations that, "While Judah's throne and Zion's rock stand fast. The song of Asaph and the fame shall last." The egotism with which he alludes to himself, is only equalled in the contempt with which he consents to immortal- ize Og and Doeg. To incur the frown of the prince, entails io8 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. the Otherwise unprovoked ridicule, and insult of the profes- sional traducer. On as slight a provocation he goes to a ' greater opposite extreme in magnifying the merit of his master, who in the ordinary course of nature becomes a father. Language, and license are levied to their limit for strains in which to greet the auspicious prodigy. "Hail son of prayers by holy violence Dragged down from heaven; but long be banished thence And late to thy paternal skies retire; To mend our crimes whole ages would require. To change the inveterate habit of our sins, And fmish what thy god-like sire begins. * * * * Now view at home a second Constantine; (The former too was of the British line) Has not his healing balm your breaches closed Whose exile many sought, and few opposed ?'" This is pretty evenly divided between the god-like sire and the son of prayers. If poetic license were absolute immunity from the restraints of veracity and the obligation of good faith, there might be some excuse for but no justification of the im- moderate fustian. The god-like sire and warlike prince whose healing balm your breaches closed, and who, for him to prom- ise is to make it fate, had begged the pardon of a foreign am- • bassador for daring to convoke his own Parliament without the consent of a foreign King. His own country whose breaches he had closed refused him the sinews of war neces- sary to maintain the national honor abroad, under a just appre- hension that it would be used to render more odious and intol- erable the oppression at home. He received from the foreign King at one time more than a hundred thousand pounds with which to corrupt members of his own Parliament against his own country, and to the interest of the implacable enemy of his own people. He exalted to one of the highest positions in his government a sot, who was guilty of more judicial murder and barbarity than any ten men who had ever disgraced the ermine, the hero of the bloody assizes, whose name has become the synonym for every thing vile, coarse, and brutal in a tyrant; and rewarded him with preferment and distinction in exact POETICAL PARASITISM. lOq ratio with the enormity and frequency of his judicial butcheries. This favorite of the god-like sire had frequently sent popish priests to the gallows, with the grateful assurance that they should be cut down alive, and witness the burning of their own bowels, and he gained his prestige with this warlike prince by affecting a respect tor the same faith for the profes- sion of which he had already sent hundreds to their death. He browbeat juries into verdicts of guilty, and sentenced to the stake, the axe, and the halter more than three hundred victims on one circuit, and drove a thriving trade in pardons, receiving fifteen thousand pounds for the life of one man against whom not even a shadow of a case could be made. And the warlike prince and god-like sire jocularly dubbed this cyclone of terror and death his (]hief Justice's western campaign. When this beast with the blood of hundreds of his fellow crea- tures on his hands, slackened in the work of unparalleled bar- barity and judicial violence, he received a sharp reprimand from the god-like sire for his timidity ; and to retain favor he assured his patron that he should have no further occasion to censure him for such weaknesses as honor or humanity. There is a peculiarly grim humor in the appellation war- like prince when applied to a King who offered to violate obli- gations to which the faith of his country was pledged, and to join in political intrigue against a nation friendly and in alliance with his own, if a neighboring monarch would engage to pro- tect him against his own subjects. The phaidit becomes pas- quinade. Seen in the light of historical truth the Britannia Rediviva, is a more stinging satire ot the bard's Idol, than is the Absalom and Achitophel of the malcontents it so severely lampoons. The warlike prince probably was not so war- like when he was being hustled from a hoy in the Thames by Kentish fishermen and prevented fi'om escaping from his own subjects to his foreign master to whom he had persistently be- trayed his country. This southeastern campaign of his. was a very suitable sequel to the western campaign of his chief jus- tice, but it does not appear that he ever referred to it so facetiously. The character of the prince so extravagantly eulogized and 1 lO ETHICS OF LITERATURE. exhibited for the admiration of posterity, is seen to be one deserving of universal execration. He was a king and a cow- ard, a tyrant and a traitor, a monarch and a miscreant, who never hampered himself or prejudiced a project bv anything partaking of the nature of sincerity or good faith. His paid panegyrist worshipped him, looked up to and adored him, and, for a cash consideration, broke out in extravagant praise of the prince who abandoned his own subjects to anarchy and flung the last badge of governmental authority to the waves. By what right is the respect of an enlightened posterity claimed for the poem, the poet, or the prince ? Can a trace of sincerity be detected in any of them } When the motive oi the muse is so manifestly mercenary one cannot repress the disgust naturally provoked at the sight of fawning tlunkeyism. That pretty things have been prettily said is far from sufficient to entitle extravagant effusions of unmerited eulogy to a place in the classics. If there is a feature in any of it more prominent than its loathsome lickspittleism, it is the rancor of its insolence to whoever is mentioned from whom no favor was to be hoped. The elements of character which command the respect of dis- criminating men. are courage, integrity, sincerity, consistency, and charity. Has the sneering sycophant left a line in which there lurks even a suspicion of any of these ? Should a world gape at the grandeur of a mind that has spent itself in cringing to authority and jeering indiscriminately at all opposition } Why should satire and eulogy be exempt from the obligations of veracity and moderation, more than any other style } At what period in its history did the Milk-White Hind so conduct itself as to justify the asseveration that: — "Of these a slaughtered army lay in blood, Extended o'er the Caledonian Wood, Their native walk; icbose vocjI blood arose And cn'i'd for pardon on their perjured foes." Was it when the defender of the fiiith sent Jeffries with the olive branch into the western counties just after the battle of Sedgemoor } Was it when in violation of a safe conduct Huss and Jerome were burned at the stake t Was it when the infant born of a woman in torture was thrown back into the tlames POETICAL PARASITISM, I I I (in Guernsey) to perish with its heretical mother ? Was it when Philpot, Ferrar, Ridley, Latimer, Hunter, Haukes. and numerous others of both sexes were burned alive for the sake of their convictions ? A memorialist of this bard in speaking of his satire has said: "There must be an appearance of candor on the part of the poet, and just so much merit allowed, even to the object of the censure, as to make the picture natural." This candor and allowance of merit are perhaps manifested in the Medal in an allusion to the Earl of Shaftsburv : — "Bartering his vena! wit for sums of gold He casts himself into the saint-like mould; Groaned, sighed, and prayed, while godliness was gain, The loudest bagpipe in the squeaking train.'' The bard himself says: "The true end of satire is the amendment of vice by correction. And he who writes hon- estly is no more an enemy to the offender, than the physician to the patient, when he prescribes harsh remedies to an invet- erate disease." The word honestly would seem to render the proposition quite irrelevant. Upon a careful examination, a trace of honesty is not discernible in anything from his pen. Apothegms, truisms, proverbs, ever so correct in themselves, may delude the unwary when deftly applied in some connec- tions ; but when properly scrutinized they may also disclose the deeper culpability of the fraud so affecting the air of sin- cerity. Whatever may be the true end of satire, its end seems here to have been to indulge and countenance vice. If pal- pable exaggeration and falsification are vices, if flattering and encouraging personal vanity are vices, if inculcating contempt, rancor, and cruelty, and palliating the foulest of crimes are vices, then the proposition is irrelevant. It is seldom we observe a character without some redeem- ing trait; some feature to mitigate the offensiveness of its more revolting features. If the tree is to be judged by its fruit the discovery of the mitigating feature in this instance will be difficult. Aside from the falsification, flattery, and rancor, which characterize the works under consideration, there is probably but one other mark rising to the dignity of a trait oi 112 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. character to be detected in them. That is the self-conceit of their author. No reallv great man ever boasted of his own greatness. Such a boast is a sure sign of contemptible.egotism and littleness. When one page of his writings contains four distinct and positive declarations that his song and fi^me shall forever last, there is an exhibition of the very vanity that ought to insure their early oblivion. It is true he has said manv good things, and has well said many bad things: and that he was a master of meter, and a ruler in rhapsody, and rhyme. His reign in the domain of seventeenth century literature was a tit counterpart to the reign of his two royal patrons in their realm. History has branded them all with duplicity, with cringing and contemptible servil- ity, with cowardice and cruelty, in short with infamy. Why he or they should be canonized in politics or literature is a problem, the solution of which may be left to some one ambi- tious to account for the caprices of fashion. That such an author has a conspicuous place in the history of literature, or in the memory of a learned posterity, is not a very gratifying reflection on the state of literary ethics. While merit should be emulated and duly honored, its just reward does not require a premium on servility, aspersion, or mendac- ity. The question occurs; to what may we attribute the vic- ious taste that not only tolerates but approves of such a loath- some libel on letters ? How is it engendered, or corrupted to such a state as to relish such rot ? It argues a deplorable dearth of manliness, that such slush is a recognized component in accepted belles-lettres: and no one could advisedly say that the author's character gave it a credential. The statement of the cause of its popularity, would scarcely be taken as a compliment to the prevailing integrity and independence. The poet was a protege of the prince. In his court at the coffee house he was surrounded with a mis- cellaneous company, who eagerly evinced their devotion to the prince by obsequious admiration of the paid panegyrist. They vied with each other for his casual attentions, and caught at his sayings with an avidity, bora of a superstitious reverence POETICAL PARASITISM. 1 13 (if not for the man) for the consideration in which he appeared to be held by royalty. His position not only enabled him to prescribe the tone and attributes of the lore of the age, but his influence perniciously affected the habit of thought, and wrought mind to see nothing but excellence in anything from his pen. That the mind capable of some of the thought which he has given the world, should also be capable of the vilification upon the one hand, and the sickening adulation on the other, that disfigures his self-erected monument and mars his memory; and that the world should read with rapture and applaud to the echo, are not very gratifying reflections to those who would look into antiquity with reverence, or at the present in pride. CHAPTER VI. PHILOSOPHIC FUME, MYSTICISM, ECCENTRICITY, AND EGOTISM. Literary Heterogeneity — Books Should go Upon Their Own Merit, and Not Upon the Prestige of Their Writers — -Style Best Suited to Writer May be Disgusting to the Reader — Folly of Philosophizing in Terms of Buffoonery — Sentiment of the Sartor Resartus Deserves Decent Expression — Author Impersonated in Teufelsdrockh — Art of Printing Disbands Armies and Cashiers Senates — Defiance of Politico-Religious Oppression — Cringing to Royalty — Indifference to the Marvellous — Coarse Vulgarity of Allusion — Instance of Similarity to Kant's Viev^ of the Cosmology — Nature Not an Aggregate But a Whole — Persistence of Force — Smithy-fire — Matter Rxists Spiritually, to Body forth Ideas — Infancy of Teufelsdrockh — Unprecedented Egotism of Philosopher — Stricture on European Educational System — Great Ability Squandered in Eccentricity and Buffoonery — The French Revolu- tion, tyf History — Norse Jarl — ^John Sterling — Mother Goose in Men's Clothes— Spring Poetry — Witty Criticism of English Biography — Undue Importance Given a Mountebank — Important Historical Fact and Deep Philosophj Rendered Ridiculous. To review an omnivorous Reviewer, Essayist, Philosopher. Novelist, Biographer, and Historian; one whose writings run riot through ten thousand pages of rhapsodical rant, may be an ungrateful, but it cannot be a trifling undertaking. When an Author becomes a iiterarv Nomad, recognizes no boundary to any department of the Realm, assumes to know it all and attempts to tell it all, on all subjects, he may so bury the good he knows beneath his heterogeneous Pile, that the labor of ex- tracting the treasure from the trash is an unprofitable one. The versatilitv and volubility of a Pedant, as exempiitled in the range of his writings, have deterred some having use for their time, from a minute review of even the philosophy of the pon- derous mass. As in certain lines of judicatorv. there are some leading cases regarded as exponents of a particular doctrine; so in liter- ature, no matter how wide a range the writer may take, there may be found among his works, some particular product which may properly pass for the key-note of this philosophy. if he has one, and of the writer, whether he has a philosophy or not. PHILOSOPHIC FUME. MYSTICISM, ECCENTRICITY AND EGOTISM. II 5 In such a case a judicious selection from his literary cornu- copia, and a candid consideration of the specimens chosen, mav result in a just estimate of the literary worth of such writer. Perhaps one of the most grievous, certainly one of the most prevalent, faults with the authors is they will write. It should be an inviolable rule in the Hthics of Literature, that no one should demand the attention of the reading world unless the matter he may have foi' exhibition is worthy its attention; and it is of no less importance that the matter be exhibited, if at all, upon its own merit; and not upon the prestige of its author, nor with the display of gorgeous tinsel in which it is too fre- quently embellished, — to distortion. Eccentricity, dogmatism, and vastidity are no symptoms of genius, and while they may sometimes unfortunately obscure merit, at other times and more unfortunately disguise demerit; they generally imply an overweening estimate of the importance of their employer. One who has inflicted upon the world ten thousand pages, nearly every one of which evinces deep learning, and many of which proclaim the profound philosophy of their writer, might have contributed materially and beneficially to Literature, had his egotism and wordiness been kept in due subordination; had he kept himself less prominent in his productions ; and curbed them within reasonable limits. In one of his essays the writer, some of whose works are now to be considered, declared that "the grand point is to have a meaning, a genuine, deep, and noble one; the proper form for embodying this, the form best suited to the subject and to the author will gather round it almost of its own accord." One objection to this is the assertion that the form attend- ing the utterances of sincerity will be best suited to their author, leaving their reader to the chance of edification according as the form may or may not distort the truth ; render it clear or unintelligible; engage or weary and disgust the reader. The form best suited to the subject and the author, the subject be- ing in the authors hands, is necessarily the form best suited to the author; and this may so obscure the genuine deep and noble meaning with which his soul is aflame, as to puzzle Il6 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. the reader to determine whether the author sports with grand- iloquence in the expression of platitude, or dresses sublimity in homespun. There are many methods of showing great learning, without exhibiting very profound wisdom ; and wis- dom itself may be so smothered in learning, allusion and meta- phor as to render a volume of jargon (in thought as well as language) as worthless as it mav be unintelligible; when, by the use of an appropriate medium, the author's meaning might have been expressed in an instructive and agreeable form. While there may be no insuperable objection to the use of allegory, the Sartor Resartus is in name and form, a striking instance of its abuse; and the fact, which is undeniable, that its author had a meaning, only intensities the disgust with which one turns from the nauseating rant in which a weighty and a serious subject is philosophically discussed, and at the same time grotesquely caricatured. Though Locke was probably unwarranted in saying, the manner of doing is of more conse- quence than the thing done; he was warranted in common observation in saying upon that depends the satisfaction or dis- gust with which it is received, it is a mistake to attempt to philosophize in unphilosophical terms; and caricature in word- painting is a fouler blemish than when done in the correlative art. When one in the use of such style, shows a capacity for something meritorious in an appropriate one, he cancels the claim of indifference to the fate of his own fame, and could scarcely be considered sincere in admonishing the reader to keep his mind "directed rather to the Book itself than to the Editor of the Book." The doctrine is not nearly so conspicu- ous as its writer. The philosophy of the rant under consideration is one of the deepest of its time; and if it were not nick-named and travestied beyond the bounds of pardonable buffoonery ; were its doctrine taught in tranquil and temperate terms it would be difficult to estimate the obligation of Literature to its author. The description of the last banquet with Teufelsdrockh. (Devil's- dirt) the mythical genius of the rhapsody, where he, amid vol- umes of vile tobacco smoke and the fumes of Dutch beer, "with low soul stirring tone, and the look truly of an angel. PHILOSOI-'HIC KUME, MYSTICISM. ECCENTRICITY AND EGOTISM. II7 though whether of a white or of a black one might be dubious, proposed this toast: The cause of the poor in Heaven's name and "s."" is an allegorical declaration of a philosophic ruffian or buffoon, that in the struggle where Wealth and Power oppress Poverty and Weakness, his sympathy is with the oppressed. The approval with which the toast is received is a pregnant hint that the wise are of the same benevolent bent. The sentiment is commendable — deserves better than to be mangled in such brutality as espousing the cause of the poor in the name of Heaven and Hell; or representing the mythical exponent of the idea as probably an angel of darkness ; and when it is observed that over the shoulders of the myth, the Philosopher is inordinately complimenting himself, one is so disgusted with the egotism as to be scarcely able to concede to the doctrine its actual merit, in a frenzy of fulsome flattery he says. "And vet, thou brave Teufelsdrockh, who could tell what lurked in thee ? Under those thick locks of thine, so long and lank, overlapping roofwise the gravest face we ever in this world saw, there dwelt a most busy brain. * * * The secrets of man's life were laid open to thee; thou sawest into the mvsteries of the Universe farther than another; thou hadst in petto thv remarkable Volume on Clothes. Nay, was there not in that clear logically-founded Transcendentalism of thine; still more in thy meek, silent, deep seated Sanscullotism, com- bined with true princely Courtesv of inward nature, the visible rudiments of such speculation .^ ^ni great men are too often unknown, or worse, misknown. " A philosopher assuming to philosophize in the roaring blackguardism of the piece in question, deserves the former fate, to be unknown; and if, as in the case in hand, he really is a Philosopher, he may expect the latter, to be misknown. Why should the mvthical genius of the philosophy be called Devil's-dirt } What was the remarkable volume on Clothes and who was the wonderfully profound and gifted Teufels- drockh, other than the (Tailor patched) Sartor Resartus and its author ? And why should he obliquely call attention to him- Il8 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. self by directing it ostensibly to the philosophy which deserves better than to be slimed over in such rot ? Few have had a deeper and truer insight into the nature of things in general; or held sounder opinions upon most of the debatable propositions in Moral Science; or could more forcibly declare a doctrine; or more vividly present and illustrate an idea, a condition, or situation, than this blatant and eccentric egotist. There is nothing in the Hnglish language superior to his night scene in a city, covering about two pages in the chapter called Reminiscences. It is a terribly true representa- tion of the subject, done with a pencil of living tlame. dipped, in all the colors in all their vividness that dim and darken and brighten human existence. But it is blemished by the disgust- ing daubs of his irrepressible egotism and caricature. In the chapter lampooned with the appellation "The World in Clothes," the Pedant with his ventriloquous goose-quill has the mythical Magian of Weisnichtwo descanting upon Appear- ances, Evolution, and Progress; thundering into the ears of the Then and its Future volumes of the voice of incoherent wisdom in less than one page; and in terms which burn their impress indelibly into the understanding and memory. That "the first spiritual want of a barbarous man is Decoration." is somewhat enigimatical. if it has any significance. But that "the heaven- inspired melodious Singer; loftiest Serene-Highness; nay. thy own amber-locked snow-and-rose-bloom Maiden. * * * has descended like thyself, from that same hair-mantled, flint- hurling. Aboriginal Anthropophagus;" that "not Mankind only, but all that Mankind does or beholds, is in continual growth, re-genesis and self-perfecting vitality;' that "he who first shortened the labor of copyists by device of Moveable Types was disbanding hired Armies, and cashiering most Kings and Senates, and creating a whole new Democratic world;" that "the first ground handful of Nitre, Sulphur, and Charcoal drove Monk Sch wart's pestle through the ceiling" and the last will "Achieve the final undisputed prostration of Force under Thought, of Animal courage under Spiritual;" and that the descendent of the Man-eating Monster "collects apparently by lot, six hundred and fifty-eight miscellaneous individuals, and PHILOSOPHIC FUME, MYSTICISM, ECCENTRICITY AND EGOTISM. I 1 9 says to them, make this nation toil for us, bleed for us, hunger "and sorrow, and sin for us, and they do it;" are a motley medley of masterpieces. They are a true pen-picture of pro- gress and evolution, blurred all over with the self-conceit and eccentricity of the artist. Such a depiction of the transition from "the maker of the first wooden-dibble," to the masterly manipulator of mechanics and men, is at once a profound ser- mon in philosophv. and an unparalleled panorama of human history. To the discerning reader the last quoted passage por- trays the entire British politico-economic and social system. One chapter under the silly sobriquet of "Aprons" appears to be devoted to some branch of the general subject, but the allusion is so vague and rambling that it is difficult to decide what philosophical significance it has. The opening paragraph, pregnant with notable historical fact, suggests a formerly pre- vailing spirit of integrity and defiance of politico-religious op- pression, in the mention of the woman "who threatened Sovereign Majesty that she would catch her husband's head in her Apron, rather than he should lie and be a bishop." That the Landgravine, who on her husband's death was by his brother deprived of her regal state, and afterwards, being offer- ed restitution refused it and obstinately devoted her life to religious charity, is hopelessly unintelligible in the connection in which it is found ; unless it is intended as an instance of the Pedants familiaritv with the data of history. It makes no point and points no moral in the general philosophy. Another chapter, entitled "Miscellaneous-Historical," is sufficiently miscellaneous to deserve that part of its title and render it unintelligible as anything, unless it is a sneer at a fan- tastic fashion in personal attire. The allusion by the way of comparison to the fancy of Teniers the Flemish painter, and Callot the French engraver, may be relevant illustrations of the implied extravagance of such fiishion. A contemptible cring- ing to royalty is well illustrated in the mention of Raleigh spreading his mantle to protect the feet of the (virgin ?) Queen from the mud, but its import as localized was probably never known to any one but its author. The mention of the trifles which fortuitously immortalize some men, smacks somewhat I20 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. of a rebuke to such an ambition as that which seems to have inspired it. Taken synthetically, the chapter is an object les- son in the art of humility; but its precepts are to be gleaned from a mass of garish verbiage which seems to have served its main purpose if it relieved its writer, unless it was chiefly intended to weary and disgust its reader. In the next chapter, entitled 'The World Out of Clothes," there mav be found buried at the usual depth, beneath the usually rotten rubbish, some verv significant suggestions, inter- rogatively and assertivelv put. For instance, "which of your Philosophical Systems is other than a dream-theorem; a net- quotient, contldentlv given out. where divisor and dividend are both unknown } * * * have not all nations conceived their God as Omnipresent and Eternal; as existing in a univer- sal Here, an everlasting Now .- * * * thus let but a rising of the Sun, let but a creation of the World happen twice, and it ceases to be marvellous, to be noteworthy, or noticeable." Then follows a chapter called '"Adamitism," and after it one called "Pure Reason," in both of which the purpose seems to be to show that the great difference among men, as to the part thev plav and the attention they receive in the world, is due to circumstances more than to themselves. The argument is svmbolized in the farcical fantasy of Clothes. In the former chapter he inquires, "Was not every soul, or rather every body, of these Guardians of our Liberties, naked, or nearly so last night; a forked Radish with head fan- tastically carved.^" In the latter he inquires, "Are we Opos- sums; have we natural pouches like the Kangaroo ':' Or how, without clothes, could we possess the master-organ, soul's seat, and true pineal-gland of the body social; I mean a purse.^" And in the latter chapter, as though culling the works of the alleged Teufelsdrockh he says, "Much also we shall omit about confusion of Ranks, and Joan and My Lady, and how it would be everywhere Hail-fellow well met, and Chaos were come again; all which to any one that has once fairly pictured out the grand mother-idea, Society in a state of Nakedness, will spontaneously suggest itself." And such rot as this has place in what passes current as a philosophical dissertation on the PHILOSOPHIC FUMK. MYSTICISM, ECCENTRICITY AND EGOTISM. 12 1 State of the Social Fabric: and a writer of a history of English Literature, assuming the airs of a Critic, ranks the genius of this raving Riddler with that of such men as Macaulay; and even gives the advantage in the comparison to the Literary Lunatic, of whom it is doubtful if he knew what he meant, or that he meant anything intelligible to himself or to anv one else, by what he has said in several of the above extracts. The sickening fustian is followed by some immoderate self- praise, administered obliquely and as an encomium of the alleged Teufelsdrockh, and leads to the expression of some ideas deserving a better garb than that in which they are arrayed. He says, "The grand unparalleled pecularity of Teufelsdrockh is, that with all this Decendentalism. he combines a Transcen- dentalism, no less superlative: whereby if on the one hand he degrades man below most animals, except those jacketed Gouda Cows, he, on the other, exalts him beyond the visible Heavens, almost to an equality with the Gods, 'To the eye of vulgar Logic," says he, 'what is man .^ An omnivorous Biped that wears Breeches. To the eye of Pure Reason what is he ? A soul, a spirit, and divine Apparition.' "' Then follow some paragraphs, the sentiment of which if put in moderate terms would redeem the chapter, and tend to entitle it to its appellation of Pure Reason : but which as usual is bespattered with the mire and the muck of a mind which employs the most outlandish vehicle of expression when its thought is the most sublime and philosophical. The real sentiment pervading those paragraphs, put in rational and tem- perate terms would be one of the most stinging rebukes ever administered to the upstart audacity of Skepticism, it prob- ably was Kant's inspiration when he wrote. "The World around us opens before "our view so magnificent a spectacle of order,' variety, beauty, and conformity to ends, that whether we pursue our observations into the infinity of space in the one direction, or into its illimitable division in the other, whether we regard the world in its greatest or in its least manifesta- tions, * * * even after we have attained to the highest sum- mit of knowledge which our weak minds can reach, we find that language in the presence of wonders so inconceivable has 122 ETHICS OF IJTKRATURE. lost its force, and number its power to reckon, nay, evert thought fails to conceive adequately, and our conception of the vv'hole dissolves into astonishment without the power of ex- pression — all the more eloquent that it is dumb." But there is nothing besides the sentiment, certainly noth- ing in the expression, to indicate that the Philosopher obtain- ed his cue from the Critique. It is indeed deplorable that such sentiment and philosophy as those paragraphs contain should be made ridiculous and disgusting by the use of such loathsome similizing as, "Doth not thy cow calve, doth not thy bull gen- der ?" In all the phenomena in Nature a Philosopher might have found something for illustration, more in keeping with the gravity of his subject; something that would be at least decent on paper. But he seems to think there is in Literature a principle, analogous to poetic license, by which he might with impunity be coarse, vulgar, and vile, provided he were sufficiently arrogant and learned. The eleventh chapter, entitled "Prospective" and covering eight pages, closes the first book of this remarkable Work. In the second paragraph the Philosopher surpasses himself in the art with which he blends self-praise (put as usual, obliquely and with a string to it) with a proposition suggesting, if not containing, more sound philosophy than many noted authors have embodied in their life-work. "Our Professor, like other Mystics, whether delirious or inspired, gives an Editor enough to do. Hver higher and dizzier are the heights he leads us to; more piercing, all-comprehending, all-confounding are his views and glances. For example, this of Nature being not an ^.Aggregate, but a Whole. " The doctrine of the Persistence of Force is anticipated and graphically, though of course grotesquely, epitomized or rather foreshadowed in some of the fragments of fustian with which this chapter abounds. For example, " * * * Thou fool, that smithv-fire was (primarily) kindled at the Sun; is ^Qd by air that circulates from before Noah's Deluge, from beyond the Dogstar; therein with iron-force, and coal-force, and the far stranger Force of Man. are cunning infinities and battles and mil.OSOPHIC FUME, MYSTICISM, ECCENTRICITY AND EGOTISM. 12^ victories of Force brouij;ht about; it is a little ganglion, or nervous center, in the great vital system of Immensity." Here the Philosopher seems to lose his equipoise and relapse into his characteristic fume about Clothes: and the rage of the residue of the chapter, in which freciuent flashes indicate mo- mentary recurrences of lucid intervals, is. that "All visible things are Emblems." and that "Matter exists only spiritually, and to represent some Idea, and body it forih." And he bodies forth the burden of the balance of the book in the mazy meta- phor that " * * * in this one pregnant subject of Clothes, rightly understood, is included all that men have thought, dreamed, done and been; the whole External Universe and what it holds is but Clothing; and the essence of all Science lies in the Philosophy of Clothes." ■ It were tedious and unprofitable to trace the tangled and mangled thread of this chapter further; but if its actual doc- trine — what it is, as the Philosopher says at bottom, were put m any other form than his despicable drivel, its purport might be a matter of intelligent speculation. If its title, '•Prospec- tive," signifies anything relating to its import, perhaps the reader may deduce its signillcation from such inquiries as, "Had Teufelsdrockh also a father and a mother.'' did he, at one time, wear drivel-bibs, and live on spoon-meat.''" or this. " * * * what is Man himself, and his whole terrestrial life, but an Emblem; a Clothing or visible Garment for that divine Me of his, cast hither like a light particle, down from Heaven ?" or this " * * * examine Language; what, if you except some few primitive elements (of natural sound) what is it all but Metaphors, recognized as such, or no longer recognized ; still fluid and florid or now solid-grown and colorless ?" The second book, opens with a chapter called Genesis, which seems to be intended as a revision of a biography of the Mythical German Philosopher, and is essentially romantic throughout; some scenes reflecting credit on the Artist; and some morals are pungently pointed. There is a pretty picture of the evening of the life, in domestic felicity, of an ancient battle-scarred Prussian Grenadier; blended with a depiction, of more questionable merit, of a mysterious stranger suddenly 124 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. yet ceremoniouslv entering his lowly cot, depositing a silk cov- ered package, hastily admonishing the dumb-founded inmates to care for it, and as suddenly and forever disappearing. Of course the package contained the ■•red-infant" Teufelsdrockh, and the perplexity of the aged pair soon subsided into a reso- lution to nurse the involuntary intruder "though with spoon- meat, into whiteness, and if possible into manhood."' Later the Mvth bewails the wickedness and of course the woe of the unnatural parent who thus cast him upon the charity of the aged strangers, saying, "Beset by Misfortune thou doubtless hast been, or indeed by the worst figure of Misfortune, by Misconduct. Often have 1 fancied how in thy hard life-battle, thou wert shot at. and slung at. wounded, hand-fettered, ham- strung, brow-beaten and bedeviled, by the Time-spirit in thy- self and others, till the good soul first given thee was seared into grim rage." The infant's development was marvelous. •'Infinite was his progress; thus in some fifteen months he could perform the miracle ol" speech ! To breed a fresh Soul, is it not like brood- ing a fresh (celestial) Egg; wherein as yet all is formless; powerless; yet by degrees organic elements and fibers shoot through the watery albumen; and out of vague Sensation, grows Thought, grows Fantasy and Force, and we have Philosophies. Dynasties, nay Poetries, and Religions I" The next chapter entitled "Idyllic." purports to sketch the village life of the youthful Philosopher, and teaches some ex- cellent moral lessons, disfigured of course by the ranting style of expression. For instance, "Obedience is our universal duty and destiny; wherein whoso will not bend must break; too early and too thoroughly we cannot be trained to know that Would, in this world of ours, is as mere zero to Should, and for the most part as the smallest of fractions to Shall. " But in the next chapter, entitled "Pedagogy," there is an exhibition of the most stupendous self-conceit ever put upon paper, the Philosopher himself affecting amazement at the un- fathomable depth of the enigmatical philosophy of Clothes and the transcendent genius of its Founder or exponent, character- izing him ''A dangerous difficult temper for the modern Eu- PHILOSOPHIC FUME, MYSTICISM. ECCENTRICITY AND EGOTISM. I2S ropean." Then comes a protracted growl (of thirteen pages) at the Educational and Economic Systems of the Mother of Civ- ilization ; and even the Continental Universities are likened to square enclosures in Crim Tartary with eleven hundred strip- lings turned loose in them, and "certain persons under the title of Professors, being stationed at the gates to declare aloud that it was a University, and exact considerable admission fees." After showing when and how Gullibilitv may be utiliz- ed, he personifies the English Growing Hopes in one Heir Toiighgitt v^'\\o "had a fair talent, unspeakablv ill-cultivated: and. bating his total ignorance, for he knew nothing except Boxing and a little Grammar, showed less of that aristocratic impassivity, and silent furv. than for most part belongs to Travellers of his nation." And the chapter closes in a severely satirical allusion to "the now obsolete sentiment of Friendship." A translator of the writings of Antoninus has said. "When a man writes anything, we may fairlv try to find out all that his words must mean, even it the result is that they mean what he did not mean; and if v*'e find this contradiction, it is not our fault, but his misfortune." He might appropriately have added, "and the misfortune of the victims whose curiosity prompts them to read the rot. whose patience is taxed in its perusal, whose expectations are disappointed in the result, and whose sense of propriety is shocked at the sight of a philoso- pher making a tool of himself:" and if he were translating the Sartor Resartus. there is reason to believe he would have done so. Who is most deeply concerned in the results of a literary undertaking ? If it is merely the means of the writer's subsis- tence, or of his acquisition of wealth or fame, his failure may be his misfortune: but if it purports to be a bona fide effort to promote intellectual progress, his failure, where he might have succeeded, is his fault, and the reader's misfortune. Any one containing within himself in so eminent a degree as Carlyle the elements of success, "sins against the eternal cause" when he disfigures his philosophic dissertations in the turgid tumult of a self-conceited crank. If he was unwilling to conform to the established usage of the realm, or even repub- lic, and would only pay in his tithe with his trash, a dignified 126 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. self-respect on the part of the literary public would require it to decline his offering. That he was a profound philosopher is apparent in the above extracts from his Sartor Resartus. In one of his Latter Day Pamphlets, entitled Jesuitism, he says, "Do vou ask why misery abounds among us ? I bid you look into the notion we have formed for ourselves of this Universe, and of our duties and destinies there. If it is a true notion, we shall sti'enuously reduce it to practice. — for who dare or can contradict his fii/tl/. whatever it may be. in the Hternal Fact that is around him ? — and thereby blessings and success will attend us in said Universe, or Eternal Fact we live amidst : of that surely there is no doubt. All I'evelations and intima- tions, heavenly and earthly, assure us of that: only a Philoso- phy of Tiedlam could throw a doubt upon that. Blessings and success, most sui'ely. if our notion of this Universe, and our battle jn it be a true one; not curses and futilities, except it be not true. For battle, in any case. 1 think we shall not want: harsh wounds, and the heat of the day we shall have to stand : but it will be a noble godlike and human battle, not an ignoble devil-like and brutal one: and our wounds, and sore toils (what we in our impatience call miseries), will themselves be blessed to us." To those doubting the possibility oi'a Philosophy of ''Bedlam, 1 would suggest a perusal of the epileptic delirium which he has taken the piecaution to label "The French Revolution, c-^ History." While every page (and there are eight hundred and eighty-two of them) is pi"egnant with historical lact, or with such allusion thereto as shows the writer's familiarity, there- with, yet without the label no one would suspect that the pre- paration was intended as a History. Not an average of one entire expression in it in ten. either of fact or doctrine is' put in the temperate terms of a philosopher or historian: and yet it is full of both philosophy and history. It may be considered that in order to justify the attention given him. I made the assertion that he had "a meaning, a genuine, deep and noble one:" and that assertion may be con- sidered as devolving on me the duty of stating what that mean- ing was. To my mind it was duplex: he had two meanings: PHILOSOPHIC FUME. MYSTICISM. ECCENTRICITY AND EGOTISM. 1 27 one dominant, the other servient; the latter being the "genuine deep and noble one;" subservient to the former which was not so noble; the gratilication of an irrepressible ambition to be seen heard and felt in Literature — which he has realized. To the question, what has he done for Literature } it may be answered, Mountains of paper, floods of Ink. and vast phys- ical force have been expended in placing the massive monu- ment to his mvsticism and buffoonery before a wondering world. E.xtracts from some of the leading pei"iodicals of his time indicate that he had set the Literati all agog by the dark and dubious allusion of his burlesc^ue and rant; and that he had them seriously guessing as to the actuality of some of his ab- surdly improvised characters and incidents. On some occas- ions when he seems to have tried to be rational and serious, and to regulate his stvle of expression, the irrepressible would break out in another form, distorting the direct statement of historical fact. Speaking of an ancient Norse Jarl. King Sverrir. he says. ■"His Birkebeins and he had certainly a talent for campaigning which has hardly ever been equalled. They fought like devils against any odds of number; and befoi'e bat- tle they have been known to march six days together without food, except, perhaps, the inner bark of tiees. and in such clothing and shoeing as mere birch-bark." If such a teat were physically possible, he is entitled to some credit for the moder- ation with which he adinits that it ""has hardly ever been equalled." And for the purpose of invoking confidence in the statement, he need not have conceded the propriety of disting- uishing between the inner and outer bark of the trees. If the Jarl had had an army of Dr. Tanners, he might have made such a march in a desert country; and perhaps he could have sub- sisted them on such food as the inner (or outer) barPi of the Dogs of War. In one of his biographies, covering two hundred and fifty seven pages, the world is apprised of the fact that the father of his hero owned a cow which "had calved." and that "young John, still in petticoats, was permitted to go, holding by his father's hand, and look at the newly arrived calf; a mystery which he surveyed with open intent eyes, and the silent exer- i:j8 ethics of literature. cise of all the scientific faculties he had ; verv strange mystery indeed, this new arrival, and fresh denizen of our Universe; 'Wull't eat a bodv .''' said John in his first practical Scotch, inquiring into the tendencies this mystery might have to fall upon a little fellow and consume him as provision." Prosy old Mother Goose in men's clothes. This biography which is composed la.pgely of letters from the hero to the bio- grapher, contains one in which the hero informs the biographer that his ■ "little Charlotte desires me to tell you that she has new shoes for her Doll, which she will show you when you come."" In another the hero very elaborately hesitates between encom- ium and stricture on the Sartor Resartus: or rather, indulges immoderat-ely in both; but closes with the courteous confession that he had not done justice to his "own sense of the genius and moral energy of the book."' If the reader wonders who was the hero of the biography he will still wonder after hearing his name. From the biog- raphy however it may be learned that his name was John Sterling, that he was prepared for. but losing his health tailed in the ministry; that he moved about for a time seeking health, and writing letters to his friends, including his biogra- pher: that he also wrote Spring Poetry, the following among other specimens of which his biographer has. unfortunately for his Hero"s fame, given to the World. "But Anne, at last her mute devotions o"er, Perceived the fact she had forgot before Of her too shocking nudity; and shame Flushed from her heart o'er all the snowy frame; And struck from top to toe with burning dread, She blew the light out and escaped to bed." How refreshing it seems to turn from such sickening slime to some of the finest flashes of humor, blended with serio- comic yet boiia-fide criticism of the then prevalent rage for biography; which are the more ironical that they appear in some of his own biographical notices. In a hybrid or cross between an obituary notice and a biographical sketch of one Jean Paul Frederick Richter he says. "Dr. Johnson, it is said, when he first heard of Boswell's intention to write a life of him. PHILOSOPHIC FUME, MYSTICISM, ECCENTRICITY AND EGOTISM. 1 29 announced with decision enough, that, if he thought Boswell really meant to ivn'te his life, he would prevent it by taking Boswell's. That great authors should actually employ this preventive against bad biographies is a thing we would by no means recommend; but the truth is, that, as rich as we are in biography, a well zvriiten life is aliuosf as rare as a icell spent life." * * * "Except by name, Jean Paul Frederick Richter is little known outside of Germany. The only thing connected with him, we think, that has reached this country, is his say- ing, imported by Madam DeStael, and thankfully pocketed by most newspaper critics: 'Providence has given to the French the empire of the land, to the English that of the sea, to the Germans that of the — air.' Of this last element, indeed, his own genius might easily seem to have been a denizen." An adventurer called Count Cagliostro, whose stock in trade was effrontery and tact, and whose occupation was imposture, is immortalized in seventy pages of the most vituperative, ex- travagant, and enigmatical denunciation conceivable. The biographer narrates his birth as follows, " * * * Know, then, that in the year 1743, in the citv of Palermo, in Sicily, the family of Signor Pietro Balsamo a shop-keeper, were exhilar- ated by the birth of a Boy. Such occurrences have now become so frequent that miraculous as they are, they occasion little astonishment: — old Balsamo for a space, indeed, laid down his ell-wands and unjust balances: but for the rest, met the event with equanimity. Of the possetings, junketings, gossipings, and other ceremonial rejoicings, transacted accord- ing to the custom of the country, for welcome to a new-comer, not the faintest tradition has survived; enough, that the small new-comer, hitherto a mere ethnic or heathen, is in a few days made a Christian of, or as we vulgarly say, christened; by the name of Guiseppe. A fat. red. globular kind of fellow, not under nine pounds avoirdupoise, the bold imagination can figure him to be ; if not proofs, there are indications that suffi- ciently betoken as much. Of his teething and swaddling ad- ventures, of his scaldings. squallings, pukings, and purgings, the strictest search into history can discover nothing; not so 130 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. much as the epoch when he passed out of long clothes stands noted in the Fasti of Sicily." The course of the New-comer is then traced in terms egreg- iously enigmatical, and embellished with frequent "Flights" of fantastic philosophising on all sorts of subjects, not even remotely germain to the biography, until he is found in the heat of life's battle. "Beppo then, like a Noah's raven, is out upon that watery waste of dissolute, beduped, distracted Eu- ropean Life, to see if there is any carrion there. One unguided little raven, in the wide-weltering Mother of Dead-Dogs: — will he not come to harm ; will he not be snapped up. drowned, starved, and washed to the Devil there } No fear of him — for a time. His eye (or scientific judgment) it is true, as yet takes in only a small section of it; but then his scent (instinct of genius) is prodigious; several endowments, forgery and others, he has unfolded into talents: the two sources of all quack-talent, Cunning and Impudence are his in richest measure." It seems strange that one assuming the airs and proportions of a High Priest in Literature, a connoisseur in Criticism, a modeller or moulder of taste, a historian of the French Revolu- tion, of Cromwell and Frederick the Great, could have the time or the inclination to trace a vagrant Qtiack through a half cen- tury of cozenage and adventure and hide and seek with the Police all over Europe. But the consequence of his subject, its importance to the reader, as well as the manner in which he dealt with it, seemed to be of little concern to him. It was his business to zt'r//^, and the World's duty to read: and having once obtained recognition he kept the floor until he had shown Mankind how one with the rarest gifts, with almost super- human energy, with an apparently inexhaustible fund of histor- ical fiict, with inflnite versatility, with the deepest and sound- est philosophical acumen, with absolute mastery of language, and marvelous copiousness of thought, could squander the whole in a disgusting serio-comic exhibition of himself. The facts he has perpetuated are abundant and importani, the philosophy he has promulgated is deep and true: but both are to be extracted from a mazy mass of unique obscurity, enigma and riddle; the key to which in most instances is the PHILOSOPHIC FUME, MYSTICISM, ECCENTRICITY AND EGOTISM. I31 fantastic self-assertion of its writer. To the question what has he done for Literature ? it may be fairly answered, he has taken his place and asserted himself therein, in attitude and ejacula- tion, at once the contortionist and clown of a Literary Circus. But I have too far and too tediously traced this traducer and encomiast of human character. Further detail were unprofit- able, and, I need not add. unpalatable. But 1 think I have shown that all 1 have claimed for him as a really profound phil- osopher is but a moderate estimate of him in that respect, and that all that 1 have denounced him for in the way of eccentric egotism and blatant black-guardism is but a charitable char- acterization of him in that respect. In the same strain he pur- sues the same vein throughout the great mass of his collossal works, and seems to be in the Zenith of his glory when "body- ing forth" some idea superbly sublime, in terms grotesquely ridiculous. CHAPTER VII. ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY IN MODERN ATTIRE. Translators Should Translate and not Paraphrase — Historians Should Narrate and not Philosophize — Equivalence of Thought Psychologically Possible — Equivalence of Expression Philologically Possible— Literary Economy — • Recriminations of Translators and Editors — Modern Reader's Assurance that He gets the Meaning of the Ancient Writer — Provisional Validity of Lucretius' Philosophy — Economy of Nature in Time and Space^ — Religion and Superstition — Parallel Between Invocations of Lucretius and Milton — Disagreement Among Translators — Improvised Data of Philcsophy — Its Weakness for Parallels — Primordial Atom Impossible — Annihilation and Diminution Impossible — Self-Propulsion Impossible — Nature Only Another Name for the Almighty — Freedom Attributed to Irregularity of Voluntary Atomical Motion — Mediaeval Papacy's Attempt to Enslave Thought — Mor- tality and Immortality Conclusively Proved by Reasoning of Lucretius and Socrates — Insuperable Antinomy — Disgusting Allusions of Philosophers — Literary Toadyism. A translator of an ancient poetical philosophy, in some remarks on the life and poem of his author, has attributed the error in biography and history to the fact that "the learned con- jecture, and the less learned aftlrm ;" the result of which would seem to be that the unlearned might forever remain so. He might with sufficient propriety have included translation in the same stricture, as his own declarations in the same remarks sufficiently disclose its errors and their causes. In history, biography, and translation, the object ought to be a faithful and accurate rendition of the truth; the true office of the historian is to narrate the facts relating to his subject; and that of the translator is to translate a writing from one language into another. If the historian, instead of or in addition to narrating the facts, makes what he may deem learned deductions therefrom, or elaborately philosophizes thereon, he may display his own genius to a world, which might be more edified in knowing what was and is, that in knowing what a profuse pedant may think of it. If the translator, instead of rendering what is said in one language into its actual equivalent in another, para- phrases, amplifies, or abridges it, he may show his reader ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY IN MODERN ATTIRE. 