English
Then observe how the more that knowledge increases the more men agree in attaching praise and blame to the very same objects. Two thousand years ago the Saxons thought, as some of the wilder Tatars may think now, that cimning and cruelty were venial proceedings; but the English, who are partly descended from these Saxons, though mingled with gentler races, have learned to think, as our Hindii friends here, that humanity is rather to be praised and encou- raged. Probably, if the Tatars are better taught hereafter they will also change their judgment. There is then a certain stand- ard, though I have not said that ignorance follows it. Rather I argue all along, that our acceptance of that standard depends upon our knowledge; though in some things perhaps the voice of the human heart speaks alike in every clime. Again, it is very remarkable, how the faculty of Conscience, being en- lightened by knowledge, tends constantly to clear itself from £Edse associations. For example, it distinguishes easily between accidental or involimtary actions, and things done with treachery or with guilty forethought; nor does it acquiesce in any condem- nation of a crowd, if it perceives the censurers either to be preju- diced, or not to be aware of the turning events of the case; nor, again, is it appeased by mere flattery, or ignorant praise. So intimately does our Conscience seem to be acquainted with the deep places of our being. It animates all through life the gene- rous and the good ; nor can any ingenious pleading about Pra- CONSCIENCE. 131 criti, or natrure and organisation, or any theory of man's not being morally accountable, altogether deprive it of its power to punish the wicked; but much more its power is apt to increase towards the end of life. You remember the story of the Emperor Alamgir (Aurungzeb) ; he certainly was a most utter hypo- crite; and, after many crimes, strode over his father's corpse to a throne: but it might have been supposed that with long villany he might have hardened his heart so as to be at ease. Whatever empire and wealth, or revenge, or pleasure, or employ- ment in strengthening himself against enemies and controlling the destiny of nations can confer, was all at his disposal, who reigned from Delhi over India. Probably also wise men could have told him that to deceive his brother or murder his father was only the operation of Pracriti, and*that all his soul need do was to enjoy the spectacle; or again, a deadlier wisdom still might have taught him, that the belief of his having a soul was a delusion. Yet this most able and powerful Emperor could never, with all his knowledge or his armies, appease the sting of remorse, or persuade himself, as death approached, that he had no penalty to undergo; on the contrary, in those remarkable words, which are not the least striking in the history of India, he exclaimed, 'Wherever I look, I see nothing but God. I have committed numerous crimes, and I know not with what punish- ments I may be seized. The agonies of death come upon me fast.' Such a vision of wrath to come sat before his guilty mind. If you remember this instance of so powerful an Em- peror, you will more readily believe me when I add, that in many countries there are well-attested instances in which the oonacienoe has shewn that its power increases as death ap- proaches. Such a circumstance does not appear as if then it spoke for the last time; for if any one observes two different cavalcades of persons, of which the one journeys with unfaltering step, and the other with blind or palsied imbecility, so long as both are in sight, he will not easily believe that the strength and attitude of both are changed, the moment that a distant mist 9—2 132 PRESENTIMENT OF FUTURITY. settles on the path which they have gone. So in beliolding good men enjoy a peace of mind which increases as they grow old, and great criminals snflTer, on the contrary, as their life advances, with growing restlessness, we do not readily imagine that when they enter the miseen world the progress of either will come suddenly to an end. All that we see clearly in this life is a group of figures coming suddenly out of unknown dark- ness, and again vanishing, after a few strides, at the entrance of the great Hall of Eternity; but, in the little interval of visible life, acts have been done, habits contracted, and the conscience and affections of man go severally with their burden of report before the Unseen Judge. " Now, since conscience thus terrifies men often with a dim foreboding of some spirifual recompence in the world to come, it might be fancied that persons in general would wish no other life to be probable, and so that the doctrine of the Charvdcas would become generally popular; but it is wonderful to remark how little such a kind of consolation accords with the unbiassed instincts of mankind; on the contrary, we all seem to shrink in- stinctively fix)m annihilation. The forces of decay and darkness, as their stealthy footsteps make inroads upon our consciousness of life, are felt to be enemies which, if it were possible, we would repel; nor is our sensation, in this respect, confined to a mere animal feeling, such as a shrinking from gloom or a love of en* joyment. For men who contemplate with calmness the idea of their body being laid under the sod, still consider their inner self as having a kind of property in a conscious futurity; nor does this presentiment hold good of ourselves only, but still more vividly as regards our friends. For my own part, I have never been able to imagine that the persons whom I have known familiarly, and who have been taken from me by death, have therefore ceased to exist; their bodies, I know, have mouldered in the grave, but that better part of them, which was capable of thinking, and loving, and adoring, seems still to be a living dweller in some part of the unseen world, though I know not PRESENTIMENT OF FUTURITY. 133 in what part. You will perhaps smile at what you will call a fanciful dream; but the great concurrence of so many men and nations in some thoughts of the kind, appears to bring me the confirmation of many witnesses. There is no country or climate, however far apart and differing in manners, as well as separated from the probability of a one-stemmed tradition, in which some such great hope has not supported men in the prospect of death, and mitigated the pain of bereavement. Although then I dare not say a strong wish is itself an evidence, yet this widely-spread community of feeling, on so great a question, seems either to attest a natural instinct, — ^in which case the instincts of mankind may be expected to prophesy a fulfilment, as much as those of the bee and the ant who lay up stores for a winter, or those of the bull-calf which butts with yet imarmed brow, or else that feeling has found everywhere common grounds of reasoning, such as I have myself partly indicated; — and, in this case, the concur- rence of so many thinkers in one conclusion will approximate to the most convincing kind of evidence which on any moral ques- tion is possible. Perhaps, indeed, it may have seemed best to whatever higher power has ordered the degree of our knowledge, that some obscurity should rest on our anticipations, in order that, by dwelling oftener and more anxiously on the possibilities of the unseen world, we might be roused to a far keener interest in whatever concerns it, just as the imagination has more play in gazing on some great painter's sketch of a new country than in copying the literal plan of a surveyor; for most of you will con- cede this, that mankind everywhere are ultimately governed through the medium chiefly of absorbing ideas, so that whatever method gives the amplest range to ideas of a wholesome kind, must therefore be the best. " But although I have introduced here the strong wish of mankind, whether it be instinctive or whether it arise from a train of reasoning, or from anything else, yet you will have observed that its main force as an argument consists not so much in itself 8oIely as in its connexion with conscience; for it becomes doubly 184 DEVOUT EXPERIENCE. temaxkable when these two things, which might be expected rather to clash, botli co-exist together, and act each upon the other so forcibly, that there seems a certain kindred between them.