{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_63510/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_63510","id":"gutenberg_63510","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/63510","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Christianity -- Controversial literature","Christianity -- Essence, genius, nature","Faith","Miracles"],"text":"The Kernel and the Husk\n\n\n\n\n                        THE KERNEL AND THE HUSK\n\n                   Letters on Spiritual Christianity\n\n                                   BY\n\n                            EDWIN A. ABBOTT\n\n                             THE AUTHOR OF\n                     \u201cPHILOCHRISTUS\u201d AND \u201cONESIMUS\u201d\n\n\n                                London:\n                           MACMILLAN AND CO.\n                                  1886\n\n        _The Right of Translation and Reproduction is Reserved._\n\n\n\n\n                                   TO\n                    THE DOUBTERS OF THIS GENERATION\n                                  AND\n                       THE BELIEVERS OF THE NEXT\n\n\n\n\n                             TO THE READER\n\n\nThe time is not perhaps far distant when few will believe in miracles\nwho do not also believe in an infallible Church; and then, such books as\nthe present will appeal to a larger circle. But, as things are, the\nauthor would beg all those who worship a miraculous Christ without doubt\nand difficulty to pause here and read no further. The book is not\nintended for them; it is intended for those alone to whom it is\ndedicated, \u201cthe doubters of this generation.\u201d\n\nFor there are some who feel drawn towards the worship of Christ by love\nand reverence, yet repelled by an apparently inextricable connection of\nthe story of Christ with a miraculous element which, in their minds,\nthrows a doubt over the whole of His acts, His doctrine, His character,\nand even His existence. Others, who worship Christ, worship Him\ninsecurely and tremulously. They assume that their faith must rest on\nthe basis of the Bible miracles; and at times they cannot quite suppress\na thrill of doubt and terror lest some horrible discovery of fresh\ntruth, resulting in the destruction of the miraculous element of the\nBible, may impair their right to regard Christ as \u201canything better than\na mere man.\u201d It is to these two classes\u2014the would-be worshippers and the\ndoubtful worshippers of Christ\u2014that the following Letters are addressed\nby one who has for many years found peace and salvation in the worship\nof a non miraculous Christ.\n\nNot very long ago, but some years after the publication of a work called\n_Philochristus_, the author received a letter from a stranger and\nfellow-clergyman, asking him whether he could spare half an hour to\nvisit him on his death-bed, \u201cdying of a disease\u201d\u2014so ran the letter\n\u201cwhich will be fatal within some uncertain weeks (possibly however days,\npossibly months). No pains just now, head clear, voice sound. And mind\nat peace, but the peace of reverent agnosticism..... Now I have read and\nappreciated _Philochristus_. It would comfort my short remainder of life\nif you would come and look me dying in the face and say, \u2018This theology\nand Christology of mine is not merely literary: I feel with joy of heart\nthat God is not unknown to man: try even now to feel with me.\u2019\u201d\n\nOf what passed at the subsequent interview nothing must be said except\nthat the dying man (whose anticipations of death were speedily verified)\nexpressed the conviction that one reason why he had fallen into that\nabyss of agnosticism\u2014for an abyss he then felt it to be\u2014was that he had\nbeen \u201ctaught to believe too much when young;\u201d and he urged and almost\nbesought that something might be done soon to \u201cgive young men a religion\nthat would wear.\u201d These words were not to be forgotten; they recurred\nagain and again to the author with the force of a command. The present\nwork is an attempt to carry them into effect, an attempt, by one who has\npassed through doubts into conviction, to look the doubting reader in\nthe face and say, \u201cThis theology and Christology of mine is not merely\nliterary. I feel with joy of heart that God is not unknown to man. Try\neven now to feel with me.\u201d\n\nThe author does not profess to clear Christianity from all\n\u201cdifficulties.\u201d If a revelation is to enlarge our conceptions of God, it\nmust involve some spiritual effort on our part to receive the larger\ntruth; if it claims to be historical, it may well impose on some of its\nadherents the labour needed for the judgment of historical evidence; if\nit prompts, without enforcing, obedience, it must excite in all some\nquestionings as to the causes which led the Revealer not to make His\nrevelation irresistibly convincing. Even the explanations of the\nmysterious phenomena of motion, light, and chemistry, involve\n\u201cdifficulties\u201d in the acceptance of still more mysterious Laws which we\ncannot at present explain. Nevertheless we all feel that we understand\nastronomy better in the light of the Law of gravitation: and in the same\nway some may feel that Christianity becomes more spiritual, as well as\nmore clear, when it becomes more natural; and that many of its so-called\n\u201cdifficulties\u201d fade or vanish, when what may be called its celestial and\nits terrestrial phenomena are found to rest upon similar principles.\n\n\n\n\n                           TABLE OF CONTENTS\n\n           _Letter_                                 _Page_\n\n           1 _Introductory_                         1\n\n           2 _Personal_                             5\n\n           3 _Knowledge_                            20\n\n           4 _Ideals_                               29\n\n           5 _Ideals and Tests_                     40\n\n           6 _Imagination and Reason_               47\n\n           7 _The Culture of Faith_                 59\n\n           8 _Faith and Demonstration_              72\n\n           9 _Satan and Evolution_                  80\n\n           10 _Illusions_                           97\n\n           11 _What is Worship?_                    111\n\n           12 _The Worship of Christ_               125\n\n           13 _What is \u201cNature\u201d?_                   134\n\n           14 _The Miracles of the Old Testament_   142\n\n           15 _The Miracles of the New Testament_   158\n\n           16 _The Growth of the Gospels_           170\n\n           17 _Christian Illusions_                 185\n\n           18 _Are the Miracles inseparable from    201\n           the Life of Christ?_\n\n           19 _The Feeding of the Four Thousand and 212\n           the Five Thousand_\n\n           20 _The Manifestation of Christ to St.   225\n           Paul_\n\n           21 _The Development of Imagination and   233\n           its bearing on the Revelation of\n           Christ\u2019s Resurrection_\n\n           22 _Christ\u2019s Resurrection regarded       240\n           naturally_\n\n           23 _Faith in the spiritual Resurrection  246\n           is better than so-called knowledge of\n           the material Resurrection_\n\n           24 _What is a Spirit?_                   258\n\n           25 _The Incarnation_                     267\n\n           26 _Prayer, Heaven, Hell_                281\n\n           27 _Pauline Theology_                    298\n\n           28 _Objections_                          310\n\n           29 _Can Natural Christianity commend     320\n           itself to the masses?_\n\n\n           APPENDIX\n\n           30 _Can a believer in Natural            339\n           Christianity be a Minister in the Church\n           of England?_\n\n           31 _What the Bishops might do_           354\n\n           DEFINITIONS                              369\n\n\n\n\n                                   I\n                              INTRODUCTORY\n\n\nMY DEAR \u2014\u2014,\n\nI am more pained than surprised to infer from your last letter that your\nfaith has received a severe shock. A single term at the University has\nsufficed to make you doubt whether you retain a belief in miracles; and\n\u201cIf miracles fall, the Bible falls; and with the fall of the Bible I\nlose Christ; and if I must regard Christ as a fanatic, I do not see how\nI can believe in a God who suffered such a one as Christ thus to be\ndeceived and to deceive others.\u201d Such appear to be the thoughts that are\npassing through your mind, as I infer them from incidental and indirect\nexpressions rather than from any definite statement.\n\nUnfortunately I understand all this too well not to be able to follow\nwith ease such phases of disbelief even when conveyed in hints. Many\nyoung men begin by being taught to believe too much, a great deal too\nmuch. Then, when they find they must give up something, (the husk of the\nkernel) their teachers too often bid them swallow husk and all, on pain\nof swallowing nothing: and they prefer to swallow nothing. An instance\nof this at once occurs to me. Many years ago, a young man who wished to\nbe ordained, asked me to read the Old Testament with him. We set to work\nat once and read some miraculous history\u2014I forget precisely what\u2014in\nwhich I thought my young friend must needs see a difficulty. So I began\nto point out how the difficulty might be at least diminished by critical\nconsiderations. I say \u201cI began\u201d: for I stopped as soon as I had begun,\nfinding that my friend saw no difficulty at all. He accepted every\nmiracle on every page of the Old and New Testament on the authority of\nthe Bible; just as a Roman Catholic accepts every ecclesiastical\ndoctrine on the authority of the Church. This seemed to me not a state\nof mind that I ought to interfere with: I might do more harm than good.\nSo I stopped. But I have since regretted it. Circumstances prevented me\nfrom meeting my friend for some weeks. During that time he had fallen in\nwith companions of negative views, against which he had no power to\nmaintain his position: and he had passed from believing everything to\nbelieving nothing. That is only too easy a transition; but I hope you\nwill never experience it. Surely there is a medium between swallowing\nthe husk, and throwing the nut away. Is it not possible to throw away\nthe husk and keep the kernel?\n\nNow I have no right (and therefore I try to feel no wish) to extract\nfrom you a confidence that you do not care to repose in me. I have never\ntried to shake any one\u2019s faith in miracles. There may come\u2014I think there\nwill soon come\u2014a time when a belief in miracles will be found so\nincompatible with the reverence which we ought to feel for the Supreme\nOrder as almost to necessitate superstition, and to encourage immorality\nin the holder of the belief: and then it might be necessary to express\none\u2019s condemnation of miracles plainly and even aggressively. But that\ntime has not come yet: and for most people, at present, an acceptance of\nmiracles seems, and perhaps is, a necessary basis for their acceptance\nof Christ. In such minds I would no more wish to disturb the belief in\nmiracles than I would shake a little child\u2019s faith that his father is\nperfectly good and wise. But when a man says, \u201cthe miracles of Christ\nare inextricably connected with the life of Christ; I am forced to\nreject the former, and therefore I must also reject the latter\u201d\u2014then I\nfeel moved to shew him that there is no such inextricable connection,\nand that Christ will remain for us a necessary object of worship, even\nif we detach the miracles from the Gospels. Now I cannot do this without\nshewing that the miraculous accounts stand on a lower level than the\nrest of the Gospel narrative, and that they may have been easily\nintroduced into the Gospels without any sufficient basis of fact, and\nyet without any intention to deceive; so that the discrediting of the\nmiracles will not discredit their non-miraculous context. In doing this,\nI might possibly destroy any lingering vestige of belief which you may\nstill have in the miraculous; and this I am most unwilling to do, if you\nfind miracles a necessary foundation of Christian faith.\n\nI do not therefore quite know as yet how I ought to try to help you,\nexcept by saying that I have myself passed through the same valley of\ndoubt through which you are passing now, and that I have reached a faith\nin Christ which is quite independent of any belief in the miraculous,\nand which enables me not only to trust in Him, but also to worship Him.\nThis new faith appears to me purer, nobler, and happier, as well as\nsafer, than the old: but I do not feel sure that it is attainable (in\nthe present condition of thought) without more unprejudiced reflection\nand study than most people are willing to devote to subjects of this\nkind. And to give up the old faith, without attaining the new, would be\na terrible disaster. Hence I am in doubt, not about what is best, but\nabout what may be _best for you_. Do not at all events assume\u2014so much I\ncan safely say\u2014that you must give up your faith in Christ, if you are\nobliged to give up your belief in miracles. At the very least, wait a\nwhile; stand on the old paths; keep up the old habits, above all, the\nhabit of prayer; pause and look round you a little before taking the\nnext step. I do not say, though I am inclined to say, \u201cavoid for the\npresent all discussions with people of negative views,\u201d because I fear\nmy advice, though really prudent, would seem to you cowardly: but I do\nunhesitatingly say, \u201cavoid all frivolous talk, and light, airy,\nepigrammatic conversations on religious subjects.\u201d You cannot hope to\nretain or regain faith if you throw away the habit of reverence. With\nthis advice, farewell for the present.\n\n\n                                   II\n                                PERSONAL\n\n\nMY DEAR \u2014\u2014,\n\nYou tell me that you fear your faith is far too roughly shaken to suffer\nnow from anything that may be said against miracles: you are utterly\nconvinced that they are false. As for the possibility of worshipping a\nnon-miraculous Christ, \u201cthe very notion of it,\u201d you say, \u201cis\ninconceivable: it seems like a new religion, and must surely be no more\nthan a very transient phase of thought.\u201d But you would \u201cvery much like\nto know what processes of reasoning led to such a state of mind,\u201d and\nhow long I have retained it.\n\nI think I am hardly doing you an injustice in inferring from some other\nexpressions in your letter, about \u201cthe difficulty which clergymen must\nnecessarily feel in putting themselves into the mental position of the\nlaity,\u201d that you entertain some degree of prejudice against my views,\nnot only because they appear to you novel, but because\u2014although you\nhardly like to say so\u2014they come from a clerical source, and are likely\nto savour of clericalism. Let me see if I can put your thoughts into the\nplain words from which your own modesty and sense of propriety have\ncaused you to refrain. \u201cA clergyman,\u201d you say to yourself, \u201chas\nenlisted; he has deliberately taken a side and is bound to fight for it.\nAfter twenty years of seeing one side of a question, or only so much of\nthe other side as is convenient to see, how can even a candid,\nmiddle-aged cleric see two sides impartially? All his interests combine\nwith all his sympathies to make him at least in some sense orthodox. The\ndesire of social esteem, the hope of preferment, loyalty to the Church,\nloyalty to Christ Himself, make him falsely true to that narrow form of\ntruth which he has bound himself to serve. Even if truth and\nirresistible conviction force him to deviate a little from the beaten\nroad of orthodoxy, he will find his way back by some circuitous by-path;\nand of this kind of self-persuasion I have a remarkable instance in the\nperson of my old friend, who rejects miracles and yet persuades himself\nthat he worships Christ. He has cut away his foundations and now\nproceeds to substitute an aerial basis upon which the old superstructure\nis to remain as before. Such a novel condition of mind as this can only\nbe a very transient phase.\u201d\n\nI do not complain of this prejudice against novelty, although it comes\nungraciously from one who is himself verging on advanced and novel\nviews. It is good that new opinions should be suspiciously scrutinized\nand passed through the quarantine of prejudice. And when a man feels (as\nI do) that he has at last attained a profound spiritual truth which\nwill, in all probability, be generally accepted by educated Christians\nwho are not Roman Catholics, before the twentieth century is far\nadvanced, he can well afford to be patient of prejudice. Even though the\ntruth be not accepted now, it is pretty sure to be restated by others\nwith more skill and cogency, and perhaps at a fitter season, and to gain\nacceptance in due time. But when you speak of my opinions as a\n\u201ctransient phase,\u201d which I am likely soon to give up, and when you shew\na manifest suspicion that any modicum of orthodoxy in me must needs be\nthe result of a clerical bias, then I hardly see how to reply except by\ngiving you a detailed answer to your question about \u201cthe processes\u201d by\nwhich I was led to \u201csuch a novel condition of mind.\u201d Yet how to do this\nwithout being somewhat egotistically autobiographical I do not know.\nSome good may come of egotism perhaps, if it leads you to see that even\na clergyman may think for himself, and work out a religious problem\nwithout regard to consequences. So on the whole I think I will risk\negotism for your sake. A few paragraphs of autobiography may serve as a\nsummary of the argument which I might draw out more fully in future\nletters. If I am tedious, lay the blame on yourself and on your\ninsinuation that my views must be \u201ca transient phase.\u201d A man who is\ngetting on towards his fiftieth year and has retained a form\u2014a novel\nform if you please\u2014of religious conviction for a full third of his life\nmay surely claim that his views\u2014so far at least as he himself is\nconcerned\u2014are not to be called \u201ctransient.\u201d Prepare then for my\n_Apologia_.\n\nDuring my childhood I was very much left to myself in the matter of\nreligion, and may be almost said to have picked it up in a library. I\nwas never made to learn the Creed by heart, nor the Catechism, nor even\nthe Ten Commandments; and to this day I can recollect being reproached\nby a class-master when I was nearly fourteen years old, for not knowing\nwhich was the Fifth Commandment. All that I could plead in answer was,\nthat if he would tell me what it was about, I could give him the\nsubstance of the precept. Having read through nearly the whole of Adam\nClarke\u2019s commentary as a boy of ten or eleven, and having subsequently\nimbued myself with books of Evangelical doctrine, I was perfectly \u201cup,\u201d\nor thought I was, in the Pauline scheme of salvation, and felt a most\nlively interest\u2014on Sundays, and in dull moments on week days, and\nespecially in times of illness, of which I had plenty\u2014in the salvation\nof my own soul. My religion served largely to intensify my natural\nselfishness. In better and healthier moments, my conscience revolted\nagainst it; and at times I felt that the morality of Plutarch\u2019s Lives\nwas better than that of St. Paul\u2019s Epistles\u2014as I interpreted them. Only\nto one point in the theology of my youthful days can I now look back\nwith pleasure; and that is to my treatment of the doctrine of\nPredestinarianism and necessity. On this matter I argued as follows: \u201cIf\nGod knows all things beforehand, God has them, or may have them, written\ndown in a book; and if all things that are going to happen are already\nwritten down in a book, it\u2019s of no use our trying to alter them. So, if\nit\u2019s predestined that I shall have my dinner to-day, I shall certainly\nhave it, even if I don\u2019t come home in time, or even though I lock myself\nup in my bedroom. But _practically, if I don\u2019t come home in time, I know\nI shall not have my dinner. Therefore it\u2019s no use talking about these\nthings in this sort of way, because it doesn\u2019t answer; and I shall not\nbother myself any more about Predestination, but act as thought it did\nnot exist_.\u201d[1] This argument, if it can be called an argument, I\nafterwards found sheltering itself under the high authority of Butler\u2019s\n_Analogy_; and I still adhere to it, after an experience of more than\nfive and thirty years. To some, this \u201cShort Way with Predestinarians\u201d\nmay seem highly illogical; but it _works_.\n\nUp to this time I had been little, if at all, impressed by preaching.\nOur old Rector was a good Greek scholar and a gentleman; but he had a\ndifficulty in making his thoughts intelligible to any but a refined\nminority among the congregation; and even that select few was made\nfewer, partly by an awkwardness of gesture which reminded one of Dominie\nSampson, and partly by a grievous impediment in his speech. Consequently\nI had been permitted, and indeed encouraged, never to listen, nor even\nto appear to listen, to the weekly sermon; and as soon as the Rector\ngave out his text, I used to take up my Bible and read steadily away\ntill the sermon was over. This sort of thing went on till I was about\nsixteen years old; when a new Rector came to preach his first sermon.\nThat was a remarkable Sunday for me. To my surprise, when he read out\nhis text, and I, in accordance with unbroken precedent, reached out my\nhand for the invariable Bible, my father, somewhat abruptly, took it out\nof my hand, bidding me \u201cfor once shut up that book and listen to a\nsermon.\u201d I can still remember the resentment I felt at this infringement\non my theological and constitutional rights, and how I stiffened my neck\nand hardened my heart and determined \u201chearing to hear, but not to\nunderstand.\u201d But I was compelled to understand. For here, to my\nastonishment, was an entirely new religion. This man\u2019s Christianity was\nnot a \u201cscheme of salvation\u201d; it was a faith in a great Leader, human yet\ndivine, who was leading the armies of God against the armies of Evil;\n\u201cEach for himself is the Devil\u2019s own watchword: but with us it must be\neach for Christ, and each for all.\u201d The scales fell from my eyes. After\nall, then, Christianity was not less noble than Plutarch\u2019s lives; it was\nmore noble. There was to be a contest; yet not each man contending for\nhis own soul, but for good against evil. A Christian was not a mercenary\nfighting for reward, nor a slave fighting for fear of stripes, but a\nfree soldier fighting out of loyalty to Christ and to humanity.\n\nBut what about the doctrine of the Atonement, Justification by Faith,\nand the other Pauline doctrines? About these our new Rector did not say\nmuch that I could understand. He was a foremost pupil of Mr. Maurice,\nand in Mr. Maurice\u2019s books (which now began to be read freely in my\nhome) I began to search for light on these questions. But help I found\nnone or very little, except in one book. Mr. Maurice seemed to me, and\nstill seems, a very obscure writer. Partly owing to a habit of taking\nthings for granted and \u201cthinking underground,\u201d partly (and much more)\nowing to a confusing use of pronouns for nouns and other mere mechanical\ndefects of style, he requires very careful reading. But his book on\nSacrifice, after I had three times read it through, gave me more\nintellectual help than perhaps any other book on Christian doctrine; for\nhere first I learned to look below the surface of a rite at its inner\nmeaning, and also to discern the possibility of illustrating that inner\nmeaning by the phenomena of daily life. It was certainly a revelation to\nme to know that the sacrifice of a lamb by a human offerer was nothing,\nexcept so far as it meant the sacrifice of a human life, and that the\nsacrifice of a life meant no more (but also no less) than conforming\none\u2019s life to God\u2019s will, doing (and not saying merely) \u201cThy will, not\nmine, be done.\u201d If one theological process could be illustrated in this\nway, why not another? If \u201csacrifice\u201d was going on before my eyes every\nday, why might there not be also justification by faith, imputation of\nrighteousness, remission of sins, yes, even atonement itself? Thus there\nwas sown in my mind the seed of the notion that all the Pauline\ndoctrines might be natural, and that Redemption through Christ was only\na colossal form of that kind of redemption which was going on around me,\nRedemption through Nature. This thought was greatly stimulated by the\nstudy of _In Memoriam_, which was given to me by a college friend about\nthe time when I lost a brother and a sister, both dying within a few\nweeks of one another. I read the poem again and again, and committed\nmuch of it to memory; and it exerted an \u201cepoch-making\u201d influence on my\nlife. However, for a long time this notion of the naturalness of\nRedemption existed for me merely in the germ.\n\nMeantime, as to the miracles I had no doubts at all, or only such\ntransient doubts as were suggested by pictures of Holy Families and\nother sacred subjects, which exhibited Christ as essentially non-human,\nwith a halo around his head, or as an infant with three outstretched\nfingers blessing his kneeling mother. As a youth, I took it for granted\nthat God could not become man save by a miracle, and therefore that the\nGod-man must work miracles. Further, I assumed that Moses and some of\nthe prophets had worked miracles, and if so, how could it be that the\nServants should work miracles and the Son should not? As I grew towards\nmanhood, such rising qualms of doubt as I felt on this point were\nstilled by the suggestion (which I found in Trench\u2019s book on miracles)\nthat the miracles of Christ must be in accordance with some latent law\nof spiritual nature. It was a little strange certainly that these latent\nlaws should be utilised only for the children of Abraham, and it was\ninconvenient that the miracles of Moses should be, materially speaking,\nso stupendously superior to those of Christ; but I took refuge in the\ngreater beauty and emblematic meaning of the latter. Even at the time\nwhen I signed the Thirty-nine Articles I had no suspicion that the\nmiracles were not historical. Partly, I had never critically and\nsystematically studied the Gospels as one studies Thucydides or\n\u00c6schylus; partly the miracles had always been kept in the background by\nmy Rector and the books of the Broad Church School, and I had been\naccustomed to rest my faith on Christ Himself and not on the miracles;\nand so it came to pass that, for some time after I was ordained, I was\nquite content to accept all the miracles of the Old and New Testaments,\nand to be content with the explanation suggested by \u201clatent laws.\u201d\n\nBut now that I was ordained, I set to work in earnest (the stress of\nworking for a degree and the need of earning one\u2019s living had left no\ntime for it before) at the study of the New Testament. Of course I had\n\u201cgot it up\u201d before, often enough, for the purpose of passing\nexaminations; but now I began to study it for its own sake and at\nleisure. While reading for the Theological Tripos I had been struck by\nthe inadequacy of many of the theological books that I had had to \u201cget\nup.\u201d Especially on the first three Gospels\u2014looking at them critically,\nas I had been accustomed to look at Greek and Latin books\u2014I was amazed\nto find that little or nothing had been done by English scholars to\ncompare the different styles and analyse the narratives into their\ncomponent parts. For such a task I had myself received some little\npreparation. I had picked up my classics without very much assistance\nfrom the ordinary means, mainly by voluntarily committing to memory\nwhole books or long continuous passages of the best authors, and so\nimbuing myself with them as to \u201cget into the swing of the author.\u201d I had\nearly begun to tabulate these differences of style; and in my final and\nmost important University examination I remember sending up more than\none piece of composition rendered in two styles. Though I was never a\nfirst-rate composer, owing to my want of practice at school, this method\nhad succeeded in bringing me to the front in \u201cmy year\u201d; and I now\ndesired to apply my classical studies to the criticism of the first\nthree Gospels. It seemed to me a monstrous thing that we should have\nthree accounts of the same life, accounts closely agreeing in certain\nparts, but widely varying in others, and yet that, with all the aids of\nmodern criticism, we should not be able to determine which accounts, or\nwhich parts of the three accounts, were the earliest. At the same time I\nbegan to apply the same method, though without the same attempt at\nexactness, to the study of the text of Shakespeare; in which I perceived\nsome differences of style that implied difference of date, and some that\nappeared to imply difference of authorship.\n\nAbout this time people began to talk in popular circles concerning\nEvolution, and alarm began to be felt in some quarters at the difficulty\nof harmonizing its theories with theology. With these fears I never\ncould in the least degree sympathize. I welcomed Evolution as a luminous\ncommentary on the divine scheme of the Redemption of mankind. That most\nstimulating of books, the _Advancement of Learning_, had taught me to be\nprepared to find that in very many cases \u201cwhile Nature or man intendeth\none thing, God worketh another\u201d; and it was a joy to me to find new\nlight thrown by Evolution on the unfathomable problems of waste, death,\nand conflict. Death and conflict could never be thus explained\u2014I knew\nthat\u2014but one was enabled to wait more patiently for that explanation\nwhich will never come to us till we are behind the veil, when one found\nthat death and conflict had at least been subordinated to progress and\ndevelopment. So I thought; and so I said from the pulpit of one of the\nUniversities in times when the clergy had not yet learned to call Darwin\n\u201ca man of God.\u201d My doctrine was thought \u201cadvanced\u201d in those days; but\ntime has gone on and left me, in some respects, behind it. I should\nnever have thought, and should not think now, of calling Darwin \u201ca man\nof God,\u201d except so far as all patient seekers after truth are men of\nGod: but I still adhere to the belief that Evolution has made it more\neasy to believe in a rational, that is to say a non-miraculous, though\nsupernatural, Christianity.\n\nIn this direction, then, my thoughts went forward and, so far, found no\nstumbling block. Guided by the poets and analytic novelists, I was also\nlearning to find in the study of the phenomena of daily life fresh\nillustrations of the Pauline theology, confirming and developing my\nnotion (now of some years\u2019 standing) that the Redemption of mankind was\nnatural, nothing more than a colossal representation of the spiritual\nphenomena that may be seen in ordinary men and women every day of our\nlives; just as the lightning-flash is no more than (upon a large scale)\nthe crackling of the hair beneath the comb. Good men and women, I\nperceived, are daily redeeming the bad, bearing their sins, imputing\nrighteousness to them, giving up their lives for them, and imbuing them\nwith a good spirit. This thought, as it gained force, was a great help\ntowards a rational Christianity.\n\nBut now my feet began to be entangled in snares and pitfalls. I had\nbegun the study of the Greek Testament, believing that it would bring\nforth _some_ new truth, and assuming that _all_ truth must tend to the\nglory of God and of Christ. \u201cChrist,\u201d I said, \u201cis the living Truth, so\nthat I have but, as Plato says, to \u2018follow the Argument,\u2019 and that must\nlead me to the truth, and therefore to Him.\u201d But I was not prepared for\nthe result. After some years of work I found myself gradually led to the\nconclusion that the miraculous element in the Gospels was not\nhistorical. A mere glance at the Old Testament shewed that, if there was\nnot evidence enough for the miracles in the New Testament, much less was\nthere for the miracles in the Old.\n\nBefore me rose up day by day fresh facts and inferences, not only\ndemonstrating the insufficiency of the usual evidence to prove that the\nmiracles were true, but also indicating a very strong probability that\nthey were false. Often, as I studied the accounts of a miracle, I could\nsee it as it were in the act of growing up, watch its first entrance\ninto the Gospel narrative, note its modest beginning, its subsequent\ndevelopment: and then I was forced to give it up. Worst of all, that\nmiracle of miracles which was most precious to me, the Resurrection of\nChrist, began to appear to be supported by the feeblest evidence of all.\nI had not at that time learned to distinguish between the Resurrection\nof Christ\u2019s material body and the Resurrection of His Spirit or\nspiritual body. Christ\u2019s Resurrection seemed to me therefore in those\ndays to be either a Resurrection of the material and tangible body or no\nResurrection at all. Now for the Resurrection of the material body I\nbegan to be forced to acknowledge that I could find no basis of\nsatisfying testimony. I had heard an anecdote of the Head of some\nCollege of Oxford in old days, how he fell asleep after dinner in the\nCombination Room, while the Fellows over their wine were discussing\ntheology, and presently made them all start by exclaiming as he awoke,\n\u201cAfter all there is no evidence for the Resurrection of Christ!\u201d I\nrealized that now, not with a start, but gradually, and with a growing\nfeeling of deep and wearing anxiety. If the Resurrection of Christ fell,\nwhat was to become of my faith in Christ?\n\nAmid this impending ruin of my old belief I saw one tower standing firm.\nIt was clear that _something_ had happened after the death of Christ to\nmake new men of His disciples. It was clear also that St. Paul had seen\n_something_ that had induced him to believe that Christ had risen from\nthe dead. That which had convinced St. Paul, an enemy, might very well\nconvince the Apostles, the devoted followers of Christ. What was this\n_something_? It seemed to me that I ought to try to find out. Meantime,\nI determined to adopt the advice I gave you in my last letter\u2014to stand\nupon the old ways and look around me and consider my path before taking\nanother step. Circumstances had placed me in such a position that I was\nnot called on to decide whether a clergyman could entertain such views\nas were looming on me, and remain a clergyman. I was not engaged in any\nwork directly or indirectly requiring clerical qualifications; and as\nfar as my affections and sentiments were concerned, I went heartily with\nthe services of the Church of England.\n\nSo I resolved to put aside all theology for two or three years and to\ndevote myself, during that time, to literary work of another kind.\nMeantime, I would retain, as far as possible, the old religious ways of\nthought, and, at all events, the old habits. None the less, I would not\ngive up the intention of investigating the whole truth about the\nResurrection. That there was some nucleus of truth I felt quite certain;\nand even if that truth had been embedded in some admixture of illusion,\nwhat then? Were there no illusions in the history of science? Were there\nno illusions in the history of God\u2019s Revelation of Himself through the\nOld and New Testaments? Might it not be God\u2019s method of Revelation that\nmen should pass through error to the truth? This line of thought seemed\npromising, but I would not at once follow it. I would wait three years\nand then work out the question of the influence of illusion on religious\ntruth.\n\nAn old college acquaintance, an agnostic, whom I met about this time,\nwas not a little startled when I told him my thoughts. He frankly\ninformed me that, though I was \u201cplaced in a painful position,\u201d I was\n\u201cbound to speak out.\u201d I also thought that I was \u201cbound to speak out\u201d;\nbut I did not feel bound to obtrude immature views upon the world, with\nthe result perhaps of afterwards altering or recanting them. So I took\ntime, plenty of time; I looked about me, on life as well as on books; I\nformed a habit of testing assumptions and asking the meaning of common\nwords, especially such words as knowledge, faith, certainty, belief,\nproof, and the like. Believing that theology was made for man and not\nman for theology, I began to test theological as well as other\npropositions by the question \u201cHow do they _work_?\u201d Meantime I tried my\nutmost to do the duties of my daily life without distraction and with\nthe same energy as before, hoping that life itself, and the needs of\nlife, would throw some light upon the question, \u201cWhat knowledge about\nGod is necessary for men who are to do their duty? And how can that\nknowledge be obtained?\u201d\n\nBy these means I was led to see that a great part of what we call\nknowledge does not come to us, as we falsely suppose it does, through\nmere logic or Reason, nor through unaided experience, but through the\nemotions and the Imagination, tested by Reason and experience. Even in\nthe world of science, I found that the so-called \u201claws and properties of\nmatter,\u201d nay, the very existence of matter, were nothing more than\nsuggestions of the scientific Imagination aided by experience. A great\npart of the environment and development of mankind appeared to have been\ndirected towards the building up of the imaginative faculty, without\nwhich, it seemed that religion, as well as poetry, would have been\nnon-existent. So by degrees, it occurred to me that perhaps I had been\non the wrong track in my search after religious truth. I had been\ncraving a purely historical and logical proof of Christ\u2019s divinity, and\nhad felt miserable that I could not obtain it. But now I perceived that\nI was not intended to obtain it. Not thus was Christ to be embraced.\nThere must indeed be a basis of fact: but after all it was to that\nimaginative faculty which we call \u201cfaith,\u201d that I must look, at least in\npart, for the right interpretation of fact. That Christ could be\napprehended only by faith was a Pauline common-place; but that Christ\u2019s\nResurrection could be grasped only by faith, and not by the acceptance\nof evidence, was, to me, a new proposition. But I gradually perceived\nthat it was true. I might be doubtful whether Thomas touched the side of\nthe risen Saviour, yet sure that Christ had risen from the dead in the\nSpirit, and had manifested Himself after death to His disciples. My\nstandard of certainty being thus shifted, many things of which I had\nformerly felt certain became uncertain; but, by way of compensation,\nother things\u2014and these the most necessary and vital became more certain\nthan ever. I felt less inclined to dogmatize about the existence of\nmatter; but my soul was imbued with a fuller conviction of the existence\nof a God; and deeper still became the feeling that, so far as things are\nknown to me, there is nothing in heaven or earth more divine than\nChrist.\n\nThus at last light dawned upon my darkness; and when the sun rose once\nmore upon me, it was the same sun as before, only more clearly seen\nabove the mists of illusion which had before obscured it. The old\nbeliefs of my youth and childhood remained or came back to me,\nexhibiting Jesus of Nazareth as the Incarnate Son of God, the Eternal\nWord triumphant over death, seated at the right hand of the Father in\nheaven, the source of life and light to all mankind. Like Christian in\n_Pilgrim\u2019s Progress_, I found myself suddenly freed from a great\nburden\u2014a burden of doubts, and provisos, and conditions which, in old\ndays, had seemed to forbid me from accepting Jesus as the Lord and\nSaviour of mankind unless I could strain my conscience to accept as true\na number of stories many of which I almost certainly knew to be false.\nIn order to believe in Christ, it was now no longer needful to believe\nin suspensions of the laws of Nature: on the contrary, all Nature seemed\nto combine to prepare the way to conform humanity to that image of God\nwhich was set forth in the Incarnation. I did not, as some Christians\ndo, ignore the existence of Satan (and almost of sin) which Christ\nHimself most clearly recognized; but I seemed to see that evil was being\ngradually subordinated to good, and falsehood made the stepping-stone to\ntruth.\n\nThrough evil to good; through sin to a righteousness higher than could\nhave been attained save through sin; through falsehood to the truth;\nthrough superstition to religion\u2014this seemed to me the divine evolution\ndiscernible in the light that was shed from the cross of Christ. No\nlonger now did it seem impossible or absurd that the Gospel of the Truth\nmight have been temporarily obscured by illusions or superstitions even\nin the earliest times.\n\nI think it must be now some ten years since I settled down to the belief\nthat the history of Christianity had been the history of profound\nreligious truth, contained in, and preserved by, illusions; an ascent of\nworship through illusion to the truth. A belief that has been fifteen\nyears in making, and for ten years more has been reviewed, criticized,\nand finally retained as being historically true and spiritually\nhealthful, you must not call, I think, \u201ca transient phase\u201d. But I\nforgive you the expression. A dozen pages of autobiography are a\nsufficient penalty for three offending words.\n\nFootnote 1:\n\n  That children, even at a much younger age than ten, do sometimes\n  exercise their young minds to very ill purpose about these subtle\n  metaphysical questions is probably within the experience of all who\n  know anything about children, and it is amusingly illustrated by the\n  following answer (which I have on the authority of an intimate friend)\n  from a seven-years-old to his mother when blaming him for some\n  misconduct: \u201cWhy did you born me then? I didn\u2019t want to be borned. You\n  should have asked me before you borned me.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n                                  III\n                               KNOWLEDGE\n\n\nMY DEAR \u2014\u2014,\n\nYou ask me to explain, in detail, what I mean by asserting that the\nImagination is the basis of knowledge. \u201cApparently,\u201d you say, \u201cour\nknowledge of the world external to ourselves seems to you to spring, not\nfrom the sensations as interpreted by the Reason, but (at all events to\na large extent) from the sensations as interpreted by the Imagination.\nIf you mean this, I wish you would show how the Imagination thus builds\nup our knowledge of the world. But I think I must have misunderstood\nyou.\u201d\n\nYou have not misunderstood me. I would go even further than the limits\nof your statement: for I believe that we are largely indebted to the\nImagination for our knowledge, not only of the external world, but also\nof ourselves. However, suppose we first take a simple instance of the\nknowledge of external things: \u201cThis inkstand is hard. How did I come to\nknow that it was hard? How do I know that it is hard now?\u201d\n\nLet us begin from the beginning. I am an infant scrambling on the floor\nwhere the said inkstand is casually lying. Having a congenital impulse\n(commonly called \u201cinstinct\u201d) to touch and suck anything that comes in my\nway, and especially anything bright, I greedily and rapidly approximate\nmy lips to the corner of this polished object. I recoil with a sharp\nshock of pain. The pain abates. The instinctive recoil from the inkstand\nhas left in me an instinctive aversion to the pain-causing object: but\nmy touching and sucking instinct again revives, and as soon as it\nprevails over the recoiling instinct, I am impelled again\ntowards the inkstand, not so rapidly as before, but still\ntoo rapidly. I recoil again, with pain lessened but still\nacute. I am acquiring \u201cknowledge\u201d: I \u201cknow,\u201d though I cannot\nput it into words, that I have twice found the inkstand\nnot-to-be-rapidly-approached-under-penalty-of-a-certain-kind-of-pain, in\nother words, \u201chard.\u201d But I try again; I try four, five, six times: I\nfind that when I approach with less velocity my pain is less, and when\nwith sufficiently diminished velocity, there is no pain at all; I touch\nand suck in peace: but when I forget my experience and suppose that the\ninkstand\u2014even though I dash wildly at it after my old fashion\u2014will\n\u201cbehave differently this time,\u201d I find that I am mistaken: the inkstand\nwill not \u201cbehave differently\u201d; it always behaves in the same way. By\nthis time then I know something very important indeed.\n\nBut pause now, my friend, and ask yourself how much this infant has a\nright to say he \u201cknows,\u201d so far as the evidence of the senses guides\nhim. All that the senses have told him is that on five, six, seven,\nsay even seventy, occasions, he found the inkstand hard. But is this\nall that he \u201cknows\u201d? You know perfectly well that he knows infinitely\nmore: he has made a leap from the past into the future and knows that\nthe inkstand _will_ be found hard whenever he touches it. When he\ngrows up and attains the power of speech he will generally express his\nknowledge in the Present Tense: \u201cI must not strike the inkstand with\nmy mouth for it _is_ hard\u201d: but in reality this \u201cis\u201d implies \u201cwill\nbe\u201d; \u201cI must not strike the inkstand with my mouth for I _shall find_\nit hard.\u201d Now what is it that has produced in him this conviction\nwhich no philosopher can justify by mere logic, but which every baby\nacts on? It seems to have arisen thus. The baby has received in rapid\nsuccession two sensations, first, that of a violent approximation to\nthe inkstand, secondly, a sudden shock of pain. Having received this\npair of sensations very frequently, he cannot help associating them\ntogether in his thoughts; so that now the thought of a violent\napproximation to the inkstand necessarily suggests to him the thought\nthat it is not-to-be-approached-violently, or \u201chard.\u201d He began by\nlearning to expect that perhaps, or probably, the first sensation\nwould be followed by the second; but having found, after constant\nexperiments, that the second sensation, so far as his experience goes,\nalways follows the first, he gradually passes from belief into\ncertainty, or knowledge, that the second always will, or must, follow\nthe first.\n\nA similar transition is going on at the same time in the infant\u2019s mind\u2014I\nmean the transition from belief to certainty\u2014in regard to thousands of\nother propositions besides the one we have selected, \u201cthis inkstand is\nhard.\u201d Every single case of such transition facilitates the transition\nin other cases, by making the child feel that, if he is to get on in the\nworld and make his way through it without incurring the constant pains\nand penalties of Nature, he must not disregard these juxtapositions, or\npairs of sensations, (which, when he grows older, he will, if ever he\nbecomes an educated man, call \u201ccause\u201d and \u201ceffect\u201d), but must take them\nto heart and remember them; when the first of a familiar pair comes, he\nmust be prepared to find the second immediately following. Not\nunfrequently the child\u2019s limited experience associates together in his\nmind sensations that Nature has not associated; as, for example, when he\ninfers that a clock must tick because he has never yet in his life seen\na clock that has stopped. In this and other cases the child has\nafterwards to dissociate what he had too hastily joined together, and to\ncorrect his conclusions by wider experience. But, on the whole, the\ntransition from belief to certainty, in any one case, is facilitated by\nthe great majority of similar cases in which the same transition is\ngoing on with results that are confirmed by his own experience and by\nthat of his elders. What helps the transition, in each case, is its\ngeneral success; it _works_: it helps the child to move more and more\nconfidently in the world without subjecting himself to the punishments\nwhich Nature has attached to ignorance.\n\nNow therefore, reviewing the stages of the progress upwards, we see that\nthe knowledge of which we are speaking is based upon an inherent and\nfundamental belief of which we can give no logical justification\nwhatever. Why should an inkstand always be hard? The child can allege no\nreason for this except that, having found the inkstand to be hard in a\ngreat number of past instances, he is compelled to believe that it will\nbe always hard, with such a force of conviction that he cannot but feel\nand say he \u201cknows\u201d it. But of course there is no logical justification\nfor this assertion. He might argue for some months or even years, in\nprecisely the same way about a clock, and say that \u201ca clock always\nticks,\u201d because he has seen the clock tick times innumerable and never\nknown it not to tick. Why should not a larger experience confute his\nso-called knowledge in the case of the inkstand as in the case of the\nclock? As the clock collapses, why should not the nature of the inkstand\ncollapse\u2014be, come unwound, so to speak, or altogether transmuted? There\nis no possible answer to this question for the child, at present, except\nthe following:\u2014\u201cIt never has done so, and therefore I believe that it\nnever will. I believe in the uniformity of Nature. The sequences of\nobserved cause and effect are Nature\u2019s promises, and if she does not\nkeep them, life will break down. I am compelled to believe, and to act\non the belief, that life will not break down. I believe that this\ninkstand is hard, because this belief _works_.\u201d\n\nI conclude therefore that all knowledge of the kind we are now\ndescribing is based on belief (viz. the belief that what has been will\nbe) tested by experience. I think it must also be admitted that\nImagination contributed to the result: for the child not only remembers\nhis two past consecutive sensations but gradually _images_ in his mind a\nkind of bond between them, which memory pure and simple could not have\ncontributed. Memory reproduces \u201cInkstand and _then_ hardness;\u201d\nImagination paints, or begins to paint, a new idea, \u201cInkstand and\n_therefore_ hardness.\u201d Again, Memory reproduces vaguely numerous\ninstances, \u201cThe inkstand was hard ten, eleven, twenty, many times;\u201d then\ncomes Imagination and at a leap sets before the mind an entirely new\nnotion, and invents for it the word \u201calways.\u201d\n\nConcerning other and more complex kinds of knowledge what need is there\nto say a word? For if such simple propositions as \u201ca stone is hard,\u201d are\nshown to depend upon Imagination for suggesting, and Faith for\nretaining, a conviction of the uniformity of Nature, much more must\nthese influences be presupposed if the child is to attain knowledge\nabout matters avowedly future, _e.g._ \u201cthe sun will rise to-morrow.\u201d In\nreality all knowledge of any practical value has to do with a future,\nimmediate or remote; and therefore I do not think I shall be\nexaggerating in saying that for all knowledge about things outside us we\ndepend largely upon Imagination and Faith.\n\nBut I pass now to consider a child\u2019s knowledge about himself. Take for\nexample such a proposition as this, \u201cI like sugar.\u201d Is Faith or\nImagination required to enable a child to arrive at the knowledge of\nthis proposition about himself? I think so. The very use of the word\n\u201cI,\u201d if used intelligently, appears to need some imaginative effort. Of\ncourse I do not deny that this subtle metaphysical idea may have been\nsuggested to us originally by our faculty of touch, and especially the\nfaculty of self-pinching or self-touching. I dare say you have read how\nmen have sometimes caught hold of their own benumbed hand by night, and\nawakened a household by shouting that they had caught a robber: has it\never occurred to you that, if you never had the power of distinguishing\nyour own hand from anybody else\u2019s hand by the sense of touch, you might\nhave gone through life with no sense, or with a very tardily acquired\nsense, of your own identity? If the monkey who boiled his own tail in\nthe caldron had felt no pain, might he not have been excused for\ndoubting sometimes whether the tail belonged to him? And if his head\nwere equally painless or joyless when he thumped it or scratched it,\nought he to be condemned for disowning his own head? And if a monkey, or\neven a child, could not lay claim to its own head, it seems to me\ndoubtful whether he could ever claim such a separation from the outside\nworld as would necessitate his using the word \u201cI.\u201d But, as it is, having\nthis self-pinching faculty, the child soon finds that to pinch a ball,\nor a bladder, or a sister, is an entirely different thing from pinching\nhimself: and this self-touching faculty confirms the evidence suggested\nby the bumps and thumps of the external world; all of which lead him to\nthe belief that he has a bodily frame of his own, liable to pain and to\npleasure, and largely dependent for pain and pleasure on his own\nmotions, which motions he dimly perceives dependent upon something that\nappears to be inside himself.\n\nBut neither this nor any other explanation of the manner in which the\nsensations prepare the way for the construction of the idea of the \u201cI,\u201d\nought to prevent us from recognizing that the idea itself is the work of\nthe Imagination, and not of the unaided sensations, nor of the unaided\nreason. Self-pinching and contact with the rough external world might\nconvince the child that he was different from his environment at the\ntime when he made his last experiments and underwent his last\nexperiences; but they could not convince him that he _is_ different\n_now_, or that he _will be_ different in the next instant; and for this\nconviction he depends upon faith. Again, the imagination of the \u201cI\u201d\nseems closely bound up with two other nearly simultaneous imaginations,\nthose of Force and Cause. First he feels a desire to touch the inkstand,\nthen he feels himself moving towards the inkstand, then he feels the\ninkstand touched. These sequences of desire, action, result, he can\nrepeat as often as he likes. By their frequency therefore, as well as by\ntheir vividness, they impress him more powerfully than sequences of\nphenomena not dependent on himself; and it is from these probably that\nhe first imagines the idea of \u201cmust,\u201d or \u201cnecessity,\u201d or \u201ccause and\neffect.\u201d If he feels a desire to move a limb, the motion of the limb\nimmediately follows; it always obeys him; it _must_ obey him. He pushes\na brick; what caused the brick to fall? He feels that it was his own\nforce that caused it; he no longer looks upon the push and the fall as\nif the former merely preceded the latter; he imagines a connection of\nnecessity between the push and the fall, the cause and the effect, and\ngradually comes to imagine himself as the causer of the cause. But all\nthese imaginations are mere imaginations, not proofs. To gather together\nall the sensations of which he retains the memory, the sensations of\nwhich he is at present conscious, and the sensations to which he looks\nforward, and to put an \u201cI\u201d behind or below all these, as the foundation\nof them all, and partial causer of them all\u2014what an audacious assumption\nis this! Not Plato and Aristotle combined could prove to a child, or to\nthe most consummate of philosophers, that he has a right to call himself\n\u201cI,\u201d or that he is any other than a machine and a part of the universal\nmachinery. How can I prove and vindicate my independence, my right to an\n\u201cI\u201d? By saying that I will do, or not do, and by then doing, or not\ndoing, any conceivable thing at any conceivable time? Such an attempt is\nfutile. The retort is unanswerable: \u201cIn the great machine which you call\nthe universe, that small part which you call \u2018I\u2019 was so constructed and\nwound up that it could no more help saying and doing what it did and\nsaid, than a clock could help pointing and striking.\u201d\n\nWhat then is the real proof that we are right in using the word \u201cI\u201d and\nin distinguishing ourselves from other objects which we call external?\nThere is no proof at all except that, first, we are led to this way of\nlooking at things by Nature and Imagination, and secondly, this way of\nlooking at things _works_ best. The \u201cI-view\u201d is better fitted than the\n\u201cmachine-view\u201d to develop in us the faculties of judgment and\nself-control, to give us a sense of responsibility and a capability of\namendment, and to make us ultimately more hopeful and more active. So\ntoo, the belief in \u201ccause and effect\u201d _works_ better than a mere mental\nrecord of past antecedents and sequences, accompanied by a blank and\nstrictly logical neutrality of mind as to what will happen in the\nfuture. Faith in \u201ccause and effect\u201d is the foundation of all stable life\nand all regular progress alike in the individual and in the state. The\nunfaithful unbeliever in causality is the Esau, both in the moral and in\nthe intellectual world, the happy-go-lucky hunter who depends on stray\nvenison and refuses to resort to system in order to make a sure\nprovision for the needs of the future; the believer is the quiet\nplodding Jacob who has his goats in the fold where he knows he can find\nthem when wanted. The unbeliever is the unimaginative savage who has not\nfaith enough to see the harvest in the seed; the believer is the man of\ncivilisation who can trust Nature through six long months of waiting and\ncan say to her, not in the language of hope, \u201c_do ut des_,\u201d but in the\nlanguage of conviction, \u201c_do daturae_.\u201d Nevertheless, convenient as\nthese ideas may be for our comfort, nay, though they may be even\nnecessary for our existence, we are bound to recollect that they are\nmerely ideas. Like the ideas of force, cause, effect, necessity, so the\nidea of \u201cI,\u201d\u2014though produced with the aid of experience and tested by\nappeal to experience and reason\u2014appears to be nothing but a child of the\nImagination, and a foster-child of Faith.\n\nPerhaps your conclusion from all this is that I am proving that we can\nknow nothing? Not in the least. What I am saying does not prove that we\nknow less or more than we profess to know at present. I am merely\nshowing that our knowledge comes to us from sources other than those\nwhich are ordinarily assumed.\n\n\n\n\n                                   IV\n                                 IDEALS\n\n\nMY DEAR \u2014\u2014,\n\nYou ask me to pass to the consideration of knowledge of a new kind,\nknowledge of mathematical truth. \u201cHere at least,\u201d you say, \u201csevere\nreasoning dominates supreme, and Imagination has no place.\u201d \u201cTwo and one\nmake three,\u201d \u201cThe angles at the base of an isosceles triangle are\nequal:\u201d \u201csurely we may assume that Imagination has nothing to do with\nthese propositions. They must be decided by pure Reason.\u201d Never was\nassumption more grotesque. Excuse me; but by what other adjective can I\ncharacterize the statement that the Imagination has \u201cnothing to do with\u201d\npropositions for the very terms of which we are indebted to the\nImagination? I maintain without fear of contradiction that the knowledge\nof these propositions requires an effort of the Imagination so severe\nthat the very young and the completely untrained cannot attain to it.\n\nFor, in the first place, what do you mean by \u201cone,\u201d \u201ctwo,\u201d and \u201cthree\u201d?\nI have never had any experience of such things; nor have you; nor can\nyou. \u201cTwo\u201d oranges, \u201ctwo\u201d apples, and the like, we have had experience\nof, and can realize; but to think of \u201cone\u201d or \u201ctwo\u201d by themselves (\u201cone\u201d\nor \u201ctwo\u201d with \u201canythings\u201d, or with \u201cnothings\u201d after them), \u201cone\u201d or\n\u201ctwo\u201d as \u201cabstract ideas\u201d\u2014this really is a most difficult or rather (I\nam inclined to say) an impossible task. When I say \u201cone\u201d and \u201ctwo,\u201d I\nthink I see before me dimly \u201cone\u201d or \u201ctwo\u201d dots or small strokes, and I\nperceive that two and one of these dots or strokes make up three dots or\nstrokes. When I speak of \u201ctwenty\u201d and \u201cthirty,\u201d I do not see any images\nof these existences; and when I say that \u201ctwenty\u201d and \u201cthirty\u201d make\n\u201cfifty,\u201d I do not realize the process of addition at all visibly; I\nmerely repeat the statement on the authority of previous observations\nand reasonings mostly made by others and not by myself. But so far as I\napproximate to the realization of an abstract number, I do it by a kind\nof negative imagination. And in any case we can hardly deny that all\narithmetical propositions, since they employ terms that denote mere\nimaginary ideas, must be regarded as based on the imagination.\n\nIt is the same with Geometry. The whole of what we call \u201cEuclid\u201d is\nbased upon a most aerial effort of the Imagination. We have to imagine\nlines without thickness, straightness that does not deviate the\nbillionth part of an inch from perfect evenness, perfectly symmetrical\ncircles, and\u2014climax of audacity!\u2014points that have \u201cno parts and no\nmagnitude!\u201d Obviously these things have no existence except in the\ndreams of Imagination; yet Euclid\u2019s severe reasoning applies to none but\nthese things. If you step from your ideal triangle in Dreamland into\nyour material triangle in chalk-land, you step from absolute truth into\nstatements that are not absolutely true. The angles at the base of your\nchalk isosceles triangle are not exactly equal, if you measure them with\nsufficient accuracy. In a word the whole of Geometry is an appeal to the\nImagination in which the geometer says to us, \u201cI know that my\npropositions are not exactly true except with respect to invisible,\nideal, and imaginary figures, planes, and solids. These ideas,\ntherefore, you must endeavour to imagine. In order to relieve the strain\non your imagination, I will place before you material and visible\nfigures about which my reasoning will be approximately true. From these\nI must ask you to try to rise upward to the imagination of their\narchetypes, the immaterial realities.\u201d\n\nWhat shall we reply to our overbearing mathematician who in this abrupt\nand audacious manner introduces the non-existent and imaginary creatures\nof his brain as being \u201crealities\u201d? Shall we deride him, and the\narithmetician likewise? Shall we bid the latter exchange his\ncalculations in abstract numbers for manifestly useful sums about sacks\nof wheat and casks of beer? Shall we bid the mathematician descend from\nhis high geometrical theories to the practical measurements of\nagriculture? Pouring scorn on his avowal that the objects of his\nreasoning are \u201cinvisible, ideal, and imaginary,\u201d shall we decline to\nstudy a science that is confessedly\u2014so we can word it\u2014visionary and\nillusive? If we do, he will not be without a reply, somewhat after this\nfashion: \u201cMy practical friends, it will be the worse for you if you\ndespise these invisible, ideal and imaginary objects. I say nothing\nabout the mental training and development to be derived from the study\nof these things; for to this argument you do not appear to me to be at\npresent accessible: but I will take your own line\u2014the practical. Do you\nthen want to measure your fields with ease and to make accurate maps and\ncharts; to construct houses that shall stand longer, ships that shall\nsail faster, cannon that shall shoot further, engines that shall pull\nharder, than any known before; do you want to utilize electricity for\nlighting, gas for motion, water for pressure; in a word do you wish to\nmake yourselves lords over the material world and to have all the forces\nof Nature at your beck and call? If you do, you must not despise the\nnon-existent numbers of my arithmetical brother, nor my immaterial and\nimaginary lines. Give me leave to repeat, in spite of your indignation,\nthat though they are (in this present visible world of ours)\nnon-existent, yet these lines and numbers are \u2018realities.\u2019 That they are\nrealities, and that our conclusions about them are real and true, is\nproved by the one test of truth: our conclusions _work_. Our discoveries\nare in harmony with the universe. A perfect circle you never saw and\nnever will see: yet it is as real as a beefsteak and a pint of porter. I\nbelieve in a perfect circle by Faith; I accept it with reverence as an\nimpression, if I may so dare to speak, on the Mind of the Universe,\nwhich He has communicated to me. What is more, I believe that He\nintended us to study this and other immaterial realities that our minds\nmight approximate to His. Take a cone, my practical friends. What do you\nsee in it? Nothing, I fear, except a shape that reminds you of an\nextinguisher or a fool\u2019s cap. Yet this little solid contains within\nitself the suggestions of all the mysteries of motion in heaven and\nearth. Slice your cone parallel to the base: there you have the perfect\ncircle. Slice it again, parallel to one of the sides: there you have the\nparabola, the curve of terrestrial motion. Slice it once more, midway\nbetween these two sections: there you have the ellipse, the curve of\ncelestial motion for which all the astronomers were seeking in vain\nthrough something like a score of centuries. Seriously now, my\nhalf-educated friends, in spite of the sense you may for the most part\nentertain of your own importance, do you not in your more modest moods\nsometimes feel inclined to say that, \u2018A circle is, after all, a reality,\nperhaps more real than I am myself\u2019?\u201d\n\nWhat do you think of all this? For my part, I am inclined to think the\nMathematician has the best of it. A good deal will turn upon the meaning\nof that dangerous word \u201creality,\u201d about which I will give you my\nnotions, perhaps, hereafter.[2] But even if you dispute his assertions\nabout the reality of his \u201cideas,\u201d you cannot, I am sure, deny the\nimmense practical importance, as well as the universal acceptance, of\nhis conclusions and discoveries; and you will do well to remember that\nthis immensely important, this undisputed and indisputable knowledge,\ncould never have been attained if we had not called in the Imagination\nto create for us ideas that never will be, and never can be, realised in\nthis present material world.\n\nLet us pass now from knowledge about things to knowledge about persons,\n_i.e._ about actions and motives.\n\nOur knowledge about actions depends on (1) personal observation; (2)\ntestimony; (3) circumstantial evidence or any combination of these\nthree.\n\nThe knowledge that we derive of actions from our own observation is of\ncourse independent of Faith, so far as concerns the past; but it is very\nlimited, and entirely useless and unpractical, except as a basis for\nknowledge about the present and future; for which knowledge (as we have\nseen) Faith in the permanence of Nature is absolutely necessary.\n\nThe knowledge of actions that comes to us from evidence, direct and\ncircumstantial, is largely dependent on Faith. \u201cJulius C\u00e6sar invaded\nBritain\u201d\u2014how certain we all feel of that! Yet how slight the testimony!\nSimply a few pages of narrative, written by the supposed invader\nhimself, and some casual remarks by one or two contemporary\nletter-writers about C\u00e6sar\u2019s doings in Britain and the Senate\u2019s\nreception of the news. Why should we believe on so apparently flimsy a\nbasis? Why should not C\u00e6sar have sent one of his lieutenants to invade\nthe island, and afterwards have taken the credit of it himself? Or there\nmight have been no invasion at all, nothing but a reconnaissance grossly\nexaggerated and intermixed with facts derived from travellers. Yet we\nbelieve in the invasion without the slightest hesitation. C\u00e6sar, we say,\nwould not have told the lie; or, if he had, it would have been quickly\nexposed by his enemies. In other words, we believe in the truth of the\nnarrative, because a belief in its falsehood does not \u201cwork,\u201d that is to\nsay, does not suit with what we know (or, more properly, with what\nothers know) of C\u00e6sar\u2019s character and C\u00e6sar\u2019s times. Of precisely the\nsame kind is almost all our knowledge about history: it is based upon\nevidence, but it is belief; and the only test of its truth is, does it\n\u201cwork,\u201d _i.e._ does it fit in with other knowledge which we regard as\nestablished truth?\n\nBut you see that, even in dealing with a simple action of C\u00e6sar\u2019s, we\nhave already drifted into a reference to C\u00e6sar\u2019s motives: and obviously\nknowledge about \u201cmotives\u201d is an important and indeed a paramount element\nin knowledge about persons. \u201cMy father,\u201d says the child, \u201chas his brows\nknit; his face looks dark; he speaks very loud; his eyes look brighter\nthan usual:\u201d\u2014this is knowledge about actions derived from personal\nobservation, but, so far, perfectly useless, until something is added to\nit. \u201cWhenever my father has looked and spoken like this before, he has\nbeen angry and has punished somebody: therefore he is angry and will\npunish somebody now\u201d\u2014this is not knowledge, it is only belief; but it is\nbelief not about actions simply, but about motives as well as actions,\nand it may be of the greatest use.\n\nHow do we gain knowledge about motives, the moving powers of the human\nmachine? Since we cannot take this machinery to pieces, or experiment\nwith it freely, we must derive our knowledge largely from the\nconsciousness of our own motives. Tickling produces laughter in us, and\npricking, a cry; affection, and the command of those whom we love,\nproduce in us obedience; desire of a result or reward produces effort;\nfear of pain or penalty produces avoidance of certain actions,\nperformance of others. Hence we infer that, in others also, similar\neffects have been produced, or will be produced, by similar causes. In\neither case, our inference is based partly upon our observation that\nthese causes have preceded these effects in other persons, and partly\nupon our _faith_ that other people\u2019s machinery is like our own.\n\nBut we have not yet touched one of the most powerful of motives, that\npower within us which we call Conscience (\u201cjoint-knowledge\u201d); as though\nthere were in us an Assessor sitting in judgment by the side of the\nmysterious \u201cI,\u201d the two together pronouncing sentence of \u201cRight\u201d or\n\u201cWrong\u201d upon the several propositions and intentions which are, as it\nwere, called up before their tribunal. The development of Conscience and\nour sensibility to its dictation appears to me largely due to the\nImagination. If a philosopher tells me that when Conscience appears to\nus to say \u201cRight\u201d it really says \u201cExpedient for society and ultimately\nfor yourself,\u201d or \u201cCalculated to gain esteem for yourself,\u201d or\n\u201cConducive to your own peace of mind,\u201d I am obliged, with all deference\nto him, but with greater deference to truth, to assure him that (however\ncorrect he may be as to the origin of this feeling in my own infant mind\nor in the matured mind of my prim\u00e6val ancestors) he is mistaken, at all\nevents in my own case, as to the action of Conscience now. I may\npossibly have been long ago guided to my idea of \u201cRight\u201d by my\nobservation of what is expedient: but, to me, now, the sense of \u201cright\u201d\nis as different from the sense of \u201cexpedient,\u201d as the eye is different\nfrom some sensitive protuberance which may ultimately be developed into\nan eye, but is at present responsive only to the touch.\n\nHow then do we gain this knowledge of right and wrong? For of course it\nis not enough to reply that we gain it by the voice of Conscience: such\nan answer only makes us repeat our question in a different shape: \u201cIn\nthe very young, Conscience, though it may be existent, is certainly\nlatent; when and whence does it begin to work?\u201d I should reply that the\nfirst idea of good and evil is communicated to the very young through\nthe habit of obedience to their parents or those who stand to them in\nthe parental position. A child is so created as to be in constant\ndependence on the favour and good-will of his mother. When he is\nobedient to her he finds himself at peace and happy, and he welcomes on\nher face that sunshine which indicates that she is pleased with him.\nWhen he is disobedient, harsh sounds follow, a lowering darkness on the\ncountenance close to his, obstacles to his freedom, restrictions of his\npleasures, perhaps sharper pains or penalties: and he is now out of\nharmony with his little Universe. All this strange and subtle evil\ninside him and outside him he has brought on himself by disobeying the\nmaternal will; and hence there gradually springs up in his mind an\nImagination of some unnameable thing, which is his first idea of right.\nBut as he grows older and widens his sphere of observation he finds\u2014if\nhe is placed in anything like those favourable circumstances which\nNature has appointed for most of us\u2014that this parental will is in\nharmony with the widening world around him. The parents say, \u201cDo not\nplay with fire;\u201d Nature says the same, and punishes him if he\ntransgresses. The parents say, \u201cDo not touch that knife;\u201d again Nature\nconfirms their authority by inflicting a penalty on disobedience. Thus,\nif the parents have anything of parental forethought, the child\ngradually associates them with the governing powers of his growing\nUniverse, and begins to feel that the parental will is also the will, or\norder, of Nature. They are as God to him: and the confirmed habit of\nobedience to them deepens in his heart the conviction\u2014but still a\nconviction rather springing from Imagination than from Reason\u2014that the\npower which thus induces him to obey is a great and grand Power,\norderly, not to be resisted; wise and justified by results, but to be\nobeyed without thinking about results; it _ought_ to be obeyed; it is\n_Right_.\n\nNow he steps out into the world of other human beings; and here he\nlearns to widen his idea of Right. Perhaps he also learns to alter it.\nIf he was born and reared among thieves, his conscience may have been\naltogether perverted so that he actually thought it honourable to steal.\nBut in any case, even though he may come from the best of homes, he\noften learns that the parental will is not always in harmony with the\nhighest and best will; and gradually he forms a different standard of\n\u201cRight\u201d from that which he held before. It was once the will of his\nparents, now it is often the will of Society. Conforming himself to the\nwill of Society he is free from pains and penalties; he is at peace with\nthose around him, and he is generally at peace with himself. I say\ngenerally, not always: for by this time he has begun to think for\nhimself and to see that Conscience ought to speak in the interests not\nmerely of his parents, nor of a select circle of his own friends or\ncompanions, but of all mankind. His Imagination pictures for him an\nideal Order such as he has never actually experienced. He feels that he\n\u201cought\u201d to be at peace and in harmony with this imaginary Order, and not\nwith some distorted and narrowed conception of it conveyed to him by his\n\u201cset,\u201d his class, his city, his nation, or his church. In his\nconscience, he hears the voice of this Moral Order of humanity. Hence it\nis that men have been sometimes impelled to thoughts beyond, or even\nagainst, the conscience of their contemporaries; to protest, for\nexample, against unjust wars, against war of any kind, against slavery,\nagainst duelling, against legalized oppression. In every case the\nimpelling power has been the same, a sense of discord between the man\u2019s\nimaginary ideal and the actual environment in which these evils and\ndisorders have existed. Others, his commonplace companions, have been\ncontent to go with the world around them\u2014to be kind slave-holders,\nhonourable duellists, moderate oppressors\u2014and they have felt no pangs of\nconscience. But by a few, a chosen few, there has been acquired a keener\nsense of the ideal of moral harmony, a keener eye for detecting moral\ndisorder, and an abhorrence of it which will not permit them to live in\npeace amid such evils: they must either die or mend them.