1^5 what he in his scholastic wisdom thinks his author ought to have said, without letting him very deeply into the secret of what he actually has said. It is within the principles of psychology that there may be actual equivalence of thought among all the cultured races; it is also within the principles of philology that any thought ex- pressible in any language may be rendered in terms exactly equivalent in the language of any cukured race. Language is commensurate with thought, and universally adequate to its office ; and its office is not, as some cynic has said, to conceal or disguise thought. In most translations in vogue there are, in the introductory parts and in marginal notes, many severe strictures upon the rendition in other translations of what are said to be important parts of the original. The great majority of persons desiring to know the content of writings in languages different from their mother tongue, cannot afford to acquire the use of such language; and to obtain such knowledge they must rely upon the translators, who frequently, and with contemptible pedan- try, transcribe lengthy and perhaps important passages of the alleged original text into the alleged translation. It cannot be very gratifying to the reader to find the trans- lators disputing about the correctness of each other's renditions of what they call important parts of the original, and accusing each other of paraphrasing, amplifying, abridging, misunder- standing and corrupting it. Such behavior will convince him that there is dishonesty or inefficiency about it somewhere, and without a knowledge of the original, in which case a transla- tion were superfluous, he becomes a disappointed and disgust- ed spectator of a reproachful wrangle among the learned, with no means of knowing, and with but little reason to believe, that he gets the actual equivalent of the original from any of them. Judging from the past this may be destined to be a mere fruitless complaint, but no candid reader will say it is an unjust one. Very few have taken the pains, or contented themselves, to make methodical statements or records of the facts forming the body of their alleged histories, and if they are candid in their 134 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. mutual criticisms still fewer have given the actual equivalent of the writings they have assumed to translate. Those sufticiently learned and who have assumed the duties of either office gen- erally write as though they imagine they were too learned, and instead of furnishing their readers with the actual substance and leaving them to their own inferences, they generally make of their work an occasion to display their own genius and philo- sophical acumen, and relegate the historical fact they record, and the actual product of the author they translate to a com- parative obscurity. Many histories cover one and the same period, relate to the same general subjects, and record identical facts which come from the same sources. If thev agree in substance, some are neces- sarily superfluous and could well be dispensed with; if they disagree, some are worse than superfluous and should not have been written. Agreement here relates to narration of sub- stantive fact — all in excess of which is neither biography nor history, but is the learned superfluity which goes current as philosophy. If it is justifiable as philosophy, and is merely to be based on and illustrated bv the historical fact chronicled in the same connection, then the philosophy is the real occasion for so augmenting the volume of literature, and no more fact should be chronicled in such connection than will suffice for the necessary data and illustration : and the work should sail under its true colors, it should avow itself a philosophy and not a history. In vindication of this complaint as to the rendition by some persons of the writings of others, 1 quote from one of the trans- lators of Lucretius. After naming numerous editions of the alleged original text he says, "But all other editions were thrown into the shade by those of Lambinus of which the first appeared in 1^63, the second in 156s. and the third in i S70. Of all editors and expounders of Lucretius, Lambinus still de- serves to stand at the head. He is accused by Wakefield of iiiconsulta temerilas, injudicious rashness, in intruding his own conjectures into the text; and by Eichstadt, of having had too high an opinion of his own judgment and ability; but though there may be some grounds for such accusations, his character ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY IN MODERN ATTIRE. I35 as an editor is still of the highest order. He brought to his work a powerful mind, and, knowing that Lucretius always intended to write sense, he took upon himself to put sense, perhaps at times too arbitrarily, into verses which had been left meaningless by transcribers." So an edtior whose character as such is of the highest order has put sense into passages of the original text, "perhaps at times too arbitrarily." If the transcribers had left such pass- ages meaningless, it may have been because they found them so. They may have been too conscientious to put sense into them. As transcribers it was their office to make literal copies of the original, and the law presumes they did their duty; and but for the strictures above mentioned, and the vicarious con- fession above quoted; it would presume that the editors and translators have done theirs. The translator in question mentions sixteen editions of the alleged original, all of which he says are in many respects cor- rupted and unfaithful; and eight English translations, and says they are all more or less inaccurate, and accuses one translator of inserting five of his own lines between the tenth and six- teenth lines of the first book. If his charges are true, some of the matter he has translated may not be that of his alleged author; how much, is a matter of mere conjecture. In such case the reader can have but little assurance that he gets a single thought of Lucretius' from the alleged literal translation following such damaging declarations. As above indicated, he must take it on trust from the translator, who in turn appears to have taken it on distrust from the transcribers and editors ; and to have accused every editor and all other translators of inaccuracy, even the editor whose character as such is of the highest order. In some instances there may be good reason to believe that the modern reader of the ancient classic gets substantially the content of the original, among the best of which reasons may be the evidence inherent in the body of the composition itself. Perhaps the most convincing evidence of the validity of the claim that the writings of the Bible are of divine inspiration, is that to be found in the writings themselves. While it might 1^6 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. SO far as we know be possible that they are not, and probable that in successive transcriptions editions and translations they may have lost some of their pristine puritv. and mav have been more or less corrupted, yet taken entire, they are so far out of the usual course of the literature of any age, that it is more dif- ficult to believe they are a mere human invention, than to be- lieve they are what they purport to be. Notwithstanding the great number of persons who appear to have written them, the ages intervening, the vastlv different stages or degrees of civilization prevailing, and different circumstances under which they are said to have been written, they might, so far as their own characteristics as a literary composition are concerned, all be attributed to one and the same pen. So it may be with some of the philosophy of the sages of antiquity, but not conspicu- ously so with that now attributed to the poet Lucretius. It bears no internal indication that it was not composed by manv, but rather the contrary. The qualitative, relative, or provisional validitv of some of his reasoning, is made more problematical than it otherwise need be, by a dispute among his translators as to the proper rendition of the word religione. Some contend that it is relig- ion, others that it is superstition. The provisional validitv of his reasoning is that with reference to the data then available, the stage of science prevalent when he wrote. By subsequent investigation many of his ideas are exploded, which, as to the data then available may have been rationally legitimate deduc- tions. When he objected to universal centripetal gravitation, and insisted on absolute vacuums, the earth had not been cir- cumnavigated, and the telescope had not explored our part of the sidereal system and located its center in the Sun. But apart from such considerations, and on his own hypo- theses as to the data then available, the validity of his reason- ing is in some measure to be estimated according as he meant either religion or superstition by the term Religione] his philos- ophy appearing to have been written to overthrow whichever it was he meant. His translator says, " * * * neither Epic- urus nor Lucretius attacked the belief in the gods, and in pun- ishment after death, as a Superstition, but as a Religion. It is ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY IN MODERN ATTIRE. I )'] a Superstition to us, but it was a religion to men of those days." And he insists that by the term Religioiie, Lucretius meant religion, and that he did not believe in divine intervention in human affairs; but he names four other translators who he says all "concur in rendering this word by Superstition." If that which may be a superstition to one may be a religion to an- other, it can have no invariable validitv of character itself, but must be to this one and that one just whatever their respective mental moulds may make of it. Otherwise the difference be- tween religion and superstition is unintelligible, or rather we cannot intelligibly conceive an actual ditference in kind between them. So it will appear that the provisional validity of the reason- ing in the philosophy of one who is said to be one of the great- est philosophers of antiquity, depends in some measure upon his meaning by the use of one word, about which there is among the learned an irreconcilable dispute, and among both learned and unlearned, little if any certainty that he used it at all; his greatest editor having taken "upon himself to put sense, perhaps at times too arbitrarily into verses which had been left meaningless by transcribers." No reasoning can be valid, on any supposable hypothesis, which attempts to account for Nature or any of its phenomena otherwise than as the manifestation of a Power (call it divine or otherwise) which is hopelessly and forever beyond the com- prehension of the human mind. Modern metaphvsic manifests this, or the whole system is worse than idle. If we know any- thing of nature, we know that nothing therein of which we can conceive is entirely without purpose. That some of the purposes of some of its phenomena may not appear to us to be good, may be due to our inability to discern them, and even if some of them are known to be essentiallv evil, they are still the purposes of the existence of the matter or phenomena in nature manifesting them. We know that time and space are, and that they are tor some purpose, that they comprehend all phenomena of which we can conceive, whereby one of their purposes is known, and known to be so far fulfilled. We know that there is no such 138 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. thing as absolute waste, destruction, or annihilation of any thing oC which we can conceive, tangible or intangible, cor- poreal or incorporeal, within the economic system of nature; at least that the mind cannot conceive such absolute waste, de- struction, or annihilation. We know that all tangible phe- nomena of which we can conceive as being, can occupy only so small a portion of space that the proportion of their volume as we can conceive it, to that of the immensity of space, is so small that no comparative relation or proportion between them or in their extent can be imagined. We know then that there is an inconceivably vast extent of space unoccupied by any phenomena of which we can conceive; at least that the mind cannot conceive of matter and its phenomena as occupying all Space, nor, comparativelv speaking, anv considerable portion of it. From what we know of the economy ol' nature, we have no right to assume that the apparently unoccupied portion of the extent of space is really unoccupied and without a purpose. What occupies or pervades it, and what is its purpose ? is it not occupied and pervaded by the Ubiquitous Spirit of its di- vine Architect, the Originator of the purpose everywhere mani- fest in all we know of in nature ? And does He not occupy and pervade it to execute such purpose, and such other in- scrutable will as He mav have ? Reasoning from what we know, must we not answer in the afhrmative .'' Does not such a belief lie at the very base of any possibly true religion ? If so, and if Lucretius used the term 1{eIii{ione in the sense of religion as now understood, the reasoning in his philosophy (as trans- lated by Watson) is necessarily fallacious even on his own hypothesis, considering the data reasoned from and the end reasoned to; while if he meant superstition and superstition is essentially different from religion, some part of it may have been valid, as relative to the data available in his time. When it is remembered that he wrote more than nineteen hundred years ago, when polytheistic image worship was the religion of State, the learned consulted the haruspices and sibylline leaves, and the most important affairs turned upon the omens ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY IN MODERN ATTIRE, 1^9 of entrails and tlights of birds, the wisdom of some of his pos- tulates and deductions (if they are his) is truly wonderful. Assuming, as I believe some parts of the philosophy justify me in doing, that bv the term Religione. if he used it. Lucretius meant superstition in a sense essentially different from religion, his purpose appears to have been to emancipate the Roman mind from a base thralldom to that superstition, and thereby promote rather than oppose what he may have regarded relig- ion. According to one of his translators he exclaims, "O wretched mortals— race perverse and blind. Through what dread dark, what perilous pursuits, Pass ye this round of being, know ye not Of all ye toil for nature Nothing asks, But for the body freedom from disease And sweet, unanxious quiet, for the mind ?" He seems to have been religious, as he understood religion. According to the literal translation in question he begins his philosophy by invoking "Bountiful Venus, mother of the race of Aeneas, delight of gods and men, who, beneath the gliding constellations of heaven, tillest the ship-bearing sea and the fruit-producing earth ; since by thy influence every kind of liv- ing creature is conceived, and springing forth hails the light of the sun. * * * Since thou alone dost govern all things in nature, neither does anything without thee spring into the ethereal realms of light, nor anything become gladsome or lovely; 1 desire thee to be my associate in this my song, which 1 am essaying to compose on the nature of things, for the in- struction of my friend Memmius, whom thou, O goddess, hast willed at all times to excel, graced with every gift." This recalls Milton's invocation of the " * * * heavenly muse, that on the secret top Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire That Shepherd who first taught the chosen seed in the beginning how the heavens and earth Rose out of chaos; or, if Zion hill Delight the more, and Siloa's brook that llowed Fast by the Oracle of God; I thence Invoke thy aid to my adventurous song, That with no middle flight intends to soar i40 EtHICS OF LITERATURE. Above the Aonian mount, while it pursues Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme. And chiefly thou, O Spirit, that dost prefer Before ail temples the upright heart and pure. Instruct me, for thou knowesl; thou from the first Was present, and, with mighty wings outspread, Dove-like sat'st brooding o'er the vast abyss And madst it pregnant." The main difference between the two invocations is in that of the heathen being full of animation, while that of the Chris- tian is full of stately gloom, the difference in the names by which thev knew their Deities being of but little consequence. But 1 am at a loss for some means of harmonizing the chief postulate of Lucretius' invocation, with that of the one hundred and tiftv-ninth line of the first book of his philosophy, that "all things are done without the agency of the gods." According to the invocation it would seem that very little if anything was done without the influence of a goddess; but it may have been at one of these points that some of his editors or translators have taken upon themselves to put sense into his verses. It is scarcely reasonable to suppose that one who in his time, place, and circumstances, was capable of some of the thought in the philosophy attributed to him, would run recklessly into such palpable contradiction; or would, in the beginning of such a work, invoke the association of that which, by the very invo- cation he must recognize as a divine Superintendent of terrestrial atfairs, unless he believed in such divine superintendence; and such belief would in most minds constitute a religion. It would be a religion to us, and we must suppose it was a religion to him. Unless he had such belief, and his philosophy (not that of those who have put sense into his verses) consistently har- monized with it, the philosophy was a self-destructive contra- diction. If he had such belief, and has not frequently stultified himself, he has been terribly mangled by the butchers through whose ingenuity and scholasticism his alleged philosophy has been preserved and transmitted to us. In view of the fact that those of the learned who have con- cerned themselves most with it cannot agree as to some points vital to its validity as a process of reasoning, and that some of ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY IN MODERN ATTIRE. I4I them have taken upon themselves to put sense, presumably their own, into his verses; and in view of the irreconcilable con- tradiction between various parts of it. the profound wisdom of some of the propositions and the grotesque absurdity of others, the student of what is called Lucretius' Philosophy as now ren- dered in the English language, can have no means of knowing whether he reads Lucretius, or him and a half dozen of his am- bitious and scholarly mutilators. There is probablv no more groundless proposition pro- pounded in any philosophy, than the attempt to attribute free- dom of action in animated nature to an alleged deviation from a straight line in atomical motion, which deviation is onlv claimed to be infinitesimal ; and is assumed because it cannot be proved to be absolutely direct on account of the im percept- ibility of the atoms and their motion, and contrary to the anal- ogy of the perceptible motion of perceptible matter. One translator has him sav " * * * if all motion is connected and dependent, and a new movement perpetually arises from a former one in a certain order, and. if the primary elements do not produce anv commencement of motion bv deviating from the straight line to break the laws of fate, so that cause mav not follow cause in infinite succession, whence comes this freedom of will to all animals in the world ? Whence 1 say is this freedom of action wrested from the fates, bv means of which we go wheresoever inclination leads each of us ? whence is it that we ourselves turn aside and alter our motions, not at any fixed part of space, but just as our mind has prompted us ? For doubtless, in such matters his own will gives a com- mencement of action to every man ; and hence motions are dif- fused throughout the limbs." "For Weight forbids that all effects be produced by strokes, and as if bv external force; but the circumstance that our mind itself is not influenced bv external necessity in performing every action, and is not, as if under subjection, compelled only to bear and suffer, this cir- cumstance the slight declination of the primordial atoms causes though it takes place neither in any determinate part of space, nor at any determinate time." Another translator puts the proposition in the first of these 142 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. two quotations thus, "Whence is our liberty of action ? Ask of the atoms themselves; if their motion be invariably direct, there arises from this motion a chain of fate and necessity; if there be collision, (supposing collision to take place with per- fectly direct motion) there arises from it the same necessity. To declension from the right line onlv, therefoie, can liberty of action be attributable." Another renders it thus, "Had all one motion uniform, the new The anterior copying, if throughout Primordial seeds declined not, rousing hence Fresh springs of action, potent to subvert The bonds of fate, and break the rigid chain Of cause on cause eternal, — whence, resolve, Flows through the world this freedom of the mind ? This power to act, though fate the deed forbid. Urged by the will alone? The freeborn mind Acts, or forbears, spontaneous; these the will, Doubtless, alone determines, and, at once, Flies the fleet motion through the assenting frame." That the data is improvised upon the tlimsv foundation of mere absence of disproof is apparent. And the absurdity of the theory of deviation is manifest when it is "acknowledged that atoms decline a little from the straight course, though it need not be admitted that they decline more than the least possible space; lest we should seem to imagine oblique motions, and truth should refute the supposition. For this we see to be obvious and manifest, that heavy bodies, as far as depends on themselves, cannot, when thev fall from above, advance obli- quely; a fact which you yourself may see. But who is there that can see that atoms do not all turn themselves, even in the least, from the straight direction of their course r" If they should •"tui'n themselves even in the least from the straight direction of their course.'' their motion would certainly be so far oblique, "and truth should refute the supposition." If primordial atoms are universally inanimate, if their animation only results from their combination, they cannot "all turn themselves even in the least from the straight direction of their course." If they are inanimate, and are impelled by an extran- eous lorce, so far as they are themselves concerned their motion ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY IN MODERN ATTIRE. 1 43 is a necessity, and the direction of their motion is as much a necessity as the motion itself. And so far as human cognition or valid reasoning is concerned, force and necessity may reach their goal as well by a devious as by a direct course. Perhaps one of the worst drawbacks from philosophy is its weakness for parallels, in its eagerness to discover which it resorts to all sorts of visionarv and absurd assumptions. To suppose anv relation or at^lnitv between mind and primor- dial atoms of inanimate matter requires a severe sti'ain of mind; and without such relation or affinity, any supposable direction of the motion of such atoms, however impelled, cannot be con- ceived to have any possible effect or influence on the action or condition of mind, so far as freedom is concerned. Another illustration is that by which the difference in their sizes, and the greater penetrative powers of some atoms is proved: >• * * * light passes through horn, but water is re- pelled bv it. Why ? unless the atoms of light are less than those of which the genial liquid of water consists." Another translatoi' puts it metrically thus. "Light the clear glass pervades, while Ivmph recoils; Whtnce springs this difference, but that subtler seeds Rear the bright sunbeam than the fountain form ?" II, instead of horn or glass felt were used in the illustration it would have yielded more moisture than light, notwithstand- ing the difference in size of the atoms and subtletv of the seeds. If primordial atoms are the e.xtreme points that "cer- tainly exist without parts, and consist of the least possible natural substance,"' of pure solidity, "endowed with an eternal, simple, and indissoluble existence from which nature allows nothing to be broken off." they are ultimate units, incapable of further division. It would seem then that there could not be such a difference in their sizes that some could while others could not pass thi'ough any particular substance. It is impos- sible to imagine a difference in the size of things, without im- agining some larger than others, which cannot be if all are the least possible and of pure solidity. One must also imagine the possibility of the larger being reduced by division to the size or the smaller. These are inexorable requirements of thought, or 144 ■ ETHICS OF LITERATURE.' which there can be no evasion, fi'om which there is no escape. That the "primordial atoms are therefore of pure solidity, which, composed of the smallest points, closely cohere," means nothing. It is a self-destructive proposition. There can be no cohesion in an absolute and indissoluble unit. There must be parts to cohere. If atoms are composed of the smallest points, which are without parts, thev are without magnitude, thev have no dimension, neither length, breadth, nor thickness; and can impart none to anything into the composition of which they enter. Neither can thev be of pure soliditv. because thev cannot be or constitute substance. Nothing but substance can be imagined to have soliditv. and substance must have dimen- sion, length, breadth, and thickness, which it cannot derive from atoms if they are mere points, without parts and without dimension. No indivisible dimension can be imagined, infini- tude is as palpable in the direction of the minute as in the di- rection of the vast, if the alleged atoms are the least possible points, without parts, thev are necessarily without dimension, and no number of them can constitute anv c^uantitv of sub- stance. It is not admissible to speak of quantity of such atoms, because without dimension quantitv cannot be imagined any more than we can imagine dimension without parts. The primordial atoms of Lucretius' philosophv. indissolu- ble and without parts, are nothing, thev never physically exist- ed. So his two chief postulates, that nothing is ever produced from nothing, and that all substance is produced from such atoms, are contradictory. He was requiring too much of his friend Memmius when he told him he "must be prevailed upon to acknowledge that there are bodies which exist having no parts, and consist of the least possible substance : and since they are so, since they are indivisible and undiminishable. you must also concede that they are eternal." The word least is ruinous to this proposition. Least cannot be predicated of any substance except with relation to its dimension in comparison with that of some other substance, and indivisible dimension cannot be imagined. The proposition however contains one legitimate supposition. If anything is undiminishable it must be eternal. If it is undiminishable it cannot be annihilated; it ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY IN MODERN ATTIRE. 1 45 cannot begin to go out of existence. But it need not be indi- visible to be eternal, for division cannot be imagined as dimin- ution. It is mere separation of parts, change of form, condi- tion, and place. Annihilation, which cannot be thought at all is more palp- ably unthinkable without supposing diminution, whether the annihilation is attempted to be thought as instantaneous, or as being ages in doing. Nothing can occur in time without occu- pying some portion of time; nothing can be supposed to occur at an absolute point between two several portions of time, and without itself occupying some portion of it, because time is continuous and is not interrupted in its course; and whatever occurs therein must have some duration, be some time in doing. It is said to be demonstrated that musical sounds may be pro- duced by vibrations numbering four thousand in a second of time; but they must each have some duration or the entire number would not occupy a full second. If it were impossible to demonstrate that there could be more than four thousand vibrations in a second of time it would not follow that more are impossible. If it were impossible to demonstrate that the alleged primordial atom was reducible in dimension, or divisi- ble, it would not follow that it was irreducible or indivisible. All that is argued in either case is the inability of the human capacity. Annihilation of substance, then, which cannot be thought at all, becomes, if possible, more palpably unthinkable without some duration, without occupying some time, during which diminution must be supposed to proceed, in order that at the end of which annihilation might be supposed to result, if it were supposable at all. Then whatever cannot be dimin- ished must be eternal, because it cannot be annihilated. But it does not follow that anything (substance) must be indivisible in order to be eternal. 1 think 1 have shown that no substance can be, or be supposed, indivisible, and hence divisibility and indvisibility are no factors in considering the question of the eternity of atoms of any substance. I said above that division cannot be imagined as diminu- tion, that it is mere separation of parts, change of form, condi- tion, and place. A moment's reflection, or one illustration is 146 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. sufficient to demonstrate this. As it proceeds in the physical world, simply the process of disintegration, it, and the coun- teracting and concurrent process of integration combine to form the tlnal process by which the indestructibility of tangible mat- ter, and hence the life of the Universe, is said to be maintained. Then so far from being inimical to the eternity of atoms or of substance generally, it is essential to it. If division meant di- minution, evaporation would soon terminate all aquatic exis- tence, and the mineral particles extracted by the growth of vegetation from the earth, and diffused by its consumption and decay in impalpable gases, would long since have sent its soil into nonentity. I doubt if any philosopher has ever more forcibly propound- ed the doctrine of persistence of force and eternal integration of matter, forming a plurality, or rather an infinity of sidereal sys- tems and habitable worlds ; but there are two serious objections to it, in that it ignores disintegration, and claims that the inan- imate atoms of matter are self-propellent. The difficulty of the absence of disintegration is supposed to be obviated by the supposition of an infinite number of atoms. But as 1 have above shown that the necessary result of his own doctrine is that his atoms cannot constitute substance in any quantity, the proposition is not aided by such supposition. An infinite number of nothings cannot constitute a something, and disin- tegration remains a necessity if integration is to continue. Be- sides both integration and disintegration are so palpably physi- cal facts, that it is not a little surprising that such a reasoner would attempt to account for the continuity of integration on the hypothesis of an inexhaustible number of atoms to draw from, even if he allowed them to have dimension so that they could by combination constitute quantity of substance. He is translated as saying, "But by no means can it be thought pro- bable, when space lies open in every quarter, and when semin- al atoms, of incomputable number and unfathomable sum, driven about by everlasting motion, fly through the void in infinite ways, that this one globe of earth, and this one heaven, have been alone produced ; and that these innumerable partic- les of matter do nothing beyond our sphere ; especially when ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY IN MODERN ATTIRE. I47 this world was made by merely natural causes, and the atoms of things, jostling about of their own accord in infinite modes, often brought together confusedly, ineffectually, and to no pur- pose, at length successfully coalesced ; — at least such of them as, thrown together suddenly, became in succession the begin- nings of great things, of the earth, the sea, the heaven, and the race of animals. For which reason it is irresistibly incumbent on you to admit, that there are other combinations of matter in other places, such as is this world, which the ether holds in its vast embrace." A few pages thereafter he speaks of disintegration as work- ing the ultimate destruction of matter, but not as a process con- current with and reciprocal to integration, which it must be, if the indestructibility of tangible matter is to be maintained. About three hundred years before his time another philoso- pher, in his last colloquy had said, "See now O Cebes that we have not agreed on these things improperly, as it appears to me; for if one class of things were not constantly given back in the place of another, revolving as it were, in a circle, but gen- eration were direct from one thing alone into its opposite, and did not turn round again to the other, or retrace its course, do you not know that all things would at length have the same form, be in the same state, and cease to be produced } * * * And if all things were mingled together, but never separated, that doctrine of Anaxagoras would soon be verified, 'all things •would be together.'" By how much is the present doctrine of evolution, the per- sistence of force, integration and reciprocal disintegration of matter in advance of that of twenty-two centuries ago } Ver- ily it seems "there is no new thing under the sun." Three hundred years after Socrates drank the hemlock, Lucretius is represented as reasoning that integration will perpetually pre- vail, forming numberless sidereal systems of habitable worlds, drawing the supply from an inexhaustible fund of primordial inanimate atoms, without parts or dimensions (nothings), in- animate yet self-propellent, and yet that disintegration will out- strip such process and eventually annihilate all matter. A motley medley of contradiction ; no less palpably a contradic- 148 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. tion to itself, than to his aphorism that "nature resolves each thing into its own constituent elements, and does not reduce anything to nothing." A metrical translator has him likening the life of the Uni- verse to that of an animal, saying, " » * * This the ceaseless course Of things ceated. But those chief, with speed, Waste into nought that boast a bulk immense; Since wider, here, the surface whence, each hour, Flies off the light effluvium, nor with ease Winds the fresh food through all the mighty mass. By ceaseless strife exhausted, and a store Asking far ampler than the store received. And from without by blows tumultuous urged; Blows that, resistless, from what e'er adjoins, Ply their full vigor till the victim yields. Thus shall the world's wide walls hereafter sink In boundless ruins; thus, though yet sustained By food appropriate, and preserved entire. For not forever will her powers digest The due recruit, nor Nature's hand supply." It would seem that if "nature resolves each thing into its own constituent elements," matter, on being disintegrated would be resolved back into the primordial atoms of things, which, if they were the same constituent elements would again jostle about of their own accord, if they had previously done so, and repeat the process with the same, or with analogous results. If they are the same constituent elements, they would probablv be of the same nature (as originally) and have the same power and propensity to jostle about, and re-combine instead of "waste into nought." How easily a link may be omitted, and how fatal the omis- sions to the force and effect of a chain of sand, or of— wind. Ridiculing the idea of the ubiquitv and omnipotence of any God, he is represented by a metrical translator as saying, " * * * 3I1 Nature shines at once, Free m her acts, no tryant to control, • Self-potent, and uninfluenced by the gods. For, O ye powers divine, whose tranquil lives Flow free from care, with ceaseless sunshine blest, — ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY IN MODERN ATTIRE. I49 Who the vast whole could guide, midst all your ranks ? Who grasp the reins that curb th' Entire of things? Turn the broad heavens, and pour, through countless worlds, Th' ethereal fire that feeds their vital throngs ? Felt every moment, felt in every place. Who from the low'ring clouds the lightening dart, And roll the clamorous thunder, olt in twain Rending the concave ? or, full deep retired, Who point in secret the mysterious shaft That, while the guilty triumphs, prostrates stern The fairest forms of innocence and worth ?" When duly considered the apparently troublesome inquiries assume "something more in the nature of a dissent from the generally accepted use of words, than a denial of the actuality of an omnipotent and omnipresent Power or Being. If "all Nature shines at once, free in her acts, no tyrant to control, self-potent," then Nature must be an omnipotent and omni- present Power or Being; and the dispute assumes proportions too vast to be justified on the ground of alleged impropriety in the use of a mere name. By "ye powers divine" he may have meant the members of the celestial cabinet, senate, or synod, the Micheal, Raphael, Abdiel, Uriel. Uzziel, etc., who figured so conspicuously in the armed armistice, and final capitulation of Eden to the powers of Darkness, then but recently expelled from "the precincts of light." If Nature is "self-potent and uninfluenced by the gods," it must be superior to them ; it must be the Supreme Being which some assume to know by the name of God, denominated by the philosopher Nature; and the identity is in no sense and to no extent dependent on the recognition of a parallel or equiva- lent for his suppositive subordinate gods. I believe he no- where positively ascribes an equivalent for their alleged tran- quility of life and unconcern in human affairs to Nature itself; but on the contrary rather holds that nature by immutable fiat orders and controls all existence whatever; which with the ex- ception of the unimportant difference in name, and the then prevalent recognition of the intermediaries called gods, is almost equivalent to the main tenet of the most dogmatic theology of to-day. 150 ETHICS OF LITERATURE, While doubting, or rather disputing, that there was any god among all their ranks who could "grasp the entire of things turn the broad heavens and pour through countless worlds the ethereal fire that feeds their vital throngs," he was recognizing that there was some Power which could and did do it, and he called that Power Nature, and held it to be "unin- fluenced by the gods." One can almost see here a parallel for the Protestant protest that the Almighty is not propitiated by the Catholic invocation of saints. But the last of the above quoted inquiries is not so easily disposed of. "For O ye powers divine. * * * * * * midst all your ranks Who point in secret the mysterious shaft That, while the guilty triumphs, prostrates stern The fairest forms of innocence and worth ?" It would seem that some Power does so point the myster- ious shaft, and that the philosopher was duly appreciative of the fact. His query is, who of the gods it is, implying that while it is done, it is not done by any of them, and that he at- tributes it to Nature, who shines at once free in her acts, self- potent and uninfluenced by the gods. But Nature as above shown is only his appellation for the Supreme Being or Power. The most troublesome part of this inquiry is its covert impu- tation of injustice and bad economy in the course of the Power, Being, or Nature which so prostrates the fairest forms of inno- cence and worth while guilt triumphs. Here the mind is forced to a halt. One assumes to know all about Nature, attributes an alleged freedom of human will and action to an imagined deviation from a direct line in the motion of alleged self-moving primordial atoms of inanimate matter. We might reasonably expect him to go on and explain the principle of justice and economy on which that same Nature prostrates the fairest forms of innocence and worth while guilt triumphs. The mind was never harassed with another so important and perplexing a problem. Why should innocence and worth suffer while guilt triumphs ? It is vastly more important to benighted mortals to know this than to be informed that their own freedom of action ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY IN MODERN ATTIRE. I5I is due to a fancied circuity of direction in tine motion of self- propelled primordial atoms of inanimate matter. The philosopher finds an alleged freedom of mind and action in animated nature, and attributes it to an alleged pro- miscuous voluntary motion in alleged primordial atoms of in- animate matter. Mankind could be no more than curious to know this. He finds an alleged system of economy and justice in Nature under which innocence and worth suffer while guilt triumphs, and attributes this to — nothing. Mankind could be no less than deeply concerned to know this. One of these propositions is no more inscrutable than the other, for both are absolutely so. The data from which to reason out one of them is as available as that from which to reason out the other, for there is absolutely none for either of them. And the reasoning by which the imagined solution of the first problem is reached, is shown to be in many instances fallacious, and in some in- stances self-destructive. While this may have been reason sufficient for not attempting a solution of the latter and more important problem, it clearly is not the reason it was not at- tempted. A careful examination of the whole work results in the disclosure of nothing indicating that the problem itself ever occurred to the philosopher. 1 doubt, however, that any one ever lived, having capacity sufficient to distinguish between good and ill, or to conceive of them, who has not wondered and longed to know the reason why innocence and worth should suffer while guilt triumphs. Fervid zealots and owl- wise optimists gravely declare that it is the holy will of an All- wise and benevolent Creator, who wisely and benevolently orders all things for the weal of the elect ; and then they tax their mental resources beyond endurance to show how and why the direst curses are the dearest blessings. And yet they affect a condescending pity for the wicked, idolatrous, benight- ed Brahmin who practically applies such doctrine by self- torture. The problem remains as hopelessly insolvable as ever, yet no more so than others upon which lives have been spent (wasted.?) in many instances in unintelligible speculation; but which are to-day as far from a solution as ever. The impor- 154 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. away at once. * * * It is produced together with the body, and grows up together with it, and both, as I have shown, overcome by age, decay in concert." The third argument is, that "the mind in disease of the body, often wanders distract- ed ; for it loses its faculties, and utters senseless words. * * * Wherefore you must necessarily admit that the mind is also dissolved, since the contagion of disease penetrates it. For pain and disease are each the fabricator of death. * * * The sixth argument is that "the mind may be healed, like a sick body, and wrought upon by means of medicine;" but the remainder of this one is not without its faults ; for instance that division and transposition are incompatible with continual ex- istence. The sixteenth argument is, " * * * if the nature of the soul exists imperishable, and is infused into men at their birth, why are we unable to remember the period of our exis- tence previously spent by us, nor retain any traces of past transactions? For if the power of mind is so exceedingly changed, that all remembrance of past things has departed from it, that change, as 1 think, is not far removed from death itself." Indeed there seems to be no possible confutation of such argument; unless it consists in a denial of the postulate that mind and soul are identical, are but two names for one thing. If mind is soul, and has its periods of helpless infancy, of buoy- ant youth, of robust manhood, of vigorous middle age, of senile decline ; may it not have begun with the physical birth ; may it not decline and end with the physical decay and death ? When and where hag it ever been known to exist apart from a physi- cal existence ? If it is at all affected by disease, may it not be utterly destroyed by it ? If it is at all affected by the decrepitude of old age, may it not be entirely exhausted by it ? If it is af- fected sympathetically by affections of the body, and is never known to exist apart from body, does not this imply a relation- ship too intimate and too gross, to be maintained by anything which could be conceived of as capable of a separate, independ- ent, ethereal existence ? I am not assuming to argue either the mortality or immor- tality of the soul. I am merely considering the validity of the ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY IN MODERN ATTIRE. I 55 reasoning in the philosophy attributed to Lucretius. As argu- ments the above quotations are simply unanswerable, if mind is soul, and if the immortality of the soul is a question, the solution of which is to be reached through any process of reason- ing, it would seem that Lucretius had almost put an end to the debate. If the result should be the overthrow of traditions, faiths, and hopes, which have appeared to bless while they have merely deluded, it may be due to the irrepressible tendencies of the very subject of the discussion ; whose prime propensity is to reason, even when admonished that reasoning is rebellion. One can have no more control of the trend of his thought than he could have of its determining whether it will act at all. The sum of the intelligence which prevails to-day is the result of the voluntary, unrestrained, independent thought of those who have dared to think; and no restraint, guidance, or control of it can be imposed or urged with even a simulation of justice. It may be enlightened, educated, cultured ; but any, the least check or curb proposed to it is an attack upon the manliness of the man, an inexcusable invasion of the inalienable inherit- ance of every individual ever born; and is no more justifiable in behalf of any one creed or faith than in behalf of any other. Medii^eval Papacy attempted its control, restraint, suppression, and extinction; and her anathemas resounding through all time remain an ever enduring reminder of her bigoted superstition and stupidity. If speculation leads to. or results in, the dem- olition of fanciful faiths and fabrics, the thinker is still by nature endowed (or cursed ?) with the facultv and propensity. But there seems to be no necessity for such result, if a faith and a religion prevail because it is actually demonstrated that they actually benefit their adherents, that they are an actual blessing to the race; the fact is no less a fact merely because the faith and religion are neither reasonable nor logical. Whatever is either reasonable or logical must be so merely from a human standpoint; and the human mind to be itself reasonable and logical, to be even candid with itself, must admit that there are some things which it can never comprehend; that there is no way by which it can determine and demonstrate whether the soul is mortal or immortal, and that any effort to do so, 1 s6 • ETHICS OF LITERATURE. even in argument ever so reasonable and logical, and over- whelmingly unanswerable, is itself utterly unreasonable and illogical. Soul may be substance, or it may not be substance ; it may be mortal, or it may not be mortal. The question may constantly obtrude upon each and every mind among all the millions of millions of minds existing and to exist, it is not and never will become a legitimate subject of any human reasoning or logic. A greater proportion of the great thinkers may now believe in the immortality of the soul than have ever before so believed; the question, so for as reasoning is concerned, is no less an open one. The great thinkers have ever been in the minority. Among a hundred minds of equal capacity, of similar constitu- tion and culture, ninety-nine may have reasoned themselves into a belief in the soul's immortality, while one with just as much (and no more) plausibility has reasoned itself into the be- lief in its mortality. But popularity is no factor in the account. So far as reasoning is concerned, plausibility is the test, and it is not affected by number. Popularity varies, and if it were a factor in the controversy, the soul might at some stages of be- lief be mortal while at others it is immortal. The question pre- sents an insuperable antinomv, which fact alone conclusively demonstrates that the question is not a legitimate subject of human reasoning. So that, as unanswerable as the above quoted arguments may be, they are merely. an unreasonable application, an illegit- imate use, of the most eminently reasonable arguments. Equally cogent and unanswerable is the reasoning of the great- est Greek for the immortality of the soul, in the following quo- tation from his last dialogue. Its data consist of no assump- tion, are absolutely valid in every respect, and as a process of reasoning it is in all respects strictly legitimate, and every in- ference is natural and necessary. "Observe then, said he, what I wish to prove. It is this — that it appears not only that these contraries do not admit each other, but even such things as are not contraries to each other, and yet always possess contraries, do not appear to admit that idea which is contrary to the idea that exist in themselves, but, ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY IN MODERN ATTIRE. IS? when it approaches, perish or depart. Shall we not allow that the number three would first perish, and sutfer anything what- ever, rather than endure, while it is still three, to become even.^ Most certainly, said Cebes. And yet, said he, the number two is not contrary to three. Surely not. Not only, then do ideas that are contrary never allow the approach of each other, but some other things also do not allow the approach of con- traries. You say very truly, he replied. Do you wish then, he said, that, if we are able, we shall define what these things iwe? Certainly. Would they not, then, Cebes, he said, be such things as, whatever they occupy, compel that thing not only to retain its own idea, but also that of something which is al- ways a contrary ? How do you mean ? As we just now said. For you know, surely, that whatever thing the idea of the three occupies must of necessity not only be three, but also odd ? Certainly. To such a thing then, we assert, that the idea con- trary to that form which constitutes this can never come. It cannot. But does the odd make it so ? Yes. And is the contrary to this the idea of even .^ Yes. The idea of even, then, will never come to the three ? No, surely. Three, then, has no part in even ? None whatever. The number three is uneven.^ Yes. What, therefore. 1 said should be defined — namely, what things they are which, though not contrary to some particular thing, yet do not admit of the contrary itself; as in the present instance the number three, though not contrary to the even, does not any the more admit it, for it always brings other par- ticulars. Consider, then, whether you would thus define, not only that a contrary does not admit a contrary, but also that which brings with it a contrary to that which it approaches will never admit the contrary to that which it brings with it. But call it to mind again, for it will not be useless to hear it often repeated. Five will not admit the idea of the even, nor ten, its double, that of the odd. This double, then though it is itself contrary to something else, yet will not admit the idea of the odd; nor will half as much again, nor other things of the kind, such as the half and the third part, admit the idea of the whole, if you follow me, and you agree with me it is so. I certainly agree with you, he said, and follow you. 158 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. "Tell me again, then, he said, from the beginning; and do not answer me in terms in which 1 put the question, but in different ones, imitating my example. For 1 say this because, besides that safe mode of answering which I mentioned at first, from what has now been said, I see another no less accurate one. For if you should ask me what that is which, if it be in the body, will cause it to be hot. 1 should not give you that safe but unlearned answer, that it is heat, but one more ele- gant, from what we have just now said, that it is fire; nor, if you should ask me what that is which, if it be in the body, will cause it to be diseased, should I say that it is disease, but fever; nor if you should ask me what that is which, if it be in num- ber, will cause it to be odd, should I say that it is unevenness, but unity; and so with other things. But consider whether you sufficiently understand what I mean. Perfectly so, he replied. Answer me, then, he said, what that is which, when it is in the body, the body will be alive. Soul, he replied. Is not this then, always the case ? How should it not be.^ said he. Does the soul, then, always bring life to whatever it occu- pies ? It does indeed, he replied. Whether, then, is there any thing contrary to life or not ? There is. he replied. What ? Death. The soul, then, will never admit the contrary of that which it brings with it, as has been already allowed ? Most •assuredly, replied Cebes. What, then? How do we denom- inate that which does not admit the idea of the even ? Un- even, he replied. And that which does not admit the just, nor the musical ? Unmusical, he said, and unjust. Be it so. But what do we call that which does not admit death ? Immortal, he replied. Therefore, does not the soul admit death ? No. Is the soul. then, immortal.^ Immortal." 1 said that "the question presents an insuperable antinomy, which fact alone conclusively demonstrates that the question is not a legitimate subject of human reasoning." 1 have now shown two examples, one from each of two diametrically op- posite arguments of the question, one conclusively establishes the soul's mortality, the other conclusively establishes its im- mortalitv. The data in both instances are unquestionable, the reasoning in both are strictly legitimate and absolutely unans- ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY IN MODERN ATTIRE. 1^9 werable. The result amply justifies the assertion that the ques- tion is not a legitimate subject of human reasoning. Still it is forever persistently presenting itself to every human mind; even those who claim they know the soul is immortal, are constant- ly fortifying themselves with arguments that it is so. The question is the bed-rock of all religion, and there is no possible solution of it. it can be met only by faith; egotists may sneer- ingly say, by credulity, by superstition. The difficulty is not to be obviated by any possible purifica- tion of the reason itself; at least by any purification of it by human agency or means. A criticism of the processes, specu- lations and deductions of the human reason, mav serve to vin- dicate some such processes, speculations and deductions that may be legitimate, and expose the fallacy of others which may be illegitimate; but they must relate to subjects within the pos- sible comprehension of the human mind. The capacity of the human mind cannot be amplified by any human agency, how- ever much the mind may be developed, cultured and skilled by such agency. It may be taught to philosophize and speculate and refine on all sorts of subjects, and may convince itself and others that it has finally reached ultimate truth ; but when it reaches ultimate truth so as to preclude the possibility of a di- rectly contrary conclusion of the same question being establish- ed by argument equally as legitimate as that by which it was established, it will be where its subject was of a physical, and not of a spiritual nature. The question which has been con- stantly discussed by the greatest of minds for many thousands of years, and is still as far as ever from being settled, is practi- cally beyond the possibility of settlement by human minds. If every person living believed in either the mortality or immor- tality of the soul, such belief might properly be called a univer- sal faith, but it could not be properly called a universal know- ledge. Indeed it could not be knowledge, nor could it contain any element of knowledge; and if it should be based on the results of any process of reasoning it would be groundless, be- cause the exact contrary could be established by reasoning equally as valid and unanswerable. I do not pretend to deny that Lucretius formulated and l6o ETHICS OF LITERATURE. wrote each and every proposition in the philosophy attributed to him; but I think 1 have shown that those of the learned by whom it has been passed down to us, and served up for us, have rendered the supposition extremely problematical. 