English
He may be higher than heaven, so that we know nothing, and deeper than hell, so that we understand Him not ; yet the certainty of His being is as clear as that of an architect to those who observe a house, or of a poet to those who read a well-constructed poem. Willingly indeed we confess that our frail reasonings have need to be enlightened farther, and we shall gladly accept any inter- vention which, by bringing man more face to face with Deity, may open a friller assurance ; but however difficult it may be to settle what exactly man ought to believe, the necessity of some such belief as we contend for, is a matter of most solid reasoning, and not only of gentle feeling. The very language of all nations, as a record of their instinctive logic, bears testimony to what I am saying. You spoke, (here Blancombe directed himself towards Wolff), of a fixed order, and a regular order, and a character in nature. How remarkable that you could discover no words usual among men which were not fatal to your theory ! For the very word fixed implies a thing done, which must have had a doer; so a character is something stamped, and an order is something arranged, and again, by the word regular^ you lead us to a rule, which cannot be without a ruler. 142 YET MENTAL) RATHER THAN MATERIAL. It is not then the same thing ad you suppose, whether we start with a conception of nature or of creative mind. " But if you ask what difference it makes, I answer first, that we have seen mankind want an object to believe upon, and yet are not able to believe merely because it is good for them to do so, imless the object proposed is satisfactory to the intellect. But our mind, of whatever it may be made, can rest in no cause for the imiverse less than mind. It observes a thousand energies, which may be called causes, in daily operation ; but although you may magnify any one or all of these together to an infinite extent, neither one, nor all, will upon any scale satisfy the mind when alleged as a creative or governing principle. For no one of these blind forces is capable of weighing and mea- jsuring, but the world is evidently made by weight and measure ; it is made therefore clearly by some being capable of conceiving laws and thoughts; but these we do not find entering into the conception of a blind nature. That my distinction here is prac- tically a correct one, is in fact clearly and thoroughly proved by the very names which are current in India for soul and for matter. We have heard the Saugata calling our soul by the term intelligence; and again, many Hindtis call matter simply ignorance [ajndna). They feel instinctively that the one has know- ledge, and the other ignorance; hence they describe the things by their characteristics ; for such seems to my mind the simplest explanation of this way of speaking ; though more subtle reasons are also given for it. In those two phrases, then, the Hindus Supply us with a practical proof that in all speculation about the world, pure intellect cries out against matter, for the necessity of gome governing principle more akin to itself than any material or sensible object. Mere intellect therefore associates itself with all those yearnings of the affections upward of which we have before spoken. But secondly, I observe that it cannot disdain to take them into account, as in turn it is purified by them. For wheli it observes them act over the range of nations and centuries, with a recurrence nearly uniform enough to admit of their effects being MORAL WITNESS FROM HABIT. 143 grouped in masses, and classified under heads, it saya of these too, thej must have a cause, and it finds no cause worthy enough, ex- cept some being which must be to all the hopes and aspirations of man either as analogous as the fountain is to the stream, or else as transcendent as the fashioning thought is to the material wrought. " Nor here probably will the intellect be able to avoid taking notice of what we call habit. I mention it, because you will not be able to say of it, as you implied of the affections, that it is a mere sensation or sentiment, implying no law of mind. At least, if any one were to imagine beforehand what sort of bias firom the force of habit he would wish for the benefit of mankind should be given to our actions, he might perhaps despair of any such bias being made wholesome, ex- pecting it to be the same probably in every kind of action. But if he were told that good actions would, however disagreeable at first, become easier and pleasanter as they were persevered in ; while bad actions, being the perversion of some capacity for better things, might for a little time seduce, but would gradually lose the outside varnish of honey which gilded them, — so that good men would become stronger or happier, while the ob- stinately bad would become more and more loveless and misera- ble to themselves and others, so that at last goodness would be the greatest blessing, and wickedness turn out to be the greatest punishment, — I humbly conceive, any purely spiritual thinker, in considering firom a remote world the possibility of such a law of moral recompence being established, would find in it manifest trace of some being who is to our conscience, what the highest Mind may be to the worldly fabric, or an infinite Love as com- pared to the holy affections of man. Especially also would such a conclusion be drawn, supposing it was seen that young sinners would, on their first going wrong, have many checks from vio- lent emotion, and a tenderness of shame, like the blush on a maiden's cheek; but yet that all these sanctities, being again and again violated, might fade away, and the safeguard involved in them be destroyed. But now I need scarcely argue at large 144 MORAL GOVERNMENT CLEAR — IF METAPHYSICS DOUBTFUL. that such is the principle of moral recompence, which by means of the force of habit is intertwined into the constitution of the world. For if you either observe or reflect, you will find it to be so ; and I should only weary you by illustrating in detail every step in this long argument. Finding then, as we do, that modesty as a safeguard against recklessness is only destroyed by obstinacy ; and that all the holier and purer affections grow up into habits, which become a second and a happier nature to a man, while on the contrary, selfishness, in all its forms of insincerity or crime or sensualism, becomes an avenging scourge, must we not say that the logical reason in man consents to whatever element in us apprehends righteousness, and whatever feeling rejoices in things amiable, that both some being is to be worshipped, and that such being must be intelligent, holy, and lovely ? Something like that, I suppose, is what most men in- tend by an Iswara, or what we call God. Was I not therefore right in saying, that the hard as well as the soft in man, or the masculine understanding no less than the feminine love, cries out for some such religious sentiment as your argument dispaiages ? " I say here some religious sentiment, or some worship of God, including therefore the belief in God ; for let that suffice as our principal object of proof just now. It has come to light incidentally more than once in my discourse, that I conceive the common cause of my friends here and of myself against you, (here Blancombe turned to Wolff,) is best supported by argu- ments which they are not quite agreed about. Yet it is not impossible for some of my arguments to be wrong, yet for our main cause to be right. Suppose, for example, all the ideas which I have suggested on the subject of mind as distinct from matter, were to be so far mistaken that one substance in many modifications should turn out to be the cause and the material without duality of all possible causes or effects ; still, the modi- fication which this substance would undergo in its thinking stage and its wrought stage, would be so important as to render it for all practical purposes two distinct things, as to the popular METAPHYSICAL HYPOTHESIS — RELIGIOUS NEED. 146 apprehension of mankind it nndoubtedlj seems. If then yon prefer still to understand the term mind as meaning matter Bofficientlj refined to be the organ of mental powers, do so.