\n\nThey often do die in mending them; but while in the process of dying, or\npreparing for death\u2014with all deference to the clergyman who lately\nmaintained that \u201cif there is no hereafter, and if the only reward of\nself-sacrifice and the only punishment of crime are those which happen\nin the present life, _it would have been far better to have been Fouch\u00e9\nthan Paul_\u201d\u2014they have at least a peace of mind which they could not have\nattained by conformity with the world. The grosser conscience that\n\u201cworked\u201d well enough in their companions would not have \u201cworked\u201d in\nthem. Even, therefore, though they appear to be exceptions to the rule\nthat tests truth by its \u201cworking,\u201d they are not really exceptional. They\nhave been in discord with the world but in concord with themselves.\nOften they prove to others the truth of their conceptions by raising up\nthe world to their level, and by pointing to the moral order which has\nissued from the fulfilment of their ideas. But in any case, though they\nmay fail for a time or (apparently) for all time, they have had in\nthemselves a sufficient test of the truth of their ideas: they have\nfollowed their conscience and they have found that this course\n\u201cworked\u201d\u2014that is to say, suited and developed their nature\u2014as no other\ncourse could have worked for them. But in order thus to hear and obey\nthe voice of conscience and to discern its highest truths, how much of\nfaith, how much of imagination has been needed!\n\nBut this digression about Conscience has led me a little astray from my\nsubject, which was \u201cthe knowledge of persons:\u201d I must return to it in my\nnext letter.\n\nFootnote 2:\n\n  See the _Definitions_ at the end of the book.\n\n\n\n\n                                   V\n                            IDEALS AND TESTS\n\n\nMY DEAR \u2014\u2014,\n\nLet us now return to the consideration of the \u201cknowledge of persons.\u201d\nHow do we gain knowledge of a human being, that is to say of his\nmotives? \u201cBy observing his actions in many different circumstances,\nespecially in extremities of joy, sorrow, fear, temptation, and then by\ncomparing his actions with what we, or others, have done in the same\ncircumstances?\u201d But this is a very difficult and delicate business,\nespecially that part of it which involves comparison. Here we may easily\ngo wrong; and we therefore naturally ask what test have we that our\nknowledge is correct. One test of any useful knowledge of a machine\nwould be, not our power to discourse fluently about it, but our power to\n\u201cwork\u201d it, _i.e._ to make it perform the work for which it is intended:\nand similarly one test of useful knowledge of a human being must be our\npower to \u201cwork\u201d him, _i.e._ to make him perform the work for which he is\nintended. A perfectly selfish man of the world may have considerable\nknowledge of men and \u201cwork\u201d them cleverly in a certain sense: he is not\ncheated by them; he is perhaps obeyed by some, not thwarted by others;\nhe knows the weak points of all, jostles down one, persuades another to\nlift him up, gets something out of every one, and is, in a word, largely\nsuccessful in making men help him to do _what he intends_. But this is a\nvery poor kind of \u201cworking,\u201d as compared with that which has been\npractised by the lawgivers, poets, philosophers, and founders of\nreligion; who have moulded and fashioned great masses of men so as to be\nbetter able than they were before to do the noblest works that men can\ndo, the works for _which they are intended_. Now I think it will not be\ndenied that the men who, in this sense, have \u201cworked\u201d mankind have had\ngreat ideas of what men could do and ought to do. Sometimes they have\nhad ideas so high that they have seemed impossible of attainment and\nalmost absurd, even as ideas. Yet these are the men, these idealizers of\nhumanity, who have most helped mankind on the path of progress. And this\nwould lead us to the conclusion that the men who have \u201cworked\u201d mankind\nbest have been those who have refused to accept men as they are.\nConstrained by the Imagination, they have kept before their eyes an\nIdeal of humanity, towards which they have aspired and laboured with\nsanguine enthusiasm.\n\nTo the same effect tends our observation of mankind in smaller groups,\nand especially in that smallest of groups called the family. It is\ngenerally the parents who have most influence over their child, most\npower to \u201cwork\u201d him; and we can often see that the reason of their\ninfluence does not arise from the power to reward or punish, but from\ntheir affection for him, and from their faith in him. Especially do we\nperceive this in the familiar but mysterious process called forgiving.\nWe see parents, yes even wise parents, constantly placing faith in a\nchild beyond what seems to a dispassionate observer to be warranted by\nfacts, treating him as though he were better than he has shewn himself\nto be, better than he appears to us likely ever to become. And, strange\nto say, this imaginative system has on the whole proved more successful\nthan the impartial and dispassionate disposition which would take a\nhuman being exactly for what he is, and treat him as being that and no\nmore. I do not mean to say that there have not been blind and fond\nparents in abundance who\u2014having no high moral standard and being merely\ndesirous to see comfort and bright faces around them\u2014have done their\nchildren harm by ignoring their faults and regarding them as perfect:\nbut on the other hand, I call on you to admit the paradox that just,\nwise, and righteous parents, who have had a high moral standard, have\nbeen most successful in enabling their child to rise to that standard,\nby treating him as though he were better than he really has been.\nFurther, I say that this system has been pursued by all those who have\nforgiven others, and by Him above all others who has done most to make\nforgiveness \u201ccurrent coin\u201d among mankind.\n\nI can understand a man of cold-blooded and dispassionate temperament\nobjecting to any such idealization of humanity. \u201cThe whole theory,\u201d he\nmight say, \u201cis radically unfair and unreasonable. You argue that you\nought to love a man and ignore his faults if you wish to know him and\nmove him. You might just as well argue that you ought to hate a man and\nignore his virtues for the same purpose. Hate is as keen-eyed as love.\nHate spies out the least defects, anticipates each false step, predicts\neach hasty word, and caricatures beforehand each hasty gesture. Hate\nmakes a study of its objects: hate, therefore, as well as love, might be\nsaid to stimulate us to know others. But the right course is neither to\nhate, nor to love, but to judge. As hate blinds us to virtues, so love\nblinds us to vices. We ought to be blind to nothing, to extenuate\nnothing, to ignore nothing, but to be purely and reasonably critical.\nThus we shall know humanity as it is.\u201d\n\nThe answer to this very plausible theory is extremely simple: \u201cYour\ntheory appears to be just and wise upon a cursory and unscientific view\nof human nature: but it has not endured the scientific test of\nexperiment; it has not _worked_. I believe the reason why it does not\nwork is, that it ignores some faintly discernible but growing tendencies\nin human nature which are not to be discerned without more sympathy than\nyou appear to possess: no human being can be understood in the daylight\nof Reason alone; affection and Imagination are needed to transport us as\nit were into the heart of a fellow-creature, to enable us to realize him\nas we realize ourselves, and to treat him as we would ourselves be\ntreated; faith also in the possibilities of humanity is a very powerful\nhelp not only towards discerning the best and noblest that men can do,\nbut also towards developing their power of doing it. But in any case,\nwhatever may be the reasons for its failure, your theory does not\n\u2018work,\u2019 and must therefore be given up.\n\n\u201cBy \u2018failure,\u2019 I do not mean that your theory will prevent you from\ngetting on and making your way in the world, but that it will prevent\nyou from operating on yourself and on mankind, so that you and they may\ndo the work which you are intended to do. You say the business of a\nstudent of men is to be critical. I say that such a student is a mere\npedant, a book-philosopher: but the scientific student of men is he who\nknows how to \u2018work\u2019 them: and those who have in the true sense of the\nterm \u2018worked\u2019 men, have not been of the critical temperament which you\neulogize, but often quite uncritical, wondrously uncritical, but full of\na fervent faith in a high ideal of humanity, and in a destiny that would\nultimately conform humanity to its ideal. If you aim at exerting no\nsocial ennobling influence of this kind, if you are content, while\nleading the life of a man of the world, to abide, spiritually speaking,\nin the cave of a recluse, then keep on your present course. Criticize\nmen dispassionately to your heart\u2019s content. Try to persuade yourself\nthat you know them. But you will never succeed\u2014you will never persuade\neven yourself that you have succeeded\u2014in making a single human being the\nbetter for your influence.\n\n\u201cIn morals as in mathematics nothing can be done without faith in the\nIdeal. If you want to operate scientifically upon imperfect men you must\nkeep constantly before your mind the image of the Perfect Man. We have\nseen that, before we can attain to \u2018applied mathematics,\u2019 which\nconstitute the basis of those sciences by which we dominate the material\nworld, we have to begin with \u2018pure mathematics.\u2019 In that region of study\nwe have to idealize and speak of things, not as they are in our\nexperience, but as they might be if certain tendencies that we see\naround us could be infinitely\u2014yes, and we must add, impossibly\u2014extended.\nYet in the end, if we go patiently onward, we find that our \u2018pure\nmathematics\u2019 lead us to conclusions of immense practical importance.\n\n\u201cIt is precisely the same in the science of humanity, which we may call\nanthropology. In order to prepare the way for \u2018applied anthropology\u2019\nwhereby we may dominate the immaterial world, the minds and tempers of\nmen, we must begin with \u2018pure anthropology\u2019; that is to say, we must\nidealize and speak of man not as he is but as he would be if certain\ntendencies which we see in him, conducive to social order and individual\ndevelopment, could be infinitely\u2014yes, and we must add, if we limit our\nhorizon to this present life, impossibly\u2014extended. In the end, if we go\npatiently onward, we shall find that \u2018pure anthropology\u2019 will be of\nimmense practical importance in helping us to control and develop\nourselves and individuals around us and all communities of men. This\n\u2018pure anthropology,\u2019 having to do with the Ideal of humanity, is\nnecessarily associated or identified with the conception of God; and\nsome would call it \u2018theology\u2019 or \u2018Christianity.\u2019 But that is a mere\nmatter of names. Call it by whatever name you please, but study it you\nmust. You will never \u2018work\u2019 mankind\u2014that is to say you will never make\nmen do the work for which they are intended\u2014till you have studied the\nIdeal Man.\u201d\n\nYou may reply, and with some justice, that there is a danger in this\nrepeated appeal to the test of \u201cworking.\u201d \u201cWhat,\u201d you may ask, \u201cabout\nthe Buddhist and the Mohammedan, the one with his peaceful missions, the\nother with his victorious sword? Cannot both make the same appeal? In\nadvocating the invariable appeal to \u2018working,\u2019 do we not come\ndangerously near urging the acceptance of any doctrine that will afford\ngood leverage to moral effort, regardless of its truth or falsehood?\nOught not, after all, the harmony of the doctrine with Reason (in the\nhighest sense\u2014not only syllogistic, but intuitive, imaginative, or\nwhatever you choose to call it) to be the ultimate criterion?\u201d\n\nI suppose there is a \u201cdanger\u201d in every means of attaining truth, a\ndanger in observation, a danger in experiment, a danger in inductive, a\ndanger in deductive, reasoning: but it does not follow that any of these\nmeans are to be discarded, only that they are to be carefully used. If\nthe Buddhist can appeal to the successes of centuries, that proves, I\nshould say, that there is some element of genuine truth in his religion;\nif the Mohammedan points to conversions, in India and elsewhere, far\nmore rapid than those made by Christianity and not dependent on \u201cthe\nvictorious sword,\u201d that also proves that in some important respects for\nexample in the practical recognition of the equality of all believers\nwithout respect to rank or race\u2014Mohammedans have been far more faithful\nto their teacher than we have been to ours. And generally, any religion\nthat succeeds in making men better with it than they were without it,\nmust be admitted (I think) to contain (so far as it succeeds) some\nelement of divine revelation. And therefore, while admitting the appeal\nto Reason, I cannot reject the appeal to Experience as well. Do not\nthink that, in laying so much stress on \u201cworking,\u201d I ignore the\ndifference between the propositions of Natural Science and those of\nReligion, or forget how much more ready and convincing verification is\nin the former than in the latter. The means of verifying may differ in\ndifferent ages: why not? In the earliest period of Christianity, men\nhad, as a test, the contrast between the heathen and the Christian life;\nthe burning zeal of the freshly imparted Spirit of Christ; and the\n\u201cmighty works\u201d wrought by the Apostles and perhaps by some of their\nsuccessors. Now, for us in Christendom, the proof from \u201ccontrast\u201d is\nless obvious, and we have lost also something of the fresh and fiery\nzeal\u2014must we not add the occasionally misguided zeal?\u2014of the first\nChristians: but by way of compensation, we have, besides our individual\nexperiences, the collective evidence of many generations shewing what\nChrist\u2019s Spirit can do to help us when we obey it, to chasten us when we\ndisobey. Are we wrong then in inferring that one test of religions is\nthe same which our Lord appointed for testing men: \u201cBy their fruits ye\nshall know them\u201d?\n\nThere is undoubtedly a great difference between proof in Science and\nproof in matters of Religion: and Religion depends, far more than\nScience, upon Imagination. But I have not ignored this difference. On\nthe contrary, I have attempted to show that, since Religion depends _far\nmore_ than Science upon Imagination; and since Science itself depends\n_largely_ upon Imagination; therefore Religion must depend _very\nlargely_ upon Imagination, and especially upon that form of Imagination\nto which we give the name of Faith.\n\n\n\n\n                                   VI\n                         IMAGINATION AND REASON\n\n\nMY DEAR \u2014\u2014,\n\nYou suspect that I am \u201cpushing the claims of the Imagination so far as\nto deprive the Reason or Understanding[3] of its rights;\u201d and you ask me\nwhether I dispute the universal belief that the former is an \u201cillusive\nfaculty.\u201d As for your suspicion, I will endeavour to show that it is\ngroundless. As for your question, I admit that the Imagination is\n\u201cillusive,\u201d but I must add that it also leads us to truth. It constructs\nthe hypotheses, as well as the illusions, which, when tested by\nexperience, guide us towards Knowledge.\n\nImagination is the \u201cimaging\u201d faculty of the mind. It does not, strictly\nspeaking, create, any more than an artist, strictly speaking, creates.\nBut as an artist combines lines, colours, shades, sounds, and thoughts,\neach one of which by itself is familiar to everybody, in such new\ncombinations as to produce effects that impress us all as original and\nunprecedented, so does the Imagination out of old fragments make new\nexistences and unities.\n\nAttention impresses upon us the present; Memory recalls the past; but\nthe Imagination is never content simply to reproduce the past or\npresent. It sums up the past of Memory (sometimes perhaps also the\npresent of Attention) and combines it with a conjectured future in such\na way as to produce a whole. It is always seeking for likenesses,\norderly connections, regular sequences, beautiful relations, suggestions\nof unity in some shape or other, so as to reduce many things into one\nand to obtain a satisfying picture.\n\nFor example, suppose a large mill-wheel at rest to be almost hidden from\nmy eyes by intervening trees so that, even if it were moving, I could\nonly see one spoke at a time; and at present I am not aware that it is\nclose before me. Something begins to move. I look up. Attention tells me\nthat I see before me, moving from left to right, something like a plank\nor pole: it passes and I see nothing; but then comes another similar\nobject moving similarly; then a third, rather quicker; then a fourth,\nquicker still. The mind at once sets to work to find the cause. The\nMemory tells me that I have seen simply a number of poles or planks\nmoving from left to right with quickened motion; the Attention tells me\nthat I see one now; but the Imagination, taking in the isolated reports\nof Memory and Attention, includes them in a larger hypothesis of her\nown, in which, if I may so express it, the constituent elements, the\nspokes, are subordinated, and the explanatory unity, the wheel, is\nbrought into prominence; and thus the motion from left to right, which\nexplained nothing, is replaced, in my mind, by the motion of revolution,\nwhich explains everything.\n\nIt is on the basis of the Imagination, aided by Experience and Reason,\nthat we establish our conviction of the permanence of the simplest Laws\nof Nature. This I have touched on in one of my previous letters. The\nMemory, recalling the sight of many stones falling to the ground, comes\nperhaps to the aid of Attention, as a child notes a particular stone\nfalling to the ground, and suggests to the child\u2019s imitative nature an\nexperimental attempt to make a stone fall to the ground. The child does\nit once and again, as often as he likes. Then, as a result of this\nunvarying experience, there springs up in the child\u2019s mind a picture in\nwhich he sees reproduced an apparently endless vista of his sensations\nas to stone-falling and its antecedents, a picture not confined, like\nthe pictures of Memory, to past time, but including future as well as\npast and present; and thus the childish thought leaps upwards all at\nonce to the conception of that sublime word \u201calways,\u201d and dares to\npromulgate its first universal proposition, and attains to the definite\ncertainty of a Law of Nature.\n\nBut you say that the Imagination is \u201cillusive.\u201d It is; it rarely\nconducts us to truth without first leading us through error. Its\nbusiness is to find likenesses and connections and to suggest\nexplanations, not to point out differences, and make distinctions, and\ntest explanations; these latter tasks are to be accomplished not by\nImagination but by Reason with the aid of enlarged experience. The\nImagination suggests to the child that every man is like his father,\nevery woman like his mother; that the motion of the sea is like the\nmotion of water in the washing basin; that the thunder is caused by the\nrolling of barrels or discharge of coals up above; that a clock goes on\nof itself for ever; and a multitude of other illusions all arising from\nthe same healthy imaginative conviction in every young mind that \u201cWhat\nhas been will be,\u201d and \u201cThe whole world is according to one pattern.\u201d\nThe conviction is based on a profound general truth, but the particular\nshapes which it assumes are often erroneous. It is only after a course,\nand sometimes a very long course, of experience and experiment, that the\nchild, or perhaps the man, eliminates with the aid of Reason those ideas\nwhich will not work, and confirms those that will work, till the latter\nbecome at last strong and inherent and quasi-instinctive convictions.\nNone the less, if the Imagination did not first suggest the ideas on\nwhich the Reason is to operate, we should never obtain anything worth\ncalling knowledge.\n\nWe might express all this by saying that Imagination is the mother of\nworking-hypotheses; and this is true of all working-hypotheses, those of\nthe observatory and laboratory as well as those of the nursery. No one\nwho grasps this truth will henceforth deny the debt of science to\nImagination. Knowledge is not worth calling knowledge till it is reduced\nto Law; and Law, as I have shown you above, is a mere idea of the\nImagination. I do not deny the subsequent value of Reason; but\nImagination must come first. It was from the Imagination that there\nfirst flashed upon the mind of Newton the vision of the\nworking-hypothesis by which the apple\u2019s fall and the planet\u2019s path might\nbe simultaneously explained. Then came in Reason, with experiment,\ntesting, comparing, prepared to detect discrepancies, unlikelihoods, and\nany want of harmony between the new theory and the old order of things.\nFinally, the once-no-more-than-working-hypothesis, having been found to\nharmonize with countless past and present phenomena and having enabled\nus to predict countless future phenomena, is now called a Law, and we\nare practically certain that it will act. The approval of this Law we\nowe to Reason, but for the suggestion of it we are indebted to\nImagination. On the debt owed to Imagination by Mathematics\u2014the\nfoundation of all science\u2014I will not add anything to what has been said\nin a recent letter.\n\nNext as to the work of Imagination in art. Poets and artists, as well as\nastronomers, must be, so to speak, _ex analogia Universi_; that is to\nsay, they must be in harmony with that order of things which they long\nto reveal to their fellow-men; they must see Law and Unity where others\nfail to see it; they must have inherited or received capacities and\nintuitions which give them an intense sympathy with the deep-down-hidden\nrhythms and abysmal motions which regulate atoms and sounds and hues and\nshapes, and the thoughts and feelings of men. An artist who wishes to\npaint a hill-side, or a wave, or a face, must have a vision of it. He\nmust see it not only exactly as it is, but how it is: he sympathizes, as\nit were, with every cleft and runlet and hollow and projection of the\nhill, with every turn and fold and shade and hue of the ever-varying\nwave: he realizes the secret of Nature\u2019s working. Shall we make a\ndistinction between the secret in the one case and the other? Shall we\nsay the \u201cspirit\u201d of the face, but the \u201claw\u201d of the hill and the \u201claw\u201d of\nthe wave? Or will not the intuition into this complex combination of\nmultitudinous forces, apparently free and conflicting yet all guided and\ncontrolled into one harmonious result, be better expressed by saying\nthat he enters into the \u201cspirit\u201d in all cases, the \u201cspirit\u201d of the hill,\nthe wave, and the face? In proportion as he has this power, a great\nartist will be less likely to speak about it, and less able to explain\nit: but have it he must; and it is a power really not dissimilar, though\napparently most different, from the scientific Imagination. It is, in\nboth cases, a power of recognizing Order and Unity. The test also of the\nartistic, is (roughly speaking) the same as that of the scientific\nImagination. Those ideas are right which \u201cwork.\u201d Does a scientific idea\nopen, like a key, the secrets of Nature? Then it \u201cworks,\u201d and is, so\nfar, right. So in art: to imagine rightly is to imagine powerfully so as\nto sway the minds of men. Those artistic imaginations are wrong which\nfail to fit the wards of the complicated human lock and to stir the\ninmost thoughts. There are obvious objections to this definition of what\nis artistically right; what stirs the Athenian may not stir the\nEsquimaux. But, roughly speaking, we may say that the test has held\ngood. What has stirred the Athenian has stirred the great civilising\nraces of the world. There may be a better and a higher test hereafter;\nbut, for the present at all events, prolonged experience of its\n\u201cworking\u201d is the test of artistic Imagination.\n\nBut the Imagination plays, perhaps, its most important part in our\nconceptions of human emotions and human character. These things cannot\nbe exactly defined, like triangles or circles; nor can they or their\nresults be predicted like the results of chemical action or the\ninstinctive motions of irrational animals. Yet the Imagination helps us,\nafter a sympathetic contemplation of what a friend _has_ done and said\nand wished, to complete the picture by taking as it were a bird\u2019s-eye\nview of his past, present and future, so as to be able in some measure\nto realize and predict what he _will_ do and say and wish. This mental\n\u201cimagination,\u201d \u201cimage,\u201d or \u201cidea\u201d of our friend we might describe as the\n\u201claw\u201d of his being, so far as it was grasped by us: but so much more\nsubtle and variable than any known \u201claw\u201d are the sequences of human\nthought and conduct, that we generally prefer the phrase which we just\nnow used to describe the intuition of the artist; and so we speak of\n\u201centering into the spirit\u201d of a man. It is usual to say that we do this\nby \u201csympathy;\u201d but sympathy is only one form of Imagination tinged with\nlove, the power of imagining the joys and sorrows of others and of\nrealizing them as one\u2019s own. Imagination, without love, might realize\nthe sorrows of an enemy to gloat over them: love, if it could be without\nImagination\u2014which it cannot be, since love implies at least some\nimagination of what the beloved would wish\u2014would be a poor lifeless\nsentiment doing nothing, or nothing to the purpose. But imaginative\nlove, or sympathy, gives us the key to the knowledge of all human\nnature, and is the foundation of all domestic and social unity and\norder.\n\nAs to the test of Imagination when brought to bear upon human nature,\nyou will remember, I dare say, that it was determined to be the success\nwith which it \u201cworked\u201d human nature, or, in other words, made men do\n\u201cwhat they are intended to do.\u201d But I was then speaking of the way in\nwhich the great prophets, lawgivers, and founders of religions have\ninfluenced great masses of mankind, and in which almost every mother\ninfluences her children, by idealizing them. I might have added, and I\nwill now add, a word on the manner in which an imaginary ideal of human\nnature proves its truth experimentally to the imaginer, by \u201cworking\u201d\n_him_, that is, by making _him_ capable of doing \u201cthe work he was\nintended to do.\u201d It is the more necessary to do this because the\nillusions of Imagination are nowhere so strong and so lasting as in the\nstudy of human Nature; and there is a danger that we may be deterred by\nthe thought of them from steadily pursuing the truth. The cynic tells us\nwith a sneer that babies, and none but babies, think men and women\nbetter than they are, and that, the older one grows, the more one is\ndisillusionised about the virtue of human nature. But that is not true,\nor only a half truth. If we, as children, imagine the men and women\nabout us to be perfections of power, wisdom, and virtue, one reason is,\nthat we have, as children, a most inadequate standard of physical,\nmental, and moral excellence. As our standard rises, our sense of\ninadequacy increases; but the reason why, as we grow older, we cease to\nthink people perfect, is, very often, not that we think worse of human\nbeings, but that we think better of human possibilities.\n\nBut in some minds defect of Imagination combines with other causes to\ninduce the repeatedly disillusionised man to give up the search after\nthe truth that lies beneath the illusion and to cast away all trust, all\nthought, of any ideal of humanity. Those who do this make shipwreck of\ntheir own lives. Their low ideal or no-ideal of conduct does not \u201cwork;\u201d\nthat is to say, it does not fit them to do the work they were intended\nto do. Even for the purposes of their own happiness their life is a\nfailure. So far as the spiritual side of their nature is concerned, a\ndull and stagnant self-satisfaction is the highest prize they can hope\nto acquire: they have none of the keen joys of spiritual aspiration, of\nfailures redeemed, of gradual progress, and of deeper insight into the\nglorious possibilities of human nature. But those who, while not\nrejecting the sobering admonitions of Experience and Reason, can\nnevertheless so far obey the promptings of Imagination as to retain in\ntheir hearts an ever fresh and expansive and healthful Ideal of life,\nfind themselves led on by it from hope to nobler hope, from effort to\nmore arduous effort, until life and effort end together.\n\nLet this suffice as my protest against the popular fallacy that the\nImagination is an abnormal faculty, limited to poets and painters and\n\u201cartists,\u201d mostly illusive, and always to be subordinated in the search\nafter truth. I maintain, on the contrary, that it lies at the basis of\nall knowledge; that it is no less necessary for science, for morals, and\nfor religion, than for artistic success; and that the illusions of\nImagination are the stepping-stones to Truths.\n\nNow to speak of Reason, or, as some would call it, Understanding. While\ndealing with Imagination, we recognized that the work of Reason is\nmostly negative and corrective: but let us come to detail. Reason is\ncommonly said to proceed by two methods; (i) by Induction, wherein, by\n\u201cinducing,\u201d or introducing, a number of particular instances (_e.g._ \u201cA,\nB, C, &c., are men and are mortal\u201d), you establish a general conclusion\n(\u201call men are mortal\u201d); (ii) by Deduction, wherein, from two previous\nstatements called Premises, you deduce a third, called a Conclusion.\n\n(i) As regards Induction, surely you must admit that the initial part of\nthe task falls not upon the Reason but upon the Imagination; which sees\nlikenesses and leaps to general conclusions, mostly premature or false,\nbut all containing a truth from which the falsehood must be eliminated.\nThus, a child imagines, by premature Induction, that all men are (1)\nlike his father; (2) black haired; (3) between five and six feet high;\n(4) white-skinned, and so on. Then comes Reason afterwards, comparing\nand contrasting these imaginative premature conclusions with a wider and\ncontradictory experience and widening the conclusion accordingly. Hence\nit is the part of Reason to suggest those varied experiments which are a\nnecessary part of scientific Induction; and this is generally done by\npointing out to us some neglected difference: \u201cYou say you had a Turkish\nbath three times, and each time caught a cold: but were the antecedents\nof these three colds quite alike? If not, how did they differ? Did you\nnot on the first occasion sit in a draught at a public meeting? on the\nsecond, forget to put on your great coat? on the third, let the fire out\nthough it was freezing? Consider therefore, not the single point of\nlikeness, the Turkish bath, but the points of _unlikeness_ also, in the\nantecedents of your three colds; and try the Turkish bath again,\nomitting these antecedents, before you say \u2018A Turkish bath always gives\nme cold.\u2019\u201d\n\nYou see then that in Induction the positive and suggestive part of the\nwork is done by the Imagination; the negative and eliminative part by\nReason.\n\n(ii) As regards Deduction, the business of Reason is to ascertain that\nthe Premises are not only true but also connected in such a way that a\nconclusion can be drawn from them. But even here Imagination plays a\npart: for the conclusion of every syllogism (roughly speaking) depends\nupon the following axiom: \u201cIf _a_ is included in _b_, and _b_ is\nincluded in _c_, then _a_ is included in _c_; in other words, if a watch\nis in a box, and the box is in a room, then the watch is in the room.\u201d\nNow this general proposition, like all general propositions, is arrived\nat with the aid of the Imagination, so that we may fairly say that the\nImagination, helps to lay the foundation of the Syllogism. When\ntherefore you bear in mind that in every Syllogism the Premises are\noften the result of an Induction in which Imagination has played a part,\nand that the conclusion always depends upon an axiom of the Imagination,\nyou must admit that even Deductive Reasoning by no means excludes the\nImagination.\n\n(iii) Practically, errors seldom arise, and truth is seldom discovered,\nfrom mere Deductive Reasoning. Any one can see his way through a logical\nSyllogism, and almost any one can lay his finger on the weak point in an\nillogical one. But the difficulty is to start the Reasoning in the right\ndirection and to begin the Logical Chain with an appropriate Syllogism.\n\nFor example, suppose we wish to prove that \u201cevery triangle which has two\nangles equal, has two sides opposite to them equal\u201d: how can our Reason,\nour discriminative faculty, help us here? At present, not at all. We\nmust first call to our aid the Imagination, which says to us, \u201c_Imagine_\nthe triangle with two equal angles to have two unequal sides opposite to\nthem, and see what follows.\u201d And every one who has done a geometrical\nDeduction knows that we frequently start by \u201cimagining\u201d the conclusion\nto be already proved, or the problem to be already performed, and then\nendeavouring to realise, among the many consequences that would follow,\nwhich of those consequences would harmonize with, or be identical with,\nthe data to which we are working back.\n\nThe same process is common in the reasoning that deals with what is\ncalled Circumstantial Evidence. Thus, it is asserted by A that he saw B\ncommit a murder in the midst of a field, five minutes before midnight,\non the first day of last month: how can we test the truth of A\u2019s\nassertion? The negative faculty of Reason cannot answer the question.\nBut once more Imagination steps in and says, \u201c_Imagine_ the story to be\ntrue; _imagine_ yourself to be in A\u2019s place; _imagine_ the circumstances\nwhich would have surrounded him, the hidden place from which he saw the\nmurder, the light which enabled him to see it, the precise sight that he\nsaw, the voices or sounds that he heard, and, in a word, all the details\nof a _likely_ and coherent narrative.\u201d When the Imagination has done\nthis and \u201cimagined\u201d the place\u2014perhaps a hedge\u2014the light\u2014moonlight, and\nso on, Reason steps in, and corroborates or rejects, by shewing that\nthere was, or was not, a hedge whence the deed could have been\nwitnessed; that there was a full moon or no moon on the night in\nquestion; that, if there had been a moon, the place in question was open\nto the moonlight, or in deep shadow: and thus Imagination and Reason\n(aided by experience of the place and knowledge of the time) arrive at a\nconclusion, the former making a positive, the latter a negative\ncontribution. Hence it appears that even in those questions which are\ncalled pre-eminently \u201cpractical\u201d\u2014for what can be more \u201cpractical\u201d than a\ntrial in a law-court for life or death?\u2014the Imagination plays so great a\npart that without its aid the reason could effect little or nothing.\n\nHere I must break off; but I hope I have said enough to satisfy you that\nthe imaginative faculty, though it needs the constant test of Reason and\nExperience, is far more intimately connected with what we call\nknowledge, than is commonly supposed. But if this be so, we ought not (I\nthink) to be surprised if a careful analysis of our profoundest\nreligious convictions should reveal that for these also we are indebted,\nand intended by God to be indebted, to the Imagination far more than to\nthe Reason.\n\nFootnote 3:\n\n  \u201cReason\u201d is used, in these letters, in a sense for which Coleridge (I\n  believe) preferred to use \u201cUnderstanding.\u201d But as long as we have a\n  verb \u201creason,\u201d commonly used of mathematical, logical, and ordinary\n  processes of arguing, so long it will be inexpedient, in a popular\n  treatise, to use the word in any but its popular sense. Perhaps some\n  might give the name of \u201chigher Reason\u201d to what I call Imagination.\n\n\n\n\n                                  VII\n                          THE CULTURE OF FAITH\n\n\nMY DEAR \u2014\u2014,\n\nI have been very much pained by your sprightly account of the lively and\nwitty conversation between you and your clever young friends, \u2014\u2014 and \u2014\u2014,\non the proofs of the existence of a God. Bear with me if I assure you\nthat discussions in that spirit are likely to be fatal to real faith.\nThey may often be far more dangerous than a serious collision between\nuntrained faith and the most highly educated scepticism. I do not\ndeprecate discussion, but I do most earnestly plead for reverence.\n\nYoung men at the Universities stand in especial need of this warning\nbecause their studies lead them to be critical; and habits of criticism\nmay easily weaken the habit of reverence. I remember once being shewn\nover a great public school by the Headmaster, justly celebrated as a\nHeadmaster once, and much more celebrated since in another capacity. It\nwas a grand school, though a little too ecclesiastical to suit my taste.\nWhile we were in the chapel my friend spoke earnestly of the pleasure it\ngave him on Sundays to see in the chapel the familiar faces of the old\nboys who came to revisit the old place. At the same time he deplored the\ncontrast between those who went into the army, and those who went to the\nUniversities: \u201cThe army fellows,\u201d he said, \u201calmost always come to\nCommunion, the university fellows almost always stop away.\u201d These words\nmade an indelible impression on my mind, \u201cWho is to blame, or praise,\nfor this?\u201d asked I, on my journey homeward. \u201cIs it the army that is to\nbe praised for its inculcation of discipline and self-subordination,\nhelping the young fellows to realise the meaning of self-sacrifice? Or\nis it the University that is to be blamed for its negative and\ndestructive teaching? Or can it be that the school is in part to blame\nfor teaching the boys to believe too much; and the University in part to\nblame for teaching the young men to criticize too much?\u201d\n\nOver and over again, since that time, I have asked myself these same\nquestions about many other young men from many other public schools. I\nhonour the army as much as most men, more perhaps than many do: but\nafter all the profession of a soldier is the profession of a\nthroat-cutter; throat-cutting in an extensive, expeditious, and\nhonourable way,\u2014throat-cutting in one direction often undertaken merely\nto prevent throat-cutting in another direction\u2014but still throat-cutting\nafter all: and it seemed very hard to believe that the profession of\nthroat-cutting is, and ought to be, a better preparation than the\npursuit of learning at the Universities, for participation in the Holy\nCommunion. On the whole I was led to the conclusion that the young men\nin the army had retained and deepened the instinctive obedience to\nauthority, the sense of the need of the subordination of the individual\nto the community, and perhaps also the feeling of reverence, while they\nhad not been taught so fully to appreciate all that was implied in\nattendance at Communion or to realize the intellectual difficulties\npresented by the New Testament. In other words\u2014to put it briefly and\nroughly\u2014the young cadets and officers came to Communion because they had\nbeen taught to feel and not taught to think; and the University men\nstayed away because they had been taught to think and not to feel. Now I\nwill ask you to excuse me if I suggest that the principal danger to your\ncharacter at present arises from the want of such discipline as may be\nobtained by some in the army, and by others in the practical work of\nlife. You need some emotional and moral exercise to counterbalance your\nmental and intellectual training. You are not aware how much of the most\nvaluable knowledge, conviction, certainty\u2014call it what you will, but I\nmean that kind of moral and spiritual knowledge which is the basis of\nall right conduct\u2014springs in the main from spiritual and emotional\nsources.\n\nIn the present letter I should like to confine myself to this subject,\nthe culture, if I may so say, of Christian faith. Let me then ask you\nfirst to clear your mind by asking yourself what is the essence of the\nfaith which you would desire to retain. It is (is it not?) a faith or\ntrust in the fatherhood of God. This surely is the Gospel or Good News\nfor which Christ lived and died, in order that He might breathe it into\nthe hearts of men. \u201cFatherhood\u201d\u2014some of your young friends will\nexclaim\u2014\u201cWhat an antiquated notion! Flat anthropomorphism!\u201d By\n\u201canthropomorphism\u201d they mean a tendency to make God in human shape; just\nas Heine\u2019s four-legged poetic Bruin makes God to be a great white Polar\nBear, and the frogs of Celsus imagine Him to be a gigantic Frog. No\ndoubt, this is very funny; but the decryers of anthropomorphism who\nventure on any conception of a God\u2014are they any less funny? Do not they\nshew a similar disposition to make God in the shape of human works or\nhuman experiences? Shall I be exploring a nobler path of spiritual\nspeculation if I say God is a Rock or a Buckler, or a Centre, or a\nForce, than if I say God is a Father in heaven? Ask your sceptical\ncompanions what conception of God they can mention which is not open to\nobjection, and they will perhaps reply \u201cAn Eternal, or a Tendency, not\nourselves, which makes for righteousness.\u201d Now to reply \u201can Eternal,\u201d\nappears to me to be taking a rather mean and pedantical advantage of the\nuninflected peculiarities of English (and Hebrew), which leave it an\nopen question whether you mean your \u201cEternal\u201d to be masculine, or\nneuter. And \u201cTendency\u201d\u2014what is it? Is it not a \u201cstretching,\u201d or\n\u201cpulling,\u201d or partially neutralised force\u2014a common human experience? Now\nwe are dealing with the accusation of limiting our conception of God to\nour experiences as men. And, so far as this charge is concerned, what is\nthe difference between calling God a \u201cTendency,\u201d or a \u201cRock,\u201d or a\n\u201cShield,\u201d or a \u201cHouse of Defence,\u201d as the old Psalmist does? Are not all\nthese names mere metaphors derived from human experience? In the same\nway to call God a Father is (no doubt) a metaphor: but is it more a\nmetaphor than to call Him a Tendency?\n\nSome metaphors, which describe God by reference to the relations of man\nto man, may be called anthropomorphic; others, which describe Him by\nreference to implements (such as a Shield) may be called organomorphic;\nothers, which assimilate Him to lifeless and inorganic objects (such as\na Hill) may be called by some other grand name, such as apsychomorphic;\nothers, which would subtilize Him down to a thought, or a mind, or a\nspirit, may be called phronesimorphic, noumorphic, pneumatomorphic; but\nin the name of common sense\u2014or in the name of that sense which ought to\nbe common, and which ought to revolt against bondage to mere words\u2014what\nis there in that termination \u201cmorphic\u201d which should stagger a seeker\nafter divine truth? Do we not all recognize that all terms applied to\nthe supreme God are \u201cmorphisms\u201d of various kinds? And the question is\nnot how we can avoid a \u201cmorphism\u201d\u2014for we cannot avoid it\u2014but how or\nwhere we can find the noblest and most spiritually helpful \u201cmorphism.\u201d\nAnd as between the ancient and the modern metaphors just set before you\ncan you entertain a moment\u2019s doubt? Might we not imagine the question\nput\u2014after the old Roman authoritative fashion\u2014to an assembly of the\nconsciences of universal mankind: \u201cChrist says that God is a Father in\nheaven; refined thinkers say that He is a Tendency; _utri creditis,\ngentes_?\u201d To which I seem to hear the answer of the Universe come back,\n\u201cWe will have no Tendencies seated on the throne of Heaven. Give us a\nFather, or we will have nothing.\u201d And you, my dear friend, how is it\nwith you? _Utri credis_?\n\nBut perhaps you complain, or some of your friends might complain, that\nthis is not treating the question fairly. \u201cThe doctrine of the\nFatherhood of God,\u201d they may say, \u201cis to be discussed like any other\nproposition, upon the evidence.\u201d I entirely deny it, if from your\n\u201cevidence\u201d you intend to exclude the witness of Imagination expressed in\nFaith and Hope. I assert, on the contrary, that it is to be believed in,\nagainst what may be called quasi-evidence. It cannot be demonstrated to\nbe either true or false. Do not misunderstand me. There is abundant\nevidence of a certain kind\u2014as I will hereafter shew\u2014for the Fatherhood\nof God; but there is also evidence against it: and what I mean is, that\nthe mind is not to sit impartially and coldly neutral between the two\ntestimonies, but is to grasp the former and hold it fast and keep it\nconstantly in view, while it lays less stress on and (after a time) puts\non one side the latter. I have shewn you that many of our deepest and\nmost vital convictions are based less upon Reason than upon Imagination.\nWhy then should we be surprised if the most profound convictions of all,\nour religious certainties, rest upon that imaginative desire to which we\nhave given the name of Faith?[4] If an archangel (robed in light) were\nto step down to me this moment and were to cry aloud, \u201cVerily there is\nno God,\u201d I should reply, or ought to reply, \u201cVerily thou art a devil.\u201d\nIf the same archangel were to come in the same way and to say \u201cVerily\nthere is a God,\u201d I should reply, \u201cI felt sure there was; and now I am\nmore sure than ever.\u201d How unfair, how illogical, if our belief is to be\na matter of mere evidence! But it is not to be a matter of mere\nevidence. It is to be a struggle against an evil thought\u2014shall I not say\nan evil being?\u2014that is perpetually attempting to slander God to men by\nrepresenting Him as permitting or originating evil.\n\nDoes this startle you\u2014this suggestion of an evil being\u2014as being too\nold-fashioned for an educated Christian? Well then, put it aside for the\ntime (though it is indeed Christ\u2019s doctrine): and merely assume as a\ntemporary hypothesis that the essence of Christ\u2019s Gospel is a trust in\nthe Fatherhood of God. Now, if this be so, and if this trust or faith is\nto be kept pure and strong, must it not be regarded with reverence and\nreserve as being (what indeed it is) a kind of private, domestic, and\nfamily relation? Is it to be made the subject for light, casual,\nfrivolous discussions; epigrammatic displays; cut-and-thrust exhibitions\nof word-fence; logical or rhetorical symposia? What would you say of a\nyoung man who should allow his relations with his father and mother to\nbe discussed with humour and epigram on every light occasion? Would he\nbe likely long to retain the bloom of domestic affection unimpaired? I\nremember reading about some well-educated and enlightened free-thinker\u2014I\nfancy it was Bolingbroke\u2014on whose table a Greek Testament was regularly\nplaced by the side of the port when the cloth was drawn, and whose\nfavourite topic for discussion after dinner was the existence and\nattributes of the Deity. Does not your instinct teach you that from such\ndiscussions as these no good could possibly come, nothing but a\nhardening of the conscience, a fatal familiarity with sacred things\nregarded with a view to witticism\u2014that kind of familiarity which too\nsurely breeds contempt? What a terrible contrast it is\u2014complacent\nBolingbroke at his wine, analysing the attributes of God, and the\nall-pitying Father looking down from heaven and pleading, through\nChrist, not to be analysed but to be loved and trusted!\n\nMay we not go a step further and say that Christian Faith or trust\u2014if it\nbe once recognized as faith or trust, altogether distinct from the kind\nof assent which we give to a proposition of Euclid\u2014needs not only to be\nprotected from certain evil influences but also to be subjected to\ncertain good influences? It is a kind of plant, and requires its\nspiritual soil, air, rain and sunshine; in other words it needs good\nthoughts, noble aspirations, and unselfish acts, to keep it alive. You\nmay retort perhaps that Faith itself ought to produce these results, and\nnot to be produced by them. But I reply that, though Faith does tend to\nproduce these results, it is strengthened by producing them; and it is\nweakened and finally extinguished by not producing them. \u201cOur faith\u201d has\nbeen described as \u201cthe victory that hath overcome the world.\u201d What is\nthere in the world that it should need to be \u201covercome\u201d? I suppose the\nwriter meant that this present, visible, tangible, enjoyable system of\nthings\u2014which was meant by the Supreme to be a kind of glass through\nwhich we might discern something of the greatness and order of the Maker\nhas been converted, partly by our selfishness, partly by some Evil in\nthe world outside us, into a mirror shutting out all glimpse of God and\ngiving us back nothing but the reflection of ourselves. On the other\nhand, there is a different way of regarding the world when, our eyes\nbeing opened like the eyes of Aeneas amid burning Troy, we discern in\nthe midst of this present condition of things a great conflict between\nGood and Evil, and on the side of goodness, we see the forms of\nRighteousness, Justice and Truth, supported by Faith, Hope, and Charity;\namid the smoke and roar of battles and revolutions, the destructions of\nnations, and the downfall of empires and of churches, we realise that\nthese are abiding influences; that either in this world, or in some\nother, these things shall ultimately prevail, because these are the\nAngels that stand about the throne of the Ruler of the Universe. This\nstate of mind is Faith, and it is to be nurtured by effort, partly in\naction, partly in thought. Bacon bids us nurture it by \u201ccherishing the\ngood hours of the mind.\u201d St. Paul says nearly the same thing in\ndifferent words: \u201cWhatsoever things are honourable, whatsoever things\nare just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely,\nwhatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, and if\nthere be any praise, _think on these things_.\u201d\n\nAre you surprised at this? Does faith seem to you, on these terms, a\npossession of little worth\u2014this quicksilver quality which varies with\nevery variation of our spiritual atmosphere? Why surely everything that\nlives and grows is liable to flux. You do not disparage bodily health\nbecause it is dependent on supports and influences, and liable to\nchanges; why then disparage spiritual health because it is similarly\ndependent? No doubt one would not be willingly a religious\nvaletudinarian; a man\u2019s spiritual constitution ought not to be at the\nmercy of every slight and passing breeze of circumstance; but at present\nthere is little danger of spiritual valetudinarianism. Physical\n\u201csanitation\u201d is on every one\u2019s tongue; but no one thinks of the\nnecessity of good spiritual air and of the evils of bad spiritual\ndrainage. We do not recognize that there are laws of our spiritual as\nwell as of our material nature. We wilfully narrow our lives to the\nsabbathless pursuit of gain or pleasure\u2014self everywhere, God nowhere\u2014and\nthen go about hypocritically whining that the age of faith has passed\nand that we have lost the power of believing. With our own hands we put\nthe stopper on the telescope and then complain that we cannot see!\n\nDo not however, suppose that I call upon you, because hope is the basis\nof Christian belief, on that account to hope against the truth and to\nbelieve against reason. I bid you believe in the Fatherhood of God,\nfirst because your conscience tells you that this is the best and\nnoblest belief, but secondly also because this belief\u2014although it may be\nagainst the superficial evidence of the phenomena of the Universe\u2014is in\naccordance with these phenomena when you regard them more deeply and\nwhen you include in your scope the history of Christianity.\n\nI admit that we have to fight against temptations in order to retain\nthis belief; and sometimes I ask myself, \u201cIf I and my children had been\nslaves in one of the Southern States of America; or if I and my family\nhad suffered such indelible outrages as were recently inflicted by the\nTurks upon the Bulgarians; or if I were at this moment a matchbox-seller\nor a father of ten children (girls as well as boys) in the East of\nLondon\u2014should I find it so easy to believe that God is our Father in\nheaven?\u201d And I am obliged to reply, \u201cNo, I should not find it easy;\u201d I\nfear that I might be tempted to say, as a workman did not long ago to a\nlecturer on co-operation who mentioned the name of God: \u201cOh, no; no God\nfor us; the workman\u2019s God deserted him long ago.\u201d And perhaps you\nyourself may remember the answer of one of those wretched Bulgarians to\nsome newspaper correspondent who endeavoured to console him in his\nanguish by the reflection that \u201cAfter all there is a God that governs\nthe world:\u201d \u201cI believe you,\u201d was the reply; \u201cthere is indeed a God; and\nhe governs the world indeed; and he is the Devil.\u201d Or take a spectacle\nof the Middle Ages as a problem. In the lists are two armed knights; on\nthe one side a man of might and muscle, exulting in conflict; on the\nother, a slight, weak creature, who never fights save on compulsion, and\nis to fight now on sternest compulsion, being accused (though innocent)\nof some gross crime by yonder man of flesh, who combines scoundrel,\nliar, traitor, oppressor, thief, and adulterer, all in one; and the\nfight is to begin under the sanction of the Church of Christ. As the\ntrumpets sound, while the heralds are still calling on God to \u201cshew the\nright,\u201d the two men meet, and \u201cthe right\u201d is cast to the ground,\ntrampled on by his enemy, and dragged from the lists to the neighbouring\ngallows, while the muscular scoundrel wipes his forehead and receives\ncongratulations. Do you suppose that the innocent man\u2019s wife, if she\nwere looking on, would be able easily to say at that moment, \u201cVerily\nthere is a God that judgeth the earth\u201d?\n\nCan I possibly put the case for scepticism more strongly? I would fain\nput it with all the force in my power in order to convince you that I\nhave thought often over these matters, and that, although my own life\nmay have been happy and free from stumbling-blocks, I have at least\ntried to understand and sympathize with those who find it very hard to\nbelieve that there is a God. But, in the presence of such monstrous\nevils as these, I take refuge in a belief and in a fact; first, in the\nbelief (which runs through almost every page of the Gospels and has\nreceived the sanction of Christ Himself) that there is an Evil Being in\nthe world who is continually opposing the Good but will be ultimately\nsubdued by the Good; secondly, in the fact that in one great typical\nconflict between Good and Evil,\u2014where apparently God did not \u201cshew the\nright,\u201d and where, in appearance, there was consummated the most brutal\ntriumph of Evil over Good that the world ever witnessed\u2014there the Good\nin reality effected its most signal triumph. The issue of the conflict\non the Cross of Christ is my great comfort and mainstay of faith, when\nmy heart is distracted with the thought of all the spurns, buffets, and\noutrages, endured by much-suffering humanity. \u201cAt last, far off,\u201d I cry,\n\u201cthe right will be shewn, even as it was in the contest on the Cross.\u201d\n\nYou see then the nature of the conflict of faith. It is a struggle of\nhope against fear, trustfulness against trustlessness, where strict\nlogical proof is impossible. But I do not call you to set Faith against\nReason, or to make hope trample on the understanding, or to shut your\neyes to the presence or absence of historical evidence. If religion\ncomes down from the region of hope and aspiration into the region of\nfact and evidence, and asserts that this or that fact happened at this\nor that time and place, then, so far, it appeals to evidence, and by\nevidence it must be judged.\n\nHalf the earnest scepticism of the present day is not really spiritual\nscepticism but simply doubt about historical facts. Distinguish\ncarefully and constantly between two terms entirely different but\ncontinually confused\u2014the _super-natural_ and the _miraculous_.\n\nIn the super-natural every rational man must believe, if he knows what\nis meant by the term; for every rational man must acknowledge that the\nworld had either a beginning or no beginning, a First Cause or no First\nCause; and either hypothesis is altogether above the level of natural\nphenomena, and therefore supernatural. The theist and the atheist are\nalike believers in the supernatural. The agnostic, poised between the\ntwo, admits that some supernatural origin of the world is necessary, but\nis unable to decide which of the two is the more probable. All alike\ntherefore believe in the supernatural; but the important difference is\nthat some take a hopeful or faithful, others a hopeless or faithless,\nview of the supernatural. Proof in this region is not possible, unless\nthe testimony of the conscience may be accepted as proof. If Jesus were\nto appear to-morrow sitting on the clouds of heaven and testifying that\nthere is a Father in heaven, I can imagine some men of science replying,\n\u201cThis is a mere phantom of the brain,\u201d or, \u201cThis is the result of\nindigestion,\u201d or \u201cAssertion is not proof.\u201d Mere force of logical proof\nor personal observation can convince no one that there is a God or that\nJesus is the Eternal Son of God; such a conviction can only come from a\nleaping out of the human spirit to meet the Spirit of God; and hence St.\nPaul tells us that \u201cno man can say\u201d\u2014that is, \u201csay sincerely\u201d\u2014\u201cthat Jesus\nis the Lord _save by the Spirit_.\u201d Here therefore, in this region of the\nindemonstrable, I can honestly use an effort of the will to ally myself\nwith the spirit of faith. \u201cI will pray to God; I will cling to God; will\nrefuse to doubt of God; refuse to listen to doubts about God (except so\nfar as may be needful to do it, in order to lighten the doubts of\nothers, and then only as a painful duty, to be got through with all\nspeed); I am determined (so help me God) to believe in God to the end of\nmy days:\u201d resolving thus I am not acting insincerely nor shutting my\neyes to the truth, but taking nature\u2019s appointed means for reaching and\nholding fast the highest spiritual truth.\n\nBut I do not feel justified in thus using my will to constrain myself to\nbelieve in the miraculous; for here God has given me other means\u2014such as\nhistory, experience, and evidence\u2014for arriving at the truth. Nor does a\nbelief in the super-natural in the least imply a belief in the\nmiraculous also. I may believe that God is continually supporting and\nimpelling on its path every created thing; but I may also believe that\nthere is no evidence to prove that His support and impulsion have ever\nbeen manifested save in accordance with that orderly sequence which we\ncall Law. I may even believe that the Universe is double, having a\nspiritual and invisible counterpart corresponding to this visible and\nmaterial existence, so that nothing is done in the world of flesh below\nwhich has not been first done in the world of spirit above; yet even\nthis latitude of spiritual speculation would not in the least establish\nthe conclusion that the observed sequence of what we call cause and\neffect in the material world has ever been violated. To take a\nparticular instance, I may be convinced, that Jesus of Nazareth was the\nEternal Word of God, made flesh for men; and yet I may remain\nunconvinced that, in thus taking flesh upon Him, He raised Himself above\nthe physical laws of humanity. In other words I may, with the author of\nthe Fourth Gospel, heartily believe in the supernatural Incarnation\nwhile omitting from my Gospel all mention of the Miraculous Conception.\nNay, I may go still further. While cordially accepting the divine nature\nof Christ, I may see such clear indications and evidences of the manner\nin which accounts of miracles sprang up in the Church without foundation\nof fact, that I may be compelled not merely to omit miracles from my\nGospel and to confess myself unconvinced of their truth, but even to\navow my conviction of their untruth. But into this negative aspect of\nthings I do not wish now to enter. I would rather urge on you this\npositive consideration, that, since our recognition of the Laws of\nNature themselves, depends in a very large degree upon faith, we ought\nnot to be surprised if our acknowledgment of the Founder of these Laws\nrests also on the same basis. And, if this be so, we cannot speak\naccurately about the \u201cevidence\u201d for the existence of a God, unless we\ninclude in that term the aspirations of the human conscience toward a\nMaker and Ruler and Father of all.\n\nFootnote 4:\n\n  Faith is \u201cdesire (approved by the Conscience) of which we imagine the\n  fulfilment, while putting doubt at a distance\u201d: see the _Definitions_\n  at the end of the volume.\n\n\n\n\n                                  VIII\n                        FAITH AND DEMONSTRATION\n\n\nMY DEAR \u2014\u2014,\n\nI am afraid your notions about \u201cproof\u201d are still rather hazy; for you\nquote against me a stern and self-denying dictum which passes current\namong some of your young friends, that \u201cit is immoral to believe what\ncannot be proved.\u201d\n\nHave you seriously asked yourself what you mean by \u201cproved\u201d in\nenunciating this proposition? Do you mean \u201cmade sufficiently probable to\ninduce a man to act upon the probability\u201d? Or do you mean \u201cabsolutely\ndemonstrated\u201d?\n\nIf you mean the former, not so many as you suppose are guilty of this\n\u201cimmorality.\u201d Give me an instance, if you can, of a man who \u201cbelieves\nwhat cannot be made sufficiently probable to induce him to act upon the\nprobability.\u201d Of course some men _say_ they believe what they, in\nreality, do not believe; but you speak, not about \u201csaying\u201d but about\n\u201cbelieving;\u201d and I do not see how any man can \u201cbelieve\u201d what he does not\nregard as probable. I am inclined to think therefore that, in this sense\nof the word \u201cprove,\u201d your proposition is meaningless.\n\nBut perhaps by \u201cprove,\u201d you mean \u201cabsolutely demonstrate;\u201d and your\nthesis is that \u201cit is immoral to believe what cannot be absolutely\ndemonstrated;\u201d in that case I am obliged to ask you how you can repeat\nsuch cant, such a mere parrot cry, with a grave face.\n\nDo you not see that, as soon as you conceded (as I understand you to\nhave done) that our belief in the Laws of Nature is based upon the\nImagination, you virtually conceded the validity of a kind of proof in\nwhich faith and hope play a large part, and in which demonstration is\nimpossible. \u201cDemonstration\u201d applies to mathematics and to syllogisms\nwhere the premises are granted, though it is also sometimes loosely used\nof proof conveyed by personal observation; \u201cproof\u201d applies to the other\naffairs of life. Demonstration appeals very largely (not entirely, as I\nhave shown above, but very largely) to Reason; proof is largely based on\nFaith. Having defined \u201cangles,\u201d \u201ctriangles,\u201d \u201cbase,\u201d and \u201cisosceles,\u201d\nand having been granted certain axioms and postulates, I can demonstrate\nthat the angles at the basis of an isosceles triangle are equal to one\nanother; but I cannot \u201cdemonstrate\u201d that, if I throw a stone in the air,\nit will come down again, though I am perfectly convinced that it will\ncome down, and though I commonly assert that I can \u201cprove\u201d that it will\ncome down.\n\nWhy, your whole life is full of beliefs\u2014as certain as any beliefs can\nbe\u2014which it is impossible to demonstrate! When you got up this morning\ndid you not believe that your razor would shave and your looking-glass\nreflect; that your boiling water would scald if you spilt it, and your\negg break if you dropped it; and a score or two of other similar\nperfectly certain beliefs\u2014all entertained and acted on in less than an\nhour, but all incapable of demonstration? But you maintain perhaps that\n\u201cthese beliefs are not beliefs, but knowledge based on the uniformity of\nthe laws of nature; you know that the laws of nature are uniform, and\ntherefore you knew that your razor would shave.\u201d But how, I ask, do you\nknow that the laws of nature are uniform? \u201cBy the experience of mankind\nduring many thousands of years.\u201d But how do you know that what has been\nin the past will be in the future\u2014will be in the next instant? \u201cWell, if\na law of nature were broken\u2014say, for example, the law of gravitation\u2014the\nwhole Universe would fall to pieces.\u201d In other words, you and I would\nfeel extremely uncomfortable, if we existed long enough to feel\nanything; but what does that demonstrate? Absolutely nothing. It would\nno doubt be extremely inconvenient for both of us if any law of nature\nobserved in the past did not continue to be observed in the future; but\ninconvenience proves nothing logically. It is no doubt extremely\ninconvenient not to be able to believe that your razor will shave; but\nwhat of that? Where is the demonstration? And remember your own\n_dictum_, \u201cIt is immoral to believe what cannot be demonstrated.\u201d\n\nPerhaps you may try to writhe out of this application of your own\nprinciple by the use of grand terms; \u201cThe Laws of Nature have been\nproved to be true by experiment as well as by observation; they have\nbeen made the basis for abstruse calculations and inferences as to what\nwill happen; then the philosopher has predicted \u2018this will happen,\u2019 and\nit has happened. Surely no one will deny that this is a proof!\u201d A proof\nof what? Of the future invariableness of the sequences of Nature? I\nshall not only deny, but enjoy denying, that it is a proof; if you mean\nby proof such a demonstrative proof as you obtain in a syllogism, where\nthe premises are assumed, or in mathematics, where you are reasoning\nabout things that have no real existence but are merely convenient ideas\nof the imagination. Believe me, this distinction of terms is by no means\nsuperfluous. You and your young scientific friends are continually\nconfusing \u201cproof\u201d with \u201cdemonstration;\u201d and you have one use of the word\n\u201cproof\u201d for religion and another for science. When you speak of\nreligion, you say \u201cit is immoral to believe in it for it cannot be\n_proved_\u201d (meaning \u201cdemonstrated\u201d); when you speak of science, you say,\n\u201cThis can be _proved_\u201d (not meaning \u201cdemonstrated,\u201d but simply \u201cmade\nprobable,\u201d or \u201cproved for practical purposes\u201d).\n\nYou may discourse for hours upon the Laws of Nature, but you will never\nsucceed in convincing any one, not even yourself, that they will remain\nvalid in the moment that is to come, by the mere force of logic. You are\ncertain\u2014so am I practically quite certain\u2014that the stone which I throw\nat this moment up in the air, will, in the next moment, fall to the\nground. But this certainty does not arise from logic. We have absolutely\nno reason for this leap into the darkness of the future except\nfaith,\u2014faith of course resting upon a basis of facts, but still faith.\nThe very names and notions of \u201ccause\u201d and \u201ceffect\u201d are due not to\nobservation, nor to demonstration, but to faith. The name, and the\nnotion, of a Law of Nature are nothing but convenient ideas of the\nscientific imagination, based upon faith. Take an instance. We say, and\ngenuinely believe, that fire and gunpowder \u201ccause\u201d explosion; that\nexplosion is the \u201ceffect\u201d of gunpowder and fire; and that the effect\nfollows the causes in accordance with the \u201claws of nature;\u201d but you have\nnot observed all this and you cannot demonstrate it. You have merely\nobserved in the past an invariable sequence of explosion following (in\nall cases that you have seen or heard about) the combination of\ngunpowder and fire; you have also perhaps predicted in the past that\nexplosion would follow, and demonstrated that it did follow this\ncombination, as often as you pleased; you have found, or have heard that\nothers have found, that this sequence agrees with other chemical\nsequences, which you are in the habit of calling causes and effects; but\nall this is evidence as to the past, not as to the future. Your\ncertainty as to the future arises not from any demonstration about the\nfuture, but from your faith or trust in the fixed order of Nature, and\nfrom nothing else. Now the greater part of the action of life deals with\nthe future. It follows therefore that, in the greater part of life, we\nact, not from demonstration, but from a proof in which faith is a\nconstituent element.\n\nWhence arises this trust in the uniformity of the phenomena of the\nUniverse? We can hardly give any other answer except that we could not\nget on without it. Having been found to \u201cwork\u201d by ourselves, and by many\ngenerations of our forefathers, this faith is possibly by this time an\ninherited instinct as well as the inbred result of our own earliest\nexperiences. But when we analyse it we are forced to confess that we can\ngive no logical account of it. Logically regarded, it savours of the\nmost audacious optimism, arguing, or rather sentimentalizing, after this\nfashion: \u201cIt would be so immensely inconvenient if Nature were every\nmoment changing her rules without notice! All forethought, all\ncivilization would be at an end; nay, we could not so much as take a\nsingle step or move a limb with confidence, if we could not depend upon\nNature!\u201d Does not this personification of Nature, and trust or faith in\nNature, somewhat resemble our trust or faith in God? I think it does;\nand it is very interesting to note that the very foundations of science\nare laid in a quasi-religious sentiment of which no logical\njustification can be given.\n\nI might easily go further and shew that, even as regards the past, we\nact in our daily lives very often on the grounds of faith and very\nseldom on the grounds of demonstration. On this I have touched in a\nprevious letter; but your dictum about the \u201cimmorality of believing what\ncannot be proved\u201d makes it clear that you are hardly as yet aware of the\nnature of the ordinary \u201cproofs\u201d on which we act. How few there are who\nhave any grounds but faith for believing in the existence of a Julius\nC\u00e6sar or an Alexander! Yet they believe implicitly. Many have heard\nthese two great men loosely spoken of, or alluded to; but they have\nnever weighed, nor have they the least power to weigh, the evidence that\nproves that C\u00e6sar and Alexander actually existed. Now as the unlearned\nare quite certain of the existence of a Julius C\u00e6sar, so are you too\nquite certain of many facts upon very slight grounds. You ask one man\nhis name; another, how many children he has; a third, the name of the\nstreet in which he lives, and so on; how certain you often feel, on the\nslight evidence of their answers (unless there be special grounds for\nsuspecting them) that your information is correct! The reason is that\nall social intercourse depends on faith; if you began to suspect and\ndisbelieve every man who gave you answers to such simple questions as\nthese, social life would be at an end for you, and you might as well at\nonce retire to a hermitage; scepticism in matters of this kind has not\nworked, and faith has worked; and this has gone on with you from\nchildhood and with your forefathers from their childhood for many\ngenerations. Thus faith has become a second instinct with you, and you\nact upon it so often and so naturally that you are not aware of the\ndegree to which it influences and permeates your actions. The cases in\nwhich you act thus instinctively upon very slight evidence, and upon a\nlarge and general faith in the people who give the evidence, are far\nmore numerous than those cases in which you formally weigh evidence and\nattempt to arrive at something like demonstrative proof. In other words,\nnot only as regards the future but also as regards the past, faith is\nfor the most part the underlying basis of action. You believe, to a\nlarge extent and in a great many cases, simply because \u201cit would be so\nimmensely inconvenient not to believe.\u201d\n\nI claim that I have fulfilled my promise of shewing that people act much\nmore upon faith than upon demonstration in every department of life; and\nI now repeat and emphasize what I said before, that if all our existence\nis thus dominated by faith, it is absurd to attempt to exclude faith\nfrom any religion. But if our special religion consists in a recognition\nof God the Maker as God the Father, then it is more natural than ever to\nsuppose that our religion will require a large element of faith or\ntrust. Just as family life would break down if the sons were always\nanalysing the father\u2019s character, and declining to believe anything to\nhis credit beyond what could be demonstrated to be true, so religious\nlife will break down, if we treat the Father in heaven as a mere topic\nfor logical discussion and declare that it is \u201cimmoral to believe\u201d in\nHis fatherhood if it cannot be proved.\n\nOf course I do not deny that you must have evidence of the existence of\nthe Father before you can trust in Him. You could not trust your parents\nif you had not seen, touched, heard them\u2014known something of them in fact\nthrough the senses: so neither can you trust God if you have not known\nsomething of Him through the senses. Well, I maintain that is what you\nare continually doing. God is continually revealing Himself to us in the\npower, the beauty, the glory, the harmony, the beneficence, the mystery,\nof the Universe, and pre-eminently in human goodness and greatness.\nContemplate, touch, hear; concentrate your mind on these things, and\nespecially on the perfection of human goodness, power, and wisdom: thus\nyou will be enabled to realize the presence of the Father and then to\ntrust in Him. Contemplate also the Evolution of the present from the\npast: the ascent from a protoplasm to the first man, from the first man\nto a Homer, a Dante, a Shakespeare and a Newton; do not entirely ignore\nSocrates, St. Paul, St. Francis. You cannot indeed shut your eyes to the\ngrowth of evil simultaneously with the growth of good: but do not fix\nyour eyes too long upon the evil: prefer to contemplate the defeat of\nevil by goodness, especially in the struggle on the Cross; and with your\ncontemplation let there be some admixture of action against the evil and\nfor the good. Do this, and I think you will have no reason to complain\nof the want of \u201cevidence\u201d of the existence of One who has made us to\ntrust in Him.\n\nI have told you what to do: let me add one word also of warning as to\nwhat you are not to do. You are not to regard the world from the point\nof view of a neutral and amused spectator. You are not to detach\nyourself from the great struggle of good against evil, and to look on,\nand call it \u201cinteresting.\u201d That attitude is fatal to all religion.\nReject, as from the devil, the precept _nil admirari_; better be a fool\nthan a dispassionate critic of Christ. Again, you are not to regard the\nworld from the mere student point of view, looking at the Universe as a\ngreat Examination Paper in which you may hope to solve more problems and\nscore more marks than anybody else. High intellectual pursuits and\nhabits of enthusiastic research are sometimes terribly demoralizing when\nthey tempt a man to think that he can live above, and without, social\nties and affections, and that mere sentiment is to be despised in\ncomparison with knowledge. This danger impends over literary as well as\nother students, over critical theologians as well as over scientific\nexperimenters; we all sometimes forget\u2014we students\u2014that, if we do not\nexercise the habit of trusting and loving men, we cannot trust and love\nGod. To harden oneself against the mute but trustful appeal of even a\nbeast is not without some spiritual peril of incapacitating oneself for\nworship.