1 shall now show that some of them have rendered it (the philosophy) exceedingly unsavory, it will not be necessary or even profit- able to trace each of the main tenets or lines of thought sever- ally to their necessary results, so I shall close with a brief sur- vey of the fourth book, which is preeminently the psychologi- cal part of the philosophy. One or two instances of its self-contradiction, and inconsis- tency with other parts of the work, may tend to justify the sus- picion already hinted, that the work is not even substantially the production of any one pen, but rather that of several pens. It will be remembered that in speaking of light he says, it consists of atoms which are much more minute than those of which "the genial liquid of water consists;" that they are so minute that they "pass through horn while water is repelled by it;"' that "Light the clear glass pervades, while lymph recoils." As in all other efforts at psychological elucidations, images are here important factors; and he supposes them to consist or to be composed of thin coats, or layers of the substance of the object of vision, flying off the outer part of the objects and be- ing impelled by an inherent force, with inexpressible velocity, and by coming in contact with the visual subject, producing images. He says, "But when objects which are bright have stood in the way, as, above all, a looking-glass, neither of these effects happens, for neither can images pass through it like a garment, nor be divided into parts before the smoothe surface has succeeded in securing its entireness." But on the very next page he says, " * * * they can easily penetrate any substance whatsoever, and, as it were. How through the inter- vening body of air. " It is somewhat difficult to believe that the same man who wrote the foregoing argument that the soul (mind) is mortal, also wrote the silly swash about images, from which the above is quoted; to say nothing of the obscenity and rot in which ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY IN MODERN ATTIRE. l6l some of the objects of vision (images) are disgustingly depicted in the latter part of the book. Speaking of this feature one translator says, "A serious and attentive reader of this truly learned, as well as poetical discourse, whether male or female, cannot possibly, 1 think, peruse it without the acquisition of some degree of useful knowledge; and even the medical pro- fessor himself cannot but be astonished at the copiousness of his research, and the accuracy that accompanies much of his reasoning." Another has said, "There is here no impurity of language, nothing that may not be mentioned with propriety. If anything shall appear objectionable, such appearance is to be attributed not to the fault of the poet, but to that of the reader." This may partake somewhat of the nature of a question of taste, but let us see one sample of that which does appear there; let us see if it is not impurity of language, and worse, of thought. "Yet pot forever do the softer sex Feign joys they feel not, as with close embrace Breast joined to breast, their paramours they clasp, And print the humid kisses on their lips. Oft from their hearts engage they, urged amain By mutual hopes to run the race of love. Thus nature prompts; by mutual hopes alone, By bliss assured, birds, beasts, and grazing herds, The task essay; nor would the female else E'er bear the burden of the vigorous male, By mutual joys propelled. Hast thou not seen, Hence tempted, how in mutual bonds they strive Worked oft to madness ? how the race canine Stain with their vagrant loves the public streets, Diversely dragging, and the chain obscene Tugging to loose, while yet each effort fails ? Toils they would ne'er essay if unassured Of mutual bliss, and cheated to the yoke." So this vivid vision of "the female bearing the burden of the vigorous male,'" of the canine copulation in the street and the struggle to disconnect, contains "no impropriety of lang- uage, nothing that may not be mentioned with propriety." The mere appearance of impropriety is attributable to the fault of the reader. If this is true, there could be but little if any 1 62 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. occasion for such a vigorous defense of it. If there is really no impropriety in it, it is strange that the translators ever thought to defend it. They had better have been engaged in an effort to cultivate the taste, the sense of propriety of the reader up to that aesthetical pitch, at which he might duly appreciate the delectable morsel. As the majority of them were Doctors of Divinity and Masters of Arts they were probably equal to the undertaking, and if so, they are at least in that particular de- linquent in the discharge of their duty. Is it not remarkable how a D. D. or a L. L. D. or an M. A. or an F. R. S. can make things go in Literature ? How they make us relish the rankest rot, the vilest venom, and the absurdest asininity ? Lucretius may have regaled the fastidious aesthetes of Roman Letters of the Julian epoch with such putresence, or he may not have done so. If his translators have "put 5^«5^, perhaps at times too arbitrarily, into verses which had been left mean- ingless by transcribers," it is reasonably certain that no bones have been broken in an effort to put decency into the verses last quoted. They may have had more sense than decency, but a reading posterity need not groan under the burden of its obligation to them for their suggestions of propriety in the use of language, nor for their formula for purity of thought. Philo- sophic speculation is somewhat short of data for its illustrations when it is compelled to resort to such things as the carnal coition of dogs. One of the erudite translators says, "1 have observed that my author addresses himself only to high and cultivated intel- lect. The remark applies here with peculiar force. Lucretius was too much a man of sense, too well acquainted with human feelings, not to know that the higher order of minds are little liable to seduction from the gross exposures of nature; and only to such minds is his poem addressed." While minds worthy of the name may not be seduced by such exhibitions, it would seem to be a singular sort of "high and cultivated intellect," that would not be disgusted by them. Yet such seems to be the sentiment of some of the learnedly arrogant priests, who assume to fix the standard of excellence and prescribe the intellectual pabulum of a reading world. So I ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY IN MODERN ATTIRE. 1 63 long as a truckling canaille is subservient to a lordly aristoc- racy in literature, so long will it impose its peter-funk on its confiding clientage, and continue to deprave taste to the stand- ard essential to a market for its wares. When the reading masses grow out of the slovenly habit of perfunctorily reading through the volumes they peruse, and adopt a habit of energet- ically, systematically, and critically thinking through them, there will begin to prevail a manliness in taste that will spurn the imperious authority of the learned autocracy that thrives more by means of the want of discrimination among its read- ing tributaries, than by virtue of its own intrinsic ability and wisdom. CHAPTER VIII. nature's poet. Treasures Among Trash— Symmetry of The Ages — The Poets Medium Between Optimism and Cynicism— Civilization a Constant Rhythmical Growth — Good and Evil Necessarily Relative — Poetry of Nature an Effusion of the Soul and not a Product of Genius — Personal Merit an Absurdity — Constitu- tion and Environment — Integration and Diffusion — Mechanical Cause of Feeling and Emotion — Contemptible Spirit that Seeks Consolation for III in the Reflection that Others also Suffer— Attention an Effort — Universal Weakness for Flattery — Philosophy Works over the Old More than it De- velops the New — Celestial and Terrestrial Paternity of Man — The Coolest Deductions of Physics as Extravagant as the Wildest Flights ot Poetry — Hymn to Death. The chief concern of the rambler in the realm of Literature being the discovery of the true and the beautiful, it is grateful- ly refreshing to pause in contemplation of such achievements as the Ages, the Thanatopsis, and the Flood of Years; and other masterpieces of the unassuming Bard who has uncon- sciously adorned, dignified, and meliorated Republican Letters. These three pieces, occupying less than sixteen pages, come as near as any literary production to comprehending all compre- hensible nature; and exhibiting it in its truest and most beauti- ful aspects. The Ages, in thirty-five short stanzas is at once a profound sermon in philosophy, a vivid panorama in history, and a majestic march of the Muse. The man who could write either of them was a prodigy. He who did write them was a benefactor. No one can read either of them thoughtfully with- out appreciable intellectual profit. I have remarked that prolixity may sometimes obscure merit, and at other times disguise demerit. An instance of the former may be seen in a poem called Sea Dreams, written by a monarchical Laureate who bore the Bays for forty years, where he says : — " * * * he that wrongs his friend Wrongs himself more, and ever bears about A silent court of justice in his breast." If among the thirty-five stanzas of The Ages there is not one nature's poet. 165 that could be dispensed with without disfiguring the symmetry of the poem, it may be regarded a compactly built structure. In the first six stanzas the reader is introduced upon a mighty and majestic scene of constancy in change, nature's variable stability ; and assured that : — " * * * Eternal Love doth keep, In his complacent arms, the earth, the air, the deep." In the seventh stanza a sincere solicitude for the destiny of mankind is expressed in the inquiry which cannot be made in any other terms so well as in those of the poet himself. "Will then the merciful One, who stamped our race With his own image, and who gave them sway O'er earth, and the glad dwellers on her face. Now that OLir swarming nations far away Are spread, where'er the moist earth drinks the day Forget the ancient care that taught and nursed His latest offspring ? will he quench the ray Infused by his own forming smile at first, And leave a work so fair all blighted and accursed ?" It is the business of the balance of the poem to answer these inquiries, to compose this concern, and to assure human hope; not in improvised commonplaces without meaning, or sus- ceptible of many meanings; not in vague and glittering gener- alities, the refuge of all optimism ; nor by the graceless attempt to mould mind to imagine a senseless solution of insolvable mystery, or affect an air of fancied security in a situation of possible, or rather probable peril. The answer and assurance are given in the next stanza ; the twenty-seven following it are but an elaboration and a metaphysical vindication of them; the rationally legitimate de- ductions of enlightened reason from the inflexible facts of his- tory, compendiously summarized, and arrayed in all the beauty and grandeur of the most imaginative and prophetic poetry. "Oh, no, a thousand cheerful omens give Hope of yet happier days, whose dawn is nigh. He who has tamed the elements, shall not live The slave of his own passions; he whose eye Unwinds the eternal dances of the sky, And in the abyss of brightness dares to span 1 66 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. The sun's broad circle, rising yet more high, In God's magnificent works his will shall scan And love and peace shall make their paradise with man." Evolution, the development of soul or culture of character, is finely, yet forcibly posited, and upon it is confidently based the hope of one of the most sincere lovers of mankind, one of the greatest representatives of the good in human nature, for the ultimate destiny of the race. .He justifies the hope, so far as reasoning is capable of demonstration, in the universal retro- spect then taken. If from the prehistoric (or even later) bar- barism, in which : — "Then waited not the murderer for the night, But smote his brother down in the bright day," to the civilization now prevalent, the transition was not abrupt, but was almost imperceptibly gradual, was the occasionally in- terrupted yet almost constant growth of good; the logical im- plication is the continuous diminution of what is now denomin- ated evil. The Prophetic Muse that could comprehend the past in its magnitude, might with as much reason as sentiment, forecast ever increasing felicity as the necessary logical result of the process of evolution, the progress of which we have no reason to believe will ever be suspended, because we cannot even imagine a time when it was not going on. This does not necessarily imply the continuous concurrent existence of absolute evil in order that there may be a ground for the pro- gress to be going from to the good, for neither absolute evil nor absolute good is a supposable quantity. Neither evil nor good can be supposed except as relative, in which case both may continuously prevail (or exist) while there is a continuous diminution of the one and concurrent increase of the other. The "rhythm being manifested in all forms of movement," is aptly illustrated in the poet's exhibition of tropical tyranny driving virtue from the eastern nations by reducing them to slavery; of its flight to the vales of glorious Greece, where Liberty awoke and flourished for a time, until from prosperity it relapsed into a disdainful arrogance and oppression and Greece went down beneath the weight of her own infamy ; a view of a similar process in Rome, the result of similar causes; nature's poet. 167 all interrupting, or rather diversifying and rendering rhythmical the constant course of human progress, now cuhninating in the greatest known liberty to man in a then unknown world; the influences of which are being reflected upon the same shores from which it was so expelled. The illustration is perhaps the most concise and comprehensive view of human progress ever presented, and the most inspiriting prospect ever rationally con- templated by man; who may now realize that: — "Here the free spirit of mankind, at length, Throws its last fetters off. * * * * ***** And we may trace Afar, the brightening glory of its flight. Till the receding rays are lost to human sight." This is not the groundless extravagance of a zealot, nor the ebullient fervor of an enthusiast; but the legitimately logical deductions of a philosopher from the sternest phase of facts; a purely poetical picture of prospect, verified by common obser- vation and experience, past and present. To know as we do, that man in his present state, man as we now know him, has evolved from man in a former far inferior state, yet without being able to even approximate the degree or extent of such inferiority; to know that the course of such evolution is still constant though varying, or rhythmical rather; fairly implies that it will continue, if from no other cause, from the mere per- sistence of force until it reaches results, the grandeur of which may be as impossible to predict as the lowliness of his former state may be impossible to conceive. That ''*■** we may trace Afar, the brightening glory of its flight Till the receding rays are lost to human sight." is a Strictly legitimate corollary from the opposite view, the re- flection on that part of the process of development now accom- plished. We may retrace the course of progress, to a great ex- tent; but we cannot even in thought come to its source. We may prognosticate the course of progress to a great extent, but we cannot even in thought come to its end. Its "receding rays are lost to human sight." That the further development of man will forever follow and continuously conduce to his 1 68 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. happiness, is implied in the fact that his previous development has forever followed, and has continuously so conduced. That it will be occasionally interrupted and diversified by seasons and scenes of retrograde tending to his unhappiness, is implied in the fact that it has been occasionally interrupted and diversi- fied by such seasons and scenes with such results. They are exhibitions of "the rhythm being manifested in all forms of movement." That on the whole the results, so flir as they can be mentally aggregated, will be the increased and ever increasing felicity of the race, is at once a legitimate deduction of the most inexor- able logic, and one of the most gratifying contemplations that ever thrilled the heart of a poet. Human happiness cannot be more, and it is not likely to be less, than human goodness; and he who inculcates goodness augments happiness. The great priests of Nature who infuse into the minds of men rationally true ideas of their place and destiny in Nature, who cheer them with hope for the future legitimately deduced from or based on the known facts of the past, add to human happi- ness by facilitating intelligent human goodness. The master who takes up a subject of the deepest concern to every indi- vidual living, and treats it philosophically yet poetically, ex- haustively, yet without tedium ; who enlightens while he en- tertains and frequently enraptures, and then quits when he is done, is a real benefactor of mankind. It does not imply that the poet failed to duly appreciate the gravity or sublimity of his subject, that he did not treat it in a nasal twang of endless rhyme, and obscure it by his own prominence in the poem. While it may not be likely that litigation will ever cease or even decrease merely because it is the policy of the law that there be an end of litigation, it may be equally as improbable that verbosity will ever cease or even decrease merely because it is the policy of literature that there be an end of words ; that is, of words without ideas, or words unnecessary for the ex- pression of ideas. But here we have an illustrious example of an author whose writings plainly show that in what he wrote he was actuated by such policy. Rhythmical rhyme and metrical melody are merely incidental to the expression of the nature's poet. 169 thought. No great campaign is deliberately planned and map- ped out to cover any particular or prescribed scope, area, or extent of territory with couplets, strophes, and flights. But a doctrine, a deep and true one appears to have been completely organized in the mind of a philosopher, and when he proceeds to give it (not himself) expression, the figures and ideas array themselves in proper order, and march to the music of one of the greatest Psalmists that ever praised his Maker in singing the grandeur of his works. Temperament, which is a factor in environment, is undoubt- edly as fortuitous to the individual as any of the elements, or agencies which figure in his fate. The Poet certainly was not a captious pessimist, yet he cannot properly be regarded a credulous optimist. He may not have been blameworthy for his inability to recognize good in every thing, and he may have been entitled to little credit for his ability to fail to see evil in some things. He was so constituted and informed that to him the fabulous golden age was "A boundless sea of blood, and the wild air Moans with the crimsoned surges that entomb Cities and bannered armies. * * * " Yet he was of such a temperament and constitution and so in- formed that he could "See crimes, that feared not once the eye of day Rooted from men, without a name or place." "Thus error's monstrous shapes from earth are driven; They fade, they lly — but Truth survives their flight; Earth has no shades to quench that beam of heaven." He seems to have seen the world progressing with variable constancy from evil to good, while there yet remained, and will ever remain, evil to be extirpated and good to be attained to. There can never be such thing as either good or evil with- out the other although they are direct opposites of each other, and one constantly increases at the expense of the other and as it decreases. Both are infinite, yet in the one case, more is being constantly added to its infinity, while in the other, that which is infinite is being forever diminished and still remains infinite, and must forever continue in order to give the contrast 170 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. by which the good is to be known as really good. The mart who is so constituted that he can behold the worst side of nature, or see life and character in their worst forms, without himself becoming a misanthrope; who can see a rhythmically constant development of what is good in nature; see life and character ever becoming better until there is no comparison between their present and their former states, without himself becoming an enthusiast, must be of a peculiarly equable seren- ity. He who can exhibit all this to his fellow man, show him all its evils and all its blessings, and neither weary nor disgust his reader; keep the beholder's attention constantly riveted upon the scene he paints, and never exhibit himself in the transac- tion is certainly one of the artists of nature. He it is who makes the impression that modifies the char- acter of his thoughtful reader, that leaves him better than he finds him. That the human mind is susceptible to impressions is our only assurance of culture; and this susceptibility must have characterized the very one by whom the culture is to be promoted, or he could never have acquired the capacity there- for. Such susceptibility to impressions, which can be neither more nor less than a phase of the temperament, or one of its incidents, is an accident to the individual. He is neither blame- worthy nor praiseworthy for having it in any degree; no more so than for his physical constitution, or any of his native ten- dencies. It may be objected that the result of this reason- ing, if it rises to the dignity of such name, might be the obliteration of all distinction between the evil and the good every where prevailing, or supposed to be prevailing. it does not necessarily follow. Disquisition on all subjects, in order to reach results, must conform to law. All questions must have two sides. Without probabilities and differences between them, there can be no question. Where there is no question there must be absolute certainty. Certainty cannot be an appropriate subject of disquisition but of assertion or declaration. Disquisition implies doubt and difference, and in most cases the apparent reasonableness of contradictory ideas. It is the office of disquisition by reasoning to remove such doubt and adjust or settle such difference ; and when it is done, nature's poet. 171 there results an augmentation of knowledge, in which there may be as near an approach to certainty as the mind is capable of. But the process must be strictly legitimate, or the result is likely to be wrong, in which case there can result no trust- worthy knowledge, but mere delusion. Susceptibility to im- pressions being the basis of all culture, and being purely fortu- itous to the individual, the result of his intellectual development depends upon the manner in which he is impressed by the factors constituting his environment. Man is born with his tendencies and his susceptibilities, their modification, from whatever source it may come, is his education, his culture. Those who assume to teach proceed necessarily upon the theory of their subjects being so susceptible, and that they have themselves been properly impressed by the factors which have constituted their environment and are thereby adapted to the office, and possessed of the means necessary to accomplish the improvement which should be the prime object of all literary effort. The means themselves may be ever so various, but it is characteristic of the soul that its pabulum is more gratefully relished and more assimilable when duly seasoned with that which entertains, than when taken in the stern and tedious form of unpolished and unadorned philosophy. To the charge of unnecessary digression 1 would suggest that one take the philosophy of the poem in question, and no deeper or truer one was ever written, and clothe it in terms purely philosophical and prosaic, and then compare it with The Ages, and it will appear that 1 have kept within close range of the main point in this dissertation, which is to show the superiority- and grandeur of the truly Republican intellect of the man whose works 1 would exhibit in their true character, to those who seem to have recognized in them merely some comparatively pleasing poetry. The language may afford some specimens of finer and perhaps more poetical poetry, but such philosophy as he teaches seldom finds expression in such terms as he uses. They are adapted to the improvement of the mind which is capable of appreciating them, because the thought they convey is adorned in a garb well suited to it, and which makes it decidedly fascinating; the thought insinuating itself 172 ETHICS OF LITERAtURE. into the mind, while // regales itself at an exhibition of the beauties of poetry. The matter is not merely palatable, it is delectable; and to read it without being fiivorably impressed, implies either a diminutive capacity or perverse obstinacy in the reader. The poet has written for the edification of the reader, the artist has painted for the entertainment of the spectator; and each stroke of the pen and pencil is an eloquent appeal to the better instincts of man. No ostentatious humility, no perplex- ing mysticism, no imperious mannerism, exhibits the author or the artist with such personal prominence as to divert attention from the subject. The place and destiny of man was his sub- ject, and his heart was tilled with it. While he wrote for the race he was essentially American and instinctively Republican in his literary proclivities, the result of his environment and its impressions upon him, and which to him were fortuitous. His conception of typical man was unavoidably imbued with the idea he had unavoidably conceived of the typical American ; and no travel study and observation could ever eradicate or neutralize it. And it is all the better for literature and for man that they could not. That he happened to be born west in- stead of east of the Atlantic, that his surroundings were such as to conduce to his being imbued with republican instead of monarchical sentiments, that he was susceptible to the im- pressions which made or moulded his character to what his works clearly show that it was, that he had the native ability constituting the raw material of which such a character could be constituted, or from which it could and did evolve, were matters for which he was in no way responsible, and to which neither merit nor demerit can be ascribed. Snarling cynicism may ask, "then upon what account is he entitled to be praised ?" The answer is obvious. Upon none whatever. "Why should he be praised ?" Again the answer is obvious. For his own sake he should not be. He did not write for praise. He happened to be in touch with the prevail- ing sentiment of his age and country, and happening to be so inclined, he utilized his fortuitous gifts for the betterment of man. Those capable of appreciating him and his influence, nature's poet. 173 come nearer favoring and honoring themselves than him, when they manifest such capacity and appreciation in their attempts to accord him the meed of his merit. In simplicity and grandeur the meditation on the subject of death, which is in reality a great sermon upon the subject of life, is probably the most remarkable exhibition of the power of human weakness ever made in so small a compass. The very substance which soon must go: — "To mix forever with the elements, To be a brother to the insensible rock And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain Turns with his share, and treads upon," in two brief pages takes a broad and comprehensive view of the great, the grand, the awful, yet the common destiny of man. Life is exhibited as merely a temporary suspension of death, and as only in and amidst death. Its very breath is a combination of exhalations from the decaying substances which were once animated in the same manner, and inspired by the same spirit which inspires the poet to sing this dreadful dirge of destiny. The substance of the same mind which gives to the world this, the truest and most highly wrought of all views of the end, or rather metamorphosis of earthly existence, realizes that "the oak shall send its roots abroad and pierce" its mould and extract therefrom the substance that will one day in another state, form the gibbet from which the culprit may be launched into eternity, and encase and entomb all that is inortal ot future emulators of the example of the poet. The zenith of his civili- zation is a quasi cannibalism where the living of to-day feast and fatten on the substance of the dead of yesterday ; on the vegetation and animal flesh extracted therefrom, which in turn has in nature's great chemical laboratory itself extracted the substance of its growth from the decaying bodies of nature's earlier poets and priests who have sung her praises and preach- ed her precepts to primeval man. " * * * * As the long train Of ages glide away, the sons of men, The youth in lifes green spring, and he who goes In the full strength of years, matron and maid, 174 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. The speechless babe, and the gray-headed man — Shall one by one be gathered to thy side, By those who in their turn shall follow them." Though separated in the volume by more than three hund- red pages, the Thanatopsis and The Flood Of Years seem to be so essentially alike that they might well be taken for merely separate parts of one and the same poem. They both so pict- ure the great pageant of Nature, that the momentary flash of an individual existence becomes so insignificant, that one almost loses consciousness of his ov^n existence in contempla- tion of the awful grandeur of the whole as there presented. " * * * * How the rushing waves Bear all before them. On their foremost edge And there alone, is Life. The present there Tosses and foams, and fills the air with roar Of mingled noises. There are they who toil, And they who strive, and they who feast, and they Who hurry to and fro. * * * * * * * * * * I look, and the quick tears are in my eyes. For I behold in every one of these A blighted hope, a separate history Of human sorrows, tel.ing of dear ties Suddenly broken, dreams of happiness Dissolved in air. * * * » In view of such scenes as these it is difficult to conceive how one of the greatest known physicists could say that "all our feelings and emotions from the lowest sensation to the high- est tcsthetic consciousness, have a mechanical cause." This may be true, but if the vivid views of Life and Death in the Flood Of Years are aesthetic consciousnesss. it would seem to require a remarkable abasement of them or of such consciousness, or else a remarkable exaltation of mechanics, to render it possible for there to be between them any thing in common. If hope, despair, envy, emulation, pride, humiliation, courage, fear, grief, joy, and the like are feelings or emotions, and if they are within the range of sensation and aesthetic consciousness, it would seem that the Savant of Sound was putting it strong in saying that all our feelings and emotions have a mechanical nature's poet. 175 cause. Bryant had feeling and emotion and gave it beautiful expression when he wrote, "Sadly 1 turn and look before, where yet The Flood must pass, and 1 behold a mist Where swarm dissolving forms, the brood of Hope." He seems to have seen the great cavalcade of humanity troop- ing to the trump of the threnode of all life, and the thrills of his heart reverberating throughout The Flood Of Years could not very appropriately be attributed to a mechanical cause. In contemplation of the awful destiny awaiting all life, in retro- spection of "The silent ocean of the Past, a waste Of waters weltering over graves," the emotion, feeling, sensation, or forsooth, the aesthetic con- sciousness which burst forth in the flame of poetic fire in the light of which The Flood Of Years is so vividly painted, seems to be a very tine product indeed to owe its existence to a mechanical cause. But an unnecessary and unprofitable dispute about cause may become a mere play upon words; while the actual dis- cernment and due appreciation of excellence may be thereby obstructed or possibly prevented. And what is merit ? Is it the condition, state, or quality of deserving approval ? And what are the qualities which entitle one to approval ? Is not the most important one sincerity ? Is there an expression of thought in all Bryant's poems which is delinquent in that respect.^ Is there a dearth of deep and true philosophy in the three poems especially noticed ? And do they not imply their author's acquaintance with the wisdom of the physicists and geognosts, in which scoffers and wiseacres see the utter demo- lition of the basis for the hope that buoyed his spirit, and with which he sought to exalt the spirit of his fellowmen ? Opti- mistic sophistry may engage in the charitable enterprise of attempting to convince mankind that all things in nature are ordered by Omniscient Wisdom and Benignant Benevolence for the greatest good of all and of each; but it has never yet logically and effectually reasoned the pain out of punishment. 176 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. the damage out of disease, or the dread out of the contempla- tion of death. It may sometimes offer a pseudo-consolation in the reflection that misery might have been more miserable, and in the malignantly grateful assurance that others have suffered, and others still must suffer perhaps more intenselv than the dupe of such sickening solace. Philosophy has a different office. Time was when it even affected to plume itself with a stoical indifference to all passion and a supremacy over all affection. But true philosophy finds in the order and economy of nature an abundance of distress, which stubbornly refuses to be talked into delight. It finds in man a susceptibility to this distress, in its countless forms and conditions, which stubbornly refuses to be talked into in- sensibility thereto. It also finds in nature an abundance of the raw material for the production of enjoyment; and in man the appropriate predilection and capacity to utilize and realize upon it when properly prompted. Nature's priests who happen to strike the right vein in their sacerdotals, or who do strike it whether fortuitously or purposely, they whose life works are intelligent effort at the betterment of man, being intelligent endeavor to bring him into more cordial harmony with the in- flexible facts and fiat of nature, are the real, and should be the properly accredited missionaries to our mundane mirk; and there resounds not to the trump of such fiime, a nobler name than that of the author of The Flood Of Years. Were the pre- dilection and capacity of man so unyielding as the two former qualities or quantities with which philosophy must deal, the distress, and man's susceptibility thereto, all effort at meliora- tion would be idle. In modulating them to the tune of man's necessary existence and environment, philosophy performs the highest and holiest function of its oflice. The apparent apathy of the subject of its solicitude renders it politic for philosophy to utilize another characteristic of the subject of its concern; the prevailing penchant for entertainment at exhibitions of the mysterious and the poetical. By this means it arrests and holds the attention, without which it can impart little benefit. Sustained attention is the result of effort, either of the one by whom it is given, or of the one by whom it is evoked. nature's poet. 177 There is less difference in the respective totals of what is actu- ally known by the several savants assuming the miter and ephod in literature, all of them knowing next to nothing, than there is in their several capacities to profitably impart that which they think they know. The human mind is almost universally endowed with a weakness for flattery, which de- lights in the quasi compliment of being required to figure out for itself the result of a proposition when it is barely hinted in something purporting to be propounded more as an entertain- ment of the recipient or pastime of the proponent, than as an actual discipline to the one or dogma of the other. The author who assumes that his readers know some things, and then makes his allusions accordingly, sufficiently obscure to excite curiosity and reflection, yet not so obscure as to defeat or dis- courage speculation, does more by such method than is possi- ble by any other to promote genuine manly independent thought, and hence the highest order of intellectual develop- ment. If intellectual development is the object of book-writing, no measure could be so effective as to put men to thinking. Some authors, and most writers (for there is a marked distinction between them) seem to want to do even the thinking for their readers. When one's writings become more conspicuous for their compass than for their substance, he becomes more emi- nently a writer than an author; and while it might be asking too much to require him to hold his tongue (or his pen) until he is prepared to make known something theretofore unknown, yet authorship ought to imply some originality. And this orig- inality ought to pervade more than the mere form. Still many of the wisest saws the most gravely put, are old and hackney- ed truisms remoddled and rehashed for the edification of a reading rabble which is expected to see merit and originality in something, the substance of which they may have always known, merely because some word monger has tricked it out in new colors. If suggestion is one of the most potent factors in literature, potent for the promotion of the progress which all candid per- sons must admit to be the noblest aim of its votaries, our late 178 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. Laureate has couched more in the same compass than any known poet; and he has more effectively suggested than any known author. It would not be in good taste to extend the comparison to the mere writer. He points you to nature. He does not attempt to see it for you, but if you read his poems as they deserve to be read, he enables you to see it for yourself. At the risk of tedium to the reader I make another quota- tion, and this time from the poem entitled "Earth," which occurs to me as a fitting factor in this humble effort to exhibit in their true light, the works of one of the greatest men that ever adorned the noblest of all callings. "Earth Uplifts a general cry for guilt and wrong, And heaven is listening. The forgotten graves Of the heartbroken utter forth their plaint. The dust of her who loved and was betrayed, And him who died neglected in his age; The sepulchres of those who for mankind Labored, and earned the recompense of scorn; Ashes of maityrs for the truth, and bones Of those who, in the strife for liberty. Were beaten down, their corses given to dogs, Their names to infamy, all fnid a voice. *•)(■** * * * What then shall cleanse thy bosom, gentle Earth, From all its painful memories of guilt ? The whelming flood, or the renewing fire, Or the slow change of time ? — that so, at last, The horrid tale of perjury and strife Murder and spoil, which men call history, May seem a fable." Having made this quotation, and casually turning the leaves of the volume, I am impressed with a sense of the impropriety of directing special attention to any one, instead of to any other of the poems, and the selection seems more a chance than a choice, for if excellence is sought it cannot be missed in open- ing the volume at random. 1 believe that history has never been defined with more accuracy, nor perhaps with more melancholy, than as "the horrid tale of perjury and strife, mur- der and spoil;" and that few persons have manifested so fine a sense of justice as to imagine that Earth herself should "Uplift i nature's poet. 179 a general cry for guilt and wrong;" or a more profound appre- ciation of providential punition than that which inspired the note that "heaven is listening." But to be as prosaical, even as cold-blooded as physics or metaphysics dare be: — suppose number were adequate to the calculation of the aggregate bulk of the once living bodies which have sprung from and returned to the earth ; suppose "all our feelings and emotions, from the lowest sensation to the highest aesthetic consciousness have a mechanical cause," then why should not Earth uplift a general cry for guilt and wrong ? Has not every atom of its superficial substance at some time figured in the formation of animated existence in some form ? When biologists inform us that life and death are mere stages of a chemical process, a form of integration and diffusion of matter, the substance of which comes ultimately from the earth, generated therefrom by the influence of light and heat from the sun, they declare the existence of such rela- tion between man, and his Mother Earth and Solar Sire, as justifies the poet in giving vent to his mechanically caused emotion, indulging his mechanically caused fancy and mechan- ically imagining the existence of such a mechanically caused sympathy as would prompt the earth to "Uplift a general cry for guilt and wrong," and such a mechanically caused solicitude on the part of the solar side of the parentage, as would insure that "heaven is listening." If the sun impregns the earth, fructifies it with the life which does and suffers the guilt and wrong, if "heaven's blest beam" generates and maintains the motion which takes form in the human life which is in great measure itself feeling and emotion, then heaven may well be supposed to be solicitously listening to the earth's general cry for guilt and wrong, and perhaps all feelings and emotions may as well be supposed to have a mechanical cause. At his advent upon this scene, the weight of the average individual is generally sufficient to tip the beam at nine pounds; and if he maintains his individuality for the average period, it may reach the average of about one hundred and forty-nine pounds. To say nothing at present about where the first nine l80 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. pounds come from, suppose we inquire whence the additional one hundred and forty pounds ? The question is generally brushed aside with the worse than no answer that "he grows." We know the medium through which the first nine pounds come, the parentage, which we know to be from that very fact, devotedly attached to and solicitous for the new individual. But they are only the medium through which is transmitted about one-seventeenth of the final form and substance of the subject of their love and solicitude, and are not in any sense the creators or origin of it, or of any part of it. The medium through which is transmitted the additional one hundred and forty pounds may not be very discernible, but the additional one hundred and forty pounds is not in the individual until it comes to him. and it cannot come to him without coming from some where, and through or by means of some medium. This where and this medium have about sixteen times as much in the individual as the known parentage has, which parentage is only a medium through which the first seventeenth part was introduced, took form, not existence, because it existed before in some other where and in some other /or;;/. We see and know the love and solicitude of the medium we recognize for the individual thev introduce, not produce; and we recognize therein the most beautiful aspect or feature of human existence. We see that love and know that solici- tude to continue for years after all the product which was in- troduced by that medium has disappeared from the individual, and even after several septennial changes have substituted en- tirely different substance in the individual from that which con- stituted him when he first took form and was introduced as an individual upon the scene; after the atoms of indestructible yet ever changing matter which once formed a Cain or an Iscariot have entered into the composition of a Brooks or a Bryant. There is in the earth and its gasses a source from which all this substance comes to form the individual, and in nature a medium, apart from the apparent parentage of the first seven- teenth, through which sixteen seventeenths of it is transmuted into him. If physics posits this much, and it certainly does, why may not poetry imagine that love and solicitude of the NATURES POEt. l8l same quality pervade the bosom of the Mother Earth and the Celestial Sire for their offspring ? Does not the poet in doing so, logically follow the physicist ? Indeed, is not the physicist himself the first and most fanciful poet ? As wildly as the poet may soar, his imagination must pierce heaven in its flight if it is to keep pace with the speculations of the staid and mat- ter of fact physicist who attributes all results, even feelings, and emotions, to a mechanical cause. Take the soberest and most profound advocate of the doctrine of biogenesis, and trace his dogmas to their necessary logical results; and if they are true, they justify the most visionary and chimerical whims of the muse. His cardinal point is that life can only come from pre- existent life, and abiogenesis is an absurdity with which he has no patience. With him, evolution, the complex chemical pro- cess which Force is performing in nature's boundless laboratory, is a mere affiliation of atoms or units of substance according to their chemical affinities, into organisms, temporarily existing and possessing characters composed of the sum total of the tendencies of each atom or unit of substance entering into the organism, as modified by the agglomeration and environment. Some of these organisms, among which is man, when once organized, display a characteristic which the philosophy of biogenesis denominates heredity, and upon which its advocates confidently base much of their argument for the doctrine. The same philosophy also traces these organisms, including man, to their elements in the earth and its gaseous envelopment, and attributes all feeling and emotion to mechanical causes; and teaches that evolution is itself rhythmically followed by disso- lution, and that the formative atoms or units of substance are repeatedly redistributed to their elemental spheres in the earth and its gaseous envelopment. Mechanical causes are necessarily manifestations of force upon the subject which it causes to have the feeling and emotion. Of what is that subject composed so as to be sus- ceptible to the mechanical cause exerted or procured by force ? Physicists say it is composed of atoms of air (or its gaseous components) which has rushed in tornadoes, and been breathed by itself irf millions of millions of organisms from time unthink- 182 ETHlCS OF LITERAtUfie. able; and of earth (or its components) the entire substance of the surflice oi which has often arisen, walked upon itself, done deeds of daring, committed all kinds of crime, and hid itself again in its own bosom; and of water (or its components) which has often drenched and drank and drowned itself — and if they are correct in this and other of their deductions or declar- ations, each atom or unit of substance must all along have possessed the peculiar tendency which in such combination contributes to mould the character of the individual organism into the composition of which it happens to enter. If the atoms had not such tendencies as contributed in com- bination to mould the character of the organism in which they combine, there could be no such thing as heredity of char- acter or characteristic in organisms related to preceding and succeeding each other. Every atom of the substance compos- ing the individual organism of man is gone therefrom, and others substituted in their stead during the first seven years of its existence as an individual, and changes no less complete take place during each and every succeeding seven years of such existence. So that while those atoms which constitute the first seventeenth part of the ultimate individual organism, may have been tinctured with traits of character by the medium through which they have combined to form such individual organism, and by which it is introduced in such form, yet that medium clearly cannot impart any of its traits of character to the atoms subsequently accruing, and being substituted for those; it cannot impress its characteristics on an organism, the constituent atoms of which have not come in contact with it. And within seven years from its introduction upon the scene as such, the individual organism contains not an atom of the substance of which it was composed when being introduced by such medium, not an atom that is known to have ever come in contact with such medium, but is constituted of other and distinct atoms. These septennial changes which biologists call periods of the process of waste and repair, are said to complete themselves every seven years. If the quality or tendency constituting heredity of character or characteristic is not in the primary NAtURE^S POET. 185 atoms themselves, independent of the medium by or through which the individual organism is introduced upon the scene; and if such quality or tendency is imparted to such atoms by such medium, to be by them imparted to such atoms as sub- sequently combine with them and take their place in the indi- vidual organism and constitute its growth, there may result inextricable confusion in the final formation of the character to be produced by such combination and inherited from such medium. The waste will carry ott those atoms which would tend to produce or maintain certain characteristics imparted to the individual organism by the medium of its introduction; while the repair is supplying others to be tinctured with traits by remaining atoms of very different qualities or tendencies. All the moral courage, mental capacity, gentleness, or trait of any kind which the individual organism may inherit from the medium of its introduction, may entirely disappear from it during the first seven years of its individual existence and heredity may fail to permanently entail any ancestral charac- teristic, unless it be the tendency to change. Perhaps there are persons to whom this may appear chim- erical ; but it is a legitimate and logical deduction from the tenets of the prevailing philosophy, or I am seriously at fault in my law and in my logic; or 1 fail to apprehend in their true inwardness, the doctrines of the prevailing philosophy. And some one who has not attentively read, may inquire what business the apparent digression can have in such a disserta- tion on the philosophy of Bryant's poetry ; and if the inquiry shall be thoughtfully and seriously made, 1 will at least have put the inquirer to thinking; which will of itself save a literary effort from being a total failure. While 1 should not do that for the doing of which 1 have already expressed a general censure, that is, offer to do the reader's thinking for him, perhaps I ought to make more mani- fest, the purpose of the digression. 1 have proceeded in this chapter to consider the philosophy of the writings of Nature's Poet. 1 have said but little of the poetry merely as such, because, while 1 esteem it highly, yet in nearly all his pieces the philosophy so overshadows the poetry that they become 1 84 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. poetical philosophy, rather than philosophic poetry. My pur- pose latterly has been to trace some of the tenets of physics to such results as to show that the philosophy, in what some may regard the mere vagaries of an unrestrained and delirious im- agination, is equally as conservative and rational as that of the avowed physicist, who affects a condescending commiseration for the weaklings who cannot, or at least who do not. attribute all feelings and emotions to a mechanical cause. No philosophical speculation can result in establishing a belief more rationally justifiable than that reasoned out in the poem entitled "The Prairies," although the piece seems to be little more than a bare allusion to a race whose existence and extinction in a very remote antic^uity are implied in the mounds : "That overlook the rivers, or that rise ill the dim forest crowded with old oaks." It is one of the instances in which the author puts his reader to thinking, and when the propositions implied in the poem are carefully thought out, and considered in the light of prevalent philosophy, they are found to be far more philosophical than poetical; but no more suggestive of really profitable specula- tion than the inquiry: — When we descend to dust again, Where will the final dwelling be Of thought, and all its memories then ?" In Other words, what becomes of the soul ?" And the answer is to be gathered from the expressions of faith and of hope in which almost all his psalms are deeply intonated. I am at this point constrained to offer an apology for, or rather a vindication of, my apparent departure from the theme and thread of my discourse, to ramble amid the maze of meta- physics. On another occasion I have said that notliing is known absolutely, but that whatever is known is known only in relation. Merit is only known as such in contrast with demerit; good is good only in contrast with evil; sense is sense only in contrast with nonsense. That which has asserted and justly established its claim to respect and confidence, thereby becomes a standard by which the merit of other attempts of a Nature's poet. 185 kindred type may be tested. The greatest philosopher the world ever knew delivered some of the finest discourses phil- osophy ever produced, on the most sublime subject philosophy ever considered, in discussing a subject unfit to be named in modern literature. And he does not appear to have en- gaged in the discussion of the unnameable subject seeking an occasion to deliver the particular discourse, but to have deliver- ed it in order to maintain his argument and position in the discussion. I have not descanted in metaphysics solely for the purpose of asserting what some may regard my chimerical views, but to vindicate my claim that Bryant was essentially a greater philosopher than poet. This can be done only by testing the philosophy of his poetry by the established standards, or by the necessary logical results of its legitimate deductions. And when they are traced to their logical results, and are found to involve ideas and suppositions which would stagger the ex- travagance of a poet, he may justly be regarded the more con- servative and rational of the two classes of philosophers. When he asked the question, (substantially) what becomes of the soul ? he voiced the universal cry that rings forth from the aching void in every human heart that ever pulsed ; the irre- pressible and insolvable problem that has perplexed every mind that ever meditated ; and which was never more ration- ally responded to than in his piece entitled "The Two Graves." The response there given is in keeping with the description of the nature of the soul itself, given by the greatest of all souls twenty-two centuries ago, when he said, "For every body which is moved from without is soulless; but that which is moved from within possesses a soul, since this is the very nature of the soul. But if this be the case, that there is noth- ing which moves itself except soul, soul must necessarily be both uncreate and immortal." But neither of these philosophers has expressed anything more than his faltering faith on this subject. Neither of them knew, nor has any one else known, that he or they were nearer the truth than the doctrinaire of any other conceivable theory. Still they have both, and so have others, cultivated 1 86 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. the general intellect and promoted mental attainment by de- voting their lives to the consideration of subjects palpably and hopelessly beyond the power of all human minds to compre- hend. They both strive to get back to first principles, but no mind can ever get back of them. But if as Socrates has said, the nature of the soul is the spiritual embodiment of motion; if it is moved within and of itself and not by means of anything from without; then has the poet well sung, and the philosopher better said : — " 'Tis said that when life is ended here, The spirit is borne to a distant sphere; That it visits its earthly home no more. Nor looks on the haunts it loved before.' But why should the bodiless soul be sent Far off, to a long, long banishment ? Talk not of the light and the living green. It will pine for the dear familiar scene; It will yearn, in that strange bright world, to behold The rock and the streani it knew of old. 