English
It seems then to me not natural that an immortal fruit should grow on a perishable tree ; and I conceive that, whatever element within us acquires or prolongs the kind of knowledge above spoken of, will at least outlive the bodily frame, whose sensations manifestly perish with itself. It confirms me somewhat in this opinion, that I observe no animals lower than man appear to enjoy anything of this kind of knowledge, or to have any higher guidance than blind instinct, and accordingly they leave no work behind them, or only such things as nests, which the storm of any year may sweep away. However difficult it may be to make good against your Indian ingenuity, so wide a gulf as we conceive to exist between Man and all other animals, you must admit the above difference to be a striking one. Man improves and perpetuates ; DISTINCTNESS OF MIND. 123 the lower animals follow each their species, and work^ as they live, for a day. ^' One more remark I will here make, and then I have finished with this section of my argument. Just as the knowledge aboYe especially spoken of, is most intellectual when it is most abstracted from combination with material objects, so the know* ing principle which corresponds to it, or our mind, seems to use the bodily organisation as a necessary accompaniment up to certain points, rather than to consider it as any part of itself; and as the catastrophes- which destroy men or nations often fail to extinguish the light of their knowledge, so the injuries which mutilate our body seem to hare no correspondent power of crippling our mind. We find, for example, that a man loses one limb after another, without the power of thought being necessarily impaired ; and even after death, no cunning of the anatomist has ever demonstrated any organ which constituted in itself the essential power of thinking. Kather indeed we observe that every limb may remain entire, but the whole bulk of the most comely or gigantic form takes no cognisance of either fnend or foe, if that £eu: more subtle and etherial spirit, which no one has ever touched with scalpel, or weighed with scales, has vanished into the unsearchable embrace of Him from whom it came. As then our knowledge, in proportion as it is purely intellectual, is permanent; and yet in this life it cannot be altogether disengaged from things which perish ; so I trust the intellect which entertains it, will, when, separated from things corruptible, be itself immortaL ^'But secondly, as in the first place, I have attempted to sever the intellectual from the sensuous, so now let me distinguish the will from the appetites, which may also be called the lusts. Now here, again, it is very evident that men are prompted by natural instincts to seek certain things, for which they stretch out their hands greedily, as conceiving them to be either neces- sary or pleasant. For example, I mean the appetites or lusts of meat and drink, or any kind of seeking to which our bodily desires prompt us. It seems ridiculous to say that such things 124 DESIRE AND VOLITION. are altogether wrong in themselves ; for how without them would mankind exist? Yet to you least of all men living need I eicplain the calamities which men bring on themselves and others by over greedy indulgence in all sorts of appetites. Hence it is often said by men who do not much reflect on such subjects, that the will of man is depraved. If indeed by will they mean merely futurition, or what a man is likely to do, their statement might be correct enough. But pray consider, whether by will we do not rather mean choice, or that which a man chooses either to do or to have done, supposing he be free from any kind of coercion as regards his own conduct, or can guide the course of events as to what he wishes to obtain. Perhaps, indeed, we may conveniently apply the name of * wishing' to the desire of objects which are at the disposal of others ; and so we may retain the term * will' as denoting rather choice in relation to our own conduct. But now what a rational man wills to do depends very much upon his knowledge. There can be no motives applied to the will stronger than those which result from our knowing how things really are. I should not then wonder if what is most properly called the will should be the determination of our reason, or that inclination to act in a particular way which arises from knowing truth. If then the eyes of the understanding are darkened, so that a man fancies whatever any lust may persuade him is pleasant for the moment to be also for his permanent happiness, the will is perverted by a wrong bias, and the man perishes for lack of knowledge. But veiy often, where the will is thoroughly informed, and is deter- mined in itself upon full vision of the truth to choose the right, there arises a conflict against it from all sorts of lusts and temp- tations which endeavour to overbear its purpose, and make a man against his will embrace perdition. In such struggles a man cries out, What I will that I do not, but what I will not that I do. He is conscious that his true humanity and his will, or his innermost self, are on the side of Good, but all manner of appetites associated with the senses beset him so as to form the STRIFE OF THE INNER MAN. 125 mimiciy of a will, or a spurious personality not unlike that consciousness which Sad^nanda has called the suhtle person, and which he distinguishes somehow from the innermost soul. Probably all men feel often in the course of their lives many symptoms of the conflict to which I allude ; but the difference between good and bad men is that, in the first, by some power or assistance, the true will, which was the offspring of truth, triumphs gradually more and more ; while in the second, I mean the bad, the lust thrusts itself step by step more into their inner being, and so darkens their perceptions of right, that it becomes at last the yery will of the sinner, the light which God gave him of a purer knowledge, which should have kept alive a holier inclination, being at last utterly extinguished. What power or what help that may be, whether inherent, or supravenient, which keeps aUve in the happier man a true knowledge and an un- depraved will, perhaps here we need not stay to inquire. But it is clear, that whatever such power may be, it belongs to that which is most godlike, either in the original kindred of the soul, or in some heavenly alliance which it contracts ; and what par- ticularly strikes me is, that such a struggle being carried on, and often brought to a triumphant issue by the soul, against all the temptations with which perishable things encompass it, may furnish one testimony, and that not the slightest, to the probar biUty of some better destiny's awaiting it hereafter. " Thirdly, however, the will of man, which, in so far as it knows the truth, chooses life and goodness, is not only distracted by a fJBdse inclination from the lusts already spoken of, but is also associated with other desires and feelings, which perhaps generally we may class as the affections. By an affection we perhaps mean any lively personal feeling, of which one is con- scious in regard to something external. For whether a man has something pleasant happen to him, so that he rejoices, or painful, so that he grieves ; or whether he receives kindnesses or the contrary, so that he feels gratitude or resentment; or ifliether he legards his neighbour for any cause with either love, 126 AFFECTIONS OR PASSIONS. hatred, or compassion ; or lastly, whether he hopes for some uncertain advantage, or fears some possible evil, or looks npward with aspiration to whomever he regards as highest and .best, in all these and in any similar cases, which come within the class of affections, there is implied both a lively activity, and also a reference to something external. Perhaps also the affections take hold in some measure of the entire personal consciousness, 80 that the mind, or whatever appears to us mind, claims a larger share in them than in the mere appetites. Whether then the affections are right or wrong, that is, whether they are exercised as they are due to their several objects, seems either to determine, or depend upon the question, whether the man owning them is good or bad. I need not prove what all man- kind allow, as for instance, in the case of filial piety, or of mmatural hatred.