\n\n\n\n\n                                   IX\n                          SATAN AND EVOLUTION\n\n\nMY DEAR \u2014\u2014,\n\nYour grounds of objection appear to be now changed. You say you do not\nunderstand my position with regard to Evolution, as I described it\nbefore, and referred to it in my last letter. If I admit Evolution, you\nask how I can consistently deny that every nation and every individual,\nIsrael and Christ included, \u201cproceeded from material causes by necessary\nsequence according to fixed laws;\u201d and in that case what becomes of such\nmetaphors as \u201cthe regulating hand of God,\u201d \u201cGod the Ruler of the\nUniverse\u201d and the like? It is a common saying, you tell me, among those\nof your companions who have a turn for science, that \u201cEvolution has\ndisposed of the old proofs of the existence of a God:\u201d and you ask me\nhow I meet this objection.\n\nI meet it by asking you another question exactly like your own. I take a\nlump of clay and a potter\u2019s wheel, and \u201cfrom these material causes by\nnecessary sequence according to fixed laws\u201d I mould a vessel; is there\nno room in this process for \u201cthe regulating hand of man\u201d and for \u201cman\nthe creator of the vessel\u201d? In other words, may not these \u201cfixed laws,\u201d\nand that \u201cnecessity\u201d of which you admit the existence, represent the\nperpetual pressure of the Creator\u2019s hand, or will, upon the Universe?\n\nBy Evolution is meant that all results are evolved from immediate\ncauses, which are evolved from distant causes, which are themselves\nevolved from more distant causes; and so on. In old times, men believed\nthat God made the world by a number of isolated acts. Now, it is\nbelieved that He made a primordial something, say atoms, out of which\nthere have been shaped series upon series of results by continuous\nmotion in accordance with fixed laws of nature. But neither the isolated\ntheory nor the continuous theory can dispense with a Creator in the\ncentre. We speak of the \u201cchain of creation;\u201d and we know that in old\ndays men recognized few links between us and the Creator. Now, we\nrecognize many. But, because a chain has more links than we once\nsupposed, are we excused for rejecting our old belief in the existence\nof a chain-maker? Whether things came to be as they are, by many\ncreations, or by one creation and many evolutions, what difference does\nit make? In the one case, we believe in a Creator and Sustainer: in the\nother case, in a Creator and Evolver. In either case, do we not believe\nin a God?\n\nWhat then do your young friends mean\u2014for though they express themselves\nloosely, I think they do mean something and are not merely repeating a\ncant phrase\u2014when they say that Evolution has \u201cdisposed of the old proofs\nof the existence of a God\u201d? I think they mean that Evolution is\ninconsistent with the existence of _such a God as the Christian religion\nproclaims, that is to say, a Father in heaven_. The old theory of\ndiscontinuous creation (in its most exaggerated form) maintained that\neverything was created for a certain benevolent purpose\u2014our hair to\nshelter our heads from the weather, our eyebrows and eyelashes to keep\noff the dust and the sun, our thumbs to give us that prehensile power\nwhich largely differentiates us from apes; in a word, paternal despotism\nwas supposed to do everything for us with the best of intentions. The\nnew theory says there is no sufficient evidence of such paternal\nbenevolence. Our hair and our eyebrows and eyelashes and thumbs came to\nus in quite a different fashion. Life, ever since life existed, has been\none vast scramble and conflict for the good things of this world: those\nbeings that were best fitted for scrambling and fighting destroyed those\nthat were unfit, and thus propagated the peculiarities of the conquerors\nand destroyed the peculiarities of the conquered. Thus the\ncharacteristics of body or brain best fitted for the purpose of life\nwere developed, and the unfit were destroyed. Although therefore a\npurpose was achieved, it was not achieved as a purpose, but as a\nconsequence. There is no room, say the supporters of Evolution, in such\na theory as this for the hypothesis of an Almighty Father of mankind, or\neven of a very intelligent Maker. What should we think of a British\nworkman who, in order to make one good brick, made a hundred bad ones,\nor of a cattle-breeder whose plan was to breed a thousand inferior\nbeasts on inadequate pasture, in order ultimately to produce, out of\ntheir struggles for food, and as a result of the elimination of the\nunfittest, one pre-eminent pair?\n\nWhen he expresses himself in this way, my sympathies go very far with\nthe man of science, if only he could remember that he is protesting, not\nagainst Christ\u2019s teaching about God, but against some other quite\ndifferent theory. Though God is called \u201cAlmighty\u201d in the New Testament,\nwe must remember that it is always assumed that there is an opposing\nEvil, an Adversary or Satan, who will ultimately be subdued but is\nmeantime working against the will of God. The origin of this Evil the\nfollowers of Christ do not profess to understand but we believe that it\nwas not originated by God and that it is not obedient to Him. We cannot\ntherefore, strictly speaking, say that God is the Almighty ruler of \u201cthe\nUniverse _as it is_.\u201d God is King _de jure_, but not at present _de\nfacto_ (metaphors again! but metaphors expressive of distinct\nrealities). His kingdom is \u201cto come:\u201d He will be hereafter recognized as\nAlmighty; He cannot be so recognized at present.\n\nI know very well that I can give no logical or consistent account of\nthis mysterious resistance to the Supreme God. But I am led to recognize\nit, first, by the facts of the visible world; secondly, by the plain\nteaching of Christ Himself. Surely the authority of Christ must count\nfor something with Christians in their theorizing about the origin of\nevil. Would not even an agnostic admit that as, in poetry, I should be\nright in following the lead of a poet, so in matters of spiritual belief\n(if I am to have any spiritual belief at all) I am right in deferring to\nChrist? It is a marvel to me how some Christians who find the\nrecognition of miracles inextricably involved in the life and even in\nthe teaching of Christ, nevertheless fail to see, or at all events are\nmost unwilling to confess, that the recognition of an evil one, or\nSatan, is an axiom that underlies all His doctrine. In the view of\nJesus, it is Satan that causes some forms of disease and insanity; Satan\nis the author of temptation, the destroyer of the good seed, the sower\nof tares, the \u201cevil one\u201d\u2014so at least the text of the Revisers tells\nus\u2014from whom we must daily pray to be delivered. The same belief\npervades the writings of St. Paul. Yet if you preach nowadays this plain\nteaching of our Lord, the heterodox shrug their shoulders and cry\n\u201cAntediluvian!\u201d while the orthodox think to dispose of the whole matter\nin a phrase, \u201cFlat Manich\u00e6ism!\u201d But to the heterodox I might reply that\nStuart Mill (no very antiquated or credulous philosopher) deliberately\nstated that it was more easy to believe in the existence of an Evil as\nwell as a Good, than in the existence of one good and all-powerful God;\nand the orthodox must, upon reflection, admit that in this doctrine\nabout Satan Christ\u2019s own teaching is faithfully followed.\n\nOf course if any one replies, \u201cChrist was under an illusion in believing\nin the existence of Satan,\u201d I have no means of logically confuting him.\nBut I think there must be many who would say, with me: \u201cIf I am to have\nany theory in matters of this kind which are entirely beyond the sphere\nof demonstration, I would sooner accept the testimony of Christ than the\nspeculations of all the philosophers that ever were or are. Christ was\npossibly, or even probably, ignorant (in His humanity) of a great mass\nof literary, historical, physiological, and other scientific facts\nunknown to the rest of the Jews. But we cannot suppose Him to be\nspiritually ignorant; least of all, so spiritually ignorant as to\nattribute to the Adversary what ought to have been attributed to God the\nFather in Heaven.\u201d\n\nIt would be easy for you to shew that any theory of Satan is absurdly\nillogical; nobody can be convinced of that more firmly than I am\nalready. Whether Satan was good at first and became evil without a\ncause; or was good at first and became evil from a certain cause (which\npresupposes another pre-existing Satan); or was evil from the beginning\nand created by God; or evil from the beginning and not created by God\u2014in\nall or any of these hypotheses I see, as clearly as you see, insuperable\ndifficulties. If you cross-examine me, I shall avow at once a logical\ncollapse, after this fashion: \u201cWere there then two First Causes?\u201d I\nbelieve not. \u201cDid the Evil spring up after the Good?\u201d I believe so. \u201cDid\nthe first Good create the Evil?\u201d[5] I believe not. \u201cDid the Evil then\nspring up without a cause?\u201d I cannot tell. \u201cDid the Good, when He\ncreated the Goodness that issued in Evil, know that he, or it, contained\nthe germ of evil, and would soon become wholly evil?\u201d I do not believe\nthis. \u201cWhence then came the Evil, or the germ of the Evil?\u201d I do not\nknow. \u201cAre you not then confessing that you believe, where you know\nnothing?\u201d Yes, for if I knew, there would be no need to believe.\n\nHere you have a sufficiently amusing exhibition of inconsistency and\nignorance; but this seems to me of infinitely little concern where I am\ndealing not with matters that fall within the range of experience, but\nwith spiritual and supernatural things that belong to the realm of\nfaith, hope, and aspiration. I could just as easily turn inside out my\ncross examiner if he undertook to give me a scientific theory on the\norigin of the world. No doubt he might prefer having no theory about the\norigin of the world, and might recommend me to imitate him by having no\ntheory about the origin of Evil, or about the nature of the Supreme\nGood. But my answer would be as follows: \u201cI have a certain work to do in\nthe world, and I cannot go on with my work without having some theories\non these subjects. Most men feel with me that they must have some answer\nto these stupendous problems of existence. As the senses are intended to\nbe our guide in matters of experience, so our faculty of faith seems to\nme intended to guide us in matters quite beyond experience.\u201d There is\nanother answer which I hardly like to give because it seems brutal; but\nI believe it to be true, and it is certainly capable of being expressed\nin the evolutionary dialect so as to commend itself to the scientific\nmind: \u201cAn agnostic nation will find itself sooner or later unsuited for\nits environment, and will either come to believe in some solution of\nthese spiritual problems or stagnate and perish. And something of the\nsame result will follow from agnosticism in the family and in the\nindividual.\u201d\n\nFrom this doctrine of Christ then I am not to be dislodged by any\nphilosophic analysis demonstrating that good and evil so run into one\nanother that it is impossible to tell where one ends and the other\nbegins. \u201cIs all pain evil? Is it an evil that a sword\u2019s point pains you?\nWould it not be a greater evil that a sword should run you through\nunawares because it did not pain you? Is not the pain of hunger a useful\nmonitor? Has not pain in a thousand cases its use as a preservative? Is\nnot what you call \u2018sin\u2019 very often misplaced energy? If a child is\nrestless and talkative and consequently disobedient, must you\nconsequently bring in Satan to account for the little one\u2019s\npeccadilloes? If a young man is over-sanguine, reckless, rash,\noccasionally intemperate, must all these faults be laid upon the back of\nan enemy of mankind? Is animal death from Satan, but vegetable death\nfrom God? And is the death of a sponge a half and half contribution from\nthe joint Powers? And when I swallow an oyster, may I give thanks to\nGod? but when a tiger devours a deer, or an eagle tears a hare, or a\nthrush swallows a worm, are they doing the work of the Adversary? Where\nare you to begin to trace this permeating Satanic agency? Go back to the\nprimordial atom. Are we to say that the Devil impelled it in the selfish\ntangential straight line, and that God attracts it with an unselfish\ncentripetal force, and that the result is the harmonious curve of\nactuality? If you give yourself up to such a degrading dualism as this,\nwill you not be more often fearing Satan than loving God? Will you not\nbe attributing to Satan one moment, what the next moment will compel you\nto attribute to God? Where will you draw the line?\u201d To all this my\nanswer is very simple: \u201cI shall draw the line where the spiritual\ninstinct within me draws it. Whatever I am forced to pronounce contrary\nto God\u2019s intention I shall call evil and attribute to Satan.\u201d Herein I\nmay go wrong in details, and I may have to correct my judgments as I\ngrow in knowledge; but I am confident that, on the whole, I shall be\nfollowing the teaching of Christ. My spiritual convictions accord with\nthe teaching of that ancient allegory in the book of Genesis, which\ntells us that Satan, not God, brought sin and death into the world.\nThere was a Fall somewhere, in heaven perhaps as well as on earth\u2014\u201cwar\nin heaven\u201d of the Evil against the Good\u2014a declension from the divine\nideal, a lapse by which the whole Universe became imperfect. It has been\nthe work of God, not to create death, but upon the basis of death to\nerect a hope and faith in a higher life; not to create sin, but out of\nsin, repentance, and forgiveness, to elicit a higher righteousness than\nwould have been possible (so we speak) if sin had never existed.\nSimilarly of disease, and pain, and the conflict in the animal world for\nlife and death: good has resulted from them; yet I cannot think of them,\nI cannot even think of change and decay, as being, so to speak, \u201cparts\nof God\u2019s _first intention_.\u201d Stoics, and Christians who imitate Stoics,\nmay call these things \u201cindifferent:\u201d I cannot. And even if I could, what\nof the ferocity, and cruelty, and exultation in destruction, which are\napparent in the animal world? \u201cDeath,\u201d say the Stoics, \u201cis the mere exit\nfrom life.\u201d Is it? I was once present at a theatre in Rouen where the\nhero took a full quarter of an hour to die of poison, and the young\nNormans who sat round me expressed their strenuous disapprobation:\n\u201cC\u2019est trop long,\u201d they murmured. I have made the same remonstrance in\nmy heart of hearts, ever since I was a boy and saw a cat play with a\nmouse, and a patient stoat hunt down and catch at last a tired-out\nrabbit: \u201cIt is too long,\u201d \u201cIt is too cruel.\u201d \u201cDid God ordain this?\u201d\u2014I\nasked: and I answered unhesitatingly \u201cNo.\u201d These are but small phenomena\nin Nature\u2019s chamber of horrors: but for me they have always been, and\nwill always remain, horrible. I believe that God intends us to regard\nthem with horror and perhaps to see in them some faint reflection of the\nwantonly destructive and torturing instinct in man.\n\nThose are fine-sounding lines, those of Cleanthes:\u2014\n\n             \u03bf\u1f30\u03b4\u03ad \u03c4\u03b9 \u03b3\u03af\u03b3\u03bd\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u1f14\u03c1\u03b3\u03bf\u03bd \u1f10\u03c0\u1f76 \u03c7\u03b8\u03bf\u03bd\u1f76 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b4\u03af\u03c7\u03b1, \u03b4\u03b1\u1fd6\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd,\n             \u03c0\u03bb\u1f74\u03bd \u1f45\u03c0\u03bf\u03c3\u03b1 \u1fe5\u03ad\u03b6\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u03ba\u03bf\u1f76 \u03c3\u03c6\u03b5\u03c4\u03ad\u03c1\u1fc3\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd \u1f00\u03bd\u03bf\u03af\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2.[6]\n\nI should like to agree with them; but I cannot. The picture of the cat\nand the mouse appears\u2014fertile in suggestions. \u201cThis at least,\u201d I say,\n\u201cwas not wrought by \u2018evil men in their folly;\u2019 and yet it did not come\ndirect from God.\u201d Isaiah pleases me better with his prediction,\nphysiologically absurd, but spiritually most true: \u201cThe lion shall eat\nstraw like a bullock.\u201d That is just the confession that I need: it comes\nto me with all the force of a divine acknowledgment, as if God thereby\nsaid: \u201cDeath and conflict must be for a time, but they shall not be for\never: it was not my intention, it is not my will, that my creatures\nshould thrive by destroying each other.\u201d\n\nApplying this theory to Evolution, I believe that Satan, not God, was\nthe author of the wasteful and continuous conflict that has\ncharacterized it; but that God has utilized this conflict for the\npurposes of development and progress. This is what I had in my mind when\nI said that Evolution diminished the difficulties in the way of\nacknowledging the existence of a God. The problems of death,\ndestruction, waste, conflict and sin, are not new; they are as old as\nJob, perhaps as old as the first-created man; but it is new to learn\nthat good has resulted from those evils. In so far as Evolution has\ntaught this, it has helped to strengthen, not to weaken, our faith. But\nthen, if we are to use this language, we must learn to think, not of\n\u201cEvolution by itself,\u201d but of \u201cEvolution with Satan.\u201d \u201cEvolution without\nSatan\u201d would appal us by the seeming wastefulness and ubiquity of\nconflict and the indirectness of its benefits; but \u201cEvolution with\nSatan\u201d enables us to realize God as our refuge and strength amid the\nutmost storms and tempests of destruction.\n\nIf any one says that the belief in Satan is inexpedient, I am ready to\ngive him a patient hearing; but I find it difficult to listen patiently\nto what people are pleased to call arguments against it. For example,\n\u201cDuty can exist only in a world of conflict;\u201d to which the reply is\nobvious, \u201cBut God might have made men for love and harmonious obedience,\nand not for duty and conflict.\u201d This, of course, is a very presumptuous\nstatement, such as Bishop Butler would have condemned; but it is a\nfitting reply to a still more presumptuous implied statement. God has\nrevealed Himself as Righteousness and Goodness without internal\nconflict; He has also revealed His purpose to conform us to Himself; and\nthe Bible speaks of Him as being opposed by an Adversary who caused men\nfor a time to differ from the divine image; is it not then a very\npresumptuous thing to imply that \u201cGod _could_ not have created men but\nfor conflict and duty,\u201d or, in other words, \u201cGod _could_ not have made\nus better than we are, even had there been no Adversary opposing His\nwill?\u201d Again, we hear it said that, \u201cAn evil Spirit contending against a\ngood Spirit must needs have produced two distinct worlds, and not the\none progressive world of which we have experience:\u201d to which the answer\nis equally obvious, \u201cThe orbit of every planet, or the path of any\nprojectile, shows that two different forces may result in one continuous\ncurve.\u201d\n\nThe only consistent and systematic way of rejecting a belief in the\nexistence of Satan is to reject the belief in the existence of sin. Then\nyou can argue thus, \u201cThe notion of a Satan arises from the false and\nsharp antagonism which our human imaginations set up between \u2018good\u2019 and\n\u2018evil,\u2019 whereas what we call \u2018evil\u2019 is really nothing but an excess of\ntendencies good in themselves and only evil when carried to excess. The\ndifference therefore between good and evil is only a question of\ndegree.\u201d That theory sounds plausible; but it ignores the essence of\nsin, which consists in a rebellion against Conscience. It is not excess,\nor defect, the more, or the less; it is the moral disorder, the\nsubversion of human nature, which is so frightful to contemplate that we\ncannot believe it to have proceeded from God. But perhaps you reply,\n\u201cThat very disorder is merely the result of energy out of place or in\nexcess.\u201d Well, in the same way, when gas is escaping in a room in which\nthere is a lighted candle, there is first a quiet and inoffensive escape\nof the gas, and secondly a violent and perhaps calamitous explosion; and\nyou might argue similarly, \u201cThe difference was only one of degree; the\nexplosion was merely the result of a useful element out of place and in\nexcess.\u201d But I should answer that no sober and sensible householder\nwould justify himself in this way for allowing a lighted candle and\nescaping gas to come together; and so I cannot believe that God is\nwilling that men should justify Him for tolerating theft, murder, and\nadultery, on the ground that these things are \u201conly questions of\ndegree.\u201d I think we please Him better, and draw closer to Him, when we\nsay, \u201cAn Enemy hath done this.\u201d And besides, for our own sakes, if we\nare to resist sin with our utmost force, it seems to me we are far more\nlikely to do so when we regard it as Christ and St. Paul regarded it\nthan when we give it the name of \u201cmisplaced energy,\u201d or \u201can excessive\nuse of faculties, in themselves, good and necessary.\u201d\n\nTo me it seems that if we are to have a genuine trust in God, it is\nalmost necessary that we should believe in the existence of a Satan. I\nsay \u201calmost,\u201d because there may be rare exceptions. A few pure saintly\nsouls, of inextinguishable trust, may perhaps be able to face the awful\nphenomena of Evil and to say, \u201cThough He hath done all this yet will we\ntrust in Him; what may have moved Him to cause His creatures to struggle\ntogether, and to thrive, each on the destruction of its neighbour, we\nknow not, and we are not careful to know; our hearts teach us that He is\nabove us in goodness, and in wisdom, as in power; we know that we must\ntrust Him; more than this we do not wish to know.\u201d Such men are to be\nadmired\u2014but to be admired by most of us at a great distance. For the\nmasses of men, and especially for those who know something of the depth\nof sin, it must be a great and almost a necessary help to say, \u201cThe Good\nthat is done upon Earth, God doeth it Himself; the evil that is upon\nearth God doeth it not: an Enemy hath done this.\u201d\n\nOne evil resulting from the rejection of Christ\u2019s doctrine is that we\nconsequently fail to understand much of His life and sufferings. If\nChrist was really manifested that He might destroy the works of the\nDevil, then much is clear that is otherwise incomprehensible. There was\nthen no delusion nor insincerity in the parables of the Sower and the\nTares. God did not first cast the good seed and then blow it away with\nHis own breath. God did not sow wheat with the right hand and tares with\nthe left. \u201cAn Enemy\u201d had done the mischief. There was no fiction when\nJesus spent those long hours by night on the mountain top in prayer. He\nneeded help, and needed it sorely. He was fighting a real battle. It was\nnot the mere anticipation of pains in the flesh, the piercing nails, the\nparching thirst, the long-protracted death, that made the bitterness of\nChrist\u2019s passion. Even when He had regained composure, and in perfect\ncalm was going forth to meet His death, we find Him declaring that Satan\nhad asked for one of his Apostles \u201cto sift him as wheat\u201d, and implying\nthat all His prayers were needed that the faith of the tempted disciple\nshould not \u201cfail.\u201d But in Gethsemane the battle for the souls of men was\nstill pending. There was an Enemy who was pulling down His heart,\nstriving hard to make Him despair of sinful mankind, perhaps to despair\nof we know not what more beyond; forcing Him in the extremity of that\nsore conflict to cry that He was \u201cexceeding sorrowful even unto death,\u201d\nand afterwards, on the Cross, to utter those terrible words, \u201cMy God, my\nGod, why hast thou forsaken me?\u201d All this is full of profound meaning,\nif there was indeed an Enemy. But if there was no Enemy, what becomes of\nthe conflict? What meaning is left to the Crucifixion, except as the\nrecord of mere physical sufferings, the like of which have been endured,\nbefore and after, by thousands of ordinary men and women?\n\nThis belief in the existence of Satan appears to me to be confirmed by\ndaily present experience as well as by the life of Christ. It \u201cworks.\u201d\nIt enables us, as no other belief does, to go to the poor, the sick, the\nsuffering, and the sinful, and to preach Christ\u2019s Gospel of the\nfatherhood of God. All simple, straightforward people who are acquainted\nwith the troubles of life must naturally crave this doctrine. If you\nascribe to Providence the work of Satan, they will consciously or\nunconsciously identify Providence with the author of evil, and look to\nOne above to rescue them from Providence. Instead of attempting to\nconsole people for all their evils by laying them on the Author of\nGoodness, we ought to lay them in part upon themselves, in part on the\nauthor of evil. \u201cGod, the Father in heaven, did not intend you to be\nthus miserable\u201d\u2014thus we can begin our message\u2014\u201cyour sufferings come from\nan Enemy against whom He is contending. Do not for a moment suppose that\nyou are to put up in this life with penury, disease, misery, and sin as\nif these things came from God. Very often they are the just punishments\nof your own faults, as when drunkenness brings disease; but as the sin,\nso also the punishment, was of Satan\u2019s making, though God may use both\nfor your good. You are to be patient under tribulation; you are to be\nmade perfect through suffering; you are to regard the trials and\ntroubles of life as being in some sense a useful chastisement proceeding\nfrom the fatherly hand of God. But never let your sense of the need of\nresignation lead you to attribute to the origination of God that which\nChrist teaches us to have been brought into the world by God\u2019s\nadversary. Satan made these evils to lead men wrong; God uses them to\nlead men right. Death, for example, came from Satan, who would fain make\nus believe that our souls perish with our bodies, that friends are\nparted for ever by the grave, and that there is no righteousness\nhereafter to compensate for what is wrong here: but God uses death to\nmake men sober, thoughtful, steadfast, courageous, and trustful. It\nremains with you to decide whether you will bear your evils so as to\nsuccumb to the temptations of Satan, or so as to prevail over them and\nutilize them to your own welfare and to the glory of God. On which side\nwill you fight? We ask you to enlist on the side of righteousness.\u201d\n\nI feel sure that this theory of life would commend itself to the poor,\nthat it would be morally advantageous to the rich, and that it would be\npolitically useful to the State. There has been too prevalent a\nhabit\u2014among those believers especially who ignore Satan and attribute\nall things to God\u2014of taking for granted that the social inequalities and\nmiseries of the lower classes which have come down to us from feudal and\nnon-Christian times, can never pass away. I remember once in my boyhood\nhow, when I represented to a farmer that the condition of his labourers\nwas not a happy one, he met me with a text of Scripture, \u201cThe poor shall\nnever depart out of the land;\u201d and that seemed to him to leave no more\nto be said. It is this provoking acquiescence of the comfortable classes\nin the miseries of the suffering classes, which irritates the latter\ninto a disbelief of the religion that dictates so great a readiness to\nsee in the miseries of others a divinely ordained institution.\n\nThe time will soon come (1885) when the very poor will demand a greater\nshare in the happiness of life; and the question will arise whether they\ncan be helped to obtain this by their own individual efforts or by the\nco-operation of those of their own class, or by the State, or by the\nChurch. Caution must be shewn in trying experiments with nations; but as\nsome experiments will assuredly have to be tried, it is most desirable\nin this crisis of our history that the Church at all events should\nfaithfully follow Christ by regarding physical evil, not as a law of\nfate, but as a device of Satan. If, by descending a step or two lower in\nthe scale of comfort, the comfortable classes could lift the very poor a\nstep or two higher, the Church ought not to help the rich to shut their\neyes to their obvious duty by giving them the excuses of such texts as\n\u201cThe poor shall never depart out of the land,\u201d or, \u201cMan is born to\ntrouble as the sparks fly upward.\u201d Poverty is often a good school: but\npenury is distinctly an evil; and the Church should regard it as an evil\nnot coming from God, and should make war against it, and teach the poor\nnot to acquiesce in it. The Gospel of Christ would be made more\nintelligible to the poorer classes than it has been made for many\ncenturies past, if it could be preached as a war against physical as\nwell as moral harm. Such a crusade would call out and enlist on the\nright side all the combative faculty in us; it would inspire in us a\npassionate allegiance towards Christ, as our Leader, desiring, asking,\nyes, and we may almost say, needing our help in a real conflict in which\nHis honour as well as our happiness and highest interests are at stake;\nit would attract the co-operation of all faculties in the individual, of\nall classes in the country. In other words the theory would work; and so\nfar as a religious theory works, so far have we evidence, present and\nintelligible to all, that it contains truth.\n\nI have recently heard views similar to mine controverted by an able\ntheologian, who contended that, although they professed to be illogical,\nthey went beyond the bounds even of the illogicality permissible in this\nsubject. But the controverter\u2019s solution of the problem was this: \u201c_Evil\nis a part of God\u2019s intention._ We have to fight, with God, against\nsomething _which we recognise to be His work_.\u201d Is not this a \u201chard\nsaying\u201d? Is it not harder than the saying of Christ, \u201cAn enemy hath done\nthis\u201d? I say nothing about its being illogical and absurd: but does it\nnot raise up a new stumbling-block in the path of those who are striving\nto follow Christ?\n\nIt may be urged that the belief in Satan has been tested by the\nexperience of centuries and has been found to be productive of\nsuperstition, insanity, and immorality; but these evils appear to me to\nhave sprung, not from the belief in Satan, but from a superstitious,\ndisorderly and materialistic form of Christianity, which has perverted\nChrist\u2019s doctrine about the Adversary into a recognition of a licensed\nTrafficker in Souls. The same materialistic and immoral tendency has\nperverted Christ\u2019s sacrifice into a bribe. But, just as we should not\nreject the spiritual doctrine of Christ\u2019s Atonement, so neither should\nwe reject the spiritual doctrine of an Evil in the world resisting the\nGood, although both doctrines alike have been grossly and harmfully\nmisinterpreted.\n\nOf course it is possible that in our notions of spiritual personality,\nand therefore in our personification of Satan, we may be under some\npartial illusion. The subject teems with difficulties; and I have not\nconcealed from you my opinion that some passages in the Old Testament\nappear to support a view at variance with the tenour of the New. The\nreal truth, while justifying our Lord\u2019s language, may not accord with\nall our inferences as to its meaning; and I should myself admit that it\nwould be most disastrous to attempt to personify the Adversary with the\nsame vividness with which we personify the Father in heaven. Still,\u2014in\nanswer to the taunt of the agnostic or sceptic, \u201cIs this, or that, the\nwork of the God whom you describe as Love?\u201d\u2014I think we avail ourselves\nof our truest and most effective answer, when we resolve to separate\ncertain aspects of Nature from the intention of God, and to say, with\nChrist, \u201cAn enemy hath done these things.\u201d\n\nFootnote 5:\n\n  Some passages in the Old Testament (notably Isaiah xlv. 7) state that\n  God \u201ccreated evil;\u201d and results attributed by one author to Satan (1\n  Chron. xxi. 1) are attributed by another to \u201cthe anger of the Lord\u201d (2\n  Sam. xxiv. 1). Much of course depends upon the meaning of the word\n  \u201cevil;\u201d and I am knowingly guilty of talking absurdly when I first\n  define evil as \u201cthat which is not in accordance with God\u2019s intention,\u201d\n  and then proceed to say that \u201cGod did not create evil.\u201d But all people\n  who discourse philosophically on this subject talk far more absurdly\n  than I do: for I am consciously, but they are unconsciously,\n  illogical. The belief that God \u201ccreated evil,\u201d whether held or not by\n  the authors of any of the books of the Old Testament, is against the\n  whole tenour of the teaching of Christ.\n\nFootnote 6:\n\n                \u201cNaught is on earth, O God, without thy hand,\n                Save deeds of folly wrought by evil men.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n                                   X\n                               ILLUSIONS\n\n\nMY DEAR \u2014\u2014,\n\nI see you are still violently prejudiced against illusions, that is to\nsay against recognising the very important part which they have played\nin the spiritual development of mankind. You clearly believe that,\nthough the world may be full of illusions, Revelation ought to be free\nfrom them. \u201cThe Word of God,\u201d you say, \u201cought to dispel illusions, not\nto add to them.\u201d I maintain on the contrary, that the Word of God, if it\ncomes to earth, must needs come in earthen vessels; and that the most\ndivine truth must needs be contained in illusion. Let illusions then be\nthe subject of my present letter. At the same time I shall attempt to\nanswer your prejudice against the natural worship of Christ as being a\n\u201cnew religion\u201d. Not of course that I admit that it is a \u201cnew religion\u201d;\non the contrary I regard it as the old religion, the predestined\nGod-determined religion to which we are to return after extricating\nourselves from the corruptions of Protestantism, as our forefathers\nextricated themselves from the corruptions of Romanism. I shall not deal\nhere with the special illusions of Christianity, but with your evident\n_a priori_ prejudice against any admixture of illusion with Revelation.\n\nBut first, what do I mean by \u201cillusion,\u201d and how does my meaning differ\nfrom \u201cerror\u201d or \u201cmistake\u201d generally, and from \u201cfallacy,\u201d \u201cdelusion,\u201d and\n\u201challucination\u201d in particular? I say \u201cmy meaning,\u201d because the word is\noften used loosely (I do not say wrongly) for any of these synonyms: but\nI restrict it to a special sense.\n\n\u201cIllusion,\u201d then, is wholesome error tending to the ultimate attainment\nof truth; \u201cdelusion\u201d is harmful error arising from a perverted\nImagination; \u201challucination\u201d is a wandering of the Imagination, without\nany guidance or support of fact, involving \u201cdelusion\u201d of the most\nobstinate character; \u201cfallacy\u201d is an error of inference or reasoning;\n\u201cmistake\u201d is the result of mal-observation or weak memory; and \u201cerror\u201d a\ngeneral name for any deviation from the truth.\n\nIllusion, in many cases, is an exaggerative and ornative tendency of the\nmind. It leads the very young to think their parents perfection, and the\nyoung to think them far better and wiser than they really are; it\nconstrains the lover to exaggerate the beauty, accomplishments, and\nqualities of the woman whom he loves; it tends to the distortion of\nhistory by inclining all of us to accommodate facts to the wishes and\npreconceptions of our idealizing nature, which is always longing for \u201ca\nmore ample greatness, a more exact goodness, and a more absolute variety\nthan can be found in the nature of things\u201d;[7] and it lures us onward,\nyoung and old alike, over the rough places of life, even to the very\nbrink of the grave, by the ever-fleeting, ever-reappearing suggestions\nof a bright to-morrow that shall make amends for the dull and\ncommonplace to-day.\n\nThese illusive hopes, beliefs, and aspirations are never fulfilled in\nthis life; but even the cynic and the pessimist must acknowledge, with\nFrancis Bacon, that they constitute the very basis of all poetry that\n\u201ctends to magnanimity and morality.\u201d Those who believe in God will\nfurther recognize in illusion a divinely utilized integument for the\npreservation and development of aspirations that shall ultimately find a\nperfect fulfilment in a harmonious co-operation with the divine Love and\nin the unending contemplation of the divine Glory. Nor are illusions\nwithout a present practical purpose. Men are more hopeful, more active,\nmore loving on account of them. On the other hand, even optimists must\nacknowledge that no man should shut his eyes to the truth in order to\nremain in what he knows to be no more than a comfortable error. The\nvenial illusions of childhood, youth, and ignorance, become unpardonable\nor hypocritical in experienced age. Do you ask how we are to distinguish\n\u201cillusions\u201d from \u201cdelusions\u201d? The answer is easy\u2014on paper; but, in\npractice, often difficult to apply. However, the test is the same as\nthat by which we distinguish knowledge from ignorance. Illusions \u201cwork\u201d;\nthat is to say, men are on the whole the better for them, and they\nprepare the way for truth. Delusions fail; men are in no way the better\nfor them, and they often prepare the way for insanity and for physical\nor spiritual death.\n\nWe have spoken of moral illusions; let us touch on another kind of\nillusions to which some (I do not say rightly) have given the name of\n\u201cillusions of sense.\u201d\n\nI doubt whether the name is correctly given; for to me it seems that the\nillusion proceeds not from the senses (which, as far as I can judge,\nnever deceive us) but from the imaginations and inferences which we base\nupon the report of the senses. Take an extreme case, fit rather to be\ncalled \u201cdelusion\u201d than \u201cillusion.\u201d If I see the phantom of a cat before\nthe fire, which cat nobody else in the room can see, do my senses\ndeceive me? No; but I am deceived by the imaginative inference which\nleads me to assume from past experience that the object which I see is\nvisible to, and can be touched by, everybody else. My visual sense\n(which has to do with images only) reports\u2014and can do no otherwise\u2014that\nit discerns the image of a cat. That report is true. But then my\nimagination forces on me the belief that this is an ordinary tangible\nand visible cat. That belief is false. Or take again the not infrequent\ncase of colour-blindness. I am a signalman, and cannot tell a green\nlight from a red: do my senses deceive me when I call a red light green?\nNo; my sense reports inadequately for my necessities, and coarsely is\ncompared with those who possess a finer sense of colour, but not\ndeceitfully. My error arises from having loosely and servilely used the\ndistinctive words \u201cred\u201d and \u201cgreen\u201d from childhood to manhood, although\nmy senses continually protested that they could not distinguish two\ncolours corresponding to the two words: but I imagined that there must\nbe some such distinction for the two, and that I must be capable of\nrecognizing it, because everybody around me recognized it. If we are to\nsay that the signalman\u2019s senses deceive him we must be prepared to admit\nthat every man\u2019s senses deceive him more or less. Do you suppose, when\nyou see anything, that you see that which the thing _is_? \u201cThis is a\nyellowish-green,\u201d say you. \u201cOf course,\u201d a Superior Being might reply;\n\u201cbut which of the one hundred and fifty shades of yellowish-green is it?\nYou might as well tell me, when I shew you a sheep, \u2018This is a _being_,\u2019\nas tell me simply this is \u2018yellowish-green.\u2019\u201d We do not see things as\nSuperior Beings see them; but we are not on that account to say that our\nsight deceives us. Our visual sense reports the truth more or less\nadequately: but our Imagination, prompted by insufficient experience and\ninference, leads us sometimes to illusive conclusions.\n\nStill, although \u201cillusions of sense\u201d ought perhaps to be rather called\n\u201cillusions _from_ sense;\u201d\u2014_i.e._ illusions arising \u201cfrom\u201d the report of\nthe senses, but not illusions in which the senses are themselves\ndeceived\u2014no one will deny that such illusions exist. Sometimes they are\nexceptional, but sometimes so common as to be almost universal. Let us\nenumerate a few and ask whence they spring, and what purpose they serve?\n\nThey spring from a very strong conviction\u2014erected upon the basis of\nExperience by Faith, but absolutely necessary for healthy life and\nspontaneous action\u2014that the ordinary inferences which we almost\ninstinctively derive from the report of the senses, are true, that is to\nsay, will correspond to experience; and that we can act upon them\nwithout formally reasoning upon them.\n\nTake the following instance. Shut your eyes, and get a friend to prick\nthe back of your hand with the two points of a pair of compasses\nsimultaneously, so that the two points may be about the eighth of an\ninch apart when they touch you; you will feel\u2014and if you could not\ncorrect the inference by the sense of sight, you would infer\u2014that only\none point is pricking you. The reason is that the skin of the back of\nthe hand only reports one sensation; and the mind leaps to the\nconclusion\u2014owing to the multitude of past instances where one sensation\nhas resulted from one object\u2014that, in this instance also, one object\nalone is producing the sensation. A more curious instance is the\nfollowing: Place the middle finger over the first finger, and between\nthe two fingers thus interlaced place a single marble or your nose: you\nwill appear to be touching two marbles or two noses. The reason is this:\nwhen the two fingers are in their usual position (not thus interlaced)\nand touching marbles or similar objects, two simultaneous sensations on\nthe right side of the right finger and on the left side of the left\nfinger would always imply _two_ marbles; now you have constrained the\ntwo fingers to assume an unusual position where these two simultaneous\nsensations can be produced by _one_ marble; but you, following custom,\nwould infer the presence of two marbles, if sight, or other evidence,\ndid not shew there was only one.\n\nBut illusions from the sense of touch are far less common than illusions\nfrom the sense of sight. We all know how a cloud or sheet or coal may be\nconverted by the Imagination into an image of something entirely\ndifferent and visible only to the imaginer, although he supposes that\nothers \u201cmust see it\u201d too. But these are, so to speak, private illusions:\nthe great public and, at one time, universal illusion, was the\nconviction that the sun and the stars move and that the earth does not\nmove. There is scarcely any illusion more natural than this. Our senses\ngive no indication whatever of the earth\u2019s motion; but they do indicate\nthat the sun and the stars are moving. So complicated a process of\nreasoning, and so much experience, are needed before a man can realize\n(as distinct from repeating on authority) the causes for believing in\nthe earth\u2019s motion that it is by no means surprising that, even now,\nonly a minority of the human race believe that they are dashing through\nspace at the rate of some thousands of miles an hour; and, except during\nthe last three hundred years, the illusion that the earth is at rest was\nuniversal. Another common illusion from sight is that which leads us to\nsuppose that, when we see anything in the air, a straight line from our\neye towards the image which we see would touch the object itself:\nwhereas, in reality, the image is raised by refraction so that in misty\nweather we see an object considerably higher than it is, and I suppose\n(to speak with strict exactness) we never \u201csee\u201d an object precisely\nwhere it is.\n\nI have mentioned a few of the \u201cillusions from the senses\u201d; and now you\nwill probably ask me what purpose they serve, how they can be called\n\u201cwholesome,\u201d and how they \u201ctend to the ultimate attainment of truth.\u201d\n\nThey appear to me to be \u201cwholesome\u201d because they represent and spring\nfrom a wholesome belief that \u201cNature will not deceive us; Nature does\nnot change her mind; Nature keeps her promises.\u201d Sent into the world\nwith but little of the instinctive equipment of non-human animals, we\nare forced to supply the place of instincts by inferences from\nsensation. Now if we were always obliged consciously to argue and\ndeliberately to infer, whenever the sensations hand over a report to the\nImagination, we should be at a great disadvantage as compared with our\ninstinct-possessing compeers, whom we call irrational. \u201cThis inkstand\nwhich I see before me was hard yesterday, and the day before\u2014but will it\nbe hard if I touch it to-day or to-morrow?\u201d\u2014if a child were to argue\nafter this fashion every time he reached out his hand to touch anything,\nthe life of Methuselah would be too short for the ratiocinations\nnecessary as a basis for the action of a week. For healthy progress of\nthe human being, trustful activity is needed, and for trustful activity\nwe must trust Nature, or, in other words, we must trust these\nquasi-instinctive inferences about Nature which we derive from our\nsensations. This trust or faith in the order of material things within\nour immediate observation, I have already described as being the germ of\na trust or faith in a higher order altogether, that universal order, at\npresent imperfectly realized, which we call the Divine Will.\n\nNow when we say to Nature, \u201cWe trust you; you will not deceive us,\u201d\nNature replies for the most part, \u201cYou do right; I will not deceive you;\nyou will be justified in your faith.\u201d But occasionally she replies in a\ndifferent tone.\n\n\u201cYes, I have deceived you; you did not use the means you had of\nobtaining the truth; therefore you deceived yourselves, or, if you\nplease to say so, I deceived you, in order that, after deceiving\nyourselves by a prolonged experience, you might learn, while trusting my\norder and permanence in general, not to trust every conception of your\nown about that order and permanence in particular.\n\n\u201cYet in reality, what you call my \u2018deceptions\u2019 were, in part, the\nresults of your own defects (some blameworthy, some perhaps inherent and\nnot blameworthy), in part the results of my method of teaching mankind,\nby line upon line and inference upon inference. How does a child gain\nknowledge? By generalizing from too few instances: by inferring too\nsoon; then by enlarging the circle of instances from which he\ngeneralizes; by correcting his inferences with the aid of experience:\nthus the progress of every child towards truth is through a continuous\nseries of illusions. But when I break each one of your false and\nrudimentary conceptions of my Order, I always reveal to you, concealed\nin the husk of it, the kernel of a better conception. Thus while I teach\nyou daily to distrust your own hastily adopted and unverified\nassumptions or inferences about my Order, I give you no cause to\ndistrust my Order itself; and by the self same act I strengthen both\nyour faculty of scientific reason and also your faith in me. You may\nfind fault with me that I did not bestow on each one of you, even in the\ncradle, the perfection of all knowledge and wisdom. Deeper laws, deeper\nthan I can now speak of, forbade that rapid consummation: but, since\nthat could not be, since it needs must be that imperfection should be in\nthe intellectual, as well as in the moral, world, rejoice at least that\nillusion is made subject to truth.\u201d\n\nWell, after this long but needful account of \u201cillusions,\u201d in the sense\nin which I use the term, let me now recur to your objection that \u201cthe\nWord of God ought to dispel illusions, not to add to them.\u201d I suppose\nthose who believe in a God at all, will in these days regard Him as the\nMaker of the world, as a whole, in spite of the evil that is in it. Some\nof the Gnostics, as you know, believed that the good God who had _not_\nmade the visible world was opposed to the bad God who had made it; but\nwith them we need not at this time concern ourselves, as there are\nprobably none who now entertain that belief. Those then who believe in a\nGod, Maker of heaven and earth, will not deny that God partially reveals\nHimself to men by the things He has made. Now by which of all His\ncreatures does God reveal Himself most clearly? You will say\nperhaps\u2014indeed I have heard you say it\u2014\u201cBy the stars and their\nmovements.\u201d I do not believe it. I say, \u201cBy the life of the human family\nfirst and by the stars of heaven, second. But I will assume that your\nanswer is correct, and that God reveals Himself mainly by the movements\nof the stars of heaven; and I will try to shew you that in this\nrevelation God leads men to truth through illusion. Then I think it must\nseem reasonable to you that, if God does not dispense with illusion in\nthat intellectual revelation of Himself which most closely approaches to\na direct spiritual revelation, illusion may also have been intended or\npermitted by Him to play an ordained part in spiritual revelation\nitself.\u201d\n\nWhere, then, I ask, in all the teaching of Nature\u2019s school, has there\nbeen more of illusion than in her lessons of astronomy? When I was a\nboy, I remember, in the midst of a hateful sum of long division that\nwould not come out right, devoting my attention to the sun moving\nthrough the branches of certain trees, and announcing to my tutor that\n\u201cThe sun moves.\u201d \u201cNo, you are mistaken.\u201d \u201cBut I cannot be mistaken, for\nI saw it.\u201d I rivalled\u2014I exceeded\u2014the obstinacy of Galileo; I was ready\nto be punished rather than consent to say what seemed to me a manifest\nfalsehood, that the sun did not move. Surely this boyish experience\nrepresents the experience of mankind, except that the tutor who has\ncorrected their astronomical illusions, has been their own long, very\nlong experience. Does it not seem sometimes as if God Himself had said,\nwhen He made the heavens to declare His glory, \u201cBeing what they are, my\nchildren must be led to knowledge through error, to truth through\nillusion\u201d? It may be said that in some cases men have fallen into\nastronomical mistakes through their own fault; through haste, for\nexample, through the love of neat and complete theories, through\ncarelessness, through excessive regard for authority; and so indeed they\nhave. But is it always so? When you and I last walked out together on\nHampstead Heath, you took out your watch, as the sun went down over\nHarrow, and said, \u201cNow he\u2019s gone, and it\u2019s just eight.\u201d I remember\nreplying to you, \u201cSo it seems; but of course you know he \u2018went\u2019 more\nthan eight minutes ago.\u201d You stared, and I said no more; for something\nelse diverted your attention at the time, and I felt I had been guilty\nof a little bit of pedantry. But I said quietly to myself as we went\ndown the hill, \u201cI don\u2019t suppose he knows it, but the sun certainly\n\u2018went\u2019 eight minutes ago; and what my young friend saw was an image of\nthe sun raised by the refraction of the mist, like the image of a penny\nseen in a basin of water.\u201d Well now, was this your fault, this error of\nyours? No, it was, in the second place, the fault of the University of\nOxford, which has bribed the schools to desist from teaching mathematics\nto any boy with a taste for classics and literature, so that you had to\ngive up your mathematical studies before you came to optics; and it was,\nin the first place, the fault of\u2014what shall I say? Shall I say the fault\nof Nature? That means the fault of God. Say, if you like, that it was\nthe fault of Matter, or of an Evil principle. Say, it was no one\u2019s\nfault. Say that more good than harm results from it, in the way of\nstimulating thought and research. Deny it was a fault at all. Yet do not\ndeny that it represents a Law, the Law of the attainment of truth\nthrough illusion\u2014a Law which it is folly to ignore.\n\nSo far I have been going on the assumption that your answer was correct\nas to the means by which God mainly reveals Himself. But now let us\nassume that my answer, and not yours, is correct, and that God reveals\nHimself mainly by the relations of the family. In that case we must\nagree that each rising generation is led up to the conception of the\ndivine fatherhood mainly by the preliminary teaching of human\nfatherhood. Now surely in the domestic atmosphere refraction is as\npowerful and as illusive as in the material strata of the air. Nay, the\nbetter and purer the family, the stronger is the illusion. Unloving\nchildren may be logical and critical; but what loving child does not\nidealise a good mother as perfectly good, and a strong wise father as\nthe perfection of wisdom and strength? To the good child the parents\nstand in the place of God; and it is his illusive belief in these\nearthly creatures, which, when it has been corrected and purified, is\nfound to have contained and preserved the higher belief in the eternal\nFather. You see then that in the family no less than in science, in the\nspiritual as in the intellectual side of Nature\u2019s school, the pupils\npass upwards through illusion to the truth.\n\nI have promised to say nothing of the special illusions of Christianity\nwhich I must reserve for a later letter.\n\nBut let me say thus much from the _a priori_ ground on which we are now\nstanding, that _if_ illusions in Nature are most powerful in her noblest\nand most spiritual teaching, then, so far from there being a prejudice\n_against_ finding illusion in religion, _we ought on the contrary to be\nprepared to find illusion most potent_ in the early stages of the purest\nreligion of all. Was ever people so illusively trained as the faithless\nchildren of faithful Abraham, the rejected Chosen People? Is not the\nPromised Land to this day a proverbial type of illusion? Do we not\nrecognize illusion in every age of Christian revelation? And if the very\nApostles of the Lord Jesus\u2014so much I will here assume\u2014had their\nillusions both during, and after, the life of their Master; if the early\nChristians had their illusions also concerning the speedy coming of\nChrist; if in the Medi\u00e6val Church and in the later Roman Catholicism\nthere have predominated vast illusions about transubstantiation, the\npowers of the priesthood, and the infallibility of the Pope; if the\nProtestant Churches themselves have not been exempt from illusions about\nthe literal inspiration and absolute infallibility of the Bible; is it\nnot the mark of astounding presumption to suppose that for the Anglican\nbranch of the Reformed Church there should have been reserved a unique\nimmunity from an otherwise universal law?\n\nBut possibly you think that the Gospels have been so long in our hands,\nand the Christian religion so long in practice and under discussion,\nthat nothing new can now be said or thought about them? Just so Francis\nBacon, in 1603, expressed his conviction (the innocent philosopher!)\nthat there had at last come about a complete \u201cconsumption of all things\nthat could be said on controversies of theology.\u201d Reflect a moment. How\nlong have the stars been with us \u201cunder discussion\u201d? And how recent have\nbeen our discoveries of the real truth about them! How recently have\nthese discoveries been even possible? In the same way the exact\ncriticism of the New Testament has only become recently practicable. The\nsubject matter and thought could of course be appreciated centuries ago,\nand often perhaps by the simple-minded and unlearned as well as by the\nsubtle and profound theologian; though, even as to the thought of the\nNew Testament, I often think that we are greatly to blame if our\nincreased knowledge of history and psychology does not illuminate much\nthat was dark in its pages for those who had not our advantages. But we\nare speaking of that kind of intellectual criticism which dispels\nillusions; and for the purposes of the critical analysis of the First\nThree Gospels, Bruder\u2019s Concordance was as necessary as Galileo\u2019s\ntelescope was for the discovery of Jupiter\u2019s moons, or the thermometer\nfor the investigation of the laws of heat. Other influences have been at\nwork, as well as mere mechanical aids, to throw light on the central\nevent of the world\u2019s history. And surely if Abraham could wait nineteen\nhundred years for the coming of Christ, the spiritual descendants of\nAbraham\u2014for such we claim to be\u2014may well wait another nineteen hundred\nyears to realize His nature and enter into the full meaning of His\nworship.\n\nYou see I am not now trying to prove the existence of any illusion in\nour present form of Christianity; I am simply _arguing against your\nprejudice_ that, if the present form of Christianity be not true, then\nany new form must necessarily be false. You say, or perhaps till lately\nyou were inclined to say, \u201cIf I could only breathe the atmosphere of\nAugustine! If only I could have been a companion of the Ante-Nicene or\n(better still) of the Apostolic Fathers! Or (best of all) of the\nApostles! Or of Christ Himself! Then I should have been free from\nillusions.\u201d I reply, \u201cNo, you would not; and your aspiration is a mark\nof ingratitude to God. You deliberately reject the commentary He has\ngiven you in the History of the Church during these eighteen centuries.\nYou think the story of Christ is completely told and completely\nexplained. It is not so. All the created world is intended to bear\nwitness and illustration to His life and work. Shakespeare and Newton\nand Darwin, as well as Origen, Augustine, and Chrysostom, have added to\nthe divine commentary. All the good and all the evil of eighteen hundred\nyears have borne witness to the divine nature of His mission; to the\nimpotence and ruin which await the nations that cast Him off; to the\nblessing that attends those who follow His Spirit; to the mischief that\ndogs those who substitute for His Spirit a lifeless code of rules or a\nfabric of superstitions.\u201d\n\nAnd now one last word as to the special illusion from which (in my\nbelief) we must in the short remnant of this century strive to deliver\nourselves. I think we have worshipped Christ too much as God, and too\nlittle as Man. We have erroneously supposed that He exempted Himself\nduring His manhood from the laws of humanity. Like the Roman soldiers,\nwe have stripped from Him the carpenter\u2019s clothes, and put upon Him the\npurple rags of wonder-working imperialism, and placed in His hand the\nsceptre of worldly ostentation, and in that guise we have bowed the knee\nto the purple and the sceptre, and, doing homage to these things, we\nhave cried, \u201cBehold our God.\u201d But now the time has come when we must\ntake from off Him these tawdry trappings, and give Him back His\nworkman\u2019s garments. Then we may find ourselves constrained to bow the\nknee again in a purer homage offered no longer to the clothes but to the\nMan.\n\nCall this homage by what name we will, it is already of the nature of\nworship. And as we grow older and more able to distinguish the realities\nfrom the mirage of life, more capable of trust, love, and reverence, and\nbetter able to discriminate what must be, and what must not be, loved,\ntrusted, and revered\u2014looking from earth to heaven, and from heaven to\nearth, we shall ask in vain where we can find anything, above or below,\nnobler, and better, and more powerful for good, than this Man to whom\nour hearts go forth in spontaneous love and trust and reverence. Then we\nshall turn once more to the Cross finding that we have been betrayed\ninto worship while we knew it not, and while we cry, \u201cBehold the Man,\u201d\nwe shall feel \u201cBehold our God.\u201d\n\nFootnote 7:\n\n  _Advancement of Learning_, ii, 4, 5.\n\n\n\n\n                                   XI\n                            WHAT IS WORSHIP?\n\n\nMY DEAR \u2014\u2014,\n\nAdmitting the doctrine of illusion, and dismissing all prejudice against\nwhat is new, you declare that still my position remains absolutely\nunintelligible to you. I will set down your objection in your own words:\n\u201cApparently you maintain that Christ is a mere man who came into the\nworld, lived, worked, and died according to the laws of human nature;\neven His resurrection you apparently intend to explain away till it\nbecomes a mere vision, and therefore not a sign of any other than a\nhuman existence. Now worship is a tribute conceded to God alone. To a\nmere man, who lived eighteen centuries ago, how can you force yourself,\nby any effort of the will, to pay worship simply because you have reason\nto believe that this individual was pre-eminently good\u201d?\n\nIn reply, I ask you, \u201cWhat else is more worthy of worship?\u201d There is no\nquestion of \u201cforcing myself\u201d at all. I worship Christ naturally. That is\nto say I love, trust, and reverence Him more than I love, trust, and\nreverence any other person or thing or universe of things. This I do\nbecause I cannot help it; and if I have brought myself to do this\nnaturally by fixing my thoughts on the power of Goodness, and on Christ\nas the incarnate representation of Goodness, this causes me no shame and\ninvolves me in no conflict with my Reason.\n\nBut you\u2014have you not omitted some important features in the description\nof this \u201cmere man\u201d? Jesus was not only pre-eminently good, He was also\npre-eminently powerful and wise for spiritual purposes. His influence\nregenerated the civilized world; it is manifest around us. He Himself\nspoke of Himself in language which shews that He believed Himself to be\nendowed with a divine authority over men, and to stand in a unique\nrelation to God. In a fanatic or a fool that would mean nothing: in one\nso wise, so soberly wise, so utterly unselfish, so marvellously\nsuccessful, it must needs count for much. Although I reject the\nmiraculous, I do not reject\u2014nor understand how any one can reject\u2014the\nsupernatural. I regard Jesus as being a \u201cmere man\u201d indeed, if by \u201cmere\nman\u201d you mean a \u201creal man\u201d; non-miraculous, subjected to all the\nmaterial limitations of humanity; but still a man such as is described\nin the first chapter of the Fourth Gospel; the Word of God incarnate;\nthe Man in whom was concentrated God\u2019s expression of Himself; the Divine\nPerfection made humanly perceptible. This I believed once upon the\nauthority of the Fourth Gospel; but I believe it now on the testimony of\nhistory and my own conscience.\n\nPut yourself in my place. Suppose, as I suppose, that Christ was what He\nwas, and did what He did, naturally and without miracles. Does not that\nmake His personality in a certain sense more wonderful and certainly\nmore lovable? It is comparatively easy, with miracles at command, to\npersuade men to anything; but, without miracles, to introduce a new\nreligion, to bring in a new power of forgiving sins, to offer up one\u2019s\nlife, not for friends, nor for country, but for mankind, to manifest\noneself so to one\u2019s disciples during life that after your death they\nshall see you and shall be convinced that you have triumphed over death;\nto disarm an armed world by non-resistance, and to breathe a spirit of\nenthusiasm for righteousness and a passionate love of mankind into\nmyriads of a remote posterity\u2014these surely are feats which, if natural,\nshould make us exclaim, \u201cVerily we have here a divine nature.\u201d\n\nI trust I am not being goaded into any exaggeration of what I really\nfeel, by the hope of inducing you to share my feelings. Perhaps it is\nnot possible to worship any man, not even such a one as Jesus, as long\nas he remains in the flesh. Not till death takes a friend from us do we\nseem to know the real spirit that lay behind the flesh and blood; not\ntill Jesus was taken from us could that Spirit come which was to reveal\nthe real Being that underlay the humanity of the Nazarene. I will admit\nthat I should not have worshipped Jesus of Nazareth on earth\u2014in Peter\u2019s\nhouse for example at Capernaum; for though love might have been present,\nthe trust and awe that were to be developed by His resurrection would\nhave been wanting. Jesus does not claim our worship nor even our\nrecognition, as an isolated being, but as inseparably linked to One\nwithout whom He Himself said He could \u201cdo nothing\u201d. It was not till He\nwas removed from the visible world and enthroned in the hearts of men by\nthe side of the Father, that men could perceive His real nature; and He\nis to be worshipped not by Himself, but as the Son of God, and one with\nGod. Christ did not merely _tell_ us about the Father; He revealed the\nFather _in Himself_; and, if we worship the Father as Christ revealed\nHim, we are, consciously or unconsciously, worshipping the Son.\n\nAlmost all language about all spiritual existences is necessarily\nmetaphorical. What is \u201crighteousness\u201d except a _straightness_, and what\nis \u201cexcellence\u201d except _pre-eminence_? The proposition \u201cChrist is the\nSon of God\u201d is a metaphor; it is a metaphor to say that \u201cGod is our\nFather in heaven,\u201d and that \u201cGod is Love.\u201d Perhaps even to say that \u201cGod\n_is_\u201d is a metaphor, expressing a truth, but expressing it inadequately.\nBut it would be the ignorance of a mere child to suppose that a metaphor\nmeans nothing. There is no deeper truth in heaven or earth than the\nmetaphor that God is the Father of man, and that the Lord Jesus Christ\nis His Eternal Son. When I try to think of God and to pray to God as my\nFather, I can think of Him as being without the seas, without the stars,\nwithout the whole visible world; but I can never think of Him aright,\nnor ever conceive of Him as being Love, without conceiving also of One\nwhom He loves, who is with Him from the beginning; whom when I try to\nrealize, I can realize only in one shape; and hence it comes to pass\nthat I find myself without any \u201ceffort of the will,\u201d spontaneously\nworshipping God through, and in, and with, that one shape, I mean the\nLord Jesus Christ. Worshipping the Father I find that I have been\nunconsciously worshipping, and must consciously continue to worship, the\nEternal Son.\n\nBut there is another difference between us, besides your failure to\nrecognise the spiritual power and spiritual wisdom of Christ. You do not\nknow what you mean by worship; you do not know what you ought to\nworship; and you do not know how little you know of God.\n\nYou tell me that \u201cworship is a tribute conceded to God alone.\u201d But what\nis God? The absolute God no one knows. Our most perfect conception of\nHim is only a conception of a Mediator of some kind by which we approach\nHim. To each man, that which he worships, and that alone, is God. I\nworship Christ, therefore to me Christ is God. What will you say to\nthat? I suppose you will say \u201cA non-miraculous Christ _ought not to be_\nGod to you\u201d? Why not? How does He differ from your conception of God? Is\nHe less loving, less merciful, less just? \u201cNo,\u201d you reply, \u201cbut He is\nless powerful.\u201d \u201cHow is He less powerful? Has He less power of pitying,\nloving, forgiving, raising men from sin to righteousness? Is He less\npowerful in the spiritual world?\u201d \u201cPerhaps not; but He is less powerful\nin the material world. He never, according to your account, rose above,\nnever even for a moment suspended the laws of nature.\u201d Indeed? And God,\nthe Maker of the world\u2014did He ever rise above, or suspend the laws of\nnature? When? \u201cWell, He is said to have done so frequently in the\nrecords of the Bible\u201d. But many men deny that, and you yourself are\ndisposed to agree with them. \u201cAt all events He did so when He made the\nworld.\u201d\n\nHere at last we can come to an understanding. You look up to God as to\nthe Maker of the world, and are more ready to worship Him, as such, than\nto worship a non-miraculous Christ. If by \u201cthe Maker of the world\u201d you\nmean\u2014as I am quite sure many mean\u2014\u201cthe Maker of the mere material forces\nof Nature,\u201d or even \u201cthe Maker of _all things apart from Christ_,\u201d then\nwords fail me to express how entirely I differ from you. But let me try\nto put your view into my own language, in order to shew you that I do\nnot condemn it without understanding it. \u201cWe cannot,\u201d you say, \u201cworship\na mere non-miraculous man, who did nothing but talk and lead a good\nlife, and perhaps perform a few acts of faith-healing, however\nbeneficial may have been his influence on posterity. The fact that,\nafter his death, visions of him were seen by excited and enthusiastic\nfollowers, and in one case by an enemy of highly emotional tendencies,\ncannot alter this decision. It is impossible to worship a being so\nhelpless, so limited, so aweless as this. What is such a creature in\ncomparison with the mysterious Maker of the stars or Ruler of the ocean?\nSurely the sight of a storm at sea ought to suffice to turn any one from\nthe imaginary and self-deceiving worship of the merely human Jesus of\nNazareth to the worship of One whose greatness and glory and terror\nsurround us on every side with material witnesses, One in comparison\nwith whom no mere man may be mentioned.\u201d\n\nNatural as such an argument may seem to you and to many others who call\nthemselves Christians, it is in reality based upon a diabolical\nprejudice in favour of power. I can understand our forefathers,\nworshippers of Thor and Odin, arguing thus; and so great is our own\ninherited and inbred admiration of mere force, that even to us\nChristians the temptation is still very strong to bow down before the\nwhirlwind and the fire, rather than before the still small voice. But it\nis a temptation to be resisted and overcome. You call upon me to worship\nthe Ruler of the waves. Now the sea is full of the gifts of God to men;\nyet if I knew nothing more of the Creator than that He had made and\nrules the sea, then\u2014with all the knowledge of the death and destruction\nthat reign beneath the depths of ocean among its non-human tenants, and\nof the destruction that reigns on its surface when it wages war against\nman and conquers\u2014I should say, \u201cSo far as the sea alone reveals the\nnature of Him who made it, I would a thousand times sooner worship Jesus\nof Nazareth, the non-miraculous man, than the Maker of the ocean.\u201d It is\nthe most vulgar and contemptible cowardice to cringe before the Maker of\nthe destroying ocean\u2014who might be the Devil and not a good God, so far\nas the ocean\u2019s destructive power reveals its Maker\u2014rather than to do\nhomage to the best of men. I grant that in a storm at sea, with the\nlightning blinding my eyes, and the pitiless waters tearing my\ncompanions from my side and threatening every instant to devour me\u2014I\ngrant that I might, and should, feel tempted to exclaim, \u201cA mightier\nthan Christ is here.\u201d But if I did, I should be ashamed of it. It would\nbe a traitorous tendering of allegiance to Satan. When force and terror\nand death come shrieking on the wave-crests, and proclaiming that \u201cPower\nafter all is Lord of the world,\u201d then is our faith tested; it is \u201cthe\nvictory of our faith\u201d to overcome that lie and to make answer thus: \u201cNo,\nGoodness is Lord over the world; Love is Lord over the world; and\ntherefore He who is one with Love and Goodness, the Lord Jesus Christ,\nHe is Lord over the world. Do with me as thou wilt, thou Mighty Maker of\nall things! If Christ was not deceived, thou art His Father and I can\ntrust thee. But if Christ was deceived, then art thou Satan and I defy\nthee, be thou the Maker of a world of worlds. Better to perish and be\ndeceived with Christ, than to be saved and caressed by a Maker who made\nChrist to perish and to be deceived! If there be in truth any opposition\nof will between the Maker and the Lord Jesus Christ, then is the Lord\nJesus the superior of the two; and in the Lord Jesus alone will I put my\ntrust, and to Him alone will I cleave as my Lord and my Saviour and my\nGod.\u201d\n\nHave I made my meaning clear to you? I do not say, Have I persuaded you\nthat I am right? But have I made you understand that it really is\npossible for one who has apprehended even imperfectly the illimitable\nextent of the goodness of Christ and the divine nature of that goodness,\nto feel heartily and sincerely that, of all things in heaven and earth\nand in the waters under the earth, the goodness and power and wisdom of\nGod in Christ are the fittest objects for our love, our trust and our\nreverence, in other words, for our worship? Can you name any fitter\nobject? If you will not worship God in the man Jesus, you will hardly\nworship Him in Socrates, or Paul, or any other specimen of humanity.\nWill you then turn to inanimate nature, and worship him in that? Then\nyou will be turning from the higher to the lower conception of God.\nBefore I knew Christ, I might perhaps have worshipped God the Maker,\nbeing led to him, so to speak, by the world as Mediator. Inspired by awe\nfor the Creator of so vast and orderly a machine, I might have adored\nHim as the artificer of the stars and this terrestrial globe. But now,\nChrist has made this kind of \u201cnatural religion\u201d impossible. He, the\nideal Man, has revealed to me depths of love, pity, mercy,\nself-sacrifice, in comparison with which the ocean is but the \u201cwater in\na bucket,\u201d and the stars of heaven are as \u201ca very little thing.\u201d If\ntherefore I try to conceive of God as alien and apart from Christ, God\nbecomes at once degraded and inferior to man.\n\nHow shall I try to express myself more clearly? Let me use words not my\nown, in which a man of recognized ability once summed up for me my own\nconceptions; \u201cI see,\u201d he said, \u201cyou do not, as most do, worship Christ\nout of compliment to God; you worship God out of compliment to Christ.\u201d\nThe words then sounded to me a little profane, though they were not\nmeant to be so; but I had to confess that they exactly expressed my\nmeaning. Since then, it has seemed to me that these words were but an\nincisive way of saying, what every one says and few realize, that Christ\nis the Mediator between us and God: we worship God the Father because we\nattribute to Him the character that we adore in God the Son.\n\nBy this time you will have seen that while answering the question,\n\u201cWhom, or what, ought we to worship?\u201d I have indirectly answered a\npreliminary question, \u201cWhat do we mean by worship?\u201d You have also\nprobably noticed what answer I have given to this question: worship\nappears to me a combination of love, trust, and awe. Do you accept this?\nI have never seen any serious objection taken to this definition except\nby those who refuse practically to define it at all and who would simply\nsay \u201cWorship is the homage paid by man to the Creator: and it has\nnothing to do with, and cannot be explained by, the feelings with which\nwe regard man.\u201d If I had not seen this in the columns of a theological\njournal, I should not have believed it possible that modern\nsuperficiality and conventionalism could achieve quite so transparent a\nshallowness. The sum total of our feelings towards God\u2014more especially\nour awe for Him\u2014cannot indeed be adequately expressed in the same\nlanguage which expresses our feelings for men: but that is a very\ndifferent thing from saying that the former \u201chave nothing to do with\u201d\nthe latter. I believe that a large part of most men\u2019s worship consists\nof a shrinking from an Unknown, the sort of dread that children feel for\n\u201cthe dark.