'Tis a cruel creed, believe it not. Death to the good is a milder lot. They a'e here, — they are here, — that harmless pair, In the yellow sunshine and llowing air, In the light cloud-shadows that slowly pass. In the sounds that rise from the murmuring grass. They sit where their humble cottage stood. They walk by the waving edge of the wood, And lost to the long accustomed flow Of the brook that wets the rock below, Patient, and peaceful, and passionless As seasons on seasons swiftly press, They watch, and wait, and linger around. Till the day when their bodies shall leave the ground." But as beautifully as this begins and proceeds, the last couplet is a blur upon poetry; and it is an unaccountable de- parture from the principles of philosophy implied in the Than- antopsis. I have shown that there he was in line with the physicists who teach that when the bodies of the aged pair would leave the ground, they would go as impalpable gases, the atoms of which, in nature's inscrutable chemistry, would agglomerate in other forms of life, vegetal, then animal, and Nature's poet. 187 again return for a time to the earth, at once the universal sepulchre and nursery of all life. But the offence is rare, and is redeemed in many of his musings; notably in the Hymn to Death, of which he says: — " * * * I will teach the world To thank thee. Who are thine accusers ? — Who ? The living — they who never felt thy power, And know thee not. The curses of the wretch, Whose crimes are ripe, his sufferings when thy hand Is on him, and the hour he dreads is come, Are writ among thy praises. But the good — Does he whom thy kind hand dismissed to peace Upbraid the gentle violence that took off His fetters, and unbarred his prison-cell ? Raise then the hymn to Death. Deliverer ! God hath annointed thee to free the oppressed And crush the oppressor. * * * * * * * * * * *.* ***** Thou dost avenge. In thy good time, the wrongs of those who know No otherllriend." It is quite beyond my purpose to attempt to exhibit all the excellencies, poetical and philosophical, in Bryant's poetry, which would require an exhibition of nearly all his poetry. But if there is not a cruel satire (which can scarcely be imputed to him) there seems to be at least a ghastly philosophy in the attempt to derive consolation from the ravages of the grim de- stroyer; yet he appears to have done so without in any degree degrading or departing from the spirit of manliness and mag- nanimity constantly pervading his works. He shows death with its icy claws dealing a double blow, the most vindictive vengeance, and the mildest mercy in one stroke. i< * * * ^Q^ Jqjj^ jI^q^j interpose Only to lay the sufferer asleep, Where he who made him wretched troubles not His rest — thou dost strike down his tyrant too." But human weakness asserts its puny strength in the de- delight with which he beholds the wreaking of vengeance: — "Oh, there is joy when hands that held the scourge Drop lifeless, and the pitiless heart is cold." l88 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. But this is very natural, and Bryant was pre-eminently nature's poet. I have said that the wise themselves know next to noth- ing. What is wisdom ? Are its definitions more than mere synonyms ? Does it not partake more of the character of a condition or qualitative, than of a quantity or substantive ? Is not the state or condition of being conversant with and appre- ciative of nature, as nearly a correct definition, and even de- scription of wisdom in the abstract as can be given ? If so, was not Bryant a remarkably wise man ? Now in all that he has written, what single fact has he made known ? Has he in anything done more than give to the world the impressions made upon himself by the phenomena in nature, the constitu- ent factors of his environment ? If so, what is it ? More than thirty centuries before he wrote, the Prince of complainers is reputed to have said, "Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom ; and to depart from evil is understanding." And all the learned jargon with which the world has since been con- tinuously deluged, has not advanced the standard an iota. Still, a great deal that is written is not in vain; prominent amid which are the works of this philosophic Poet. If he has not actually produced and given to the world something there- tofore unknown, perhaps it is because "there is no new thing under the sun;" but he certainly suggests very suggestively, and if his works are attentively read the reader will be put seriously to thinking. The result must necessarily be left with him, but if he is properly susceptible to impressions, and will put himself in Bryant's way, he will be properly impressed, and royally entertained. CHAPTER IX. OBSCURITY AND PROFUSION AS INDICATIONS OF GENIUS. Criticism vs. Production — Culture the only legitimate Purpose of Literature — its Purport not Generally Understood — The Masses Affect a Taste tor that Which they cannot Comprehend — Pedantry Displays Writer's Resources Without Promoting Reader's Intellectual Attainment — Obligations of Writers — Scene of the Table Round — Legendary Origm of Arthur — Excali- bur the Cross-Hilted Sword — Poetry's Weakness for Similitudes — Gareth's Inspiration — His Mother's Dissimulation — His Exploits — -Geraint Casually Meets the Queen — Insulted by Dwarf of Stranger Knight — Traces the Ver- min to their Earth— Entertained by Yniol — in Love with Enid — Overcomes Edyrn— Marries Enid — Jealousy and Brutality — Absurdity of Plot and De- nouement — Merlin and Vivien — Romance Overdone — Lancelot and Elaine- Over-virtuous Rake — The Holy Grail — Ambrosius and Percivale — The Blunting and Glancing and Shooting of Love — The Nun's Vision — Lance- lot's Bastard Galahad — The Siege Perilous — Second Death of Metlin — Descent of the Gr.iil — -The King Fighting on the Frontier While his Knights Revel at the Table Round— Arthur's Return — The Order Disperses in Quest of the Grail — Enoch's Translation Out-done — Percivale Meets a Widow who had been His first Love — Invited to Marry — Pelleas and Ettarre — Her insolence to the Queen — His Persistent Suit — -Gawain's Intervention and Perfidy — Pelleas' Magnanimity — -Repairs to the Cloister — Rushes There- from, Rides Down a Crippled Beggar, Attacks Lancelot, is Overthrown, Follows Him to Arthur's Hall, and Insults Lancelot and the Queen — Modred Appears— The Last Tournament — Tristram and Dagonet Philoso- phize — Nestling's Rubies, Prize at Tournament — Awarded to Tristram — His Amour with Isolt — Mark's Way — Insipidity of Denouement — Guine- vere — Modred Hounds Her Trying to Learn Facts that Everyone Knew — His Hatred to Lancelot — The Queen's Flight to the Sanctuary — Madness of Farewells with Lancelot — Her last Interview with Arthur — Passing of Arthur — Battle in Lyonesse— Chancel and Cross in Heathen Wilderne5s — ■ Elaborated Disposition of Excalibur— High-toned Twaddle— Beauty of The Enoch Arden— Unphilosophic Philosophy of the In Memoriam. It is SO much easier to detect error than to produce that which is meritorious, that vain ambition and low capacity are prone to seek distinction in disparaging that which they can- not comprehend. The most intelligent and candid criticism may be mistaken for the cynical sneer of inferiority, depending upon the relative prestige of the Reviewer and his subject. Hence the Reviewer must bring to his undertaking an author- igO ETHICS OF LITERATURE. itative title, or come prepared to demonstrate the validity and force of his strictures. In the one case opinion is all he need express, and no reason for it is required; while in the other demonstration is requisite, and opinion without conclusive arg- ument will bring its presumptuous possessor into contempt. The prime purpose in Literature is culture, and the Re- viewer undertakes to distinguish matter likely to promote it, from that which has not such tendency. As a motive or ex- cuse for thrusting one's self into prominence, the mere enter- tainment of the reader is little better than the profit of the writer; and is too frequently expected to inure to the writer's profit and prominence in quickening a market. When writers have once attained to prominence it is too frequently observable that their energies relax, that they thereafter merely write, appear- ing to expect plebeian readers to read and imagine they are en- tertained — that they will not dare to see plain obtuseness where by fashion's flat they are bid to behold inscrutable genius or covert wit, — and as to culture — that they do not grasp the most irksome and obscure enigma implies its defect, which genius and wit are too busy (displaying themselves) to repair. In Literature the masses are mere followers, and popularity is the intensified echo of the casual commend of the leaders. The psuedo-Republic of Letters is an arrogant Oligarchy, and the smile or frown of its Lords is the life or the death of the untitled aspirant to distinction and usefulness. The run which some trash has cannot otherwise be explained. Much of it is read by many who never suspect its purport, the purport of much of it is never apprehended by its writers, and much of it is without purport; but it passes muster by the capricious favor of upper-tendom, or the prestige of its writers, and a servile serfdom responds in plaudits and patronage.as unintel- ligible as the learned obscurity itself, an affected taste for in- stead of a due appreciation of which is the popular mark of culture. The writers of the Idylls, the Apology, and the Excursion, may have known what they meant in those monuments to their memory, but they have successfully concealed it from the great masses of their readers ; still, most readers are unwilling OBSCURITY AND PROFUSION AS INDICATIONS OF GENIUS. I9I to confess a coarseness that could not relish reading them. In other words and plainer, they glory in their shame, affect an exquisite taste for that which they cannot taste, and are most supremely happy when most superbly hoaxed. There are few worse drawbacks from the usefulness of the exhibitions of the genius of the great than the profuse pedantry pervading them, showing that they were intended more to display their writer's resources than to augment the wisdom or promote the culture of their readers ; and strange as it may seem, the more obscure and eccentric they are, the more they are revered by the amazed masses mistaking exuberant verbi- age for copious thought. A common event or an idle and absurd legend may become a great epic, it may be made unin- telligibly profound by artistic distortion of idiom, iteration may become plenary inspiration, the moral may be even more ob- scure than the matter, interspersion of trite philosophy may seta world wondering at the wisdom of the oracle who darkly tells it that which it already clearly knew. It can make no difference what style one affects in assum- ing literary proportions, so f^ir as concerns his obligations to mankind. He impliedly undertakes to give to the world some- thing in consideration of the honor he expects it to give him; and while the relation is not necessarily one of mere traffic, yet obligations are mutual and reciprocal. The world profits by the existence of genius only when it is properly exerted, until when it owes nothing to the casual custodian (and perhaps abuser) of the talent. An author assumes to teach, and his work should be a thing divine, it may endure and wield an in- fluence. It is inexcusably frivolous, no matter how pompous- ly or solemnly it may be done, to go to the palpably unreal for subject matter unless it is more entertaining than the real, which it cannot be except to a perverted taste; and when it is considered, as it should be, that an author ought to have a fact to make known, a doctrine to declare, or an idea to ex- press, worth his reader's attention, it is worse than idle to take their time and toil with that which can no more than display the genius of the writer, unless it be to further vitiate the taste of the reader. 192 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. Mindful of and actuated by such considerations, and realiz- ing that success lies only in actual demonstration, less than which means the contempt of an arrogant regime for that which (if it deigns to notice it) it will denounce an upstart audacity, 1 approach my subject; not attempting to take any one from the pedestal upon which Fame may have set and enshrined him, but candidly to inquire by what right and for what reason it has done so. About fifteen centuries ago the speck which has long sway- ed the scepter of civilization was a dark, dank, and dismal domain of forest, fen, and ferocity; the gloom of which was but slightly relieved in occasionally organized rapine. A fecund Fancy, to inspire us with veneration for the chivalrous magnanimity of a half naked barbarism, creates characters whose improvised characteristics are as hopelessly out of joint with the times of which it speaks, as its depictions thereof are discordant with the times /// which it speaks. Distance lending enchantment to the view in time as in space, an object obscurely seen against an ambiguous back- ground with which it confusedly blends, takes its form for the ob.server from his fancy. Vision, mental or optic, is seldom content with indistinct images; and where no definite outline individualizes its subjects, more effort is required to suppress the effort to complete them, than to delude the vision with Fancy's conceited complement of them. The remoteness of the scene may make it difficult to furnish that which is super- added to the subject from kindred or congruous matter in space or in time, and when it is finally decked out in Fancy's capri- cious colors it may be more a caricature than a plausible pres- entation of it. Legend may have created or preserved the name and fame of some hero, alleged to have lived at some time and place, which may be well known to have been an age and region of beastly barbarism. Reason suggests that if he lived and was famous, it was for conspicuous success or excess in that which most distinctively characterized his time and place. While history does not deny, it very cautiously concedes, that Arthur (Artus) may have been chief of the Silures; but it J OBSCURITY AND PROFUSION AS INDICATIONS OF GENIUS. I95 positively affirms that they were a tribe of barbarians who had not meliorated the ferocity of forest life in South Wales in the fifth century, and records an abundance of fact irreconcilable with his having acquired the celebrity which ancient legend and modern poetry accord him, for such traits and deeds as such legend and poetry attribute to him. While it is physically possible that after the times of Caesar, Strabo, and Tacitus, and before those of Llymarch, Myrdhin, and Thalliesin, these savages may have become so enlightened as to make cheese, it does not appear that they had made parchment of the skins in which they were clad and inscribed thereon in their war paint any authentic record of such pro- gress. The absence from history of such information implies that at the time of "The Coming of Arthur" they were still clad in skins, dyed with woad, and that forests were their cities, with logs and mud for castles, in which they feasted on flesh and milk. Some modern conservative and candid chron- iclers of historical fact allude to the martial myth in terms more rational than poetical, and one of them concludes that: "The events of his life are less interesting than the singular revolu- tions of his fame;" from which the natural inference is that what we know of Arthur mainly consists in what we don't know. Waiving the significance of the fact that very few of the names of either persons or places immortalized in the poem are mentioned in any credible history, and conceding that they may have existed and been known as there named ; it remains to inquire if the plan, the plot, and the performance of the piece called The Idylls of the King, are not more strain- ed, unnatural, and glaringly preposterous than the narrative is improbable. According to the most authentic information available Arthur must have come from some forest fastness in South Wales, where the more refractory of the vanquished aborigines from accessible parts of the Island had sought relief from the restraints of Roman rule. A chief of a tribe of savages, clad in skins and war paint, fed on flesh and milk, too ignorant to make cheese, living in mud and log huts in the forest, is not likely to be actuated by such magnanimity as to go disinterest- 194 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. edly to the relief of another such chief of another such tribe, when they are so Httle acquainted that the ancestry of the one is a hidden mystery to the other. The mind recoils from the proof of the liberator's ancestry, made to the liberated by in- cantations, before he would consent to a family alliance with his benefector. It is even more unnatural that the "fairest of all flesh" should stand by the castle wall to watch him pass, in a country where the wolves stole and devoured children, and in default of brood of their own lent their tierce teat to human sucklings. Had there been castle walls on the Tiber when the wolf suckled the founder of the Eternal City, the shades of Romulus and Remus might be alarmed for their laurels. The description of Arthur's coronation, graphically given to King Leodogran by "Lot's wife, the Queen of Orkney, Beli- cent," where among other prodigies she saw the Lady of the Lake give him his huge cross hilted sword wherebv to drive the heathen, is no more discordant with the idolarty and human immolation practiced in his own tribe, than the allusion in the preceding stanza to the cross and those around it and the cruci- fied is with the fright of the missionaries sent there by the Pope near a century later. Excalibur seems to have had too many miraculous origins; at another time Arthur wrenched it from a stone floating in a lake. It is no less unnatural or absurd, that when King Leodo- gran had diplomatically hesitated sufficiently to assert his royal dignity, and was by the childish recital of grotesque manifesta- tions of the supernatural convinced of his deliverer's dignity, and had sent him the fairest of all flesh on earth (as he had all along intended to do) that the royal nuptials should be solem- nized by so distinguished an ecclesiastic as "Dubric the high saint, chief of the church in Britain," when it is remembered that Christianity was first introduced there more than a century later, and the King of the most civilized of the British States would only hear the missionary in open air, for fear of sorcery in case he should submit to hear him in an enclosure. Still worse is the allusion to the final rupture with Rome, precipitated by the impolite and impolitic avarice of Arthur's imperial and imperious wedding guests from "the slowly fad- OBSCURITY AND PROFUSION AS INDICATIONS OF GENIUS. 1 95 ing Mistress of the world." Arthur himself did not beam with the delight which usually thrills a bridegroom, but seems to have refused the tribute with more defiance than decorum. Leodogran had just "groaned for the Roman legions here again, and Caesar's Eagles;" and the groans of the Britons were unheeded, although they were emphasized with an offer of the very tribute now so gruffly refused. The coming of Arthur is entirely too heroic for the time and place in which he came. I have objected to philosophy's weakness for parallels, which is itself paralleled in poetry's weakness for similitudes. Gareth was inspired to his valorous deeds by a very prosaical circumstance, one which would have had but little significance for a person unaware that he was destined the hero of some idyll, it is as reasonable to suppose that the denizen of the forest of the fifth century expected to be lionized in the poetry of the nineteenth, as to suppose that he was spurred to his errantry by the incident which is said to have fired him with its chili. Standing near a mountain stream swollen with cold snow he is said to have : — "Stared at the spate. A slender shafted Pine Lost footing, fell, and so was whirled away." That he "stared at the spate," is a poetical way to say that he beheld the river flood. At all events it is said that way in a very fashionable and aristocratic poem. "The last tall son of Lot and Belicent" seeing the sapling whirled away in the catar- act, was impressed with a sense of a senseless stream swollen with cold snow, .consciously doing the Maker's will, (con- forming to the law of gravitation) while he, having sense and wit, and teeming with hot blood, lingered in vascillating obedi- ence in his good mother's hall. The capacity to catch on was wonderfully developed. He was a very susceptible youth, and the rebuke was too much for him. The sapling's fall and flight in the flood suggested some false knight or evil king going down before his lance, if lance were to his use, and he swelled with ambition and burned with an indefinite thirst for the gore of some fifise knight or evil king. And he proposed 196 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. to slake this indefinite thirst as soon as he could disengage himself from his mother's apron strings. After a prolonged puerile parley with his mother, begging that he might go to glory, she finally consented that he might "follow the Christ, the King, live pure, speak true, right wrong, follow the King;" but only on a condition such as mothers seldom impose on their ambitious fledgelings. He surprised her, and marred the picture of princely pride softened with filial love so laboriously wrought ; and exposed his mother's dissimulation, her pretense that the condition was meant to test his love instead of pre- vent his going. He accepted her terms and agreed for "a twelve-month and a day, to serve with scullions and with kitchen knaves." Readers of romance may spoil its effect in their eagerness to anticipate its denouement; or they may discover it were waste of time to read up to it. Where time and attention are to be discreetly invested, a glance at the conclusion may show the folly of tracing the thread through the tangle to the event. The reader of Gareth and Lynette who toils through more than thirty pages of distorted idiom stiltedly displaying a rapid suc- cession of factitious predicaments to see it peter out in a tame conjecture as to the fate of its hero, is poorly compensated for such disappointment in the amusement it may have been to trace the devious turbulence of the knight in his errantry. While minor matters are minutely attended to, that which is of most importance to its hero, and of greatest interest to the reader, is brushed aside with scarcely a surmise as to its issue. The in- ference is, that having flashed from Arthur's kitchen to Lyon- ors, castle, having walked lengthwise (following Christ) over three invincible foes, having burst Death's bubble and shown Lynette and Lyonors that "after all their foolish fears and hor- rors it was only proven a blooming boy," the Meteor married one of them. The colors and trappings of the chargers, the arms and attire of their riders, the places of the several en- counters, the preliminaries thereto and the precipitations there- of, the blows struck in each, by whom, and their effect, and many more matters are carefully noted, and the reader is left to guess which of the heroines the hero married. OBSCURITY AND PROFUSION AS INDICATIONS OF GENIUS. 1 97 The Qiieen having overslept (dreaming of her lecherous lover Lancelot) came late to a chase, and Geraint casually came to where she and her maid were waiting to witness the sport. While engaged in familiar banter resembling the refined repar- tee of the nineteenth century more than the coarse jest of the fifth, they noticed a strange knight lady and dwarf passing. True to the instincts of her sex the Qiieen burned with a curi- osity to know who the knight was and sent her maid to inquire of the dwarf He resented the intrusion — striking the maid with his whip. Except the usual short sword he wore, Ger- aint was unarmed, but he valiantly approached the formidable dwarf and demanded his master's name. The dwarf gave him a similar though more severe hint to attend to his own busi- ness, striking him in the face with his whip, making the blood fly. Geraint's magnanimity saved the dwarf, and he returned to the queen proposing to avenge the insult done her in her maid's person, and to track the vermin to their earths. It is strange that he did not think of avenging the insult done the Qiieen in her maid's person until he received a lash of the same whip. If the dwarf had politely told him his master's name it might have spoiled a story. But Geraint then started on an expidition of knight-errantry to kill the stranger for his dwarf's rudeness, the Qiieen bid him God-speed and promised to dress his bride (when found) like the sun. So far as the poem is concerned the chase is abandoned, indicating that it was had solely to bring these characters upon the scene, and give Ger- aint the occasion to display his daring, and his devotion to the Queen. He followed the stranger and his retinue for twelve hours, until the vermin reached their earths. His next quest was a night's lodging, and arms with which to fight the foe who was unaware of his existence, and whose dwarf had shown his own (not his master's) bad temper. He found every one busy preparing for a tourney to be held next day. He finally found a ruined castle occupied by Yniol, his wife, and daughter Enid. Coincidence is the soul of romance, and Yniol had been deprived of his earldom by the same ver- min whom Geraint was pursuing (Edyrn, the son ofNudd) because he had refused him Enid in marriage. Yniol kept 198 ETHICS OF LITER AtURfe. Geraint over night and armed him next morning for the fray with Edyrn who had not yet learned of his existence, to say nothing of his grievance. The town gathered at the lists to see Edyrn's mistress as usual at his command take an undisputed prize and were dumbfounded to hear Geraint crv "forbear, there is a worthier."' But i do not understand the bustle and hurry in the preparation of arms the day before if there was no contest expected. If it was a foregone fact that Edyrn would take the prize without a fight, and the town had gathered as usual to see his mistress go through the accustomed perfunc- tory ceremony of receiving it, there could have been but little occasion for the hurry in preparation of arms which Geraint found on his arrival at the town, tracing the vermin to their earths. However, to the general consternation, Edyrn was forced to fight. Our hero of course overthrew him, placed his foot on his breast, extorted his name and his promise to apolo- gize to the Queen for his dwarfs rudeness (which he probably learned of at this time) and his promise to restore his wronged uncle Yniol all his possessions. He then married Enid, but not until he had humiliated her by forcing her to go to Arthur's court in her old clothes to be by the Queen clothed "for her bridals like the sun." The honey-moon was spent at the Table Round, but some scan. mag. being bruited about, involving the Queen's fair fame, Geraint, although he discredited it, became alarmed lest Enid incur a taint, and he took her and hied him to his own marches. Arriving there and revelling in the requital of his love to the neglect of public affairs, he soon became the object of opprobrium which Enid noticed before he did. She was hanging over him one morning before he awoke, deploring the bad state of his affairs, soliloquizing, and blaming herself with his reproach, and he awoke to catch disjointedly the last few words of her monologue, — "Oh me, I fear that I am no true wife." Coupling this fragment with her occasional sadness, her tears then moistening his bosom, the chivalrous knight who had scorned the scandal of the court jumped at the chim- erical conclusion that his own Enid was "Weeping for some gay knight in Arthur hall." This is very vague and indefinite Obscurity and profusion as indications of genius. 1 99 jealousy, and it flames on a very slight provocation. Truant wives seldom weep on the bosoms of their injured husbands. It were idle to trace them through all the terrible tests to which he then put her love, fidelity, and endurance; but he made for the frontier, driving her before him in the same "foded silk" in which he had mortified her when she first ap- peared in Arthur's court; and giving her peremptory orders to hold her tongue, showing his childish tyranny and how little he knew of woman. Meeting many marauders on the way, she, to warn him of danger, repeatedly violated his repeatedly renewed order, and he after repeatedly bequeathing her to the better man in case of his fall, closed successively and success- fully with each band and vanquished them. Lest he become too invincible for the hero of an Idyll he managed to receive a secret wound from the effect of which he fainted, after killing the one who had wounded him, and he was carried to the hall of a border ruffian chief who conveniently came along on one of his occasional forays. There he was laid out for dead and the ruffian having returned from his expedition attempted the supposed widow in the presence of the supposed corpse. Failing in entreaty and burly blandishment he resorted to force, and Enid's cries of pain aroused her apparently lifeless lord who was only playing dead to test her fealty, and he rushed from his cooling board and struck off his host's head. He then took her up behind him on his charger (which had discreetly called for them at this juncture) and started to return. Meeting Edyrn whom he had so lately conquered and converted, he conducted them to the camp of Arthur who was then march- ing to suppress the same "huge earl ofDoorm" whose headless trunk Geraint had just left weltering in its gore. And Enid was restored in the confidence of her chivalrous lord. Such is the substance of the story tediously told through more than thirty pages of deformed declamation which a liter- ary aristocracy says in poetry. Jack the giant killer was tame in comparison with Geraint. But Geraint is immortalized in the poetry of one who was in law, if not in fact, a poet; while the Mother Goose of the Teutonic and Indo-European nursery was a mere rhymester. The late Laureate was a factor in the 200 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. , political constitution of the government of a country arrogating to itself the proud distinction of being the centrifugal center and source of civilization, from whence, if not all, yet our most luminous literary light radiates. He was armed with poetic license, and mailed in legal laureatic license; and whenever and whatever and however he deigned to write, the applause of the literary snobs was promptly re-echoed in the applause of the literary serfs; and a fawning constituency at Fashion's fiat affects a delight in that which it is authoritatively informed is genius. With all its magic, majesty, and honor, Arthur's hall seems to have been a hot-bed of vice, corruption, and court intrigue; his most trusted knight being the defiler of his Queen. But so long as he purposely blinded himself to their guilt, it was very unknightly for his hangers-on to be dinning it in his ears. But there is nothing too preposterous for the infatuated artist. Vivien, the harlot, haunted this hall, plying its inmates as she had opportunity. The King in one of his strolls, trying to walk off or walk down his vexation at a rumor rife about the Queen and Lancelot, was met by this adventuress who would "fain have wrought upon his cloudy mood," but he virtuously ignored her "fluttered adoration and dark sweet hints, had gazed upon her blankly and gone by;" and had she grappled with him, he would have "left his garment with her and fied and gat him out." Unfortunately as well as ungentlemanly, "the most famous man of all those times had watched, and had not held his peace." Sage Merlin, the old tattler, told it at the Table Round, and "it made the laughter of one afternoon that Vivien should attempt the blameless King." She resented the ridicule by attempting (and accomplishing) Merlin himself, and they are the immortal hero and heroine of one of these Idyllic roundels. Despising yet dallying with her, her petulant persistence made him melancholy, he left the court, gained the beach, stepped into a convenient boat, "and Vivien followed, but he marked her not." He was very deep- ly absorbed, but "she took the helm and he the sail." The romantic is too easily, and hence too frequently, overdone. If the Sage left the court for the wild woods of Broceliande to OBSCURITY AND PROFUSION AS INDICATIONS OF GENtUS. 201 escape the immodest importunities of his erratic inamorata, he was not very sage in sailing in a craft with her at the hehn. The most famous man of all those times, who had built Arthur's hall for him and was his chief counsellor, ought not to have been chased from the hall to the wilderness by a strumpet who was the butt of ridicule at the court. The persistence of woman when she sets her head is well portrayed, and notwithstanding its deformities, — that nearly all its occasions and situations are strained and unnatural, the piece contains some poetry and philosophy, but instead of rounding out to a conclusion in keeping therewith, it merely flattens out. Vivien talked the sage almost to death, he yield- ed and told her his charm, fell asleep, and she wrought his ruin with woven paces and with waving hands, "and in the hollow oak he lay as dead, and lost to life and use and name and fame." An indispensable requisite to poetry is harmony, and a phil- osophic heroic is within the rule. Harmony in sound and in measure is no more essential to music, than harmony in senti- ment and its expression is to poetry. It appears that two persons were known to have been brothers, were known to have fought with and killed each other in "a glen, grey boulder, and black tarn;" one of them was known to have been a king, yet their names are unknown. Before Arthur was crowned he was roving the trackless realms of Lyonesse, and found the slain king's crown "of diamonds, one in front and four aside." After he was crowned he de- voted these nine diamonds to the purpose of prizes to be tilted for by his knights, one at each annual tourney thereafter for nine years, expecting in that time to learn thereby who was the mightiest, and that the knights would become so inured to arms and deeds of valor that they could drive the heathen. In eight of these annual tourneys Lancelot had won the prize, and expecting of course to win them all, he had hoarded them for a present to the Queen, and had kept his purpose a secret even from her. If the tilts proved anything it was probably established by this time that he was the mightiest. The ninth tourney was proclaimed and the Queen was too illto attend, 202 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. though the King desired her to do so, lest she "miss the great deeds of Lancelot and his prowess in the lists. As Lancelot stood with the King by the bedside of their joint mistress, she "lifted her eyes and they dwelt longingly on Lancelot." He misinterpreted the language of her languid look as importing a wish that he would remain with her, and he feigned that "an ancient wound was hardly whole, and let him from the saddle. And the King glanced first at him, and then at her, and went his way." The King was one of those obliging husbands who knew when he Was not wanted at his Queen's' bedside; and he was above intruding on the privacy of the princely lovers, even if one of them was his wife. Left to themselves the Queen and Lancelot engaged in a lover's quarrel, she rated him for his stupidity in misunderstanding her languid look, and urged him to go to the lists to prevent the scandal which his staying with her might provoke. He retorted her former defi- ance of public opinion, and reminded her that the knights often toast them as lovers while the king listens smiling. The chief of all the knights, the champion soldier of the Cross, the most illustrious of the chivalry which is to drive the heathen, had for eight years maintained a lecherous liaison with the adulterous Queen of the most Christian King; had cuckolded this King who is sung in the same song for superhuman sagacity and force of character, and yet as conniving at his Queen's crime. If the entire fabric is mere fabrication, if fancy is unrestrained and the poet is not limited by the existence or non-existence of any f^ict, if he first makes his matter and then moulds it at will into the form of his poem which has nothing else to recommend it, it should be at least consistent with itself and its pretensions — the principal character it lionizes should not be painted the pander of his own wife's shame — he should not be exhibited as a contemptible cuckold cognizant of his own and his wife's infamy. If Lancelot was the paramour of the wife of the King to whom he owed and had sworn unswerving loyalty, undis- sembling truth, and untiring devotion, if he betrayed the most sacred of all trusts to gratify his lust, is it likely that his respect for the unwritten code of hospitality, his regard for the court- OBSCURITY AND PROFUSION AS INDICATIONS OF GENIUS. 20^ esy and confidence of the Lord of Astolat, or the sanctity of his relations with the Queen, kept him from the person of Elaine when she had snatched him from the grave, nursed him to life, and cast herself at his feet ? There is, however, one point in the picture which is true to nature. It is the Queen's jealous rage when informed that Lancelot fought in this tourney, wear- ing on his helmet "'a red sleeve broidered with pearls," the favor of an unknown rival of her's for his favor. In the purity and proof of his love for and fidelity to the Queen, Lancelot spurned the Lily of Astolat and she died of a broken heart. Pursuant to her last wish her corpse was taken to Arthur's hall with her last letter in her lifeless left hand. The letter was opened and read by the King in the presence of the Queen and the assembled knights, and it vindicated Lance- lot's faithfulness to his royal concubine. In her jealous rage the Qiieen had just thrown away (in a convenient river) Lance- lot's princely present of the nine diamonds for which he had been fighting for nine years, but on hearing the King read the Lily's letter and seeing her late rival consigned to the tomb, she begged Lancelot's pardon, he forgave her, and the happy King convulsively clasped him to his bosom exclaiming, Lancelot ! my Lancelot ! So the lifeless Lily whose love he had spurned, and the cuckold King whose honor he had stained, restored relations between their respective wrongers. And this is fashionable, refined, aristocratic, poetic romance. Having become inured to the preposterous, one may be sur- prised and perhaps disappointed that the poet does not paint the Queen in a tit of jealous rage with the King for calling her Lancelot his Lancelot, for his froward familiarity with the per- son of her courtly lover when he "approached him and with full affection flung one arm about his neck," — where her arms belonged. A sillier, shallower, more extravagant, preposterous, or unnatural story is seldom told ; perhaps never in more in- harmonious, tedious, and turgid tropes. Percivale having doffed the casque and donned the cowl, was interviewed by an ancient inmate of the monastry near a century before Christianity was introduced into the Island. "While mere chronological slips may not be a positive blemish 204 EtHlCS OF LlTERAtURE. to pure romance, yet it is unpardonable in romance, ever so finely rendered, to grovel in the palpably preposterous. Language cannot be set to expression sufficiently fine to justify the absolutely absurd. Lullabies may be solemnly sung to the senile, but they are entirely out of place among the classics, unless they propound a moral, which should not be buried beneath a mountain of mystic obscurity. Ambrosius had seen "the world old yew-tree darkening half the cloisters," had "seen this yew-tree smoke spring after spring for half a hundred years;" during all which time he had never known "the world without, nor ever strayed beyond the pale." This is an elaborate, and possibly a poetic way to say that he had been immured in the monastery for fifty years and was unacquainted with the world. Yet at a glance he had perceived that Percivale was "one of those who eat in Arthur's hall," and he asked what drove him from the Table Round, — if it was "earthly passion crost." Percivale promptly disclaimed all such passion, and told him it was the sweet vis- ion of the holy grail. The aged monk who had spent fifty years in religious exercises, meditations, speculations, and dis- sipations, asked the recent roisterer from the Table Round what he meant by the term holv grail, and the answer was an object lesson in theology. He was informed that Arimathean Joseph brought from Aromat to Glastonbury the very cup in which Christ drank at the Last Supper. The monk seemed to know all about Joseph's expedition, his obtaining a land grant from a local Lord, and building "with wattles from the marsh a little lonely church;" but was utterly ignorant of the miracle- working cup, the sight or the touch of which was the end of all ill. He who can intelligently imagine all this, and has master- ed the art of hysterology. may be equipped for the discharge of the duties of the office of Laureate to a literary snobdom. The novitiate informed the ancient that his sister (a nun) had seen the cup; that her human love being rudely blunted hwd glanced and slwt only to holy things; that the court scandal beat across the iron grating of the cell, and she "prayed and fasted all the more," until "the sun shone, and the wind blew thro' her." And these are some of the figures OBSCURITY AND PROFUSION AS INDICATIONS OF GENIUS. 20i-ion, but is nec- essarily an empirical intuition, or a conception a posteriori. The very word representation destroys the philosopher's argument. There can be no representation of space, original or otherwise, unless space is the object represented to the mind, and of which it has the intuition. It cannot be an a priori intuition, because it comes by means of the representation, which can only be received by means of the sensuous faculty. The representation could not be so original as that the idea of space could have always been in the mind, because if it were always there, there could be no further representation of it to the mind. Besides, there is a time to every mind when it has no idea of space. "The capacity for receiving representations ( receptivity ) through the mode in which we are affected by objects is called sensibility." And "by means of sensibility, therefore, objects are given to us, and it alone furnishes us with intuitions." And " by the understanding they are thought, and from it conceptions arise. " So instead of being in the mind a 'prion, as a "condition of the possibility of a phenomenon," or as "the form of all phenomena, of the external sense," it is itself a phenomenon, and whatever idea of it the mind has, is a conception. The proposition in the quotation number one last above, is an arbitrary assumption without basis either in fact or philoso- phy. Representations of space can be had in no other way than in borrowing them ^'from the relations of external phe- nomena through experience." As I stated above, no mind can 340 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. think space — that is, space as an entirety — all space cannot he thought. The only possible representations of space are neces- sarily representations of parts of space. And parts of space are dependent upon limitations, and representations of it can only come "from the relations of external phenomena." It matters not that the mind cannot stop at any conceivable limit of space, but immediately thinks space further on. If the mind cannot think the whole of space absolutely and finally, it can only think part of it. And the fact that the instant it attempts to think a limit to it, more space appears further on, is as potent to prove the impossibility of thinking space, as any of the data of experience can be to prove any conceivable proposition. The mind has not the capacity to receive any representation of space, greater than may be borrowed from the relations of ex- ternal phenomena, and it is impossible to think space beyond possible external phenomena. Representations of the whole of space being impossible, indeed the whole of space being abso- lutely unthinkable, it follows that the only possible representa- tions of space must come from the relations of external phe- nomena so far as they are known or thinkable. And we can- not have a representation of it further than that. We can imagine space beyond known external phenomena, other than the space itself, but we cannot imagine it as necessarily void of the external phenomena, nor can we imagine it except as in relation to external phenomena, known and supposable. At birth the mind is a blank. It certainly has no intuition of space then. Many intuitions, conceptions, and ideas arise in the mind long before it thinks of space, or of any of the rela- tions of external phenomena in space. Its earlier exercises seem to be recognitions of physical pains and comforts, and in its very nature and constitution it seems to be incapable of having any idea except such as are derived. It cannot have a primi- tive cognition, an original idea, nor an a priori intuition. The fact that space, or the idea of space, is conceived as containing within itself an infinite multitude of representations, renders it no more an intuition a priori, and no less a concep- tion a /)05/^7'/or/, or an empirical intuition. Literature may be conceived of as containing within itself countless works on MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 34 I various subjects, and the idea remains a conception. There are many subjects represented to the mind, and by it conceived of as containing multiplicity. Substance is conceived of as con- taining within itself an inconceivable number of particles, yet the idea remains a conception. The understanding thinks it, and the conception arises. There is no psychological principle requiring that " no conception, as such, can be conceived of as if it contained within itself an infinite number of representa- tion." If a conception can contain multiplicity at all, and many of them certainly do, where shall the line be drawn ? And by what principle of psychologv shall the limit be ascertained ? if "the receptivity or capacity of the subject necessarily an- tecedes all intuitions of these objects," space is still no more an intuition a prion', and no less an empirical intuition. The mind was primarilv possessed of its receptivity, its capacity to be affected by objects, or it could never have received and have been affected by the representations of space itself There is no knowledge without consciousness. Consciousness must be evoked. It cannot be evoked without some kind of change in the conscious subject. Change, of which the subject is con- scious, is experience, and knowledge so derived is empirical knowledge. A representation cannot be until it is made. No matter how ideal or intangible the object may be, there must be an object, and it must be represented before there can be a rep- resentation. It cannot affect any faculty of the mind but the sensuous faculty. "Understanding cannot intuite, and the sen- suous faculty cannot think." The representation, whenever and however it takes place, must in some way affect the sub- ject, and this is experience. It follows that there is no such thing as knowledge a prion', and that there can be no other than knowledge a posteriori. Even if the mind contemplates its own existence, condition, or action, past, present or future; the exist- ence, condition, or action so contemplated is represented to the mind. The philosopher says the mind could not take any rep- resentation but for the receptivity of the sensuous faculty. The existence, condition, or action, so represented must then be an an object, and the mind to which it is so represented must be a subject, and knowledge accruing thereby must be a knowledge 342 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. a posteriori; it relates to the object by means of an empirical intuition. The philosopher's definition of Transcendental Aes- thetic as "'the science of all the principles of sensibility a prwH" is thus shown to be a contradiction. It is proven by an analy- sis of his own postulates. I have assumed nothing. 