English
He might plausibly enough urge, that no sufficient ground has been shewn for suppositions which are unnecessary either to the happiness of life, or to the logical completeness of our theories respecting it. Say anything that you please, of man being a higher and a more conscious form of life than a vegetable, or a being of nobler destiny than the short-lived beasts of the field ; but any firm arguments for removing him out of the same great order of nature, and placing him apart, as a sort of supernatural visitor in this life, and by right an heir of immortality, are as yet to be adduced by the defenders of that theory." Some such sentiments as the above were propounded by Wolff, half in the person of a Ch&rv^ca, and half (as it appeared) in his own. But I confess that I may not have done fiill justice to him, for his speech was longer than I have reported. He said ft great deal about the influence of climate and soil upon man- kind; how some men under the sun of the Tropics became negroes, and others amid Northern snows were bleached and stunted into dwarfs; how the thoughts of men were as much the creation of circumstances as their forms ; how imagination in all ages had been active, and all religions were so blended with error, that it was difficult to disengage the modicum of truth ; how again, if spirit and matter were distinct things, it would be 112 BODY — BPIBIT — STNTHESI8 — NATURALISM. impossible for the two ever to come into intelligent contact ; how some might consider the two as eternally incompatible, and others make form an out-bodying of spirit, and others fuse the two into one self-modifying and self-contemplating consciousness, or activity; but how all difficulties were best solved by the simple expedient of considering matter as the starting point of speculation, and then imagining this matter to be refined into various forms of life ; which, having enjoyed their day, might be again recast into new forms of inertness or activity, as the case might be. In some parts of his argument it n!:.ly re- sembled that of the Saugata, except that he entirely rejected the religious teaching of Sdkya, as a rule of life ; but again he allowed a certain weight to the humane affections and aspira- tions after good in general, which he represented as being in man something like flowers upon trees, the legitimate, and perhaps ornamental, outgrowth of our development. All such things, however, he contended, ought to be rigorously restrained within limits, lest, being natural in some men, they should be enjoined as a law upon others, who had no such tendency, and in whom it could only be a weakness or a servitude. From these hints you will readily conjecture the nature of the man. Perhaps also you will be able to divine how each of the native disputants endeavoured to refute him. For example, they each and all appealed to their various sacred books, of which there is more to come hereafter. The Saugata seemed to lay much stress upon the necessary tendency of good men to grow upwards in a kind of devout intelligence. Sad^nanda again urged the general need of some worship, and appealed to the consciousness of mankind for proof that soul exists within us as a spectator, and that it is something different in kind from the material agencies of life ; nay that it is even known by itself with more certainty, as of self-recognition, than they can be observed. But the more difficult arguments were those of Vidy&ch&rya. They turned partly on authority, and partly on moral grounds, but still more upon some subtle metaphysics, by "^ CHRISTIAN PKEMISES. 113 which he shewed all this material world to have no more solid existence than pictures or shadows in a dream, so that the only remaining substantiality was, as he argued, the eternal thought, or all-embracing spirit, of which he had before spoken. But, I must confess, that in listening to all this discussion, I lost occa- sionally the thread, and became so confused with over-strained attention, as not always to know upon which side any one of the party was arguing, or what he intended to prove. After some time, however, Blancombe again spoke. " Well," he said, " it would not be easy for me to profess entire adoption of the sentiments of any one of the speakers hitherto. But, if my vote were to be given with either of the two parties into which this stage of the discussion is splitting us, it would certainly be with those who maintain a hope beyond the grave, rather than with the saddening ingenuity, which has endeavoured to take it away. Perhaps, after all the wisdom which has been exerted on the same side, it may be of no great use my speaking ; yet, ginoe there are some considerations which have not been brought forward, and which, without being distinctively Christian, still harmonise with the faith which we entertain, perhaps you will not refuse to take them into the general reckoning." Being here encouraged by the company, who were evidently disposed to be attentive, Blancombe then proceeded : — " As we are sitting with our eyes more or less directed to each other, it is sufficiently clear, how much of our knowledge is gained through the faculty of sight. Nor would there be much use, in the presence of persons who have analysed the hxmian fi!ame pretty exactly, if I were to enlarge upon the other senses, such as our power of hearing, touching, tasting, and smelling, if indeed these three last, or rather the whole five, are not simple modifications of one, namely, touch; or rather, of nervous sensation. All these, however, may be called the five mes- sengers, as in some of your books I have seen them called; for by their means all kinds of intimations from the external world axe conveyed to whatever constitutes our self, or, as ILP. 8 114 SENSATION AND JUDGMENT. some of you say, mimics a personality within us. But we feel in ourselves at least one kind of knowledge, sufficiently dis- tinct from perceptions derived through the senses, though not unconnected with them. For we not only record and classify our perceptions, but we form judgments upon them ; and draw all sorts of inferences from them. This internal faculty of judging, which seems to me what I should call my self, but which any one who pleases may call the subtle person, or by any other name, does not always accept appearances as they strike the eye, but brings them as it were to its own tribunal, and judges them by a law of its own. Often, even although the bodily senses may affirm them positively, it rejects them as not true, or condemns them as it were to annihilation, if they con- tradict this mental law, which is in whatever way established." " But may I interrupt you for a moment?" here interposed Wolff. " K you please," said the other. " Suppose then," said he, " our reason (as you think) rejects things manifestly contra- dictory or irrational as untrue, however strongly a diseased vision may paint them, still is this law of reason anything more than a collective inference, or a generalisation from things already observed? Or what is reason itself, but taking account of things perceived? Ratiocination comes out of counting, and perhaps counting from the formation of our fingers. So that, in fact, is it not the majority of appearances, after all, which being treasured in the memory, overbear the minority? Your mental law then, as an offspring of the mind, vanishes." "Why," answered Blancombe, "there are wise men who hold, in opposition to what you have advanced, that pure reason, or the very power (and perhaps I may call it the ghostliness) of the mind, sees truths with as direct an eye of its own, as the life in the body apprehends external objects ; and this directness of vision may be called intuition. All the highest and most general truths, either of a moral or an intellectual kind, are, as such persons conceive, presented to that power in the soul, which is the most godlike and illimitable element in its being, LAWS OF THOUGHT. 115 80 that it Heizes upon them intuitivelj; and, in virtue of such appreciation of primal truths, becomes able to talk with the nnseen destinies, which have moulded the remotest Past, and will direct the course of the Future for ever.