\u201d But righteous worship must imply other feelings; and these\nfeelings\u2014some of them at all events\u2014must have names; and whence are the\nnames to be derived but from our feelings towards men and things\u2014towards\nmen, surely, as well as towards things? We must either love God, or hate\nHim, or be indifferent to Him; we must either trust, or distrust Him. I\ndo not see how the people who would sever worship from all reference to\nhuman relations can look upon it as other than a mere homage of the lips\nor knees, a going to church, and attendance at religious services. Need\nI say that, when I define worship, I am defining the worship of the\nheart, not the attitude of those who honour God with their lips but\nwhose heart is far from Him?\n\nNow the attitude of man to God has varied greatly in accordance with\ntheir conception of God, according as they have conceived Him to be\nMoloch, or Apollo, or Jehovah, or the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ.\nIn some men worship has been mere terror; in some, it has been a desire\nto bribe; in some it has been faint gratitude and strong admiration; in\nsome it has been intense awe and reverence. All such forms of worship\nhave been imperfect, and some have been very bad. At the best, none of\nthem have combined all the best and noblest feelings of aspiration which\nNature tends to develop in us by means of human and non-human agencies.\nHuman nature\u2014acting through the relations of the family\u2014should elicit\nlove and loving trust; non-human nature\u2014acting through the seas and\nskies, with their suggestions of vastness and power\u2014should elicit awe\nand awful trust; and the combination of these two natural influences\nshould elicit love, trust and awe, which three-fold result constitutes\nworship.\n\nHas the worship of God through the mediation of Christ entirely\nsuperseded\u2014was it intended to supersede\u2014the worship of God through the\nmediation of the visible World? I think not yet. It will in the end but\nnot now. There may come a time, in some future existence, when we shall\nsee righteousness like the sun, when we shall have visions of the beauty\nand order of holiness like the stars, and behold the glory of sacrifice\nspread out before our eyes like the firmament of heaven; and then the\nrevelation of God through visible Nature will be swallowed up in the\nrevelation of God through invisible Nature. But now, not many of us can\npretend to such a power of spiritual insight. We feel that, if we\nlearned the story of Christ without the help of the commentary of the\nawful powers of material nature, we might be in danger of repeating it\nwith a glib familiarity which would hinder us from penetrating its\nmeaning. Those who live in the stir of cities where they are doomed\nnever to be alone, never to realize perfect silence, never to see more\nthan a few square feet of sky, are living as the Word of God did not\nintend them to live; they may have\u2014they often have\u2014great spiritual\ncompensations; they certainly have some spiritual disadvantage in these\nunnatural negations. As long as we have eyes and ears and the faculties\nof wonder and admiration, so long must we suppose that the revelation of\nthe Word of God through Jesus of Nazareth has not dispensed with the\nrevelation of the Word of God through the forces of material nature. If\nwe wish to approach God we should not despise the Mediation of the Word\nof God in its entirety, that is to say, the mediation of \u201cthe World with\nChrist.\u201d\n\nNow what practical inferences follow from our definition of worship, if\nwe are satisfied that it is roughly true? Here let me put in a caution.\nOur definition cannot be exactly true; for, in its exactness, worship\nmeans the sum total of all the feelings that should be felt by the mind\nof man, when he contemplates God through the mediation of \u201cthe World\nwith Christ.\u201d Who can enumerate these without confessing that he may\nhave passed over some so subtle and so deep that language itself has\nleft them unnamed? We must therefore be content with a rough definition.\nBut if it be roughly true that worship means love, trust and awe, what\npractical inferences may we thence deduce as regards our own conduct?\n\nFirst, then, worship is not the formal thing it is generally supposed to\nbe. It is not a mere smoothness of the hinges of the knees, or a\nreadiness to take the name of God within one\u2019s lips. It is a natural\ngoing forth of the heart to that which one loves, trusts, and reverences\nmost. Some men have little power of reverencing; others, of trusting;\nothers, of loving; such men\u2019s worship must necessarily be maimed and\nimperfect. If a man who is destitute of reverence loves and trusts money\nmore than anything else, money really is that man\u2019s God; it is no\nhyperbole, it is the fact; the man does actually worship money; he does\nnot say prayers to it, does not go down on his knees to it, but he loves\nit and trusts it more than anything else; therefore, so far as he can\nworship anything, he worships money. Similarly another man worships\npleasure; another, his children; another, power. We are accustomed to\napologize for such expressions as if they were metaphors or\nexaggerations; but they are not; they are plain statements of spiritual\nrealities. Thousands of men who say they worship Christ, and who\nhonestly suppose they worship Christ, do nothing of the kind. This is\nthe dark side of the self-delusion of worship, but there is a brighter.\nThere are many men at the present day who call themselves agnostics, but\nwho would hardly deny that they love and reverence Jesus of Nazareth\nmore than any other being. They worship Him then. Their worship is\ntinged with hopelessness, and therefore imperfect; but so far as it\ngoes, it is a genuine worship of Christ. Perhaps, too, some who profess\nmere Theism feel, in their hearts, that though they dislike to say they\nworship Christ, they love Christ more than they love their conception of\n\u201cGod without Christ;\u201d if so, may we not say that, so far as that element\nof love goes, they worship Christ? Thousands of thousands of people,\nbefore Christ was born, worshipped Goodness and a good God in their\nlives and hearts, though they were, in name, worshippers of Apollo or\nMoloch. Thousands of people in the same unconscious way have been, and\nstill are, worshipping the Incarnate Christ. They may not acknowledge\nthis, they may not even know it: but their hearts have gone out to Him\nin love and trust and awe, more than to any other person or thing in\nheaven or earth.[8]\n\nSearch your own soul and acknowledge how little you know of God; I do\nnot mean how little you profess to know, but how little you really know;\nhow very much of what you think you know, is but second-hand knowledge,\nscraps of sayings repeated on authority, but not representing any\nheartfelt faith. Then\u2014after deducting all the verbiage that you once\nesteemed a part of your own belief\u2014take the poor residuum of your\nconception of the Godhead, and put it by the side of your conception of\nthe Word of God incarnate in Christ, making some faint attempt at the\nsame time to realize the stupendous life and character of Jesus. Then\nask yourself in what respects the former conception differs from the\nlatter for the better. Lastly ask yourself what you mean by worship\u2014not\nlip-worship, or knee-worship, but the worship of the heart; and whether\nyour heart does not go out in heart-worship as much towards the latter\nas to the former of these two conceptions. If you will do this fairly\nand honestly, my only fear would be that you might find that your\nconception of God Himself was too weak to retain its grasp on you; but\nif God still held His place in your heart, then I should feel confident\nthat Christ would sit enthroned by His side, as being the Son without\nwhom the Father could not be known, worshipped in virtue of a claim\nwhich no mere performance of miracles could establish, and which no mere\nnon-performance of miracles could invalidate.\n\nThe sum is this. In Nature there is evil as well as good. I cannot\ntherefore worship the Author of _all_ Nature, but must worship the\nAuthor of _Nature-minus the evil_. Where is He to be found? He is\nrevealed in what we recognize to be good, true, and beautiful. Now no\none man can include in his life all that we mean by scientific truth,\nand artistic beauty, as well as moral goodness. But, truth being a\nharmony, there is no deeper and nobler truth than the harmony of a human\nwill with the will of the Supreme; and, beneath perishable artistic\nbeauty, there is an eternal beauty to be discerned in righteousness. It\nought not therefore to surprise us that the Eternal Word, after\nendeavouring for thousands of years to lead creation up from the worship\nof Power to the worship of Goodness, should at last take upon Himself\nthe form of a creature, conspicuously powerless from the world\u2019s point\nof view, ignorant of science, and destitute of outward beauty, but of a\ngoodness so divinely beautiful and so true to the Underlying Laws of\nspiritual Nature, that when He held out His arms and called upon\nwandering mankind to come to Him, the enlightened conscience of humanity\nsought refuge in His embrace.\n\nFootnote 8:\n\n  It is a strange but common mistake to expect a purer morality from a\n  conventional Christian than from a heathen or an atheist. One ought to\n  expect less, much less. The man who can be familiar with the\n  character, and acknowledge the claims, of Christ, without really\n  loving Him or serving Him, and who can believe all that the Church\n  teaches _about_ Him, without at all believing _in_ Him, must surely be\n  far below the atheist who now and then does a good turn for humanity,\n  out of mere pity and without the least hope of any ultimate triumph of\n  goodness. For my part, I am quite surprised at the apparent goodness\n  of conventional Christians: but I think they are not so good as their\n  actions would imply. They are forced, by tradition and the example of\n  a few, to keep up an artificial standard of morality in some\n  departments of life.\n\n\n\n\n                                  XII\n                         THE WORSHIP OF CHRIST\n\n\nMY DEAR \u2014\u2014,\n\nYour letter of yesterday raises two objections, which I will do my best\nto meet. First, if I regard Christ as God, I ought not, you think, to\nstumble at the miracles, but to welcome, and even to require, them; and\nsecondly, you are not satisfied with my definition of worship. Let me\ndeal first with your first objection, restating it in your own words.\n\n\u201cI admit,\u201d you say, \u201cthat Jesus, even without miracles, would be worthy\nof worship in your sense of the word; but that is not the same thing as\nregarding Him as the Eternal Son of God, the Creative Word. I agree with\nPlato that there is nothing more like God than the man who is as just as\nman may be; but you demand more of me than this; you wish me to regard\nHim not as being merely \u2018_like_ God\u2019 but as \u2018_being_ God,\u2019 \u2018very God of\nvery God.\u2019 Surely you must therefore admit that Jesus was exceptional,\nand not \u2018in the course of nature;\u2019 and the introduction into the visible\nworld of such an exceptional and supernatural Being surely makes it\nantecedently probable, if not necessary, that He would bring with Him\nsome quite exceptional phenomena in the way of evidence. The Miraculous\nConception and Resurrection of Christ\u2019s Body (if only they were true)\nwould supply just the requisite evidence that Jesus was the Creative\nWord, Lord over the issues of life and death. If the creative Power of\nGod, no less than the Righteousness and the Love of God, was incarnate\nin the person of Jesus, it would have been no less manifest in His life\nand works. But you desire to reduce Him to a being in no way\ndistinguishable from other men except by superior moral excellence.\nThere is, it seems to me, no logical connection between moral excellence\nand creative power. The two attributes, being generically different,\ndemand different kinds of evidence to substantiate them.\n\n\u201cAgain,\u201d you continue, \u201ceven if I put aside your contention that Jesus\nis the Word of God, there remains your assertion that He is sinless. Now\na sinless Jesus is, in Himself, a miracle; and if you call on me to\nbelieve that Jesus was without sin, you ought to see no antecedent\nimprobability, nay, you ought to see an antecedent probability, that He\nwould work miracles.\u201d\n\nWell, I feel that we are walking in a slippery region\u2014this land of\nantecedent metaphysical probabilities; but I will try to follow you. Let\nme take your second objection first. Does it then really seem to you no\nless antecedently probable that the Word of God, made man, should have\nthe power (say) of walking on water, than that He should be sinless?\nSurely we see in the best men approximations to sinlessness, but no\napproximations at all to what spiritualists (I believe) call\n\u201clevitation\u201d! In proportion as men approximate to our conception of God,\nin that proportion they are free from sin, but they do not \u201clevitate;\u201d\nhence, while we are led to believe that the Man who completely\nrepresents God (the Word of God Incarnate) will be absolutely sinless,\nwe are led to no such conclusion as to \u201clevitation.\u201d Or will you\nmaintain that the best men shew any germ of any the least power to\nsuspend any the least law of nature? There is no vestige of any such\ntendency around us; and your only support for such a belief would be\nfound in the miracles of the Old Testament, which you yourself deny, and\nas to which I shall have something to say in a future letter.\n\nI admit however that there is one seeming argument derived from the\n\u201cmighty works\u201d of healing undoubtedly worked by the disciples of Jesus\nas well as by Jesus Himself. Without anticipating a subject that must be\ndeferred to a future letter, I will merely ask you at this stage to\ndistinguish between those \u201cmighty works\u201d on the one hand which were\nmarvellous but not miraculous, and the \u201cmiracles\u201d on the other hand\nwhich, if true, involved suspensions of the laws of nature. That Jesus\nmay have healed certain diseases through faith, would be acknowledged by\nthe most sceptical physiologists as quite possible in accordance with\nthe laws of nature; and this power would be consistent with such a\nfaith-inspiring personality as we attribute to our Lord. Even from\nordinary men and women there \u201cgoes out virtue,\u201d we scarcely know how, to\nthe sick and suffering who are imbued with their hopefulness, their\ncheerfulness, their faith; much more might we suppose that from the\nIdeal of Humanity \u201cvirtue\u201d would probably go forth in unique measure and\nproduce unique results, though always in accordance with those laws of\nmaterial nature to which He had submitted Himself. But this is no\nargument for real \u201cmiracles\u201d; and\u2014even while arguing\u2014I protest against\nthis method of arguing about facts, from metaphysical \u201cantecedent\nprobability.\u201d I do not object to the argument from \u201cantecedent\nprobability\u201d where you can appeal to experience and argue from what\nhappened in the past to what is likely to happen in the future. But\nwhere you can have no such evidence (because the Son of God was not\ntwice incarnate); where the question is, \u201cDid Jesus do this or did He\nnot?\u201d and where we have history and evidence to guide us, as to what He\ndid and said; it seems to me we ought to be guided by evidence and not\nby \u201cantecedent probabilities,\u201d especially when these \u201cprobabilities\u201d are\nderived from nothing but metaphysical considerations.\n\nBut you tell me that you see \u201cno logical connection between moral\nexcellence and creative power;\u201d and another passage in your letter says\nthat \u201cwe have no reason for thinking that the best men shew any tendency\nto approximate, in creative power, to the co-eternal Word.\u201d What do you\nthence infer? Apparently this, that, as Christ revealed God\u2019s\nrighteousness and love by His own righteousness and love, so He must\nhave revealed God\u2019s creative power by His own creative acts. I, too,\nbelieve that. But by what creative acts? By changing water into wine, or\nseven loaves into seven thousand loaves, or three fishes into three\nthousand fishes? Think of it seriously. Do these two or three abrupt and\ndislocated achievements appear to you adequately to represent the quiet,\ngradual, orderly, creative power of the true Word of God, by whom the\nheavens were made? For my part I see a noble meaning in your words, but\nthe meaning I see in them is not what you mean. It was necessary\u2014so far\nI agree with you\u2014that the Incarnate Word should manifest God\u2019s creative\nPower as well as His Love and Righteousness. But how? Can you not answer\nfor yourself without my prompting? Does not your own conscience suggest\nto you what is the highest effort of creative power? Are we not\ntaught\u2014and do not our hearts respond to the teaching\u2014that God is a\nSpirit? And, if God is a Spirit, must not the highest kind of creation\nbe, not material, but spiritual?\n\nNow I maintain that it is a greater, more sublime, and more God-like act\nto create righteousness in accordance with God\u2019s spiritual laws than to\ncreate loaves and fishes and wine against God\u2019s material laws. And I\nmaintain also\u2014in opposition to your opinion\u2014that \u201cthe best men\u201d _do_\nmanifest \u201ca tendency to approximate in creative power to the co-eternal\nWord,\u201d so far as concerns this, the highest kind of creation. It is\nhard, very hard, for us to realize\u2014in spite of the teaching of the\nprophets in old times and of the great English poets in our own\ndays\u2014that the creation of the heaven and the earth is \u201ca very little\nthing, a drop of a bucket,\u201d as compared with the creation of\nrighteousness. It is a desperate struggle, this battle of the spirit\nagainst matter, of the invisible against the visible, before we can\nbelieve, with all our being\u2014with our minds as well as our hearts\u2014that\nthe creation described in the first chapter of the Fourth Gospel was\nmore divine than that described in the first chapter of the Book of\nGenesis. But it was so. The first creation of orderly matter was but a\nshadowy, unsubstantial metaphor, predicting the second creation of\norderly spirit. \u201cAll things were made by him, and without him was not\nanything made that was made:\u201d so writes the Evangelist, describing the\nfirst, and proceeding to describe the second, creation: and he continues\nthus, \u201cIn him was life, and the life was the light of men.\u201d To the same\neffect writes St. Paul: \u201cThe first Adam became a living soul. The last\nAdam became a life-giving spirit.\u201d Is it not possible, on the testimony\nof one\u2019s own conscience, and on the testimony of history present and\npast, and on the testimony of the Apostles and Evangelists\u2014even when\ncritically reviewed and disencumbered of the miraculous element\u2014to\nacknowledge that Jesus has been indeed \u201ca life-giving Spirit\u201d to\nmankind, and to worship Him as representing the Creative Word who has\nmoved on the face of the material and of the spiritual waters, creating\norder alike in the matter of the Universe and in the minds and\nconsciences of men?\n\nAnd now to deal with your second objection (directed against my\ndefinition of worship) which I will repeat in your own words:\u2014\u201cYou\ndefine worship as consisting of the sentiments of love, trust, and awe.\nI confess this does not express _all_ my notion of worship. Such\nsentiments I have felt towards my teachers, whether dead or living, but\nI do not consider that I worship them. When we apply the word to God, we\nmean by it a direct act of communion\u2014or at least a real effort after\ncommunion\u2014 between two minds. When I pray to God, I believe myself to be\ndirecting my thoughts towards a Being with whom I am spiritually in\ndirect and immediate relation\u2014the Maker of all, _my_ Maker and Father.\nBut I cannot persuade myself that I stand in a like relation to Jesus of\nNazareth. We do not pray to Paul or Plato, and I do not see any such\ndifference in the historical manifestations of Jesus as should lead me\nto believe that I, and millions of other believers, can make my thoughts\nknown to him, and can receive back impressions from him, when we cannot\ndo so to other minds which have helped to change the world\u2019s history and\nhave been revealers of the Father.\u201d\n\nAre you not here confusing a state of mind with an action resulting from\nthat state of mind? We have been speaking, not of lip-worship, but of\nheart-worship, defining it as a state of mind. Now is not prayer the\nresult of worship, rather than identical with worship, as we have\ndefined it above? A child feels love, and trust, as well as reverence,\nfor its parents; and, in consequence he asks them to grant his desires,\nor he thanks them for kindnesses; but yet the asking and thanking are\nnot identical with the feelings of the children towards their parents,\nbut spring from those feelings. Similarly we, feeling a trust and an awe\nfor the Maker and Father, far beyond what we can feel for Paul or Plato,\nimpart to Him our petitions for our highest needs, or offer Him our\nthanks: but this asking and this thanking are not identical with, but\nthe results of, the feelings we entertain towards God. What you really\nmean is that your love, trust, and awe towards God so far transcend\nthose corresponding feelings when entertained by you for your\nfellow-creatures, that you ask from Him things which you would never\ndream of asking from them. Moreover you consider (rightly or wrongly)\nthat a dead or absent man cannot enter into communion with you, but that\nGod is superior to death and to the limitations of space, and that He\nalone can always hear and always answer; and this you appear to think a\nnon-miraculous Christ cannot do.\n\nWell, here I confess there is a vast difference between us; for I feel\nsure that Christ can do this. You say, I do not \u201cpray to Paul and\nPlato:\u201d I do not, though I sometimes think that it would be better to\npray to Paul or Plato than to the sun or moon. But I do not find Paul, I\ndo not find Plato, claiming power to forgive sins; or declaring that he\ncame to die for mankind and that his blood was to be shed for the\nremission of sins; or predicting that he should be slain and that he\nshould rise from the dead; or promising that whatsoever his disciples\nasked from the Father in his name should be performed; or promising to\ngive his disciples, after his death, a spirit, the Holy Spirit of the\nFather, which should enable them to resist all adversaries after he had\nleft them; or, in other words, making a manifest preparation to prepare\nhis disciples for his death on the ground that after death he would\nstill be present with them and still their guide and helper. Now even\nwhen I set aside the Fourth Gospel, and eliminate all miraculous\nnarrative from the first three Gospels, I find myself in the presence of\nOne who, I am convinced, both said these things, and made them good in\ndeeds. I am penetrated with the conviction that He said them and had a\nright to say them; and that this is proved by literary and historical\nevidence, and by the history of the Church, and by my own experience.\nThe miracles I can easily disentangle from the life of Christ; but His\ndivine claims to be our Helper and Saviour after death and to all\neternity, I cannot. Accepting them, I can neither deny Him worship nor\nmyself the right of access to Him in prayer.\n\nChrist\u2019s whole life and doctrine, His plan (so to speak) for the\nestablishment of spiritual empire over the hearts of men, appear to me\nimbued with divinity; but if I were forced to choose some one particular\ndiscourse or incident in His life as a reason for my adoration of Him, I\nshould not choose any of His mighty works of healing, nor any of His\nparables or discourses, nor even His death upon the cross: I should\npoint to the institution of the Lord\u2019s Supper. As the years pass over my\nhead, the picture of that mysterious evening becomes more and more\npowerful and vivid with me and more and more inexplicable unless Jesus\nwas verily the Life of the world. It is ten times more vivid and more\npowerful now than it was when I believed in a miraculous Jesus. When I\nkneel down at the altar-rails there rises up through the distance of\neighteen centuries that strange scene in the guest-chamber at Jerusalem,\nwhere Jesus portioned out His flesh and blood, bequeathing Himself to\nHis disciples for ever. Then follows the thought of the countless\nmyriads of souls who have derived spiritual strength from this rite and\nhave lived again in Christ, and I say to myself, \u201cTruly God was in the\nself-doomed man who thus gave us His flesh and blood for mankind. A mere\nman devise so strange a rite! So (at first) repellently strange! so\nprofoundly simple! so perfectly and spiritually successful!\u201d I solemnly\nprotest to you that the inexpressible depth of the divine intuition\nwhich found utterance in the Lord\u2019s Supper, impresses me more and\nmore\u2014far more than all the miracles put together\u2014as a proof that we have\nin Christ a Being in initial and fundamental harmony with the very\nsource of our spiritual life; and, rationalist though I am, I find\nmyself, nevertheless, praying naturally and spontaneously after this\nfashion: \u201cMaster, my only true Lord and Master, grant that I may feed on\nthy body and be quickened by thy blood, and live in thee a new and\nspiritual life! Thou One Forgiver of sins, thou Bearer of all the\nburdens of mankind, bear Thou the burden that I cannot bear, and blot\nout all my offences; Thou who sittest at the right hand of the Majesty\non high, lift me in thyself even to the throne of heaven, and present me\nto the Father as His child! Thou who didst die in the flesh and rise\nagain in the spirit never to die, rise thou in my heart and soul; take\nmy whole being into thyself and cause Me there to die unto sin and to\nlive with thee unto righteousness! Grant me eternal life, thou Lord of\nLife! Say within my soul, \u2018Let there be righteousness,\u2019 and there shall\nbe righteousness! Create me anew, O Lord, thou ever-living, co-eternal\nWord of the Creator.\u201d\n\nYou may object that many of these prayers, with slightly different\nwording, might equally well be addressed to the Father through the Son.\nThey might, and, as a rule, they probably would be so addressed. But in\nmoments of unusually deep emotion prayers of this kind go forth I think,\nmore naturally to the Father in the Son than to the Father through the\nSon; and surely your very objection, and my answer to it, shewing that\nprayers may be indifferently addressed to the Father or to the Son,\nconstitute a strong argument for the unity (in the heart of the person\npraying) of Son and Father. And if I can pray like this, do I not\nworship, must I not worship, Christ as the Creative Word, the Eternal\nSon of God? And is there anything to prevent me from praying like this\nin the fact that He to whom I pray, when He received our humanity,\nreceived it in truth and honesty, with all its material limitations?\n\n\n\n\n                                  XIII\n                            WHAT IS NATURE?\n\n\nMY DEAR \u2014\u2014,\n\nDesiring to approach the subject of miracles, you ask me whether I do\nnot accept the following sentence as a statement of my views concerning\nnature: \u201cThe Universe is perennially renewed and created afresh by an\nactive energy of the Spirit of God, and what we call \u2018laws of nature\u2019\nare the mode in which our limited minds are enabled to apprehend the\nworking of Creative Power.\u201d If I accept it, you declare you cannot\nunderstand why I should stumble at miracles. \u201cIt is a matter of\nevery-day experience,\u201d you say, \u201cand natural, that the human will should\nsuspend the laws of nature, as for example by arresting the motion of\ngravitation; and consequently it seems unreasonable for you, or for\nother believers in a personal God, to be scandalized if He also now and\nthen permits Himself the same liberty.\u201d\n\nI accept your statement, so far as concerns the perennial energy of the\nSpirit of God upon the material and immaterial Universe; but I do not\nquite agree with the thought, or perhaps I should say with the\nexpression, of the last part of your sentence\u2014\u201cthe mode in which our\nlimited minds are enabled to apprehend the working of Creative Power.\u201d I\nshould prefer to call the Laws of Nature \u201ca revelation of Himself by God\nto men, on the recognition of which our very existence depends.\u201d The\nLaws of Nature are indeed nothing but ideas of our own Imagination; but\nthey appear to me, more or less, true ideas, through which God has\nrevealed Himself to us as a God of Law and Order. I believe in the\nfixity of natural Law as much (I think) as the man of science does; I\nreverence a Law of Nature, not as a result of necessity, but as an\nexpression of God\u2019s will. But your own remarks about the ordinary\n\u201csuspension of the law of nature by the human will\u201d appear to me to\nimply a little confusion of thought arising from a confused use of the\nword \u201cnature\u201d in two or more senses. On this point therefore I should\nlike to say a few words.\n\n\n                                 Nature\n\n\ni. _Nature sometimes means the ordinary course of things apart from us\nand from our intervention_; as when we say that \u201c_Nature_ looks gay\u201d\u2014an\nexpression which we might use of fields and even of a not too artificial\ngarden, but not of a city or a street.\n\nIn this sense it may be occasionally applied to the ordinary course of\nthings in our own bodily frame, so far as it goes on without our\ndeliberate intervention; as when a physician tells a fussy patient to\ncease from medicining himself and to \u201clet _Nature_ take its course.\u201d\n\nii. _Nature sometimes means the ordinary course of things in ourselves,\nnot in our bodies but in some other part of us, but still apart from our\ndeliberate intervention_; as when we say that \u201c_Nature_ impels us to\navoid pain, to preserve our lives, to cherish our children, to love and\nrevere our parents, and to seek the esteem and friendship of our\nneighbours.\u201d\n\nBut sometimes in human beings one \u201cnatural\u201d impulse is opposed by\nanother: as when the desire to preserve one\u2019s life is opposed by the\ndesire to gain the esteem of one\u2019s neighbours. When these two conflict,\nwhich is to be called the more \u201cnatural\u201d?\n\nThe answer will be different, according as we use the word \u201cnatural\u201d in\nthe sense of \u201cordinary\u201d or \u201corderly.\u201d One class of natural impulses,\nwhich may be called selfish or self-regarding, is perhaps more\n_ordinarily_ predominant; another class, those which regard the good of\nothers, contributes more to the progress and _order_ of society. In the\nindividual, as well as in society, the former or \u201cordinary\u201d impulses, if\nunchecked, often tend to excess of passion, and what we call mental\n\u201cdisorder\u201d; the latter (which are seldom in excess) tend to self-control\nand a well-ordered mind. In the former sense, it is more \u201cnatural,\u201d\nbecause more \u201cordinary,\u201d to laugh when we are tickled, or to seize food\nwhen we are hungry, than to die for our country or to provide food for\nour children; but, in the latter sense, the nobler actions are more\n\u201cnatural\u201d because more in accordance with order.\n\nWhat do we mean by a well-ordered mind? We mean one in which the Will\ndoes not at once yield to the impulses from the things which seem\nnearest to ourselves; in which the Imagination vividly presents to us\nthe wants of our neighbours as well as our own; in which the Reason\nstates what can be said for and against each proposal, and the\nConscience finally decides the course to be taken. Here then we see an\nentirely new notion of Nature, at least so far as man is concerned; a\ncourse or order of things no longer apart from human intervention, but\nentirely dependent upon the supremacy of the Will and Conscience aided\nby Reason and Imagination: and hence we are led to a double definition\nof human Nature as follows:\u2014\n\niii. _Human Nature means, sometimes the ordinary, sometimes the orderly,\ncourse of human things._\n\nEven as to non-human Nature we sometimes find a popular tendency to\ncall, or think \u201cunnatural,\u201d some phenomena which strike us as being\ncontrary to the general order and beneficence of things: and hence we\nare less fond of saying that Nature prompts the cat to torture the mouse\nor the moth to fly into the flame, than that she implants in the animal\nrace the parental instinct to protect the young. I confess I sympathize\nwith this tendency, and with all those who in their hearts look upon\ndeath and pain as being contrary to the ideal order of things and\nultimately destined to be destroyed. But for the present, apart from\nsentiment, let us simply note the fact that in our popular language we\nsometimes say that it is the nature of a clock to indicate the right\ntime, but sometimes that it is its nature to deviate from the right\ntime: whence we deduce the conclusion that:\u2014\n\niv. _The Nature of a thing means sometimes its object, sometimes its\ncustom._\n\n\n                             Laws of Nature\n\n\nMany of those unbroken sequences of phenomena around us, which have been\nmost frequently observed, have been made the subject of the Imagination\nand have received an imaginative name. When we find Nature, upon an\ninvariable system, dealing out rewards for one course of action and\npenalties for another, there is suggested to us the thought of a great\nLawgiver laying down laws and affixing rewards for obeying, and\npenalties for disobeying. Hence the sequences of natural phenomena have\nbeen called \u201cLaws of Nature.\u201d\n\nEvery action of every moment of our lives is performed for the most part\nin the instinctive and unconscious confidence that Nature will not\ndeceive us by breaking her Laws: and hence they might, from another\npoint of view, be called \u201cPromises of Nature,\u201d or \u201cExpressions of the\nWill of Nature;\u201d but \u201cLaw of Nature\u201d has been selected\u2014not perhaps\naltogether happily\u2014as suggesting something more fixed and definite than\neven the Promises or Will of the Maker of the world.\n\n_Law of Nature is a metaphorical name for a frequently observed sequence\nof phenomena (apart from human Will), implying; to some minds,\nregularity; to others, absolute invariability._\n\n\n                      Suspension of Laws of Nature\n\n\nDoes human Will ever suspend a Law of Nature?\n\nI am standing, we will suppose, under a tree in autumn. If a leaf\nflutters down and rests upon my head, the Law of gravitation is no more\nsuspended by my Will, than if it rests upon some intercepting bough. The\nresult of the Law is modified; downward motion is replaced by downward\npressure: but the Law itself is not suspended.\n\nBut if, upon the command of a man, the leaf were arrested in mid air and\nremained immovable for an hour together, and if I were led to the\nconclusion that this was effected by no force which I could conceive as\nbeing consistent with the ordinary course of Nature and with the\nlimitations of human power, then I should be obliged to say that the Law\nof gravitation, in this particular instance, did not work. Using a\nmetaphor, I might say that the Law was \u201csuspended,\u201d and the phenomenon\nitself I should call a miracle.\n\nIn reality the true explanation might be quite different. It is\nconceivable that an extraordinary man, once in a thousand or once in ten\nthousand years, might be endowed with the power of arresting the motion\nof a stone in the air, without the intervention of the body and by the\nmere exercise of Will; and this might be done by him as easily, as\nregularly, and (for him) as naturally, as we ordinary men stop a stone\nin the air by the exercise of Will acting upon our bodily machinery. In\nthat case gravitation would still act, pressing the stone, so to speak,\nupon an invisible hand: and the explanation would be, not that the Law\nwas suspended, but that the results of the Law were uniquely modified by\nthe peculiar action of a unique human nature, in the same way in which\nthey are commonly modified by the regular action of an ordinary human\nnature. This, I say, is conceivable. Yet if we find (1) in past history,\na general tendency to believe in miracles on very slight evidence; (2)\nin the present time, a general and, as many think, a universal\nrefutation of the evidence on which miracles have been accepted; (3) an\nincreasing power of explaining many so-called miracles in accordance\nwith natural Laws\u2014it becomes our obvious duty to regard miraculous\nnarratives with a very strong suspicion until cogent evidence has been\nproduced for their truth.\n\n\n                         The Action of the Will\n\n\nHitherto we have been considering the action of the Will upon external\nNature; but now what as to the action of our Will upon our own Nature,\nupon the machinery of our own body? Is that to be called a Law of Nature\nor a suspension of a Law of Nature?\n\nIt is to be called neither. Our definition of \u201cLaw of Nature\u201d was \u201ca\nmetaphorical name given to the ordinary course of things _apart from the\nintervention of human will_:\u201d consequently the action of human will\n(about which we are now speaking) is expressly excluded from the\nprovince of Nature, in this sense, and can neither be called \u201ca Law of\nNature,\u201d nor a \u201csuspension of a Law of Nature.\u201d The action of the Will\nfalls under the head of \u201chuman Nature;\u201d and, discussing it under that\nhead, we may call it by any metaphor we please, a custom, habit, law of\nhuman Nature.\n\nThis distinction between the name given to the course of non-human\nNature and the name given to the action of the human Will on the bodily\nframework, is based on our distinction between the regular and (if I may\nuse the word) the anticipable sequences of the former, as contrasted\nwith the irregular and unanticipable sequences of the latter. When the\nWill is undeveloped or enfeebled; when the human being is a baby, or one\nof an excited and undisciplined crowd, or mad, or drunk, or\nnarcoticized, or mesmerized, or reduced to the bestial level by some\noverpowering instinct; we can occasionally prophesy his actions or\nmovements with something of the certainty and accuracy with which we\npredict the motions of a machine; but we cannot thus calculate the\nactions of a mature, healthy, and reasonable man. Hence it has been\nusual to contrast with the \u201cLaws of Nature\u201d the \u201cfreedom of the human\nWill.\u201d We cannot demonstrate the freedom of the Will any more than the\nfixity of the Laws of Nature: the belief in both is suggested by\nImagination, tested and approved by Experience and Reason, and finally\nretained by Faith. Of course, when I speak thus, you will not suppose\nthat I assume that my mind, or being, is divided into distinct parts (as\nthe body consists of distinct limbs) called Will, Reason, &c.: you will\nunderstand that I merely use the ordinary brief and convenient\nphraseology which says \u201cThe Will does so-and-so,\u201d meaning \u201cI do\nso-and-so with a certain consciousness which appears to me to result\nfrom a faculty inherent in me of choosing between two or more courses of\naction, which faculty I call Will.\u201d With this precaution, I assert that\nthe action of the Will is natural as regards human Nature, but outside\nNature or \u201cextra-natural\u201d as regards non-human Nature, and that it does\nnot involve the suspension of what are technically called \u201cthe Laws of\nNature.\u201d\n\nIt is thus shown that the human Will acts directly on the human body in\naccordance with the Laws of human Nature, and that it does not interfere\nwith the external world except indirectly, through the body, in\naccordance with the Laws of Nature (as technically defined). There is\nnothing therefore in the action of the human Will that would justify the\n_a priori_ inference that the divine Will would, _by any direct\nintervention_, disturb or suspend that fixed Order in the external world\nwhich constitutes a large part of the revelation of God to mankind.\n\nIf indeed we are to draw any kind of parallel between divine and human\naction, we shall have to ask ourselves what is there appertaining to the\ndivine Spirit which can in any sense be said to correspond to its\n\u201cBody\u201d? And I suppose we shall reply, in Pauline language, that Mankind,\nwhich is said to have Christ for its Head, might be mystically and\nspiritually called the Body of the divine Will or Holy Spirit. If this\nbe so, proceeding with our parallel, might we not repeat, word for word,\nwith the needful proportionate changes, the language of the last\nparagraph: \u201cThe divine Will or Spirit acts directly on the divine body\n(that is on mankind) in accordance with the Laws of Spiritual Nature,\nand it does not interfere with the external world, except indirectly,\nthrough mankind, in accordance with the Laws of Nature (as technically\ndefined)\u201d? I do not say that this analogy is logic-proof: for what can\nbe called a \u201cbody,\u201d or what \u201cexternal,\u201d in relation to the all-pervading\nGod? Nevertheless, as it falls in with our actual experiences, this\nmystical parallel seems as well worth recording as most _a priori_\nnotions on this subject, though we take it as no more than an\nillustration of possibilities. But, if we are to confine ourselves to\ncertainties, the one thing certain is, that Nature, in the fullest\nsense, human as well as non-human, emphatically discourages us from\nexpecting \u201cmiracles.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n                                  XIV\n                   THE MIRACLES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT\n\n\nMY DEAR \u2014\u2014,\n\nYour last letter now comes to the point which I have been long\nanticipating, or rather it recurs to the point from which our\ncorrespondence started\u2014the credibility of the miracles attributed to\nChrist. You tell me that during the long vacation you have been rapidly\nreviewing my letters and attempting to enter into my views. There is\nmuch, you say, that is new, and there is something that improves on\nacquaintance, in this form of \u201cChristian Positivism\u201d as you call it; its\nintellectual security has attractions for you, and it seems to you to\nsatisfy at once the aspirations of those who are drawn to worship\nhumanity, and of those who are drawn to worship something above\nhumanity. All this looks very well on paper, you say; but when you take\nup the Gospels, it seems to fade away into a mere student\u2019s dream: and\nyou state the objection thus: \u201cFor our knowledge of Christ, we depend\nalmost entirely upon the New Testament; now the New Testament contains\naccounts of miracles; these miracles we are unable to accept as\nhistorical; consequently the New Testament must be regarded as\nnon-historical, and the whole story of Christ becomes a myth.\u201d\n\nIn return for this argument about the New Testament let me supply you\nwith a similarly sceptical one about the Old Testament, and ask you\nwhether you are prepared consistently to adopt it. \u201cFor our knowledge of\nthe children of Israel, we depend almost entirely upon the Old\nTestament; now the Old Testament contains accounts of miracles; these\nmiracles we are unable to accept as historical; consequently the Old\nTestament must be regarded as non-historical, and the story of the\ndescendants of Israel becomes a myth.\u201d\n\nNow are you really satisfied with this argument? The so-called Law of\nMoses, the wandering in the Wilderness, the conquest of Canaan, the\nlives of the wonder-working Gideon and of Barak, the wars and songs of\nDavid, the denunciations, warnings, consolations, sorrows, visions, of\nIsaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the other prophets, are they indeed, in\nyour judgment, converted into mere myths by the admixture of the\nmiraculous element? Are they even made so far mythical as not to reveal\nthe story of the training of one of the most remarkable of nations, a\nnation theologically quite singular upon earth? I contend on the\ncontrary, that the removal of the miraculous element results in a\ntwo-fold advantage, on the one hand placing the story of Israel in the\nprovince of history, and on the other hand, not bringing it down to the\nlevel of the common-place, but elevating it to a pinnacle among the\nhistories of nations, and making it in a certain sense more wonderful\nthan before. If Moses was a plenipotentiary miracle-worker from God,\nthen there was nothing unexpected or wonderful in the spiritual results\nthat he achieved; and the wonder rather is that he achieved so little.\nGive me the thunders of Sinai, with power to burn, blast, and plague my\nopponents; add to these the power of producing without labour and\nwithout delay miraculous supplies of manna, quails, and water, and I\nmyself would undertake to terrify or allure any nation into obeying a\nfar less noble and attractive code of laws than was set forth in the\nname of Moses. But when I see a lawgiver with no such powers, doing what\nMoses did, and shaping, or preparing the way for shaping, one of the\nmost carnal and unspiritual of races into a nation of Priests and\nProphets for the civilised world, then I am ready to fall upon my face\nand to take my shoes from off my feet, saying from the depth of my\nheart, \u201cTruly God is in this place.\u201d \u201cBut,\u201d say you, \u201cthe so-called Law\nof Moses is no more due to Moses than trial by jury is due to Alfred.\u201d\nThat matters not. It is not any one Israelite; it is Israel as a whole,\nIsrael and its lawgivers and poets and prophets collectively; it is the\nevolution of the spiritual from the carnal Israel that I revere; and all\nthe more, if that evolution be natural. Regarded as miraculous, the\nhistory of Israel is somewhat of a failure and a bathos; but, regarded\nas non-miraculous, it becomes a most miraculous triumph of divine\nintention and persistence, even though the walls of Jericho succumbed to\nthe trumpets of Israel only in hyperbole, and although the sun stood\nstill at the bidding of Joshua only in the impassioned language of an\nOriental poet.\n\nI am quite sure you must feel this as strongly as I do; you cannot\nhonestly and sincerely put aside all the history of Israel as a myth\nbecause it contains a non-historic element of miracles, any more than\nyou put aside the battles of Salamis and Regillus because they too have\nreceived their miraculous adornment. But some are probably perplexed and\nscandalized at the task that is apparently set before them of\ndisentangling the true from the false, the myth from the non-myth: \u201cHow\nstrange,\u201d they say, \u201cthat the story of the training of the Priests of\nthe world, that story which should have been a light to guide our feet,\nhas been suffered to shed darkness instead of light and falsehood\ninstead of truth! Is it probable, is it even decent and reverent, to\nsuppose that God should have allowed the Book of Revelation to be so\nfalsified that the simple and unlearned cannot depend upon it without\nthe aid of scholars and specialists?\u201d\n\nMy reply is that, as long as men reason in this way, assuming that\nRevelation ought to have been conveyed by some perfect medium, and\ntherefore that it must have been conveyed by some perfect medium, so\nlong it will be as impossible to refute them as it was to refute the\nAristotelian astronomers who argued that \u201cThe planets ought to move in\nperfect curves; and the circle is a perfect curve; and therefore the\nplanets must move in circles.\u201d We are like children crying for the moon\nif we demand that this world, or that anything in this world, shall be\narranged as if the world were the best of all possible worlds. It is not\nthe best possible world, and we know it is not. Some things attest the\nglory of God more perfectly than others; but nothing attests it quite\nperfectly. You might as well hope to remove refraction from the\natmosphere, as to remove from the human mind the prejudices which compel\nand always have compelled mankind to exaggerate and misrepresent divine\ntruth by forcing us to think that God must have acted as we should have\nacted had we been in His place.\n\nIf you and I were omnipotent and had to re-make the Universe, I suppose\nthere is no question but we should make man perfectly good (according to\nour notions of goodness) and that we should force him to remain good.\nAnd if you or I were omnipotent and had to reveal anything to men, we\nshould write it large and clear in the sky, or in the heart, legible to\nall without effort, so that men should be forced to understand it. But\nGod has neither done this nor anything like it. Therefore, since in\nother respects He has departed so very far from our notions of the best\nmethod, we cannot be surprised if He has not composed the Old Testament\nquite in the manner which would commend itself to us as the best. From\nour point of view the Bible teems with obvious imperfections. In the\nfirst place there are none of the modern arrangements for securing\naccuracy. No special newspaper reporters, not even contemporary writers\nof memoirs or histories, have handed down to posterity the exact words\nand deeds of Moses, David, Isaiah, and the great heroes and prophets of\nIsrael. Might we not almost say that there have been as it were\narrangements for securing inaccuracy? The authors wrote, in many cases,\nlong after the events they recorded, under conditions which rendered\naccuracy of detail quite impossible. They have often been lengthy where\nwe could have desired brevity (as for example in the enumerations of\npedigrees and in the details of the furniture and ritual of the Temple\nor the Tabernacle) and very brief where we should have prized amplitude.\nWriting as Orientals for the most part write history, without\nstatistical exactness, they have sometimes made mistakes (sometimes\nself-contradictory mistakes) in numbers and names, which it is now\nimpossible to rectify. Nay, we can hardly acquit them sometimes of moral\nerror; they have at all events sometimes appeared to praise, or at least\nnot to blame, sometimes even to impute to God, acts that would seem to\nus\u2014even when all due allowance is made for difference between ancient\nand modern standards of morality\u2014deserving of express and severe\ncensure.\n\nBut their special error which we are now considering remains yet\nunmentioned. You know that nations, like individuals, in their infancy\nhave very vague notions of the uniformity of Nature, and very strong\nnotions of the personality of Nature or of some Beings behind Nature.\nEven in modern times Orientals would say that God or Allah did this or\nthat, where we say that this or that \u201chappened;\u201d and I remember hearing\nnot many years ago that some Jews of Palestine, suffering from the\nconsequences of extensive conflagration, wrote to England for relief in\na letter which declared\u2014in perfect good faith, and without any intention\nto imply a miracle\u2014that God had \u201csent down fire from heaven upon their\ntown.\u201d An Eastern traveller of modern times tells an amusing story to\nthe same effect how a camel-driver, when questioned as to the cause of\nhis rheumatism, could not be induced for a long time to make any other\nanswer except that \u201cAllah had caused it;\u201d and even when the traveller\nhad elicited the immediate cause, the man would still persist that\n\u201cAllah had sent the rheumatism, though it had followed upon drinking a\ngreat quantity of camels\u2019 milk when he was in a violent heat.\u201d You\nshould therefore accustom yourself, if you want to understand the Bible,\nto look at Western narrative from an Oriental point of view. Take for\nexample the interesting account given by the African traveller Mungo\nPark of the manner in which a trifling incident saved his life in the\ndesert. Alone and desperate, faint and famished, he had thrown himself\ndown to die, when he suddenly caught sight of a small but exquisitely\nshaped plant of great rarity and interest: \u201cAnd can God have taken so\nmuch thought and care for the creation of this little plant,\u201d he cried,\n\u201cand have no thought or care for me?\u201d In the strength of this suggestion\nhe started up, pressed on his way, and reached safety. Now compare this\nstriking little story with the similar incident of the gourd, recorded\nin the Book of Jonah, and imagine how a prophet of Israel could have\ndescribed the message of salvation. He would have told us (as the\nprophet Jonah tells us) how the Lord God in the same day caused a plant\nto grow up before the face of the man, and how the Lord God said unto\nthe man \u201cHath the Lord thy God taken thought for this plant, and shall\nHe take no thought for thee? Arise, go on thy way\u201d\u2014giving, as from God,\nthe actual words of the thought which the Western traveller describes as\nsuggesting itself or occurring to his mind. You must surely see how\nnaturally this conversion of the natural into the seemingly miraculous\nwould have been effected by a penman of Israel, without the least\nintention to imply a real suspension of the laws of nature.\n\nKeeping yourself still in the position of an Oriental historian,\nconsider what you would be called on to describe, in setting down the\nstory of Israel. You would find, as your materials, various traditions,\nmostly oral, mostly perhaps poetic, describing a great deliverance\nwrought in every particular by the hand of Jehovah Himself: you would\nfind the nation around you, and yourself among the rest, believing that\nJehovah Himself had drowned the Egyptians in the Red Sea, that His\nterrible voice had given the Law from Sinai, that He had been to\nwandering Israel a cloud in the noontide to protect them from the sun,\nand a light in the darkness to give them guidance, that He had supplied\nthem with food from Heaven and spread a table for them in the\nwilderness, that He had Himself given them water from Himself (the Rock\nof Israel!) to quench their thirst. If the Jordan\u2019s fords, unusually\nshallow, had allowed the whole nation to pass across, as upon dry land,\nyou would be taught as a child to hear and sing, in hymns that\nreiterated the national deliverance, that the Lord Himself had done\nthis: \u201cThe waters saw thee, O Lord, the waters saw thee, and were\nafraid.\u201d If, in the general terror of the Canaanites, a strong city\nsuffered itself to be taken on the mere onset and war cry of the\ninvaders as easily as though it had been an unwalled hamlet, the\ntraditions would tell how the walls fell flat at the sound of the\ntrumpets of Joshua; if some sudden storm, accompanied with hail and\nimmediately followed by an inundation of swollen streams, threw the\nchariots and horses of the enemy into confusion and ensured their speedy\nrout; or if, on another occasion, the sudden gloom of a storm had been\nsucceeded by a long evening of peculiar brightness and clearness\nfacilitating the pursuit and destruction of the foe, then you would hear\nthat the \u201cstars in their courses\u201d fought against Sisera, or that in the\nday of Beth-horon the Lord Himself sent down hailstones upon the enemy\nand stopped the sun at the prayer of Joshua:\u2014\n\n             \u201cThe sun and moon stood still in their habitation;\n             At the light of thine arrows as they went,\n             At the shining of thy glittering spear.\u201d[9]\n\nAll these materials, expressed in terse poetic phrase, you, as a\nhistorian, would have to amplify into prose. Is it not easy to see how,\nin the process, without any fraud or conscious exaggeration on your\npart, you would transmute the natural into the miraculous?\n\nTo go through the whole of the miracles in the Old Testament and to\nattempt to shew how in almost every case the miraculous part of the\nstory may have crept in without intention to deceive, would be a task\nfar above my powers; and it would require a book not a letter. If you\nwere to study with care the articles in the _Encyclop\u00e6dia Britannica_ on\nthe books of the Old Testament they would give you a good deal of light\non this subject. But the problem is complicated by the fact that the\ncauses that originated the miraculous element are not always the same.\nFor example the seven miracles of Elijah and the fourteen miracles of\nElisha (the latter number being exactly the double of the former in\norder to fulfil the prayer of Elisha for a \u201ctwofold\u201d portion of the\nspirit of his master) cannot be explained in the same way as the\nmiracles of the Wanderings or as those in the life of Samson. The\neminent Hebraist to whom we are indebted for the Articles\nabove-mentioned would confer on all students of the Bible a very great\nbenefit, if he would give us a separate treatise on the Old Testament\nmiracles. Meantime I must content myself with shewing how some miracles,\nof what I may call a \u201cgrotesque\u201d kind, may be explained as the mere\nresult of misunderstood names. You must be familiar with this kind of\nexplanation, I think, in ancient history, and even in modern English\nhistory, although you have never thought of applying it to the Bible.\nPerhaps you have read in Mr. Isaac Taylor\u2019s _Words and Places_ how the\nsexton in Leighton Buzzard used to show the eagle of the lectern as the\nidentical _buzzard_ from which the place derived its name\u2014little\nguessing that \u201cBuzzard\u201d is a mere corruption of \u201cBeaud\u00e9sert;\u201d and the\nporter at Warwick Castle, when he shows you the bones of the \u201cdun cow\u201d\nslain by Guy of Warwick, hands down a similar erroneous tradition\nprobably derived from a misunderstanding of \u201cdun.\u201d[10] A far more famous\ninstance connects itself with the Ph\u0153nician name of \u201cBosra,\u201d belonging\nto the citadel of Carthage. This name meant, in the Ph\u0153nician language,\n\u201ccitadel;\u201d but the Greeks confused it with the Greek word \u201cBursa,\u201d a\n\u201chide;\u201d and then they proceeded to invent a story to explain the name.\nQueen Dido, they said, had bought for a small price as much ground as\nshe could encompass with a hide; she had cut the hide into thin thongs\nand thereby purchased the site of a city for a trifle: hence the city\nreceived the name of \u201cHide.\u201d Thus subtilized the Greeks; but it may\ninterest you to know that our own ancestors consciously or unconsciously\nfollowed in their footsteps. There is near Sittingbourne a castle called\nTong or Thong Castle, situated on a \u201ctongue\u201d of land (Norse, _tunga_)\nwhich has given it its name. But tradition has invented or imitated the\nold Greek story, and has declared that the castle was so-called because\nthe site was bought like Dido\u2019s, a trifling price being given for so\nmuch land as could be included in the \u201cthong\u201d made from a bull\u2019s hide.\n\nBut now to come to the particular instance which is the only one I shall\ngive from the Old Testament. You must recollect, and I think you ought\nto have been perplexed by, the astounding incident in the life of\nSamson, connected with the \u201cass\u2019s jawbone.\u201d The hero is said first to\nhave slain some hundreds of men with the jawbone of an ass, and then to\nhave thrown away the jawbone in the anguish of a parching thirst. Upon\nthis, the Lord is said, (in the Old Version of the Bible) to have opened\na fountain of water in the hollow of the jawbone in answer to his cry:\nand the fountain was henceforth named En-hakkore, _i.e._ the \u201cfountain\nof him that calleth,\u201d because Samson \u201ccalled upon the Lord.\u201d Moreover,\nwhen he cast away the jawbone, he is said to have called the place\nRamath-lehi; which the margin (not of the New Version but of the Old)\ninterprets, \u201cthe lifting up of the jawbone\u201d or \u201cthe casting away of the\njawbone.\u201d Without pausing to dwell on the extreme improbability of the\ndetails of the story, I will merely state the probable explanation. It\nis probable that the valley containing the \u201chollow\u201d in which the\nfountain lay, was called, from the configuration of the place, \u201cthe\nAss\u2019s Jawbone,\u201d before the occurrence of any exploit of Samson in it.\nIndeed we find it actually called \u201cLehi,\u201d or \u201cJawbone,\u201d in the narrative\nnow under discussion, just before the supposed incident of the jawbone\ntook place: \u201cThe Philistines went up, and pitched in Judah, and spread\nthemselves in _Lehi_ (_Jawbone_),\u201d Judges xv. 9. This latter fact indeed\nis not conclusive (as the narrator, living long after the event, might\npossibly use the name of the place handed down to him, even in writing\nof a time when he believed the name to have been not yet given): but the\nprobability of a natural explanation of the origin of the name receives\nstrong confirmation from a passage in Strabo (303) who actually mentions\nsome other place (I think in Peloponnesus) called the \u201cAss\u2019s Jawbone.\u201d I\nneed not say that Strabo narrates no such Samsonian incident to explain\nthe name, and that it was probably derived (like Dogs Head, Hog\u2019s Back\nand many other such names) from some similarity between the shape of an\nass\u2019s jawbone and the shape of the valley. Moreover, the word translated\n\u201chollow,\u201d though it might represent the cavity in an ass\u2019s jawbone,\nmight also represent the hollow in a valley, as in Zephaniah (i. 11)\n\u201cHowl, ye inhabitants of the _hollow_.\u201d Again, the name Ramath-lehi\ncannot mean \u201ccasting away of the jawbone;\u201d it means \u201clifting up,\u201d or\n\u201c_hill_,\u201d of Lehi: and accordingly the Revised Version translates, \u201cthat\nplace was called Ramath-lehi;\u201d and the margin interprets the name thus,\n\u201c_The hill_ of the jawbone\u201d. I should add also that the Revisers\u2014instead\nof the Old Version, \u201cclave an hollow place _that was in the jaw_\u201d\u2014give\nus now, \u201cclave the hollow place that _is_ in _Lehi_.\u201d You must see now\nsurely how on every side the old miraculous interpretation breaks down\nand makes way for a natural and non-miraculous explanation of the\nlegend. But we have still to explain the name of the fountain, said to\nhave been given from the \u201ccalling\u201d of Samson. This is easily done. It\nappears that the phrase \u201chim that calleth,\u201d or \u201cthe Caller,\u201d is a Hebrew\nname for the Partridge, so named from its \u201ccall,\u201d or cry. The \u201cFountain\nof the Caller,\u201d therefore, in the \u201chollow place\u201d of the \u201cAss\u2019s Jawbone,\u201d\nwas simply, as we might say, Partridge Well in Jawbone Valley, which lay\nbelow Jawbone Hill.\n\nBut now, many years after the champion of Israel had passed away, comes\nthe legendary poet or historian, who has to tell of some great exploit\nof deliverance wrought by the hero Samson in this Valley of the Jawbone\nof the Ass by the side of the Fountain of the Caller. Straight-way,\nevery local name must be connected with the incident that fills his mind\nand the minds of all his countrymen who live in the neighbourhood. And\nso \u201cJawbone Valley\u201d became so called because it was there that Samson\nsmote the Philistines with \u201cthe jawbone of an ass;\u201d and \u201cJawbone\nheights\u201d are so-called because on this spot Samson \u201clifted up\u201d the\njawbone against his foes, or \u201cthrew it away\u201d after he had destroyed\nthem; and \u201cthe Well of the Caller\u201d derives not only its name but even\nits miraculous existence from \u201c_the calling_ of Samson upon Jehovah.\u201d\n\nI think you will now perceive the kind of reasoning which has compelled\nme to give up the miracles of the Old Testament. It is not in any way\nbecause I have an _a priori_ prejudice against miracles: on the\ncontrary, I started with an _a priori_ prejudice for miracles in the\nBible, though against miracles in general. It is not simply because\nthere is not sufficient evidence for them; it is in great measure\nbecause there is evidence against them. For, when you can shew how a\nsupposed miracle may naturally have occurred, and how the miraculous\naccount may naturally and easily have sprung up, I think that amounts to\nevidence against the miracle. And of course when you find yourself\ncompelled to explain in this way a large number of miracles in the Old\nTestament, it becomes far more probable than before that the rest are\nsusceptible of some natural explanation. I do not pretend to have\ninvestigated in detail every miraculous narrative in the Old Testament.\nI am ready to admit that at the bottom of the miraculous, there may have\nbeen in many cases something very wonderful. Being for example\npersonally very much inclined to the mysterious, I would not deny that\nin the Hebrew race, as in some others, there may have been some strange\npower, natural but at present inexplicable, of \u201csecond sight;\u201d but, on\nthe whole, looking at the evidence for and against the miracles of the\nOld Testament, I have now no hesitation in rejecting them as miracles,\nhowever much I may admire the spirit that suggested the narratives, as\nexhibiting a profound and spiritual sense of the sympathy of God with\nmen.\n\nBut we may perhaps be called upon to believe in the miracles of the Old\nTestament on the authority, so to speak, of the miracles of the New\nTestament. Such at least I take to be the meaning of the following\nextract from an author who has done so much good educational as well as\nepiscopal work, and has manifested such an openness to new truth, that I\ndiffer from him with diffidence where I may possibly have misunderstood\nhis meaning, and with regret where I am confident that I have understood\nhim correctly. The passage is from Bishop Temple\u2019s Bampton Lectures,[11]\nand I will give it at full length, partly because I may have to refer to\nit again, partly because I am afraid of misinterpreting it if I separate\none or two sentences from the context:\n\n    \u201cWe have to ask what evidence can be given that any such miracles as\n    are recorded in the Bible have ever been worked? It is plain at once\n    that the answer must be given by the New Testament. No _such_[12]\n    evidence can now be produced on behalf of the miracles of the Old\n    Testament. The times are remote; the date and authorship of the\n    Books not established with certainty; _the mixture of poetry with\n    history, no longer capable of any sure separation into its parts_;\n    and, if the New Testament did not exist, it would be impossible to\n    show such a distinct preponderance of probability as could justify\n    us in calling many [? any] to accept the miraculous parts of the\n    narrative as historically true.\u201d\n\nIf I understand this argument, I fear I must dissent from it. But let us\ntry at least to understand it. Dr. Temple admits (what I should not be\ndisposed to have admitted without a good deal of qualification) that\n\u201cthe mixture of _poetry with history_\u201d (and the context makes it clear\nthat he is referring to the miraculous accounts of the Old Testament) is\n\u201cno longer capable of any sure separation into its parts.\u201d This is a\nvery important admission indeed. A plain Englishman may miss, at first\nsight, the full importance of it. He may be disposed to say, \u201cWhat does\nthis matter to me? What do I care whether a miracle is told in poetry or\nin prose, provided only it is true?\u201d But by \u201cpoetry\u201d Dr. Temple does not\nmean \u201cverse;\u201d he means hyperbole, poetic figures of speech and\nmetaphors; in plain English, he means language that is literally and\nhistorically untrue. Consequently the admission amounts to this, that it\nis now no longer possible in the miraculous narratives of the Old\nTestament to separate what is historically true from what is\nhistorically untrue. If this be so, I cannot understand how the question\nis substantially affected by the New Testament. Let us suppose for a\nmoment that, many centuries after the times of Moses and Samson, real\nmiracles were wrought by Christ and the apostles; suppose even, in\naddition, that the reality of the miracles wrought by Christ and his\nfollowers could constitute any evidence for the Mosaic Miracles or could\nrefute the evidence against such stories as that of the Ass\u2019s jawbone;\nyet even then, what is the use of knowing that there may be a miracle\nsomewhere concealed in an Old Testament narrative in which it is\nimpossible to \u201cmake any sure separation\u201d of the historically true from\nthe historically untrue?\n\nBut for my part I am quite unable to adopt either of these suppositions.\nI cannot see how \u201ca distinct preponderance of probability\u201d for the\nSamsonian myth or the story of the stopping of the sun could be secured\nby the fact that miracles were really, long afterwards, performed by\nChrist. All that could fairly be said, as it seems to me, would be this,\nthat since miracles were actually wrought by the Redeemer of the race,\nwho was Himself a child of Israel, it is not so improbable as before\nthat miracles might have been also wrought by other previous deliverers\nof Israel. But this could not go far, and certainly cannot constitute \u201ca\ndistinct preponderance of probability,\u201d if we find positive evidence for\na miracle almost wanting, and negative evidence against it very\nstrong.[13]\n\nSo far as Dr. Temple\u2019s argument has weight, so far it appears to me to\nbe capable of being used in the opposite direction to that which he\nintended. For if there is any connection between the miracles of the Old\nand of the New Testament, so that the probability of the latter may be\nfairly said\u2014I will not say to constitute \u201ca distinct preponderance of\nprobability,\u201d but to contribute slightly to the probability of the\nformer, then surely we must also admit that the demonstrated\nimprobability of the former must contribute slightly to the _a priori_\nimprobability which we ought to attach to the latter. If the Bible is to\nbe regarded as a whole, and Bible miracles as a whole, then the fact\nthat the Divine Author of the Bible allowed revelation in the earlier\npart of the Book to be conveyed through an imperfect and non-historical\nmedium will constitute a reasonable probability that He may also have\nconveyed His later revelations through the same means. In other words,\nthe acknowledged presence of the law of \u201cTruth through Illusion\u201d in the\nOld Testament should prepare us not to be disappointed if we find the\nsame law traceable in the New Testament: and the collapse of miracles in\nthe former should prepare us for a collapse of miracles in the latter.\n\nDo not however suppose for a moment that a collapse of miracles implies\na collapse of the Bible, and do not be disheartened by such expressions\nas that \u201cthe mixture of poetry with history is no longer capable of any\nsure separation into its parts.\u201d If that expression refers merely to\nsome of the legends of the times of the Patriarchs, or to a few isolated\npassages elsewhere, it may be accepted without fear; but it cannot apply\nto the great bulk of the history of the Chosen People. Here you will\nfind very little difficulty in rejecting the obviously non-historical\nand miraculous element; and you will lose nothing by the rejection. Read\nthrough Stanley\u2019s _Lectures on the Jewish Church_ and ask yourself\nwhether you have missed anything from the campaigns of Joshua and the\nexploits of Gideon and Samson because the miracles have vanished from\nhis pages. Where miraculous narratives are manifestly not deliberate\nfabrications, but (as here) late prosaic interpretations of early poetic\ntraditions, they very often afford trustworthy evidence of ancient\nhistorical events which imprinted themselves upon the hearts of a simple\npeople. Certainly I can say for myself that I never realized Israel as a\nnation and had not half my present appreciation of the wisdom and wonder\nof the deliverance and training of Israel by Jehovah till I had learned\nto interpret the miracles as being nothing more than man\u2019s inadequate\nattempt to set forth in visible shape the unique redemption of the\nChosen People. Spiritually as well as intellectually, my enjoyment of\nthe Old Testament has been doubled ever since I have been able, however\nimperfectly, to separate the historical element in it from the\nnon-historical, and to interpret the prose as prose and the poetry as\npoetry.\n\nFootnote 9:\n\n  Habakkuk iii. 11.\n\nFootnote 10:\n\n  \u201cThe legend of the victory gained by Guy of Warwick over the dun cow\n  most probably originated in a misunderstood tradition of his conquest\n  of the _Dena gau_ or Danish settlement in the neighbourhood of\n  Warwick.\u201d\u2014Taylor\u2019s _Words and Places_, p. 269.\n\nFootnote 11:\n\n  Page 206.\n\nFootnote 12:\n\n  The italics are in the text. In the next sentence, the italics are\n  mine.\n\nFootnote 13:\n\n  A more plausible argument might be derived from any expressions of\n  Jesus which might appear to imply a belief in the historical nature of\n  the Old Testament miracles. This argument appeals strongly to our\n  sense of reverence. We do not like to think that Jesus was mistaken\n  even in a purely intellectual matter. Yet do we really suppose that\n  Jesus, in His humanity, was exempt from the popular intellectual and\n  scientific errors of contemporary humanity? For example, do we really\n  suppose that Jesus was exempt from the popular belief that the sun\n  moves? For those who realize His humanity it is hard to think that He\n  was intended to be so far separated from the men and women around Him;\n  and, if He was not so separated, I find little more difficulty in\n  supposing that He would have had the same belief as was held by all\n  His countrymen concerning the historical character of the Old\n  Testament.\n\n\n\n\n                                   XV\n                   THE MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT\n\n\nMY DEAR \u2014\u2014,\n\nYou demur to the parallel that I draw between the Old Testament and the\nNew Testament; \u201cThe Battle of Beth-horon can be disentangled from the\nmiracle of the stopping of the sun, just as the battles of Salamis and\nRegillus can be disentangled from the visions which are said to have\naccompanied them: and so of other Old Testament narratives. But is it\npossible,\u201d you ask, \u201cthat the life of Christ can be disentangled from\nmiracles? Do not His own words and doctrine imply a continual assumption\nthat He had power to do \u2018mighty works\u2019 superior to those of ordinary\nmen?\u201d\n\nYou could not have put your question more happily: for you unconsciously\nillustrate the almost universal confusion\u2014common to a great number of\ntheologians and agnostics as well as to the ordinary Bible\nreader\u2014between \u201cmiracles\u201d and \u201cmighty works.\u201d You are really asking not\none but two questions. Your first question asks about \u201cmiracles;\u201d by\nwhich you mean some kind of suspension of a law of nature, or, if you\nprefer it, some act not conceived as explicable in accordance with any\nnatural law by the person who is attempting explanation. Your second\nquestion asks about \u201cmighty works,\u201d a phrase of constant occurrence in\nthe New Testament, by which phrase we may understand works superior to\nthe works of ordinary persons, but not necessarily suspensions of the\nlaws of nature. Works may be \u201cmighty\u201d and yet quite explicable in\naccordance with natural law.\n\nYou seem to expect a No to your first question and a Yes to your second.\nI answer Yes to both. (1) The life of Christ can be disentangled from\n\u201cmiracles.\u201d (2) Christ always assumed that He could do \u201cmighty works,\u201d\nand from them His life cannot be separated.\n\nIt is a law of human nature that the mind influences the body. By acting\non the imagination and the emotions men have in all ages consciously or\nunconsciously effected instantaneous cures in accordance with natural\nlaws. There has been much quackery and deception mixed up with cures of\nthis kind; but no physician, and no man of any general information,\nwould doubt that such cures have been and still are performed. The\nJansenists, subjected to the test of hostile observation, had some\nundeniable successes of this nature. Every one has heard of the\nso-called \u201cmiracles\u201d of Lourdes; and no unprejudiced person would deny\nthat amid possible exaggerations and (I greatly fear) some frauds, they\nhave contained an element of reality. \u201cFaith-healing\u201d is going on in\nEngland during this very year; and in the very place where I am now\nwriting I heard a captain of the Salvation Army just now give out a\nnotice that, besides a \u201cfree and easy meeting,\u201d and a \u201choliness\nmeeting,\u201d and sundry other meetings, there is to be a meeting on one\nevening this week for the purpose of \u201ccasting out devils.