1 have simply analyzed the philosopher's own declarations, and applied his own principles of logic to them. He says, as hereinbefore quoted, that "pure knowledge a priori is that in which no em- pirical element is mixed up;" and that sensibility is our capacity for receiving representations through the mode in which we are affected by objects, when they are given to us. If this is true the phrase sensibility a priori has no meaning whatever, and the science called Transcendental Aesthetic is a Nescience. Of time, the second one of the "two pure forms of sensu- ous intuition," the philosopher says, "it is only of objective validity in regard to phenomena, because these are things we regard as objects of our senses. * * * y^^ cannot say 'all things are in time' because in this conception of things in gen- eral, we abstract and make no mention of any sort of intuition of things. But this is the proper condition under which time belongs to the representation of objects, if we add the condi- tion to the conception, and say ' all things as phenomena, that is, as objects of sensuous intuition, are in time,' then the propo- sition has its sound objective validity and universality a priori." It is very difficult to understand just what is meant by the decla- ration that time "is only of objective validity in regard to phenomena." If, by the phrase objective validity is meant vali- dity as an object, it is easy to perceive 'that time can have no such validity except in regard to, or as, a phenomenon. To have objective validity it must be an object. All objects pre- sented to the mind are phenomena. If time has objective vali- dity at all, it is so far valid as an object. To be thought by the understanding it must first be intuited by the sensuous fliculty. The sensuous faculty cannot intuite until an object is given or represented to it. Then time must have objective validity with- out regard to phenomena, other than itself. But the proposition quoted seems to involve a contradic- tion. Objects of sensuous intuition are known only empiri- MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 343 cally, that is, by being presented to the sensuous faculty. If pure knowledge a pn'o:-! is ne(:es-^:;';ly 'Ml". ;t in which no cirr pirical element is mixed up," it would seem more accurately logical to say "all things are in time," than to say "all things as phenomena, that is as objects of sensuous intuition, are in time. " The only possible difference between things, and things as phenomena, is not a difference in the things. It depends wholly upon the things having been represented to the sensu- ous foculty, and having thus become phenomena. Things can- not be nothings. Thing must be; the mind cannot imagine a thing without imagining it as being. The mind cannot imag- ine a thing as being, without imagining as being in time. If a thing cannot be imagined except as being in time, it is more accurate to say all things are in time, than to say all things as phenomena are in time. The mind cannot imagine a thing except as potentially an object of sensuous intuition. There may be many things of which no sensuous intuition has been had, because they may not have been represented to the sensu- ous faculty. But the word thing necessarily implies that of which a sensuous intuition could be had, if it should be so rep- resented. That which is in itself too unsubstantial to be repre- sented to the sensuous fiiculty, is, to the mind at least, nothing. Then all things, including time itself, are in time, and time is of objective validity without regard to phenomena, other than itself, and whether the things have or have not been represented to the sensuous faculty and thus become to us phenomena. The philosopher may be correct in denying that time "ab- solutely inheres in things as a condition or property." There seems to be no meaning in either the assertion or denial of such a proposition, and neither could render time of any less objective reality or validity as to things, whether as phenomena or as things in themselves. To say that time is "only of ob- jective validity in regard to phenomena, because these are things which we regard as]]objects of our senses," is attributing an undue importance to our way of regarding things. Time is an entity, or it is not an entity. It is an object, or it is not an ob- ject. If it is not an entity nor object, it is nothing, or rather time is not. If it is an entity or object it must be of objective 344 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. validity and reality. In either case, we can neither make nor unmake it, nor can we either appreciate or depreciate its objec- tive validity or reality, by regarding phenomena "as objects of our senses," or otherwise. The view we may take ot things is not so important as all that. Judging from the progress recently made in scientific re- search, there may be a great deal in the domain of things, which we have never yet regarded at all. During the decade last past a great deal has been discovered which was theretofore un- known, even unsuspected, and hence had not been regarded as "objects of our senses." Yet during and before that time the various subject matters of such discoveries were things in time, and when discovered they were found standing necessarily in relations of time; as having been, and as likely to be. The un- discovered things, whatever they may be, in the yet unexplored regions of existence are objects — potentially at least. Until they shall be discovered we will not know and may not sus- pect them, and to us they will not be phenomena. But to say that they are not things in time until they are discovered and become to us phenomena, is equivalent to saying that our dis- covery of them is their creation. They cannot be either before or after their discovery without being in time. If they are only things in time as they happen to be discovered and thus be- come phenomena, this involves the absurdity of successive cre- ations of the same objects by those who may successively dis- cover them, or apprehend their existence. It appears to be minimizing the consequence of time, which manifestly antedates and outlasts all things, which indeed encompasses all things, to say that it is onlv the subjective condition of our intuition of things when they are represented to the sensuous facuIt3^ It will not mend matters to say that objective inliditr is validity with reference to the operations of the human mind, that the term is simply improvised for such special use. The mind imagines manythingswhichneverbecometo.it real phenomena. But it cannot imagine any thing except as in time, and as in rela- tions of time, no more than it can sensuously intuite real phe- nomena or objects otherwise than as in time, and in relations of time. MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 345 To deny absolute reality to time is similar to saying that we know only appearances, that "what we call outward objects are nothing else but mere representations of our sensibility, whose form is space, but whose real correllate, the thing in it- self, is not known by means of these representations." The use of the word real, is very unfortunate for such saying. How is the real correllate, the thing in itself, knowfi to be real.? If it is not known by means of these representations, that is, by the effect which, as a phenomenon, it has upon the mind when rep- resented to it, then how is it to be known to be the real correl- late ? The philosopher names no other means by which it can be known, and yet he calls it the real correllate, the thing in itself. If the mind knows appearances, and knows them to be appearances, it must know them to be appearances of the things appearing. It may not be able to transport or think them out of space and time, or to know or conceive of them except as in relations of space and time; but if it knows that which it knows to be the appearance of a thing. It must know the thing. Otherwise it could not know that it, instead of some other possible thing, caused the appearance which it knows. Then what we call outward objects must be more than " mere repre- sentations of our sensibility, whose form is space." Neither our sensibility regarded as a mental faculty, nor any representa- tion of our sensibility regarded as a mental effect or condition or operation of mind, can have for its form space. It cannot be imagined as occupying any portion of space, or as having any kind of relation in or with space, without itself becoming a phenomenon, an object of sensuous intuition. Representations of our sensibility cannot have any form at all, if by form is meant figure or contour or proportion, which would seem to be meant if space is intended as the form. One may as well speak of the weight or the density or the color of a pain, as of the form (in space) of a mental representation. If the word form is used as or for condition — implying that some idea, conception, or for- sooth, some intuition of space must be in the mind as a condi- tion of its receiving representations of objects, on the hypothe- sis that it cannot conceive of objects except as in space, it only argues the incompleteness of the philosopher's formula. It 346 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. indicates that little progress has been made in the metaphysical process. The mind cannot think an object except as being and having form. Why not then say that form and being are them- selves intuitions a priori, that they are also in the mind as mere forms of sensuous intuition } As conditions of representation of objects .? As such, they are not necessarily included in the conception or idea of space and time, and yet they are as neces- sary to the conception or intuition or idea of an object as space and time can possibly be. The philosopher says we can think of space and time as devoid of objects, but we cannot conceive of objects except as in space and time. With equal plausibility and propriety it may be said, we can conceive of time as devoid of events, but we cannot conceive of events except as in time. With equal plausibility and propriety it may be said we can conceive of form as devoid of substance, but we cannot con- ceive of substance except as having form. With equal plausi- bility and propriety it may be said, we can conceive of being without an object in existence, althoughjwe cannot conceive of an object except as being. Yet none of these propositions has any plausibility or propriety. Space cannot be conceived of as de- void of objects, nor can time be conceived of as devoid of events, nor can form be conceived of as devoid of substance, nor can be- ing be conceived of except as it implies the existence of an object. We may think parts of space as void. But to think space we posit ourselves therein, and unavoidably think objects more or less remote. The mind cannot divest itself of the thought of objects, and think absolute vacuity. We cannot think time as devoid of events. We cannot even think portions of time, ex- cept as limited by events occurring in time. The mind cannot divest itself of the thought of events, and think absolute inac- tion. We cannot think form as devoid of substance. Even a shadow must be cast upon somtthing. The mind cannot divest itself of the thought of substance and think absolute nothing- ness. Accordingly then, instead of the "two pure forms of sensuous intuition," space and time, there would seem to be at least four, if there are any, and that form and being should be included in the list. This appears to be a logical necessity. MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 347 The philosopher says, "Time is nothing but the form of our internal intuition. (I can indeed say 'my representations follow one another, or are successive;' but this means only that we are conscious of them as in succession, that is, according to the form of the internal sense. Time, therefore, is not a thing in itself, nor is it any objective determination pertaining to, or in- herent in things.) If we take away from it the special condi- tion of our sensibility, the conception of time also vanishes; and it inheres not in objects themselves, but solely in the sub- ject (or mind) which intuites them." If time were not a thing in itself, if it has only subjective validity, and has no actuality itself, if it only inheres in the mind which intuites objects, the argument adduced in favor of the proposition does not even tend to sustain it. What is the special condition of our sensi- bility which if taken away, the conception of time vanishes.? Will not the conception of any and every thing conceivable vanish "if we take away from it the special condition of our sensibility ?" If there is a special condition of the conception of time, then time can be conceived by the mind when the sensi- bility is in, or is attended by, the special condition; and it can- not be conceived of in the absence of such special condition. While time might be a condition of the conception of other things, or, be in some sense a form of their sensuous intuition, yet, so far as the mind is concerned, it is itself a phenomenon, an object of which the mind, with the special condition of sen- sibility, has the conception, which the philosopher says will vanish if we take away the special condition. Then to the mind time must have as valid objective reality as any other ob- ject of which the mind can have a conception; although it might in turn become the form or condition of the sensuous in- tuition of other objects, or be a condition of their conception. The philosopher himself says, "so soon as we abstract in thought our own subjective nature, the object represented, with the properties ascribed to it by sensuous intuition, entirely disappears, because it was only this subjective nature that de- termined the form of the object as a phenomenon." This is fairly equivalent to saying that if we take away the mind's capacity to think, it then cannot think ; or cannot then think so 348 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. as it could before. If the phrase "out; own subjective nature" means anything, it must mean our capacity to be affected in some manner by the representation of objects to the sensuous faculty. As there can be no thought without an object, and as the object must be represented to the sensuous faculty before there ca'n be a thought, and as the sensuous faculty must intuite the object so represented before the understanding can think the object, the removal of the capacity for all these pro- cesses or operations which constitutes our subjective nature, would certainly deprive us of the power to think the object. But the proposition to "abstract in thought our own subjective nature" is a palpable absurdity. Without our subjective nature, there could not be a thought in which this or any other ab- straction could take place. To abstract such subjective nature, is to obliterate all thought, and render it thereafter impossible. We certainly cannot think without being in some manner affected by some kind of objects, — if our subjective nature is abstracted, we cannot be so affected and the process of abstrac- tion itself, which requires thought, would be impossible. Then what is it that is in the mind as the special condition (its sub- jective nature) whereby it has the conception of time ? What is it that constitutes its special condition of the sensibility.^ There must be something, if there is such special condition to be taken away by the proposed abstraction. When the ana- lytical chemist has reduced a composite to what he regards its ultimate elements or units, what assurance has he that a further analysis will not some time be made, and show that his sup- posed ultimate element or unit, is itself a composite of a high degree of heterogeneity ? Further in the sam'e argument the philosopher says, "in con- firmation of this theory of the ideality of the external as well as internal, sense, consequently of all objects of sense, as mere phenomena, we may especially remark, that all in our cognition that belongs to intuition, contains nothing more than mere re- lations. — The feelings of pain and pleasure, and the will which are not cognitions, are excepted. — The relations, to wit, of place in an intuition (extension), change of place (motion), and laws according to which this change is determined (mov- MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 349 ing forces). That, however, which is present in this or that place, or any operation going on, or result taking place in the things themselves, with the exception of change of place, is not given to us by intuition. Now by means of mere relations, a thing cannot be known in itself; and it may therefore be fairly concluded, that, as through the external sense nothing but mere representations of relations are given to us, the said ex- ternal sense in its representations can contain only the relation of the object to the subject, but not the essential nature of the object as a thing in itself." Several questions are suggested by these propositions. Why is it that that which is present in this or that place, or any operation going on, or result taking place in the things themselves, with the exception of change of place, is not given to us by intuition ? The philosopher has emphat- ically declared that to intuition as "the necessary ground-work, all thought points." Why should change of place be given us by intuition, and not any other operation going on, or result taking place in the things themselves ? And if these are not given us by intuition, how are they given us ? If there is a con- ception of any operation going on, or result taking place in the things themselves, it must, according to the philosopher's dec- larations hereinbefore quoted, arise from the thought of the un- derstanding. According to other of his declarations also here- inbefore quoted, the understanding cannot think until the sensuous faculty intuites the object. So if there is any opera- tion going on, or result taking place in the things themselves, which is not given by intuition, it is not given at all. — it is en- tirely too unreal to be thought, it cannot be the content of a conception; and the philosopher says, "Thoughts without con- tent are void, intuitions without conceptions, blind." The further questions occur, — what is "the essential nature of the object as a thing in itself.?" and, — is it possible for the human mind to imagine an object as a thing in itself, that is, as a thing without relation.^ if the phrase, tJung in itself, has any meaning, it must mean thing v/ithout relation to other things. It cannot be a phenomenon until it is represented to the sensuous faculty, and it cannot be represented to the sensuous facultv, except in relation, and the philosopher's division of things is, — k 350 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. into things as phenomenn, and things in themselves. So things in themselves must be things without relations. Upon the an- swer to these two questions depends the validity of this division of things, and hence, the utility of the system propounded by the philosopher. By whatever name his system may be called it is plainly a psychology. It is devoted almost exclusively to a discussion of the possibilities, properties, characteristics, capa- cities, divisions, relations, and laws of thought. If its essential principles are mcapable of application in the possible operations of the human mind, the system can be of no utility for such mind. The investigation will probably demonstrate its futility. There is no sense, either external or internal, nor any com- bination of senses, by means of which the mind can know or or imagine an object except as in relation. There is no psycho- logical warrant for speaking of things which cannot be known or imagined, or for philosophizing upon them as they cannot be known or imagined. Psychologically, there can be noth- ing except in relation, and the relations, whatever they may be, must determine the real nature of the things, so far as such nature may be known. The nature of simple ingredients is determined by their action in combination. If the mind cannot imagine a thing without relation, actual or potential, it would seem that relation (not particular, but necessary relation) must be of the very essence and nature of the thing. Then if things are known at all, it must be by means of mere relations, which renders the knowing of things as things in themselves and without relation, impossible; because it is these very relations which constitute the real nature of the things so far as they are, or can be conceived of as being, things. Illustrations are obvious. Take the simplest possible math- ematical proposition — one and one make two — what is one ? It has no meaning whatever except in some kind of relation, and it will be just whatever its relations make it. Again, — one is contained in two twice, — what is one ? It has no meaning except in its relations. Take the simplest possible chemical proposition, — hydrogen and oxygen compose water, — what is hydrogen? "It is generally stated that hydrogen does not exist naturally in a pure and uncombined state." If this is MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 35 I correct it would certainly be nothing naturally except in its re- lations. If it were found to exist naturally in a pure and un- combined state, it would still be in space, and would be in necessary relations with other objects therein, if of no other kind, then of position. But its real nature could not be known except by knowing its action in combination with some other thing. It is impossible to imagine a chemical analysis of any thing into elements so elementary but that their further reduc- tion may be as legitimately imagined. It is impossible to imagine an atom except as in relation of some kind, and the real nature of nothing can be known except by its relations. So instead of the "two pure forms of sensuous intuition," which the philosopher posits, space and time, there would seem to be at least five, if there are any, and that in addition to the /oral and being above spoken of, relation should be included in the list. It would seem to be an abuse of terms to say that "by means of mere relations, a thing cannot be known in itself; and it may therefore be fairly concluded, that, as through the exter- nal sense nothing but mere representations of relations are given us, the said external sense in its representations can contain only the relation of the object to the subject, but not the essen- tial nature of the object as a thing in itself." There is some sense, it may not be the external sense, which seems to contain more than the relation of the object to the subject — the relations between and among objects seem to be known to some extent. And knowledge of such relations constitutes the greater part of what we know. The existence of an object or a thing neces- sarily involves much more than its relations to the subject cog- nizing it. To many persons (subjects) the existence of many things (objects) is forever unknown. Until known they have no known relation to the subject, yet if they are, they co-exist with the subject in space and time, if they u'ere they and the subject exist successively in space and time, supposing them to be the object and subject before they become actually such by means of the subjects cognition of the objects. If the external sense cannot give us more than the relations of object to subject, it can afford us but little knowledge of the 352 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. nature of the object, but even this little is so much of the real nature of the object. The relation which the object bears to the subject must be supposed to be its necessary relation, and hence necessarily a constituent factor in the composition of the quant- ity or quality called the real nature of the object. The real nature of the object consists in great measure of its relations, actual and potential, to the other things, including the subject; or at least such nature is determined by such relations, actual or potential. Spectrum analysis is supposed to aid in ascer- taining what are the constituent substances of the sun, by co- ordinating in some measure what are supposed to be the rela- tions of such supposed substances to known substances. Micro- scopical analysis, chemical analysis, common observation and experience, are constantly discovering new relations between and among countless objects, whose relations to the subject are of trifling or rather of no apparent consequence in comparison. If psychological principles go for anything in the discussion, there can be no such thing as a thing in itself, because the mind is utterly unable to imagine anything except as in relation. And the philosopher himself attributes supreme authority to psycho- logical principles, in his worse than futile attempt to show that objects must conform to our cognition, or sensous intuition of them. But unfortunately for his system, he thereby asserts the supremacy of that which is now shown to be hopelessly irre- concilable with the fundamental postulates of his philosophy. 1 believe it is now demonstrated that there is no such thing psychologically supposable as the alleged distinction between things as phenomena and things as things in themselves — that no one can know that he knows appearances, without, also knowing that he knows the things of which they are the appearances. The two questions which 1 proposed, to wit, — what is the essential nature of the object as a thing in itself? and, — is it possible for the human mind to imagine an object as a thing in itself, — without relations — are now disposed of. The first is shown to be irrelevant by the necessarily negative answer to the second one. The logical result is, there can be no utility in that part of the Critique of Pure Reason which is thus far MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. j^3 examined, and as it is the basis of the entire fabric, it would seem but illy sustained. Depending as it must, — indeed as it professes to do, upon the alleged distinctions,— rof knowledge as a priori and empirical, — and of things as phenomena and things in. themselves, both of which are now shown to be psy- chologically impossible, there cannot be much philosophic merit in the work. 1 have said that the ultimate object of nearly all speculative philosophy is the settlement, scientifically, of problems which in the nature of the human mind never can be settled to its satisfaction. Such philosophy almost uniformly degenerates, apparently unconsciously, into the coarsest and most dogmatic of apologetics. While it professes to be, and seems to imagine it is, reasoning out its deductions, it often arbitrarily assumes whatever appears necessary to their validity, creates arbitrary divisions of labor for the employment of the alleged various mental faculties, and arbitrary divisions or departments of alleged knowledge; and after denouncing experience generally as unworthy comparison with the alleged pure reason, and of no reliable validity, it almost invariably endeavors to give credence to its own deductions by showing their supposed consonance with the results of experience. And the Critique appears to be no exception to the general rule, as one or two instances of its statement of the problems it involves will suffice to show. "These unavoidable problems of mere pure reason are God, Freedom (of will) and immortal- ity." And again, " * * it is phiin that the hope of a fttture life arises from the feeling, which exists in the breast of every man, that the temporal is inadequate to meet and satisfy the demands of his nature. In like manner it cannot be doubted that the clear exhibition of duties in opposition to all the claims of inclination, gives rise to the consciousness oi freedom, and that the glorious order, beauty, and providential care, every- where displayed in nature, give rise to the belief in a wise and great Author of the Universe." The avowed purpose of the Critique is to so purify and train the reasoning faculty, that it may infallibly establish the validity of, and confirm such beliefs, and solve "these unavoidable problems of mere pure reason." 354 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. In reality it is an indirect, but a very learned and labored and dogmatic system of apologetics. Its author says, "But above all it will confer an inestimable benefit upon morality and relig- ion, by showing that all objections urged against them may be silenced forever by the Socratic method, that is to say, by showing the ignorance of the objector." It is difficult to harmonize the "glorious order" with "the clear exhibition of duty in opposition to all claims of inclina- tion.'' The order would be more glorious if duty and inclina- tion were in accord instead of opposition. The clear exhibi- tion of this opposition may give rise to the consciousness of freedom. But this consciousness of freedom, if put to the test, will be found lacking a great deal of being a knowledge that one is actually free. What is freedom? Is it compatible with restraint.f^ And what is duty apart from restraint ? If one is free he may follow inclination without restraint. 11 one is conscious of freedom he must know he is free. He cannot be free so long as he is restrained, whether by a sense of duty or by fear. If there is opposition between duty and inclination freedom is impossible. One may in such case follow inclination, but not in freedom ; he can in opposi- tion to duty follow it only in resistance. If the opposition be- tween duty and inclination is clearly exhibited, then duty itself is clearly exhibited. Then if one follows inclination he knows he is defying duty and is a rebel instead of a freeman. His duty cannot be clearly exhibited without its restraint is also clearly exhibited. Knowledge of, or belief in, ill consequences, to result from certain action, renders it impossible for one to be free to take such action. His duty forbids it. His inclination may prompt him to take it, but he is not free to do so. He is restrained by fear or by a sense of duty. He may resist such restraint, just as men defy the laws and cheat and kill each other. If "it is plain that the hope of a future life arises from the feeling which exists in the breast of every man, that the tem- poral is inadequate to meet and satisfy the demands of his nature," and if duty has relation to happiness in the future life, — it is indeed strange that there should be " the clear exhibition k MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 355 of duty in opposition to all the claims of inclination." Suppose that we examine this proposition minutely. The universality of tendency seems to establish in one case the reasonableness of the hope of a future life. In the other case the universality of the tendency seems to be consistent with its turpitude, and to be in plain opposition to duty as it relates to the fruition of the hope. The hope of a future life, the inclination to live hereafter, so the demands of our nature may be met and satisfied, is a universal tendency. The word duty is used to imply a condi- tion of the happy fruition of such hope. Can an opposite ten- dency be supposed to universally prevail ? If the universality of the "feeling that the temporal is inadequate to meet and satisfy the demands of our nature," gives rise to the hope of a future life, then the universality of any other feeling, tendency or inclination, ought, on the same principle to give rise to the hope, the fruition of which would gratify such feeling, tendency, or inclination. The validity of morality and religion cannot be made mani- fest by the Socratic method, and no inestimable benefit can be conferred upon them by showing the ignorance of the objector. If they are debatable they must be sustained. If they are not debatable they need no support. If their claims are to be sus- tained it must be by showing their validity, and not by show- ing the invalidity of objections. These may be endless, and all that are offered may be shown to be invalid. But if moral- ity and religion are debatable at all, their validity is not estab- lished by the overthrow of certain objections against them. In order that they may be benefited by the Socratic or any other method, they must be confessed debatable. If the objector is sincere, and no other deserves notice, he may insist that his supposed ignorance is wisdom in comparison with the apolo- gist's dogmatism. And he may be right. When the apolo- gist appeals to pure reason, he may find the Court on both sides of the case. Socrates and Lucretius both recovered spec- ial verdicts, and exulted over their success. One proved that the soul is immortal, the other that it is born and dies with the body. Pure Reason set the seal of its approval upon each of them. CHAPTER XIV. MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. But one Logic — No Cognition without Content— Conception has no a priori Relation to Object — No Universal Criterion of Truth — Understanding not Distinct from Sensibility- — No Representation of Undetermined Object — judgment Necessarily Composite — Negative Content of Predicate an Ab- surdity — No Logical Extent of Judgment Beyond Content of the Cognition — No Difference Betv^een Internal Necessity and External Cause — Principles of Philosophy not Expressed in Alternatives — Mind (Soul) a Physical Con- dition — Modality of Judgments must Add to their Value— No Dij-tinction Between the True and the Necessary — False Judgment Cannot be Basis of Cognition of Truth— Sensibility has Nothing Primitively and Derives Noth- ing Except Empirically, Hence no Sensibility a priori — No Spontaneity of Thought — Synthesis must be a posteriori and not a priori. Notwithstanding the opinion expressed in the last chapter concerning the utility of that part of the Critique so fltr exam- ined, and which seems to be the basis of the entire fabric, and although the general prevalence of such an opinion might be equivalent to a repeal or a nullification of the philosopher's laws of thought, it may be found both interesting and instructive to continue the inquiry. The second part of the doctrine of Elements is called Trans- cendental Logic. As distinguished from Transcendental Aes- thetic, the alleged science of the laws of sensibility, this is said to be the science of the laws of the understanding. It cannot bode very favorably for the result when discussion of such a subject begins in an illogical division of it. As in Transcendental Aesthetic knowledge is divided into a priori and empirical knowledge, so in this, logic is divided into logic of the general, and logic of the particular, use of the understanding. The first is said to contain "the absolutely necessary laws of thought, without which no use of the under- standing whatever is possible." It is said that it "gives laws therefore to the understanding without regard to the difference of objects on which it may be employed." The second is said to contain "the laws of correct thinking upon a particular class of objects." If such division is logical there should be a further MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 357 division giving laws of correct thinking upon particular objects in the particular classes. The occasion for the division must be that the general logic does not give all the absolutely necessary law^s of thought. 1 find it impossible to imagine that the ope- rations of the mind are to be governed by one law or set of laws when dealing with objects in general, and by another law or set of laws when dealing with a particular class . of ob- jects. Further classification of objects would necessitate addi- tional systems of logic; logic would itself become more an in- cident to the classification of objects than a law of thought. While we may not look for a rule without an exception, we inay'object to the exception being made the rule. The word law is irreconcilable with difference in the mode of correct think- ing, according to classification of objects. Law implies uni- formity and regularity, and if one law governs thought when dealing with one class of objects, and another law governs thought when dealing with another class of objects, there can be no general law governing thought when dealing with objects in general. An insuperable objection to the division is plainly apparent in the statement of the division. There can be no useful division without a difference between the laws of the general logic, and those of the alleged particular logic. The general logic is said to give laws, those absolutely necessary, to the understanding without regard to the difference of objects with which it may be employed, in which case the laws of the alleged particular logic would not only be superfluous, they could not apply. Two solids cannot occupy the same place at the same time. If the general logic contains the absolutely necessary laws of thought, it contains those which can in -no case of correct thought be dispensed with, and there can be no correct thought upon any object but according to such laws. If it is complete it will neither need nor admit being supple- mented by the laws of the alleged particular logic. It it is in- . complete it cannot be general. If it is to be supplemented or superseded by a particular logic in any case, it must itself be particular, giving laws only to a particular part of the thought, or to thought only when employed with particular objects. 358 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. That such processes and divisions can be dovetailed together, that the jurisdictions under which they operate can be kept from collision, so that the processes can proceed harmoniously to intelligible results is a mystery. The very statement of the order, or rather the disorder, of the combinations and processes is a confusion. Take for examble the abstraction by which occasion is given for the operation of the laws of the alleged pure general logic as distinguished from general applied logic. The philosopher says, "We abstract all the empirical conditions under which the understanding is exercised; for example, the influence of the senses, the play of the phantasy or imagination, the laws of memory, the force of habit, of inclination, etc., con- sequently also the source of prejudice, — in a word we abstract all causes from which particular cognitions arise, because these causes regard the understanding under certain circumstances of its application, and to the knowledge of them experience is required. Pure general logic has to do therefore, merely with pure a priori principles, and is a canon of understanding and reason, but only in respect of the formal part of their use, be their content what it may, empirical, or transcendental. Gen- eral logic is called applied, when it is directed to the laws of the use of the understanding under the subjective empirical conditions which psychology teaches us. It has therefore empirical principles, although, at the same time, it is in so far general, that it applies to the understanding, without regard to the difference of objects." This abstraction leaves nothing, — and this residue is divided. If we abstract all empirical conditions under which the under- standing is exercised, the influence of the senses, the imagina- tion, memory, habit, inclination, and prejudice, and all causes from which particular cognitions arise; then the understanding will not be exercised at all, there will arise no cognition what- ever, and the understanding will not even understand that it has performed the supposed abstraction. Without the influence of the senses there can be no thought, and without memory thoughts cannot be connected. If the causes from which par- ticular cognitions arise regard the understanding under certain circumstances of its application, to a knowledge of which ex- \ MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 359 perience is required, then the remnant of the understanding remaining after the supposed abstraction, will be under the certain circumstances of its application, if it is applied, and to the knowledge of this experience will be required. The ab- straction itself will be experience, and the supposed condition of the understanding after the supposed abstraction will be an object, to be known only empirically. If it is neither applied nor known, it is entirely too shadowy for philosophic discus- sion. There is no cognition without content. The condition of the understanding after the supposed abstraction must be known, or it must be unknown. If it is unknown the disqui- sition is idle. If it is known, the knowledge of it is the content of the particular cognition which the philosopher says regards the understanding under certain circumstances of its applica- tion, to the knowledge of which experience is required. Some kind of observation or perception will be necessary to know it, and they are experience. If all causes from which particular cognitions arise were abstracted, then that particular cognition would not arise, and we could know neither the condition of the understanding, nor that the abstraction itself were made. Some controversial philosophy when closely scrutinized appears more like contention for signification of terms, than for doctrine and the application of principles. It is not intended to be understood as a wrangle over terminology, and much of it does not seem to be intended to be understood at all. But the critical reader of the works of some philosophers who appear to be in violent opposition to each other, will see that there is little if any occasion for their dissention. In the philosophy in question, which most English-speaking scholars modestly admit they do not fully comprehend, it is said, "in the expectation that there may perhaps be conceptions which relate a priori to objects, not as pure sensuous intuitions, but merely as acts of pure thought, which are therefore concep- tions, but neither of empirical nor sesthetical origin — in this expectation, I say, we may form to ourselves, by anticipation, the idea of a science of pure understanding and rational cogni- tion, by means of which we may cogitate objects entirely apriori. A science of this kind, which should determine the origin, the 360 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. extent, and the objective validity of such cognitions must be called transcendental logic, because it has not, like general logic, to do with the laws of understanding and reason in relation to empirical as well as pure rational cognitions without distinction, but concerns itself with these only in an a priori relation to ob- jects." The word transcendental is used here in relation to logic in a sense analogous to that in which the term a priori is in the same philosophy so frequently used in relation to knowledge. So far as position in the order of a mental process is concerned, the function of transcendental logic is intended as analogous to that of the alleged a priori cognition. But a great deal must be done before there can be the function of transcendental logic, and it must all be done in anticipation and with the imagina- tion. In view of the palpable improbability that the expecta- tion will ever materialize in intelligible psychological results, in order to give scope for the operations of the rare invention — it is necessary to imagine a sort of mental Utopia, where certain laws of the alleged transcendental logic control the action of the pure understanding, in its dealings with that which has no psy- chological content. The science is supposed to "determine the origin, extent, and objective validity," of cognitions which are said to have no object. This is rarified air. If conceptions are acts of pure thought, there can still be no conception without an object. When thought becomes too pure to have an object it ceases to be thought. There can be no cognition without content. When cognition becomes too airy to contain the knowledge constituting it, it ceases to be cognition. There can be neither a conception nor a cognition unless it is of empirical or aesthetical origin. The philosopher himself says, "our nature is so constituted, that intuition with us can never be other than sensuous, that is, it contains only the mode in which we are affected by objects. On the other hand the faculty of thinking the objects of sensuous intuition is the understanding. Neither of these f^iculties has a preference over the other. Without the sensuous faculty no object would be given to us, and without the understanding no object would be thought. Thoughts without content are void, intuitions MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. ^6x without conceptions are blind. Hence it is as necessary for the mind to make its conceptions sensuous (that is, to join tO' them the object in intuition) as to make its intuitions intelligi- ble (that is, to bring them under conceptions). Neither of these faculties can exchange its proper functions. Understand- ing cannot intuite, and the sensuous faculty cannot think. In no other way than from the united operation of both, can knowledge arise." So according to his own unqualified decla- rations, it plainly appears, that unless the mind can, by means of some of its f:Kulties, employ itself in a process or operation more subtle than thought, there can be no mental domain within the jurisdiction of the laws of the transcendental logic. It is simply impossible to imagine that it can do so. There is manifest contradiction and absurdity in the proposi- tion to cogitate objects entirely a priori. One of the philoso- pher's cardinal principles is, that objects only reach us through the sensuous faculty. Another one is, that all cognition arising therefrom is a posteriori cognition. Now to cogitate a thing is to think the thing cogitated. To intuite a thing is to know or perceive the thing intuited without deduction or reasoning, that is, to know it directly. To cognize a thing is to know the thing cognized. The mind cannot cogitate, intuite, nor cognize, without cogitating, intuiting or cognizing something. Neither cognition nor cogitation then can be possible apnon, nor in an a priori relation to objects. There can be no such relation. Rela- tion of any thing mental to objects must be a posteriori. The rela- tion cannot be until the object is, nor indeed until it is given. In delirium a mind may wildly and weirdly imagine much that is unreal, both as to its imaginary objects and their imaginary re- lations. But in its dealings with thought philosophy is sup- posed to refer to that of rational creatures in their sober senses. Psychology will be but little advanced by being taught in- terms of visionary vagary ; and the alleged a priori cognition can be no more than that. Conceptions cannot have an a priori relation to objects. The philosopher says, "By means of sensibility objects are given to us, and it alone furnishes us with intuitions; by the understand- ing they are thought, and from it conceptions arise. But all 362 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. thought must directly or indirectly, by means of certain signs, relate ultimately to intuitions ; consequently, with us, to sensi- bility, because in no other way can an object be given to us." If conceptions arise from thought, and if thought must originate in sensibility, the conceptions must be a posteriori. They must come after the object is represented to the sensuous faculty, and the intuition arises or is. The sensuous faculty must intuite be- fore the understanding can think. If thoughts without content are void, then they are not. To be thoughts they must be joined to the object in intuition, and thus they have content. Con- ceptions arising from them, come necessarily after the object in intuition, and hence a posteriori. Conceptions must be before they can have any relation whatever, and it is impossible for them to be before the thoughts from which they arise; and thoughts originate only in sensibility. So if it is the sole office of the transcendental logic to determine the origin, the extent, and the objective validity of conceptions which relate a priori to objects, there is no practical utility in it. No such conceptions are conceivable. Nothing could be much more illogical than the proposition to furnish a "universal and secure criterion of the truth of every cognition." "With regard to our cognition in respect of its mere form (excluding all content), it is equally manifest that logic, in so far as it exhibits the universal and necessary laws of the understanding, must in these very laws present us with criteria of truth." And this position is equally as illogical, un- philosophical, and absurd as the proposition which he de- nounces. In the same paragraph he says, "these criteria, how- ever, apply solely to the form of truth, that is, of thought in general, and in so far they are perfectly accurate, yet not suffi- cient. For although a cognition may be perfectly accurate as to its logical form, that is, not self-contradictory, it is notwith- standing quite possible that it may not stand in agreement with its object." One simple truth is sufficient to show the utter fallacy of such proposition, and to answer all the argument ad- duced to sustain it. It is this, — there can be no cognition which does not agree with its object. Another is, — a cognition cannot be perfectly accurate as to its logical form, that is, not I MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 363 self-contradictory, and then not stand in agreement with its object. A cognition, to be such, must have an object. It must relate to its object. It is nothing with an object. It is deter- mined by its object, both as to form and content. It is a cog- nition of the object cognized, or it is nothing. If there is no content (object) there is no cognition. Its content is its form. It is impossible to think without thinking something. Both knowing and accurate thinking must agree with the thing known and accurately thought. The supposed cognition which does not so agree, is self-contradictory, for it is now clearly shown that it can only be a cognition in so far as it agrees with its object. It is not merely asserted, it is shown, that a cogni- tion to be such must agree with its object. If it is not satisfac- torily shown, I will proceed to do so on the authority of the philosopher's own unqualified declarations. It is illogical, un- philosophical, and absurd to say, — "with regard to our cogni- tion in respect to its mere form (excluding all content). " When all content is excluded there is no cognition to have form. Ac- cording to the philosopher, thought is the work of the under- standing, which can only be performed when the sensuous fac- ulty has intuited an object. The laws of the understanding cannot present us with any criteria of truth either in particular or in general. The laws of the understanding (transcendental logic) may prescribe certain rules for accurate thinking, but truth is not to be tested by any criterion which they can afford. If truth is "the accordance of the cognition with its object," it can only be known when the object is presented, and the cri- teria must then be afforded by the sensuous faculty (in a sum- mary of the experiences, or deductions therefrom) to which the object is presented. Under the general head of Transcendental Logic the philos- opher treats of what he calls the transcendental clue to the dis- covery of all pure conceptions of the understanding. But within the first page of the discourse he shows the impossibility of suchgConceptions, and hence the superfluity of the alleged clue for their discovery. He says, — "independently of sensi- bility, we cannot possibly have any intuition; consequently the understanding is no faculty of intuition. But besides intuition 364 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. there is no other mode of cognition, except through concep- tions; consequently the cognition of every, at least of every human, understanding is a cognition through conceptions,— not intuitive, but discursive. All intuitions, as sensuous, de- pend on affections; conceptions, therefore, upon functions. By the word function, 1 understand the unity of the act of arrang- ing diverse representations under one common representation. Conceptions, then, are based on the spontaneity of thought, as sensuous intuitions are on the receptivity of impressions." But a little previously he had said, "pure understanding disting- uishes itself not merely from everything empirical, but also completely from all sensibility." And not very far back he had declared the impossibility of the understanding so distinguish- ing itself, as v^^ell as the impossibility of any conception not based, like sensuous intuitions, on the receptivity of impres- sions, except that they are one remove further away from, in advance of, or above sensibility- As quoted in the last pre- ceding chapter he had said, "an intuition can take place only in so far as the object is given to us. This, again, is only pos- sible to man at least, on condition that the object affect the mind in a certain manner. The capacity for receiving repre- sentations (receptivity) through the mode in which we are affected by objects, is called sensibility. By means of sensi- bility, therefore, objects are given to us, and it alone furnishes us with intuitions; by the understanding they are thought, and from it arise conceptions. But all thought must directly, or indirectly, by means of certain signs, relate ultimately to intui- tions; consequently, with us, to sensibility, because in no other way can an object be given to us." Conceptions then arise from thought. And all thought must relate to sensibility. If it is the understanding which does the thinking, how is it to distinguish itself "completely from all sensibility.?" Further, if conceptions depend on function, and if function is "the unity of the act of arranging diverse representations under one com- mon representation," and if conceptions arise from the thought of the understanding, then the understanding cannot distinguish tself completely from all sensibility. The representations with which function deals, are made only to the sensibility. The MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. ' 365 sensibility receives them by means of the receptivity of the sensuous faculty. It is irrelevant to say that "besides intuition there is no other mode of cognition except through conceptions." The above quoted postulates preclude the possibility of conceptions except by means of, or arising from intuitions. And they are equally as positive that intuition is impossibile without sensibility, that is, impossible except by means of sensibility. Where such declarations are positively made, and are so contradictory, the reader must either misunderstand or forget what he reads on one page, in order to be prepared to understand what he may read upon another page of the same philosophy. In the introduction to his discourse upon the analytic of conceptions, the philosopher says, "Transcendental philosophy has the advantage, and moreover the duty, of searching for its conceptions according to a principle; because these conceptions spring pure and unmixed out of the understanding as an abso- lute unity, and therefore must be connected with each other according to one conception or idea. A conception of this kind, however, furnishes us with a ready prepared rule, by which its proper place may be assigned to every pure concep- tion of the understanding, and the completeness of the system of all determined a priori, — both which would otherwise have been dependent on mere choice or chance." It would really seem more logical, though perhaps not so transcendentally logical, to assign the pure conceptions of the understanding to their proper places, than to assign their proper places to them. Such conceptions would seem to be as trans- itory and portable as place. But aside from this, which may be regarded captious, 1 think 1 have shown that according to the philosopher's own positive declarations, a pure conception of the understanding, as he defines it, is an impossibility. He says it is a conception in which there is nothing empirical. Also that the understanding has been negatively defined "as a non-sensuous faculty of cognition." I think I have already- shown that according to his positive declarations, there can be no such faculty, or at least that no faculty of the mind can have a non-sensuous cognition; that he absolutely precludes the k j66 ' ETHICS OF LITERATURE. possibility of thought without sensation, and no one would claim that there could be cognition without thought. Later in the section last above quoted from he says, "Now thought is cognition by means of conceptions. But conceptions as predicates of possible judgments, relate to some representa- tion of a yet undetermined object." I believe it is shown that according to his own positive declarations, both 'these propos- itions propose impossibilities. As quoted in the preceding chap- ter he has said, "By means of sensibility, therefore, objects are given to us, and it alone furnishes us with intuitions; by the understanding they are thought, and from it arise concep- tions." Then thought cannot be "cognition by means of con- ceptions," because conceptions themselves arise from thought, or from the understanding which thinks. It would be a some- what circuitous process if thought, or the understanding that thinks, should first produce conceptions, and thought should then be cognition by means of them. Conceptions as predi- cates of possible judgments cannot relate to the representation of a yet undetermined object. A mere representation is suffi- ciently filmy when the object is determined. There can be no representation of a yet undetermined object. A representation, to be such, must be a representation of an object. So long as the object is undetermined, how can the mind know that it has a representation of it ? If the mind even imagines that it has a representation of an object, it must also imagine the object of which it so imagines itself to have such representation. The object must be determined in the imagination, or the represen- tation of it cannot be in the imagination. In proof of this it is sufficient to ask the reader to try to imagine the representation of an object, without at the same time imaging the object as determined. Herbert Spencer says it is impossible to look at the sun and think of green. I have tried to imagine myself doing so, and found it impossible. His assertion is proved, psychologically at least. If one cannot imagine the representa- tion of an object without also imagining the object as determ- ined, it is proved there can be no such thing as a "representa- tion of a yet undetermined object." These conceptions cannot "spring pure and unmixed out of the understanding as an MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. }b'J absolute unity." The understanding is not, and cannot be im- agined to be, an absolute unity. It may be the highest faculty or function of the mind. But according to the philosopher's own positive declarations, it is merely a relative factor, and not an absolute unity. As already quoted he says, "without the sensuous faculty no object would be given to us, and without the understanding no object would be thought. * * * in no other way than from the united operation of both, can knowledge arise." If this is true the understanding not only cannot be an absolute unity, it must be a mere factor or faculty of essential relativity in the mental make-up, the psychological organism. Substantively the understanding is nothing. If it is in reality a fliculty of thought, or a foculty which thinks, or even an entity which thinks, its existence is only known in its thinking. Until it thinks it is not known to be. It cannot be imagined as in being, except as engaged in thinking. The philosopher says it cannot think unless it is furnished with an object by sensuous intuition. If he is correct in this, the un- derstanding must be a relative quantity or quality, dependent in its existence and operations, which as above shown are but one, upon the faculty of sensuous intuition. Then it certainly cannot be an absolute unity. The imperativeness with which he declares the understanding to be an absolute unity, is un- warranted. Positiveness is not philosophy. If, however, it is the alleged pure conception of the understanding which he means to call an absolute unit, the result is even worse for his philosophy. According to his declarations conceptions must be composite, and cannot be unity. The raw material of which they are composed is the intuition of the sensuous fac- ulty, intuited only when an object is presented or represented. This intuition is worked over by the understanding into thought and conceptions. Then conceptions must be as empirical, as heterogeneous, and as relative, as the thing intuited by the sensuous faculty, or as the intuition of the sensuous faculty. Of the alleged logical function of the understanding in judg- ments, he says it may be brought under four heads, of which each contains three momenta. They are, first, Quantity of judgments, as universal, particular, and singular. Second, 368 ETHICS OF LITERATURE, Quality of judgments, as affirmative, negative, and infinitive. Third, Relation of judgments, as categorical, hypothetical, and disjunctive. Fourth, Modality of judgments, as problematical, assertorical, and apodeictical. That in the use of judgments in syllogisms, singular judgments may be treated like universal ones. That because a singular judgment has no extent, its predi- cate cannot refer to a part of the conception of the understanding, and be excluded from the rest. That the predicate is valid for the whole conception as if it were a general conception and had extent, to the whole of which the predicate applied. That in point of quantity the singular is to the general judgment as unity to infinity; that as to their intrinsic validity, and their use with reference to each other, they need not be separately placed ; but that according to quantity they are entirely differ- ent. This is very obscure; but I believe I apprehend its mean- ing. In what 1 have to say of it 1 shall endeavor to be strictly logical. There is no logic in the distinction between singular and universal judgments. The supposed universal judgment is probably called so because of the universality of its applica- tion. It may be of universal application and still singular, numerically. If the word singular is used as the antithesis of composite, no such judgment is psychologically possible. A judgment must be somewhat in the nature of a conclusion reached by means of or after deliberation, and it cannot be con- ceived of as simple.