\u201d If I go\nthere, I shall probably see attempts, with partial success, to excite a\nparalytic to motion, or to arouse some one from a dull stupor\napproximating to insanity. These attempts, even though immensely\nassisted by the intense interest and sympathetic demonstrations of the\nspectators, will probably produce only a temporary effect; and when it\npasses away the patient will very likely be worse than before. But the\nlaw of nature is the same with all; in modern times with the Jansenists,\nthe miracle-workers of Lourdes, the \u201cfaith-healers,\u201d and the Salvation\nArmy, and in ancient days with the priests of \u00c6sculapius. Cures can be\neffected by a strong emotional shock, sometimes of a gross kind such as\nmere terror or violent excitement, sometimes of a much purer kind, an\necstatic hope and trust. A marked distinction must of course be made\nbetween those cures which can, and those which cannot, be effected by\nappeal to the emotions. Paralysis (called in the New Testament \u201cpalsy\u201d),\nmental disease (often called in the New Testament \u201cpossession\u201d), and\nvarious kinds of nervous disorder, are all susceptible of emotional\ncure: but the loss of a limb cannot be so cured. The cure of a man sick\nof the palsy by the emotional method would be a miracle for spectators\nof the first century, but it would not be a miracle for us now; that is\nto say, it would be explicable by us, but not by them, in accordance\nwith known natural laws: but the restoration of a lost limb by faith\nwould be a miracle for them and for us alike: we know nothing of any\nnatural law in accordance with which such an act could be performed by\nany degree of faith.\n\nNow it will be admitted by all that the great majority of Christ\u2019s\n\u201cmighty works\u201d were acts of healing, and that many of these were\nexpressly attributed by Him to faith. \u201cSeeing their faith\u201d is the\npreface, in each of the three Synoptic Gospels, to the account of the\ncure of the paralytic man, and it is a very curious preface; for it\nseems to shew that Jesus recognized a kind of sponsorial and contagious\nefficacy of faith in that instance (as also in the case of the father of\nthe epileptic boy); and we know by modern experience of \u201cfaith-healing\u201d\nhow great is the influence of a sympathetic and trustful audience.\nElsewhere, \u201cThy faith hath made thee whole,\u201d \u201cAccording to your faith be\nit unto you,\u201d \u201cGreat is thy faith, be it unto thee even as thou wilt,\u201d\n\u201cThy faith hath saved thee,\u201d \u201cIf thou canst believe, all things are\npossible,\u201d \u201cBelieve ye that I am able to do this?\u201d \u201cBe not afraid, only\nbelieve\u201d\u2014these and similar expressions lead us to conclude that many of\nthe \u201cmighty works\u201d of Jesus were conditional on faith. Perhaps it might\nstartle you if I were to say that Jesus was not able to perform a\n\u201cmighty work\u201d unless faith was present; yet if I said this, I should\nonly be repeating what St. Mark (vi. 5), the earliest of the\nEvangelists, says on a certain occasion, that on account of the general\nunbelief at Nazareth Jesus _was not able_ (\u03bf\u1f50\u03ba \u1f10\u03b4\u03cd\u03bd\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf) to do there any\nmighty work, \u201csave that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk and\nhealed them.\u201d This confession is so frank and almost scandalizing in its\nplainness that we cannot be surprised that the later Evangelist, in his\nparallel narrative, softens it down by omitting the words \u201cwas not\nable,\u201d and by inserting \u201cmany.\u201d[14] We need by no means infer from this\nnarrative that Jesus attempted \u201cmighty works\u201d and failed. It may be that\nHe did not attempt them because He discerned the faithlessness of those\naround Him, and felt His own consequent inability. But, interpret it as\nwe may, this passage remains a most important confirmation of the other\npassages in which Jesus Himself implies the necessity of faith. Where\nthere was no faith, there Jesus \u201c_was not able_ to do any mighty work;\u201d\nand this limit to His power Jesus Himself recognized.\n\nHere then we find at once a remarkable difference between most of the\n\u201cmighty works\u201d of Jesus and the \u201cmiracles\u201d of the Old Testament. The\nformer were conditional on faith, and, this condition suggests that many\nof them may be explicable on natural laws; the latter have no condition\nattached to them and there is nothing to suggest that they are\nexplicable on any natural law. Indeed the miracles of the Old Testament\nare very often wrought, not as a natural response to belief, but as a\nrebuke to unbelief: thus the hand of Moses is made leprous one moment\nand pure the next, in order to inspire him with faith; Gideon lays out a\nfleece on the grass, and the laws of nature are suspended for the\npurpose of making it wet to-day and dry to-morrow, simply in order that\nhis unbelieving heart may be encouraged by a sign from God; the\nfaithless Ahaz is encouraged by God in the Old Testament to ask for that\nvery favour which Christ in the New Testament systematically refused to\nthe Pharisees\u2014a sign from heaven: and for the sake of Hezekiah (who asks\n\u201cWhat shall be the sign that the Lord will heal me?\u201d) the dial goes\nmiraculously backward! Could contrast be more complete?\n\nIt follows that we shall be acting hastily if we place the \u201cmighty\nworks\u201d of Jesus on the same level as the \u201cmiracles\u201d of the Old\nTestament, inasmuch as the former are (in the strict sense of the term)\n\u201cmighty works,\u201d while the latter (again in the strict sense of the term)\nare \u201cmiracles.\u201d But in addition to this reason, derivable from the\nnature of the works themselves, there is another reason, derivable from\nthe evidence, for drawing a distinction. Besides the direct testimony of\nthe Gospels, we have other testimony, indirect but even more cogent, to\nprove that Jesus wrought wonderful cures. The earliest of the Gospels\nwas probably not composed in its present shape till more than a\ngeneration had passed away after the death of Christ; and, during the\nlapse of thirty years evidence\u2014especially if handed down by oral, and\nthat too Oriental, tradition\u2014may undergo many corruptions. But the\nletters of St. Paul are earlier, some of them much earlier; and many of\nthem are of such an unaffected, personal, informal nature that it is\nabsolutely impossible to suppose that they were written to express a\nconviction that the writer did not feel, or to make the readers believe\nin truths which were no truths. Now in his letters St. Paul quietly\nassumes that many of his fellow-Christians, and he himself in\nparticular, had the power of working wonderful cures without the\nordinary means[15]. He even sets down this power as one among many\n\u201cgifts\u201d or \u201cgraces\u201d vouchsafed to the Church, and he places it by no\nmeans high in the list. A man must be absolutely destitute of all power\nof literary and historical criticism, if he can persuade himself that\nthese expressions in St. Paul\u2019s letters had no basis of fact, and that\nthey were inserted, though unmeaning both to the writer and to the\nhearers, in order to delude posterity into a false belief. There is\nnothing in the Epistles to indicate the nature of the diseases which\nwere cured by St. Paul and his followers. We may conjecture with much\nprobability that they were nervous diseases, paralysis, \u201cpossession,\u201d\nand the like, such as might be acted on by the \u201cemotional shock\u201d of\nfaith: and the conjecture is confirmed by the fact that, in the time of\nJosephus, healers of demoniacs were very common in Palestine; and\ncertain Jews of Ephesus are recorded in the Acts of the Apostles to have\ntried an experiment, after Paul\u2019s manner, in attempting to cure a case\nof one \u201cpossessed.\u201d But be this as it may, the fact that St. Paul and St\nPaul\u2019s contemporaries unquestionably cured some kinds of diseases in the\nname of Jesus, and did this after some sort of system, by the utterance\nof the name of Jesus, without the ordinary means, is a very strong\nconfirmation of the accuracy of the Gospels in attributing to Jesus the\npower of working instantaneous cures. It would be strange indeed that\nthe Disciples, and not the Master, should have had such powers.\n\nI have laid stress upon the fact that Jesus wrought \u201cmighty\u201d but natural\ncures, in the first place, because it ought to increase our appreciation\nof His personal influence and power over the souls of men, to know that\nHe not only possessed this power in an unprecedented degree but also\ncommunicated it to His disciples; and secondly, because the fact that He\nperformed these \u201cmighty works\u201d has naturally led people, from the\nearliest times down to the present day, to infer that He performed\n\u201cmiracles.\u201d Even at the present time you will find that the great mass\nof Christians make no distinction at all between healing a paralytic or\na demoniac or a dumb man, and restoring a severed ear or blasting a\nfig-tree; all alike seem to them \u201cmiracles.\u201d If this is so even in these\ndays, in spite of physiology, you cannot be surprised that the first\nChristians and their followers made no such distinction; they assumed\nthat the man who could heal a paralytic by a word could heal any other\ndisease in the same way, and do any other work he pleased contrary to\nthe course of nature. This belief would prepare the way for attributing\nto Jesus other works of a very different kind, real \u201cmiracles,\u201d that is,\nsuspensions of the laws of nature. Considering the multitude of such\nacts recorded in the Old Testament as having been performed by Moses,\nElijah, Elisha and others, we may well be surprised to find how very few\nhave been attributed to Jesus: and I believe it can be shown that each\nof these few has originated from some misunderstanding, and without any\nintention to deceive. Of almost all of these real \u201cmiracles,\u201d said to\nhave been wrought by Christ, I believe we are justified in saying with\nBishop Temple that, if we take each by itself, we cannot find for it any\n\u201cclear, and unmistakeable, and sufficient evidence.\u201d[16] So far from\nbeing an exaggeration this is rather an understatement of the case:\nthere is not only no \u201cclear and unmistakeable and sufficient evidence\u201d\nfor them, there is also very strong indirect evidence against some of\nthem. In some future letter I may deal in detail with these miracles;\nfor the present I will select only one.\n\nThis one shall be the most striking of all the miracles in the New\nTestament, a miracle exceeding in wonder even the raising of Lazarus. It\nis found only in St. Matthew\u2019s Gospel, and describes an incident that\nfollowed immediately on the death of Jesus. Here are the exact words:\n\n    \u201cAnd the earth did quake, and the tombs were opened; and many bodies\n    of the saints that had fallen asleep were raised; and coming forth\n    out of the tombs after his resurrection they entered into the Holy\n    City and appeared unto many.\u201d\n\nHave I at all exaggerated this miracle in declaring it to be more\nstartling than even the raising of Lazarus? It records the resurrection,\nnot of one man, but of many. Nor are we allowed by the author to suppose\nthat he referred to visions of the dead, appearing unto friends; for he\ntells us that \u201cthe _tombs were opened_, and many _bodies_ of the saints\narose.\u201d Moreover this would appear to have been a miracle not wrought in\nprivate as many of the mighty works of Jesus were, nor a sight\nvouchsafed to a chosen few (like the manifestations of Jesus after\ndeath); for these \u201cbodies\u201d went into Jerusalem, during the Passover, at\na time when the city was thronged with visitors, and \u201cappeared unto\nmany.\u201d What subsequently became of these \u201cbodies\u201d\u2014whether they remained\non earth till the Ascension when they ascended with Jesus, or whether\nthey lived their lives over again and were buried a second time, or\nwhether they went back to their tombs again after they had appeared in\nJerusalem\u2014is a question of some difficulty, which has exercised the\nminds of commentators and has been answered rather variously than\nsatisfactorily. Be this as it may, the miracle must be confessed by all\nto be stupendous.\n\nNow for the evidence of it. I have been quoting from St. Matthew\u2019s\naccount of this miracle. What would a dispassionate and intelligent\nheathen say of it, coming for the first time to the study of our four\nGospels? Would it not be something of this sort: \u201cHere you call on me to\nbelieve a miracle that appears to me to be motiveless and is certainly\nsingularly startling: but I will suspend my judgment of it till I hear\nthe accounts given by your other three Evangelists. What do they say of\nthe effect produced upon the disciples and bystanders by this earthquake\nand this most extraordinary resurrection? There were present the women\nthat loved and followed Jesus, there was the Roman centurion, there were\n\u2018many\u2019 who witnessed the appearances of the dead: even to those who were\nnot present, an earthquake rending the rocks in the neighbourhood could\nnot be imperceptible: what therefore is said on these points by other\ncontemporary authors as well as by your four Gospels? Tell me that\nfirst; and then I will tell you what I think of the miracle.\u201d\n\nIn answer to this request, which I think we must characterize as a very\nnatural one, we should have first to admit that no profane author makes\nany mention of the resurrection of these numerous \u201cbodies,\u201d nor of the\nearthquake that accompanied it. Then we should have to set down the four\nrecords of the four Evangelists as follows:\n\n[Transcriber\u2019s Note: The following four quotations were originally\nprinted side-by-side. They are transcribed one after another so as to be\nreadable on modern reading devices, which often cannot handle multiple\ncolumns.]\n\n    Mark xv. 37-39.\n\n    37. And Jesus uttered a loud voice and gave up the ghost.\n    38. And the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the\n       bottom.\n    39. And when the centurion, which stood by over against him, saw\n       that he so gave up the ghost, he said, Truly this man was the Son\n       of God.\n\n    Matt. xxvii. 50-54.\n\n    50. And Jesus cried again with a loud voice, and yielded up his\n       spirit.\n    51. And behold the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top\n       to the bottom [_and the earth did quake, and the rocks were\n       rent:_\n    52. _And the tombs were opened: and many bodies of the saints that\n       had fallen asleep were raised;_\n    53. _And coming forth out of the tombs after his resurrection they\n       entered into the holy city and appeared unto many._]\n    54. Now the centurion, and they that were with him, watching Jesus,\n       when they saw [_the earthquake and_] the things that were done,\n       feared exceedingly, saying, Truly this was the Son of God.\n\n    Luke xxii. 46-7.\n\n    46. And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father,\n       into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said this, he gave\n       up the ghost.\n    47. And when the centurion saw what was done, he glorified God,\n       saying, Certainly this was a righteous man.\n\n    John xix. 30, 31.\n\n    30. And he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.\n    31. The Jews, therefore, because it was the preparation, &c.\n\nYou see then that this extraordinary incident, startling enough to be\nthe very centre of a galaxy of wonders, is omitted by _three out of the\nfour Evangelists_. You see also that two of the Evangelists agree with\nSt. Matthew in placing a centurion at the foot of the cross, and in\nassigning to him expressions of faith: but neither of them mentions the\n\u201cearthquake\u201d as being even a partial cause of the centurion\u2019s faith, nor\nis there so much as a hint of any resurrection of the \u201cbodies of saints\u201d\nfrom the tombs.\n\nNow if you and I, with full knowledge of the facts, were writing a\nbiography of a great man, we might undoubtedly exhibit many variations\nand divergences in our story. Every biographer who knows everything\nabout a man must omit something; many things therefore that you would\nomit, I should insert, and _vice vers\u00e2_. But suppose we were writing in\nsome detail the description of the great man\u2019s execution (as the\ncrucifixion is written in great detail by the Evangelists), and, in\nparticular, the emotion and utterances of the soldier who superintended\nthe execution. Is it possible under these circumstances that you should\nrelate (and with truth) that the soldier\u2019s emotion was caused in part by\nan earthquake which happened at the moment of the man\u2019s death\u2014adding\nalso that a large number of people rose at the same time bodily from the\ngraves\u2014and that I, with a full knowledge that both these facts are true,\nshould make no mention at all either of the earthquake or of this\nstupendous resurrection? I say that such an omission of facts is\nabsolutely impossible in any sincere and straightforward biographer, _on\nthe supposition that he knows them_. The argument that \u201cit is unsafe to\nargue from silence\u201d is quite inapplicable here: nor is it in point to\nallege the silence of a courtly historian who writes the life of\nConstantine but omits the Emperor\u2019s execution of his son. The answer is\nthat we have not here to do with courtly historians, but with simple\nunsophisticated compilers of tradition whose main object was to set down\nin truth and honesty all that could shew Jesus of Nazareth to be the Son\nof God. Now it is impossible that the Evangelists should not have\nrecognized in this miracle, if true, a cogent proof\u2014cogent for the minds\nof men in these days\u2014of the divine mission of Jesus: we are therefore\ndriven to the conclusion that they omitted it either because they had\nnever heard of it, or because although they had heard of it, they did\nnot believe it to be true.\n\nYou must not however suppose that this evidently legendary narrative was\nadded with any intent to falsify. Like many of the miraculous accounts\nin the Old Testament, this story is probably the result of\nmisunderstanding\u2014an allegory misinterpreted. The death of Christ\nabolished the gulf between God and man; it tore down the veil between\nthe Holy Place and the Holy of Holies, whereby Christ took mankind, in\nHimself and with Himself, into the direct presence of the Father: and\nthis spiritual truth found a literal interpretation in two of the\nGospels which mention the \u201crending of the veil.\u201d But Christ\u2019s death did\nmore than this. It struck down the power of death itself: it broke open\nthe tombs, and prepared the way for the Resurrection of the Saints; and\nthis spiritual truth, being misinterpreted as if it were literally true,\ngave rise to a tradition (which does not however seem to have been\nwidely received) that at the moment of Christ\u2019s death certain tombs were\nactually broken open, and certain of \u201cthe Saints\u201d rose bodily from the\ndead and walked into Jerusalem.[17]\n\nFootnote 14:\n\n  St. Matthew ix. 58, \u201cAnd he _did not many_ mighty works there because\n  of their unbelief.\u201d For a demonstrative proof that the Gospel of St.\n  Mark contains the earliest tradition, see the beginning of the article\n  \u201cGospels\u201d in the _Encyclop\u00e6dia Britannica_.\n\nFootnote 15:\n\n  To the same effect is _James_ V. 14, 15: \u201cIs any among you sick? Let\n  him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him,\n  anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: and the prayer of\n  faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up.\u201d There can\n  he no doubt that this refers to literal healing; and it is interesting\n  as an indication that probably these early Christian attempts at\n  healing were often tentative. For it will hardly be maintained that\n  _all_ who were thus anointed were healed: otherwise death would have\n  been exterminated in the early Christian church.\n\nFootnote 16:\n\n  Bishop Temple excepts only the Resurrection, which is not here under\n  consideration. His words are \u201cIt is true too that, if we take each\n  miracle by itself, there is but one miracle, namely our Lord\u2019s\n  Resurrection, _for which clear, and unmistakeable, and sufficient\n  evidence is given_.\u201d\u2014_Bampton Lectures_, p. 154.\n\nFootnote 17:\n\n  In the early apocryphal work called _Christ\u2019s Descent into Hell_, a\n  striking description is given of the joy of the saints and the terror\n  of Satan, when Christ descends to Hades and rescues the dead, leading\n  them up to Paradise. In one of the versions of this work, the number\n  of those \u201crisen with the Lord\u201d is mentioned as \u201ctwelve thousand men.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n                                  XVI\n                       THE GROWTH OF THE GOSPELS\n\n\nMY DEAR \u2014\u2014,\n\nYou force me to digress. My object just now was to shew that the life of\nChrist (no less than the history of the redemption of Israel) can be\ndisentangled from \u201cmiracles\u201d, although not from \u201cmighty works\u201d; and I\nproposed to take the six or seven principal miracles attributed to\nChrist by the Synoptists and to shew of each account that it may have\nnaturally and easily crept into the Gospels without any intention to\ndeceive.\n\nBut you will not let me go on in my own way; for you ask a question that\nclaims immediate answer, and something more than a mere Yes or No: \u201cDid\nor did not, the Publican and Apostle St. Matthew write the Gospel\nattributed to him? And if he did, how can he have suffered a \u2018legendary\u2019\nmiracle to \u2018creep into\u2019 his narrative? The same question,\u201d you add,\n\u201capplies to the Gospel of St. John. If these two Gospels, as they stand,\nwere written by Apostles, that is, by personal disciples of Jesus and\neye-witnesses of the events they profess to describe, then there is no\nalternative; either Jesus wrought miracles, or the Apostles lied. No\neye-witness can err as you suppose some one (I know not whom) to have\nerred, by interpreting metaphor as though it were literal statement.\nImagine Boswell, for example, misinterpreting some metaphorical\nexpression concerning Dr. Johnson to the effect that \u2018the great\nlexicographer was exalted by his countrymen to the pinnacle of honour\nand fame\u2019 and consequently inferring that his statue was set up on a\ncolumn like Lord Nelson or the Duke of York! The notion is too\ngrotesque. If then Jesus did not perform miracles we are forced to\nconclude either that the Apostles deceived us or that the Gospels\nbearing their names are forgeries. Which is it?\u201d\n\nIn order to meet this objection I must say a few words about the\ncomposition of the Gospels. For indeed your question shews a complete\nmisapprehension of the manner in which the Gospels grew up, and of the\nancient notions about authorship. In particular, you are far too free in\nthe use of the word \u201cforgeries.\u201d The book called the _Wisdom of Solomon_\ncontains some of the noblest sentiments that have ever found eloquent\nexpression, and yet the philosophic author who composed it (probably in\nAlexandria about eight or nine centuries after Solomon\u2019s death) does not\nhesitate to appeal to the Almighty in words by which he ascribes the\nauthorship to Solomon himself: \u201cThou hast chosen me to be a king of Thy\npeople and a judge of Thy sons and daughters: Thou hast commanded me to\nbuild a temple upon Thy Holy mount,\u201d (ix. 7, 8). Now do you call him a\nforger? The book of Ecclesiastes, one of our own canonical books,\ndeclares that it was written by \u201cthe son of David, king in Jerusalem\u201d\nand that the author was a \u201cKing over Israel in Jerusalem,\u201d (i. 1-12). No\none now (worth mentioning) believes these statements to be true. Yet\nwould you call the composer of Ecclesiastes a forger? Probably in both\ncases the authors felt that they were honouring the memory of the great\nking in thus introducing new truths to the world under the protection of\nhis name. I believe many other instances might be given of the literary\nlaxity of ancient times. But besides, in the case of the Gospels, you\nmust remember that authorship hardly came into question at all events\nfor a long time. The story of the life of Christ would be, in some\nshape, current among the Church as the common property of all, as soon\nas the Apostles began to proclaim the Gospel. Probably it was not, for\nsome time, reduced to writing. Among the Jews the Old Testament was\nspoken of as Writing or Scripture; but their most revered and sacred\ncomments on it were retained in oral tradition: and hence all through\nthe New Testament you will find that \u201cScripture\u201d refers to the Old\nTestament, and that no mention is made of the doctrine about Christ\nexcept as \u201ctradition\u201d or \u201cteaching.\u201d What therefore would probably at\nfirst be current in the Church, perhaps for thirty or forty years after\nChrist\u2019s death, would be simply a number of \u201ctraditions\u201d or oral\nversions of the Gospel, current perhaps in different shapes at the great\necclesiastical centres, such as Jerusalem, Antioch, Ephesus, Alexandria,\nRome, yet presenting a general affinity, and all claiming to represent\n\u201cthe Memoirs of the Apostles\u201d or to be \u201cthe Gospel of the Lord Jesus\nChrist.\u201d\n\nIt ought not to seem strange to you that the Church could exist, and the\nGood Tidings be preached for some years without the aid of written\nGospels. Did not St. Paul preach the Gospel in his letters? Surely he\npreached it very effectually: yet his letters do not contain a single\nquotation from any written Gospel.[18] The same may be said of the\nletters attributed to St. Peter, St. James, and St. John: not one quotes\na single saying of Christ, or contains a phrase that can be said, with\ncertainty, to be borrowed from our Gospels. The book of the Acts of the\nApostles, the earliest summary of Church history, contains many speeches\nby Apostles, one by St. James, some by St. Peter and several by St.\nPaul: in all these speeches only one saying of our Lord is quoted; and\nthat is a saying not found in any of our extant Gospels. Conjecture\nmight have led us to conclude that this would be so. We might reasonably\nhave inferred that, as long as the Church had in its midst the Apostles\nand their companions, and as long also as they daily expected that\nChrist would \u201ccome\u201d, the notion of committing the Gospel to writing for\nposterity would seem superfluous, distasteful, almost implying a want of\nfaith. But when we find this conjecture confirmed by the undeniable fact\nthat the earliest teachers and preachers of the Gospel, in their\nteaching as it is handed down to us, made no use whatever of our written\nGospels, we may regard it as a safe conclusion that, during the first\ngeneration after the crucifixion, written Gospels were neither widely\nused nor much needed.\n\nBut soon the need would arise. One after another the Apostles and their\ncompanions would pass away, and Christ\u2019s immediate \u201ccoming\u201d would now be\nless and less sanguinely anticipated. The great mass of the earliest\nChristians were either Jews or proselytes to the Jewish religion; but\nnow the Gentiles, who had come to Christ without first passing through\nthe Law of Moses, would become the majority in the Church; and for them\nthe Old Testament would not have the same pre-eminent title as \u201cWriting\u201d\nor \u201cScripture.\u201d For these Gentiles too the old Rabbinical prejudice\nagainst committing the teaching of the Church to writing would have no\nweight. Now therefore in several churches simultaneous efforts would be\nmade to write down the traditions current amongst the brethren; and\nhence we find St. Luke prefacing his own Gospel with the remark that he\nwas induced to attempt this task because \u201cmany\u201d others had attempted it.\nSt. Luke could hardly have written thus if one authentic and apostolic\ndocument already occupied the ground and stood pre-eminent in the Church\nas the written record of Christ\u2019s life by an eye-witness. That there was\nno such document, known to St. Luke, we may also infer from his\nacknowledgment of his obligations to those who were \u201ceye-witnesses and\nministers of the word.\u201d It says that he shapes his narrative \u201cas they\nhanded down the tradition\u201d for that is the meaning of his word not \u201cas\nthey _wrote_ the tradition.\u201d You must have noticed that the extant\ntitles of the Gospels declare them to have been written not \u201cby,\u201d but\n\u201caccording to\u201d their several authors. The explanation (which has not\nbeen successfully impugned) is that, even in the later times in which\ntheir titles were given, the old belief continued, that the men who\ncompiled them did no more than commit to writing their version of a\ntradition already current. They did not compose, they reported, the\ntradition; the Gospel was supposed to be the same in all Churches, but\nhere \u201caccording to\u201d one version or writer, there \u201caccording to\u201d another.\nThe Apostles, being with one or two exceptions mere fishermen and\nunlearned men, ignorant of letters, could not very well be supposed to\nbe authors of written compositions; but St. Matthew, being a\ntax-gatherer, would necessarily be an expert writer, and therefore one\nof the earliest traditions committed to writing would be naturally\nattributed to his penmanship. But the evidence for St. Matthew\u2019s\nauthorship appears, when tested, to be extremely slight. It was the\nuniversal belief of the early Church that the Gospel according to St.\nMatthew was originally written in Hebrew, and Jerome has quoted, as\ncoming from the Hebrew original, a passage not found in our Greek Gospel\nof St. Matthew. Even when this Gospel is quoted by the earliest writers,\nit is frequently quoted inexactly, and never connected by them with the\nname of St. Matthew as the author. We ought not to infer from these\nunnamed and inexact quotations that the writers did not recognize St.\nMatthew as the author for their habit is almost invariably to quote\nGospels, simply as Gospel, inexactly, and without mentioning the name of\nthe Evangelist. But this unfortunate habit leaves us without any early\nand trustworthy evidence for St. Matthew\u2019s authorship. On the whole,\nthen, there is very little evidence for supposing that any part of our\npresent Gospel according to St. Matthew was written by an Apostle or by\nan eye-witness of Christ\u2019s life, and there is very much evidence tending\nto show that such a supposition is extremely improbable.\n\nEven if we grant that parts of the Gospel were composed by an Apostle,\nit by no means follows that the whole was. There was a very natural\ntendency, in the earliest days of the Church\u2014when the traditional Gospel\nwas as it were everybody\u2019s property and had not yet acquired the\nauthority of Scripture\u2014to make the tradition as full, as edifying, and\nas correct, as possible. If we may judge from the style of the book of\nRevelation (which is said on rather more substantial grounds than are\ngenerally alleged for the authorship of most of the books of the New\nTestament, to have been the work of the Apostle John) the earliest Greek\ntraditions must have been composed in an ungrammatical, mongrel kind of\nGreek, which must have been as distasteful to the well-educated\nChristian as cockney English or pigeon English would be to us. This\ncould not long be tolerated in traditions that were repeated in the\npresence of the whole congregation; and alterations of style, for\nedification, would naturally facilitate alterations of matter, also for\nedification. The love of completeness would introduce many corrections\nand sometimes corruptions. Often, in those early times, the teacher,\ncatechist, or scribe, who knew some additional fact tending to Christ\u2019s\nglory, and not mentioned in the tradition or document, would think that\nhe was not doing his duty if he did not add it to his oral or written\nversion of the tradition. Even in MSS. of the fourth or fifth centuries\nwe have abundant instances to shew how this tendency multiplied\ninterpolations; principally by interpolating passages from one Gospel\ninto another, but sometimes by interpolating traditions not found now in\nany Gospel with which we are acquainted. Occasionally there are also\ncorruptions of omission, arising from the desire to omit difficult or\napparently inconsistent passages; but by far the more common custom is\nto add. If this corrupting tendency was in force in the fourth century\nwhen the Christian religion was on the point of becoming the religion of\nthe empire, and when the sacred books of Christianity had attained to a\nposition of authority in the Church not a whit below the books of the\nOld Testament, you may easily imagine what a multitude of interpolations\nand amplifications must have crept into the original tradition at a time\nwhen it was still young, unauthoritative, and plastic, during the first\ntwo or three generations that followed the death of Christ. The result\nof all these considerations is that we are not obliged and this, to my\nmind, is a great relief to suppose that any passage which we may be\nforced to reject from our Gospels as false, was written by an Apostle.\n\nI say this is to me a great relief, but perhaps it is not so to you.\nYour notion of what the Gospels ought to be, is perhaps borrowed from a\npassage in Paley\u2019s Evidences where he likens the evidences for the\nmiracles of Christ to that of twelve eye-witnesses, all ready to be\nmartyrs in attestation of the truth of their testimony; and you are\nshocked perhaps when you find that the Gospels fall very far indeed\nbelow the level of such a standard of evidence. What would have seemed\nbest to you would have been an exact record of Christ\u2019s teaching and\nacts, drawn up by one of the Apostles in the name of the Twelve, duly\ndated and signed by all, and circulated and received by the whole Church\nfrom the day after the Ascension down to the present time. And I quite\nagree with you. But then, as we have seen in the history of astronomy\nand in the history of the Old Testament, it has not pleased God to\nreveal Himself or His works to men in the way which men have thought\nbest. Now you are not indeed obliged to infer that, because revelation\nin the Old Testament was accompanied by illusion, therefore revelation\nin the New Testament must have contained a similar alloy; but you ought\nat least to be prepared for such a discovery. For me, it would be a\nterrible shock indeed if I were forced to suppose that a faithful\nApostle of the Lord Jesus Christ had wilfully misrepresented the truth\nwith a view to glorify His Master: but it is no shock at all to find\nthat the highest revelation of God to man has been, like all other\nrevelations, to some extent misinterpreted, obscured, materialized. I\nhave learned to accept this as an inevitable law of our present nature.\nIf it had been God\u2019s will to suspend this law of nature in favour of the\nNew Testament, I think He would have consistently gone further, and\nmiraculously prevented the scribes from making errors, or posterity from\nperpetuating them. But how can I think God has done this, when I know\nthat even the words of the Lord\u2019s own Prayer are variously reported in\nthe two Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Luke, and that every page of a\ncritical edition of the New Testament teems with various readings\nbetween which the ablest commentators are perplexed to decide?\n\nYou must therefore make up your mind to believe that the earliest Gospel\ntraditions and even that triply attested tradition[19] which is common\nto the first three Gospels and which runs through the three with a\nseparate character of its own, like a distinguishable stream passed\nthrough several phases before they assumed their present shape. In my\nnext letter I shall probably ask you to consider what phases they passed\nthrough; but you may perhaps expect me to say something at once about\nthe Fourth Gospel; for to that book many of the previous remarks do not\napply. It was much later than the rest; it has little in subject-matter,\nand nothing at all in style, in common with the rest; it contains\nscarcely a word of the Common Tradition which pervades the first three\nGospels; it probably passed through no phases and suffered few\naccretions; and it differs from the other Gospels, even from St. Luke\u2019s,\nin bearing a far more manifest impress of personal authorship. The three\nsynoptic Gospels really agree with their titles in representing the\nGospel \u201caccording to\u201d their several authors; but the Fourth Gospel\n(although, like the rest, preceded by \u201caccording to\u201d) is a Gospel\nwritten \u201cby\u201d whoever wrote it.\n\nThe question is, who did write it? If it was written by an Apostle, an\neye-witness of the life of Christ, then we have to face\u2014I am not sure we\nhave to accept\u2014your alternative: \u201cEither Jesus worked miracles, or the\nApostles lied.\u201d But there is very little evidence (worth calling\nevidence) for the hypothesis that an Apostle wrote it, and much evidence\nagainst that hypothesis. St. John, the reputed author, is said, on the\nevidence of Justin Martyr, to have written the Apocalypse; which, while\nit resembles in style what we might have expected from a Galilean\nfisherman, differs entirely from the style of the Fourth Gospel. Whoever\nwrote the Gospel, we may be sure that he did not reproduce the words of\nJesus, but gave rather what appeared to him to be their latent and\nspiritual meaning. This can be proved as follows. Suppose three\nwriters\u2014say Boswell, Mrs. Thrale, and Goldsmith\u2014had composed accounts of\nthe life and sayings of Dr. Johnson, widely differing in the\nsubject-matter and style of the narrative, but closely agreeing in the\ncharacter of Johnson\u2019s thoughts, as reported by them, and very often\nagreeing in the actual words imputed to Johnson; and suppose a fourth\nwriter, say Burke, had written his reminiscences of Dr. Johnson, which\nentirely differed in language, in thought, and in subject-matter from\nthe first three: would you not say at once that this was strong proof,\nthat Burke did not report Dr. Johnson\u2019s actual words, and that he had\nprobably tinged them with his own style and thought? But if furthermore\nBurke reported Dr. Johnson\u2019s words and long discourses _in the same\nlanguage as he reported Sheridan\u2019s, and in language indistinguishable\nfrom his own contextual narrative_, then you would, I am sure, find it\ndifficult to be patient with any one who, through force of prejudice and\npleasing associations, obstinately maintained that Burke\u2019s biography was\nequally faithful and exact with the three other concordant or synoptic\nbiographies. Now this comparison exactly represents the facts. You will\nfind several of the most learned and painstaking commentators differing\nas to where the introductory words of the author of the Fourth Gospel\ncease, and where John the Baptist\u2019s words begin; and the style of our\nLord\u2019s discourses in the Fourth Gospel is quite indistinguishable from\nthe style of the author himself. As to the immense difference, in\nrespect of style and thought and subject-matter, between the Synoptic\nGospels, and the Fourth Gospel, you must have felt it, even as a child,\nreading them in English.\n\nI must refer you to the article on \u201cGospels\u201d in the _Encyclop\u00e6dia\nBritannica_ for what I believe to be the most probable explanation of\nthe origin of this remarkable work. It is there shown that there are\nextraordinary points of similarity between the emblematic language and\nemblematic acts attributed to Jesus in the Fourth Gospel, and the\nemblematic conceptions of the Alexandrine philosopher Philo, who\nflourished some sixty or seventy years before that Gospel was written.\nDealing, for instance, with the dialogue between Jesus and the woman of\nSamaria near the well at Sychem, the writer of that article shews that,\nin the works of Philo, the well is an emblem of the search after\nknowledge; Sychem is an emblem of materialism; the \u201cfive husbands\u201d, or,\nas Philo calls them, \u201cfive seducers\u201d represent the five senses so that\nthe whole dialogue appears to contain a poetic appeal to the heathen\nworld, to turn from the materialistic knowledge which can never satisfy,\nto the knowledge of the Word of God which is the \u201cliving water\u201d. Still\nmore remarkable is Philo\u2019s emblematic use of Lazarus (or Eleazar, for\nthe words are the same) as a type of dead humanity, helpless and\nlifeless till it has been raised up by the help of the Lord. But into\nthis I have no space to enter. If you care to pursue the subject, I must\nrefer you to the article above mentioned. Canon Westcott has pointed out\nthat in arrangement and structure the Fourth Gospel has some distinct\npoetic features. I should go further and say that, in this Gospel,\nHistory is subordinated to poetic purpose, and that its narratives of\nincidents, resting sometimes on a basis of fact, but more often on a\nbasis of metaphor, are intended not so much to describe incidents as to\nlead the reader to spiritual conclusions.\n\nWe have no account of the authorship of the Fourth Gospel till the year\n170 A.D., and this we find to be \u201calready legendary.\u201d[20] It is there\nsaid that, being requested by his fellow-disciples and bishops to write\na Gospel, John desired them to fast for three days and then to relate to\none another what revelation each had received. It was then revealed to\nthe Apostle Andrew that \u201cwhile all endeavoured to recall their\nexperiences, John should write _everything in his own name_\u201d. No\nconfidence can be placed in the exactness of testimony that comes so\nlong after the event; but it points to some kind of joint contribution\nor revision such as is implied in John xxi. 24: \u201cThis is the disciple\nwhich testifieth of these things and _we know_ that his testimony is\ntrue.\u201d That the Gospel was written \u201cin the name of John\u201d by some pupil\nof his\u2014perhaps by some namesake\u2014and revised and issued in the name of\nJohn by the Elders of the Ephesian Church, is by no means improbable. In\nsome matters of fact, for example in distinguishing between the Passover\nand \u201cthe last supper,\u201d the Fourth Gospel corrects an (apparent) error of\nthe Synoptic Gospels, a correction that possibly proceeded from the\nApostle John; and perhaps the solemn asseveration as to the issue of\nblood and water from the side of Jesus (\u201cAnd he that hath seen hath\nborne witness, and his witness is true: and he knoweth that he saith\ntrue, that ye also may believe\u201d) may be a reminiscence of some special\ntestimony from the aged Apostle; but it is impossible to ascertain how\nfar emblematic and historical narratives are blended in such passages as\nthe dialogue with the Samaritan woman, the miracle at Cana, and the\nraising of Lazarus. The author was convinced (like every other believer,\nat that time) that Jesus _did_ work many miracles, and _could_ have\nworked any kind of miracle; but he had noted the unspiritual tendency to\nmagnify the \u201cmighty works\u201d of Jesus as merely \u201cmighty:\u201d he therefore\nselected from the traditions before him those in which the spiritual and\nemblematic meaning was predominant. In doing this, he sometimes took a\nspiritual metaphor and expanded it into a spiritual history. Again, he\nhad also noted an unspiritual tendency to lay undue stress upon the\nexact words of Jesus; and he therefore determined\u2014besides giving\nprominence to the promise of Jesus concerning His Spirit, which was to\nguide the disciples into all truth\u2014to exhibit, in his Gospel, the\nspiritual purport of Christ\u2019s doctrine rather than to repeat each saying\nas it was actually delivered.\n\nAs I write these words, with the pages of the Gospel open before me, my\neye falls upon the story of the raising of Lazarus: \u201cJesus said unto\nher, I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth on me, though\nhe die, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth on me\nshall never die.\u201d Is it possible, I say to myself, that Jesus did _not_\nsay these entrancing words? And how often does the same question arise\nas one turns over the leaves: \u201cPeace I leave with you; my peace I give\nunto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you:\u201d \u201cYet a little while\nand the world beholdeth me no more; but ye behold me: because I live, ye\nshall live also.\u201d Could any one at any time have invented such sayings?\nStill less, is it possible they could have been invented in the times of\nTrajan or Hadrian by any Asiatic Greek or Alexandrian Jew? But truth\ncompels me to answer that, just as the Asiatic Jew St. Paul, although he\nnever saw or heard Jesus, was inspired by the Spirit of Jesus to utter\nwords of spiritual truth and beauty worthy of Jesus Himself, so an\nAsiatic Greek or Alexandrian Jew of the time of Trajan may have been\nprompted by the same Spirit to penetrate to the very depths of the\nmeaning of Jesus and to express some of the conclusions to be derived\nfrom His sayings more clearly than we can see them even in the words of\nJesus Himself, as they are recorded in the Synoptic Gospels. I do not\nsee on what principle we can so limit the operation of the Holy Spirit\nas to say it could not extend, in its most perfect force, beyond the age\nof Domitian or Nerva or even Trajan. Having before me the doctrine of\nthe Synoptic Gospels, I am forbidden by mere considerations of style and\nliterary criticism from believing that Jesus used the exact words, \u201cI am\nthe true vine,\u201d \u201cI am the good shepherd,\u201d \u201cI am the light of the world,\u201d\n\u201cI am the resurrection and the life;\u201d but I accept these sayings as\ndivinely inspired, and as being far deeper and fuller expressions of the\nspiritual nature of Jesus than any of the inferences which I could draw\nfor myself from the Synoptic doctrine. Do not then say that I \u201creject\u201d\nthe Fourth Gospel. I accept all that is essential in it; and this I\naccept on far safer grounds than many who would accuse me of rejecting\nit. For their acceptance might be shaken to-morrow if some new piece of\nevidence appeared decisively shewing that the Gospel was not written by\nJohn the Apostle; but my acceptance is independent of authorship, and is\nbased upon the testimony of my conscience.\n\nSurely you must feel that it would be absurd for one who tests religious\ndoctrine to some extent by experience and by history, to reject the\nFourth Gospel because it is in a great measure emblematic, and because\nit was not written by the man who was supposed to have written it. Be\nthe author who he may, I shall never cease to feel grateful to him. The\nall-embracing sweep of view which enabled him to look on the Incarnation\nas the central incident of the world\u2019s history and to set forth Christ\nas the Eternal Word and Eternal Son, not dependent for this claim upon a\nmere Miraculous Conception; the spiritual contempt for mere \u201cmighty\nworks,\u201d which leads him repeatedly to claim faith for Jesus Himself\nfirstly, and for the \u201cwords\u201d of Jesus secondly, and only as a last\nreserve to demand belief \u201cfor the works\u2019 sake;\u201d and the true intuition\nwith which he fastens on the promise of Jesus (only hinted at in the\nSynoptic Gospels) that He would be present with His disciples at every\ntime and place and that He would give them \u201ca voice,\u201d and a Spirit not\nto be gainsaid\u2014from which brief suggestion the author worked out in\ndetail the promise of the Holy Spirit, and predicted the nobler and\nampler future of the Church these true, and profound, and spiritual\nintuitions will always excite my deepest gratitude and admiration. The\ndoctrine of the Eternal Word had its origin perhaps in the schools of\nAlexandria, and certainly formed no part of the teaching of Jesus; but,\nChristianized as it is by the author of the Fourth Gospel, it commends\nitself as a key to many mysteries, and (like the Fourth Gospel itself)\nit appears to be but one among many illustrations of the divine\ndevelopment of Christian doctrine; \u201cI have yet many things to say unto\nyou, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of Truth,\nis come, he will guide you into all truth.\u201d In a word, without the\nFourth Gospel, Christendom might (it would seem) have failed forever to\nappreciate the true nature of its Redeemer.\n\nI cannot indeed repress some regret that this most marvellously endowed\nminister and prophet of Christ should have been allowed to select a\npoetic and even illusive form in order to publish his divine truths.\nHitherto I have been able with pleasure and satisfaction to see the\nillusive integument being gradually separated from the inner truth, as\nin astronomy and in the history of the Old Testament. Now comes a point\nwhere I myself should like to recoil. But how puerile and faithless\nshould I be if I assumed that God would give to the world along with His\ndivine revelation precisely that modicum of illusion (and no more) which\nI myself personally am just able to receive with pleasure! Let us rather\nfollow where, as Plato says, \u201cthe argument leads us.\u201d Or, if you prefer\nme to quote from the Fourth Gospel itself, let us follow the guidance of\nHim who is both \u201cthe Way and the Truth.\u201d\n\nFootnote 18:\n\n  If 1 Tim. v. 18 were an exception, it would shew that that letter,\n  quoting a Gospel as \u201cScripture,\u201d was later than St. Paul. But it is\n  possibly not an exception.\n\nFootnote 19:\n\n  \u201cAttested\u201d is not the same as \u201coriginated.\u201d The tradition may\n  (possibly) have been originated by a single author: but witness, or\n  \u201cattestation\u201d, was borne to its authoritative character by the three\n  earliest Gospels, whose authors, or compilers, independently adopted\n  it. It is therefore \u2018triply attested\u2019.\n\nFootnote 20:\n\n  \u201cThe Fragment of Muratori,\u201d Westcott, _Introduction to the Gospels_,\n  p. 255.\n\n\n\n\n                                  XVII\n                          CHRISTIAN ILLUSIONS\n\n\nMY DEAR \u2014\u2014,\n\nOnce more I am compelled to digress: and, this time, it is in order to\nmeet what you must let me call a preconception of yours. You say that it\nappears to you \u201cimpossible that Christ, if really divine, should have\nbeen permitted by God to be worshipped as a worker of miracles for\neighteen centuries, although in reality he had no power to work them.\u201d\n\nIs this much more than a repetition of your former objection that my\nviews amount to \u201ca new religion,\u201d and that illusion, although it may\nabound in the history of the thoughts of mankind, can never have been\npermitted to connect itself with a really divine revelation? I have\nalready in part answered these prejudices\u2014for they are nothing more\u2014by\nshewing that illusion permeates what is called \u201cnatural religion,\u201d and\nby subsequently shewing that the inspired books of the Old Testament\nexhibit illusions in every page; not only the illusions of the chosen\npeople, but illusions also on the part of the authors of the several\nbooks, who misinterpreted tradition so as to convert a non-miraculous\ninto a miraculous history. But now let us deal more particularly with\nChristian illusions. Here I will try to show you, first, how natural and\n(humanly speaking) how inevitable it was that illusions should gather\nround the earliest Christian traditions, and how easily there might have\nsprung up miraculous accounts in connection with them. Then, and not\ntill then, having done my best to dispel your natural prejudice, I will\ntake in detail the six or seven principal miracles attributed to Christ\nby all the three Synoptic Evangelists, and will endeavour to show you\nthat these accounts did actually spring up in a natural and inevitable\nway, after the manner of illusions, without any attempt to deceive on\nthe part of the compilers of the Gospels. It will appear, I think, that\nthe life and doctrine of Christ are independent of these miracles and\ncan easily be separated from them.\n\nFor the present then I am to speak of the naturalness or inevitability\nof illusions gathering about Christ\u2019s acts and words in the minds of His\ndisciples. Does any student of the Fourth Gospel need to be convinced of\nthis? Perhaps the author of that work discerned the illusions of the\nearly Church even too clearly, so that he slightly overshot the mark in\nthe frequency of the false inferences and misunderstandings with which\nhe delights to encompass the words and deeds of Jesus. Perhaps the\ncomposer of \u201cthe Spiritual Gospel\u201d has been led even too far by his\nprofound and true perception that this Incarnate Word\u2014this Being from\nanother sphere who was and is in the bosom of the Father\u2014could not move\non the earth, among earthly creatures, without being perpetually\nmisunderstood by them. But is there not manifest truth in his conception\nof Jesus as of One having different thoughts from those of common men,\ndifferent ways of regarding all things small or great, a spiritual\ndialect of His own, not at once to be comprehended by ordinary beings?\nCertain it is that, in the Fourth Gospel, Christ\u2019s discourses are one\nstring of metaphors which are literally and falsely interpreted by those\nto whom they are addressed. \u201cFlesh,\u201d \u201cblood,\u201d \u201cwater,\u201d \u201csleep,\u201d \u201cbirth,\u201d\n\u201cdeath,\u201d \u201clife,\u201d \u201ctemple,\u201d \u201cbread,\u201d \u201cmeat,\u201d \u201cnight,\u201d \u201cway,\u201d\u2014these and I\nknow not how many more simple words present themselves, as we rapidly\nturn over the pages of that Gospel, always metaphorically used, and\nalways misunderstood. Nor can it be said that they were misunderstood by\nenemies and unbelievers alone; His disciples constantly misunderstood\nthem. The life of Christ in the Fourth Gospel is one continuous\nmisunderstanding. I will not say that this represents the exact fact;\nbut I doubt not that the inspired insight of the author, be he who he\nmay, took in the full meaning of all the hints that are given by the\nSynoptists as to the misunderstanding of the disciples about their\nMaster, and led him to the deliberate conclusion that the life of Christ\nin the flesh was one perpetual source of illusions to the\nTwelve\u2014illusions through which, by the guidance of the Spirit, they were\nto be led to the truth: \u201cWhat I do ye know not now, but ye shall know\nhereafter.\u201d I believe he went even further and perceived that Christ\u2019s\nlife was in danger of becoming a total delusion to the earliest\nChristians through their tendency to the materialistic and the\nmiraculous, and that the best means of preserving the Church from such a\ndanger was to accustom the faithful to attach value to the words and\ndeeds of Christ only so far as they could interpret them spiritually,\ntrusting to the Spirit for continual guidance into new truth.\n\nThis then is my first proposition, that Christ was sure to be\nmisunderstood by those around Him, owing to His manner of using the\nlanguage of metaphor. You must know very well that this conjecture is\nconfirmed by fact. Sometimes the Synoptists note the fact, as when He\nspoke of \u201cleaven\u201d and the Twelve misunderstood Him literally; and\nseveral other instances are on record. But it is of course possible that\non many other occasions the misunderstanding may have existed, but may\nnot have been noted by the Evangelists. Take one instance. In the\ndiscourse of Jesus to the Seventy Disciples (Luke x. 19) Jesus makes the\nfollowing statement: \u201cI have given you authority to tread upon _serpents\nand scorpions_ and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall in\nany wise hurt (\u1f00\u03b4\u03b9\u03ba\u03ae\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9) you.\u201d How are we to understand this \u201ctreading\nupon _serpents and scorpions_\u201d? Literally or metaphorically? Surely the\ntext itself makes it evident that Jesus used the words metaphorically to\nrefer to \u201cthe power of the Enemy,\u201d _i.e._ \u201cthe Serpent,\u201d or Satan,\nprobably with a special reference to the casting out of devils. Moreover\nthe passage is introduced by a statement that \u201cthe Seventy returned\n_with joy_, saying, Lord, _even the devils are subject unto us in thy\nname_. And he said, I beheld _Satan_ fall as lightning from Heaven.\nBehold I have given you authority to tread _upon serpents_.... _Howbeit_\nin this _rejoice not that the spirits are subject unto you_; but rejoice\nthat your names are written in Heaven.\u201d As for the other part of the\npromise, \u201cnothing shall hurt you,\u201d it surely does not seem to you that\nthese words must imply literal \u201churt\u201d? If it does, let me direct your\nattention to a much more striking instance of Christ\u2019s extraordinary use\nof metaphor in a passage where the Disciples are told, almost in a\nbreath, that _not a hair of their heads shall perish_ and yet that some\nof them shall be \u201c_put to death_\u201d (Luke xxi. 16-18). I think then that\nyou will agree with me that the \u201cauthority to tread upon _serpents_\u201d\nmentioned in St. Luke contained not a literal, but a spiritual promise,\nto tread upon the power of \u201cthe Serpent.\u201d Nevertheless, that this\npromise about \u201cserpents\u201d was very early misinterpreted literally can be\nshewn, not indeed from a genuine passage of the Gospels, but from a very\nearly interpolation in St. Mark\u2019s Gospel, xvi. 17, 18: \u201cThese signs\nshall follow them that believe; in my name shall they cast out devils;\nthey shall speak with new tongues; they _shall take up serpents_, and if\nthey drink any deadly thing, it shall in no wise hurt them; they shall\nlay hands on the sick and they shall recover.\u201d\n\nHere then we have a clear instance of misunderstanding (not noted by the\nEvangelists) arising in very early if not in the very earliest times\nfrom the metaphorical language of Jesus. One more instance of probable\nmisunderstanding must suffice for the present. You know how often in the\nEpistles of St. Paul the word \u201cdead\u201d is used to indicate spiritually\n\u201cdead\u201d _i.e._ \u201cdead in sin.\u201d A similar use is attributed to Christ in\nthe Fourth Gospel: \u201cHe that believeth in me, though he were _dead_, yet\nshall he live\u201d (John xi. 25); but here the impending resurrection of\nLazarus gives the reader the impression that it is literally used.\nHowever it is almost certainly metaphorical in John v. 24, 25, 28, \u201cHe\nthat heareth my word and believeth him that sent me, hath eternal life,\nand cometh not unto judgment, but _is passed from death into life_.\nVerily, verily, I say unto you, the hour cometh and now is, when the\n_dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall\nlive_.... Marvel not at this, for the hour cometh in which all that are\nin the tombs shall hear his voice, and shall come forth\u201d &c. Here\napparently the meaning is that the hour has already come (\u201cnow is\u201d) when\nthe spiritually dead shall hear the voice, and the hour is on the point\nof coming when the literally dead (\u201call that are in the tombs\u201d) shall\nhear it. In any case, the metaphorical meaning is indisputable in the\nstriking saying of Jesus (Luke ix. 60) \u201cLet the _dead_ bury their dead.\u201d\n\nNow if Jesus was in the habit of describing those who were lost in sin\nas being \u201cdead,\u201d and of bidding His disciples \u201craise the dead\u201d\u2014meaning\nthat they were to restore sinners to spiritual life\u2014we can easily see\nhow such language might be misunderstood. It is probable that Jesus\nHimself had actually restored life to at least one person given over for\ndead, the daughter of Jairus, though by natural means. Of such\nrevivification you may find an instance described in _Onesimus_ (pp.\n77-81) which is taken almost verbatim from the account of his own\nrevivification given by the late Archbishop of Bordeaux to the late Dean\nStanley, and sent me by the Dean as being taken down from the\nArchbishop\u2019s lips. If that was so, how natural for some of the Disciples\nto attach a literal meaning to the precept, \u201craise the dead\u201d! They would\nargue thus, \u201cOur Master healed diseases at a word, so can we; He once\nraised a child from the dead and bade us also raise the dead; some of\nthe Disciples therefore ought to be able to do this.\u201d How natural, under\nthe circumstances, such a confusion of the material and the spiritual!\nYet I have little doubt that the diseases which were cured by the Twelve\nwere almost always \u201cpossession,\u201d or paralysis, or nervous diseases.\nCompare the different accounts given by the Synoptists of the\ninstructions of Jesus to the Twelve when He sent them forth on their\nfirst mission:\n\n[Transcriber\u2019s Note: The following three quotations were originally\nprinted side-by-side.]\n\n    Mark vi. 7.\n\n    And he called unto him the twelve, and began to send them forth by\n    two and two; and he gave them authority over the unclean spirits.\n\n    Matthew x. 1.\n\n    And he called unto him his twelve disciples and gave them authority\n    over unclean spirits to cast them out, and to heal all manner of\n    disease and all manner of sickness.\n\n    Luke ix. 1.\n\n    And he called the twelve together and gave them power and authority\n    over all devils and to cure diseases.\n\nHere you find that the first Gospel (St. Mark\u2019s) makes mention only of\nthe \u201cauthority over unclean spirits,\u201d and this probably represents the\nfact. The third account is an amplification; and the second altogether\nexaggerates. Hence, when we read, in the context of the second version\nof these instructions, \u201cHeal the sick, _raise the dead_, cleanse the\nlepers, cast out devils; freely ye received freely give\u201d (Matthew x. 8),\nwe cannot fail to see several arguments against the probability of the\nitalicized words being literally intended by Jesus. First, the language\nof Christ habitually dealt in metaphor, and in metaphor habitually\nmisunderstood by His disciples; secondly, there is no instance in which\na single one of the Twelve carried out this precept during the life of\ntheir Master, and only one in which one of the Twelve (Peter) is said to\nhave raised a woman from the dead (for St. Paul\u2019s incident with Eutychus\ncan hardly be called a case in point); thirdly the precept is recorded\nby only one Evangelist;[21] fourthly that same Evangelist records only\none case in which our Lord Himself raised any one from the dead, _i.e._\nthe revivified daughter of Jairus\u2014and it seems absurd to represent\nChrist as commanding all the Apostles to do that which most of them\nprobably never did, and He Himself (according to the First Gospel) only\ndid once.\n\nWe pass now to another cause that may have originated miraculous\nnarratives in the Gospels. Try to extricate yourself from our Western,\ncold-blooded, analytical, and critical way of looking at things. Sit\ndown in the reign of Vespasian or Domitian in the midst of a\ncongregation of Jewish and Gr\u00e6co-Oriental brethren, assembled for a\nsacred service, \u201csinging a hymn\u201d (as Pliny says, describing them a few\nyears afterwards) \u201cto Christ as to a God.\u201d What effect on the traditions\nof Christ\u2019s life and works would be produced by these \u201chymns and\nspiritual songs\u201d which St. Paul\u2019s testimony (as well as Pliny\u2019s) shows\nto have been a common part of the earliest Christian ritual? Would they\nnot inevitably tend, by poetic hyperbole and metaphor, to build up fresh\ntraditions which, when literally interpreted, would\u2014like the songs and\npsalms of the Chosen People\u2014give rise to miraculous narratives? Part of\nthe service indeed would not consist of hymns but of the reading of the\n\u201cScriptures\u201d _i.e._ the Old Testament; but this also would tend in the\nsame direction. For there you would hear, read out to the congregation,\nmarvellous prophecies how, in the day of the Lord the Redeemer, the eyes\nof the blind should be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped, and\nthe lame should leap as a hart; and the sole thought possessing you and\nevery man in the congregation would be, \u201cHow far did all these things\nfind fulfilment in the Lord Jesus Christ?\u201d You would hear from the\n\u201cScriptures\u201d narratives of marvellous miracles, how Moses gave water\nfrom the rock to Israel in the wilderness and fed them with food from\nHeaven, how Elijah raised the widow\u2019s child from death, and how Jonah\nspent three days in the belly of the fish; and the sole thought\npossessing you would be, \u201cHow far were like wonders wrought by Christ?\u201d\nThen would arise the hymn describing, in imagery borrowed from the Old\nTestament, how Christ _had_ done all these things, and more besides, for\nthe spiritual Israel; how He had spread a table for His people in the\nwilderness, and given to thousands to partake of His body and His blood;\nhow Moses had merely given water to the people, but Jesus had changed\nthe water of the Jews (_i.e._ the Law) into the wine which flowed from\nHis side; how Jesus had fulfilled the predictions of the prophets by\ncuring the halt, the maimed, the blind, the leper, the deaf; how He had\neven raised the dead and bidden His disciples to raise the dead; how He,\nlike Jonah, had spent three days in the darkness of the grave. If you\nlook at the earliest Christian paintings you will find that they\nrepresent Christ as the Fish (the emblem of food); others depict the\nMosaic miracles of the manna and the water from the rock. These shew\nwhat a hold the notion of the miraculous food had taken on the mind of\nthe earliest believers. How easy it would be to amplify a metaphor\nderived from the Eucharistic feeding on the Bread of Life and perhaps on\nthe \u201choney-sweet fish\u201d (as Christ is actually called in a poem written\nabout the middle of the second century) into a miraculous account of the\nfeeding of many thousands upon material bread and material fish! It is\ngreatly to be regretted that we have not one left out of the many hymns\nand psalms of which St. Paul and Pliny make mention. The only vestige of\none that I know is found in a verse of St. Paul\u2019s Epistle to the\nEphesians. It is at all events printed by Westcott and Hort as poetry,\nand it is thought by many commentators to be an extract from some\nwell-known hymn (Eph. v. 14):\n\n               \u201cWherefore (he) saith,\n                     Awake thou that sleepest\n                     And arise from the dead\n                           And Christ shall shine upon thee.\u201d\n\nThis perhaps is our only specimen of the earliest Christian hymnals.\nSurely then it is noticeable that in three lines of this unique specimen\nthere are three metaphors, and in the second line a metaphorical use of\nthe word \u201cdead\u201d which\u2014as I have pointed out above\u2014has probably elsewhere\nresulted in serious misunderstanding.\n\nAfter the hymn would come the sermon. The preacher would stand up like\nApollos to \u201cprove from the Scriptures,\u201d that is, from the Old Testament,\nthat Jesus is the Christ. If you wish to know how some of the Christian\nPreachers would probably discharge their task you should look at the\nDialogue with Trypho written (about a hundred years after Apollos) by\nJustin Martyr\u2014who, I take it, was very much superior in judgment,\nlearning, and ability, to the great mass of Christian Preachers in the\nfirst and second centuries. There\u2014among many other instances of the\nadaptation of history to preconception\u2014you will find Justin declaring\nthat Jesus was born in a cave, and that the ass on which He rode into\nJerusalem was tied to a vine, simply because certain prophecies of\nIsaiah mention a cave and a vine, and because he is determined to find\nfulfilments of them in the life of Christ. But in the early times of\nApollos, and during the next twenty or thirty years, before the Gospels\nhad been committed to writing, there must have been a far stronger\ngravitation towards the Old Testament and a far more powerful tendency\nto find something in the life of Christ to fulfil every prediction about\nthe Messiah and to correspond to every miracle wrought by Moses and the\nprophets. Judged in the light of these considerations, our present\nrecord of Christ\u2019s life ought to surprise us not by the number, but by\nthe paucity, of the fulfilments of prophecy and the miracles contained\nin them.\n\nAgainst these arguments for the antecedent probability that miracles\nwould be baselessly imputed to Jesus (to be followed presently by a few\ninstances to shew that they have been so imputed) I know nothing that\nhas been recently urged except a consideration drawn from the life of\nJohn the Baptist: \u201cTo the Baptist no miracle has been imputed by the\nGospels; to Christ miracles have been imputed; why not to both? What is\nthe reason for this distinction except that the former did not perform\nmiracles, while the latter did?\u201d Two reasons can be given. In the first\nplace Christ worked \u201cmighty works,\u201d while John did not; and since many\nof these \u201cmighty works\u201d could not in the first century be distinguished\nfrom \u201cmiracles,\u201d they served as a nucleus round which a miraculous\nnarrative might gather; in the history of the Baptist there would be no\nsuch nucleus. The second and perhaps more important reason is, that, as\na counterpoise to the natural exaggerative tendency which might have led\nmen to attribute miracles to the Baptist, there would be also a tendency\nto heighten the contrast between the Servant and the Master. This\ntendency appears to me to increase in the later Gospels till at last in\nthe Fourth we come to the express statement, \u201cJohn worked no miracle\u201d\n(John x. 41). But whether I am right or not in this conjecture, it is\nquite certain that the attitude of the Christians towards the mere\nforerunner of the Messiah\u2014about whom the Prophets had simply predicted\nthat he would \u201cturn the hearts of the children to the fathers\u201d\u2014would not\nbe such as to render likely any imputations of miracles to him. At\nEphesus, in the days of St. Paul, there were some quasi-Christians who\nhad received none but \u201cJohn\u2019s Baptism,\u201d and had \u201cnot so much as heard\nwhether there is a Holy Ghost.\u201d That gives us a much stronger impression\nof the Prophet\u2019s influence, and a much weaker impression of the\nprevalence of the doctrine about the Holy Spirit in the earliest\nChristian teaching, than we should have inferred from what we read in\nthe Fourth Gospel: was it likely, when the Baptist\u2019s influence seemed to\nthe contemporaries of St. Paul still so powerful (perhaps too powerful)\nthat they would be tempted unconsciously to magnify it by casting round\nhim that halo of miraculous action which naturally gathered around the\nlife of Christ?\n\nDoes it seem to you very hard, and almost cruelly unnatural, that the\nlife of the Baptist\u2014in whom the world takes comparatively little\ninterest\u2014should be handed down with historical accuracy (at least so far\nas miracles are concerned) while the life of Christ, the centre of the\nhopes and fears of the civilized world, has been permitted by Providence\nto become a nucleus for illusion and superstition as well as for the\nrighteous faith and love of mankind? It is hard; it is not unnatural.\n\n         \u201cWhen beggars die there are no comets seen;\n         The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.\u201d\n\nWhat does Shakespeare mean by this except to exemplify the universal,\nand natural, but illusive belief, that whatever affects the greatest man\nmust also affect material nature? Therefore in proportion to the\ngreatness of any man we must expect that the illusions about him will be\ngreat in the minds of posterity. How indeed could it be otherwise?\nReflect for a moment. Jesus came into the world to be a spiritual\nSaviour, a spiritual Judge; but how few there were in those days who\ncould fully appreciate even the meaning of these titles! Do you\nyourself, even at this date, after the lapse of eighteen centuries,\ngrasp firmly this notion of spiritual judgment? Reverence can hardly\nrestrain you from smiling at the Apostles for their unspiritual dreams\nof a \u201ccarnal\u201d empire with twelve tangible thrones to be set up for their\ntwelve selves in Palestine; but you yourself, have you never, at all\nevents in younger days, dreamed sometimes of a visible white throne on\nmaterial clouds, of a visible and perhaps tangible trumpet, of an\naudible verdict of \u201cGuilty\u201d or \u201cNot guilty\u201d externally pronounced on\neach soul? perhaps also of palpable palm branches, and of I know not\nwhat more sensuous apparatus, without which you can scarcely realize the\nnotion of the Day of Judgment? And yet all these are adventitious and\naccidental accompaniments of the real and essential \u201cjudgment\u201d which is\nin Greek the \u201csifting\u201d or \u201cdivision\u201d _i.e._ the division between good\nand evil in the heart of each one of us. But I doubt even now whether\nyou understand the meaning of this spiritual \u201cdivision\u201d or judgment. Let\nme try to explain it. Have you not at any time suddenly, in a flash,\nbeen brought face to face with some revelation of goodness, some good\nperson, or action, or book, or word, or thoughts\u2014which in a moment,\nbefore you were aware, has lighted up all the black caverns of your\nnature and made your mind\u2019s eye realize them, and your conscience abhor\nthem, setting your higher nature against your lower nature, so that,\nwithout your knowing it, this angelic visitant has taken hold of you,\ncarried away the better part of you along with itself into higher\nregions of purer thought than yours, from whence your better nature is\nforced to look down upon, and condemn, your lower and grosser self? This\n\u201cdivision\u201d is the operation of the two-edged sword of the Spirit; and\nwhen a man\u2019s cheeks flush with shame, or his heart feels crushed with\nremorse, under this \u201cdividing\u201d power, and he _feels_ the verdict \u201cI am\nguilty,\u201d then he is being judged far more effectually than any earthly\nlaw court could judge him. Now it is this kind of judgment that Jesus\nhad in mind when He spoke of the judgment of the world by the Son of\nMan. In this sense He has been judging, is judging, and will judge, till\nthe Great Judgment consummates the story of such things as are to be\njudged. But how little has the world realized this!\n\nProbably some would have realized less of the spiritual if they had\nimagined less of the material. You know how the English judges of our\ntimes still insist on much of the old pomp and ceremony which in the\ndays of our forefathers was thought necessary in order to make justice\nvenerable. The trumpets, and the javelin-men, and the sheriffs in the\nprocession, the wig and gown and bands in court\u2014they all seem a little\nridiculous to most of us now; yet possibly the judges are right in\nretaining them. Possibly our brutal English nature will need for some\ndecades longer these antique and now meaningless trappings before they\nwill be able to respect the just judge for the sake of justice itself.\nAnd in the same way, from the days of Clovis to those of Napoleon, many\na man who would have found it impossible to realize the righteous Judge\nas the invisible wielder of the two-edged sword of the Spirit, has felt\na fear, which perhaps did more good than harm, at the thought of the\nopening graves, the unclothed trembling dead, the thunder-pealing\nverdict and the flames of a material hell. Who also can deny that the\nillusion which has represented Jesus as having possessed and exerted the\npower to cure every imaginable disease of the body, has led many to\nrealize Him as the Healer of something more than material disease, in a\nmanner otherwise impossible for masses of men living under an oppression\nwhich often scarcely left them the consciousness that they possessed\nanything but bodies wherewith to serve their masters?\n\nDo not suppose, because I am forced by evidence to reject the miracles,\nthat I am blind to the part that they once played in facilitating faith\nin Christ. A whole essay, a volume of essays might be written on that\nsubject, without fear of exaggeration. The Miraculous Conception, the\nMiraculous Resurrection and Ascension, the miracles of the feeding of\nthe four thousand and of the five thousand,\u2014it would be quite possible\nto shew from Christian literature and history, how in times gone by,\nwhen laws of nature were unrecognized, these supposed incidents of\nChrist\u2019s life not only found their way into men\u2019s minds without\nhesitation and without a strain upon intellect or conscience, but also\nconveyed to the human heart, each in its own way, some deep spiritual\ntruth satisfying some deep spiritual need. It is the old lesson once\nmore repeated: the eyes take in, as a picture, what the ears fail to\nconvey to the brain or heart, when expressed in mere words.\n\nBut now, there are abundant symptoms that the tempers and minds of men\nare greatly changed. Men\u2019s minds are more open than before to the need\nof some spiritual bond to keep society together; and the character and\nspiritual claims of Christ, and the marvellous results that have\nfollowed from His life and death, are beginning (I think) to be\nrecognized with more spontaneousness and with less of superstitious\nformalism. On the other hand, the vast regularity of Nature has so come\nhome to our hearts that some believe in it as if it had a divine\nsanctity; the thought of praying that the sun or moon may stand still\nshocks us as a profanity; and boys and girls, as they stand opposite to\nsome picture setting forth a Bible miracle, look puzzled and perplexed,\nor, if they are a little older, say with a sententious smile that \u201cthe\nage of miracles is past.\u201d In a word, that very element of inexplicable\nwonder which once strengthened the faith, now weakens it, by furnishing\nweapons to its assailants, and by inducing rash believers to take up and\ndefend against sceptics a position that is indefensible.\n\nIn any case, it is the duty of each generation of Christians to put\naside, as far as it can, the illusions of the previous generation and to\nrise higher to the fuller knowledge of Christ; for the outworn and\nundiscarded illusions of one generation become the hypocrisies of the\nnext. The illusions of the permanence of the Mosaic Law, of the speedy\nConsummation, of Transubstantiation, of the Infallible Church, of the\nInfallible Book, have all been in due course put away. A candid and\nmodest Christian ought surely to argue that, where so many illusions\nhave already been discarded\u2014and all without injury to the worship of\nChrist\u2014some may remain to be discarded still, and equally without injury\nto the Eternal Truth.\n\nWhat if miraculous Christianity is to natural Christianity as the\nPtolemaic astronomy is to the Newtonian? Both of these astronomical\nsystems were of practical utility; both could predict eclipses; both\nrevealed God as a God of order. But the former imputed to the unmoving\nsun the terrestrial motion which the latter correctly imputed to the\nearth; the former explained by a number of arbitrary, non-natural, and\nquasi-miraculous suppositions\u2014spheres, and spirals, and epicycles, and\nthe like\u2014phenomena which the latter more simply explained by one\ncelestial curve traced out in accordance with one fixed law. I believe\nthat in religion also we have made a similar mistake and are being\nprepared for a similar correction. We have imputed to Christ some\nactions which have sprung from the promptings of our own\nimaginations\u2014imaging forth what _our_ ideal Deliverer would have\ndone\u2014and which have represented, not His motions, but the motions of our\nown hearts. By what we have euphemistically denominated \u201clatent laws,\u201d\nthat is to say by hypotheses as arbitrary and baseless as the old\nepicycles, unsupported by sufficient evidence and inconsistent with all\nthat we see and hear and feel around us in God\u2019s world, we have\nendeavoured to explain a Redemption which no more needs such\nexplanations than forgiveness needs them\u2014a Redemption which is as\nnatural (that is to say, as much in accordance with the laws of physical\nnature and the ordinary processes of human nature) as that Law of Love,\nor Spiritual gravitation, which may be illustrated in the microcosm of\nevery human household. Now we are to learn the new truth: and as the God\nof Newton is greater (is He not?) than the God of Ptolemy, so let us not\ndoubt that the God revealed in spiritual Christianity will be greater\nthan the God revealed in material and miraculous Christianity. The new\nheavens will not cease to declare the glory of God; the new firmament\nwill not fail to tell of His handiwork.\n\nFootnote 21:\n\n  Of course its omission by the other Evangelists might indicate that\n  the words were not uttered by Jesus; but it might also indicate that\n  the precept, being generally misunderstood, was considered so strange\n  and at variance with facts that it had come to be discredited and\n  considered spurious.\n\n\n\n\n                                 XVIII\n         ARE THE MIRACLES INSEPARABLE FROM THE LIFE OF CHRIST?\n\n\nMY DEAR \u2014\u2014,\n\nFrom the digressions concerning the growth of the Gospels and the\npossibility or probability that their truths would be conveyed through\nillusion I now return to our main subject, the question whether the life\nof Christ can be disentangled from miracles. And here you tell me that\nsome of your agnostic and sceptical friends quote with great\nsatisfaction the following sentence from Bishop Temple\u2019s recent _Bampton\nLectures_[22]: \u201cMany of our Lord\u2019s most characteristic sayings are so\nassociated with narratives of miracles that the two cannot be torn\napart.\u201d I can well believe what you tell me as to the advantage which\nthey naturally take of this admission: \u201cHere,\u201d they say, \u201cis a statement\nmade on high authority that, unless you can believe that Jesus worked\n_bon\u00e2 fide_ miracles, such as the blasting of the fig tree and the\ndestruction of the swine, you must give up \u2018many of Christ\u2019s most\ncharacteristic sayings\u2019 in other words, you must give up the hope of\nknowing what Jesus taught.\u201d I wish your friends, who quote this\nassertion with so much pleasure, would also have quoted the\n\u201ccharacteristic sayings\u201d alleged by Dr. Temple in proof of this\nassertion; for you would then have seen for yourself that many of these\n\u201ccharacteristic sayings\u201d are associated not with \u201cmiracles\u201d but with\n\u201cmighty works;\u201d and I am sure you have not forgotten the difference\nbetween the two.[23]\n\nFor example the first of the \u201ccharacteristic sayings\u201d is, \u201cSon, thy sins\nbe forgiven thee.\u201d Now these words were spoken to the paralytic man;\nand, as we have seen above, the cure of paralysis by appeal to the\nemotions\u2014although a remarkable act, and although, if permanent, so\nremarkable as to deserve to be called \u201ca mighty work\u201d\u2014cannot be called a\nmiracle. But I need say no more of this, as I have treated of cures by\n\u201cemotional shock\u201d in a previous letter. Now all the other sayings quoted\nby Dr. Temple refer to \u201cfaith\u201d or \u201cbelieving;\u201d and all, I think, are\nconnected with acts of healing. There may be doubtless in some of our\npresent accounts of the \u201cmighty works\u201d some inaccuracies or\nexaggerations as to the nature of the disease and the circumstances of\nthe cure. For example, when the cure is said to have been performed at a\ndistance from the patient, either (1) faith must have wrought in the\npatient by his knowledge that his friends were interceding with Christ,\nor (2) we must assume some very doubtful theory of \u201cbrain-wave\u201d\nsympathy, or admit that (3) the story is exaggerated, or else that (4)\nthere is a _bon\u00e2 fide_ miracle. For my own part I waver, in such cases\nas that of the centurion\u2019s servant and the Syro-Ph\u0153nician\u2019s daughter,\nbetween the hypotheses which I have numbered (1) and (3), with a\nsentimental reserve in favour of (2); but any one of these seems to me\nso far more probable than the hypothesis of a suspension of the laws of\nnature that I do not feel in the least constrained by reason of such\n\u201ccharacteristic sayings\u201d concerning faith, to give in my adhesion to a\nnarrative of miracle. On the contrary I say the mention of \u201cfaith,\u201d and\nChrist\u2019s \u201cmarvel\u201d at faith, and His eulogy of the \u201cgreatness\u201d of the\n\u201cfaith\u201d in certain cases, all go to prove that these acts were not\nmiracles, but simply acts of faith-healing on a colossal scale. I hope\nyou will not feel inclined to sneer at the reservation in those last\nfour words. You will surely admit that, if Christ did anything\nnaturally, the result might be proportionate to His nature; and if His\npower of appealing to the emotions was colossal, the material result of\nthat appeal might be proportionately colossal. I begin, therefore, the\nprocess of disentanglement between the historical and the miraculous in\nChrist\u2019s life by a protest against a hasty and blind confusion which\nrefuses to discriminate between \u201cmiracles\u201d and \u201cmighty works,\u201d and calls\non us to reject from the history not only the miraculous but the\nmarvellous as well; and I assert that the acts of faith healing with\nwhich, as Bishop Temple truly says, there are associated many of our\nLord\u2019s most characteristic sayings, may be accepted as generally\nhistorical and natural.\n\nThis, however, would not apply to such a miracle as the restoration of\nthe ear of the high priest\u2019s servant; and the reasons are obvious. The\nfaith necessary for an act of emotional healing is not said to have\nexisted, and is not likely to have existed, in a man who probably looked\non Christ as an impostor. Even if it had existed, the case was not one\nwhere we have reason to think faith could have healed. Besides, the\nmiracle is omitted by three out of the four Evangelists. It is possibly\na mistaken inference from some tradition about an utterance of Jesus,\n\u201cSuffer ye thus far;\u201d which may have really had an entirely different\nmeaning, but which led the third Evangelist to conclude that Jesus\ndesired His captors to give Him so much liberty as would allow him to\nperform this act of mercy\u2014a humane and picturesque thought, but not\nhistory. It is scarcely conceivable that the other three Evangelists\nshould have mentioned the wound inflicted on the servant; that Matthew\nand John should have added a rebuke addressed by Jesus to Peter for\ninflicting it; and that John should have taken the pains to tell us the\nname of the high priest\u2019s servant and yet that they should have omitted,\nif they actually knew, the fact that the wound was immediately and\nmiraculously healed by Jesus. The irresistible conclusion is that St.\nMark, St. Matthew, and St. John, knew nothing of this miracle.\n\nWhen the acts of healing are set apart, and considered as \u201cmighty works\u201d\nbut not \u201cmiracles,\u201d the _bon\u00e2 fide_ miracles in the Synoptic Gospels\nwill become few indeed: and I think it will be found that these few are\nsusceptible of explanation on natural grounds. We will pass over the\nfinding of the coin in the fish\u2019s mouth which is found in St. Matthew\u2019s\nGospel alone and can hardly be associated with any \u201ccharacteristic\nsaying\u201d of Jesus\u2014and come to a miracle common to the three Synoptists,\nthe destruction of two thousand swine following on the exorcism of the\nGadarene.\n\nThis is a very curious case of misunderstanding arising from literalism.\nIt was a common belief in Palestine (as it was also in Europe during the\nmiddle ages), that the bodies of the \u201cpossessed,\u201d or insane, were\ntenanted by familiar demons in various shapes\u2014toads, scorpions, swine,\nserpents, and the like. These demons were supposed to have as their\nnormal home an \u201cabyss\u201d or \u201cdeep\u201d (Luke viii. 31, \u1f04\u03b2\u03c5\u03c3\u03c3\u03bf\u03bd); but this they\nabhorred, and were never so happy as when they found a home in some\nhuman body. The \u201cpossessed\u201d believed that these demons were visible and\nmaterial; and the juggling exorcist would sometimes (so Josephus tells\nus) place a bucket of water to be overturned by the demons in passing,\nas a proof that they were driven out. In a word, the \u201cpossessed\u201d could\nhardly be convinced that he was cured, unless he saw, or thought he saw,\nthe frogs, serpents, scorpions, or swine actually rushing from his mouth\nin some definite direction.\n\nThe explanation of the miracle will now readily suggest itself to you.\nSome man, perhaps a patriotic Galilean, to whom nothing would be more\nhateful than a Roman army, conceived himself to be possessed by a whole\n\u201clegion,\u201d two thousand \u201cunclean swine.\u201d Identifying himself\u2014as was the\nhabit of those who were \u201cpossessed\u201d\u2014with the demons whom he supposed to\nhave possession of him, the insane man declared that his name was\n\u201cLegion, for we are many\u201d and they (or he) besought Jesus that He would\nnot drive them into the \u201cdeep,\u201d _i.e._ into the \u201cabyss\u201d above-mentioned.\nBut by the voice of Jesus the man is instantaneously healed: he sees the\nlegion of demons that had possessed him rushing forth in the shapes of\ntwo thousand swine and hurrying down into \u201cthe deep;\u201d and what he sees,\nhe loudly proclaims to the bystanders. It is easy to perceive how on\nsome such a basis of fact there might be built the tradition that Jesus\nhealed a demoniac whose name was Legion, and sent two thousand swine\ninto the deep sea; and from thence by easy stages the tradition might\narrive at its present shape.\n\nSo far, I think, you do not find it very difficult to separate the\nmiraculous from the historical in the life of Christ, nor feel yourself\nforced to sacrifice any of the \u201cmost characteristic sayings of Jesus.\u201d\nLet us now come to a miracle of greater difficulty, the blasting of the\nbarren fig-tree.\n\nEven of those commentators who accept the miracle of the fig-tree as\nhistorical, most, I believe, see in it a kind of parable. The barren\nfig-tree, they say, which made a great show of leaves but bore no fruit,\nobviously represents, in the first place, the Pharisees, and in the\nsecond place, the nation, which, as a whole, identified itself with the\nPharisees. Both the Prophets and the Psalms delight in similar\nmetaphors. Israel is the vine; Jehovah, in Isaiah, is the Lord of the\nvine, who demands good fruit and finds it not, and consequently resolves\nto destroy the vine. So here, the Lord comes to the fig-tree of\nPhariseeism, the tree of degenerate Israel, seeking fruit; and finding\nnone, He curses it, and withers it with the breath of His mouth. Is it\nnot easy to see how a parable, thus expressed in the hymns and earliest\ntraditions of the Church, might speedily be literalized and give rise to\na miraculous narrative?\n\nLet me point out to you a curious fact confirmatory of this view. I dare\nsay you may have noticed that St. Luke, although he agrees with St. Mark\nand St. Matthew in the context of this miracle, omits the miracle\nitself. Why so? Is it because he never heard of the miracle? Not quite\nso. It is because he had heard of it in a slightly different form, not\nas a miracle but as a parable, which he alone has preserved. St. Luke\u2019s\nversion of the tradition is that the Lord comes to the barren tree and,\nfinding no fruit on it, gives orders that it is to be cut down: but the\nsteward of the farm pleads for a respite; let the ground be digged and\nmanured, then, if there be no fruit, let it be cut down. A similar\nthought, you see, is here expressed in two different shapes, a\nmiraculous and a non-miraculous; and it is not difficult to understand\nhow the former may have been developed from the latter.\n\nBut I see that your last letter has a remark on this very miracle, and\non the difficulty of rejecting it. \u201cIt is associated,\u201d you say, \u201cwith\none of the most characteristic sayings of Jesus: for it is in connection\nwith the withering of the fig-tree that Jesus says (Matt. xxi. 21), \u2018If\nye have faith, ye shall not only do _what is done to the fig-tree_, but\neven if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou taken up and cast into\nthe sea, it shall be done.\u2019\u201d \u201cHere,\u201d you say, \u201cwe have a characteristic\nsaying of Jesus expressly referring to something done, and done\nmiraculously.\u201d\n\nWould it not have been wise, before making so emphatic a statement, to\nconsider how St. Mark, the earlier of the two narrators of this miracle,\nsets forth the comment of Jesus? The comments run thus in the first two\nGospels, and I will add a parallel saying from the third Gospel, not\nattached to any miracle:\n\n[Transcriber\u2019s Note: The following three quotations were originally\nprinted side-by-side.]\n\n    Mark xi. 21-23.\n\n    And Peter, calling to remembrance, saith unto him, \u201cRabbi, behold\n    the fig tree which thou cursedst is withered away.\u201d And Jesus\n    answering saith unto them, \u201cHave faith in God. Verily I say unto\n    you, Whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou taken up and\n    cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall\n    believe that what he saith cometh to pass; he shall have it.\u201d\n\n    Matthew xxi. 20-21.\n\n    And when the disciples saw it, they marvelled, saying, \u201cHow did the\n    fig tree immediately wither away?\u201d And Jesus said unto them, \u201cVerify\n    I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall [_not only\n    do what is done to the fig tree, but even if ye shall_] say unto\n    this mountain, Be thou taken up and cast into the sea, it shall be\n    done.\u201d\n\n    Luke xvii. 5-6.\n\n    And the apostles said unto the Lord \u201cIncrease our faith.\u201d And the\n    Lord said, \u201cIf ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye would\n    say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou rooted up, and be thou planted\n    in the sea; and it would have obeyed you.\u201d\n\nYou see then that the more authoritative (because earlier) of our two\nwitnesses omits those very words on which you lay so much stress, the\n\u201cexpress reference to something done, and done miraculously.\u201d And ought\nnot this fact to make you pause and ask yourself \u201cAm I really to suppose\nthat the Lord Jesus encouraged His disciples to command material\nmountains to be cast into the sea, and material trees to be destroyed?\nDid He Himself so habitually act thus that He could naturally urge His\ndisciples to do the like? Does it not seem, literally taken, advice\ncontrary not only to common sense but also to a reverent appreciation of\nthe law and order of nature?\u201d I would suggest to you that you might\nweigh the inherent improbability of the words in St. Matthew (literally\ntaken), as well as the external probability\u2014which I will now endeavour\nto shew\u2014that the whole passage was metaphorical.\n\nWe know from St. Paul\u2019s works, as well as from Rabbinical literature,\nthat \u201cto move mountains\u201d was a common metaphor to express intellectual\nor spiritual ability. St. Paul speaks of faith that would \u201cmove\nmountains;\u201d and you will find in Lightfoot\u2019s _Horae Hebraicae_ (ii. p.\n285), \u201cThere was not such another _rooter up of mountains_ as Ben\nAzzai.\u201d Now we know from St. Luke\u2019s Gospel (xvii. 6), that Jesus used a\nsimilar metaphor of trees, as well as of mountains, to exemplify the\npower of faith; and this without any reference to \u201csomething done and\ndone miraculously:\u201d \u201cIf ye have _faith_ as a grain of mustard seed, ye\nwould say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou _rooted up and planted in the\nsea_; and it would have obeyed.\u201d Planted in the sea! Can you dream that\nso preposterous a portent could have been prayed for by any sane and\nsober follower of Christ in compliance with his Master\u2019s suggestion?\nBear in mind that these words in St. Luke\u2019s Gospel were uttered a long\ntime before the blasting of the fig tree is supposed to have happened,\nand at a different place. Does not then a comparison of this passage\nwith the other two make it probable that Jesus was in the habit of\nencouraging His disciples to be \u201cpluckers up of mountains\u201d and \u201crooters\nup of trees,\u201d not literally but metaphorically, meaning thereby that\nthey were to attempt and accomplish the greatest feats of faith?\n\nYou will, perhaps, be surprised when you find what it was that Jesus\nregarded as the greatest feat of faith in the passage of St. Luke just\nmentioned. It was a feat of which we are accustomed to think rather\nlightly; partly, perhaps, because we are often contented with the\nappearance of it without the reality: it was simply forgiveness. He had\ntold the disciples they must forgive \u201ctill seventy times seven:\u201d The\nApostles, in despair, replied \u201cIncrease our faith:\u201d and then Jesus tells\nthem that if they had but a germ of living trust, they could become\n\u201cuprooters of sycamine trees,\u201d in other words they could perform\nforgiveness, the greatest feat of faith. But perhaps you will say, \u201cAt\nall events in St. Mark, the earliest authority for the miracle of the\nblasting of the fig-tree, there is no mention of forgiveness, and\nnothing that would indicate that his version of the words of Jesus\nreferred to what you call \u2018the greatest feat of faith,\u2019 _i.e._\nforgiveness.\u201d On the contrary, you will find that St. Mark, with some\napparent confusion of different thoughts, retains the trace of the\noriginal spiritual signification of the words (Mark xi. 22-25): \u201cHave\n_faith_ in God. Verily I say unto you, whosoever shall say unto this\nmountain, Be thou taken up and cast into the sea, and shall not doubt in\nhis heart but shall believe that what he saith cometh to pass, he shall\nhave it. _Therefore_ I say unto you, All things whatsoever ye pray and\nask for, believe that ye have received them, and ye shall have them;\n_And whensoever ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have aught against any\none_; that your Father which is in heaven may forgive your trespasses.\u201d\n\nI contend that, upon the whole, an impartial critic must come to the\nconclusion that neither the miracle, nor the reference to the miracle,\nis historical; and that, in all probability, both the miracle and the\nreference to it arose from a misunderstanding, without any intention to\ndeceive. We must remember that the \u201cshort sayings\u201d of the Lord Jesus\u2014as\nthey are called by some early writer, Justin, I think\u2014must have caused\nconsiderable difficulty to the compilers of the earliest Gospels in the\nattempt to arrange them in order. Pointed, pithy, and brief, pregnant\nwith meaning, sometimes obscured by metaphor, many of these sayings, if\ntaken out of their context, were very liable to be misunderstood. Some\ncompilers might think it best, as the author of St. Matthew\u2019s Gospel has\ndone in the Sermon on the Mount, to group a number of these sayings\ntogether without connection; others, as the author of St. Luke\u2019s Gospel,\nmight object to this arrangement, and might make it a main object to set\nforth these sayings \u201cin order,\u201d attaching to each its appropriate and\nexplanatory context. Now to apply this to the particular case of the\nlegend of the fig-tree. It seems probable that the compilers had before\nthem two traditions, one, a parable about a barren fig-tree destroyed by\nthe Lord of the vine-yard because it bore no fruit; another, a precept\nabout the power of faith in uprooting a mountain or a tree, _i.e._ in\nachieving the greatest of spiritual tasks, the task of forgiving. St.\nLuke interpreted both the parable and the precept spiritually, and kept\nthe two distinct. St. Mark interpreted the parable literally and adopted\nthe tradition which made it refer to an actual destruction of a tree; he\nalso appended to it the saying on the power of faithful prayer to work\nany wonders soever, as being an appropriate comment on so startling a\nmiracle; but he did not think fit to adapt the saying to the miracle by\nany insertion of the word \u201ctree\u201d (\u201cVerily I say unto you, whosoever\nshall say unto this mountain, Be thou taken up\u201d &c.); and he retained\nthe old connection of the saying with forgiveness. St. Matthew\u2014of\ncourse, when I say St. Matthew, I mean the unknown authors or compilers\nof the Gospel called by his name\u2014is more consistent. He, like St. Mark\ninterprets the parable literally, and he appends to it the saying on the\npower of faithful prayer; but he inserts in the latter an express\nreference to the miracle which, according to his hypothesis, had\nrecently been worked before the eyes of the Disciples and could hardly\ntherefore fail to be mentioned: \u201cIf ye have faith and doubt not, ye\nshall [_not only do what is done to the fig-tree, but even if ye shall_]\nsay unto this mountain,\u201d &c. In order to complete the adaptation, he\nalso omits the words that connect the saying with forgiveness, and\nrelegates them to the Sermon on the Mount (vi. 14, 15) which he makes\nthe receptacle for all those sayings of Jesus for which he can find no\nspecial time and place.\n\n\u201cAll this is shadowy, barely possible, mere conjecture.\u201d I maintain that\nconjecture, fairly supported, is enough to give the finishing blow to\nall faith in a miracle so different from Christ\u2019s other \u201cmighty works\u201d\nas this of the fig-tree. Before finally and utterly rejecting a story\nfound in a generally truthful narrative we wish not only to know that\nthe story is improbable, but also to answer the question, \u201cHow may it\nhave crept into the narrative?\u201d The above conjecture supplies a fairly\nprobable answer to that question; and the combined result of the\nevidence for the probability of some rational explanation, and against\nthe probability of the miraculous occurrence, is so great that I can\nfeel no hesitation in rejecting the miracle of the fig-tree and in\ndeclaring that the \u201ccharacteristic sayings\u201d of Jesus about the uprooting\nof mountains and trees were never intended to be literally understood.\n\nAnd now, before going further, ask yourself once more, \u201cWhat have I\nlost, so far, by giving up the miracles of Jesus? Does He sink in my\nestimation because He did not blast a fig-tree or destroy two thousand\nswine, or draw a fish with a stater in its mouth to the hook of Peter?\nOr have I lost a precious and \u2018characteristic saying\u2019 of Jesus because I\nno longer believe that He really encouraged His disciples to pray for\nthe uprooting of material mountains and material trees?\u201d I am quite sure\nyour conscience must reply that you have hitherto lost nothing. If so,\ntake courage, and follow on step by step where the argument leads you.\n\nFootnote 22:\n\n  Page 153.\n\nFootnote 23:\n\n  See above, p. 158.\n\n\n\n\n                                  XIX\n                        THE MIRACLES OF FEEDING\n\n\nMY DEAR \u2014\u2014,\n\nYou remind me that I have omitted the most important of all those\nsayings of Christ which are associated with miracles\u2014the passage in\nwhich he comments on the feeding of the Four Thousand and on that of the\nFive Thousand, as two separate acts, apparently implying their\nmiraculous nature. I have not forgotten it; but I reserved it to the\nlast because it is, as you justly say, the most important and the most\ndifficult of all; but I believe it to be susceptible of explanation.\n\nLet us first have the facts before us. In the Gospels of St. Matthew\n(viii. 15) and St. Mark (xvi. 6) Jesus is introduced as bidding the\nDisciples \u201cbeware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of\nHerod\u201d (or, as Matthew, \u201cthe Sadducees.\u201d) Upon this the disciples, as\nusual, interpret the words of Jesus literally; they suppose that, since\nthey have forgotten to bring bread with them (for they had but one loaf)\ntheir Master wishes to warn them to beware of leaven during the\napproaching feast of Passover or unleavened bread. Hereupon Jesus, in\norder to shew them that He was not speaking literally, rebukes their\ndull and literalizing minds as follows:\u2014\n\n    Mark viii. 17-21.\n\n    \u201cWhy reason ye because ye have no bread? Do ye not yet perceive?...\n    When I brake the five loaves among the five thousand, how many\n    baskets full of broken pieces took ye up?\u201d They say unto him,\n    \u201cTwelve.\u201d \u201cAnd when the seven among the four thousand, how many\n    baskets full of broken pieces took ye up?\u201d And they say unto him,\n    \u201cSeven.\u201d And he said unto them, \u201cDo ye not yet understand?\u201d\n\n    Matthew xvi. 8-12.\n\n    \u201cWhy reason ye among yourselves because ye have no bread? Do ye not\n    yet perceive neither remember the five loaves of the five thousand\n    and how many baskets took ye up? Neither the seven loaves of the\n    four thousand and how many baskets ye took up? How is it that ye do\n    not perceive that I spake not to you concerning bread? But beware of\n    the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.\u201d Then understood they how\n    that he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the\n    teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.\n\nNow before I proceed further I must point out to you that these words\nare not found in St. Luke\u2019s Gospel. For my own part I am disposed to\nbelieve them to be genuine, though not quite in the exact form in which\nwe now find them. I think St. Luke may have omitted them because he\nfound some difficulty or obscurity in them; or because he did not know\nof them; or perhaps because he did not know of, or did not accept, the\nfeeding of the Four Thousand, to which they refer. But suppose we are\nforced to give them up as altogether spurious, that is to say, as not\nbeing genuine words of Jesus, though genuine parts of the first and\nsecond Gospels; what is the consequence? Simply that we shall be reduced\nto St. Luke\u2019s version of the words, which is as follows (Luke xii. 1):\n\u201cBeware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees which is hypocrisy.\u201d Can we\nsay that St. Luke has herein omitted words that are essential to the\nlife of Christ, or that we have lost anything of the highest importance,\nor even that we have lost a very \u201ccharacteristic saying\u201d of Jesus in\nomitting the statistical comparison which St. Luke omits? I think not.\n\nBut now let us assume that Jesus uttered these words or something like\nthem. I think you would perceive that they could be interpreted\nmetaphorically, if you could only comprehend how the accounts of the\nmiraculous feeding of the Four Thousand and of the Five Thousand\n(obviously literal as they now stand in our Gospels) could be referred\nto as spiritual incidents. In order to answer this question we must now\npass to the narratives of the two miracles themselves. I suppose even\nthose who accept them literally would admit that they are emblematic,\nand that they represent Jesus, the Bread of Life, giving Himself for the\nworld. The Fourth Gospel manifests this in the subsequent discourse\nwhere the feeding on the bread and fishes introduces the subject of the\nfeeding on the flesh and blood of Christ. The notion that we feed on the\nWord of God, first found in Deuteronomy (viii. 3), pervades all Jewish\nliterature. It is found in Philo (i. 119): \u201cThe soul is nourished not on\nearthly and corruptible food, but on the _words_ which Gods rains down\nout of His sublime and pure nature which He calls heaven.\u201d It reappears\nin the account of our Lord\u2019s temptation, when He replies to Satan,\nquoting Deut. viii. 3, \u201cMan shall not live by bread alone but by every\n_word_ that proceedeth out of the mouth of God;\u201d and again (John iv.\n32), \u201cI have _meat_ to eat that ye know not.\u201d\n\nOn that last occasion the Fourth Gospel tells us that the disciples\nactually misunderstood the metaphor and interpreted it literally; and to\nthis day I dare say many would give a literal interpretation to the\n\u201cdaily bread\u201d of the Lord\u2019s prayer; but there can be little doubt that\nJesus meant by \u201cbread\u201d every gift and blessing that constitutes life,\nand primarily the spiritual sustenance of the soul. As to the emblematic\nuse of the \u201cfish,\u201d it cannot be traced to the Old Testament; but in a\nvery early period of the existence of the Church, as early as the reign\nof Vespasian, we find the Fish in rude paintings representing the\nEucharistic food of the faithful; and it is said that this appellation\nwas given to Jesus from the initial letters of the Greek title I(esous)\nCh(ristos) Th(eou) U(ios) S(oter) [Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour]\nbecause they made up the Greek word _Ichthus_, fish. About the middle of\nthe second century we find one of the earliest extant Christian poems\ndescribing how the Church everywhere presented to the faithful, as their\nfood, \u201cthe Fish, great and pure, which the Holy Virgin had caught.\u201d The\npoet evidently did not invent this metaphor; it was established,\nintelligible, and inherited, at the time when he used it, and must have\nbeen in use much earlier. To speak of \u201ccrumbs\u201d metaphorically may\nperhaps seem to us a bold metaphor, but it may be illustrated by the\ndialogue between Jesus and the Syro-Ph\u0153nician woman: \u201cIt is not meet to\ntake the children\u2019s food and cast it unto dogs:\u201d \u201cTruth, Lord; yet even\nthe dogs eat of the _crumbs_ which fall from the master\u2019s table.\u201d Now it\nwas a common-place in the doctrine of Jesus that every disciple who\nministered the Word or Bread of Life invariably received it back in\nample measure: \u201cFreely ye have received, freely give.\u201d Give what?\nCertainly not material bread, but the truth or bread of life. And again,\n\u201cGive, and it shall be given unto you: good measure pressed down and\nrunning over shall THEY[24] give into your bosom.\u201d Again, I ask, give\nwhat? What but the spiritual Bread, which, by the laws of spiritual\nnature, cannot be freely given without a yet more rich return into the\ngiver\u2019s heart? It was this Bread that Christ ministered to His disciples\nand bade them set before the people; it was this Bread which the\ndisciples found multiplied in their hands so that it sufficed for all,\nand they themselves were fed from the crumbs that fell from the food.\n\nIn course of time the story of this spiritual banquet finding its way\ninto Christian hymns and traditions would be literalized and amplified\nwith variations. As Moses \u201cspread a table\u201d for Israel \u201cin the\nwilderness,\u201d so also, it would be said, did Jesus of Nazareth when he\nfed thousands of His followers on divine Bread. The Fish, _which is not\nmentioned in our Lord\u2019s dialogue with the Disciples_, might naturally he\nadded to the Bread, in the narrative, as a Eucharistic emblem. If the\nFish had been mentioned by our Lord in the dialogue under question, my\nexplanation would at once fall to the ground; but it is not mentioned;\nand the only difficulty is in explaining how Jesus could have spoken\nmetaphorically of the \u201cseven\u201d as well as the \u201ctwelve\u201d baskets. We can\nunderstand the \u201ctwelve\u201d\u2014each one of the twelve Apostles who ministered,\nreceiving a return of spiritual \u201ccrumbs\u201d\u2014but whence the \u201cseven?\u201d Here I\ncan but conjecture. You know that seven is what is called \u201ca sacred\nnumber.\u201d I find in the Fourth Gospel, xxi. 2-14, a story (evidently\nemblematic) of a miraculous meal of bread and fishes in which \u201cseven\u201d\napostles took part. This may have been based upon some tradition in\nwhich seven apostles were recorded as having taken part in a spiritual\nEucharistic feeding of the multitude. If that was so, it would follow\nthat in the latter case there would be \u201cseven baskets\u201d of fragments, as\nin the former case there were \u201ctwelve,\u201d corresponding to the number of\nthe ministering apostles: and Jesus, in the dialogue under\nconsideration, would remind His disciples how on two occasions where the\nbread of life was multiplied for the hungry, the twelve Apostles\nreceived the twelve baskets of crumbs, and the seven received the seven.\n\nWhat is the argument in the words under consideration, according to your\ninterpretation? I presume you would take them thus: \u201cWhy do you suppose\nI am talking about literal bread? Can I not make bread as I please? Do\nyou not remember my two miracles, and how from five loaves for five\nthousand people there came twelve baskets of fragments, while from seven\nloaves for four thousand people there came seven baskets?[25] How then\ncan I (or you while you are with me) be in need of literal bread?\u201d But\nthis interpretation is open to one serious objection. It is opposed to\nthe whole tenour of Christ\u2019s life. Nowhere else in the Gospels do we\nfind that Jesus used any miraculous power to exempt Himself and His\ndisciples from hunger. We are even taught that on one occasion He\nresisted a prompting to turn stones into bread, as being a temptation\nfrom the Evil One. For His disciples he might undoubtedly have been\nwilling to do what He would not do for Himself; but that Jesus (like\nElisha) so habitually used miraculous powers to shelter His disciples\nfrom the inconveniences and hardships of a wandering life, that he could\nencourage them to believe that he would do so on the present occasion,\nis a hypothesis quite inconsistent with the Gospel history. Moreover,\nplausible although this interpretation may appear to us\u2014because we are\nfamiliar with the literalizing interpretation of the miracles of the\nFour Thousand and Five Thousand\u2014it does not, if I may so say, bring out\nthe proportion of the sentence. Surely it does not sound logical to say,\n\u201cDid I not once supply you with bread for four and five thousand people\n(literally)? Why then do you not understand that I now speak of \u2018leaven\u2019\nmetaphorically?\u201d Instead of this, should we not rather expect: \u201cDo you\nnot remember how on two previous occasions \u2018bread\u2019 was used spiritually?\nWhy then do you not understand that \u2018leaven\u2019 is here used spiritually?\u201d\nNow this is what I believe to have been the original meaning of the\nwords, if genuine. I believe that Jesus intended to remind the Disciples\nhow on two previous occasions the multitude had been fed with the\nspiritual Bread, the Bread of Life: \u201cYou know that that was what I meant\nbefore, when I spoke of Bread; how is it then that you do not understand\nmy meaning now when I speak similarly of leaven?\u201d\n\nI do not pretend to say that this explanation is completely satisfactory\neven to me, much less to claim that it should completely satisfy others.\nSome may prefer to rationalize the miracle as an exaggeration with a\nsubstratum of fact; others may reject the dialogue as a late\ninterpolation. Yet even then I think the considerations above\nalleged\u2014which I have put forward, on the supposition that the dialogue\nis genuine\u2014may go a long way toward shewing how these miraculous stories\nmay have sprung up without any real basis of miracle, and how, in the\nelaboration of these narratives, words that cannot be accepted as\nhistorical may have been attributed to Jesus _without any fraudulent\npurpose_. Although I am unwilling to admit (and do not feel called upon\nby evidence to admit) that the words and doctrine of Jesus have been\nseriously modified to suit the miraculous interpolations of early\nChristian times, yet of course (on my hypothesis) some slight occasional\nmodifications cannot be denied. For example, in the miracle of the Four\nThousand, Jesus is introduced as saying, \u201cHow many loaves have ye?\u201d\nThese words must necessarily be rejected by any one taking my view of\nthe narrative, as the addition of some later tradition which,\ninterpreting a metaphor literally, endeavoured to set forth the literal\nfact dramatically as it was supposed to have occurred. In the same way\nit is possible that the dialogue now under consideration may be an\namplification of a simple rebuke from Jesus to the disciples for\nmisunderstanding His precept as to leaven, the early tradition having\nrun somewhat after this fashion: \u201cThe Lord spread a table for the hungry\nin the wilderness: He gave them bread from heaven to eat. The Lord gave\nfood unto the multitude through the hands of the Twelve; and in their\nhands the Bread of Life was multiplied so that a few loaves satisfied\nmany thousands. Then did the Lord warn His disciples that they should\n_beware of leaven and feed on nought save the one true Bread. But they\nunderstood not His words, and remembered not the mighty works of His\nhands_.\u201d It seems to me quite possible, I say, that the dialogue under\ndiscussion may have arisen from an amplification of some such words as\nthose above italicized; and I am somewhat the more inclined to take this\nview because St. Mark\u2019s narrative (the earliest) contains a curious\nlittle detail which looks like a trace of some old hymn about \u201cthe one\ntrue Bread\u201d _i.e._ Jesus: \u201cThey had not in the boat with them more than\n_one loaf_ (Gr. _bread_).\u201d\n\nIf these suggested solutions seem improbable, let me once more remind\nyou that you have to choose between them and greater improbabilities.\nEither the miraculous narrative must be historically true; or it must\nhave been deliberately fabricated; or it must have sprung into existence\nwithout intention to deceive. As to the improbability of the first of\nthese solutions, I say nothing, because you have rejected it. Certainly\nit would be difficult for a painter to depict in detail the processes\nnecessitated by this miracle without producing a grotesque impression:\nbut on this point I am silent, as it is beside my purpose. It remains\ntherefore for you to decide whether the theory of deliberate falsehood,\nor of the unconscious accretions of tradition and misunderstanding of\nmetaphor, supplies the least improbable explanation. For my part, having\nregard to the character of Christ\u2019s disciples, the abundant evidence\nthat they misunderstood the teaching of their Master, and the frequent\ninstances of miraculous narrative arising from misunderstanding in other\ncases, I have no hesitation in saying that, in this case also, the\nhypothesis of deceit is far more improbable than that of\nmisunderstanding.\n\nI had not intended to touch on any other miracle; but one more can be so\nbriefly discussed that I will not omit it. I dare say you have\nanticipated (though you have not read _Onesimus_[26]) that I should\nexplain the \u201cwalking on the waves\u201d and the \u201cstilling of the sea\u201d as\nnarratives derived from early Christian hymns representing the Son of\nGod as stilling the storms that threaten the bark of the Church.\nNevertheless you may not have perceived how easily a historical and\nauthentic tradition of the deeds and words of Christ would lend itself\nto amplification so as to be elaborated into the full miraculous\nnarrative as we now find it in the Gospels. Well then, open your Greek\nTestament at St. Mark\u2019s narrative (i. 25-27, or Luke iv. 35, 36) of the\nexorcism of an unclean spirit. You will there find it stated that Jesus\n\u201crebuked an unclean spirit;\u201d and a somewhat rare word is used to express\nthe rebuke, \u201cBe thou _muzzled_ (\u03c6\u03b9\u03bc\u03ce\u03b8\u03b7\u03c4\u03b9).\u201d It is further added that the\ndisciples, in their astonishment, said to one another \u201cWhat is this?\n_With authority he commandeth even the unclean spirits and they obey\nhim._\u201d Now you know very well that the same Greek word (\u03c0\u03bd\u03b5\u1fe6\u03bc\u03b1)\nexpresses two totally distinct English words \u201cspirit\u201d and \u201cwind;\u201d but\nyou may not so well know that the same ambiguity is found in Hebrew.\nLook at Psalm civ. 4 in the Old Version, and you will find \u201cWho maketh\nhis angels (_i.e._ messengers) _spirits_;\u201d but the New Version gives,\nmore correctly, \u201cWho maketh _winds_ his messengers,\u201d or, \u201cWho maketh his\nangels _winds_.\u201d Now suppose that in some cases where the above\ntradition was circulated in the Church, either in Greek or Aramaic, the\nword \u201cunclean\u201d was omitted, as it easily might be for brevity. It would\nfollow that, without the change of a single word, the hearers might\ninterpret the story as follows: \u201cJesus _rebuked the wind_, saying to it,\n_Be thou muzzled_. His disciples marvelled, saying, What is this? _With\nauthority he commandeth even the winds_ and they _obey_ him.\u201d\n\nBut you may say perhaps, \u201cJesus could not use such an extraordinary\nphrase as \u2018Be thou muzzled,\u2019 in addressing the wind. To a human being it\nwould be applicable, or even to a spirit, but not to the wind.\u201d Well, it\ncertainly would be rather unusual: but turn to St. Mark iv. 39, and you\nwill there find a passage telling you how, in a storm at sea, Jesus\nawoke and \u201c_rebuked the wind_\u201d with the words \u201c_Be thou muzzled_\n(\u03a6\u03b9\u03bc\u03ce\u03b8\u03b7\u03c4\u03b9),\u201d and how the wondering disciples said to one another, \u201c_Who\nis this that even the wind_ (Matthew and Luke, \u2018the _winds_\u2019) and sea\n_obey him_?\u201d It appears to me by no means unlikely that we have here two\nversions of the same tradition; the one in the earlier chapter of St.\nMark representing the facts; the other in the later chapter resulting\nfrom a misunderstanding of the facts, whence there sprang up the\namplified and beautiful tradition of the Stilling of the Storm\u2014a story\nwhich must have in all ages commended itself to the Church, and may\nstill commend itself, by reason of its deep spiritual truth, but which\nought, in this age, to be recognized as in all probability, not\nhistorically true.\n\nNeither of the above-mentioned explanations of this miraculous narrative\nappears to me by any means certain; but either seems to me decidedly\nmore likely than that Jesus so far raised Himself above the conditions\nof humanity as to rebuke and check the winds and the seas. If I\ninterpret the life of Christ aright, He neither did, nor wished to do,\nany such thing, and would have regarded the suggestion to do it as a\ntemptation from Satan. I say this with reverence, almost with fear and\ntrembling, knowing that I must give account of these words hereafter\nbefore Him. But what can a man do more to shew his homage for the Truth\nthan follow where the Truth appears to lead?\n\nIn any case I am sure we cannot rightly understand the life and mind of\nJesus until, by a great effort, we have divested ourselves of our\ninveterate and vulgar belief that He wrought His mighty works as mere\ndemonstrations of His divine mission, and that He had power to perform\nany works whatever, quite regardless of the laws of nature. Had that\nbeen the case, I do not see how He could have blamed the Pharisees for\nasking Him to work a sign in heaven. Why should they not have asked it,\nand why should not He have worked it? Jugglers and impostors were very\ncommon in the East; Galilee and Samaria were thronged with professional\nexorcists: in miracles performed on men there was always the possibility\nof collusion; any act on earth was open to suspicion of imposture, but\nin heaven this was the general belief\u2014there could be certainty; no mere\nmagician could work a sign in heaven. \u201cLet but the sun stand still for\nhalf a day, and we will believe,\u201d surely this, from the\ndemonstration-point-of-view of miracles, was a very natural request; and\nif Jesus really had the power of stopping the sun for half a day, and if\nHe felt that His wonder-working faculty was given to Him for the mere\npurpose of demonstrating His divine power, I cannot understand how He\ncould have refused, much less rebuked, the request of the Pharisees.\n\nBut in truth His mighty works or signs were not wrought in this\ndeliberate way for the mere purpose of demonstration. They were the\nresults of an irrepressible pity, appealing to an instinct of power.\nHe could not see a demoniac or a paralytic look trustfully upon Him\nwithout longing to help, and in many cases feeling that it was God\u2019s\nwill that He should help. To suppose that He cured all who were\nbrought to Him is absurd, and is contrary (as we have seen above) to\nthe evidence of the earliest Evangelist. He had the power of\ndistinguishing between faith and not faith; had He an equal power of\ndiscerning physiological possibilities from impossibilities? Did a\nkind of instinct tell Him that the restoration of a lost limb was not\nlike the cure of a paralytic, not one of the works \u201cprepared for Him\nby His Father?\u201d I do not suppose that such physiological distinctions\nwere intellectually known by Christ in His human nature, any more than\nthe modern discoveries of geology, astronomy, or history. But\nexperience and some kind of intuition may have enabled Him to\ndistinguish those cases which He could heal from those (a far more\nnumerous class) which He could not. In performing these \u201cmighty works\u201d\nof healing, Jesus appears on many occasions to have studiously avoided\nthat very publicity which\u2014on the theory of their being intended as\ndemonstrations\u2014ought to have been a condition of their performance. He\ntakes the patient apart, or expressly warns him to be silent about his\ncure\u2014acts quite inconsistent with the demonstration-hypothesis.\nProbably He felt that these works, although they came to Him fresh\nfrom His Father\u2019s hands, were not without a danger. Men crowded round\nHim, not to hear the truth but to see \u201cthe miracles.\u201d Instead of\nrecognizing that He did only such works as \u201cthe Father had prepared\nfor Him to do,\u201d they thought that He could do \u201canything He pleased.\u201d I\nthink we ought to feel that the very notion of such a power as this\nwas absolutely revolting to Jesus: \u201cTo stop the sun, to call down fire\nor bread from heaven, to stay the course of rivers, and cast down the\nwalls of cities\u2014doubtless Joshua and Elijah had done these works; but\nthey were not the works that the Father had prepared for the Son to\ndo.\u201d Joshua and Elijah were but servants. He was the Son: and, being\nthe Son, He felt bound to conform Himself each moment to that heavenly\nWill which He ever felt within Him and saw before Him, which dictated\n\u201cmighty works\u201d indeed, but always works of love and healing. In one\nsense He was entirely free; He could do all things because all things\nwere possible with the Father, and the Father and He were one; in\nanother sense He felt Himself less free than any being that had ever\nassumed the shape of man, because all other human creatures had\ndeviated, but He alone could never deviate, no, not by a hair\u2019s\nbreadth, from the indwelling Will of the Father.\n\nIt is for these reasons then that I reject miracles, not because they\nare impossible, not even because they are _a priori_ improbable, not\nbecause they were once useless and are now harmful; but because the\nfacts are against them. If the evidence shewed that miracles had\nactually occurred, I should be prepared to learn from these materialized\nparables as reverently as from word-parables, and to believe that God\u2014in\norder to break down men\u2019s excessive faith in the machine-like order of\nthe visible world, and in order to divert their attention from Sequence\nto Will\u2014fore-ordained these divergences from the monotonous routine of\nthings. But the evidence does not shew this. The criticism of the Old\nTestament, and the criticism of the New Testament, and the researches of\nscience, and the closer study of the life of Christ Himself, all\nconverge to this conclusion\u2014that Christ conquered the world, not by\nworking miracles, but by living such a life and dying such a death as\nmight be lived and died by the Son of God, incarnate as a Son of man,\nand self-subjected to all the physical limitations of humanity; and by\nbequeathing to mankind, after His death, such a Spirit as was\ncorrespondent to His own nature.\n\nFootnote 24:\n\n  _i.e._ the Powers of Heaven.\n\nFootnote 25:\n\n  Two different kinds of baskets appear to be denoted by the two\n  different Greek words. A similar difference is also found in the\n  narratives of the feeding of the Four Thousand and the Five Thousand:\n  but it would be easy to shew that no inference of importance can be\n  drawn from this distinction.\n\nFootnote 26:\n\n  Pp. 275-6.\n\n\n\n\n                                   XX\n                      THE MANIFESTATION OF CHRIST\n\n\nMY DEAR \u2014\u2014,\n\nYou wish to draw my attention to the Resurrection of Christ. \u201cThat,\u201d you\nsay, \u201cis either miraculous or nothing. The arguments by which you appear\nto be driving miracles into non-existence\u2014expelling them first from\nprofane history, then from the Old Testament, then step by step from\nevery part of the New\u2014cannot make a stand at your convenience, so as to\nexcept the Resurrection. Yet even St. Paul makes the Resurrection of\nJesus the basis of his own belief and Gospel. If, therefore, that final\nmiracle falls to the ground, the Pauline Gospel falls with it: and to\nthat downfall I fear your arguments all tend, although you yourself do\nnot see it or wish it.\u201d\n\nI entirely deny the quiet assumption of your first sentence; which, as\nit stands (but I am sure you cannot mean it), affirms that the\nResurrection of Christ \u201cis either miraculous or nothing.\u201d I assert,\nwithout fear of contradiction, that if the phenomena which convinced the\nearliest disciples and St. Paul of the reality of the Resurrection of\nChrist, were not miraculous but natural, they constitute the most\nwonderful event in the history of the world. But what you wish to say, I\nsuspect, is this: \u201cBy the Resurrection of Christ I mean the Resurrection\nof the body; now if Christ\u2019s body was raised again, the act must have\nbeen miraculous.\u201d But how if the Resurrection was spiritual? St. Paul\nhimself speaks of a \u201cspiritual body,\u201d not a material body, as rising in\nthe Resurrection. Do you suppose that a \u201cspiritual body\u201d can be touched?\nOr that St. Paul could have touched the presence that appeared to him\nwhen he heard the words, \u201cSaul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?\u201d Now if\nthe Resurrection of Christ was spiritual and not material, there may\nhave been no suspension at all of the laws of material nature, but\nsimply a real, spiritual fact, manifested to the world according to\ncertain laws by which spiritual facts are manifested to the senses.\n\nBut this theory, you will reply, although possibly consistent with the\nPauline narrative, is inconsistent with the Gospel accounts of the\nResurrection. It certainly is. But it is quite certain\u2014however\nunprepared you may possibly be for the statement\u2014that the Gospel\naccounts of the Resurrection, taken altogether, cannot be compared, for\nweight, with the Pauline evidence. You know that the oldest Gospel (St.\nMark xvi. 8) terminates (probably because it was left incomplete) with a\nvision of angels who speak of the tomb as empty and of Christ as risen;\nbut not a word about Christ\u2019s resurrection itself. The next Gospel in\nchronological order (St. Matthew\u2019s) mentions one appearance of Christ to\nsome women, and another to some disciples in Galilee; but as to the last\nit is said that \u201csome doubted.\u201d Not till we come to St. Luke\u2019s Gospel do\nwe find detailed appearances of Jesus to disciples in or near Jerusalem,\nin the course of which Jesus is present at a meal and offers to eat, as\nevidence that He is no mere spirit. In the last Gospel of all (St.\nJohn\u2019s) there is added an appeal to the sense of touch; and in an\nAppendix to that Gospel, Jesus is represented as inviting the disciples\nto a repast of fish and bread, apparently miraculously supplied and\nprepared (\u201cthey see a fire of coals there and fish laid thereon, and\nbread,\u201d John xxi. 9), which He distributes to the disciples. Afterwards\nhe holds a long discourse with them. Similarly long discourses between\nthe risen Saviour and the disciples are recorded in the first chapter of\nthe Acts of the Apostles, which we know to have been written after the\nGospel of St. Luke. You see how unsatisfactory all this is. The further\nback we go, and the nearer to the event, the more meagre and shadowy\ndoes the evidence become. It does not appear in a form ample and cogent\nuntil a period so late as to throw irresistible doubt upon its truth.\nHow can we possibly answer the doubter\u2019s natural question, \u201cIf there was\nthis unanswerable evidence of the material resurrection of Jesus, why\nwas it suppressed for two generations?\u201d Moreover, some of these later\naccounts, which relate the handling of the body of Jesus, or the\npresence of Jesus at the breaking of bread, might be literal\nmisinterpretations of some traditions concerning visions of Christ\naccompanying the \u201chandling of the body of the Lord Jesus\u201d in the Lord\u2019s\nSupper. It is very significant that St. Peter\u2014whose allusions in the\nActs of the Apostles to his personal evidence concerning the\nResurrection of Christ are of the briefest kind\u2014is introduced by St.\nLuke as mentioning only one definite kind of manifestation of Jesus; and\nthat is one in which the Apostles \u201cdid _eat and drink with him_ after he\nrose from the dead\u201d (Acts x. 41). Lastly, there are traces of\ninterpolations, or additions, at a very early date in the\npost-resurrection chapters of St. Luke, and probably of St. Matthew and\nSt. John; and in dealing with the post-resurrection narrative of the\nlife of Christ some of the earliest Fathers quote passages not found in\nour Gospels but agreeing somewhat with the suspected additions in the\nthird and fourth Gospel. The sum of all is, so far as my own experience\ngoes, that after a patient and prolonged study of the evidence, with\nevery desire, and indeed I may say with an intense anxiety (at one\nperiod of my life), to justify myself in continuing to believe all that\nI once believed, I now rise from the perusal of the last chapters of the\nGospels and the first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, with the\nconviction that _something_ certainly happened to persuade the Apostles\nthat their Master had verily risen from the dead, but what that\n_something_ was, the evidence, so far as it can he obtained from the\nGospels, does not enable us to determine.\n\nBut we have not yet touched on the evidence of St. Paul and to this we\nnow pass. Here at last we stand on firm ground. Here for the first time\nwe find (in St. Paul\u2019s first Epistle to the Corinthians xv. 8), the\nunquestionable evidence of an eye-witness, probably recorded several\nyears before the appearance of any Gospel now extant. No one who is\ncompetent to form an opinion on the question can for a moment doubt St.\nPaul\u2019s assertion that Christ \u201cappeared\u201d to him, and that some such\nappearance as that recorded thrice in the Acts, converted him from a\npersecutor into an apostle of Christianity. We have just been asking,\n\u201cWhat was that unknown something\u2014possibly some manifestation of Jesus\nafter death\u2014which inspired the Twelve with the conviction and the\nfaculties necessary to overcome the world?\u201d Now we seem to have found\nthe answer. An appearance that overcame and converted a recalcitrant\nenemy might well satisfy and imbue with confidence loving disciples,\nlonging to believe. Especially might this be the case if Jesus had\npredicted, as I believe He did predict, that His work would not be cut\nshort by death, but that in Him would be fulfilled the saying of Hosea:\n\u201cIn the third day he shall raise us up and we shall live in his sight.\u201d\nAlthough these words may have been neglected or not understood at the\ntime when they were uttered, they may have well recurred to the minds of\nthe Disciples, after their Master\u2019s death, with a powerful effect. To\nurge that the despair of the Twelve could be a greater obstacle than the\nvehement and bigoted antagonism of Saul, in the way of their receiving a\nvision of their beloved Master, is a paradox so pedantical that it is\nscarcely worth mentioning. You cannot have forgotten, too, how St. Paul\nhimself assumes that the appearances of the Saviour to himself, and to\nthe original Apostles, were of the same kind and on the same footing:\n\u201cHe _appeared_ unto Cephas, he _appeared_ unto James, he _appeared_ unto\nfive hundred brethren ... and last of all he _appeared_ unto _me_ also.\u201d\nIn the two latest Gospels these \u201cappearances\u201d have been magnified into\naccounts that represented Jesus as possessed of flesh and bones, as\ncapable of eating, as reclining at a meal, and as entering into long and\nfamiliar discourses: naturally we ask as to St. Paul\u2019s, the indisputably\nearliest account of a manifestation of Christ, what traces it exhibits\nof similar distortions and exaggerations? You know the answer. There are\nno such traces. The manifestation to St. Paul is plainly admitted by the\naccounts in the Acts to be what is commonly called subjective. The\n\u201csubjectivity\u201d of some of the earlier manifestations of Jesus to the\ndisciples is dimly suggested by some passages in the Gospels which\ndescribe how \u201csome doubted\u201d and others failed to recognize Him; but it\nis not merely suggested, it is plainly expressed, in the accounts of the\nmanifestation to St. Paul. The Apostle is clearly stated to have seen a\nsight and heard words, which other people, his companions, with the same\nopportunities for seeing and hearing, did not see and did not hear.\nPutting aside some slight discrepancies in the three accounts given in\nthe Acts[27]\u2014discrepancies easily and naturally explicable, and valuable\nas shewing that the accounts have not been arbitrarily harmonized we may\nsay that this is the substantial result: the Lord Jesus appeared to St.\nPaul in what is called a vision. I myself firmly believe that there was\na spiritual act of Jesus simultaneous with the conveyance of the\nmanifestation to the brain of the Apostle. But none the less, however\ncoincident it may have been with a spiritual reality, if there was no\npresence of a material body, the manifestation of Jesus to St. Paul must\nbe placed in the class of visions: and if it was not seen by others who\nhad the same physical means of seeing, it must be called, in some sense,\n\u201csubjective.\u201d\n\nYet this vision sufficed for him and for the world. In the strength of\nthis vision, (followed, no doubt, by subsequent visions and communings\nwith the Lord Jesus), the Thirteenth Apostle, the intruder, as he might\nbe called\u2014not \u201cchosen of men,\u201d like Matthias, not called by Christ in\nthe flesh did the great work of which you and I, with millions of\nothers, are now joint inheritors. Think of it; Is it not a remarkable\ninstance of \u201cmen working one thing while God worketh another\u201d to see the\nApostles with due form and ceremony electing their substitute for the\nTraitor to be the solemnly ordained Twelfth Apostle, henceforth unnamed\nin Holy Writ and all the while the Holy Spirit preparing a Thirteenth!\nAnd for this Thirteenth Apostle, who never looked on the face of Christ,\nnever heard a single word of His doctrine, it has been reserved to tell\nus perhaps more about the meaning of Christ\u2019s teaching and certainly to\ngive us more cogent proof of His Resurrection than all the other\nApostles and Evangelists put together! Truly the last has been first!\nAnd in the strength of his proof of Christ\u2019s Resurrection\u2014mere vision\nthough we may call it\u2014this Thirteenth Apostle, in the face of\npersecutions outside the Church, and discouragements and jealousies\ninside the Church, first converted the Roman empire to the Christian\nfaith; then, fifteen centuries afterwards, reconverted and purified a\nlarge section of the Church from medi\u00e6val corruptions; and now, as I\nbelieve, some nineteen centuries afterwards, is on the point of still\nfurther purifying the Church from antique superstition and from modern\nmaterialism!\n\nWhat shall we say of the mighty vision that originated these stupendous\nresults? Shall we take the view of the modern scientific young man, and\nlecture the great Apostle on the folly of that indiscreet journey to\nDamascus at noon-tide, when his nerves were a little over-wrought after\nthat unpleasant incident of poor Stephen? Shall we say it was all\nophthalmia and indigestion\u2014that flash of blinding light, those\nunforgettable words, \u201cSaul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?\u201d\u2014all a mere\nvision? Is a fact that changed the destinies of Europe to be put aside\nwith the epithet \u201cmere\u201d? Would not even a materialist stonemason\nrecognize that a vision which built St. Peter\u2019s and St. Paul\u2019s is of\nsome tangible importance? You and I and your scientific young\nlecturer\u2014do we not in some sort owe our existence to this \u201cmere vision,\u201d\nbut for which the earth might be a chaos of barbarism, England a forest\nscantly populated with tattooed bipeds, and our civilized selves\nnon-existent? Patricidal creatures, let us not speak lightly of the\n\u201cmere\u201d author of our own important being!\n\nTo my mind the manifestation of the Resurrection of Christ appears, not\nas an isolated fact, but as a part, and the central part, of the great\nrevelation of the immortality of the soul which has been conveyed by God\nto man, in accordance with the laws of human nature, from the beginning\nof the creation of the world by the medium of imaginative Faith. In the\nsame way the laws of astronomy have been conveyed by God to man, in\naccordance with the laws of human nature, from the beginning of the\ncreation of the world, by the medium of imaginative Reason. I have shewn\nin previous letters that Imagination has been the basis of all that is\nworth calling knowledge. To shew the bearing of this on the\nmanifestations of the Resurrection of Christ shall be the object of my\nnext letter.\n\nFootnote 27:\n\n  \u201cAnd the men that journeyed with him stood speechless hearing the\n  voice but beholding no man,\u201d Acts ix 7: \u201cAnd they that were with me\n  beheld indeed the light but they heard not the voice of him that spake\n  to me,\u201d _ib._ xxii. 9. Whether Saul\u2019s companions saw and heard nothing\n  except subjectively, through force of sympathy, or whether (comp. John\n  xii. 29) some natural phenomenon may have been interpreted in one way\n  by Saul and in another way by his companions, cannot now be\n  determined; but I have confined myself to indisputable fact in stating\n  that Saul \u201csaw a sight and heard words which other people, his\n  companions, with the same opportunities for seeing and hearing, did\n  not see and did not hear.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n                                  XXI\n                       THE RESURRECTION REVEALED\n\n\nMY DEAR \u2014\u2014,\n\nYou are startled, and well you may be, \u201cat the notion that the\nresurrection of Christ has been the mere offspring of the imagination.\u201d\nI am quoting your words, but you have not quoted mine. I never said, nor\nshould I dream of saying, that the resurrection of Christ was \u201cthe\noffspring of the imagination,\u201d any more than I should say that the law\nof gravitation is \u201cthe offspring of the imagination,\u201d or that light is\n\u201cthe offspring of the eye.\u201d But this is just an ordinary specimen of the\nway in which people whose minds are blocked and choked with prejudice,\nmisunderstand what is contrary to their preconceptions. You have made up\nyour mind that the Imagination is a kind of excrescence on humanity, a\nfaculty independent of the Creator, and incapable of being made by Him\nthe medium of revelation; and so you pervert my words to suit your\nfancies. But what I said was that Imagination is the basis of all that\nis worth calling knowledge, and that, as God reveals the laws of\nastronomy through imaginative Reason, so He has revealed the\nResurrection of Christ through imaginative Faith.\n\nBefore speaking of the special bearing of the Imagination upon the\nmanifestation of Christ\u2019s Resurrection, let me say a word or two on the\nmanner in which our human environment appears to have been adapted to\nfoster the growth of this faculty. You will be better prepared to expect\ngreat things from the Imagination when you reflect on the great things\nthat have been wrought by God for its development. You say that you do\nnot understand the statement in the last paragraph of my last letter,\nthat the Imagination has been made \u201cthe medium of conveying the\nrevelation of the immortality of the soul,\u201d and still less do you\ncomprehend how this revelation has been going on \u201cfrom the creation of\nthe world,\u201d especially since, during a large portion of this time, there\nmust have been no men to receive any revelation at all.\n\nI said deliberately \u201cfrom the creation of the world,\u201d and not \u201cfrom the\ncreation of mankind,\u201d because inanimate creation itself appears to me to\nbear witness to a purpose, from the first, that this visible world\nshould help its future tenants to imagine things invisible. Consider but\none instance, the immense influence of Night upon the Imagination, and\nyou will perhaps come to the conclusion that, but for the provision of\ndarkness (\u201cthese orbs of light and shade\u201d), men would never have been\nled to a faith in the light of immortality. In the first place by\nrevealing to us the wonder-striking order of the infinite stars\u2014which,\nbut for darkness, would have remained for ever a closed book to\nmen\u2014Night leads us to dream, or to infer, that there may be other pages\nstill unturned in the book of Nature\u2019s mysteries, and stimulates us,\nhowever far we may progress in thought, still to press on to something\nmore beyond; and at the same time, throwing a temporary veil over all\nthe sights of day, it persuades us to trust that on the morrow the veil\nwill be removed, and that in the meantime all things will continue in\ntheir order.\n\nNight is aided by sleep and dreams. Slumbering in the darkness, and\nbereft of the control of the understanding, Imagination has reproduced\nbefore the mind\u2019s eye the sights of daylight, blended together without\nthought of fitness, order, time, or place, so as to form quite new\ncombinations which scarcely any deliberate daytime effort could have so\nvividly depicted: and in the long train of confused visionary images\nthere have sometimes passed before the mental eye of the mourner or the\nmurderer the very shapes, and even the voices of the dead, forcing the\nslumberer to start up and cry, \u201cThey live, they still live; there is a\nlife beyond the grave.\u201d This trans-sepulchral existence having been once\ndiscerned, the Imagination has set to work to formulate the laws of it,\nand to map out and people its regions, thus causing heaven and hell to\nbecome realities and (in course of time) ancestral traditions, and\nalmost inherited instincts. Sometimes, Imagination has come with a\nspecial and rarely manifested force to the aid of a belief in a future\nlife. Not in dreams, but in wakeful moments, though for the most part by\nnight, there have appeared before the mind\u2019s eye such vivid images of\nthe departed, as have convinced not only the seers of the visions but\nalso their friends\u2014and so, by a pervasive influence, all but a small\nminority of the human race\u2014that something real has been seen, the spirit\nof the dead made visible: and to this day, in England, there are not\nwanting men of the highest ability, culture, and love of truth, who busy\nthemselves with serious investigations into the reality of apparitions.\n\nDoes this seem to you fanciful? Surely it is the fact that Night and its\nphenomena have largely influenced the spiritual, or superstitious, side\nof human nature: and if you admit this to be the fact, the only\ndifference between us is this, that to you this subtle but universal\ninfluence of Darker Nature on Man appears to have been the result of\nchance, whereas I think it came from God. To you, one half of Time\nappears to have been allowed by God to be spiritually barren, set apart\nfor the mere repairing of the human material machine: I do not believe\nthat the spiritual making of Man was foreordained on this \u201chalf-time\u201d\nprinciple.\n\nIf however you ask me what amount of truth or reality there has been in\nthese dreams and visions, I should reply, as about poetry and prophecy,\nthat some of these imaginations have represented realities, some\nunrealities; but that the total result to which they have led men, the\nbelief in the immortality of the soul, is a reality. But when I speak of\na \u201creal vision\u201d of a spirit or ghost, I hope you will not misunderstand\nme so far as to suppose that I could mean a material, gas-like (though\nintangible) form, occupying so many cubical inches of space. A spirit,\nso far as I conceive it, does not occupy space; nor is it the object of\nsight, any more than of smell or touch; it is, to me, of the nature of a\nthought, only a thought personified, _i.e._ a thought capable of loving\nand being loved, of hating and being hated. But though it may not be the\nobject of the senses in the same way in which external things are, it\nmay be manifested to the Imagination, _i.e._ the mind\u2019s eye, in such a\nway as to produce the same effect as though it were an external object\nseen by the body\u2019s eye.\n\nEvery one who loves truth will tread with cautious steps in this\nmysterious province of phantasmal existence, and carefully measure his\nlanguage, knowing that we are in a region of illusion, exaggeration, and\n(sometimes) of imposture. But there does seem evidence to show that\npeople (mostly perhaps twins), at a distance from one another, have in\nsome at present inexplicable manner influenced one another so that the\ndisease or death or calamity of one has been simultaneously made known\nto the other; and you have probably read of cases, fairly supported,\nwhich would show that a passionate longing on the part of a dying man to\nsee some distant friend may create a responsive emotion, if not an\nactual vision, in the mind of that friend. We are so completely in the\ndark as to the originating causes (for physiology tells us nothing but\nthe instrumental causes) which produce our thoughts, that I see nothing\nat all absurd in the notion that every truthful and vivid conception of\none human being in the mind of another upon earth, arises from some\ncommunion in the spirit-world between the spirits of the two.\n\nSo much for conjectures as to the possible reality or possible causes of\nsome classes of apparitions. I do not often myself set much store on\nthem, except so far as they are of use in reminding us how wide is the\nprovince of possibility, or how narrow the province of certainty, in the\nregion of ultimate causation. I lay stress, not upon any conjectural\nexplanation of ghost phenomena, but upon the following general\nconsiderations, most of which are of the nature, not of conjectures, but\nof facts: 1st, man is what he is, largely in virtue of the Imagination;\n2nd, one half of man\u2019s time and one half of the phenomena of Nature seem\nto have no other purpose (so far as man is concerned) than to stimulate\nthe Imagination; 3rd, if we suppose that this wonderful world is under\nthe government of a good God, although opposed by an inferior Evil, we\nare led to infer that He has implanted in us this faculty of Imagination\nand that the noble aspirations and beliefs which have been developed by\nit have not been unmixed delusions; 4th, among the noblest of the\nbeliefs thus developed, has been the belief in the immortality of the\nsoul, which, after being tested by the faith of many centuries, is at\nthis day cherished by the majority of civilized mankind; 5th, this\nbelief has proved its truth, so far as imaginations can prove themselves\ntrue, by working well, _i.e._ it has raised and ennobled those who have\nentertained it, and has made them (on the whole) morally the better for\nit; 6th, a part of the training of the Imagination, intimately connected\nwith the production of the belief in the immortality of the soul, has\nbeen the development of a power to see mental visions, with all the\nvividness of material visions; 7th, among these visions, some of the\nmost common have been apparitions of the forms of the dead, and some of\nthe best authenticated of these have occurred where a strong unfulfilled\ndesire has possessed the departed in the moment of dying and where the\nseer of the apparition has been bound by close ties to the dead.