- Deliberation is necessarily a hesitating between different mental tendencies, and the conclusion (judg- ment) reached is composed of the result of the consideration of the matters, whatever they may be, which tend the mind this way or that way. If the word judgment is used in the sense of cognition, it not only necessarily tends to confusion, but is even worse for the philosophy than if it were used in the com- mon acceptation of the term, and as 1 have above supposed. A cognition cannot be singular, that is simple, but is necessarily composite. It can arise only from a mental survey of things in their relations. It is psychologically impossible to think of any one thing to the utter exclusion of all other things, and of all relations. Suppose one to try the simplest and most direct MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 369 cognition possible, and see if it can possibly be singular in the sense of simple, or as distinguished from the composite. Ap- perception is probably the simplest and most direct of all pos- sible cognition. By it we know that we are. But what.? and where.? and how? and when.? and amongst whom.? and with what.? The cognition is nothing if not composite. The philosopher seems to base the distinction between the singular and universal judgments on the alleged fact that the singular has no extent. This necessarily implies that the uni- versal judgment has extent, and he says the singular is to the general judgment as unitv to infinity. This relation is analo- gous to that sometimes supposed between the atom and the universe. But it is impossible to suppose an indivisible atom, or an atom without extent. If the singular judgment has no extent it cannot be to the general judgment as unity to infinity, because unity cannot be supposed to have no extent; and worse than this, no human judgment can be supposed to corre- spond with infinity. Further of the logical function of the understanding he says that in transcendental logic infinite are distinguished from affirmative judgments, though they are rightly classed with them in general logic. General logic abstracts all the content of the predicate, though it be negative, and only considers whether the predicate be affirmed or denied of the subject. Transcendental logic considers the content of the negative pred- icate, and inquires what the cognition gains by such affirma- tion. That by the negative proposition, "The soul is not mor- tal," one really affirms, places the soul in the unlimited sphere of immortal beings, affirms that the soul is one of the infinite multitude of things which remain when all mortal things are taken away. That by such means the unlimited sphere of all possible existences is so far limited that the mortal is excluded from it, and the soul is placed in the remaining part of this sphere. That this part remains infinite, and more may be taken away from the whole sphere without augmenting or affirmatively determining our conception of soul. That such judgments, infinite in respect of their logical extent, are in re spect of the content of their cognition, merely limitative. That 370 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. hence they belong in the transcendental table of the momenta of thought in judgments, because the function of the under- standing exercised by them, may perhaps be of importance in the field of its pure a priori cognition. It would seem very much like an abuse of terms to speak of an alleged negative content of a predicate. And indeed in the example given, viz., "the soul is not mortal," the philoso- pher says we really affirm. To affirm with negative proposi- tions'is to obliterate all distinction between the negative and affirmative and abolish all intelligible thought. If the content of a predicate is negative the predicate is void. The soul is not necessarily placed in the sphere of the immortal by merely affirming that it is not mortal. So far as such affirmation is concerned it may not he at all. Such a proposition does not affirm that the soul is one of the multitude of things which re- main when all mortal things are taken away. The infinite sphere of possible existence cannot be limited and remain infin- ite. It would require great metaphysical acumen to harmonize infinity with limitation. Whenever and wherever infinity shall be limited right then and there it will cease to be infinite. If judgments are infinite in respect of their logical extent, they can only be so by being infinite in respect of the content of their cognition. The content of the cognition of judgments measures their logical extent. There is nothing of a judgment beyond the content of its cognition, and it can have no extent ol a logical or any other kind, beyond the scope of the matter to be extended. There can be no judgment and no part of a judgment beyond the content of its cognition. If this is infin- ite the judgment is infinite, otherwise the judgment is limited. The logical extent of a judgment is nothing except as it ex- tends the judgment with the content of its cognition correctly in the domain of thought, and the content of its cognition is necessarily the measure of its extent in such domain. If such judgments are important only in the field of the understanding's a priori CQ)gx\\\\ox\, they are without importance, — it is already shown that there can be no such cognition. Of the alleged logical function of thought in judgments, the philosopher makes the following division according to their MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 37 I alleged relations: "Those (a) of the predicate to the subject; (b) of the principle to its consequence; (c) of the divided cogni- tion and all the members of the division to each other. " He proceeds to say, that hypothetical propositions contain the relations to each other of two propositions. That nothing is cogitated by means of such judgments except a certain conse- quence, the result of the two propositions of the hypothetical proposition. That a disjunctive judgment contains a relation of two or more propositions, not of consequence, but of logical op- position, so far as one proposition excludes the other. That it contains at the same time a relation of community in so far as all the propositions taken together till up the sphere of the cogni- tion, — for example, the world exists either through blind chance, or through internal necessity, or through an external cause. This last and alternative proposition, the alleged disjunctive judgment, is utterly senseless. If the dogmas of philosophy are to be illustrated or enforced by the use of propositions, it should be done by such as have some intelligible meaning, and not by puerile exclamations without meaning. There is no intelligible difference between internal necessity and external cause. If the world exists through an external cause, it must be an et^icient cause, one not to be opposed. The existence of the world, then, must be a necessity, — a necessary result of such cause. Internal necessity, to mean anything, must mean necessity inherent in the nature of the world, that world which exists through such internal necessity. To say that the world exists through such necessity means nothing. It must exist before, or at least as early as, it can have a nature necessitating its existence. To say that the world exists through blind chance argues only the blindness of the proponent of such a proposition. There is too much order, uniformity, permanency, and purpose apparent in its existence and progress or develop- ment for the admissibility of any such proposition. Sound philosophy never expresses itself in such alternatives. The alternative itself implies that its proponent does not know what he proposes. If he knows that the existence of the world is due to some one of the three alleged causes, he must know which of them. In such case there could be no occasion nor 372 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. excuse for the alternative. If he does not know which of the three alleged causes produces the existence of the world, he cannot know that it is any of them which does so, unless he has the infinite knowledge necessary to know that among all the infinite number of supposable causes, no other than the three alleged could be efficient. It is both illogical and irrele- vant to speak of cause as external to the world. The word world as there used means the entire material universe. It is impossible to imagine any thing as external to it. Space can- not be supposed to extend beyond matter, and we cannot im- agine anything as external to space. As far as the vision has gone in space it has found celestial systems, and nebula imply- ing the presence of matter. The mind cannot go further than it can, and necessarily must, posit the like. To treat the term external cause as though it were meant to imply spiritual as distinguished from material, would be beneath the dignity of serious philosophy. The spiritual cannot be imagined as en- tirely distinct from the material, but only as a condition of the material. It is impossible to imagine a spirit otherwise than iis in the form of some known or supposable aggregation of mat- ter, and form cannot be imagined except as outline or contour of something. Even a shadow is the manifestation of the con- dition of matter, and of the relation of some part of substance to another part during its existence. It is cast by something and falls on something, and cannot itself be nothing. If mind is soul, a spirit, the spiritual is merely a condition of the material. Mind is a state or condition of nerve substance, and it cannot be imagined as external to, nor as before or after, the substance of which it is the state or condition. So it ap- pears that the deepest, the dullest, and the dryest of all meta- physics deals in the veriest visionary vagary, and that its pro- foundest wisdom is the sheerest folly. The philosopher declares that the modality of judgments is a quite peculiar function that contributes nothing to the con- tent of a judgment, but concerns itself only with the value of the copula in relation to thought in general. That problemat- ical judgments are those in which the affirmation or negation is regarded as merely possible ; that in the assertorical we regard MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 373 the proposition as true, in the apodeictic we look upon it as necessary. That problematical judgments may be obviously false, and yet, taken problematically, be conditions of our cog- nition of the truth. That the assertorical speaks of logical real- ity or truth ; that the apodeictical cogitates the assertorical as determined by the laws of the understanding, consequently as affirming a priori, and in this manner it expresses logical neces- sity. That because we judge problematically, then accept as- sertoricallv our judgment as true; and then accept it as insepa- rably united with the understanding, that is, as necessary and apodeictical, these three functions of modality are so many momenta of thought. I do not see how the modality of judgments can concern itself with the value of the copula so as to determine anything concerning such value, without contributing something to the content of the judgment. If the modality of judgments con- cerns itself with the value of the copula, it must be for the pur- pose of determining such value, or it is idle. If the copula, as it is supposed to do, unites the subject and predicate ; and if the modality of the judgment determines the value of the cop- ula, it must add something to the content of the judgment; it necessarily adds the conception of the value as so determined. Subject and predicate are 'without meaning in the absence of the copula. They may be the material out of which a judg- ment may be constructed by the use of a proper copula. The judgment will be just whatever the copula makes it, by bring- ing the subject and predicate together in this or in that partic- ular form. Then that which detei mines the value of such cop- ula adds more to the content of the judgment than is derived from any other source, and it does so by determining the value of such copula. With regard to the accuracy or verity of judgments there can be no intelligible difference between the true and the neces- sary. The true is necessarily true, and the mind cannot imag- ine it as unnecessary. The necessary is no more true than the true. It is not a higher grade of truth. Truth admits no grad- uation. When an intelligible judgment is formed, and is by some means known to be true, the mind cannot with the same 374 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. data before it imagine it to be untrue, or otherwise than as so formed. The philosopher defines truth as the agreement of the cognition with its object. If this definition is exclusive there can be no a priori knowledge which is true. As heretofore shown, he declares that in knowledge a priori the object must agree with the cognition, and not the cognition with the ob- ject. The subject (mind) cognizes the object (thing.) This cannot be done unless the cognition agrees with the object. This agreement is necessary to the cognition, and it is neces- sarily true, or it cannot be agreement. Cognition is knowing. When one cognizes he knows. It is impossible to imagine one knowing anything by means of cognition disagreeing with the thing known. Psychologically, then, there can be no ditfer- ence between the true and the necessary in judgments. Asser- torical and appodeictical judgments are merely true judgments. If a judgment is true it cannot be false, and hence it is neces- sarily true. The distinction is without difference, and the division of the modality of judgments into the three alleged functions is arbitrary and idle. An obviously false judgment cannot be a condition of our cognition of truth. Really, there can be no judgment in which the affirmation is merely possible. Blind guess-work is not judgment. If an affirmation or negation is merely possible, it is not probable, and is more in the nature of the vagary of delirium than the judgment of a thinking mind. So far as we know possible affirmations and negations may be innumerable. That which is merely possible cannot be certain, while if our cognition of truth depends upon any condition, it must be upon a condition certain. Otherwise the supposed cognition will be uncertain, and instead of being cognition it will be mere sur- mise or conjecture, depending for its truth upon something which possibly may, but which probably does not, have truth. Of the pure conceptions of the understanding or categories the philosopher says, general logic abstracts all the content of cognition, expecting to receive representations from some other quarter, in order by means of analysis, to convert them into conceptions. That on the contrary, transcendental logic has lying before it the manifold content of a priori sensibility. MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 375 which transcendental sesthetic presents to it in order to give matter to the pure conceptions of the understanding, without which transcendental logic would have no content, and be therefore utterly void. That space and time contain an infinite diversity of determinations of pure a /)r/orz intuitions, yet that they are the condition of the mind's receptivity, under which alone it can obtain representations of objects, and which conse- quently must affect the conception of these objects. That the spontaneity of thought requires that this diversity be examined after a certain manner, received into the mind and connected, in order afterwards to form a cognition out of it. That this process is synthesis. That synthesis is pure when the diversity is not given empirically, but a priori. That representations must be given before there can be any analysis of them, and no conceptions can arise, as to their content, analytically. That synthesis of a diversity is the first requisite of a cognition; it is that by which alone the elements of our cognitions are collected into a certain content; it is the first step in the investigation of the origin of our knowledge. That synthesis is the mere oper- ation of the imagination — a blind but indispensable function of the soul, without which we should have no cognition what- ever. That the understanding reduces it to conceptions, by means of which we attain to cognition. That pure synthesis rests upon a basis of a priori synthetical unity. That numera- tion is a synthesis according to conceptions, because it takes place according to a common basis of unity, as the decade. That by means of this conception the unity in synthesis of the manifold becomes necessary. All these assertions, if they were otherwise valid, are vitiated by the use of the term a priori sensibility. Sensibility is, by the philosoper himself, defined as, or declared to be, the capac- ity for receiving representations through the mode in which we are affected by objects. If he is correct in this there can be no a priori sensibility. When a representation is received, an object has been presented to the sensuous faculty. Sensibility then cannot be a priori, it must be a posteriori in its opera- tions, whatever they may be. So that if transcendental logic has nothing lying before it but the alleged manifold content of 376 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. «/)r/or/ sensibility which transcendental aesthetic presents to it in order to give matter to the pure conceptions of the under- standing, it can have no content and must be utterly void. Transcendental aesthetic cannot present the alleged mani- fold content of the alleged a priori sensibility to transcendental logic, nor to anything else. The alleged manifold content of the alleged a priori sensibility cannot be the matter of a pure conception of the understanding. Such conception can have no matter in any way derived from or related to any form of sensibility. Sensibility has nothing primitively, and it derives nothing except empirically. The philosopher says transcen- dental aesthetic is the science of all the laws of sensibility a priori. But 1 have just shown that sensibility a priori is impossible. And further, sensibility cannot be conceived to have any content until something (an object) is presented to the sensuous faculty, because sensibility is, he says, the capac- ity for receiving representations through the mode in which we are affected by objects. Then if sensibility has a content it must be the representation of an object. And this could not be the matter of a pure conception of the understanding, — it must be the matter of an empirical conception (intuition }), be- cause it is derived through some kind of experience. The philosopher declares, as hereinbefore quoted, that "pure un- derstanding distinguishes itself not merely from everything em- pirical, but also completely from all sensibility." And all sensibility includes sensibility a pr'wii, if there is such thing. If sensibility is the capacity for receiving representations of objects through the mode in which we are attected by them, it certainly has nothing primitively, and derives nothing except empirically. If space and time contain an infinite diversity of determina- tions of intuitions, they certainly do not contain such diversity of determinations of a priori intuitions. The philosopher as hereinbefore quoted says, "an intuition can take place only in so far as an object is given to us,"- — ^in which case a priori in- tuitions are impossible. If space and time are "the condition of the mind's receptivity," under which alone it can receive representations of 50;;/^ objects, and which consequently must MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 377 always affect the representations of these objects; on the auth- ority of the philosopher's own declarations I have shown that space and time are themselves objects of sensuous intuition. The philosophic truth is that thought is the development and coordination of sensations. Then thought cannot be spontan- eous, and there is no such thing as spontaneity of thought to require any diversity of determinations "to be examined after a certain manner, received into the mind and connected, in order afterwards to form a cognition out of it." Thought cannot proceed alone from any inherent tendency ot the mind to think. An object of some kind, tangible or intangible, must be in some manner presented to the sensuous faculty; or it must be, in what we call memory, represented to the mind, before there can be thought. When an object is presented or represented it is not exclusively by means of any voluntary act of the mind alone. It is fortuitous to, and originally caused by something' external to the mind ; so the mind never thinks without some measure of some kind of constraint. If thought were spontan- eous it would not be caused by, nor originate from the effect of an object upon the sensuous faculty. A purely voluntary thought is unthinkable. Howeverslight the impulsion may be, the presentation or representation of an object to the mind im- plies thought according to the receptivity of the sensuous fiic- ulty, and in exact ratio with the capacity of the mind to de- velope and coordinate the sensations produced by such pre- sentation or representation. If synthesis is the examination of the diversity of determina- tions of intuitions, the receiving them into the mind and con- necting them, in order afterwards to form a cognition out of it; if it is the process of joining different representations to each other, and comprehending their diversity under one cognition, it cannot be pure, if, in order that the synthesis may be pure, the diversity must not be given empirically, but a priori. The diversity of the determinations of intuitions cannot come to the mind before the intuitions themselves, and they can only come with or by means of the presentation of objects to the sensu- ous faculty. Then synthesis must be empirical, and cannot be a priori. 378 ETHICS OF LITERATURE, Of the same subject the philosopher further says, "The first thing which must be given to us in order to the a priori cogni- tion of objects, is the diversity of the pure intuition; the syn- thesis of this diversity by means of the imagination is the sec- ond; but this gives, as yet, no cognition. The conceptions which give unity to this pure synthesis, and which consist solely in the representation of this necessary synthetical unity, furnish the third requisite for the cognition of an object, and these conceptions are given by the understanding. The same function which gives unity to the different representations in a judgment, gives also unity to the mere synthesis of different representations in an intuition; and this unity we call the pure conception of the understanding. Thus, the same understand- ing, and by the same operations, whereby in conceptions, by means of analytical unity, it produced the logical form of a judgment, introduces, by means of the synthetical unity of the manifold in intuition, a transcendental content into its repre- sentations, on which account they are called pure conceptions of the understanding, and they apply a priori to objects, a re- sult not within the power of general logic." And 1 think it may be appropriately added, "nor within the power of any logical logic whatever." The a priori cognition of objects being now shown to be utterly impossible, and the alleged synthesis of the diversity of the alleged pure intuition being confessedly the work of the imagination, no object hav- ing in any manner been given, presented, or represented, and thought itself being as a necessary consequence impossible, it would seem like a puerile elaboration of a groundless fancy to go so minutely into a description of the functions and their alleged operation in an exercise which cannot take place. Supposing all these intricate and involved processes of the mind to be gone through with, and no object, or no suitable object, should be given, presented, or represented to the sensu- ous faculty — what have we then but shadow ? And upon what manner of substance is such a shadow cast ? Many pre- dicables may be in the mind. It may be stored with qualities and conditions to assign to and predicate of the countless objects in all their diversity that may be given. But to predicate any- MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 579 thing of any object before the object is given, that is, a priori, the mind must imagine such object. If such object should never really be given, the process is idle. If such object should really be given, the propriety of the anticipatory predication is at once a question of experience, and knowledge of such pro- priety or impropriety is necessarily empirical. The alleged synthetical unity of the manifold in intuition, is impossible a priori. Supposing the content of an intuition may or may not be very variously manifold, depending upon the object given, and the manner and circumstances of its presentation or repre- sentation, yet an object must be given before there is the intu- ition. The synthetical unity of the manifold in such intuition cannot be imagined to antecede the intuition itself, and what- ever follows the giving of the object is a posteriori. If intuition is correctly defined as direct apprehension, or cognition, or as immediate knowledge, it would seem to be unity itself And while it might be manifold, there could be no synthetical unity of such manifold because there would be no time for synthesis to take place. It may not be amiss here to notice one of the philosopher's examples of the so-called synthetical propositions. He says, "A straight line between two points is the shortest, is a syn- thetical proposition. For my conception of straight contains no notion of quantity, but is merely qualitative. The concep- tion of shortest is therefore wholly an addition, and by no anal- ysis can it be extracted from our conception of a straight line. Intuition must therefore here lend its aid, by means of which and this only our synthesis is possible." There may be many lines of various degrees of crookedness, going or extending by as many various routes from one point to another point. But between two points no other than a straight line is possible. The moment (or the point at which) the line deviates from a straight course, the part of it involved in such deviation is not between the two points. If no other than a straight line be- tween two points is possible, the proposition that a straight line between two points is the shortest is more absurd than syn- thetic. On the authority of the philosopher's own declaration that necessity and strict universality are infallible tests of the 380 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. accuracy of a priori cognition, and conceding, for the sake of the argument, that the proposition is an appropriate one, his con- ception of straight as to the supposed line between two points must contain the notion of quantity. On such hypothesis it is necessarily true, and strictly universal, that the straight is the shortest possible line, — that any other must be greater in quan- tity. The conception of shortest, then, is not wholly an addi- tion, but is necessarily and universally implied and included in the conception of straight as to the supposed line between two points. The mind cannot think a straight line between two points except as the most direct and shortest possible route from one of the points to the other. The thought necessarily involves the notion of quantity, — the length of the supposed line. The conception of straight comes so nearly containing the notion of quantity, that the conception of shortest is the first one possible in any analysis of the conception of straight. The very moment one begins to examine his conception of a straight line between two points, other lines are necessarily supposed, and' they not only are necessarily and universally greater in quantity, but they are necessarily and universally thought (at the moment) as greater in quantity, and the notion of the lesser quantity in the straight line necessarily and uni- versally appears. Of course one may think a straight line of indefinite or undetermined extent without conceiving any def- inite notion of quantity; but when he thinks a straight line be- tween two points, that is, extending from one of the points to the other, the notion of quantity is in the conception. CHAPTER XV. MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. Conception of Cause has no a priori Basis in the Understanding — Necessity as Basis of a priori Knowledge, Insufficient — Necessity itself Known only Empirically — ^ prior i-\sm Inverts Order of all Supposable Cognition — Intuition is some Form of Apprehension of Phenomena — Sensation the Basis of all Intelligence — Content of Representation — Capacity to Have, is not Form of, Intuition — No act of Understanding can be Unconsciously Done — No Purely Spontaneous Activity of Subject— Intuition is not an Un- decomposable Mental Act— Unity (as distinguished from union) in any Element of Thought is Unthinkable — Apperception is Empirical — Difficul- ties of the Critique — Cheap Criticisms. Speaking of the alleged deduction of the categories, the Philosopher says, the conception of cause cannot arise from ex- perience, but must have an a priori basis in the understand- ing, or be rejected as a mere chimera. That it demands one thing to be of such a nature, that another thing necessarily fol- lows, according to an absolutely universal law. That to the synthesis of cause and affect, there belongs a dignity utterly wanting in any empirical synthesis. It were an endless undertaking, the attempt to test the validity of all the declarations of the philosopher in the Critique. The selection of those most worthy controversial attention is difficult. But it is not so difficult as to conceive how the con- ception of cause can have an a prion basis in the understanding. Whatever the understanding may be, whether a faculty or a condition, — thought is developed and coordinated sensation. The philosopher says it is the understanding which thinks, but it would seem more philosophical to say that understanding is developed and coordinated thought, or a result of it. Then conception of cause can have no a prion basis in the under- standing, because it must be itself of empirical derivation. It cannot be before thought, and thought cannot precede sensa- tion. So conception of cause must arise from experience. If the synthesis of cause and effect is so dignified as to re- quire something to be of such a nature, that something else (specific) should follow from it necessarily, and according to )82 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. an absolutely universal law, it demands that which in the nature of the human mind it is impossible to know that such synthesis can have. The mind cannot know anything until it acquires the knowledge. This requires experience, — the devel- opment and coordination of sensation, followed by the devel- opment and coordination of thought. The Philosopher says we may "collect from phenomena a law, according to which this or that usually happens, but the element of necessity is not to be found in it."' The element of necessity further than it is known empirically is not to be found in anything. Without the element of neces- sity empirically known, there can be no known physical law. With the thought of a low temperature, congelation of sub- stances appears to the mind; but Blackstone says the King of Siam would not believe the Englishman who told him of ice. Anyone having never observed the effects of cold would prob- ably be equally as incredulous. The conception of cold as a cause of the phenomenon cannot be a priori in the understand- ing, nor can it have an a priori basis in the understanding. Still there is nothing in all physics more necessary or universal than this effect resulting from this cause. But facts must be learned in some way, and when from long experience (obser- vation) the result is found to be constant, the mind becomes convinced of its universality and necessity. The conception of such cause is empirically derived. Scientists sterilize air and vegetal infusions to destroy the germs contained in them. They know empirically, and not a priori, that heat destroys life. Biogenesis claims to have vanquished Abiogenesis by means of such experiments. Heat of a certain degree is uni- versally and necessarily certain to destroy life. The conception of heat as a cause of the phenomenon cannot be a priori in the understanding. — nor have an a priori basis in the understand- ing. Still there is nothing in all physics more universal or necessary than this effect resulting from this cause. But facts must be learned in some way, and when from long experience (observation) the result is found to be constant, the mind be- comes convinced of its universality and necessity. The con- ception of the cause and its effect is an empirical synthesis. i MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 383 The doctrine of a priori conceptions of the understanding de- rives no warrant from any alleged universality and strict neces- sity. Nothing can be known to be universal or necessarily so until it is learned. All knowledge is derived; and the capacity to acquire it, the conditions of its acquisition, the principles of the sensuous and reasoning faculties on which it must be ac- quired, are themselves no part of knowledge. One may as well say that the essential conditions of growth and strength and health are a priori growth and strength and health, as that the essential conditions of cognition are a priori cognition. The proposition that "either the object alone makes the rep- resentation possible, or the representation alone makes the object possible," is unwarranted. Without an object repre- sented there can be no representation. Without a representa- tion there can be no cognition. That we can conceive of ob- jects as thus and so, and cannot conceive of them as otherwise, does not make it necessary that they should be thus and so. So far as we are concerned, and so far as our capacity to con- ceive is concerned, objects may be of any form or nature, or they may not be at all. The object alone cannot make the rep- resentation possible ; there must be a sensuous faculty endowed with receptivity. The representation alone cannot make the object possible, any more than one's image reflected in a mirror makes his existence possible. The representation itself is pos- sible only when an object is presented to a sensuous faculty endowed with receptivity. So the possibility of a priori rep- resentation does not depend upon the representation alone making the object possible ; — it is demonstrated that a priori representation is already unconditionally impossible. He says that in case representation alone makes the object possible, although it does not produce the object as to its exist- ence, it must nevertheless be a priori determinative in relation to the object, if it is only by means of the representation that we can cognize anything as an object. Representation cannot be a priori determinative with regard to an object, when repre- sentation is itself impossible until an object is given. An object cannot be given indeterminately. It must be given determi- nately or it cannot be known to be an object. 384 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. : Representation is often illusory. A straight stick set per- pendicularly in clear water cannot be made to appear perpen- dicular below the surface. The slightest declination from the perpendicular makes the stick appear to deflect at the surface. The representation changes while the object remains un- changed, yet in its actuality it is still represented (or perhaps misrepresented) in the apparently bent form. Stars of immeas- urably different distances from us appear to be the same dis- tance away. The earth appears to be flat, and the sky ap- pears to be a great dome resting upon it at the horizon. Through the clear air objects appear to be in what we have come to regard their real forms and colors. Through colored and waved glass they appear to be in different forms and colors. Near the horizon the heavenly bodies appear much larger than when near the zenith. If objects must conform to our cogni- tion, and if representation makes them possible (not as to their existence, but as phenomena), then the straight stick is actu- ally bent by the submersion, the heavenly bodies are all equi- distant from us, the earth is flat and the sky is a dome resting upon it at the horizon, the heavenly bodies are larger near the horizon than near the zenith, and they cannot be at the nadir at all because we can have no representation of them there; objects seen through different intervening media change form and color, and countless other phenomena actually are that which we know they actually are not. A priori-ism is an inversion of the natural order and sequence of all supposable cognition. Instead of supposing the possibil- ity of our cognition of objects as they are, it supposes the pos- sibility of their existence as we cognize them. The Philosopher says, "There are only two conditions of the possibility of a cognition of objects ; firstly, Intuition, by means of which the object, though only as a phenomenon, is given; secondly. Conception, by means of which the object which corresponds to this intuition is thought. But it is evi- dent from what has been said on aesthetic, that the first con- dition, under which alone objects can be intuited, must in fact exist, as a formal bases for them, a priori in the mind. With this formal condition of sensibility, therefore, all phenomena MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 385 necessarily correspond, because it is only through it that they can be phenomena at all; that is, can be empirically intuited and given. Now the question is, whether there do not exist a 'priori in the mind, conceptions of understanding also, as con- ditions under which alone something, if not intuited, is yet thought as object. If this question be answered in the affirma- tive, it follows that all empirical cognition of objects is neces- sarily conformable to such conceptions, since, if they are not presupposed, it is impossible that anything can be an object of experience. Now all experience contains, besides the intuition of the senses through which an object is given, a conception also of an object that is given in intuition. Accordingly con- ceptions of objects in general must lie as a priori conditions at the foundation of all empirical cognition; and consequently, the objective validity of the categories, as a priori conceptions, will rest upon this, that experience (as far as regards the thought) is possible only by their means. For in that case they apply necessarily and a j>n'or' to objects of experience, because only through them can an object of experience be thought." Obscurity and profusion are the ready resources of philos- ophy, or the learned jargon which passes current as philosophy. But the Philosopher who relies too much upon them may cross his own trail, unless he carefully remembers his prior postulates when making subsequent declarations. If intuition and con- ception are the two conditions of the possibility of the cogni- tion of objects, it is still not necessary that all phenomena nor indeed that any phenomena correspond with the intuition. The proposition that intuition is the only means by which an object, that is, only as a phenomenon, is given, can only amount to this; that it is by means of intuition that we apprehend phe- nomena, or more accurately, that our apprehension of phenom- ena is intuition. But this must necessarily be empirical, and not a priori intuition. The object cannot be apprehended until it is given, and when it is given it becomes to us a phenom- enon. The object must be either a phenomenon or a noumen- on, and as noumenon, it is not given at all. But intuition does not give the object, any more than the microscope gives the Bacillus. It is the means by which, or the process in which, 386 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. the mind takes the object when it is given, just as the thermo- pile is the means by which, or its use is the process in which, we ascertain the temperature given by a certain degree of heat. This, of course, is upon the hypothesis that intuition is itself a faculty, or its use a mental instrumentality. But it is neither. It is a mental process, or perhaps more accurately, it is an es- sential prelude to a mental process, the whole of which is the cognition of an object when it is given. Now why should an object when it is given, and so becomes to us a phenomenon, necessarily conform to or correspond with the intuition ? It is not a phenomenon until it is given, or as the Philosopher has said, until it is presented to the sensuous faculty, — what- ever that may be. What was it before it was so presented ? Have we any reason to believe it was different from what we find it when it is presented .^ If not, if for aught we know or may reasonably suppose, the object as a phenomenon is not in- herently different from what it was as a noumenon, it would seem more accurate to say that our intuition and cognition of it conform to and correspond with it, than to say that it must conform to and correspond with them. Does the fact that by means of intuition we discern that an object is thus and so, render it necessary for the object to be thus and so ? For countless ages the Binaries have appeared to be single stars. They, as objects, as phenomena, have been intuited and cog- nized as such, until comparatively recent astronomical investi- gation has disclosed that they were really double, revolving around their common centers of gravity. Until such discovery was made they had never been accurately or truly intuited or cognized. The faculties of intuition and cognition were then at fault. With their improvement the objects the double stars are intuited and cognized as they are. Did they formerly conform to or correspond with the faculties of intuition and cognition ? If not then, why should we say that they do now ? Does the apparently unchangeable conform to and correspond with the palpably changeable ? May not the changeable be more likely to be brought to conform to and correspond with the un- changeable ? MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 387 To say that intuition as a condition of the possibility of the cognition of objects, "must in fact exist, as a formal basis for them, a pnori in the mind," can legitimately signify no more than that the mind cannot take the representation of an object unless it is endowed with the capacity, whatever that may be, of receiving such representation. But minds have such capac- ity in various degrees of proficiency. If objects, as phenomena, must necessarily conform to and correspond with this faculty, it ought to be of steadfast uniformity among all persons and during all time. There ought to be an unvarying standard of intuitive and cognitive faculty, so the moon need never be taken for a green cheese, and the settling and shrinking of house walls need not be taken for the tolling off of the time by the death watch. How can we suppose there can exist a priori in the mind, conceptions of understanding, as conditions under which alone something, if not intuited, is yet thought as object ? It is al- ready shown that, according to the Philosopher's own declara- tions, thought cannot precede intuition, that sensation must precede both, and that neither can accomplish anything like cognition without the other. If he is correct in this, it does not follow "that all empirical cognition of objects is necessarily conformable to such conceptions;" nor that "if they are not presupposed, it is impossible that anything can be an object of experience." Things are potentially objects of experience long before the mind can conceive of anything. Objects of experi- ence are objects of the senses. "The lowest form of vision appears to be nothing beyond a sensitiveness to the proximity of a body which intercepts the light." When the hydra re- moves from the light to the dark side of the vessel in which it is placed, it exhibits some intelligence. It seems to kno%v the difference or to know that there is a difference between light and darkness, and to know which is best suited to it. The light and darkness are, to it, objects of experience. It has an empirical cognition of them, which can scarcely be supposed to conform to an a priori conception of them; — and it would be equally as difficult to suppose that it had presupposed them. These phenomena, light and darkness, are to the hydra objects 388 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. of experience, without the necessity, or even the possibility, of its having any a priori conception of them, or of objects in gen- eral; and hence there can be no necessity of the experience con- forming to any a priori conception, and still its movements ex- hibit a degree of intelligence. As no other time is fixed for the human mind to begin to conform to the laws of psychology enacted in the Critique, it is fair to presume that its allegiance to such laws is coeval with its existence. The earliest manifestations of its existence are generally the cries with which it greets the midwife on its arrival in this wicked world. It has experience then of objects of which it cannot be said to have any a priori conception. At birth no mind was ever known to exhibit more intelligence than is shown by the amoeba in projecting in this or that direc- tion a prolongation of some part of itself and attaching it to some fixed object to draw itself forward, or to some small por- tion of organic matter around which it collapses, and which it dissolves or absorbs for its nutriment. The labia of the infant cling to the maternal nipple with perhaps less tenacity, but about the same degree of intelligence as that with which the tentacles of poulpe adhere to the limbs of the drowned mariner. They each have experiences of objects, but it is impossible to suppose that either of them has an a priori conception of ob- jects in general, or indeed of any object whatever. That the infant may rapidly develop a mind, while the poulpe remains limited to a meagre instinct, does not invalidate the illustration. Evolutionists (and even the philosopher himself) all trace mind back to its alleged origin in Sensation. If they are correct in this, every exhibition of sensation is an expression (pro tanto) of intelligence. The Philosopher says that the empirical derivation which some philosophers attribute to the alleged pure conceptions of the understanding, cannot possibly be reconciled with the fact that we do possess scientific a priori cognitions, namely, those of pure mathematics and general physics. This seems more like assertion than philosophy. It is not apparent that we have a priori cognitions of pure mathematics and general physics, any more than of applied mathematics or any particular topic MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 389 that may engage thought. If mathematics is the science of spatial and quantitative relations, it is a system of calculation. The symbols, signs, or instrumentalities used in the process render it neither more nor less mathematics. In a steeple- chase, the width of the ditches and the height of the hedges are calculated by the horse and not by the rider, and as they are approached, the steed measures his leap so as to be under full momentum and clear the obstacle, without having to divide a leap so as to spring from the most advantageous point. A hawk swoops down upon a barnyard, and a fowl flies for shel- ter. The hawk observes this and changes its course from directly toward the fowl to a point in advance of it, and veers just enough to reach that point just when the fowl reaches it. An elephant directed to pick up a penny lying by a wall and beyond the reach of its proboscis, blew violently against the wall above the penny, and the reflex atmospherical current brought the penny within its reach. Here are some instances of very nice calculation of time, speed, space, and their rela- tions. According to the Philosopher's philosophy, these ani- mals had scientific a priori cognitions of pure mathematics, or a priori conceptions of pure understanding, relating to the data of consciousness, which guided them respectively and uner- ringly to such results. Are such exhibitions of intelligence essentially different from those made by human minds in in- numerable instances.f^ Is intelligence any the less intelligence that it is exhibited by a quadruped or a winged biped instead of a biped without wings.^ Can either of the animals in the instances above named be supposed to have had an a priori con- ception of any kind or of anything whatever.!^ But touch the horn of a snail and observe how quickly the slimy little creature shrinks back into its shell. Does it not exhibit intelligence, — a discreet fear for its personal safety? Has it had an a priori con- ception of danger to enable it to experience such fear.