\n\nThese are the considerations, mostly facts\u2014you may dispute some of them,\nbut not all I think\u2014in the light of which I should endeavour to\nillustrate the manifestation of Christ to His disciples after death. To\nthese facts I merely added the conjecture that possibly there may be\nsomething besides the mere movement of our brains that produces these\nimages of the departed, something\u2014I will not say external, for a spirit,\nif independent of place, can be neither external to us nor internal\u2014but\nsome act in the invisible world of spirits corresponding to every\napparition upon the visible world. But I did not pledge myself to such a\ntheory. I only insisted that the whole revelation of poetry and religion\nthrough the Imagination has been of such inestimable importance to man\nthat we cannot put it all aside as false because imaginative; we must\nregard it with reverence and be prepared to find that in the central\nevent of the purest religion of all, the Imagination has been made the\nmedium of the culminating revelation of spirit and truth. Indeed, if the\nspiritual world is real and near, it is difficult to conceive how\nGod\u2014without breaking the Laws of Nature and without unfitting us for\nlife in a world of sense\u2014could better give us glimpses of an invisible\nenvironment, than by causing it to press in, as it were, upon the\nImagination, so that the mind\u2019s eye, thus stimulated by real\ninvisibilities, may, for the time, supplant the bodily faculty of sight,\nand afterwards leave behind in us a permanent suggestion that, as there\nis a material world corresponding to the bodily eye, so there is a\nmind\u2019s world corresponding to the mind\u2019s eye. With this pre-conception I\nwill ask you to approach the narrative of Christ\u2019s Resurrection as I\nshall endeavour to set it forth in my next letter from the natural point\nof view.\n\n\n\n\n                                  XXII\n                            THE RESURRECTION\n\n\nMY DEAR \u2014\u2014,\n\nMy last letter broke off rather abruptly with a promise to do my best to\nset forth hereafter the Resurrection of Christ as it may be regarded\nfrom a natural point of view.\n\nLooking at the facts in this light, we have in the first place to set\nbefore ourselves the short life of One of whom we must merely say that\nHe was unique in the goodness and grandeur of His character, and that He\ndied with the unfulfilled purpose of redeeming mankind from sin,\ndeserted for the moment by the few disciples who had adhered to Him\nalmost to the last. He died, for the time, the most pitiable, the most\ndespair-inspiring death that the world has ever witnessed, asking in His\nlast moments why He had been \u201cforsaken\u201d by God. But His death\u2014pardon me\nif I deviate for one moment from material to celestial facts, provided\nthat I never deviate into miracles\u2014was really the triumph over death,\nand His Spirit had in reality (we speak in a metaphor) broken open the\nbars of the grave and ascended to the throne of the Father carrying with\nHimself the promise of the ultimate redemption of mankind. This was now\nto be revealed to the world as the culminating vision in that continuous\nRevelation through the Imagination by which the minds of men had been\nled to look beyond this life to a life that knows no end. Speaking\nterrestrially, we must say that the influence of Jesus, love, faith,\nremorse, were moulding the hearts of the disciples on earth to receive\nthe truth; speaking celestially we may say that Jesus bent down from His\nthrone by the right hand of God to prepare them for the manifestation of\nHis victory. What in this crisis exactly befell on earth we shall never\nknow. The tradition that Jesus appeared on the third day, or after three\ndays, to His disciples, is so naturally derived from the prophecy of\nHosea \u201con the third day he shall raise us up\u201d\u2014a prophecy probably\napplied by Jesus to Himself\u2014that we can place no reliance on its\nnumerical accuracy. Nor do we know exactly where Jesus first appeared to\nHis disciples. The oldest tradition[28] declared that they were to \u201cgo\nto Galilee\u201d after their Master\u2019s death, and that He had promised to\nguide them thither; but a subsequent account interpreted the words about\n\u201cGalilee\u201d quite differently.[29] In any case, before many days had\nelapsed, to some one disciple, perhaps to Mary Magdalene\u2014out of whom\nthere had been cast \u201cseven devils\u201d\u2014it was given to see the Lord Jesus.\n\nHere, by the way, we must note the remarkable prominence given in all\nthe Gospels to the part played by women in receiving the first\nmanifestations of Christ\u2019s Resurrection. Writers who were careful to\navoid giving occasion for unbelief might naturally have desired to give\nless prominence to the testimony of highly imaginative and\nimpressionable witnesses; and indeed St. Paul, in his brief list of the\nappearances of Jesus (possibly because writing as an Apostle who had\nseen Christ, he desired to confine himself almost entirely to\nmanifestations witnessed by Apostles), makes no mention of the\nappearances to women: their prominence, therefore, in all the Gospels,\ntestifies strongly to the early and universal acceptance of the\ntradition that women were the first witnesses to the risen Saviour. But\nto resume. The news quickened the faith even of those disciples who had\nnot seen and who could not yet believe; and presently apparitions were\nseen\u2014a thing almost, though (I believe) not quite, unique in visions\u2014by\nseveral disciples together. Probably the most frequent occasions for\nthese manifestations were when they had met together to partake of the\nbody and blood of their Master; and it was in the moment of the breaking\nof the bread that the image of the Living Bread was flashed before them,\nappearing in the form of Jesus giving Himself for them, and uttering\nwords of blessing, comfort, or exhortation, audible to the ears of the\nfaithful, who at the same moment were handling His body and touching the\nblood which flowed from His side. At other times he appeared before them\nwith other messages; to the women he seemed to wave them off as if\ndeprecating a too close approach, or as if bidding them go hence and\ncarry the glad tidings to the Apostles; others He seemed to rebuke for\ntheir want of faith; in the sight of others, His hands, outstretched in\nthe attitude of parting benediction, seemed to send forth His disciples\nto preach His word with promise of His presence; but how these messages\nwere conveyed, whether by gesture simply, or by spiritual voice (as in\nthe case of St. Paul), audible perhaps to one, and by him interpreted to\nthe rest, or audible to all that were in the same faithful\nsympathy\u2014these and other details cannot now be determined.\n\n\u201cWhy did not the adversaries of Christ confront His followers by\nproducing the body from the tomb, thus disproving the story that His\nbody had risen from the dead?\u201d The tomb was probably empty. That is\nprobable for two reasons, first because the earliest traditions agree\nthat the women going to the tomb found the stone rolled away; and\nsecondly, because the adversaries of Jesus appear to have themselves\nsubsequently circulated a story that the disciples had stolen away the\nbody. This they would hardly have done if they had known that their own\nexplanation could be at any moment refuted by opening the tomb, which\nwould have shown the body still lying there. Possibly some of the\nenemies of Jesus had themselves removed the body, influenced by some of\nthose predictions of Jesus about Himself, which, though they had not the\npower to inspire the disciples with faith in the moment of His death,\nhad power to inspire His enemies with a vague fear. Being almost\nsurprised in the act, they may not have had time to replace the great\nstone at the entrance of the tomb, when the women arrived; if so, the\naction of Christ\u2019s own enemies prepared the way for the belief in His\nresurrection by exhibiting to the sorrowing disciples the stone rolled\naway and the empty sepulchre. First came the cry, \u201cHe is not here,\u201d and\nthat prepared the way for \u201cHe is risen.\u201d\n\nHow long the visionary period lasted we cannot tell. It is almost\ncertain that there were many more visions than the five recorded by St.\nPaul (1 Cor. xv. 6, 7). At least one of St. Paul\u2019s five visions, that to\nSt. James, is not mentioned in any of our extant Gospels; on the other\nhand St. Paul omits some of those peculiar to the third or fourth\nGospels, as well as the manifestations to the women. Perhaps the visions\nwere so many, and all so like each other, that the Church found it\ndifficult to select which to record; and each Evangelist chose those\nwhich appeared to him fittest, either because they were the earliest, or\nbecause the witnesses were numerous, or because they were apostolic, or\nbecause they contained the most striking proof of a veritable\nresurrection. We may therefore easily accept the statement that the\nperiod of visions lasted for forty days or even for a much longer time,\nprobably till the disciples felt emboldened to take an active course in\npreaching the Gospel.\n\nConcerning Christ\u2019s manifestation to St. Paul I have said enough in my\nlast letter\u2014if anything needed to be said\u2014to shew that it must have been\nof the nature of a vision, and (in a sense) \u201csubjective.\u201d But it differs\nfrom the rest in that it was made to an enemy while the other\nmanifestations were made to devoted disciples. Love, remorse, faith,\naffection, stimulated the Apostles to cry, \u201cHe cannot have died,\u201d and\nprepared their souls to see the image of Jesus risen; but where, it may\nbe asked, was the spiritual preparation in the heart of St. Paul to\nreceive such a vision? You may trace it in the words which St. Paul\nheard from Jesus: \u201cIt is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.\u201d They\nshew that the future Apostle had been struggling, and struggling hard,\nagainst the compunctions of conscience. Being a lover of truth from his\nchildhood, he was prepared to give up all for its sake; but recent\nevents had made him ask whether he was not fighting against the truth\ninstead of for the truth. He had been persecuting the Christians; but\ntheir faith and patience had made him doubt whether they might not be\nright and he wrong. When the first martyr Stephen looked up to heaven\nand there saw Jesus seated at the right hand of God, then or soon\nafterwards, the question must have arisen in the mind of the persecutor,\n\u201cWhat if the follower of the Nazarene was speaking truth? What if the\ncrucified Jesus whom I am now persecuting was really exalted to God\u2019s\nthrone?\u201d Such was the struggle through which Saul\u2019s mind was passing\nwhen the Spirit of Jesus, acting indirectly through the constancy and\nfaith of His persecuted disciples, having first insensibly permeated and\nundermined the barriers of Pharisaic training and education, now swept\nall obstacles before it in an instantaneous deluge of conviction that\nthis persecuted Jesus was the Messiah. At that same moment the Messiah\nHimself (who during these last months and weeks of spiritual conflict\nhad been bending down closer and closer to the predestined Apostle from\nHis throne in heaven) now burst upon the convert\u2019s sight on earth.\n\nBut I think I hear you saying, \u201cAll this sounds well; but he has\nrepeatedly described these visions of the risen Saviour as subjective:\nhow then can he call them real? What is real?\u201d Let me refer you to the\npaper of Definitions which I enclosed in a previous letter.[30]\n\n1. _Absolute reality cannot be comprehended by men, and can only be\napprehended as God, or in God, by Faith._\n\n2. _Among objects of sensation, those are (relatively) real which\npresent similar sensations in similar circumstances._\n\nNow if you try to regard the manifestation of the risen Christ under the\nsecond head, as an \u201cobject of sensation,\u201d you must pronounce it\n\u201cunreal,\u201d inasmuch as it would not \u201cpresent similar sensations in\nsimilar circumstances;\u201d by which I mean that, with similar opportunities\nof observation, different persons (believers, for example, and\nunbelievers) would not have derived similar sensations from it. But your\nconclusion would be false because you started from a false premise:\nthese manifestations cannot be classed \u201camong objects of sensation.\u201d\n\nThe movements of the risen Saviour appear to me to have been the\nmovements of God; His manifestations to the faith of the Apostles were\ndivine acts, passing direct from God to the souls of men. Since\ntherefore these manifestations belonged to the class of things which\n\u201ccan only be apprehended as God, or in God, by faith,\u201d I call them\n\u201cabsolute realities\u201d\u2014as much more real than flesh and blood, as God\nHimself is more real than the paper on which I am now writing.\n\nFootnote 28:\n\n  Mark xvi. 7; Matthew xxviii. 7: \u201cHe goeth before you _into Galilee_.\u201d\n\nFootnote 29:\n\n  Luke xxiv. 6: \u201cRemember how he spake unto you _while he was yet in\n  Galilee_.\u201d\n\nFootnote 30:\n\n  See _Definitions_ at the end of the book.\n\n\n\n\n                                 XXIII\n                       THE SPIRITUAL RESURRECTION\n\n\nMY DEAR \u2014\u2014,\n\nI am not surprised to hear that you consider the theory above described\nof Christ\u2019s resurrection, \u201cvague, shadowy, and unsatisfying.\u201d But as in\nthe very same letter you say that you are quite convinced of the\nunhistorical nature of the account of the resurrection of Christ\u2019s\nmaterial body, I think you ought not to dismiss the subject without\ngiving more attention than you have given as yet to it. As a student of\nhistory and as a young man bent on attaining such knowledge as can be\nattained concerning the certainties or probabilities that have the most\nimportant bearing on the life and conduct of myriads of your\nfellow-creatures, you ought at least to ask yourself what better\nexplanation you have to offer of the marvellous phenomena of the\nChristian Church and in particular of St. Paul\u2019s part in spreading\nChristianity.\n\nI sympathize with the \u201csense of bathos,\u201d as you call it, which comes\nover you when you hear that the phenomena of the Resurrection of Christ\nare to be explained by a study of the growth and development of the\nrevelation given to mankind through the Imagination. I sympathize with\nyou; but I sympathize with you as I should with a child who might be\nstanding by Elijah\u2019s side at the time when the prophet saw his\nnever-to-be-forgotten vision. That child would feel, no doubt, \u201ca sense\nof bathos\u201d because the Lord was not in the fire, nor in the whirlwind,\nnor in the earthquake, but in the still small voice. You are in the\nchildish stage of susceptibility to anything that is noisy and big; you\nhave not been taught by experience and thought to appreciate the\ndivineness of things obvious, ordinary, and quiet; above all you have\nnot yet learned to revere your own nature nor to acknowledge (except\nwith your lips) that you are made in the image of God. Retaining still a\nkeen recollection of the pain with which I passed through that stage\nmyself, I have neither the inclination, nor the right, to despise your\npresent condition of mind; but I believe, if you will still keep the\nquestion open in your mind, and if you will meditate a little now and\nthen on the frequency, or I may say the universality, of illusion in the\nconveyance of all the highest truth, you will gradually come, as I came,\nto perceive that the essence of the resurrection of Christ is that His\nSpirit should have really triumphed over death, and not that His body\nshould have risen from the grave.\n\nNo doubt you would be much more impressed if the tangible body of some\ndead friend of yours, after being buried in the earth, had appeared to\ncertain witnesses and touched them, and eaten in their company, than if\na vivid apparition of the friend had appeared to the same witnesses; but\nI think you would much more easily believe the latter than the former;\nand you might be more impressed by a strong conviction of the latter\nthan by a doubtful, timid, clinging to the former. I can hardly think\nthat if you had received several accounts from independent witnesses, of\napparitions of this kind resulting in a marvellous change of character\nin all who had seen them, you would at once put them aside simply\nbecause they might be called in some sense natural. The very fact of\ntheir being natural would lead you to consider how strange must have\nbeen the causes that had produced such strange results; how powerful\nmust have been the personality that had thus forced itself on the mental\nretina of the seers of the apparition; and if something important had\nfollowed from such a vision, say, for example, the writing of a great\npoem, or the foundation of a noble empire, I cannot think that you would\nset down the vision as a negligible trifle.\n\nBut you feel, I dare say, that, though you might be impressed by the\nstories of such an apparition, you could not feel certain that the\napparition represented any reality; there would be no definite proof\nthat the witnesses of the apparition were not under the influence of a\ndelusion. Well, I will admit that there would be no proof of the\nordinary kind, that is to say, no proof such as is conveyed through the\nsenses about ordinary terrestrial phenomena; but I think you might feel\ncertain; only it would be that kind of certainty which is largely bred\nfrom Faith and Hope. And this sort of certainty, and no other, appears\nto me that which was intended to be produced by the Resurrection of\nChrist. His manifestations were unseen and unheard save by the eye and\near of Faith. If the proof of His resurrection had not depended upon\nFaith, then the Roman soldiers would have seen His material body\nmiraculously issuing from the shattered sepulchre, and the companions of\nSaul would have both seen Christ and understood the voice that cried,\n\u201cSaul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?\u201d If we could ascertain exactly the\nhistorical basis for the account in the Fourth Gospel of Christ\u2019s\nmanifestation to the doubting Thomas we should probably find\u2014supposing\nthat we were really justified in treating the account as historical\u2014that\nthere was in Thomas a strong desire to believe, combined with a strong\nsense of the impossibility of attaining adequate proof. As in the life\nof Christ, so in the resurrection of Christ, conviction appears never to\nhave been forced on any entirely unwilling unbeliever.\n\nIn order to believe in the resurrection of Christ, it is not enough to\nbe convinced that the evidence is honest and genuine, and that the\nwitnesses could not be deceived; that kind of belief savours of the\nlaw-court, and there is nothing spiritual in it; but the man who truly\nand spiritually accepts Christ\u2019s resurrection is he who says to himself\nas he reviews the life of Christ and the history of the Church: \u201cBeing\nwhat He was, and having done the work that He has done, this Jesus of\nNazareth ought not to have succumbed to death. If there is any evidence\nto shew that the veil of the invisible has been so far thrown back, be\nit for a moment, as to shew me Jesus in the spiritual world still living\nand triumphant over death, my conscience opens its arms at once to\nembrace that belief.\u201d And there is this advantage in basing your faith\non the spiritual resurrection of Jesus, that you keep the region of\nfaith distinct from the region of disputable testimony. If you rest your\nhopes on the material resurrection, that is a question of doubtful\nevidence. Your heart says, \u201cOh that it might be true!\u201d Your brain says,\n\u201cI cannot honestly say that I think it is true.\u201d Hence a constant\nconflict between heart and brain, while you are forced again and again\nto ask yourself, \u201cMust I be dishonest in order that I may persuade\nmyself that I am happy? And even if I can honestly believe in the\nmaterial resurrection to-day, how do I know that some new evidence\u2014the\ndiscovery of some new Gospel for example\u2014may not overturn my belief\nto-morrow?\u201d\n\nBut the life and doctrine of Christ, the conversion and letters of St.\nPaul, the growth and victories of the Church, and the present power of\nChrist\u2019s Spirit are facts that can never be overthrown; and if you say,\n\u201cOn the basis of these indisputable facts, considered as a part of the\nevolution and training of mankind I rest my hope and my faith that Jesus\nhas conquered death and still lives and works among us and for us\u201d\u2014why\nthen you rest on a basis that cannot be shaken. And surely such a faith\nis more strong, more spiritual, more comforting, yes, and more certain\ntoo, than a \u201cknowledge\u201d which you know in your own heart to be no\nknowledge! How long will mankind be content to be ignorant that the HALF\nwhich constitutes truth is worth more than the WHOLE which is made up of\ntruth and truth\u2019s integumentary illusion! How many there are to whom the\nsaying of old Hesiod is still unmeaning:\n\n                   _Alas thou know\u2019st not, silly soul,\n                   How much the half exceeds the whole!_\n\nYou cannot obtain, and must not expect to obtain, any demonstrative\nproof of the Resurrection of Christ, any more than you can obtain a\ndemonstrative proof of the existence of a God: yet you can feel as\nstrong and as sincere a conviction of the former fact as of the latter.\n\nIt is curious that St. Paul\u2019s parallel between the Resurrection of\nChrist and that of men should be so habitually overlooked. He assumes,\nas a matter of course, a similarity, almost an identity, between the\nResurrection of men and the Resurrection of Christ: \u201cIf there is no\nresurrection of the dead neither hath Christ been raised,\u201d and again:\n\u201cNow hath Christ been raised from the dead, the first fruits of them\nthat are asleep.\u201d This reasoning holds excellently, if the Resurrection\nis to be the same for us as it was for our Saviour, a spiritual\nResurrection, and if the Resurrection of Christ visibly revealed the\nuniversal law which shall apply to all who are animated by the Spirit of\nGod. But if Christ\u2019s Resurrection was of a quite different kind, if it\nwas a bodily stepping out of the tomb three days after burial, how can\nthis be called the \u201cfirst fruits\u201d of the Resurrection of men whose\nbodies will all decay and for whom therefore no such stepping out from\nthe tomb can ever be anticipated? The best, the truest, the most\ncomforting belief in the end will be found to be that Jesus was \u201cput to\ndeath in the flesh but _quickened_ (not in the flesh but) _in the\nspirit_.\u201d And as it was with Him, so we believe it will be with us.\n\nBut perhaps you will remind me that one of the Creeds mentions \u201cthe\nResurrection of the _body_,\u201d and that St. Paul anticipates the\nResurrection, not of a \u201cspirit,\u201d but of \u201ca spiritual _body_;\u201d and you\nmay ask me what I infer from this. I for my part infer that St. Paul\ndesired to guard against the notion that the dead lose their identity\nand are merged in God or in some other essence; he wished to convey to\nhis hearers that they would still retain their individuality, the power\nof loving and of being loved; possibly also he wished to suggest a life\nof continued activity in the service of God; and in order to express\nthis he used such language (metaphorical of course) as would\nunmistakeably imply that identity would be preserved, and activity would\nbe possible. But he took care to guard his language against\nmaterialistic misinterpretation by insisting that the body would be\n\u201cspiritual\u201d and therefore invisible to the earthly eye and cognizable\nonly by the spirit. The new body, he says, is \u201ca building from God,\u201d \u201ca\nhouse not made with hands, _eternal_;\u201d and he prefaces this by saying\n\u201cthe things which are seen are temporal, but the things _which are not\nseen_ are _eternal_.\u201d Hereby he clearly implies that the new body will\nbe \u201cnot seen.\u201d Elsewhere he tells us that \u201cthe things prepared by God\u201d\nfor them that love Him (and of course he includes in these the \u201cbuilding\nfrom God, the house not made with hands\u201d) are such as eye \u201c_hath not\nseen_ nor ear heard, nor have they entered into the heart of man; but\nGod hath revealed them unto us _by the Spirit_;\u201d and again, \u201cthe things\nof God none knoweth _save the Spirit of God_,\u201d which has been imparted\nto the faithful.\n\nTo speak honestly, I must add that, even if I found St. Paul had\ncommitted himself repeatedly to any theory of a material or\nsemi-material Resurrection, consonant with the feelings of his times, I\nshould not have felt bound to place a belief in a materialistic detail\nof this kind upon the same high and authoritative level as the belief in\nthe Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, or any other general and\nspiritual article of faith. But I find no such materialism in St. Paul.\nHe appears to me to say consistently, 1st, that Christ\u2019s Resurrection\nwas a type of (\u201cthe first fruits of\u201d) the Resurrection of mankind; 2nd,\nthat in contrast to the first man Adam, the earthy, who became a living\nsoul, the last Adam, the heavenly, became a \u201clife-giving spirit;\u201d 3rd,\nthat, as we have borne the image of the earthy, so we shall also bear\nthe image of the heavenly; 4th, that the \u201cbody\u201d of the faithful after\ndeath will be \u201cspiritual,\u201d just as the Church of God is \u201ca _spiritual_\nhouse,\u201d and the sacrifices of the saints are \u201c_spiritual_ sacrifices.\u201d\nThere is no more ground for thinking that St. Paul supposed that we\nshould hereafter have spiritual hands, or be spiritual bipeds, than for\nthinking that he supposed the sacrifices of the Church to be spiritual\nsheep, or the temple of the Church to be composed of celestial stones.\nAfter our Resurrection, we are still to be conscious of God\u2019s past love,\nstill to rejoice in His present and never-ending love, still to be\ncapable of glorifying and serving God, of loving as well as of being\nloved\u2014this St. Paul\u2019s theory of the \u201cspiritual body\u201d certainly implies;\nand it need not imply more. And what our Resurrection will be, that\nChrist\u2019s Resurrection was.\n\nThe ordinary fancies about the Resurrection teem with absurdities, and\nare redeemed from being ridiculous, only because they all spring from\nthe natural and reasonable desire that we may hereafter preserve our\nidentity. But they ought to be suppressed if they create, as I fear they\ncreate, additional difficulties in the way of conceiving, and believing\nin, a future life. I do not wish to scoff at the popular views; but it\nis important that those who adopt the materialistic theory of the\nResurrection should realize the unnecessary and grotesque\ninconsistencies with which they obscure the Christian faith. Popular\nChristianity appears generally to accept a sensuous paradise, only\nexcluding what some may deem the coarser senses, the smell, touch, and\ntaste. But what is the special merit of the other two senses, hearing\nand seeing, that they alone should be allowed places in Paradise? And\nthis visible, semi-spiritual body upon which the vulgar fancy so\ninsists\u2014what purpose will it serve? \u201cThe purposes of recognition between\nfriends.\u201d Then it will be like the old material body of the departed\u2014at\nwhat period of his existence? Shall he be represented as a youth of\ntwenty or a man of forty, or of fifty, or as a child of ten? And how as\nto the body of one who was deformed, maimed, or hideously misshapen and\nugly? \u201cIt would be a purified likeness, summarizing, as it were, every\nperiod of life, so that it would be recognizable, not indeed by our eyes\nbut by those of spiritual beings.\u201d That is conceivable: but why all this\ntrouble to obtain a visible body that shall make recognition difficult,\nwhen recognition can be conceived so much more easily as the result of\nmere spiritual communion? Keep by all means the language of the\n_Apocalypse_ and of the _Pilgrim\u2019s Progress_ in order to describe in\npoetry the condition of the blessed dead; but remember that it is the\nlanguage of poetry; and let every such use of words be concluded (as\nwith a doxology) by the thought, \u201cThus will it be, only far better,\ninfinitely better; for God is love; and our future communion with the\nlove of God will be a height of happiness such as no power of sense can\nreveal, and only the spirit-guided soul can faintly apprehend.\u201d\n\nBut perhaps you will say \u201cYou are ready enough to attack other people\u2019s\nnotions about the semi-material resurrection; but you are not equally\nready to explain your own notions about a spiritual resurrection. You\ncannot even tell us what a spiritual body is, except that it has the\npower of loving and being loved.\u201d Precisely so; I am quite ignorant. Yet\nin my knowledge of this matter I am superior to a very great number of\nother theologians. For they think they know, whereas I know that neither\nI nor they know. Let me go a little further in my confession of\nignorance and admit that I do not really possess knowledge about a\nnumber of other matters about which many profess with great glibness to\nknow everything. I am certain that I exist; but I doubt whether I can\nanalyse and explain the reasons for my certainty, and I am quite sure I\ncannot prove my existence by logic. If I am pressed for a proof, I\nshould say (as I have stated in a previous letter) that my belief in my\nexistence was largely due to the Imagination. _Cogito, ergo sum_, \u201cI\nthink, therefore I am,\u201d\u2014if intended as a serious proof, and if there is\nany real meaning in the \u201c_ergo_\u201d\u2014appears to me to be the most babyish of\narguments. I respect the gigantic intellect of the arguer, but not even\na giant can make ropes of sand; and it needs but a little grammar to\ndissolve this reasoning to nothing. \u201cI think\u201d means \u201cI am one thinking.\u201d\nIn some languages, in Hebrew for example, you might have no other way of\nexpressing the proposition than in this form: \u201cI am one thinking.\u201d What\nsort of reasoning then is this! \u201cI _am_ one thinking, therefore I _am_.\u201d\n\u201cThis _is_ white paper, therefore it _is_!\u201d Surely a ridiculous\noffspring to issue from great logical travail! And besides, what\ninfinite assumptions are presupposed in that monosyllable \u201cI\u201d! How do I\nknow that \u201c_I_ think,\u201d and that it is not the great world-spirit who\nthinks in me, as well as rains outside me? Why ought I not to say \u201c_it_\nthinks,\u201d just as I say \u201c_it_ rains\u201d? What do you mean by \u201cI\u201d? Tell us\nwhat \u201cI\u201d is. And how can the desperate logician set about telling us\nwhat \u201cI\u201d is, without assuming that his own \u201cI\u201d is, which is equivalent\nto assuming \u201cI _am_\u201d? Surely this is altogether a hopeless muddle, and\nwe ought to give up reasoning about \u201cI\u201d and \u201cam;\u201d yes, and I would add\nnot only about \u201cI\u201d and \u201cam,\u201d but also about a number of other\nfundamental conceptions, which are far more profitably assumed as\naxioms. For my part, whenever I use the words \u201cmind,\u201d \u201cmatter,\u201d\n\u201csubstance,\u201d \u201cspirit,\u201d \u201csoul,\u201d \u201cintellect,\u201d and the like, and make any\nserious statement about them, I hardly ever do so without a mental\nreservation, saying to myself\u2014\u201cbut of course there may be no such things\nprecisely as these, but some other things quite different, producing the\nresults which we ascribe to these; so that all these statements may be\nonly proportionately true.\u201d\n\nI do not object to the use of the materialistic language where it is\nrecognized as metaphor by those who use and those who hear it; but the\nmischief is that it is often not so recognized. Once make yourself the\nslave of the popular language about \u201cspirit,\u201d and \u201csubstance,\u201d and what\nnot\u2014and you are in danger of being manacled intellectually as well as\ntheologically. The popular belief is that a man\u2019s spirit is inside him,\nlike his qualities; the latter like peas in a box, the former like gas\nin a bladder. Drive a hole through a man\u2019s left side or the middle of\nhis head, and\u2014out goes the spirit; that is the common materialistic\ncreed. Now I have a strong desire to declare that this creed is\nridiculously false. But I will be consistent and simply say that I know\nnothing whatever about it. My spirit may possibly be inside me; but it\nmay possibly be outside me; say at a point six feet, or six miles, above\nme; or away in Jupiter, or Saturn, or down at the earth\u2019s centre; or it\nmay be incapable of occupying space. What does it matter to you or to\nme, theologically or intellectually, whether that part of us which we\ncall our \u201cspirit\u201d has its local habitation inside us, or outside, or in\nno locality at all? Is it not enough to recognize that we have powers of\nacting, loving, trusting, and believing, and to feel certain that God\nintends these powers to be developed and never to perish? Yet I remember\nthat a friend of mine was shocked, and almost appalled, when I avowed\nignorance as to the locality of my spirit. He seemed to think I might as\nwell have no spirit at all, if it could not prove its respectability by\ngiving its name and address!\n\nFor my part I am now quite certain of Christ\u2019s spiritual Resurrection,\nand in that conviction I am far happier and far more trustful than when\nI at first mechanically accepted upon authority and evidence the belief\nin the Resurrection of Christ\u2019s body, and subsequently strove to retain\nthat belief, against the testimony of my intelligence and my conscience.\nI think you also will find, as years go on, when it becomes your lot to\nstand by the grave into which friend after friend is lowered, that a\nheartfelt conviction of the spiritual Resurrection of Christ affords\nmore comfort to you at such moments than your old belief\u2014based largely\nupon historical evidence, and brain-felt rather than heart-felt\u2014in His\nphysical Resurrection. For the former unites us with Christ, the latter\nseparates us from Christ. We none of us expect that the material and\ntangible bodies of our friends will rise from the dead in the flesh\nwithout \u201cseeing corruption;\u201d but we do trust that they shall rise as\n\u201cspiritual bodies\u201d over whom death shall have no power. This trust is\nconfirmed by the belief that Christ rose as we trust they shall\nhereafter rise. If, therefore, Christ rose a material body from the\ngrave\u2014that stirs no hope in us. But if, while His body remained in the\ngrave, His spirit rose triumphant to the throne of God, then we see a\nhope indeed that may suit our case and give us some gleam of\nconsolation. The bodies of the dead may lie there and decay; but what of\nthat? Even so was it with the Saviour: but the spiritual body is\nindependent of the flesh and shall rise superior to death.\n\nDo not imagine that the spiritual body is one whit less real than the\nmaterial body; only, as the material body belongs to the time-world, so\nthe spiritual body belongs to the eternal world. Each is suited to its\nown environment, but each of them is a real body. As to the relation\nbetween the material and the spiritual body we know nothing, and we need\nknow nothing.\n\nWhen will men learn to be less greedy of shams and bubbles of pretended\nmaterial knowledge, and more earnest and patient in their sober\naspirations after spiritual truth? When will they realize that an\nunhesitating faith in a few elementary principles is better than a\ntremulous quasi-knowledge of a whole globe of dogmas?\n\n\n\n\n                                  XXIV\n                           WHAT IS A SPIRIT?\n\n\nMY DEAR \u2014\u2014,\n\nYou take me to task for the abrupt termination of my last letter. I\nbroke off, you say, just when you thought I was on the point of\nexplaining what I meant by a spirit: \u201cSurely you have some theory of\nyour own and are not content with disbelieving other people\u2019s theories.\u201d\nWell, I thought I had said before that I am content to know merely this\nabout a spirit, that it possesses capabilities for loving and serving\nGod, or other nobler capabilities corresponding to these. But if you\npress me to set up some theory of my own that you may have the pleasure\nof pulling it to pieces, I will confess to you that my nearest\nconception of a spirit is a personified virtue. This cannot very well be\nquite right; any more than a carpenter can be like a door, or like\nanything else that he has constructed. But it is the nearest I can come\nto any conception that is not too repulsively material. And sometimes,\nwhen I try to conceive of the causes of terrestrial thoughts, and\nemotions, and spiritual movements, I find myself recurring to the\nantique notion, hinted at in one or two passages of the Bible, and I\nbelieve encouraged by some of the old Rabbis, that there are two worlds;\none visible, terrestrial, and material, the other invisible, celestial,\nand spiritual; and that whatsoever takes place down here takes place\nfirst (or simultaneously but causatively) up there; here, the mere\noutsides of things; there, the causes and springs of action; the bodies\ndown on earth, the spirits up in heaven.\n\nThis is but a harmless fancy. Let me give you another. You know\u2014or might\nknow if you would read a little book recently published called\n_Flatland_, and still better, if you would study a very able and\noriginal work by Mr. C. H. Hinton[31]\u2014that a being of Four Dimensions,\nif such there were, could come into our closed rooms without opening\ndoor or window, nay, could even penetrate into, and inhabit, our bodies;\nthat he could simultaneously see the insides of all things and the\ninterior of the whole earth thrown open to his vision: he would also\nhave the power of making himself visible and invisible at pleasure; and\ncould address words to us from an invisible position outside us, or\ninside our own person. Why then might not spirits be beings of the\nFourth Dimension? Well, I will tell you why. Although we cannot hope\never to comprehend what a spirit is\u2014just as we can never comprehend what\nGod is\u2014yet St. Paul teaches us that the deep things of the spirit are in\nsome degree made known to us by our own spirits. Now when does the\nspirit seem most active in us? or when do we seem nearest to the\napprehension of \u201cthe deep things of God\u201d? Is it not when we are\nexercising those virtues which, as St. Paul says, \u201cabide\u201d\u2014I mean faith,\nhope and love? Now there is obviously no connection between these\nvirtues and the Fourth Dimension. Even if we could conceive of space of\nFour Dimensions\u2014which we cannot do, although we can perhaps describe\nwhat some of its phenomena would be if it existed\u2014we should not be a\nwhit the better morally or spiritually. It seems to me rather a moral\nthan an intellectual process, to approximate to the conception of a\nspirit: and toward this no knowledge of Quadridimensional space can\nguide us.\n\nWhat, for example, do we mean when we speak of the Holy Spirit, and\ndescribe Him as the Third Person in the Trinity? I hope you will not\nsuppose\u2014because I happen to be a rationalist as regards the historical\ninterpretation of certain parts of the Bible, or because I have not\ndisguised my dislike of the formal and quasi-arithmetical propositions\nin which the Athanasian creed sets forth the doctrine of the\nTrinity\u2014that I reject the teaching of the New Testament on the nature\nand functions of the Holy Spirit. Literary criticism may oblige us to\nregard the long discourses on the functions of the Paraclete or Advocate\nin the Fourth Gospel as being in the style of the author and not the\nlanguage of Christ; but it is difficult to suppose that the sublime\nthoughts in those passages are the mere inventions of a disciple of\nJesus; and the characteristic sayings of Christ in the Synoptic Gospels\nbear cogent though terse witness to His acknowledgment of a Holy Spirit\nwho should \u201cspeak\u201d in His disciples, and \u201cteach\u201d His disciples what to\nsay, when they were summoned before the bar of princes: \u201cit is not ye\nthat speak, but the Holy Spirit,\u201d Mark xiii. 11; \u201cit is not ye that\nspeak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you,\u201d Matth. x.\n20; \u201cthe Holy Spirit shall teach you in that very hour what ye ought to\nsay,\u201d Luke xii. 12. I need not remind you how large a space \u201cthe Spirit\u201d\nclaims in St. Paul\u2019s Epistles, and especially of the use which the\nApostle makes of the triple combination of the Father, the Son, and the\nHoly Spirit. Even, therefore, if I could give no explanation of the\nwhole of it, nor so much as put into words the faint glimpse I may have\ngained into the meaning of a part of this doctrine, I should be inclined\nto accept the existence of the Holy Spirit on the authority of Christ or\nSt. Paul, as being a doctrine that does not enter into the domain of\nevidence, a conception of the divine nature from which I might hope to\nlearn much, if I would reverently keep it before me and try to apprehend\nit. But I seem to have a glimpse of it. That influence or \u201cidea\u201d of the\ndead which, as Shakespeare says, \u201ccreeps into our study of imagination,\u201d\nand which reproduces all the best and essential characteristics of the\ndeparted\u2014when this has once taken possession of us, do we not naturally\nsay that we now realize \u201cthe spirit\u201d of the dead, feeling that it guides\nus for the first time to the appreciation of his words and deeds? Now as\nGod, the initial Thought, needed to be revealed to us by means of the\nWord of God, so the Word needed to be revealed to us by means of the\nInfluence of the Word. Or, to put it more personally, as the Father\nneeded to be revealed by the Son, so the Son needed to be revealed by\nthe Spirit. Those who knew Christ merely in the flesh knew but little of\nHim, and had little understanding of His words. It was the Spirit of\nChrist that guided, and still guides, His disciples into the fuller\nknowledge of the meaning of His past life on earth and His present\npurposes in heaven.\n\nI own, however, that I have sometimes felt at a loss when I have asked\nmyself, \u201cHow is this Spirit a Person? And do I love Him or It? And if\nJesus and the Spirit of Jesus are two Persons, then must I also infer\ntwo personalities for myself, one for my mortal terrestrial humanity,\nanother for my immortal celestial spirit?\u201d These questions are extremely\ndifficult for me to answer with confidence: yet I feel instinctively\nthat they have a profound and satisfying answer to which I have not yet\nattained; but I suggest some answer of this kind, \u201cWhen we endeavour to\nform a conception of God we ought to put aside the limitations of human\nindividuality. Now we cannot do this while we conceive of God simply as\nthe Father, and still less while we conceive of Him simply as the Son;\nbut we can do it when we conceive of Him as being an all-pervasive\nPower, the source of order and harmony and light, sometimes as a Breath\nbreathing life into all things good and beautiful, sometimes as a Bond,\nor Law, linking or attracting together all things material and spiritual\nso as to make up the Kosmos or Order of the Universe. The traditions of\nthe Church have taught us that there has been such a Power, subsisting\nfrom the first with the Father and the Eternal Son, in whom the Father\nand the Son were, and are, united; and by whom the whole human race is\nbound together in brotherhood to one another and in sonship to the\nEternal Father. What is this Being but the Personification of that Power\nwhich, in the material world, we call Attraction and in the immaterial,\nLove? Is it not conceivable that this Being which breathes good thoughts\ninto every human breast should love those whom It inspires? And we\u2014can\nwe love our country, and love Goodness, Purity, Honour, Faith, Hope, and\nyet must we find it impossible to love this personified Love, this Holy\nSpirit? But if we love the Spirit of God, and the Spirit loves us, then\nwe can understand how it may be called a Person.\u201d\n\nI foresee the answer that might be given to these\u2014I will not call them\nreasonings, say meditations. \u201cAll this is the mere play of fancy: you\npersonify England, Virtue, Goodness, Hope, Faith, and the like; and such\npersonifications are tolerable in poetry; but you do not surely maintain\nthat such personifications have any real existence: in the same way, you\nmay find a certain conception of the Supreme Being useful for the\nencouragement of devotion, but you have no right hence to infer that\nthis conception represents an objective reality, much less God Himself.\u201d\nMy reply is that in the region of theological contemplation where\ndemonstration, and proof of the ordinary kind, are both impossible, I\nconceive I \u201chave a right\u201d to do this on the authority of Christ and St.\nPaul and the Fourth Gospel, and the general tradition of the Church. I\nwould sooner believe that myself and my spirit have a dual personality;\nI would sooner recognize the presence of the Angels of England and\nFrance and the other great nations of the world about the heavenly\nthrone, like the Angels of the seven churches of Asia or the Angel of\nthe Chosen People; I would sooner acknowledge the actual personality of\nHope, Faith, and I know not what other celestial ministers between God\nand man; I would sooner, in a word, believe that personality depends\nupon some subtle combination such as only poets have dimly guessed at,\nthan I would give up the belief that there is beside the Eternal Father,\nand the Eternal Son, an Eternal Spirit, to the description of whom we\ncan best approximate by calling Him personified Love.\n\nLooking at the Spirit of God in this way I sometimes seem to discern a\ncloser connection than is generally recognized between the Resurrection\nand the power of loving. You will remember that St. Paul constantly\nconnects the Resurrection of Christ with the \u201cSpirit;\u201d Christ was\n\u201craised from the dead _in_, or _by_, _the Spirit_;\u201d and St. Peter says\nthat Christ was \u201cput to death in the flesh, but quickened _in the\nSpirit_.\u201d Now this Spirit is the Power of Love. Do we ask for an\nexplanation of this connection? It is surely obvious that the\nResurrection of Christ would not have directly availed men (so far as we\ncan see) unless it had been manifested to them. But how was it\nmanifested? We think it was by love: on the one hand by the unsatisfied\nand longing love of the sorrowing disciples, creating a blank in the\nheart which could only be filled by the image of the risen Saviour; on\nthe other hand by the unsatisfied and longing love of the Lord Jesus\nChrist, dying with a purpose as yet unfulfilled. Thus\u2014so far as concerns\nthe influence of the Resurrection of Jesus upon humanity\u2014it was the\nSpirit of Love that raised Jesus from the abyss of inert oblivion and\nexalted Him to the right hand of God in the souls of men. I dare not say\nthat, if Jesus had failed to root Himself in the hearts of men He could\nnever have been raised from the dead; just as I dare not say that, if\nSt. Peter had not been inspired to say \u201cThou art the Christ,\u201d the Church\ncould never have been founded on the rock of heaven-imparted faith. Let\nus avoid this way of looking at things, as being repulsive and\npreposterous, putting things terrestrial before things celestial. Let us\nrather say that, because the rock of faith was being set up by the hand\nof God in heaven, therefore at that same instant the Apostle received\nthe strength to utter his confession of faith; and because Christ\u2019s\nSpirit had soared up after death to the heaven of heavens and thence was\nbending down lovingly to look upon His despairing followers, therefore\nthey received power to see Him again, living for them on earth.\n\nYet as regards ordinary men, I cannot help occasionally reviving that\nsame preposterous method which I would discard in the case of Christ.\nAnd starting from terrestrial phenomena first, I sometimes ask myself,\nIs it possible that the resurrection of each human soul may depend upon\nthe degree to which it has rooted itself in the affection of others? The\nRoman Catholic Church teaches that the condition of the dead may be\naffected by the prayers of survivors; and many abuses have resulted from\na perverted and mechanical misinterpretation of that doctrine; but how\nif the spirit of a dead man actually owes its spiritual resurrection,\nnot indeed to formally uttered petitions, but to the silent prayers, the\nloving wishes, the irrepressible desires of fellow-spirits on earth and\nin heaven? How if a man lives in heaven and in the second life so far as\nhis spirit has imprinted itself on the loving memories of others above\nand below? \u201cHas the dead man kindled in the heart of one single human\nbeing a spark of genuine unselfish affection? To that extent, then, he\nreceives a proportional germ of expansive and eternal life\u2014might it not\nbe so? And if it were so, then we could better understand how both the\nLord Jesus Christ, and we mortal men, die in the flesh but are raised to\na life eternal after death \u2018in the Spirit\u2019 and \u2018by the Spirit\u2019\u2014that\ngreat pervasive spiritual Power of Love which links all things in heaven\nand earth together.\u201d\n\nI trust I have theorized enough to please you. I have done so because on\nthe whole I think it best that you should see all the weakness, as well\nas all the strength, of my position\u2014the credulous and fanciful side of\nit, as well as its breadth, its naturalness, its reasonableness, its\nspiritual comfort, its dependence on moral effort, its recognition of\nLaw, its consistency with facts, and its absolute freedom from\nintellectual difficulties. Regarded in the ordinary way, as being the\nrevivification of the material body, the Resurrection of Christ becomes\nan isolated portent in history; regarded naturally, it becomes the\ntriumph of the Spirit over the fear of death, the central event of our\nearthly history. Central I say, but not isolated; because there are seen\nconverging towards it, as it were predictively, all the phenomena of the\nevolution and training of the Imagination; all instances of true poetic\nand prophetic vision; the stars of heaven and all the creative\nprovisions of night and darkness and sleep and dreams, nay even death\nitself. And what higher tribute (short of actual worship) can be paid to\nthe personality of Christ than to say that \u201cthe phenomena of His\nresurrection are natural.\u201d I think if I were depressed and shaken in\nfaith\u2014as one is liable to be at times, not by intellectual but by moral\nconsiderations, when one feels that evil is stronger than it should be,\nboth in oneself and outside oneself\u2014it would be a great help to go and\nhear some agnostic saying with vehement conviction, \u201cThe resurrection of\nChrist was natural, purely natural.\u201d I should bid him say it again, and\nagain; and I would go home and say it over and over again to myself by\nway of comfort, to strengthen my faith: \u201cThe manifestations of the\nResurrection of Christ were purely natural. So they were. Things could\nnot be otherwise. Being what He was, Christ could not but thus be\nmanifested to His followers after death. It was the natural effect of\nChrist\u2019s personality upon the disciples; and through the disciples upon\nSt. Paul. Then what a Person have we here! A Person consciously superior\nto death, and, after His death, fulfilling a promise which He made to\nHis disciples that He would still be present with them! What wonder if\nHe is even now present with us, influencing us with something of the\npower with which He moved the last of the Apostles! What wonder if He is\ndestined yet for future ages to be a present Power among men until the\nestablishment of that Kingdom which He proclaimed upon earth, the\nFatherhood of God and brotherhood of man!\u201d\n\nFootnote 31:\n\n  \u201c_A Romance of the Fourth Dimension_,\u201d Swan & Sonnenschein.\n\n\n\n\n                                  XXV\n                            THE INCARNATION\n\n\nMY DEAR \u2014\u2014,\n\nI had not forgotten that, in order to complete the brief discussion of\nthe miraculous element in the New Testament, it is necessary to give\nsome explanation of the origin of the accounts of the birth of Christ.\nYour last letter reminds me of this necessity, and you put before me two\nalternatives. \u201cIf,\u201d you say, \u201cChrist was born of a Virgin, then a\nmiracle is conceded so stupendous that it is absurd to object to the\nother miracles: but if Christ was not born of a Virgin, then, unless the\nhonesty of the Gospel narratives is to be impeached, some account is\nneeded of the way in which the miraculous legend found its way into the\nGospels;\u201d and you add that you would like to know what meaning, if any,\nI attach to the statement in the Creed, that Jesus was \u201cborn of a\nVirgin.\u201d\n\nAs you probably anticipate, I accept the latter of your alternatives,\nand I will therefore endeavour briefly to shew how the story of the\nMiraculous Conception \u201cfound its way into the Gospels.\u201d But first I must\nprotest against your expression as inexact. The story of the Miraculous\nConception, so far from having \u201cfound its way into _the Gospels_,\u201d found\nits way into only two out of the four, namely, St. Matthew\u2019s and St.\nLuke\u2019s. And this fact, strong as it is, does not represent the strength\nof the negative argument from omission. Of the _nine_ authors, or\nthereabouts, of the different books in the New Testament, only two\ncontain any account, reference, or allusion to the Miraculous\nConception. No mention is made of it in any of the numerous Epistles of\nSt. Paul; nor in any of his speeches, nor in those of St. Peter,\nrecorded in the Acts of the Apostles, nor in any part of that book; nor\nin the Epistles of St. John, St. James, St. Peter, St. Jude; nor in the\nApocalypse; nor in the Gospels of St. Mark and St. John! Even the two\nGospels that mention it contain no evidence that it was known to any of\nthe disciples during the life-time of Jesus, and one of these (Luke iii.\n23) traces the genealogy of Jesus from Joseph and expressly declares\nthat He \u201cwas supposed\u201d to be \u201cthe Son of Joseph.\u201d[32] This negative\nevidence becomes all the more weighty if you consider how very natural\nit was, and I may almost say inevitable, that the story of a Miraculous\nConception should speedily find its way into the traditions of the early\nChurch. The causes that worked toward this result were, first, Old\nTestament prophecy; secondly, traditions and expressions current among a\ncertain section of the Jews; thirdly, the preconceptions of pagan\nconverts.\n\nRecall to mind what was said in a previous letter concerning the\nimportance attached by the earliest Christians to the argument from\nprophecy. Now there is a prophecy in Isaiah which, _if separated from\nits context_, might seem to point to nothing but the Miraculous\nConception of the Messiah: \u201cThe Lord himself shall give you a sign:\nbehold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name\nImmanuel.\u201d But a careful study of the context puts the matter in a quite\ndifferent light. Isaiah (vii. 10-viii. 4) is promising to King Ahaz\ndeliverance from the kings of Syria and Samaria. As the king will not\nask for a sign, the prophet promises that the Lord will give him one; a\nvirgin shall conceive and bring forth a child and shall call his name\nImmanuel (\u201cGod with us\u201d): he shall \u201ceat butter and honey\u201d when he\narrives at the age of distinction between good and evil; for before he\narrives at that age, the land abhorred by Ahaz shall be \u201cforsaken by\nboth her kings.\u201d The meaning appears to be that, within the time\nnecessary for the conception and birth of a child, that is to say, in\nless than a year, the prospects of deliverance for Judah from her\npresent enemies (Syria and Samaria) shall so brighten that a child shall\nbe born and called by a name implying the favour of God; afterwards,\nbefore that child shall grow up to childhood, the two aggressive\ncountries of Syria and Samaria shall be themselves desolated, as well as\nJudah, by the \u201crazor\u201d of Assyria which shall shave the country clean\nfrom all cultivated crops. Amid the general desolation, the fruit trees\nwill be cut down, the corn will not be sown; bread there will be none;\nthere will be nothing to eat but \u201cbutter and honey;\u201d it is not the\nnew-born child alone who shall eat \u201cbutter and honey;\u201d \u201cbutter and honey\nshall _every one eat that is left in the land_\u201d (vii. 22).\n\nIn all this, even though we may suppose that there may have been some\nMessianic reference, there is no prediction at all of a conception from\na virgin or of a miracle of any kind. Indeed, the prophecy appears to\nfind some sort of fulfilment in what happens immediately afterwards\n(Isaiah viii. 1-4), when the prophet contracts a marriage, and calls the\nson who springs from it by a name implying the vengeance imminent on\nSamaria and Assyria: \u201cCall his name Maher-shalal-hash-baz (_i.e._ booty,\nquick, spoil, speedy): for before the boy shall have knowledge to cry my\nfather! my mother! the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria shall\nbe taken away before the king of Assyria.\u201d No doubt it may be said that\nthis son was not called \u201cImmanuel,\u201d so that the prophecy was not\nfulfilled in him. But the same argument might be urged against the\napplication to our Lord; for He also was not called \u201cImmanuel,\u201d but\nreceived the old national name of \u201cJoshua,\u201d \u201cJeshua,\u201d or \u201cJesus.\u201d\nReviewing all the circumstances of the prophecy, I think we may say,\nwithout exaggeration, first, that there are no grounds for seeing in it\nany reference to a Miraculous Conception; secondly, that, when isolated,\nit might easily be misinterpreted so as to convey such a reference.[33]\n\nEven if no such prophecy had existed, the language and preconceptions of\nthe earliest Christians and their converts would almost necessarily have\nintroduced a belief in the Miraculous Conception. The language of\nPhilo\u2014who represents not a mere individual eccentricity but the current\nphraseology of the Alexandrine school of thought, and whose influence\nmay be traced in almost every page of the Fourth Gospel\u2014consistently\naffirms that, whenever a child is mentioned in the Old Testament as\nhaving been born to be a deliverer in fulfilment of a divine promise,\nthat child is \u201cbegotten of God.\u201d The words of Sarah, he says, indicate\nthat, in reality, \u201cThe _Lord begot_ Isaac.\u201d God is also spoken of as\n\u201cthe _husband of Leah_.\u201d Zipporah is described as being \u201cpregnant by _no\nmortal_.\u201d Samuel, in words that contain an implied belief that only his\nmaternal parentage was mortal, is declared to be \u201cperhaps a man,\u201d and\n\u201cborn of a human mother.\u201d I have already quoted one passage about Isaac\nbut another asserts that he is to be considered \u201c_not the result of\ngeneration_ but the work of _the unbegotten_.\u201d Sometimes the language of\nPhilo is so worded as to convey even to a careful reader the impression\nthat he believed in a literally Miraculous Conception, as for example\nwhen he says that \u201cMoses introduces Sarah as being _pregnant when\nalone_, and as being _visited by God_.\u201d Elsewhere, he removes the\npossibility of misunderstanding by saying that \u201cthe Scripture is\ncautious, and describes God as the husband, not of a virgin, but of\nvirginity.\u201d None the less, you can easily see how expressions of this\nkind, current among Jewish philosophers a generation before the time of\nSt. Paul, might be very easily interpreted literally by ordinary people\nunskilled in these metaphorical subtleties, and especially by Gentile\nconverts asking for a plain answer to a plain question, \u201cWhat was the\nparentage of this man whom you call the Son of God?\u201d\n\nIn truth the preconceptions of the Gentile converts must have played no\nsmall part in preparing the way for the doctrine of the literal\nMiraculous Conception. The Greeks and Romans who worshipped or honoured\n\u00c6sculapius son of Apollo, Romulus son of Mars, Hercules son of Jupiter,\nand a score of other demi-gods, would be quite familiar with the notion\nof a god or hero born of a human mother and of a divine father; they\nwould not only be prepared for it in the case of Jesus, whom they were\ncalled on to adore as the Son of God, they would even demand and assume\nit. They would argue much as Tertullian argued: \u201cIf he was the son of a\nman, he was not the son of God; and if he was the son of God, he was not\nthe son of a man.\u201d This argument ought to have been met by a flat\ndenial, thus: \u201cThe mere physical and carnal union by which, according to\nyour legends, the gods, assuming the forms of men, generated \u00c6sculapius,\nRomulus, and Hercules, is not to be thought of here. When we speak of\nJesus being the Son of God, we do not mean that His body was formed by\nGod descending from heaven and assuming human shape or functions, but\nthat His Spirit was spiritually begotten of God. It is therefore quite\npossible that Jesus may have been the Son of God according to the Spirit\nand yet the son of man according to the flesh.\u201d But instead of that, the\nwhole truth, there came back this half-true answer. \u201cThe parentage was\ndivine, but not of the materialistic nature you suppose: God did not\nassume human shape: the generation was spiritual.\u201d By these words there\nmay have been meant at first, simply what Philo meant, that while the\nspiritual parentage was divine, the material parentage was human: but\nsuch an answer would leave many under the impression that the body as\nwell as the spirit of Jesus resulted from a spiritual generation in\nwhich no human father participated. The Gentiles would naturally\ninterpret the Philonian doctrine literally and say of Mary, as Philo had\nsaid of Sarah, that she was \u201cpregnant when alone, and visited by God.\u201d\n\nFrom a very different point of view, the ritual and hymnals of some of\nthe Jews might facilitate the growth of the belief that Jesus was born\nof a virgin. For they might naturally speak of their Messiah as being a\nchild of the virgin daughter of Sion, whose only husband was Jehovah.\nAnd hence in the Apocalypse, a book imbued with Jewish feeling, we find\nJesus described (xii. 1-6) as the child of a woman who evidently\nrepresents Israel: \u201cA woman arrayed with the sun, and the moon under her\nfeet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars; and she was _with\nchild_.... And she was delivered of a _son_, _a man child, who is to\nrule all the nations with a rod of iron_.\u201d This personification of the\ndaughter of Israel or of Jerusalem as representing the nation, the bride\nof Jehovah, is very common in the prophets. You may find similar\npersonifications in the New Testament. The Apocalypse describes the\nChurch as the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, descending from Heaven \u201c_as\na bride_ adorned for her husband.\u201d St. Paul speaks of the New Jerusalem,\nwhich is above (_i.e._ the spiritual Jerusalem, free from the law), as\nbeing \u201cthe _mother_ of us all.\u201d Sometimes the personification of the\nChurch is liable to be misinterpreted literally, as in St. Peter\u2019s and\nSt. John\u2019s Epistles, where \u201cthe elect lady\u201d \u201cthine elect sister\u201d and\n\u201cthe (lady) in Babylon\u201d have been supposed by some to refer to\nindividuals, but are believed by Bishop Lightfoot to represent the\nChurches of the places from which, and to which, the epistles were\nwritten. The whole of St. Paul\u2019s Epistles presuppose the metaphor of a\nVirgin Church, and toward the end of the second century (177 A.D.) we\nfind a very curious passage (in an epistle from the Church of Lyons) in\nwhich the repentance and martyrdom of some previous apostates are\ndescribed as a restoration to \u201cthe Virgin Mother\u201d of her children,\n\u201craised from the dead.\u201d You see then how this personification runs\nthrough all Jewish and all early Christian literature, so that the\nChurch, old or new, might be described as a woman; and I ought perhaps\nnot to have omitted the strange dream in the second book of Esdras (x.\n44-46) where Israel is a woman and the Temple is the son: \u201cThis woman\nwhom thou sawest is Sion ... she hath been thirty years barren, but\nafter thirty years Solomon builded the city and offered offerings, and\nthen bare the barren a son.\u201d Does not this continuous stream of thought\nshew how natural it would be for the earliest Jewish Christians to adore\nChrist in their hymns as the son of the daughter of Zion, the son of the\nVirgin Mother? Add to this the prejudice among the Gentile converts\nagainst a human paternity for the Son of God, the influence of the\nAlexandrine Jewish philosophy and the still more powerful influence of\nIsaiah\u2019s prophecy about \u201cthe virgin,\u201d and I think you will see that the\ncauses at work to produce the belief in the Miraculous Conception were\nso strong that I may almost say a miracle would have been needed to\nprevent it.\n\nBut it has been urged that St. Luke was a historian and a physician;\nthat he had great power of careful description\u2014as may be seen from his\nexact account of St. Paul\u2019s shipwreck;\u2014that he describes the\ncircumstances of the miraculous birth in a plain and simple manner: and\nthat he assures us that he had taken every pains to make himself\nacquainted with the truth of the things which he records.[34] All this\nmay be: but because a man can describe exactly a comparatively recent\nshipwreck, which he may have himself witnessed, or which at all events\nmay have been witnessed by some who told him the story, it does not\nfollow that he has exact information about a miraculous birth which\noccurred (if at all) upwards of sixty years\u2014more probably upwards of\nseventy\u2014before he wrote. The mother of Jesus had, in all probability,\npassed away when St. Luke was writing. Such obscurities and variations\nby this time attended the stories concerning the infancy of Jesus, that\nwe find even the compiler of St. Matthew\u2019s Gospel apparently ignorant\nthat the home of the parents of Jesus was (if St. Luke is correct on\nthis point) not Bethlehem, but Nazareth. It is hardly possible to deny\nhis ignorance when we find in the First Gospel these words: \u201cNow when\nJesus was born in Bethlehem of Jud\u00e6a ... And he arose and took the young\nchild and his mother and came into the land of Israel. _But_ when he\nheard that Archelaus was reigning over _Jud\u00e6a, he was afraid to go\nthither; and being warned [of God] in a dream, he withdrew into the\nparts of Galilee and came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth_.\u201d\nObviously the writer is ignorant that \u201ca city called Nazareth\u201d was the\noriginal home of the parents of Jesus, and that they had no reason for\nreturning to \u201cJud\u00e6a;\u201d his whole narrative assumes that Bethlehem in\nJud\u00e6a was the home, and that the parents of Jesus were only prevented\nfrom returning thither by the fear of Archelaus, which forced them to\nleave their native city and to take up their abode in \u201c_a city_ called\nNazareth.\u201d Now it is probable that St. Luke\u2019s account is here the\ncorrect one, and that the erroneous tradition found in the First Gospel\nwas a mere inference from the prophecy that \u201cfrom Bethlehem\u201d there\nshould \u201ccome forth a governor.\u201d But what a light does this discrepancy\nthrow upon the uncertainty of the very earliest traditions about the\ninfancy of Jesus when we find _the only two Evangelists who say anything\nabout it, differing as to the place where the parents of Jesus lived at\nthe time when they were married_! I have no doubt that St. Luke did his\nbest, in the paucity, or more probably in the variety, of conflicting\ntraditions, to select those which seemed to him most authoritative and\nmost spiritual. Even the most careless reader of the English text must\nfeel, without knowing a word of Greek, that St. Luke\u2019s first two\nchapters\u2014which contain the stories of the infancy\u2014are entirely different\nfrom the style of the preface (i. 1-4), and from that of the rest of the\nGospel. The two chapters sound, even in English, like a bit out of the\nOld Testament; and any Greek scholar, accustomed to the LXX, would\nrecognize that they were either a close translation from the Aramaic, or\nwritten by some one who wrote in Greek, modelling his style on the LXX.\nIt is probable that they represent some traditions of Aramaic origin,\nthe best that St. Luke could find when he began to write of the wonders\nthat had happened more than sixty or seventy years ago. To those who can\nform the least conception of the extent to which Oriental tradition in\nthe villages of Galilee might be transmuted after an interval of sixty\nor seventy years, it must seem quite beside the mark to assert the\nhistorical accuracy of the tradition concerning the Miraculous\nConception which St. Luke has incorporated in his Gospel, on the ground\nthat he was a physician; that he took pains to get at the truth; and\nthat he has written a masterly and exact account of a shipwreck which\nhe, or some friends of his, may have witnessed in person.\n\nThe very sobriety of his own preface ought to put us on our guard\nagainst attaching to St. Luke\u2019s history such weight, for example, as we\nattach to the history of Thucydides. He says, it is true, that he had\n\u201ctraced the course of all things accurately from the first, _i.e._ from\nthe commencement of Christ\u2019s life:\u201d but this amounts to much less than\nthe statement of Thucydides, who tells us that he had personally\ninquired from those who knew the facts, besides having seen some of the\nfacts himself (Thuc. i. 22). He does not say that \u201cthe eye-witnesses and\nministers of the word\u201d had given _him_ any special information: on the\ncontrary he mentions himself only as one of many who had received\n\u201ctraditions\u201d from eye-witnesses, and he implies that a good many of the\nexisting narratives, _based upon these very traditions_, were at least\nso far unsatisfactory that they did not dispense with an additional\nnarrative from him. The emphasis which St. Luke lays on the fact that he\nhas traced things \u201cfrom the first,\u201d and that he writes \u201cin\norder,\u201d\u2014combined with the mention of \u201cmany\u201d predecessors who have \u201ctaken\nin hand\u201d the work which he intends to do over again\u2014makes it almost\ncertain that some of these Evangelists had omitted all account of our\nLord\u2019s birth; others had not regarded chronological order; others had\nnot written \u201caccurately.\u201d All these deficiencies indicate a great and\ngeneral difficulty in obtaining exact information; and the mere honesty\nof a new attempt, under circumstance so disadvantageous, cannot justify\nus in attaching a very high authority to a tradition in this new Gospel,\nof a miraculous character, and in a style that appears to be not St.\nLuke\u2019s own, referring to an incident supposed to have occurred upwards\nof sixty years before. This digression about St. Luke\u2019s Gospel will not\nbe without its use if it leads you to perceive that history, and\nexperience, and criticism, while they tend to make us believe more, tend\nalso to make us know less, about Christ\u2019s life and doctrine; I mean,\nthat we find we know a little less about the historical facts of\nChrist\u2019s life than we supposed we knew, while we are led to believe a\ngreat deal more in the divine depth and wisdom of His ideas.\n\nI pass to the second question which you put to me, \u201cWhat sense, if any,\ndo you yourself attach to the statement in the Creed that Christ was\nborn of a Virgin?\u201d Before I tell you what sense I attach to it, or\nrather what sense seems to me the only one compatible with the facts, I\nmust honestly express my doubt whether any sense that is compatible with\nthe facts, is also compatible with the words. To speak plainly, the\nstatement appears to be so obviously literal that I shrink from\ninterpreting it metaphorically; and yet, if taken literally, it appears\nto me to be false. The word \u201cVirgin\u201d is perhaps the only word in the\nservice and ritual of the Church of England (if the Athanasian Creed be\nleft out of consideration, owing to the non-natural and humane\ninterpretations of it which have been sanctioned by high authority)\nwhich has made me doubt at times whether I ought to do official work as\na minister in that Church. As regards the \u201cresurrection of the body,\u201d\nasserted in one of the Creeds, I feel little or no difficulty: for St.\nPaul\u2019s use of the term \u201cspiritual body\u201d allows great latitude to those\nwho would give a spiritual interpretation to the phrase in the Creed;\nand I trust that I have made it clear to you that I accept Christ\u2019s\nResurrection as a reality, though a spiritual reality.[35] But the words\nimplying the birth from the Virgin stand on a different footing. In the\nResurrection of Jesus I believe that there was a unique vision of the\nburied Saviour, apparent to several disciples at a time; but in the\nconception and birth of Jesus I have no reason for thinking that there\nwas anything unusual apparent to the senses. What can I mean then by\nsaying that Jesus is \u201cborn of a Virgin\u201d?\n\nAll that I can mean is this. Human generation does not by any means\naccount for the birth of a new human spirit. So far as we are righteous,\nwe all owe our righteousness to a spiritual seed within us; \u201cwe are\nnot,\u201d as Philo would say, \u201cthe result of generation but the work of the\nUnbegotten.\u201d So far as we are righteous, we are \u201cborn not of blood, nor\nof the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God\u201d (John i.\n13). But of the Lord Jesus Christ we are in the habit of saying and\nbelieving that He was uniquely and entirely righteous; and therefore we\nsay that He was uniquely and entirely born of God. In all human\ngeneration there must be some congenital divine act, if a righteous soul\nis to be produced; and in the generation of Christ there was a unique\ncongenital act of the Holy Spirit. That Word of God which in various\ndegrees inspires every righteous human soul (none can say how soon in\nits existence) did not inspire Jesus, but was (to speak in metaphor)\ntotally present in Jesus from the first so as to exclude all\nimperfection of humanity. Human unrighteousness\u2014such as we are in the\nhabit of attributing to human generation\u2014there was, in this case, none.\nTherefore we say that the generation of Jesus was not human but divine.\n\nSo much I can honestly say because I heartily believe it. How far one is\njustified in putting so strained an interpretation on the words \u201cborn of\nthe Virgin Mary\u201d\u2014even in the Church of England, where simultaneous\nconservatism and progress have been bought at the cost of many strained\ninterpretations\u2014is a question on which I may perhaps hereafter say a\nword or two, but not now. Meantime let me merely add my conviction that\nthere may have been a time when this illusion of the Miraculous\nConception did more good than harm. In former days, that spiritual truth\nwhich we can now disentangle from the story of the Miraculous Conception\nmay have been conveyed by means of it to hearts which would have\notherwise never recognized that Jesus was the Son of God. It was surely\nbetter then, and it is better now, that men should believe the great\ntruth that Jesus is the Son of God, at the cost of believing (provided\nthey can honestly believe) the untruth that Jesus was not the son of\nJoseph, than that they should altogether fail to recognize His divine\nSonship, because they were alive to the fact that He was born of human\nparents in accordance with the laws of humanity. But in these days the\ndoctrine of the Miraculous Conception seems to me fraught with evil;\npartly because the weakness of the evidence makes the narrative a\nstumbling-block for many who are taught to consider this doctrine\nessential and who cannot bring themselves to believe it; partly because\nit tends to sanction a false and monastic ideal of life; to separate\nJesus from common humanity and from human love and sympathy; and to\nencourage false notions about a material Resurrection of the body of\nJesus, which naturally result in a false, bewildering, and disorderly\nexpectation of a material Resurrection for ourselves.