^ It acts as though it really had some mind, — and doubtless it has, but who would venture the assertion that it has had an a priori con- ception of the pure understanding in order that it might think the dangerous object from which it shrinks.'' It evidently does think the dangerous object, and experience the fear of it when 390 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. it shrinks from it. Now, unless we maintain that the snail is capable of a jmori intuition, or a iiriori conceptions of the pure understanding, we must admit that experience is possible with- out any a priori conception of objects in general. If it is so in any instance of intelligent action, why may it not be so in all ? Of the deduction of the alleged pure conceptions ot the un- derstanding the Philosopher says, "The manifold content in our representations can be given in an intuition which is mere- ly sensuous — in other words, is nothing but susceptibility; and the form of this intuition can exist a priori in our faculty of rep- resentation, without being anything else but the mode in which the subject is affected." This dual proposition is very obscure, and it is difficult to ascertain its meaning so as to give it intelligent consideration. Taking the parts in their order the question occurs, — what is it that is nothing but susceptibility — the manifold content in our representations — or the merely sensuous intuition ? One would scarcely suppose that the capacity to have an intuition, the sus- ceptibility to the effects of that which gives rise to the intuition, could be the manifold content of the representation. A repre- sentation being necessarily a representation of something, its manifold content must be the qualities, attributes, and pecu- larities, of whatever kind and nature they may be, which serve to distinguish the particular thing represented from other things. In a representation the mind must see the particular thing rep- resented, separately or as distinguished from other things, but not without relation to them. Whatever it may be that dis- tinguishes the particular thing represented from other things, and thereby furnishes the data of the intuition so the mind can intuite the particular thing, must (together with its relations) be the content of the representation by means of which the in- tuition is possible. Then it must be the merely sensuous intu- ition which the Philosopher means to say is nothing but sus- ceptibility. An intuition is quantitative or substantive, so far as mental effects can be regarded as such, while susceptibility cannot be regarded as other than qualitative, — that is, as the capacity to have intuition. The latter part of the proposition, — that the MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 39 1 form of this intuition can exist a priori in our fliculty of repre- sentation, without being anything else but the mode in which the subject is affected, — has no legitimate psychological import. The expression, the mode in which the subject is affected, means the mode in which the subject is affected by the object, if it means anything. Different objects affect the subject differ- ently, and the mode in which the same object will affect the subject depends upon circumstances external to the subject. The difference in the mode in which objects affect the subject testifies in some measure the difference in objects. Every ob- ject which is in any respect different from any other object will affect the subject differently from such diffeient object. Numer- ically speaking, objects are infinite, — they are beyond imagin- able computation. The mind cannot contain a priori one form for each and every intuition it may have on the presentation of every possible object to the sensuous faculty. If such form is nothing else but the mode in which the subject is affected, it cannot exist a priori in the faculty of representation. The mode in which the subject is affected is variable, depending upon the mental condition of the subject, and the circumstances attending the presentation of the object. The subject's capacity to be affected at all by an object, measures the possibility of the mind's having an intuition of the object, the form ot which intuition depends upon some- thing external to the mind. Such capacity cannot be the form of the intuition itself If the intuition varies with the various objects and the circumstances attending their presentation, the form of such intuition cannot exist a priori in the faculty of rep- resentation, — but the subject's capacity to receive representa- tions, or to be affected in any manner by any object, may be a primitive and inherent quality or property of the subject. The mode in which the subject is affected cannot existapwiin the faculty o\ representation unless the subject must necessarily be affected in but one mode under any and all possible circum- stances that might attend the presentation of the object. Ob- viously this could not be. An electric light which can scarcely be seen at noon is dazzling at night. The surfeited appetite revolts against the most palatable food, and the rarest delicacies 392 ETHICS OF LITERATURE, become nauseating. Music that charms and exhilarates for a time, becomes monotonous, and finally annoying. Charity and courage without unnecessary display, command our esteem and admiration; exhibited with a flourish, they deserve and have our contempt. The form of the intuition of these objects depends upon the condition of the mind and the circumstances attending their exhibition. Under some circumstances the in- tuition may be of one form, while under different circumstances it will be of a different form. If the form were a priori in the faculty of representation the intuition were necessarily of but one form, and the condition of the mind and circumstances attending the presentation of the object would be without influence to vary or affect the form of the intuition. This, it is shown, is impossible. Proceeding with the alleged deduction, the Philosopher says, — the conjunction of a manifold in intuition never can be given to us by the senses ; that it cannot therefore be contained in the pure form of sensuous intuition, for it is a spontaneous act of the faculty of representation. That as we must, "to dis- tinguish it from sensibility entitle this faculty understanding; so all conjunction — whether conscious or unconscious, be it of the manifold in intuition, sensuous or non-sensuous, or of sev- eral conceptions — is an act of the understanding. To this act we shall give the general appellation of synthesis, thereby to indicate, at the same time, that we cannot represent anything as conjoined in the object without having previously conjoined it ourselves. Of all mental notions, that of conjunction is the only one which cannot be given through objects, but can be originated only by the subject itself, because it is an act of its purely spontaneous activity. * * * * That the possibility of conjunction must be grounded in the very nature of this act, and that it must be equally valid for all conjunction; and that analysis, which appears to be its contrary, must, nevertheless, always presuppose it; for where the understanding has not previously conjoined, it cannot dissect or analyze, because only as conjoined by it, must that which is to be analyzed have been given to our faculty of representation." MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 39_^ If the conjunction of a manifold in intuition cannot be given us by the senses, but must, whether conscious or unconscious, be an act of the understanding, the mind will never accomplish much in the way of conjoining such manifold. What is the alleged manifold in intuition ? How can the understanding unconsciously conjoin such alleged manifold? Is it possible to imagine an act of the understanding unconsciously done ? What is understanding ? If it is the intellectual faculty, the rational powers collectively conceived and designated, then what are they ? What can they accomplish without thought ? What can be thought unconsciously ? The manifold content in intuition may be the elements composing the substance of the intuition. Suppose an intuition of an incorporeal object, — for instance, charity. It is sufficiently a substantive to be the object of a sensuous intuition. It may be felt, — the several senses are so many different modes of feeling. The manifold in such intuition may be the several elements and characteris- tics of an act which combine to make the act charitable. For instance,^ — an enthusiast, with more zeal than wisdom in advo- cating some heresy may make himself ridiculous. His hobby may have attracted attention and deserved intelligent consid- eration. It may be examined by some one of superior capac- ity, and he may utterly demolish it. This may be done in kind, considerate, and respectful terms, and the argument in which it is done may even raise the mistaken bigot in the estimation of all who read or hear the argument in which his heresy is exploded. The reviewer may make the bigot's sincerity prom- inent, and, while showing his fallacy, he may also labor to show that the error is not one which was at all unlikely. The manifold in intuition of charity so exhibited, consists of the apparent error of the enthusiast, his deserving of rebuke, and the demolition of his doctrine done by a superior without mal- ice. Now these are all conjoined in this intuition. The Philosopher says this conjunction "cannot be given through objects, but can be originated only in the subject itself, because it is an act of its purely spontaneous activity." There is no such thing as the subject's purely spontaneous activity. In order that there may be a manifold in intuition, there must 394 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. be an intuition. Intuition cannot be spontaneous, — an object must be presented to the sensuous faculty, and the intuition must be provoked. Its manifold then must be perceived or thought at the time of or after its inception. Conjunction of this manifold cannot be supposed to precede the perception or thought of the manifold. Wherever the conjunction takes place it follows and is provoked by the presentation of the ob- ject of the intuition to the sensuous faculty. As it is impossible to suppose it to take place otherwise, it cannot be an act of the subject's purely spontaneous activity. Conjoining the manifold in intuition may be the work of thought, but it still cannot be an act of the subject's purely spontaneous activity. No mind ever performed such an act. The act of conjunction is provoked, ultimately by the presenta- tion or representation of the object to the sensuous faculty, originating or causing the intuition ; this gives rise to thought in which conjunction of the manifold takes place, so it is given through objects and by the senses. One of the most startling of the above quoted propositions is the one that, "where the understanding has not previously conjoined, it cannot dissect or analyze." If this were true, analysis would be a useless labor. The only possibly legiti- mate office of analysis is to ascertain the constituents of a com- posite, and their character. If the same understanding which is to analyze, has already conjoined these constituents (mani- fold in intuition), it must have known what they were, and their character. Otherwise the understanding could not have very understanding^ conjoined them. The Philosopher bases this proposition on another, viz., only as conjoined by the un- derstanding, "must that which is to be analyzed have been given to our faculty of representation." Here he reverses the order in which his mental processes have been proceeding. Hitherto representation has preceded understanding. Under- standing is now in advance, conjoining the manifold in intui- tion in order that the representation may be afterwards analyzed by the same understanding. Of course that which is not in conjunction cannot be analyzed; that, the parts of which are not together, cannot be separated into its parts. But there is MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 39^5 no logic in combining merely for the sake of afterward sepa- rating, — nor in the supposition that the same fiiculty can spon- taneously conjoin that which it can analyze only by or after presupposing its conjunction. If there is a manifold in intuition, and if intuition is suscept- ible to analysis, then Herbert Spencer's definition of intuition is seriously at f^iult, He says it is an undecomposable mental act, — an immediate perception for which no reason can be given. The distinction then between it and understanding would seem to be with scarcely a difference, unless it were in degree. Understanding, regarded either as a mental faculty, or as a substantive result of a mental process, is simply an advanced stage of or refinement upon intuition. The great concern of philosophy seems to be to prove propositions of various degrees of probability and perplexity, by reference to subsumed propositions which it says cannot themselves be proved by any means, — the alleged fundamental principles or primitive cognitions. Its authors write as though a standard of mentality were established and their readers had attained to it. Their illustrations generally assume that their readers are acquainted with first principles and simple truths, and conse- quently agree in their cognitions of them. And if intuition is an undecomposable mental act, an immediate perception for which no reason can be assigned, there can be no manifold in intuition, and all persons knowing anything must be acquaint- ed with first principles and simple truths, and conseqently must agree in their cognitions of them. In such case there can be.no analysis of intuition or of the representation producing or accompanying it. But intuition is not an undecomposable mental act, and it can be proved. That a foot (as a measure of matter or space) is more than an inch, may be known by the mechanic as well and conclusively as by the mathematician. It may be known to be a necessary and necessarily immediate perception of the mind. It is not an undecomposable mental act from the fact that it must be learned before it is known, and it can be learn- ed only by a series of mental acts, including comparison and calculation. It can be proved by dividing the foot into inches., 396 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. or by adding together a sufficient number of inches to make the foot, or by filling the measure of each with substance and comparing their quantities and calculating how many of the one will be required to equal the other. Apart from the meas- urement of substance or space neither the inch nor the foot is anything whatever, and neither is either more or less than the other. Yet even then they are each the object of intuition, and may be presented or represented to the sensuous faculty so as to give rise to the intuition, although neither can be imagined except as in space. The difference between them, as meas- ures, or that there is such difference, is known intuitively, that is, it is known universally, directly, and necessarily ; it is an intuition. And yet the intuition is not an undecomposable mental act, and may be proved. Indeed it must be proved, or be susceptible of proof, in order to be an intuition ; and it can only be proved by decomposition. The manifold in this intuition, the difference, (or that there is such difference) between an inch and a foot, are not con- joined by the understanding, nor by any mental faculty or pro- cess whatever. The manifold are already conjoined in the in- tuition at the instant of its inception. The understanding does not have to think them into the intuition in order that they may be there. The only means by which the understanding can know them to be there, is by analyzing the intuition and finding it composed of or containing the alleged manifold. The Philosopher transcends human thought when he says, "The conception of conjunction includes, besides the concep- tion of the manifold and of the synthesis of it, that of the unity of it also." Of course there can be no conjunction where there is no manifold to be conjoined, and the conception of conjunc- tion necessarily includes that of such manifold and the synthesis of it. But the unity of it is quite another thing. If unity is oneness, the use of the term neutralizes the declaration. There is quite a difference between unity and union. Synthesis (com- bination) produces or results in union, but it cannot be sup- posed to produce or result in unity. Unity cannot be supposed to be produced or to result at all, but wherever it is supposed it must be supposed to have always been. If unity is properly MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 397 affirmed of a supposed simple substance or indivisible monad in the sphere of physical existence, it can have no analogous application in the realm of mental activity. No mental act can be undecomposable. The simplest perception of the simplest object is composite. Herbert Spencer says, "Where intelli- gence is but little evolved, a single sensation, as of scent, serves the organism for an index of the combined attributes with which such scent is connected; and similarly, in undeveloped language a simple sound is used to indicate a complex idea." To anyone who will consider the matter, it will clearly appear that unity, as distinguished from union, in any element of thought is not only impracticable, but it is entirely unthinkable. In a foot note the Philosopher says, "Whether representa- tions are in themselves identical, and consequently whether one can be thought analytically by means of and through the other, is a question which we need not at present consider. Our consciousness of the one, when we speak of the manifold, is always distinguishable from our consciousness of the other; and it is only respecting the synthesis of this (possible) con- sciousness that we here treat.' But a moment's reflection shows that there can be no con- sciousness of the one, entirely distinct from consciousness of the other, in any manifold. E pluribus unum, the twain shall be one flesh, and the Holy Triune, are expressions of absolutely unintelligible nonsense. So, if the term Synthetical Unity has any legitimate meaning, it is by virtue of a misuse of the term unity for union or combination. The Philosopher says, "That representation which can be previously to all thought, is called intuition. All the diversity or manifold content of intuition, has, therefore, a necessary relation to the 1 think, in the subject in which this diversity is found. But this representation, I think, is an act of spontaneity ; that is to say, it cannot be regarded as belonging to pure sensi- bility. I call it pure apperception, in order to distinguish it from empirical, or primitive apperception, because it is a self- consciousness which, whilst it gives birth to the representation 1 think, must necessarily be capable of accompanying all our representations, It i§ in all acts of consciousness one and ^i)S^ ETHICS OF LITERATURE. the same, and unaccompanied by it, no representation can exist for me. The unity of this apperception I call the transcen- dental unity of self-consciousness, in order to indicate the possibility of a priori cognition arising from it." If ! have already demonstrated the impossibility of a priori cognition, it would seem to be scarcely profitable to discuss the propriety or feasibility of the means by which. the Philoso- pher claims it may be produced. But for the sake of the argu- ument, if we suppose a priori cognition to be a possibility, it does not follow that it can arise from the alleged unity of apper- ception. Apperception is itself empirical. No one was ever conscious of himself or self-conscious until he experienced his existence. There cannot be, then, any such thing as transcen- dental unity of apperception or of self-consciousness. Self-con- sciousness is merely thinking one's self in connection with and relation to his environment; and he cannot otherwise be thought. This thought is merely the coordination and devel- opment of the sensations one has of himself in such connection and relation. These sensations are all experiences or results of experiences which one has of himself in such connection and relation. They may be synthetized or combined into one gen- eral self-consciousness, and habit may render the process auto- matic, or so nearly so that one is apparently unconscious of the process. But an analysis of apperception shows that it is a composite, formed from empirical sensations, experiences of self in connection with and relation to environment. If this is correct there is no such thing as transcendental unity of self- consciousness. I come now to a proposition of the Philosopher's which is difficult to restate, but which conclusively shows that his entire Critique is in reality a system of apologetics, as I have before stated. It is substantially this, — some one may propose a species of preformation system of pure reason, that the cate- gories are neither a priori principles of cognition, nor empirical, but subjective aptitudes for thought, exercised in harmony with the natural laws regulating experience. His objections to this are, that we cannot say where to stop in the employment of- predetermined aptitudes, and the categories would lose the i MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 399 character of necessity which is essentially involved in the very conception of them. That one could not then say the effect is necessarily connected with its cause, but only, that one is so constituted that he can think this representation only as so con- nected. That this is just what the skeptic wants. That in such case, all our knowledge depending on the supposed ob- jective validity of our judgment, is mere illusion. That we could not dispute on that which depends on the manner in which the subject is organized. This appears to involve, or rather to be, a contradiction of the entire doctrine of a joriori cognition, and the doctrine that objects must conform to our cognitions of them. If the man- ner in which the subject is organized is not to be depended upon, if its predetermined aptitude for thought does not pro- duce knowledge objectively valid, but mere illusion, there cer- tainly cannot be any a priori cognition that is trustworthy. An a priori cognition, if possible at all. necessarily depends for its validity upon the manner in which the subject is organized. It must be an entirely subjective state of consciousness, or knowl- edge of an object not yet given. A cognition of a given object is empirical or a posteriori. If objects must conform to our cog- nitions of them, then all knowledge of objects necessarily de- pends on the manner in which the subject is organized, be- cause such cognitions must conform to, or be just such as can be produced by the subject as organized. If there is any valid- ity or sound sense in the doctrine of a priori-ism at all, it is be- cause the manner in which the subject is organized renders it necessary that a j^riori cognition be of such objective validity, that the object itself when given must conform to it. Whether one can say a jyriori that the effect is necessarily connected with its cause in the object, necessarily must depend upon the man- ner in which the subject is organized. The subject must be so organized that it can have such a priori cognition, to which the object (connection of cause and effect) must necessarily con- form. It becomes clear that in less than one page the Philosopher has conceded away the entire argument of more than a hun- dred pages. Metaphysics, as a subject of philosophic disquisi-- 40O ETHICS OF LITERATURE. tion, is essentially fugitive and volatile. It is difficult to lay hold upon it sensibly, and intelligibly trace any thread of argu- ment relating to it to final appreciable results. If one attempts to construct a system of it of such proportions and character as to make it available as a weapon of offense or defense against a so-called skepticism, he certainly ought not to assume any- thing nor assert anything that cannot be conclusively demon- strated. Above all, he ought not to allow any actual contra- dictions to appear in the work. The Critique of Pure Reason is the crowning effort of a recognized intellectual Hercules. I think it is now shown to be a shapeless, incongruous mass of assumption and sophistry. The exceedingly tedious and in- volved style of its expression, together with the dry and un- fruitful nature of the subject itself, have perhaps prevented its ever being thoroughly analyzed by any one caring to hazard an opinion at variance with that of a philosopher of such eminence. Those who have disagreed with him have generally misstated his doctrines, and couched their own disapproval in terms that commit themselves to nothing definite except their unintelligi- ble objections to his philosophy. The work is too voluminous to justify a complete analysis of all its propositions, and the exposure of all its errors and inconsistencies. But its funda- mental principles are embodied in the first one hundred pages of Meiklejohn's translation, to the consideration of which this and the two chapters next preceding it are devoted. 4t is really amusing to read some of the commendations as well as strictures upon the doctrines of the Philosopher, written by those who show in writing them that they have not grasped the thought of the Philosopher. Such praises and criticisms are cheap. Almost anyone may indulge in them. It is quite another thing to take a deep philosophy of a world wide repu- tation, and an almost universally admitted soundness, written in the style of the Critique, and study out its fundamental prin- ciples, and trace its essential doctrines to their necessary logical results. But I believe that it is now done, and that the reader of these chapters who will study the Critique in the light of the exposition here given, will discover that it is a laboriously learned effort to fortify apologetics generally in the stronghold MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 4OI of the very Reason from the standpoint of which an alleged Skepticism has made its most formidable attacks upon Relig- ion. I believe he will also discover the necessarily absolute futility of all effort, either to impair or sustain any Religion by any attack or defence depending for its validity upon any prin- ciple of human Reason ; that all Religion is necessarily a matter of faith pure and simple, and that with all their differences no more or better reason can be assigned for the validity of any one religion than for that of any other. I believe he will also discover that all the so-called additions to our knowledge, made by Reason from alleged a priori conceptions of the Un- derstanding, and alleged a priori intuitions and cognitions, are so much learned guess-work, based upon assumptions con- flicting with all possible experience, and the validity of which cannot be tried by any test of more known validity than that of the assumptions themselves. CHAPTER XVI. SCIENTIFIC CIRCUMLOCUTION. Press-notices of Publications — Interpretation of Philosophies — No Division of Parties in Knowledge — No Fundamental Principles — Absolute Certainty, Unthinkable — Consciousness Necessarily Empirical — Propositions must Contain Subject, Copula, and Predicate — Predicating a thing of Itself is no Proposition — There can be no Consciousness without Self-consciousness — Activity and Passivity to be Reciprocal, must Determine each Other — Fichte's Example of Interchangeable Propositions is mere Difference in the Form of one Proposition — The Validity of Memory — The Past an Actuality — Memory is not Purely of the Mind — Religion incompatible with Reason — Philosophy's Limit of Infmity. In the preface to a Critical Exposition of Fichte's Science of Knowledge it is proposed to 'i show as occasion may require in what way German thought contains the natural comple- ment or much needed corrective of British speculation. " Were there a difference between thought and speculation, merely as such, one of them, and it may not matter which, may be the natural complement or much needed corrective of the other. Thought may not be necessarily speculation, but speculation is necessarily thought. But the objection is to the use of the terminology in such manner as to imply more systematizing than the nature of the subject will admit. There prevails entirely too much tendency to reduce every subject of thought to a science, and to systematize all mental action. Fashionable periodicals are filled with wise saws eulogizing the alleged German systems, from which it appears that the editors either do not understand such systems, or that they are more courteous than candid in their allusions to them. Imme- diately following a list of Philosophic Classics in the above mentioned Critical Exposition, is the following paragraph, politely called a press notice: "These excellent books, as re- markable for ability as for clearness, will do much to clear the way and make the mastery of the German systems an easy task." It is remarkable that ability or clearness in a book should be deemed so remarkable as to provoke so lemarkable a remark. SCIENTIFIC CIRCUMLOCUTION. 403 In literary propriety ability and clearness ought to be reason- ably expected in all scientific books. No one has any right to inflict upon suffering humanity an additional book, especially one assuming the dignity of a philosophy, unless it is charac- terized by ability and clearness as much at least as by learn- ing. In such case it may not be an infliction, otherwise it must be. Ability and clearness are qualities which readers have a right to expect in every book thrust upon them, and few others find their way to the modern library. It is a humil- iating confession that such qualities are so rare as to be consid- ered remarkable when detected or suspected in some pedantic print. Another book notice in the same connection is as follows : "One of the most valuable literary enterprises of the day. Each volume is a condensed presentation made by an author who com- bines thorough philosophical study with literary talent, and who has made a specialty of the philosopher whose work is inter- preted." This out-Herods all patent medicine advertising, and even the gay and gaudy show bill may look well to its laurels. Such paragraphs come too fast and furious to be expressions of the deliberate judgment of anv editor having candidly exam- ined the publications puffed. It becomes apparent that much that is so said of them is said upon the same principle as that with which the inspired copper plate recommends some mar- vellous spavin cure, and with about the same measure of intel- ligence. The latter of the above quoted book notices contains a more damaging confession than the former. It is not only of the utility, but of the necessity of interpretation of philosophy. Upon the same principle it might well be followed by a con- fession of the utility and even necessity of explication of the in- terpretation. The theory seems to be that the more obscurely a science or philosophy is taught or expressed, the more pro- found its wisdom; the more books that are necessary to be studied in order to get at the original doctrine, the more valu- able the literary enterpyise. If literature is a trade, and if money instead of culture is its object, there may be some weight in the idea. If shelf room in the library is to be utilized upon the 404 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. same principle as that upon which it is utilized in the larder, then there cannot be too many editions, interpretations, and explications of Philosophy ; and consequently it cannot be too obscure or senseless in the original. Such seems to be the theory upon which it is written. Looking into the above named Critical Exposition, and also the Science of Knowledge, of which it is said to be a condensed presentation, various ideas occur to the thinking reader which may not disturb the equanimity of the casual reader at all. One remembers that it is said that Science is itself classified knowledge. It this is accurate then a Science of knowledge is a classified knowledge of knowledge. Legitimately, in a science classification should be strictly scientific, when of course it must be intelligible. In such case there could be no occasion for its interpretation. A dictionary, or a glossary of its technical terms, would unfold all its mystery. No one ever knew so much, and of such an exalted type of wisdom, but that he might in some language intelligibly express himself to his fellows. The fact, if it is a fact, that an alleged philosophy must be interpreted in order that the mastery of the system may be made a comparatively easy task, is a convincing proof of the worthlessness of the system, or its philosophy, or both. Substantively considered, knowledge is what is known, and what is known is knowledge. It cannot consist in any part of what is assumed or guessed. The content of knowledge can- not, nor can any part of it, be otherwise than as known. A science of knowledge, then, must be a science of that which we know. While there may be so much legitimate ela.sticity in the term, that it may include the means by which, the man- ner in which, and the evidence that, we know the content of our knowledge; yet no such consideration can mitigate the perplexity sure to arise in the mind, when it attempts to con- ceive of the infinitely varied content of its knowledge, as re- duced to a science, or as scientifically classified. No human mind can do this. But in this, its broadest supposable scope, a science of knowledge would be 'a classified knowledge of that which is known (including itself) together with the means and manner and proof of its being known. This would be a SCIENTIFIC CIRCUMLOCUTION. 405 perfectly round circle, everywhere equidistant from its center and from its purpose, and it could never be brought nearer to them. Regardless of the philosopher's real intention, which no one ever knew, the manner in which he has dealt with the alleged science, and the name by which he has christened his alleged philosophy, commit him to the idea that his Science of knowledge applies as well to the content as to the means and manner and proof of knowledge. An unfortunate confession is covertly, perhaps unintention- ally, made in the opening sentence of the work. The words are these, "To unite divided parties it is best to proceed from some point wherein they agree." A really sagacious philoso- pher would have known that parties are never divided in knowledge. If agreement constitutes knowledge, or if it trans- forms opinion into knowledge, such a sentence might be em- inently fitting at the beginning of a discourse upon the alleged science of knowledge. Divided parties may be, and frequently are, united in opinion and in error. The inference from the use of the sentence quoted is, that the philosopher intends that when the divided parties shall be united, the science of knowl- edge will be constructed, and of course understood by the par- ties so uniting. But if they agree upon one point or upon several, and dis- agree upon others, there is no more psychological warrant for starting from a point upon which they happen to agree, than from any other, for the purpose of uniting them in a science of knowledge. Such plan might be more available for the pur- pose of uniting them in opinion. But the alleged German Sys- tem purports to be a science of knowledge, and not a science of opinion. The philosopher says, "A science has sytematic form. All propositions m it are connected in one single funda- mental proposition or principle, and unite with it to form a whole. This is universally conceded." But universal conces- sion does not constitute knowledge; nor can it be, or give validity to, any principle of knowledge. It is but a stronger form or type of agreement, from which knowledge may be as remote as from any tenet of either of the divided parties where there is disaajreement. 406 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. One of the greatest difficulties with philosophy arises from considerations of utility and propriety relating to its supposed starting point, its supposed fundamental principle. Some seem to have fancied that this difficulty was obviated by what they regard agreement, general, or pehaps universal. But nothing can be clearer than the untrustworthiness of such agreement. Illustrations are obvious. Down to a certain stage in the devel- opment of the physical sciences it was generally, perhaps uni- versally, agreed that the earth was the center of the universe. From that point, upon which there was such agreement, the sages of antiquity started out in various directions to unite divided parties, with what success is apparent in the thousand theories of every debatable subject of human thought. The wisdom wasted in their fond and fruitless efforts is a stupen- dous monument to their zeal and energy, as well as to what now appears to to have been their stupidity. Even the very Prussian who is reputed to have conceived the idea of the uni- verse which Science is said to have demonstrated is the correct one, is said to have given the most absurd reasons imaginable for its then supposed validitv. It required a long time for actual physical demonstration to bring about or produce gen- eral agreement on that proposition. So it appears that in Science the universality with which men may agree upon any proposi- tion is no valid argument for its soundness, to say nothing of the soundness of any supposed fundamental principle. Speak- ing psychologically, and with the strictness due to all philo- sophical discussion, there is no such thing conceivable as a fundamental principle. The mind cannot get back to anything without being forced to base it upon or attribute it to some- thing still further back. It cannot imagine anything as being entirely in and of itself Even a thought, the vainest and light- est thinkable, and the most original, is the product of some- thing preceding it. The mind that can conceive of and formu- late an intelligible idea of a fundamental principle, may be expected to give us a natural history, or a histology, of the formation and development of the atom, the plastid base of organic existence. If it cannot reach the fundamental in phys- SCIENTIFIC CIRCUMLOCUTION, 4Q7 ical phenomena, it can scarcely be expected to reach it in men- ial phenomena. The philosopher makes two propositions at the base of his imposing structure. First, that "Every science has one funda- mental principle, which cannot be proven in it, but must be cer- tain in advance of it;" and second, that "the science of knowl- edge is itself a science; hence it must also have one fundamental principle, which cannot be proven in it, but must be presuppos- ed for its very possibility as a science." How anything which is merely presupposed for the possibility of something else, can be in itself absolutely certain, is not apparent. If a science can- not be otherwise than as based upon such supposititious funda- mental principle, there cannot be much psychological certainty of its being at all. Yet, elaborating these propositions he says, "This fundamental principle is absolutely certain, that is, it is certain because it is certain. You cannot inquire after its ground- without contradiction. * * * Jt accompanies all knowledge, is contained in all knowledge, and is presupposed by all knowl- edge." It is startling that anything can be so certain that an inquiry after its ground would be a contradiction of anything else except its assumed absolute certainty, or the assumed ab- soluteness of its assumed certainty. But according to the phil- osopher, the certainty, or more accurately speaking, the valid- ity of the fundamental principle of the Science of knowledge cannot be proven, but must be presupposed it there is to be a science of knowledge. In other words the certainty which is the basis of all knowledge is assumption. This can be neither objectively nor subjectively valid. Too many assumptions have been exploded for the discriminating mind (to say noth- ing of the skeptical) to accept any mere assumption of cer- tainty as the basis of any knowledge. What men may know may depend largely upon the nature of their cognitive powers; but it depends no less upon the nature of the content of that which is to be known. Man is too small and insignificant a factor in the domain of substantive existence to assume to prescribe a limit to even his own investigations, and condemn all inquiry after the ground of an assumed fundamental principle of certainty as a contra- 408 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. diction. The mere flict that the mind yearns for a fundamental principle of certainty, upon which to rest its supposed knowl- edge, if it ever intelligently does so, is no more or better argu- ment that there is such fundamental principle, than the fact that the mind shrinks from the idea of its own annihilation, is that the soul is immortal. Nothing hut the existence of a ten- dency is proved in either of these cases. The universal and irrepressible tendency to speculation, and demand for the proof of all content of all so-called knowledge, is as strong an argu- ment for the reasonableness of such demand, and of the proba- bility that it may be supplied, as the universal yearning for a fundamental principle can be, that there is such principle. The tendency to speculate is not to be suppressed or restrained by the dictatorial terms of an alleged philosophy, which merely assumes the existence of its fundamental principle of certainty, and declares all inquiry after its ground a contradiction. The universal demand for the proof or ground of the certainty of an assumed fundamental principle of knowledge, or of a science, is not to be silenced by merely emphasizing the assumption. No inquiry was ever more natural, or indeed more reasonable, than that of the child, who, on being told that God made everything, then inquired who made God. Proceeding to the establishment of the "highest fundament- al principle" of the science of knowledge, the philosopher resorts to a process which he calls abstracting reflection, and says that therein, "we must start from some proposition which everyone will admit without dispute." But I have shown the futility of this in referring to the fallacy that prevailed in physi- cal philosophy while mankind were agreed in the error which was exploded by the assumption and speculation of Copernicus. That which every one will admit without dispute may be as it is admitted to be, but such admission alone, however univer- sal, is no evidence that it is so. In illustration however the philosopher proceeds to say, "Any fact of empirical conscious- ness, admitted as such valid proposition, is taken hold of, and from it we separate one of its empirical determinations after the other, until onlv that remains, which can be no longer sepa- rated and abstracted from. As such a proposition we take I SCIENTIFIC CIRCUMLOCUTION. 409 this one; A is A. Every one admits this proposition, and without the least hesitation. It is recognized by all as com- pletely certain and evident. If any one should ask a proof of its certainty, no one would enter upon such proof, but would say: This proposition is absolutely (that is, without any further ground) certain; and by saying this would ascribe to himself the power of absolutely positing something." If any other than empirical consciousness were possible, there might be some occasion for the particularity with which the philosopher specifies the empirical consciousness; and by such particularity he plainly implies that there is some other kind. But reflection forces the recognition of the supreme absurdity of supposing any other than empirical consciousness. If there can be a consciousness without some measure of sensation, or some sort of experience, it would be indeed interesting to know what kind it is, how it can arise, and how we became cogniz- ant of it. The selection of the admitted proposition from which it is proposed to "separate one of its empirical determinations after the other, " is unfortunate. From the alleged proposition A is A, nothing whatever can be separated and abstracted; certainly no empirical determination, because it contains none. While it may be "recognized by all as completely certain and evident," it is not a proposition. One of the greatest absurdi- ties Superstition ever attributed to Deity is the senseless excla- mation, "I am that I am," and if the Lord exclaimed it He said absolutely nothing. Such a combination of words has no meaning whatever. All the recognition it can have as com- pletely certain and evident can give it no validity, for it imports nothing which can be either certain or uncertain. Apart from psycholoo^y metaphysics has no meaning. All propositions are necessarily addressed to the human mind. They are the vehicles or media by which, or perhaps more ac- curately speaking, the form in which intelligence of some kind and in some measure is conveyed to the mind. To say that man is, imports the being of a creature called man. To say that man is an animal, imports the being of a creature called man, and that he may also be called animal. To say that man is an animal that laughs, imports the being of a creature called 410 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. man, and that he may also be called animal, and that there are other creatures called animals that do not laugh, and disting- uishes him from them. Each of these is a proposition by which intelligence is communicated from one mind to another, hi each of them something is affirmed or predicated of the sub- ject man. But to say that man is nfan, is to begin and end with man, without having affirmed or predicated anything of him. A proposition must have a subject and predicate, and they must be connected by means of a copula. Less than this cannot be a proposition. By means of less than this no idea can be communicated from one mind to another. In some in- stances one of the three parts may not be expressed, but in such case it must be implied. The subject cannot be affirmed or predicated of itself or of the predicate. But the predicate, whatever it may be, must be affirmed or predicated of the sub- ject, if the last term (man or A) in the so-called proposition^ — man is man or A is A — has the same meaning as the first term (man or A), if it means the same thing on one side of the copula (is) as upon the other side of it, it is necessarily subject in both places, and there is no predicate, and hence no meaning in the so-called proposition. In order to be a predicate, the term must mean something different on one side, from what it means on the other side of the copula. And then, according to the philosopher, the assumed absolute certainty of the pro- position is gone — it may be disputed. So it is manifest that the alleged proposition — A is A, not only is not a proposition that is absolutely certain, but that it is not a proposition at all. It is an idle exclamation without meaning. To have any psych- ological validity as a proposition, the combination of words must purport something which, if known to be the truth, would add to the actual knowledge had without their combin- ation. If such purport is not known to be the truth, it will not add to the actual knowledge, but if believed it must add to the volume of the content of opinion, or the combination can- not be a proposition. Any combination of words without a purport which, in such circumstances would have such effect, is not a proposition, it expresses no idea. In a combination of words in which it is said that man is man, or that A is A, there SCIENTIFIC CIRCUMLOCUTION. _ 4II is absolutely nothing which can be supposed to be so known to be the truth as to add to the content of the knowledge had without it; or which if believed to be the truth, can add to the content of opinion! Science is sadly scant of data when it is forced to resort to such twaddle in exemplifying or applying its alleged fundamental principle, if the alleged fundamental principle of the science of knowledge depends for its validity upon the alleged absolute certainty of such so-called proposi- tions as that A is A, it has no validity, or rather there is no such fundamental principle. In further illustration of the properties or peculiarities of the so-called proposition, the Philosopher says, "In insisting on the in itself certainty of the above proposition, you posit //o/that A is. The proposition A is A is by no means equivalent to A is. (Being when posited without a predicate is something quite different from being when posited with a predicate. ) Let us suppose A to signify a space inclosed within two straight lines, then the proposition A is A would still be correct; although the proposition A is would be f^ilse, since such a space would be impossible. But you posit by that proposition : // A is then A is. The question whether A is at all or not does not occur in it. The content of the proposition is not regarded at all — merely its tbrm. The question is not whereof you know, but what you know of any given subject. The only thing posited, therefore, by that proposition is the absolutely necessary con- nection between the two A's." This is a tissue of contradiction and absurdity. If A is A, then A is, for it cannot be A without being. If A is A, then there is but one A posited, and it is predicated of itself, which is absurd. If A is A, it is necessarily one and the same A, and there cannot be two A's for there to be any absolutely neces- sary connection between, and the supposition of any connection between // is absurd. Being when posited without a predicate may be something quite different from being when posited with a predicate. But when being is posited at all it cannot have a predicate by being posited of itself. The proposal to let A sig- nify a space enclosed within two straight lines is admittedly senseless, yet it is in keeping with the residue of the argument. 412 . ETHICS OF LITERATURE. It would be as reasonable and profitable to attempt to demon- strate that there could be such space as to attempt to demon- strate that A is A, unless in the tirst place A is. A cannot be A, nor can it be anything, nor can it be at all, without it is. To say that // A is, then A is, is too silly to be said in any phi- losophy. It is to say actually nothing, and make even that contingent. If we say air is air, we have not proceeded a step. We are exactly where we started, or rather, we have not started. We have proposed nothing. We have not stated a proposition. If we have posited air, we certainly have not posited it with a predicate, for we have named or mentioned one and the same air only. Mentioning it twice, once on each side of a supposed copula (which reallv is no copula because it connects nothing with air) does not make it two airs. Hence it is necessarily subject on both sides of the supposed copula, and the so-called proposition contains no predicate, and is not a proposition. The idea of absolutely necessary connection in such case is as absurd as the idea of a space enclosed by two straight lines. To say that "the question is not whereof you know, but what you know of any given subject," is, if possible, still more absurd. There can be no zvliat known without the icliereof of which it is known. Without the whereof known, one what could not be distinguished from another, and it is the whereof that determines the what. Without the whereof known, no what can have any meaning. One cannot know anything unless he knows what it is he knows: and he cannot know what it is he knows, unless he knows whereof he knows it. But by such processes as the above quoted illustration and the deductioiis he makes from it, the Philosopher traces out the alleged original deed act, which he places at the head of his alleged science of knowledge, as its highest fundamental prin- ciple, and states it thus — The Ego posits originally its own being. He savs the Ego is necessarily identity of subject and object. He has taken a very circuitous route to the proposi- tion that man is conscious of himself. The foregoing is, I believe, a fair statement of the ground- work of one of the philosophies in one of the famous German SCIENTIFIC CIRCUMLOCUTION. 4I3 Systems; one which has set the world all agog with the depth- of its metaphysical wisdom, and the closeness of its alleged reasoning. It has attracted a great deal of attention, and occa- sioned endless and in many instances aimless speculation. It has called forth a great deal of senseless commendation, and has been learnedly interpreted by scholars, who, like the phi- losopher they interpret, are finally forced to found all they say for it on an unintelligible assumption, back of which there is no proof, and which, as propounded in the alleged philosophy, cannot have any meaning whatever. In the few foregoing observations I think it is shown that the system is built upon a bubble, and that it cannot have much reliable solidity itself That the Ego posits itself originally, and that it limits and is limited by the non-Ego, may mean more than the empty proposition — I am I — or than A is A; but the human mind must be worked over before it can extract much intelligence from the alleged propositions in which the subject is placed on each side of the copula, and the predicate is conspicuous only by its absence. If an examination of the fundamental principle of an alleged philosophy discloses the fact that it is based in palpable error and absurdity, it can scarcely be worth while to trace the pedantic elaboration of its deductions therefrom through all the ramifications they may make. That the Ego determines itself, and is in so far active, involves the further proposition that it is determined (by itself) and is in so far passive, cannot signify moi'e than that man is conscious of himself, as limited by that which is not himself .But upon mature reflection the proposition of self-consciousness appears to be a superfluous, if not an illegitimate one. It is sufficiently accurate to say that man is conscious of this or that particular thing. It may be appropriately said man is conscious. But he cannot be conscious of anything else than himself, without at the same time being self-conscious. If he is conscious at all he must be self-conscious. And as he cannot be conscious at all without being conscious of something external to him, as he cannot possibly think himself entirely out of space and time and their infinite relations, there is no such thing, strictly 414 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. speaking, as self-consciousness. Consciousness necessarily involves consciousness of self ^5 conscious, and consciousness of self in some relation to something external to self Even introspection cannot be carried on a moment without both of these. Another of the philosopher's propositions may be examined with perhaps some profit, it is, "An independent activity de- termines a reciprocal activity and passivity." He says the formal ground of reciprocity is to be determined by an indepen- dent activity. While I am not prepared to say that there is no validity, psychologically speaking, in the proposi- tion, I am prepared to show that what he calls the proof if it is invalid both as proof, and as propositions themselves. His proof is given in the form of an illustration. He says, "The magnet attracts iron; iron is attracted by the mag- net. These are two interchangeable propositions; that is, through the one the other is posited. This is a presup- posed fact, presupposed as grounded; hence, if you look to the content of this reciprocal relation you do not ask W'7?o posits the one proposition through the other, and how does this positing occur f You assume the reciprocity as Jiaviug ing occurred if you look to the content of the reciprocity; and you only ask, why are these tivo propositions contained among the sphere of propositions, which can be thus posited the one through the other } There must be something in both which makes it possible to interchange them. Hence you look up this, their material content, wh'ich makes them intercJiangeable. If, however, you look to the /or;// of the reciprocity, if you re- flect on the occurring of the interchange, and hence abstract from the propositions which are interchanged, then the ques- tion no longer is, with what right are tJiese propositions inter- changed "^ but simply, how is interchange effected at all } And then it is discovered that there must be an intelligent being outside the iron and magnet, which observing both and unit- ing both in its consciousness, is compelled to give to one the opposite predicate of the other; (to the one the predicate of attracting, to the other the predicate of being attracted). The first mode gives simply a reflection upon a phenomenon; the SCIENTIFIC CIRCUMLOCUTION. 415 second mode a reflection upon that reflection; the reflection of the Philosopher upon the mode of observation." It is not apparent how this proves that an independent activity determines a reciprocal activity and passivity. To be reciprocal, these ought mutually to determine each other. The alleged two propositions are but one proposition. They are exactly equal, and, with the Philosopher (generally) equality is identity. To say that the magnet attracts iron is not only equivalent to saying the iron is attracted by the magnet, it h saying the iron is attracted by the magnet. They are only slightly different forms of one proposition. One is not posited through the other, for there is but one to be posited at all, and if it were put in another form, or in many other forms, it would still be but one proposition. The proposition that the magnet attracts iron contains or posits all the activity and passivity contained or posited in the two alleged propositions. The passivity of the iron is no more expressly posited in the one form of this proposition than in the other form of it. To say that iron is attracted by the magnet, posits the activity of the magnet as expressly as the passivity of the iron. The recipro- cal activity and passivity are as well and as expressly posited in the one form of this proposition as in the other, or in both forms of it. They are not determined by any independent activity, but by each other; although "an intelligent being outside the iron and magnet" observes both and unites both in its consciousness and is compelled to give to one the predicate of attracting, and to the other the predicate of being attracted. He does not determine anything for them or either of them, but for himself he may discern their reciprocal activity and passiv- ity, as they mutually determine (limit) them of and for them- selves. Reciprocity cannot be determined by an agency influ- ence or power not reciprocating. In the case supposed the magnet actively exerts an influence over the iron ; the iron passively yields to this influence. The reciprocity of the activ- ity and passivity is determined by them; and it may be detected by the independent activity, but certainly not determined by it. The content of the reciprocity is, that the magnet actively attracts, and the iron passively is attracted. When you look 4l6 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. to this content you do not assume the reciprocity as having occurred or as occurring. You clearly discern and knoiv it. You do not ask why these two propositions are contained among the sphere of propositions which can he posited the one through the other, You see the reciprocal activity and passivity posited in the one proposition, no matter which of the two forms it may have. The form of the reciprocity (for the mind) is the idea or rep- resentation of the activity and passivity mutually determining each other, and the attraction resulting therefrom. When you look to this form you do not ask how is interchange of these propositions effected. All that you have observed or can dis- cern of reciprocity of activity and passivity, clearly appears to you in the one proposition, no matter which of the two forms it may have. You see no two propositions to be interchanged. And you cannot imagine any independent activity as de- termining the reciprocal activity and passivity so manifest. Their reciprocity, if properly speaking there is such a thing, is determined by them. An outside agency, influence, or power, might limit or determine the independent, or perhaps more ac- curately speaking, the individual action and inaction of each. But if there is reciprocity of activity and passivity it is due to their mutual relations to each other. If the iron passively yields to the active attraction of the magnet, and if this is reciprocity of activity and passivity, it is difficult to conceive how an inde- pendent activity can do more than merely discern the fact. The reciprocity would seem to be determined by the activity and passivity, whose mutual relations to and effect upon each other produce it. This seems to be the necessary result of the the reflection upon the phenomenon; and of the "reflection upon that reflection; the reflection of the philosopher upon the mode of observation." In the Critical Exposition of Fichte's alleged Science of knowledge, there are some propositions made in apparent ser- iousness, which as the tenets of an alleged philosophy are in- deed remarkable. After making an illustration of conscious- ness worthy the author of Jack the Giant Killer, the Critical Ex- positor says, "I repeat that a single moment of consciousness SCIENTIFIC CIRCUMLOCUTION. 417 is all that is directly given. We speak of the past. We do this in the confidence that our memory really represents what has occurred. This age professes to take nothing without ver- ification. All verification depends upon the validity of mem- ory. I do not mean merely upon the accuracy of memory, so far as details are concerned, but on the validity of memory as representing a real past in the most general sense of the word. Who can verify this assumption ? Who has ever gone back to see whether there be or be not a past ? I am not question- ing the fact; I merely wish to make it clear that memory itself is purely of the mind, and that its testimony is accepted wholly on trust." This he attempts to verify by illustrations from dreams, delusions, and illusions. There is no such thing as memory itself purely of the mind. Memory is either a retained and continued thought; or it is a revived and reawakened thought which may have lain dormant for a time. Memory is thought in one of these states. There never was a thought without an object which in some manner affected the thinking mind. The mind has the faculty of remembering, but there can be no memory unless something is remembered, and hence the expression — memory itself is purely of the mind — is an absurdity. Even the memory of some prior thought or state of mind is not purely of the mind, because the prior thought or state of mind had necessarily some relation to something external to the mind, or it could not have been a thought or state of mind. What is meant by a moment of consciousness directly given is very problematical, but no one can imagine consciousness existing for a time so brief that it may not be subdivided into shorter periods. If no one has ever gone back to see if there be or be not a past, a great many have come for- ward out of a past into a present, and have a consciousness of a present which they certainly cannot know to be a present otherwise than as distinguished from a past. If this conscious- ness of the present is the moment of consciousness which* is directly given to us, there must have been a consciousness of the past also directly given to us, because the present could not be present but for the past. Even if some one had ' 'ever gone 4l8 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. back to see whether there be or be not a past," his trip would be a fool's errand unless there was a trustworthy memory by means of which, in the present moment of consciousness which, forsooth, is directly given, he could remember and know that he had so gone back and found a past. Without a past to go back to, it is silly to speak of one's going back to see anything. That the consciousness of the past is retained, or restored from time to time by the memory, or in the memory, does not militate against its having been, or now being, directly given. The moment of consciousness which is directly given is past in a moment more, and if memory is sometimes tricked or deceived by delusion, it still has some validity for verifica- tion, it may impair its validity so as to render it less than absolutely perfect as a verifier of the history of the past, and for this reason its testimony is not accepted wholly on trust. We knozv that the present moment — the moment of conscious- ness directly given — is consciousness of the past carried into the next moment by or in the memory. We know it is past before we fully realize it is present, and that it is connected with the succeeding moment's consciousness in the fict that it is a continuing consciousness. It may be sus- pended in sleep, and it may be distorted in dream and delusion, but it is continued and restored from time to time by or in the memory. To say that "so far as we are concerned the effect would be the same if there were no past, if only there remained the mental condition that we regard as representing the past" is too silly to be said in anything assuming philosophic airs. If the supposition were otherwise valid, the word remain would vitiate it. Nothing can be supposed to remain at all without enduring, or being for or during some time. No time, and no portion of time, can be conceived of as so brief as that some part of it is not necessarily past time with relation to other parts of it. "The mental condition that we regard as representing the past," could not possibly be conceived of as having any meaning for us, without a consciousness directly given us of a real past. We cannot even in the weirdest and wildest imag- ination, formulate a figure of anything or of nothing, without at some point and in some measure likening it to something SCIENTIFIC CIRCUMLOCUTION. 4I9 actual. If memory has no validity for verification of the past, no tv/o successive thoughts can be intelligently connected and knowledge is absolutely impossible; indeed, the thought of it is utterly incomprehensible. Neither is memory itself purely of the mind. It cannot pos- sibly be conceived of without relation to the content of the knowledge retained or recalled by or in it. Without something remembered there is no memory. The validity of memory is further demonstrated in the impossibility of forgetting many things which we would gladly consign to oblivion. To say that "people often are sure they remember something that never occurred, — that their mental condition is precisely what it would be if the event had occurred," is only equivalent to saying that the mental condition is the same in imagination as in knowledge. When one thinks he is sure he remembers something that never occurred, he simply imagines the thing as having occurred, and there is no memory in or about the mental act or .condition; beyond that necessary in formulat- ing the conception. No one ever was sure he remembered anything which never occurred, though many have thought they were — have imagined that the thing had occurred — and imagined also that they remembered it. But no act of mind, not even this empty imagination itself, is possible without memory. In imagination the imaginary content of the vagary is co-ordinated according to, or by, a mental process which memory retains or recalls from the more substantial mental transactions. A philosophy which supposes or attempts to suppose the invalidity of memory as representing a real past, supposes or attempts to suppose the annihilation of the very thought which alone renders philosophy itself possible. In the two books under immediate consideration, Fichte's Science of Knov/ledge and Everett's Critical Exposition, there is a great deal of what is popularly regarded deep learning. There is also a great deal of that from which the popular mind shrinks in awe, as from a wisdom above its capacity to grasp. If, as I think is now demonstrated, the cardinal doctrine of both, their alleged fundamental principle, is utterly senseless, they cannot be very trustworthy as a means or medium of mental 420 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. culture. All that may possibly be said of the Ego and the non- Ego, the I, the Me and the Not-Me, their positings and being posited, their limits, limitings, and limitations, and their rela- tions, temporal, spatial, quantitative, and qualitative, though ever so well said as abstract propositions, or as propositions in and of themselves; yet, as localized in and as part of an alleged philosophical system which is based upon a palpable absurdity, is without force, if not without meaning. The whole is an effort ^o harness Reason in the service of Religion. It is an effort at scientific Apologetics. All religion, as religion, is based upon a belief in immortality. It is a mat- ter of faith, pure and simple. That which sustains the bereav- ed barbarian wife in immolating herself on the pyre other deceased husband is as valid for her, as that which prompts the European or American mother to present her offspring at the baptismal font is for her. There is no reason in any of them. Some enthusiasts have fancied that the reasons for their faith, (as if there could be a reason for it) were being un- dermined by or in the deductions of an alleged skepticism. They have then assumed a fundamental principle of knowledge, generally, or perhaps universally conceded or agreed to. and have learnedly and elaborately reasoned around in a labyrinth of incongruity, fallacy, and assumption, and have sometimes reached an assumed certainty of immortality, based upon the discovery that while the 1 is limited, it is forever pushing the limit into infinity. Great volumes of learned jargon are written to express the idea, that because the mind is forever soaring higher, and universally shrinks from the thought of its own annihilation, the Soul must be immortal. The Critical Expositor says, "In this fact, Fichte finds, as he repeatedly insists the basis of faith in immortality. The I has this impulse to infinitude. It is conscious of an infinite activity. The very term, conscious of infinite activity, as we have seen, involves also the consciousness of finiteness. Thus is the nature of the soul double. * * * The limit has only been pushed to a little greater distance, but it is there, as real and as solid as at the first. Again and again must this process be repeated with the same result. This is the very nature of SCIENTIFIC CIRCUMLOCUTION. 421 the soul. It must continue the process until the end be reached. But not till eternity be exhausted would it be possi- ble to reach the farthest limit of infmity. The process is end- less; endlessness of time must therefore be postulated. The destiny of the soul is always accomplishing itself, and is, there- fore, never accomplished. The I thus carries with itself the pledge of its own immortality." 1 do not see how an expression could be more unphilo- sophical than some of these. If the I is conscious of an infinite activity, it is conscious of that which extends out into space beyond the wildest flight of any human imagination, or down into time beyond the possibility of any human prediction. If the 1 is limited by anything external to itself, it is powerless to push this again infinitely out into infinity, and if it must infin- itely continue the process, it is not limited at all Nothing could be more absurd than the idea of exhausting eternity and reaching the flirthest limit of infinity. The terms cancel each other and the words as combined have no meaning. An un- accomplished destiny (that is, as a goal) cannot be thought. There is a great deal of scientific circumlocution in reaching a result which could have been more scientifically and simply stated in the declaration that, because the I (soul or mind) shrinks from the thought of its own annihilation, and continu- ally aspires, it is probably immortal. And all that has been so learnedly, so obscurely, so confusedly said ; and all that has been so absurdly assumed, has not raised the postulated im- mortality of the soul above probability. The alleged Science of knowledge is in truth a science of guess-work and ground- less assumption. The Critical Exposition which was to make the mastery of the System an easy task, only gives its incongru- ities and absurdities more prominence. CHAPTER XVII. SCIENTIFIC ACCOUNTABILITY. Motives mean Nothing witliout Tlieir Sanctions, and Sanctions are Based in Personal Interest — Man can be Operated on Only by Hope and Fear, like the Brute; the Difference is merely in Degree — Moral Action Implies Per- sonal Accountability — Reason Incompatible with Morality and Religion — Intellectual and Moral Powers are but one Power — All Intelligence Acquired, and Moulded by an inherited Frame-work of Thought — Unless Man can, Independently of his Antecedents and Environment, Determine his own Constitution and Education, he cannot be Accountable — Reason cannot be Invoked to Verify Something not Understood — Apologetics Posits a Mys- tery as the Basis of Religion, and then Seeks to Verify the Religion in Rea- son — Conscience a Refmed Selllshness, Provincial and Conventional — Con- science is a Growth, a Sanctimonious Selfishness — The Christian Redemp- tion, an Exhibition of Pure Selfishness — Belief beyond Control. A well known writer has said, "We can operate upon brutes only -by fear of punishment, and hope of reward. We can operate upon man not only in this manner, but also by an appeal to his consciousness of right and wrong; and by the use of such means as may improve his moral nature." Were this strictly true, and if it meant enough to justify the distinction, it might be a gratefully refreshing bit of information. Apart from its sanction no motive means anything, or rather there is no motive. The sanction, whatever it may be, is without import to any one except as the motive impels or restrains the subject, and both are based in the feeling or idea of interest, really in selfishness. Motives and their sanctions are variable and rela- tive in their essence and efficacy, according to the character and capacity of the subject. It is not degrading man to the level of the brute to show that the distinction in the above quoted declaration is without a difference except in degree, and that the statement as a whole is untrue. Man, like the brute, can be operated on only by fear of punishment or hope of reward. The phrase, consciousness of right and wrong, means nothing so far as influencing human action is concerned, above or beyond that expressed in the phrases fear of punishment and hope of reward. SCIENTIFIC ACCOUNTABILITY. 423 The highest order of so-called moral character or conscious- ness of right and wrong yet developed is not devoid of, but is based in the principle of selfishness which underlies all hope and fear. That which Philosophers call consciousness of right and wrong originates in the selfishness apparent in hope and fear. It is an outgrowth of or refinement upon that very prin- ciple. One reared in a refined civilization may delight in things suited to the tastes which he may have acquired by reason of such rearing. He may fear things calculated to disturb his security against that which, from such rearing, he may regard dangerous in some respect. These are variable and essentially relative to the individual as constituted and educated. There is a phase of what is called charity which seems to be almost dis- interested, and it presents one of the most pleasing aspects of human life. Some take pains to find out and relieve distress of various kinds. If there is such thing as disinterested action, this would seem to be an example of it. But when analyzed the motive which impels them is found to be pure selfishness, the hope of reward. What the reward may be, whether popu- larity, happiness, a remotely possible pecuniary profit, or, for- sooth, a consciousness of having done good, is of no conse- quence so f^ir as the actual selfishness of the motive is con- cerned. Some motives may appear more commendable than others, but these are all alike traceable to the hope of reward. There is a phase of what is called courage which seems to be almost heroism, and it presents one of the noblest views of human life. Some take pains to find out and encounter the greatest dangers in enterprises sometimes good and sometimes bad. They may, like Arnold Winkelried and others, go reso- lutely to what appears to be certain death in a good cause; or they may, like numerous ruffians have done, go just as reso- lutely to certain death in a bad cause ; they may even trip lightly up the steps of the gallows; but when analyzed the motives which impel them are found to be purely selfish, — fear of punishment in some cases, hope of reward in others. What the punishment may be, whether physical pain, oppression, the disgrace of cowardice or insubordination, or compunction of conscience, is of no consequence so far as the actual selfishness 424 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. of the motive is concerned. Tiie consciousness of right and wrong is nothing except as it actuates the subject in that which he believes to be in some way good or bad for himself. This good or bad for himself may be a mere consciousness of having done good or bad. And this, to use a homely ex- pression, depends upon the way he is raised; it depends upon what the civilization in which he was reared has done for or made of him, in short upon his education. Others differently constituted may have had similar educations with different results. Even the same person at different times and under different circumstances may exhibit different degrees of the qualities called charity and courage. Similar causes do not necessarily produce similar effects unless in operating under similar circumstances upon similar subjects. The martyrs were actuated by this same principle of selfishness, and the plainest precepts of Christianity are enforced by promises and threats. "Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." "Then shall he also say unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." Hope and fear — hope of reward, and fear of punishment. These are authentic declarations of the sanctions of the strongest possible motives to human action, call it moral or what not. If, as the Philosopher declares, a moral action is the action of an intelli- gent agent capable of distinguishing between right and wrong; and if, as he further declares, the results which God has con- nected with actions will inevitably occur, and cannot be eluded or averted any more than the sequences which follow by the laws of gravitation, then the import of the above quoted promise and threat as sanctions of motive to so-called moral action is indeed terrible. It is the alternative of salvation or damnation, whatever they may be, to the subject impelled by the motive. Where such elements plainly appear in the motive to any action, such action cannot be unselfish ; its motive can- not be devoid of hope and fear, it cannot be the abstract good of the action. Strictly speaking such action cannot be morally good. SCIENTIFIC ACCOUNTABILITY. 425 If there is such thing as moral action at all, it necessarily im- plies personal accountability for action, and this necessarily implies free agency. Action that is not free can have no moral quality. The mind cannot conceive how any one can be either praiseworthy or blameworthy for that to which he is inexorably impelled. If one is accountable for his action he must be account- able to a superior Being, one having power and authority over him. This cannot be just unless he willingly assumes the accountability, or having the power to absolve the relation he willingly continues it. A slave is not accountable, he exercises only his master's will. A citizen dissatisfied with the law and unable to procure a reform may migrate. Man did not voluntarily come into existence, nor voluntarily assume allegiance to any nat- ural or so-called moral law. However dissatisfied he may be or become with such law, if it really is, he can neither procure a reform nor migrate beyond its sway. He has no part in its making or administration. He has no voice in his own con- stitution, construction, or adaptation to it. It is in force and he is made subject to it. If he finds it oppressive it must be because he is not suitably adapted to it. As he cannot change his own nature, or procure a reform in such law, or migrate beyond its sway, he cannot be free. If he could reconstruct and adapt himself, he might attain to a provisional or limited freedom, but he can never be free so long as he can neither repeal nor amend an oppressive law, nor absolve his allegiance to it by migration or otherwise. Possibly there might still be some measure of responsibility resting upon him if he can reconstruct and adapt himself so as to conform to such law. Can he do this? If so, ought he.? The word ought really embraces both questions, for no one ought unless he can. Philosophers who claim that all phenom- ena are subject to and controlled by law, will scarcely allow that the construction and adaptation of man are matters of mere chance. They will maintain that these are equally subject to and controlled by the same law. Allowing they are correct in this, man's capacities, qualities, and tendencies, are as legit- imate a part of the order of nature as any other phenomena in it. Man's Maker (who also made the law) is probably wiser than 426 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. he. The law is hopelessly beyond man's amendment, and he cannot possibly escape subjection to it. His Maker has endowed him with certain capacities and cursed him with certain qual- ities and tendencies. In His infinite wisdom He has made these a part of the order of nature. Finding them in nature, man cannot say they are not as properly a part thereof as any- thing else therein. It is impossible to imagine they are the work of another power, or of man upon himself. Even if they were man's work upon himself, he could have wrought them only by means of other capacities, qualities, and tendencies previously given him ; so they are, if not directly in all cases, yet ultimately the gift of the Power which created man. Suppose the creature (man) finds, or thinks he finds, some of these his peculiar gifts at variance with what he in his wisdom conceives to be the law. Suppose they move him to what he conceives to be violations of the supposed law. It is more likely that he misconceives the law than that he knows these divinely given capacities, qualities, and tendencies to be essen- tially bad. Otherwise he must be wiser on these points than his Maker, because He is infinitely and absolutely good, and hence would not curse His creature with evil tendencies. If this is incorrect, if the Maker has made man and given him capacities, qualities, and tendencies essentially bad, it is equally as reasonable to suppose that He has also made unjust laws for his government. In reason, one of the most unjust laws that can be supposed would be one which damns the creature for doing that to which he is by a natural tendency inclined. In reason, it is impossible to suppose a law of nature for the infrac- tion of which man must suffer, and then suppose him by nature disposed to violate such law, without also supposing malice toward him on the part of his Maker. Man's capacities, quali- ties, and tendencies, are so intimately blended together, so mutually dependent upon each other, and so divinely bestowed (or inflicted) upon him, that in reason it is impossible to sup- pose him so free as to be accountable for any action to which he may be impelled by a natural tendency. The necessary consequence is that in reason no action to which man is natur- SCIENTIFIC ACCOUNTABILITY. 427 ally inclined can be either morally right or morally wrong. Reason has no part in either morality or Religion. The Philosopher says, "Two things are necessary in order to constitute any being a moral agent. They are, first, that he possess an intellectual power, by which he can understand the relation in which he stands to the beings by whom he is sur- rounded; secondly, that he possess a moral power, by which the feeling of obligation is suggested to him, as soon as the relation in which he stands is understood. This is sufficient to render him a moral agent." \f this is sufficient to render man a moral agent, it may be interesting to inquire what this is. Perhaps nothing could be more disastrous than the abolition of duty. Man in his infinitely various and complex lelations can- not reasonably be conceived of either as exempt from it or sub- ject to it. It is merely another name for moral obligation. It cannot reasonably be supposed to exceed capacity. That no one ought unless he can, includes that no one ought more than he can. It may also imply that every one ought all he can. But the Philosopher says two powers are essential to the moral obligation, the intellectual and moral powers. This distinction deserves consideration. If there is a moral power by which the feeling of obligation is suggested as soon as one understands the relation in which he stands, it must be also an intellectual power, as much so at least as that by which the relation is understood. The supposed feeling of obligation is merely an idea or sense or duty. Such an idea or sense (or indeed any idea or sense) cannot be had or conceived without the exercise of intellectual power. It is absurd to suppose, indeed one cannot suppose, an idea or sense of duty, or, forsooth, the alleged feeling of obligation otherwise than as a purely intel- lectual actor state. If there is an intellectual power by means of which one can understand the relation in which he stands to the beings by whom he is surrounded, it must also be or include the moral power, provided there is really a moral pov^er, by which the feeling of obligation is suggested as soon as the rela- tion is understood. If an idea of moral obligation arises from the conception of a relation, the relation itself must be the source or efficient cause of the moral obligation. It might be 4^8 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. suspected or perceived or partially understood without this, but it cannot be a relation without giving rise to some kind of moral obligation, and hence it cannot be understood without the idea or sense or feeling of moral obligation is at the same time suggested. The word relation, applied to intellectual creatures, has no meaning apart from obligation. As, with respect to man, there is no relation known or conceivable with- out a corresponding obligation, it would seem that obligation IS the very essence of relation. 1 think the distinction between the intellectual and the so-called moral power is utterly sense- less. While the intellectual power may enable one to under- stand things without regard to obligation, things perhaps of which no obligation can be distinctly predicated, it also enables one to understand duty and obligation so f^iras they are under- stood, and hence must be (or embrace) the alleged moral power, it, strictly speaking, there is such power. If the intellectual power is (or if the intellectual and moral powers are) reasonably sufficient to render man a moral agent, the Philosopher's case would appear to be made out, and free agency would seem to be a reasonable fact, it may be a fact. But I believe there is no known data from which by any logical argument it can be shown to be a reasonable fact. The con- ditions of moral responsibility imposed by the philosopher may not be entirely impossible; but I believe that very few persons have ever actually understood the relation in which they stood to the beings by whom they were surrounded. It should be remembered that the greater part of what he proposes as moral duty arises from man's supposed relation to a Supreme Being. The man who has an intellectual power by which he can understand that relation is pretty well equipped intellectually. A thousand theories confused and conflicting now prevail, and the voice of Reason is as eloquent and persuasive in favor of any one of them as in favor of any other. But however that may be, while man acquires his knowledge, his capacity to acquire it, in other words, his intellectual power, is not ac- quired. Whatever of this he has is inherent in him. By appli- cation he may enhance this power, but how he applies himself thereto depends in some measure upon proclivities also inher- SCIENTIFIC ACCOUNTABILITY. 429 ent in him, and perhaps in greater measure upon circum- stances over which he has no control. For the proclivities which inhere in him, as well as the circumstances under which he lives and is, he may be either congratulated or pitied, but certainly neither commended nor blamed. Idiocy is a defect. Insanity is a disease. Bad temper implies inequable organism or deranged organism. All of them are alike traceable to phys- iological condition. Petrucio tells his Shrew that meat engen- ders choler. "If, before experience begins, there is possessed an inherited framework of thought; then the structure of that framework must fix, in great part if not entirely, the manner in which experiences are dealt with." Unless there is at birth something more in the mental organ- ism than a mere capacity or reciptivity, and no more was ever apparent, then all the intelligence which must form the basis of moral obligation is acquired. If the individual inherits a frame- work of thought, the structure of which must in great part if not entirely fix the manner in which experiences are dealt with, that is. determine for him how intelligence shall assimi- late and be digested into the knowledge by which his intellect- ual power is to be enhanced, there would seem to be very lit- tle of the supposed intellectual power within his power. It would all or nearly all appear to be fortuitous to him. Con- sidering further that during the greater part of its formative process the mind is wrought upon by influences from without, the intellectual power of man is, so far as he is concerned, as liable to be of any one type or character as of any other. If such intellectual power is the measure of moral obligation, then in reason, dutv is as various and as variable as the fluctu- ating opinions of men. It would be indeed troublesome to classify a knowledge of it, and impossible to reduce it to a science. In the general argument for free-agency, moral obligation, and personal accountability, the Philosopher says, "Before you resolve upon an action, or a course of action, cultivate the habit of deciding upon its moral character. Let the first question always be, is this action right ? For this purpose God gave you this faculty. If you do not use it you are false to yourself, 430 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. and inexcusable before God. * * * If we ask this question Jirsf, it can be generally decided with ease. If we wait until the mind is agitated and harrassed by contending emotions, it will not be easy to decide correctly." I believe this is the first instance I have noticed in philosophy of the recommendation of precipitancy in order to arrive at the correct decision of any serious question. 1 believe that deliberation is generally more in favor. If the first question should always be — is this action right — then, if it must be decided by the individual by the use of a faculty which God has given him therefor, he will probably reach such a decision as such God-given faculty may lead him to. His standard or idea of right by which he is to decide will probably be such as this same God-given faculty, educationally biased, may cause him to conceive to be the true one. Un- less he could, independently of his antecedents and environ- ment, determine for himself his entire constitution and the results of his education, he could not reasonably be held accountable for the correctness of his decision, even if made before the mind was "harrassed by contending emotions." The same God who gave him the faculty to decide has probably also given him the tendency to withhold the decision until the mind is harrassed by contending emotions, to which, or to the objects of which, he may also have a God-given tendency. Upon the relative or comparative force of these tendencies depends the- question whether he will decide this quest/on before the mind is so harrassed. Unless the person is account- able for his constitution and education, for his natural tenden- cies and their relative force, as well as for the faculty to decide and its character, he cannot reasonably be held accountable for the correctness with which he decides this question, nor indeed for not deciding it at all. In reason, if we do 7iot use this ficulty we are neither false to ourselves nor inexcusable before God. 1 do not pretend to say what may or may not be. I am merely considering the reasonableness of the doctrine of an alleged Moral Philosophy, which is based upon an alleged free agency of man. If man is indeed free, philosophy is sadly inadequate to the task of making the fact appear reasonable. It deals largely and SCIENTIFIC ACCOUNTABILITY. 43 1 learnedly with what it calls passions. These are simply natu- ral tendencies, perhaps unduly intensified or aggravated. An infinitely powerful, wise, and good Creator has implanted them in the nature of every individual created. We learn to regard some of them good, others bad. These are mere provincial and conventional ideas. We know that according to their predomi- nance they impel us to this or that character of action, or restrain us. Until we learn how we will regard them we do not regard them at all, nor cognize them. What we learn of the way in which to regard them is a matter over which we have no control. It depends entirely upon the mental capacity and natural tendency divinely given us, as affected by our edu- cational bias, one result of our environment. No one can reasonably be held accountable for these or for either of them. Man is helplessly, and, so far as personal accountability is con- cerned, hopelessly a creature of a Power so far above his capac- ity to comprehend that he cannot even imagine the capacity that could intelligently conceive of such Power. Whoever looks within finds himself constituted thus and so, and if he looks vvithout he finds himself environed thus and so. Constitution and environment are the potent factors in the development of whatever there is of personal character. No one can determine for himself, independently of them, what his character shall be; at least no one is known to have done so. If the tendency to good is stronger than the tendency to evil, and if circumstances are propitious, the individual may be fortunate, he may develop what is considered a good charac- ter. Otherwise he will not, and it may reasonably be said he cannot. The strongest of his divinely given tendencies will certainly sway him, and if the counter tendency is too weak to resist this he cannot overcome or withstand it. It cannot reasonably be said that he ought unless he can. Capacity is Reason's measure of duty. Whoever intelligently looks within and without himself cannot reasonably regard himself free. The Philosopher admonishes us to "Let the question, Is this right — be asked first, before imagination has set before us the seductions of pleasure, or any step has been taken which should pledge our consistency of character." This might require some 432 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. celerity of mental movement. The imagination which can go from the Pleiades to the Southern Cross in the twinkling of an eye has some speed. If the action whose rectitude is to be questioned is expected to be attended or followed by pleasure, the thought of the pleasure characterizing and distinguishing the action will necessarily be in the mind as soon as the thought of the action. It will be impossible to think the action distinctly from other actions without at the same time thinking the pleasure by which it is characterized and distinguished. The quality of the action as pleasant or painful must be thought at least as early as the mind can inquire as to its so-called moral character. And its character as to right and wrong will make the action pleasant or painful to the person contemplating it, according as he is constituted and educated. Either pain or pleasure may result from actions without it being necessary that the specific pain or pleasure so to result be thought when the action is thought. In such cases the pain or pleasure is generally contingent, or perhaps more accurately speaking, remotely consequent. Where the action itself is, or is expected to be, either pleasant or painful, or immediately productive of pain or pleasure, such quality is generally the first feature of it beheld by the mind which thinks it. No conscience can be brisk enough to get in its inquiry as to the rectitude of the action "before imagination has set before us the seductions of pleasure." When the rectitude of the action is in question it must be because in some respect it is desirable, while in some other respect it is objectionable, — it or its expected consequen- ces. No one can ask himself the question — is this action right — without being fust moved to contemplate or think the action. Should it be an action to which the seductions of pleasure may incite, it will generally be found that the idea of such pleasure has prompted the contemplation of it, — certainly if the person has really contemplated its performance. To hold otherwise is to insist that the person aimlessly contemplates vapid vacuity. In teaching and promulgating moral philosophy for the culture of the human mind and consequent ennobling of character, the principles of psychology and the possibilities of mental manipulations should not be entirely ignored. Liter- SCIENTIFIC ACCOUNTABILITY. 433 ature abounds in exhortations to a supposed moral duty, and in so-calied moral precepts, many of which seem to be calcu- lated to make men better, and which if they were more gener ally heeded might be conducive to human happiness. The difficulty with them is the attempt that is made to enforce them on the authority of Reason. They are expressions of the doc- trines and demands of the various Religions. Their promulga tors, in the capacities of professors of various alleged Sciences, and learned literary men of leisure, no less than the avowed sectarian Apologists, attempt to entorce on supposed principles of Reason, doctrines which they cannot even state so intelligi- bly as that they may be understood in any reasonable applica- tion of them; doctrines which it is apparent from their discus- sions of them, they do not themselves understand. Indeed a religion once understood would be no religion. A religion without a mystery is psychologically impossible. Reason can- not reasonably be invoked for the verification of anything not un- derstood. The genuine or supposed principles of reason can- not be intelligently or reasonably invoked or applied in the verification of anything which is not at the time intelligently comprehensible and comprehended by the mind attempting to make the application. The idea of Apologetics is not only unreasonable; it is incon- sistent with itself and hopelessly illogical. Moral Philosophy (Apologetics) generally begins with the assertion of a mystery; the existence of a Power to which man is said to be accounta- ble for his actions. This is generally followed with the postu- late of the immortality of man, his future life of bliss or woe according to the account he finally renders to such Power. ,The existence, nature and attributes of such Power are absolute mysteries. Man's relation to such Power must also be an absolute mystery, for no mind can conceive the relation existing or supposed to exist between a known and an unknown quan- tity. In order that there may be a relation at all there must be two objects related to each other, or one of which must be related to the other. The relation must depend upon the nature of each of them. It must be such a relation as the nature of each object renders possible between them, or possi- 434 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. ble for one of them to bear to the other. If the nature of one of the objects is unknown we may still believe that some kind of relation may exist between them, or that the one whose nature we think we know bears some kind of relation to the other. We may know the existence (perhaps not the nature) of one of the objects, and imagine the existence of the other, and then imagine a relation between them, or a relation of the known object to the unknown object. This is precisely what Apologetics does, and all its alleged reasoning is conducted on this plan. It would be greatly incensed at such an estimate of its achievements, but in view of its pretensions and arrogance the estimate is a charitable one. When Apologetics has learn- edly postulated the existence of the unknown Object whose nature is not only unknown but inconceivable, it then posits man's relation to such Object, which relation must be as unknown and as inconceivable as the nature of the unknown Object. It then proceeds with more learning than wisdom to explain this absolute mystery in terms of an alleged knowledge consisting of inferences illogically drawn from unreasonable assumptions. That there may be any reason or logic in any so-called moral philosophy, and this without reference to its data or processes, the free agency or free will of man is indispensable. To establish this the argument should be such that the mind will not necessarily revolt at it. The spiritual physician should know not only the chemical qualities of his nostrum, he should know something of the pathology of his patients. He should know that Mind is a condition of matter, and that Will is one of the phases or functions or manifestations of Mind. That Will, then, is a phase or function or manifestation of the condi- tion or state of the nerve substance (matter) in which Mind is supposed to abide, where its acts and impressions are regis- tered, and by means of or through which it asserts itself He should know that a specific psychical state is the net result of the effect of something external upon the internal organiza- tion of nerve substance, the totality of the condition or state ot which constitutes Mind; and that Will is an activity of Mind arising frorn some such specific psychical state. I SCIENTIFIC ACCOUNTABILITY. 435 The organization of nerve substance, as to its susceptibility and otherwise, is a matter over which the individual has no control or influence, it mav be so organized and constituted as to be in this way or that way susceptible to the external which in some manner affects it. Heredity, which is the trans- mission to it of the effects of ancestral experiences, by determ- ining the manner of its organization also prescribes the manner in which the nerve substance shall be affected by this or that external; and environment determines the particular externals which shall affect it. In the. production of the specific psychical state which gives rise to the particular activity of the Mind which is called Will, the individual is merely a spectator; how- ever deeply concerned he may be, he has no part in the per- formance proper. - He does not act, he is merely acted upon. It cannot reasonably be said that he is free, or that he wills. It should not be forgotten that the question here is not the real truth or untruth of the postulate of free agency or free will, but the reasonableness or unreasonableness of the alleged argu- ments of Apologetics, the so-called moral philosophy. So far as the human mind is concerned, the question of freedom or fatalism need never be raised, because it can never be intelli- gently decided. No human mind can possibly rise to a con- ception of anything which it can imagine as an intelligible solu- tion of it. Materialism, which is only a more scholastic name for fatalism, or which at least includes fatalism, proceeds with perfect logic from unquestionable data to the conclusion that there is really no free will, Yet almost every step in this process contradicts this conclusion, and this conclusion even contradicts itself, in the essential implication that the mind is free to choose between it and the dogma of free will. I said above that Apologetics is not only unreasonable, but also illogical. To attempt to enforce a religion or morality by reasoning is to admit its need of support. It is to admit (or rather to assert) that the divine authority for it may be made intelligible to the mind, and thus be divested of the mystery without which no mind will hold it in reverence, to say nothing of religious awe. It is to place an alleged inconceivably good and wise and powerful Creator in the attitude of a suitor at the 436 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. feet of his admittedly evil, ignorant, and impotent creatures, begging credence for a doubtful authority, which is rendered more suspicious by that act. It is to claim for religion and morality an affinity with Science, which affinity science does not assume to deny, but modestly admits cannot exist, because religion and morality, if they are valid, are infinitely above and beyond the range of its research. This is not all nor the worst. It is to commit the doctrinaire of the religion and morality to the validity of principles which, if reasonably applied, are utterly subsersive of all claim of validity in the so-called moral philoso- phy. A leading scientist says, "A small difference in the pig- ment of a sense, by giving that sense greater susceptibility, may determine the animal's preferences, tastes, and pursuits; in other words, its whole destiny. In a human being the cir- cumstance of being acutely sensitive in one or two leading senses, may rule the entire character — intellectual and moral. The contrast between a sensuous and a reflective nature might take its rise in the outworks of the sense organs, apart even from the endowments of the brain. In this case the nervous system would follow the cue, instead of taking the lead, of the special senses. * * * The mind is completely at the mercy of the bodily condition ; there is no trace of a separate, independent, self-supporting spiritual agent, rising above all the fluctuations of the bodily frame." What these fluctuations of the bodily frame shall be or entail, is as little within our personal control as the construction of our bodily frame. A slight difference in the inherited pigment of a sense may render them fluctuations of this or of that character, may give rise to this or that inter- pretation of the phenomena encountered by the sense organs. The same scientist further says, "When to the simple instincts of organic life we add the higher instincts, including our feel- ings, and their embodiment in our voluntary powers, and even in our intelligence, the number is enlarged on a scale corre- sponding with the acquired aptitudes; and the new theory is that all these higher instincts are hereditary, or transmitted experiences." And again, "the Will consists mainly in follow- ing the lead of pleasure and drawing back from the touch of pain." If we inherit the higher instincts, by which the ideas SCIENTIFIC ACCOUNTABILITY. 437 of pleasure and pain are gauged, and if a small difference in the inherited pigment of an inherited sense may determine our preferences and tastes, reason would revolt at the idea of accountability for the consequences of any act to which one may be disposed by such inherited preferences and tastes. If the circumstance of being acutely sensitive in one or two lead- ing senses may rule the entire character, intellectual and moral, there is in reason no such thing as personal accountability for character, nor for the acts by which character is usually esti- mated. The moral philosopher tacitly asserts that ''conscience is a growth," that it is itself a feeling, emotion, or impulse of empirical origin; and not a primary principle or unerring guide or monitor in morals. He says it may be corrupted, abused, and stifled. And "that it is only by cultivating the practical supremacy of conscience over every other impiihe that you can attain to that bold, simple, manly, elevated char- acter which is essential to true greatness." If, as science maintains, the mind is completely at the mercy of the bodily condition — if there is no trace of a separate, independent, self- supporting spiritual agent, rising above all the fluctuations of the bodily frame, then whatever there is of conscience must be a growth, like all other mental acquisitions. It may be a highly cultured sense of discrimination between right and wrong. It may be a zealous advocate of the right and a devout monitor against the wrong. But if morality and religion claim akin to science, they must admit that this depends upon a possible difference in the inherited pigment of an inherited sense, and this is to admit away their whole case. That the practical su- premacy of conscience over every other impusle should be culti- vated in order to attain to the "bold, simple, manly elevated character, which is essential to true greatness" — rather, which is itself true greatness — is simply a declaration that it is one's duty to do his duty. But if one is handicapped with inherited senses, preferences, and tastes, reason would scarcely hold him accountable if he were thereby prevented from cultivating the practical supremacy of conscience over every other impulse. 4^8 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. The reasonable, or rather the essential deductions from some of the postulates of science are to the effect that conscience is at most, only a refined or sanctimonious selfishness; and that its distinctions between right and wrong are provincial and con- ventional. The science to which religion and morality attempt to cling discovers in different communities and among different individuals contradictory consciences. When the Moral Philoso- pher attempts to set up a supreme or standard conscience to which the local or individual conscience should conform, he merely expresses the opinion .he has formed, as an essential, re- sult of the inherited pigment of an inherited sense organ, which may differ from that of persons of different consciences. The authenticity of his standard will probably be like that of the doctrine of those who have assumed to voice the alleged will and wisdom of the Almighty. He may not be able to give any sufficient reason why he, in preference to any other person, should be empowered and entrusted to declare the supreme or standard conscience; just as the inspired oracles of divine wis- dom have given no reason for the divine selection of themselves as the Spokesmen of the Almighty. The character and conduct of some who have assumed to declare His alleged will and wis- dom, imply that there was but little if any reasonable reason for their being selected for so high and holy an office. If the advocates of their doctrines, or of any specific conscience, at- tempt by reasoning to convince mankind of the validity of such doctrine, or of the superiority or supremacy of any specific con- science, they necessarily appeal to the intellectual integrity of their proposed proselytes. This intellectual integrity is, accord- ing to the science to which religion and morality attempt to cling, wholly fortuitous to the proposed proselytes, is "com- pletely at the mercy of the bodily condition," is as various and and variable as temperament and the differences of the pigment of the senses. I said above that the essential deductions of some of the postulates of science are to the effect that conscience is at most only a refined or sanctimonious selfishness. Some of the Moral Philosophers are themselves committed to the validity of this proposition. One of the most authoritative of them says, "the SCIENTIFIC ACCOUNTABILITY. 439 moral faculty, considered as an active power of the mind, differs essentially from all others hitherto enumerated. The least vio- lation of its authority fills us with remorse. On the contrary, the greater the sacrifices we make in obedience to its sugges- tions, the greater are our satisfaction and triumph." Fear of punishment (remorse), hope of reward (satisfaction and tri- umph). The editor of Stewart's Philosophy, from which the last above extract is taken, refers to Wayland's Elements, the main subiectof the present chapter, in vindication of the propo- sition. He also quotes the judgment of Socrates that the ' ' most virtuous and just is also most happy, and the wicked and un- just the most unhappy." This maybe true without necessarily degrading virtue and justice to a mere means of acquiring happi- ness and avoiding unhappiness. But to urge happiness as an incentive to virtue and justice, and unhappiness as a deterrent from vice and injustice, is certainly to appeal to man's baser in- stincts, selfishness, hope of reward and fear of punishment. If the supreme authority of conscience is enforced in rewards and punishments, then barkening to its monitions is not virtue, but policy. When Moral Philosophy teaches us that "the greater the sacrifices we make in obedience to its suggestions, the greater are our satisfaction and triumph," it teaches or attempts to teach us to drive the best bargain possible in the disposition of our re- sources. When it teaches us that "the least violation of its authority fills us with remorse," it teaches or attempts to teach us to shun the evil, the punishment (remorse) resulting from such violation — it operates upon our fears. Wherever either hope or fear is a factor in a purpose or a motive the individual action is in reason, necessarily selfish. It may not be impossible to imagine a man making a sacrifice for which he knows that no adequate remunerafion of any kind is possible, and strictly speaking no other can be a sacrifice, yet I believe no one has ever made such sacrifice. Viewed in a rea- sonable light the Christian redemption of mankind was not such a sacrifice. The theory of it is that in divine justice all men were eternally damned ; that one Man by a brief but bitter per- secution and three days of death redeemed all men from eternal death and damnation. The Redeemer immediately received 440 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. His reward in promotion in Heaven, and He eternally receives His eternally increasing reward in the gratitude and praises of the eternally increasing hosts of the redeemed. The divine justice requiring the eternal punishment of all mankind, is too easily satisfied, and the reward for having satisfied it is too great, for the redemption to be reasonably regarded as accomplished by a sacrifice. If some one has voluntarily suffered death or punishment instead of another, it has been because he felt that the death or punishment of the other would be more grievous to him than his own would be. Any attempt to make either religion or morality appear rea- sonable is not only illogical, it is irreverent. The highest pos- sible human conception of justice cannot begin to comprehend the alleged justice of the eternal damnation of all mankind, nor of any of mankind, decreed before they were born for the alleged guilt of their progenitors. If they were not so justly damned, the mind can conceive of no reasonable occasion for their re- demption in the blood of innocence. If they were so justly damned the mind cannot conceive how such divine justice could be satisfied with less than the full measure of pain that would be endured by all mankind in outer darkness where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth during all eternity. The mind cannot conceive how one Man could suffer the actual equivalent of all this anguish during a thirty-three years' sojourn upon earth, even including three days of actual death. Unless the actual suffering of the Redeemer during His earthly sojourn and death, was actually equivalent to all the suffering that would be endured by all mankind in damnation during all eternity, the mind cannot conceive that divine justice is yet satisfied, or that mankind is yei justly redeemed. The mind cannot conceive that the eternal punishment oi all mankind was demanded by divine justice, unless there was, actually or potentially an ascertainable quantum or totality oi the suffering to be endured by mankind in such punishment, ascertainable perhaps only by divine wisdom. As the mind cannot conceive that such quantum or totality of suffering was actually endured or equivalented in the alleged redemption, it reasonably follows that it must regard a great deal of it as not SCIENTIFIC ACCOUNTABILITY. 441 yet endured or equivalented. So in reason divine justice is not yet satisfied and mani