\n\nFootnote 32:\n\n  Yet I have heard it said, \u201c_So far as evidence goes_, you have no more\n  reason for rejecting the Miraculous Conception than for rejecting the\n  story that Jesus washed the feet of the Apostles: for two witnesses\n  attest the former; but only one, the latter. Your objection is _a\n  priori_.\u201d Such arguments seem to me to fail to recognize the first\n  principles of evidence. The omission of a stupendous marvel, an\n  integral part (and is not the parentage an integral part?) of a\n  biography, by biographers who have no motive for omitting it and every\n  motive for inserting it, is a _strong proof that they did not know\n  it_. For a similar instance, see above, p. 167.\n\nFootnote 33:\n\n  You remember that the two accounts of the Miraculous Conception differ\n  in respect of the \u201cannunciation\u201d; which St. Matthew describes as being\n  made to Joseph, St. Luke as being made to Mary. It is interesting to\n  note how these two variations correspond to two variations in the\n  ancient prophecy.\n\n  In the LXX the name is to be given to the child, not by the mother,\n  but by the future _husband_: \u201cThe virgin shall be with child and bring\n  forth a son, and _thou shalt_ call his name Immanuel\u201d. In the Hebrew,\n  the \u201cvirgin,\u201d or \u201cmaiden,\u201d is _herself_ to name the child; \u201cA _virgin_\n  shall ... bring forth and _shall_ call, &c.\u201d Adopting the former\n  version, a narrator would infer that the announcement of the birth was\n  to be made to Joseph, as the first Gospel does: \u201cShe shall bring forth\n  a child and _thou_ (Joseph) shalt call his name Jesus.\u201d Adopting the\n  latter version, and changing the third into the second person for the\n  purpose of an \u201cannunciation,\u201d the narrator would infer that since the\n  name was to be given _by the mother_, the announcement was made _to\n  the mother_, as the third Gospel does; \u201c_Thou shalt_ be with child,\n  and shalt bring forth a son, and _shalt_ call his name Jesus.\u201d\n\n  Note also that afterwards, when St. Matthew actually quotes the whole\n  prophecy with the name \u201cImmanuel\u201d (i. 23), he alters the verb into the\n  _third person plural_: \u201cThat it might be fulfilled which was spoken of\n  the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold the virgin shall be with\n  child, and shall bring forth a child, and _they shall_ call his name\n  Immanuel.\u201d The reason is obvious. It would not be true to say that\n  _Mary_ called her son \u201cImmanuel\u201d; it would only be possible to suggest\n  that _men in general_ (\u201cthey\u201d), looking on the Child as the token of\n  God\u2019s presence among them, might bestow on him some such title (not\n  name) as \u201cGod with us.\u201d Consequently St. Matthew here alters \u201cthou\u201d\n  into \u201cthey\u201d.\n\nFootnote 34:\n\n  _Contemporary Review_, Feb. 1886, p. 193.\n\nFootnote 35:\n\n  I must admit that a more serious difficulty is presented to Sponsors\n  by the interrogative form of the Creed in the Baptismal service, to\n  which they are expected to reply in the affirmative: \u201cDost thou\n  believe in the Resurrection of the _flesh_?\u201d But I can hardly think\n  that many clergymen would wish to reject an otherwise eligible Sponsor\n  who confided to them that he could only accept \u201cflesh\u201d in the sense of\n  \u201cbody,\u201d and that too in the Pauline sense of \u201cspiritual body.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n                                  XXVI\n                          PRAYER, HEAVEN, HELL\n\n\nYou ask me whether one who has seceded from miraculous to non-miraculous\nChristianity still finds himself able to pray as before. But towards the\nend of your letter you amend your question. You are \u201cquite sure,\u201d you\nare pleased to say, from what you know of me, that I shall \u201canswer this\nquestion affirmatively, though in defiance of all logic:\u201d and therefore,\nanticipating my answer, you state your objection to it beforehand, and\nask me how I can meet your objection, which is to this effect: \u201cIf the\nlaws of nature are never suspended, then it is absurd, or perhaps\nimpious, to pray for that which implies their suspension. For example, a\nfriend of mine may be in a stage of disease so fatally advanced that,\nwithout a suspension of the laws of nature, it is no more possible that\nhe should recover from the disease than that his body should rise from\nthe grave. According to the tenets of your non-miraculous Christianity,\nmust I not abstain from praying that he may recover?\u201d\n\nI do not see any great difficulty here. Change the hypothesis for a\nmoment. Suppose your friend to be no longer living, but dead. Are you\nwilling\u2014would you be willing, even were you the most orthodox believer\nin miraculous Christianity\u2014to pray that the body of your dead friend\nmight arise revivified from the grave a week after he had been laid in\nit? You know you would not be willing. Why not? You cannot say \u201cBecause\nit is impossible,\u201d for you would admit (on the supposition of your being\na believer in the miraculous) not only that it is possible, but that it\nhas actually been done in times past. But you would feel, I am sure,\nthat you dare not, and ought not, to pray for this object, because such\na prayer would be a revolt against that established order of things\nwhich you recognize to be a manifestation of God\u2019s present will. I say\n\u201cGod\u2019s present will,\u201d because you do not (if you agree with me) regard\ndeath as being in accordance with God\u2019s future will: it is an evil,\nsprung, not from God, but from evil, out of which God is working good.\nBut He bids us acquiesce in it during our present imperfect state of\nexistence; and hence, though you believe He will ultimately destroy\ndeath, you do not feel justified in praying that its present operation\nmay be neutralized by a suspension of the laws of nature.\n\nNow to return to your own supposition that your friend is not dead, but\nmerely in danger of death. Health and life are dependent upon many\ncomplex causes, among which (it will be admitted by all) are those\nmysterious fluctuations of the thoughts and emotions, which I believe in\nmany cases to proceed\u2014I speak in a metaphor\u2014straight from God Himself.\nTo one who believes that the spirits of men are in constant communion\nwith the all-sustaining Spirit of the Creator, the thoughts of men may\nwell seem to be as dependent upon their divine Origin as the air in my\nlittle room is at this moment dependent upon the changes of the\ncircumambient atmosphere. Of course, if you are a thorough-going,\nscientific hope-nothing and trust-nothing, such a belief as this appears\nto you an idle dream. From your point of view, you are a machine; your\nfriend is a machine; all men are machines; the world is a machine; the\naction and inter-action of all these animate and inanimate machines is\npredetermined, even to the minutest movement of a limb, or most fleeting\nshade of thought, in each one of the myriads of human mechanisms called\nmen.\n\nThe thorough-going materialist, when he rebukes his son and tells him\nthat he \u201cought not to have\u201d told a lie, knows perfectly well that his\nson could not possibly help telling that lie, and that he was bound by\nall the laws of nature to tell it. The materialist father is, in fact,\ntelling a lie himself; only more deliberately than the little son. He is\nusing words which have no true meaning for him, as a kind of oil to\ngrease the wheels of the little machine before him, having learned by\naccumulated experience that this lying phrase, \u201cYou _ought_ to have,\u201d\nhas for many thousands of years proved a very effective kind of oil, and\nthat the true and scientific phrase, \u201cIt would have been better if you\ncould have, but you could not,\u201d would be wholly inefficacious. But since\nit is obvious that this view of existence converts all moral language,\nand almost all the higher relations of life, into one gigantic lie, I\nmake no apology at all for putting it by with contempt as being beneath\nthe consideration of a child of ten at which age, as far as I remember I\ngrappled with this question of predestination, and settled it (so far as\nI was concerned, for ever) by coming to the conclusion that \u201cit does not\n_work_.\u201d Now when you have once given up, as unworkable, the theory that\nall our thoughts and emotions spring necessarily from antecedent\nmaterial causes, you have bidden good-bye to Knowledge, so far as\nconcerns the origin of human thought, and you are thrown back upon\nFaith. I believe therefore, and I make no apology for my belief, that\nthe mysterious fluctuations of human thought and will may sometimes\nproceed from God without the intervention of material causes, perhaps in\nvirtue of the existence of some invisible law of union by which the\nsouls of men are united to God and to one another. This being my\nbelief\u2014which at all events does not contain so many and such\nperpetually-recurring inconsistencies as the belief of your\nthorough-going materialist\u2014you will understand, without much further\nexplanation, when and why I should pray even for those of whom the\nphysician is inclined to despair. Faith and hope, have, before now,\nworked such wonders in healing, that \u201cwhile there is life there is hope\u201d\nhas passed into a proverb. I cannot be sure that my prayers might not\nhave some kind of direct power\u2014by a kind of brain-wave such as we have\nheard of lately\u2014in affecting the emotions and spirits of the sufferer.\nIt is seldom that even a physician can speak with certainty about the\nimmediate issue of a disease: and whatsoever is uncertain is (if it be\nalso right) a reasonable subject for prayer. But if I were myself\nabsolutely convinced that there was no chance of my friend\u2019s recovery\nwithout a suspension of the laws of nature, I should feel that prayer\nrightly and naturally gave way to resignation.\n\nNo one however who is in the habit of praying will think it necessary to\nspend much time or thought in discriminating exactly between that which\nmay be, and that which cannot possibly be. He must know that, very\noften, where his prayer trenches on the province of the material, the\nline cannot be drawn except by an expert in science, which he may not\nhappen to be; and besides, in the mood of prayer, he will feel that the\nscientific and discriminating spirit is out of place. He is not thinking\nof things scientifically, but spiritually, putting his wishes before the\nFather in heaven, and content to couple each wish with an \u201cIf it be\npossible.\u201d Sometimes he learns, after constant repetition, that the\nprayer is an unfit one, and he discontinues it; in that case he has\ngained by his prayer a closer insight into, and conformity with, the\nwill of God. In other cases he continues his prayer and receives an\nanswer to it\u2014either the answer that he himself desires, or some other\nperhaps, quite different from that which he expected, but one which he\nultimately recognizes to be the best. But there will be cases where he\nwill continue his prayer, feeling it to be right and natural, although\nhe receives no answer to it at all, so far as he can discern. For he\nwill feel quite certain that no genuine prayer is wasted. Our spirits,\nor our angels\u2014to use the language of metaphor\u2014are not on earth: they sit\ntogether in heaven, that is to say, in the heart of God; and whenever\none of us can conceive a genuinely unselfish and righteous wish for a\nbrother spirit and wing it with faith so that it flies up to heaven\u2014a\nflight by no means so easy or so common as we suppose, and probably not\noften flown, unless the arrow is feathered by deeds and pains as well as\nwords\u2014then it not only brings back a blessing upon the wisher but also\nthrills through the spiritual assembly above and comes back as a special\nblessing to the person prayed for. But need I add that this is not a\nprocess to be performed mechanically? There is no recipe for effectual\nprayer.\n\nBut, to come down from metaphors, let me attempt to answer your\nquestion, \u201cWhat difference of attitude in prayer will there be between\nthe believer in natural, and the believer in miraculous, Christianity?\u201d\nAs far as my experience goes, there will be very little; except that the\nformer will be rather more disposed to ask, before uttering a prayer,\nhow far the granting of it might indirectly affect others. Logically and\ntheoretically there ought to be a great deal of difference; for if the\nbeliever in the miraculous were consistent, he might naturally pray that\na miracle might be performed for him, as it has been for others, for a\ngood purpose. As a matter of fact, the prayers of children trained in\northodoxy are thus sometimes consistent. I dare say one might find a\nchild who has prayed that the sun might stand still that he might have a\nlonger holiday. And why not now from the child\u2019s point of view as well\nas formerly? But I suppose few men in England, now, even of the strictly\northodox, are in this puerile stage. Almost all full-grown English\nProtestants recognize that, although miracles were freely performed from\nthe year 4004 B.C. to, say A.D. 61 or thereabouts\u2014when St. Paul shook\noff the serpent and took no harm\u2014yet \u201cthe age of miracles is now past.\u201d\nYet I have heard of men of business who make a point of praying\nearnestly on the subject of commercial speculations, the rise and fall\nof consols, the price of sugar and the like. Will any one maintain that\npeople are not the worse for such prayers as these, or that the believer\nin natural Christianity is not a gainer by losing the desire and the\npower to utter them? On the whole, I see but one subject of prayer\nmentioned in our English Prayer-book, as to which natural Christianity\nwould probably dictate silence: I mean the weather. It might be argued\nthat, \u201csince the weather is affected by human action (by the clearing of\nforests, draining of marshes, and so on), and since prayers affect human\naction, therefore they _do_ affect the weather _indirectly_, and _may_\naffect it _directly_.\u201d But from \u201cindirect\u201d to \u201cdirect\u201d is a great leap;\nand I am moved toward resignation rather than prayer, by the thought\nthat, in revealing to us more and more of the extent of the causes and\neffects of meteorological phenomena, God seems to be shewing us that, in\nasking for weather that suits ourselves, we may be asking for weather\nthat may not suit others. I should be sorry to see harvest prayers\nexcluded from our Church service; but I think they should express our\nhope and trust in God\u2019s orderly government of the seasons, beseeching\nHim to bestow on the husbandman patience and skill so as to meet and\nimprove adversity, and on the nation thrift and frugality so as to avoid\nwaste.\n\nSince writing the last paragraph I was interrupted; and now, returning\nto my letter, I feel strongly inclined to cancel the last two or three\npages of apologetic argumentation; arguing about prayer seems so\nabsurdly useless. Yet perhaps my remarks may weigh for something with\nyou in your present oscillation. They may possibly prevent you from\ngiving up, in a moment of virtuous logic, a habit which, once\ndiscontinued, is not easily resumed. Let them pass then; but let them\nnot pass without a protest that they by no means express my sense of the\nvital necessity of prayer for a Christian. To me it seems the very\nbreath of our spiritual life, as needful for peace and union with God as\ncommunion between children and parents is needful for domestic concord.\nWithout it, faith must speedily vanish. Even a comparatively dull and\nlifeless petition at stated intervals has some value as a sign-post,\nindicating the road on which we ought to be travelling though our feet\nmay be straying elsewhere. But in truth real Christian prayer (mostly\nsilent) should be, as St. Paul says \u201cwithout ceasing;\u201d for prayer is but\naspiration and desire, emerging into shape. When a man has reached such\na height that he has ceased to wish to be something better than he is,\nthen and then only may he cease to pray.\n\nOne kind of prayer at all events I have felt able to retain which seems\nto me of far more value than the prayer for fair weather\u2014I mean prayer\nfor the dead. I do not deny that, when coupled with superstitious views\nabout heaven and hell, the custom of praying for the dead may result in\nsuperstition, and even in the encouragement of immorality; and the hired\nand conventional prayers for the dead prevalent in the sixteenth century\nappear to me to have constituted an abuse against which our English\nReformers did well to protest. But these abuses and corruptions seem to\nme accidental, and quite insufficient to deter us from use of the most\nhelpful of spiritual habits. I do not propose to argue about it, but you\nmay like to know the sort of accident by which I was led to form this\nhabit, and the practical reasons for which I clung to it, and still\ncling to it, with the deepest conviction that it is not only spiritually\nuseful, but also based on spiritual truth.\n\nMany years ago a brother of mine was drowned at sea through the sudden\ncapsizing of a vessel by night. When the news came, I was at first\ndistracted between an intense desire to pray as before, and a kind of\ninstinctive and general repugnance to all prayers for the dead as being\n\u201ca Romanist practice.\u201d All the books I had read, and all the notions I\nhad formed, about the fixed future of the dead, suggested that such\nprayers were useless, if not blasphemous. On the other side there was no\nargument at all, nothing but a vague strong desire to pray. The painful\nconflict of that night\u2014a conflict, as it seems to me now, between true\nnatural religion and the false appearance of revealed religion\u2014is still\npresent to my recollection. At last it occurred to me that more than a\nmonth had elapsed between the death and our knowledge of the death, and\nthroughout all those thirty days my prayers had gone up to God for one\nwhose soul was no longer upon earth. Were those prayers wasted? I could\nnot believe it. Besides, we had not yet received full details of the\nloss of the vessel. It was just possible that my brother might have been\nsaved in one of the ship\u2019s boats: he might be still living, and in sore\nneed of help: how monstrous, if it were so, that I should in such a\ncrisis cease to pray for him! So with doubt and trembling I still\ncontinued my custom, fashioning some kind of prayer to suit the\nemergency. While I was in this oscillating state of mind, news came that\na second boatful, and almost immediately afterwards that a third, had\nbeen picked up at sea. My brother was not in either: but why might there\nnot be a fourth? For some time, with less doubt than before, I continued\nto pray. Days, weeks, months rolled on, and now all hope had slipped\naway; but the habit was now fixed. I could not, or would not, break it.\nPraying day and night for one who was possibly living; just possibly\nliving; probably not living; certainly dead\u2014I had learned to realize the\npresence of my brother\u2019s spirit, as very near and close to me, as one\nwith whom I was still in some kind of communion; and now to drop his\nname out of my prayers, simply because I should never touch his hand\nagain in this world, seemed a faithless, a wicked, a cruel act. The\nprayer could not indeed remain the same in circumstances so completely\nchanged; I could of course no longer pray that the dead might be\nrestored to me on earth; but it was still open to me to make mention of\nhis name, and to beseech God that he and I might meet again in heaven:\nand thus, with a curious kind of compromise, worthy of a less youthful\ntheologian, I circumvented my own orthodoxy by still praying in reality\nfor my brother while I appeared to be praying for myself. More than\nseven-and-twenty years have now passed away, but not a night or morning\nhas passed without the mention of that familiar name; and I entreat you\nto believe me that, next to the power of Christ Himself upon the soul, I\nhave not found, nor can I imagine, any influence so potent as this habit\nof praying for the dead, to detach the mind from petty and visible\nthings, to unlock the spiritual world, to carry the soul up to the very\nsource and centre of spiritual life, and to bring us into faithful\ncommunion with the Father of the spirits of all flesh.\n\nYou see I have kept my promise of not arguing on this matter. I have\nsimply told you how I have longed and doubted; how my doubts were\ndissipated by practice; and what strength I have personally derived from\nthe practice. Probably this will seem to you, if interesting, at all\nevents inadequate. \u201cLogically,\u201d you will perhaps say to yourself, \u201che\nought to have attempted first to convince me that the eternal state of\nthe dead is not finally determined at the moment of death; so that\nprayer may reasonably be expected to have some power to change their\ncondition. He ought to have told me whether he believes in a Purgatory,\nor in a limited Hell; whether he is a Universalist; or whether he\nbelieves in the annihilation of all who are not to be saved. In a word,\nhe ought to have given me a full account of his theory about the\ncondition of the dead, before he commends to me the habit of praying for\nthem.\u201d\n\nHere I fear I shall terribly disappoint you; but, at the risk of\nwhatever disappointment, I will confess to you the whole truth. This\npart of my Manual of Theology has large print, large margin, and several\nblank pages. I believe some things with such force and clearness that I\nprefer to say I do not believe them. I _see_ them: but about many other\nthings which most people believe, I know little or nothing. Do I believe\nin a Hell? Yes, as firmly as I believe in a Heaven; but not in your Hell\nperhaps, and certainly not in the ordinary guide-books to Hell and\nHeaven. Perhaps some would call my Hell \u201cmerely retribution,\u201d or \u201can\nillogical and ill-defined Purgatory;\u201d and from their point of view they\ncould be right in complaining of its indefiniteness; for they profess to\nknow all about it and to be able to define it. But from my point of view\nI am equally right in speaking indefinitely; for I profess to have only\na glimpse of it. Of the principles of Hell and Heaven I am certain, but\nof the details I am entirely ignorant. I know nothing whatever, and I\nknow that no one else knows anything whatever, about the state of the\ndead; except that they are just as much in God\u2019s hand when dead as when\nliving, and that He will ultimately do the best thing for each; but what\nthat \u201cbest thing\u201d may be I cannot tell in detail, although I am very\nsure that it will be one thing for St. Francis and quite another for\nNero. For the rest, all the elaborate structures and fancy-fabrics of\nHeaven and Hell, Purgatory, Paradise, Limbo, and other regions, whether\ntheologians or poets be the architects, appear to me built upon the\nflimsiest foundations, tags of texts, fragments of words, quagmires of\nmetaphor, quicksands of hyperbole. No; such real knowledge\u2014or shall we\nsay such conviction?\u2014as we have about the eternal future of the dead, is\nto be based, not upon argument or inference from minute and disputable\ninterpretations of small portions of Scripture, but mainly upon our\nfaith in the divine righteousness and power. You will not, I hope,\nmisunderstand my words that \u201cGod will do the best thing for each,\u201d or\ndraw from them the inference, \u201cThen he is a Universalist after all.\u201d I\ntook for granted\u2014I hope I was not wrong\u2014that you would remember the\ndefinition of justice which you have read in Plato. In fact therefore I\nmerely expressed in those words my conviction that God would be \u201cjust\u201d\nto us after death.[36] Might we not also define the highest mercy, in\nthe same terms in which we define the highest justice, as being the\nfeeling that prompts us to \u201cdo what is best for each\u201d? And, if so, does\nit not seem to follow that in Hell God will not cease to be merciful,\nand in Heaven God will not cease to be just? And hence are we not\nbrought close to the conclusion that Heaven and Hell are not really\nplaces, but the diverse results of the operation of the Eternal\u2014the just\nMercy, the merciful Justice\u2014upon the diverse dead? But here the question\nwidens and deepens into expanses and depths altogether too vast and\nprofound for me, and I give up the problem. All that I know is, that\nthere will be hereafter a just retribution.\n\nYet if I am to tell you my own conjectural imaginations\u2014for who can help\nat times imagining what the infinite unknown may be, however loth he may\nbe to insist or dogmatize about it, or even to bestow much attention on\nit, when the urgent present presses its superior claims?\u2014I will say for\nmyself that I cannot believe I shall have served all my apprenticeship\nto righteousness in my brief life upon this earth, or that I shall be\nfit immediately after death, for that closest communion with God which\nappears to me the Heaven of Heavens. Some cleansing retribution, some\nfurther purification, seems to me necessary and likely for myself\u2014and, I\nmust add, for the greater number of those human beings with whom I have\nhad to do\u2014before we attain to that blessed consummation.\n\n\u201cSo you believe in a Purgatory then?\u201d How do I know? Say rather, I\nconjecture there may be many heavens. In any case, I find it very easy\nto imagine a retribution and a purification that shall be purely\nspiritual, without having recourse to any material flames or physical\nhorrors. Some people find a difficulty in this notion: they consider it,\nbut deliberately put it aside; as if mere remorse, sorrow, and\nself-condemnation, could never be bitter enough to constitute a just\nHell. I do not think they have ever realized\u2014perhaps they have never\ntried to realize\u2014the pain that may be felt by a spirit sitting alone,\naway from this familiar world and every well-known face, and quietly\njudging and condemning itself. A mere accident, a ludicrous accident,\nonce gave me a moment\u2019s experience of this feeling, and I have never\nbeen able to forget it, never been able to put aside the conviction that\nthat feeling, intensified, might constitute Hell.\n\nIt happened in this way. Some years ago, before nitrous oxide had come\ninto very general use among dentists, I went to have a tooth extracted,\nand determined to try the gas. Perhaps I had some misgivings that it was\na little cowardly; perhaps I was a little nervous; in any case I\nremember at the last moment thinking that I should like to be conscious\nof the precise moment when unconsciousness came; I remember struggling\nto retain consciousness\u2014even when a tell-tale throbbing in the temples\nshewed that something new was going on\u2014protesting to myself that the gas\nhad \u201cno power,\u201d \u201cno power at all yet,\u201d \u201cI don\u2019t believe it\u2019s going to\nhave any power\u201d\u2014till the portcullis came down. I suppose the consequence\nwas that I inhaled rather more than was usual; and when I came to myself\nI heard the voices of the dentist and the physician\u2014a long way off, as\nit seemed to me, but with perfect distinctness saying that \u201che was a\nlong time coming to\u201d and they did not \u201cquite like the look of things,\u201d\nand so on. Meantime I lay motionless and without power either to move or\nspeak, but perfectly conscious. I took in the whole situation at once. I\nwas dead. I had passed into another state of existence. I could think\nmore clearly than before. I was a spirit. And then the thought came\npressing in upon me, as I reviewed my whole life and the manner of my\ndeath, that to avoid a little pain I had done a wrong thing and had\ndeserted those who needed me and would miss me. No fear possessed me,\nnot the slightest fear, of any external punishment for the fault which I\nthought I had committed: but in a detached solitude I seemed to be\nquietly and coldly sitting in judgment upon myself, impartially hearing\nwhat I had to say in self-defence, rejecting it as inadequate, and\npassing against myself the verdict of Guilty. Painful, increasingly\npainful, the burden of this self-condemnation seemed to press and crush\nme down more and more past power of bearing, so that at last, when in\none moment I recovered both power of motion and knowledge that I was\nalive again, I leapt up from the dentist\u2019s arm-chair, and, without\ntaking the least notice of the two operators, I gave vent to my feelings\nby shouting aloud the well-known words from Clarence\u2019s dream\n\n                                 \u201c\u2014and for a space\n                 Could not believe but that I was in hell.\u201d\n\nI shall not easily forget the look of mingled humour and horror with\nwhich the dentist replied, \u201cWell, sir, considering you are a clergyman,\nI should have hoped it might have been the other place.\u201d I tried to\nexplain. I assured him that it was a quotation from Shakespeare; that I\nhad not really believed that I was in the place commonly called Hell;\nand so on. But I am quite sure my explanations were utterly ineffectual;\nand to this day I probably labour under the suspicion, in the minds of\nat least two worthy persons, of having committed some horrible crime by\nwhich my conscience is racked with agony. In reality, however, it was a\nsmall offence, if any, for which I suffered that bad quarter of a\nminute; and I have often since thought that, if the mind is capable of\ninflicting such pain upon itself for a venial error, those pangs must be\nterrible indeed with which our sinful souls may be forced to scourge\nthemselves when we judicially review the actions of a selfish life with\na compulsory knowledge of all the evil, direct and indirect, which we\nhave wrought, and when we realize at last\u2014ah, how differently from the\ndull, decorous, conventional contrition with which we droned out the\nwords on earth, kneeling on the hassocks in the family pew\u2014that \u201cwe have\nleft undone those things which we ought to have done, and done those\nthings which we ought not to have done.\u201d\n\nBut why do I thus discourse in detail upon a subject about which I have\nadmitted that I know no details? It is in order to shew you that though\nI do not know much, the little I do know greatly influences me. The\nthought of a material Hell has probably contributed largely to insanity,\nand has exercised a baneful influence upon many women and children; but\nthe majority of healthy men who profess to believe in a pit of flame are\nlittle influenced by it. It is so horrible, so unnatural, so unjust,\nthat in their heart of hearts they feel sure the good God cannot mean\nit; He will let them off; or they will get off somehow\u2014by absolution, by\nforensic justification, by baptism, by uncovenanted mercies, or what\nnot. This is but natural. How can it not be natural to believe that an\nunnatural and arbitrary Hell may be dispensed with by an unnatural and\narbitrary indulgence? I have no such consolations. With me, Hell is a\ndifferent thing altogether: it is natural, it is inevitable, it is just,\nit is merciful. Not a day passes but I think of it and anticipate it in\nsome sort for myself and my friends. _Tout sepayera_: this act, I say,\nor this neglect, was wrong, and must have been injurious: the doers\ncannot escape from the consequences of it; I do not wish to escape from\nthe consequences of it. God will work good out of evil; but He will be\njust, not indulgent. I do not want Him to be indulgent. Thus Heaven and\nHell, impending over the routine of my every-day life, become to me\npractical and potent realities; but they are real to because the\nconceptions I have formed of them are in accordance with the profound\nlaws of spiritual nature, and quite independent of the conflicting\nfancies of theologians.\n\nAsk me what I trust to be in Heaven, and I can give you no answer save\nthat one which I have often given you before\u2014a being capable of loving\nand of serving God. Ask me the nature of Hell and Heaven, and my only\nreply is that they will be God\u2019s retribution. Ask me whether all will be\nhereafter \u201csaved,\u201d and I am silent, or merely answer that God is good,\nand that I believe a time will come when we, in Him, shall look back,\nand around, and forward, and shall see that His work has been \u201cvery\ngood.\u201d Enough for me to work and fight on the side of God and against\nEvil, that His righteous Kingdom may come and bring with it the time\nwhen His work will be seen to have been \u201cvery good.\u201d As for other\ndetails, I know nothing and delight in knowing nothing. I do not know\nwhether I shall live again on earth or elsewhere; whether I shall be a\nbeing of three dimensions, or four, or of no dimensions at all; whether\nI shall be in space or out of space. It is far better to give up\nspeculations about accidental trifles such as these: for accidents they\nare, as compared with the essence of the second life, which consists in\nLove. Do not give up the belief in that, at any cost; least of all, at\nthe cost of a little banter. \u201cBut surely it is possible that our very\nhighest and purest conceptions of Heaven may fall short of the reality.\u201d\nGranted: but we must hold fast to the belief that there is at all events\na proportion between our best terrestrial aspirations and their\ncelestial equivalents. We must reject, as from Satan, the suggestion\n(was it Spinoza\u2019s?) that there is no more likeness between God and our\nconception of God than between the constellation Canis and a dog. \u201cGod\nmay not be Love:\u201d I do not believe you: but if He is not Love, He will\nbe some celestial form of Love, corresponding to our Love, only\ninfinitely better. \u201cYou will not retain your individuality:\u201d possibly\nnot, but certainly we shall have something corresponding to\nindividuality, only better. And so of the rest. We shall talk humbly, as\nbeseems our microcosmic faculties; we are but the transitory tenants of\na little world, which is to the Universe but as a dew-drop to the ocean:\nyet even a dew-drop exhibits the same infrangible laws of light and the\nsame divine glories that are manifested in the rainbow and the sunset.\nSo it is with a human soul: there are laws in it of righteousness and\njustice and retribution\u2014laws which cannot be broken by the fictions and\nillusions of theology, but must be manifested in all places and in all\ntime, now and for all eternity, on earth, in Heaven, in Hell.\n\nFootnote 36:\n\n  Has not some confusion of thought arisen from a habit of confusing\n  \u201cjust\u201d with \u201csevere\u201d? I believe some men would feel more reverently\n  towards God, if they would speak, not of His \u201cjustice,\u201d but of His\n  \u201cfairness.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n                                 XXVII\n                            PAULINE THEOLOGY\n\n\nMY DEAR \u2014\u2014,\n\nI will begin this letter by quoting the end of your last. For when you\nhave thought over the matter I am sure your mind will be so completely\nchanged that unless I send you an exact copy of your own words you will\nhardly believe you could ever have written them. You are speaking about\nthe theology of St. Paul, and this is what you say: \u201cI presume that\nNatural Christianity, however glad it may be to shelter itself under\nPauline authority in the low estimate it sets on miracles, will find it\ndifficult to digest or swallow Pauline theology. The abstruse and\nartificial doctrines of the imputation of righteousness, justification\nby faith, and the atonement, must surely stand at the very antipodes of\nany religion, Christian, or other, that can claim the name of\n_natural_.\u201d\n\nI do not believe you can ever have given five minutes of attention to\nthese subjects: or if you have, you must have attended, not to St. Paul,\nbut to some voluminous commentator who has buried St. Paul\u2019s text under\nhis own and other people\u2019s annotations. Cast your commentaries away.\nRead St. Paul for yourself in the light of his own works and the Old\nTestament (especially the Septuagint version), and I will guarantee that\nhis general drift shall come out clear and definite enough; and, what is\nmore, you shall acknowledge that his religion is perfectly natural, so\nnatural that you meet exemplifications of it every day of your life, in\nevery family, in your own home, in your own heart. It would be tedious\nif I were to give you a scheme of Pauline theology and then shew you the\nnaturalness of each part of the scheme. For me it would be long and\nwearisome; and you too would be inclined to stop me at the end of every\nother sentence and say \u201cI know that St. Paul says this or that, but how\nis it natural?\u201d I will therefore begin at the other end, that is to say,\nwith Nature, and endeavour to shew you that the natural history of a\nchild, under favourable circumstances, exhibits the general features of\nSt. Paul\u2019s theology, the scheme of Redemption by which the Apostle\nbelieved mankind to have been led to God.\n\nWe begin then with a baby\u2014a creature wholly selfish (in no bad sense),\nsay, \u201cself-regarding.\u201d He is of course \u201cin the flesh,\u201d or \u201cwalks\naccording to the flesh;\u201d that is to say, he obeys every impulse of the\nmoment, and these impulses are what we call animal impulses. He is\nconscious of no Law, and therefore of no error: being \u201cwithout the Law\u201d\nhe \u201cknows not sin.\u201d As he grows up, he finds himself making mistakes,\ntrespassing against Nature\u2019s rules, playing with fire, for example: and\nNature\u2019s punishment makes him conscious of mistake, and desirous of\navoiding mistake for fear of being punished; that is to say, he learns\nto avoid playing with fire because he has been burned for it. This is\nhis first introduction to \u201cthe Law;\u201d and if he obeys Nature\u2019s Law,\nthrough fear of Nature\u2019s punishment, or hope of Nature\u2019s reward, so much\nthe better for him. Hitherto, however, there is no question of sin, only\nof mistake. But now comes in the parental Law, saying \u201cDo this,\u201d \u201cDo not\ndo that.\u201d Sometimes he obeys; sometimes, when \u201cthe flesh\u201d is too strong,\nhe disobeys. In the latter case he is punished. This new kind of Law is\nnot a machine-like reward or punishment like that of Nature: it is\nconnected with a Will, which is dimly felt by the child to be higher and\nbetter than his own, yet constantly opposed to his own. Here then arises\na conflict between his strong animal impulses, _i.e._ \u201cthe flesh,\u201d and a\nweak nascent impulse of conscience, _i.e._ \u201cthe spirit;\u201d the former\nbidding him disobey the higher Will, the latter bidding him obey. Even\nwhen he disobeys, the spirit has at least the power to make him uneasy\nin his disobedience, and this uneasiness for the first time reveals in\nhim the nature of sin. Until the Law of the higher Will was thus placed\nside by side with his own will, and until the deflections of his own\nwill from the higher Will were thus made manifest and rebuked by\nconscience, the child had no notion of sin. Now he knows it: \u201cby Law has\ncome the knowledge of sin.\u201d\n\nAs long as he is thus \u201cunder the Law\u201d he cannot possibly be righteous;\nhe can neither be \u201cjustified\u201d nor feel \u201cjustified.\u201d When he is\ndisobedient under the Law, he is conscious of sin; but when he is\nobedient under the Law, he is not conscious of peace or inward harmony:\nthe Law stands up, for ever antagonistic to his natural impulses, and he\ncannot but dislike it, although he acknowledges its claims upon him:\nconsequently, even when he obeys it, he obeys it with a sense of\nservitude, obeying in the fear of punishment or in the hope of reward.\nSuch actions as are performed in this spirit have no spontaneousness or\ngrace; they are the tasks of a hireling, mere piece-work\u2014\u201cworks,\u201d as St.\nPaul more shortly calls them. or \u201cthe works of the Law;\u201d and \u201cby the\nworks of the Law shall no flesh be justified.\u201d During this period he\nfinds no guidance from the spirit of loving obedience, but has to trust\nin formularies and prescriptions, \u201cdo this,\u201d \u201cavoid that;\u201d he fears lest\nhe may do too little, and grudges lest he may do too much: he is in the\ncondition, not of a son, but of a servant working for wages. Just as the\nStoic said of the man who was not \u201cwise,\u201d that whatever he did, even to\nthe moving of his little finger, was sure to be wrong, so St. Paul\ntaught\u2014and it is the truth\u2014that our every action, as long as we are\n\u201cunder the Law,\u201d is void of harmony, beauty, freedom, and spiritual\nlife: it is but obedience to a dead rule; such actions are of the nature\nof sin and tend to spiritual destruction: \u201cthe wages of sin are death.\u201d\n\nDuring this state the raw, half-developed, ungraceful, unharmonized, and\never-erring boy of fifteen appears to have retrograded from the\nperfectly graceful and unconscious selfishness of the innocent child of\nfour. But it is not so. The knowledge of sin is the stepping-stone to a\nhigher righteousness than could have been obtained by perpetuating the\ninnocence of childhood. Even during the period of the \u201cbondage to the\nLaw\u201d there were occasional intervals of freedom, prophetic of a higher\nstate. Duty, sometimes, shining out before the child as something purer\nand nobler than a mere inevitable debt, appeared \u201csweet and\nhonourable;\u201d[37] and wherever Duty thus revealed herself, the child, in\nfreely and ungrudgingly obeying her, was obeying no unworthy emblem of\nthe Father in heaven; and by such obedience his character was\nstrengthened and matured. But now the time has come for another step\nupwards. The boy disobeys and is forgiven. At first, forgiveness makes\nno impression on him. He does not understand it, does not believe in it,\nbecause he does not quite believe in the author of it; he regards his\nfather as one too far above him to be able to sympathize entirely with\nhis boyish desires and impatience of restraint, too much like a Law to\nbe capable of feeling real pain at his faults. As long as he is in this\ncondition, forgiveness comes to him as the mere remission of penalty; he\nis glad to \u201cget off,\u201d but his heart is not yet touched, and there is\ntherefore no real remission of sin, partly because he has no sufficient\nsense of sin, partly because he has no faith in the forgiver.\n\nBut at last comes the revelation of the meaning of forgiveness. Some\noutward sign, a mother\u2019s tear, the mere expression of the father\u2019s\nface\u2014it may be this, or it may be something of much longer duration and\nfar more complex\u2014but something at last brings home to him the fact that\nhis sin weighs like a crushing burden upon the heart of some one else,\nwho, in spite of his sin, still loves him and still trusts in him. His\nparents, he finds\u2014or it may be some brother, sister, or friend\u2014are\nbearing his sin and carrying his iniquity as if it were their own: the\nshame and the pain of it, which he feels as a mere unpleasant\nuneasiness, are causing to others an acute sorrow of which he had not\ndreamed before. Instead of being savagely angry with him, furious at the\nmischief he has done, and at the disgrace which he has brought upon\nthem, instead of visiting upon him all the consequences of his fault,\nhis parents are themselves suffering some part of it, themselves crushed\ndown by it: if they punish him, they are not punishing him vindictively\nbut for his good\u2014it is hard indeed to believe this, but he believes it\nat last\u2014the chastisement of his peace falls upon them as well as upon\nhim; their heart is broken and contrite for his sake; their souls are a\nsacrifice for his; they feel his sin as if it were their own; they have\nappropriated his sin; have been identified with his sin; they are \u201cmade\nsin\u201d for him.\n\nNow if the youth has not in him the germ of faith or trust whereby he\ncan believe in the sincerity of these (to him) mysterious and at first\ninexplicable feelings, why then the parental forgiveness is worse than\nnothing to him. If he resists its influence and calls it cant or humbug,\nit hardens instead of softening the boy\u2019s heart; and then the little\nspiritual sensitiveness that he once had, dies rapidly away. In this\ncase \u201cfrom him that hath not there hath been ta\u2019en away even that which\nhe seemed to have,\u201d and the good-tidings or Gospel of forgiveness has\nproved, in this case, \u201ca savour of death unto death.\u201d But if he has the\ngerm of faith to begin with, then the Gospel works its natural result:\n\u201cto him that hath there is added, and he hath more abundantly.\u201d\n\u201cProceeding from faith\u201d the message of forgiveness tends \u201cto the\nincrease of faith.\u201d[38] Insensibly he finds himself raised up from his\nformer position to the level of those who have forgiven him; he is\nidentified with his forgivers in spirit, so that he now sees things as\nthey see them, and for the first time discerns the hatefulness of sin,\nand hates it as they hate it, and longs to shake it off as a burden\nalien to his nature. At the same time, finding himself trusted by those\nin whose truth as well as goodness he himself places trust, he learns a\nnew self-respect even in the moment when he awakens to his past\ndegradation; he has (he feels it to be true) something within him that\nmay be trusted, some possibility of better things which at once springs\nup into the reality of fulfilment under the warm breath of affectionate\nand trustful forgiveness. In other words, righteousness is \u201cimputed to\nhim,\u201d and he becomes righteous. The gulf between the parental will and\nhimself is now bridged over by a kind of atonement. The relations which\nhe imagined and created for himself before between his parents and\nhimself, were angry justice on the one side, sullen obedience or open\ndisobedience on the other side: all this is now exchanged for an\nentirely different relationship, love on both sides, kind control from\nthe one, willing, zealous obedience from the other, resulting in perfect\npeace and in an atmosphere of mutual goodwill, happiness, joy, favour.\nFor this kind of \u201cfavour\u201d we have no exact word in English, but in the\nGreek Testament it is called by a word which we must translate \u201cgrace:\u201d\nthe youth then is \u201cno more under the law but under grace.\u201d No longer now\nis he a servant, performing \u201cworks;\u201d a community of feeling unites him\nwith those above him, whom he had once regarded as hostile and despotic.\nNo longer the slave of rules and orders, no longer fearing punishment\nnor drudging for reward, he is quickened by a spirit within him which\nguides him naturally to do, and to anticipate, not only the bidding, but\neven the unexpressed wishes, of that higher Will. His whole life is now\na service devoted to this new Master; yet he is not a servant, but free,\nbecause he serves willingly in a service which is the noblest freedom.\nThe simplest actions are performed in a fresh spirit; all things have\nbecome new: the life of the flesh is ended, the life of the spirit has\nbegun. Looking back upon his former self he finds that it is dead; he\nhas died unto sin and risen from the dead that he may live again to\nrighteousness.\n\nIs it necessary for me to trace the parallelism between these phenomena\nin the life of the individual and the Pauline scheme of the redemption\nof man? You must have recognized in each step of the development\nsketched above some feature of the Pauline doctrine. My fear is, not so\nmuch that you may fail to acknowledge this, as that you may doubt\nwhether the individual always passes through these phases. But I am\nconfident that it must be so for all who are to be saved: there is no\nroyal road of privilege or miracle by which a man can pass from the\ninnocent selfishness of childhood to the practised righteousness of\nmanhood, without passing through the narrow defiles of the flesh and\nfighting his battle with sin; nor do I believe that any man, has ever\nbeen \u201csaved,\u201d that is to say, has passed through that struggle so far\nsafely as to attain some thoughtfulness for others, some love of\nrighteousness for its own sake, unless he has received through the Word\nof God some such revelation as I have described.\n\nThe typical revelation of this kind, which sums up all others, is the\nrevelation made by the atonement of Jesus Christ: but that revelation\nhas been a silence for the myriads who have died in ignorance of the\nvery name of Jesus: is there no other way then in which the Word of God\nhas taught them, redeemed them, forgiven them, made atonement for them?\nYes, assuredly the Word of God has been mediating between God and men\nsince men first existed\u2014long before the time when the children of Israel\n\u201cdrank of that Rock which followed them, and that Rock was Christ\u201d\u2014and\nthe chief vehicle of His mediation has been the influence of the\nrighteous on the unrighteous, especially of parents on children. In this\ninfluence, the bright and central point has been the power which each\nman has, in some poor degree, of forgiving, and making atonement for,\nthe sins of others\u2014a power so weak and small, compared with the same\npower in Christ, that it may be easily ignored by superficial observers;\nand some may think to do God honour by ignoring it. But in reality whoso\nignores it is ignoring the best gift of God to man. This undeveloped\npower of forgiving has been that uneffaced likeness of God in which He\ncreated us; and every act of forgiveness, from Adam down to John the\nBaptist, has been inspired by the Word of God to be a type and prophecy\nof that great and unique act which sums up and explains all forgiveness,\nthe Atonement made by the Word\u2019s own sacrifice. I said above that the\nmother\u2019s tear might for the first time reveal to a child the meaning and\npower of forgiveness. What the tear of a mother may be to her child,\nthat the Cross of Christ has been to mankind; the expression as it were,\nof the Father\u2019s pitifulness for His sinful children, revealing to them\nthe meaning, and the pain, of forgiveness.\n\nSt. Paul (you will find) in all his epistles recognizes the analogy\nbetween the human race and the individual; and all that he teaches about\nmankind corresponds to the development I have tried to sketch above. You\nwill be told indeed that the attempt to trace such a parallelism as I\nhave traced above, is an attempt to \u201cread modern thoughts into an\nancient author.\u201d But do not be in haste to call St. Paul an \u201cancient\nauthor,\u201d not at least in any disparaging sense, as if we had outgrown\nthe antiquated limits of his thoughts. Being a man of realities St. Paul\ndived deep down below the surface of language, cant, and formularies; he\nreached the very source and centre of the human heart where\nrighteousness is made. He realized the making of righteousness as a\nvisible process. Others, who have not realized it, think his writings\nmisguided, antique, occasionally untrue. But do not you fail to\ndistinguish between St. Paul\u2019s style and St. Paul\u2019s thought. He wrote in\na hurry; he did not think in a hurry. The general scheme of his theology\nneeds no excuse, nor allowance, nor patronage. His illustrations of it,\narguments in defence of it, even his expressions of it, are, from our\npoint of view, often inadequate; but his spiritual truths are the\ndeepest truths of human nature, as it may be seen ascending through\nillusion and frailty to divine knowledge and divine righteousness. St.\nPaul has been wonderfully obscured by formularizing commentators. The\nbest commentary on him that I know is an ordinary home; but for a young\nman, away from home, and in danger of forgetting his childhood, the next\nbest commentary is Shakespeare, and the next to that is Wordsworth, or,\nfrom a different point of view, the _In Memoriam_.\n\nTell me now; was I wrong in saying that the Pauline scheme of salvation\nis eminently natural? I do not of course mean materialistic, but natural\nin the sense of orderly. Where, in the whole of this doctrine, is there\nany necessity for believing that the Son of God\u2014\u201cborn of a woman\u201d and\nmanifested \u201cin the flesh that he might destroy the works of the\ndevil\u201d\u2014did or said anything that involves a suspension of the laws of\nnature? I have already shewn that the \u201cmiracles\u201d wrought by St. Paul\nhimself were in all probability works of healing, and natural; and the\nmanifestations in which Christ \u201cappeared\u201d to him and to the other\ndisciples have been shewn to be, in all probability, visions in\naccordance with the laws of nature, though representing an objective\nreality. There is no reference in St. Paul\u2019s works to the Miraculous\nConception, nor to any of those miracles of Jesus which, if historical,\nmust be admitted to be real miracles. On the other hand there runs\nthrough all his epistles an acknowledgment of a continuous spiritual\nLaw, predetermined and inviolable. What else does St. Paul mean by the\ncontinual assertion that the calling of the Gentiles, and the \u201celection\u201d\nof all men, are \u201cpredestined?\u201d Perhaps you have never yet appreciated\nthe circumstances which led the Apostle to lay so much stress on the\n\u201cpredestination\u201d apparent in history. I do not think you can ever\nunderstand St. Paul\u2019s teaching on this subject, as long as you fasten\nyour attention on two or three isolated texts which appear to set it\nforth. You must look at it as a whole, and have regard to the motive of\nthe author; and then you will find that it is to be understood\nnegatively rather than positively. When St. Paul says \u201cGod predestined\nthis, or that,\u201d he means, \u201cGod did not make a mistake, or change his\nmind, about this or that: _the gifts and calling of God are without\nrepentance_.\u201d\n\nIn setting forth Predestination, St. Paul is always mentally protesting\nagainst two tendencies already perceptible to him in the Church, the\ntendency of the Jews to regard the admission of the Gentiles into the\nChurch as an after-thought, perhaps as a mistake; and the tendency of\nthe Gentiles to regard the Law of Moses as a complete and useless\nfailure. It was one of St. Paul\u2019s main objects to shew that the history\nof Israel and of the Gentile world revealed a thread of immutable\npurpose of salvation running through the whole\u2014a purpose to subordinate\nevil to good, the flesh to the spirit, the Law to the Gospel; so that\nthere has been no mistake, no dislocation of the divine scheme, nor\nchange of the divine will. Although the Apostle always refers things to\na Will and not a Law as their ultimate origin, yet the whole tenour of\nhis argument exhibits that Will as being not liable to caprice or\naccidental shifting, but a Will of predestination, a Law, so to speak,\ntinged with emotion. No doubt St. Paul, sometimes, in the attempt to\nshew the immutability of the divine purposes, puts forward somewhat\nbaldly and repellently the insoluble problem of the origin of evil, as\nif God Himself predestined not only rejection but also the sin that was\nthe cause of rejection. But it was not his intention to exhibit God as\noriginating evil; and the cause that leads him so to do, or so to appear\nto do, is his intense desire to exhibit God\u2019s mysterious plan of not at\nonce annihilating evil but of utilizing it and subordinating it to good.\nThe fore-ordained purpose of God before the foundation of the world is\nthe redemption of mankind; and in order to help men to attain to this\nheight, the flesh, the law, death, yes, even sin itself, are forced to\nserve as stepping-stones. Hence even in rejection, as well as in\nelection, the Apostle cannot fail to discern the hand of God. There is a\nLaw in all God\u2019s doing, and especially in His election. God hath chosen\nthe weak things of this world to confound the strong and the foolish\nthings of this world to confound the wise; the first-born is rejected,\nthe younger son is chosen. This is not accident; it is a type of the\ngeneral law exemplified in the vision of Elijah. Not by the whirlwind or\nthe fire or the earthquake but by the quiet and neglected processes of\nnature does God perform His mightiest works. This deep truth pervades\nthe doctrine of St. Paul. Pierce through the antique and Oriental\nintegument of his expression, and you will find no other Christian\nwriter who so clearly brings out that the Christian religion is not\naccording to caprice but according to Law.\n\nFootnote 37:\n\n  \u201cDulce et decorum _est pro patria mori_.\u201d\n\nFootnote 38:\n\n  Rom. i. 17.\n\n\n\n\n                                 XXVIII\n                               OBJECTIONS\n\n\nMY DEAR \u2014\u2014,\n\nYou tell me that you have been shewing my letters to some of your young\nfriends, and that they have expressed various objections to\nnon-miraculous Christianity. Some say that I am an \u201coptimist;\u201d others\nthat it is a compromise between faith and reason, and that compromises\nare always to be rejected; one says that I am for introducing \u201ca new\nreligion;\u201d others that a Gospel of illusion must, by its own shewing, be\nitself illusive; others, that \u201cthese new notions are so vague that they\ncan never be put into a definite shape, and they are so mixed up with\ntheories and fancies and suppositions of error in every period of the\nChurch, that they can never commend themselves to the masses.\u201d\n\nDo you know what \u201ccant\u201d means, and why it was so called? \u201cCant\u201d is the\nsort of language used (not always deceitfully) when a man \u201cchants,\u201d or\nutters in a kind of sing-song, words that he has not felt himself, or,\nif he has ever felt, has ceased to feel, through the too frequent use of\nthem. Hence he cannot speak them, but \u201csing-songs\u201d them, \u201cchants\u201d or\n\u201ccants\u201d them. Now I take leave to think that two or three of the\nobjections above-mentioned come under this head of \u201ccant.\u201d I mean that\nyour young objectors, not knowing exactly at the moment what to say\nabout opinions that are new and require some thought to understand or\ncriticise, and being desirous of saying something at the moment, and\nsomething, if possible, that shall be brief and smart, say what they\nhave heard other people say about other sets of opinions which have some\naffinity of sound with mine. This is a very common habit with inferior\nprofessional reviewers, who are bound to say something readable and\nepigrammatic for limited remuneration and consequently in limited time:\nbut your friends have not come to that yet, and are therefore not to be\nso easily excused.\n\n\u201cOptimist!\u201d How can a man who believes in a real Satan be an optimist? I\nthought an optimist was one who believed the world to be the best of all\npossible worlds. This I do not, and cannot, believe. I trust indeed that\na time may come when we may be optimists after a fashion; when we shall\nlook back, in God, upon the universal sum of things and find that it has\nbeen the best possible under the circumstances, and that evil has been\nmarvellously subordinated to good: but I never can believe that a\nUniverse in which God defeats Satan is better than a Universe in which\nGod reigns unresisted; and therefore, as to this \u201cbest of all possible\nworlds,\u201d I rest always humbly silent. Some people may believe, if they\ncan, that evil is another form of good; that the world is like one of\nthose spectroscopes\u2014I think they call them\u2014where several different\npictures on a round card, each meaningless by itself, are converted into\none significant picture by whirling the card round too quickly for the\neye to follow. In the same way they seem to suppose they can take little\npictures of oppression, adultery, murder, and the other myriad shapes of\nsin, spin them round fast enough along with other little pictures of\ntemperance, purity, peace, and all the virtues; and the whole becomes a\npanorama of moral perfection! Argue thus who will; I cannot.\n\nIf I am not an optimist in my view of this world, you will surely not\naccuse me of optimism in my views of the next. Do my notions of heaven\nand hell encourage any one to be selfish and luxurious or idle now, in\nthe hope that he will be let off easily hereafter? Have I not said that\nthere will be no \u201cletting off\u201d? That God will do the best thing for\nNero\u2014is that do you think likely to make Nero altogether an optimist in\nthe life to come? I think He will do the best thing for me; but I\nsometimes shiver when I say it; awe possesses me, awe mingled with\ntrust, but certainly not without a touch of fear. Assuredly the\ncertainty of retribution in heaven makes me no optimist for myself or\nothers, as to the life after death. In one sense only am I an optimist,\nthat I believe that the best will ultimately prevail, and that faith,\nhope, and love, will prove the dominant powers in the Universe. This I\nbelieve, and to this belief I cling as a most precious hope, to be\ncherished by action as well as by meditation; but this is not, I think,\nwhat is ordinarily meant by optimism; and certainly it does not\nencourage the spirit of _laissez faire_ which optimism is supposed to\nbreed.\n\nNext as to \u201ccompromise.\u201d The ordinary cant about \u201ccompromise\u201d is\nsometimes the lazy expedient of those who wish to avoid the trouble of\ncoming to a decision, and to shelter their indolence under a noble\ncensoriousness. What they mean by \u201ccompromise\u201d is any theory that\nattributes results to more than one cause. It is generally very easy to\nelaborate some extreme theory which shall explain almost everything by\nsome single cause, by Faith, for example, on the one side, or by Reason\non the other; and it is equally easy for the advocates on either side to\ndemolish the theory of their adversaries; but it is far from easy\nafterwards to shew how, and to what extent, _both_ causes are\naccountable for the result which has been fictitiously attributed to a\nsingle cause. Now the two extreme parties, in their contests, afford us\nfine cut-and-thrust exhibitions; the via media exhibits an organized\ncampaign. The theatrical multitude, which does not care in the least\nabout truth, but delights in intellectual slashers, soon finds it dull\nwork, after clapping an exciting _m\u00eal\u00e9e_, to have to sit still and\nlisten to a dispassionate and impartial discussion; so they cry\n\u201ccompromise\u201d and hiss. But the term is a misnomer. \u201cCompromise,\u201d or\n\u201cmutual promise,\u201d cannot describe a legitimate conclusion that hits the\nmark missed by two previously divergent shots. It is as if A were to hit\nthe top of the target, and B the bottom, and then both A and B were to\nfall foul of C, and accuse him of \u201ccompromising\u201d, because he pierces the\nbull\u2019s eye half way between the two. \u201cCompromise\u201d often implies a\nfailure of exact justice; as when Smith thinks Jones owes him 50_l._,\nand Jones thinks he owes Smith only 40_l._; and they \u201csplit the\ndifference\u201d and make it 45_l._; both of them thinking that the\narrangement is unjust, but both preferring the injustice to the\nexpensive formalities of legal justice. This is \u201ccompromise,\u201d and\nillogical; but there is none of this illogicality in a fair impartial\ndiscussion avoiding previous bias.\n\nSo in the present instance. Some have been biassed in favour of Faith,\nothers in favour of Reason; some have accepted as historical all the\nmiracles and mighty works in the Old and New Testament indiscriminately,\nothers have rejected all indiscriminately; some have declared that every\nword in the Old and New Testament (I don\u2019t quite know how they have got\nrid of the difficulty of various readings) is exactly inspired and every\ndetail historically true; others, that there are so many errors and\nillusions that the books may be put aside as no better than myths: some\nhave said that, since we cannot worship an unknown Being, we must\nworship the human race; others that, since we cannot worship our very\ndegraded selves, we must worship some being altogether different from\nourselves: some have said that Christ is God, and have ignored His\nhumanity; others have said that He was a \u201cmere man,\u201d and therefore not\ndivine. Now in all these cases the truth lies between the two extremes.\nMan derives religious truth from Faith, but Faith assisted by Reason;\nChrist did not perform miracles, but He did perform mighty works; the\nOld and New Testament, like all other vehicles of revelation, contain\nillusion, but illusion preserving and protecting truth; we must not\nworship ourselves, and yet we cannot worship one who is altogether\ndifferent from ourselves; Christ is a man, and yet Christ is God. But to\nall these conclusions we are not led by \u201cmutual promise,\u201d give and take\nof any kind, but by full and unbiassed consideration of all sides of the\nsubject, knowing that (for the present at all events) we shall displease\nall, both the orthodox and heterodox alike.\n\nSo far from suggesting any compromise between Faith and Reason, I have\nmerely pointed out that the provinces of the two are, to a very large\nextent, distinct, so that many of their operations can be performed\naltogether independently. I have never said, \u201cDo not follow out the\nconclusions of your Reason in this or that instance because you would be\nled to inconvenient results,\u201d but, \u201cFollow out the conclusions of your\nReason in every instance and presently acknowledge that you are led, in\nsome cases, to results so absurd and unpractical that you must infer\nReason to be out of its province in these cases. Reason your utmost for\nexample about a First Cause and Predestination and the Origin of Evil\nand the like; but then, when you have come to the conclusion that,\nlogically speaking, it is equally absurd to suppose that the world had\nno cause, and that the First Cause had no cause, give the subject up as\nbeing beyond the syllogistic powers.\u201d Surely there is no unworthy\ncompromise here, nothing but common sense! Wherever historical facts are\naffirmed in religion, I have said that the accounts of those facts are\nto be judged upon evidence and by Reason alone; here Faith and Hope have\nno place; history in the New Testament is to be judged like history in\nThucydides.\n\nIn reality it is not I with my via media that am guilty of compromise;\nit is the Hyper-orthodox (if I may use a term that is nominally\nmeaningless but really quite intelligible) and the Agnostic. For the\nHyper-orthodox say \u201cAccept the Scriptures in a lump.\u201d Why? \u201cBecause it\nwould be so very inconvenient not to have an infallible guide.\u201d Of\ncourse they do not say so in these precise words: but this is what their\nreplies ultimately amount to. Again the Agnostics say, \u201cReject the\nScriptures _in toto_.\u201d Why? \u201cBecause it would be so very inconvenient to\nweigh evidence and discriminate the true from the false.\u201d It is these,\nnot I, who are calling in emotion to do the work of Reason, and who\n(partly, I think, to avoid facing unpalatable facts) force Reason to\nmake a compromise with prejudice. \u201cConvenience,\u201d as I have pointed out\nin a previous letter, may be a legitimate basis for accepting as a Law\nof Nature the tried and tested suggestions of the Imagination; but it is\nnot a legitimate basis on which to construct a belief in the genuineness\nof the Book of Daniel or the Second Epistle of St. Peter.\n\nLet me mention one point where, in appearance, but not in reality, my\ntheory is liable to the charge of compromise: I mean the discussion of\nthe Miraculous Conception and the Supernatural Incarnation. In\ndiscussing the Miraculous Conception I have advised you to trust to your\nReason alone, because here you have to deal with a statement of physical\nfacts, true or untrue, and to be proved or disproved by evidence; but as\nregards the Supernatural Incarnation and the statement that the Word of\nGod became a human spirit, I have pointed out that here we have a\nstatement that cannot be proved or disproved by simple historical\nevidence, nor even by miracle, because even if an archangel descended\nfrom heaven to trumpet forth a \u201cYes\u201d or \u201cNo\u201d to the world, the message\nmight be from the Devil. If then we are to believe in the Incarnation we\nmust have a twofold testimony. First must come the historical evidence\nindicating the words, and deeds, and character, and results, of the life\nof Christ, the truth of which must be judged by the Reason; and then\nthere must come the witness of the conscience exclaiming \u201cThis life is\ndivine; this man is one with God.\u201d Consequently it is quite possible to\naccept the Supernatural Incarnation while denying the Miraculous\nConception; and this I have felt obliged to do. But where is the\ncompromise or inconsistency? I am compelled by evidence and Reason to\ndeny the truth of the Miraculous Conception, on account of the very\nsmall amount of evidence for it and the very large amount of evidence\nagainst it; I am equally compelled by evidence and Faith to accept the\nSupernatural Incarnation, because the evidence convinces me that a\ncertain life has been lived on earth, and my conscience convinces me\nthat this life could not have been lived by any being who was not one\nwith God.\n\nAre my accusers equally free from confusion? I think not. Ask the\nHyper-orthodox why they believe in the Miraculous Conception in spite of\nthe silence of all the earliest documents; they will reply, (if you\npenetrate below their first superficial answers, such as, \u201cBecause it is\nin the Bible,\u201d \u201cBecause I have believed it from my youth upward,\u201d and\nthe like), \u201cJesus must have been born miraculously, because He was the\nSon of God\u201d\u2014a confusion of things historical and spiritual, and a\nmanifest expulsion of Reason from her rightful province. Again, ask the\nAgnostic why he does not believe that Jesus was the Son of God; he will\nreply that he sees no proof of the fact, nor even of the existence of a\nGod; and if you press him to define what he means by \u201cproof\u201d of the\nexistence of a God, you will find that he wholly ignores the influence\nof Imagination as a means of arriving at truth, and that he requires\nsome kind of evidence that shall entirely dispense with Faith. Thus the\nHyper-orthodox and the Agnostic are equally guilty, the one of\ndispossessing Reason, the other of dispossessing Faith, from their\nrightful provinces; and they accuse me of \u201ccompromising,\u201d not because I\nreally compromise, but because I pursue truth at the cost of some\ntrouble, while they\u2014partly perhaps to avoid the pain of thinking, and\nthe prospect of colliding with hard unpleasing truths\u2014pursue severally\nthat form of untruth to which they are inclined by prejudice.\n\nAnd now for the next objection, that \u201cthis is a new religion.\u201d How can\nmen give the name of a new religion to that which proclaims as the one\nmeans of salvation the Eternal Word of God believed in of old by Jews as\nwell as by Christians? Or is it a mark of novelty to accept Jesus of\nNazareth as that Word incarnate? The one thing new about the opinions\nput forward in my letters is this\u2014that it is not a necessary condition\nfor believing in Christ, that men should accept a number of historical\nstatements which are, and have been, doubted by many honest seekers\nafter truth. I believe I might add, without any exaggeration, that the\nstatements which I impugn are rejected by so large a number of those who\nare most competent to judge, that, in spite of many inducements\u2014some\nrichly substantial, some nobly spiritual\u2014many of the ablest and best\neducated young men of England cannot in these days be persuaded to\nbecome ministers of the religion which appears to insist on them. Beyond\nthis protest, there is nothing, or very little, that is new about the\ntheory which I have endeavoured to set forth. I do not protest against\nany moral abuse in the Church of England or the orthodox churches\u2014such\nabuses as made a great gulf in the days of Luther between the Roman\nCatholic Church and the Protestants, when indulgences for sins were sold\nby the cart-load. Possibly indeed the protracted belief in the\nmiraculous, when it has long outlived the conditions which made it\nnatural or pardonable, may tend to produce some moral evil; some\nover-estimation of ostentatious and, so to speak, theatrical force; some\ndepreciation of the quiet processes by which God has mostly taught and\nshaped mankind; some latent trust in a capricious God, who will not\n\u201creward men according to their works\u201d but will exercise a dispensing\npower at the Day of Judgment. I say this may possibly soon happen, if it\nhas not already begun to happen; but at all events it is at present\nlatent, and it is not on any ground of this kind that I am advocating a\nnew view of the Old and New Testament. My object has been not to destroy\nthe old belief, but to remove certain obstacles which tend to prevent\npeople from embracing the essence of the old belief. The existence of a\nGod, the immortality of the soul, the conflict between God and Satan,\nthe redemption of mankind through the sacrifice of the eternal Son of\nGod incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth, the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus,\nthe operation of the Holy Spirit, the certainty of a heaven and hell,\nthe efficacy of prayer, the ultimate triumph of goodness and God\u2014 all\nthese things I steadfastly believe. But I see not the slightest reason\nwhy, in order to hold fast these precious truths, I should be compelled\nto believe that Joshua stopped the sun (or the earth?) or that an ass\ntalked with a human voice, or that the incarnate Son of God drowned two\nthousand swine or destroyed a fig-tree with a word.\n\nI am probably doing no more than give utterance to thoughts which have\nbeen already expressed by others, or which, though unexpressed, are\nlatent in thousands of doubtful and expectant souls. But even were it\notherwise, even were it granted that the form of Christianity set forth\nin my letters has some points of novelty, is mere novelty to suffice for\nits condemnation?\u2014and this in our century, when God has been teaching\nand is teaching His children so much that is new in every department of\nknowledge! Is it absolutely incredible that the same Supreme Teacher who\nallowed some nineteen centuries to elapse between the Promise and the\npromised Seed, should allow another nineteen centuries to elapse between\nthe Seed and the Harvest? Is it inconsistent that He who has led men to\nthe truths of science through mistakes and illusions should lead men by\nthe same paths to spiritual truth? How often must the Law of Illusion be\ninculcated before we take it to heart? Illusions have encompassed\nspiritual truth for Israel, for the Jews, for the Twelve in their\nMaster\u2019s lifetime, for the first generation of Christians, and for every\nsubsequent generation down to the time of Luther. So much we Protestants\nare bound to admit. Are we not then intolerably presumptuous in assuming\nthat illusions must have suddenly disappeared in the fifteenth century\nand have left the theological atmosphere for the first time since the\ncreation of the world free from all spiritual refraction? How much\nhumbler and truer to suppose that every century and every generation has\nits special cloud of illusions through which in due course we must all\ntoil upward, penetrating layer after layer of the illusive mist till we\nreach at last the summit of the hill of Truth!\n\nI find I have left myself too little time to answer your last two\nobjections as to the \u201cvagueness\u201d of my views and their inability to\n\u201ccommend themselves to the masses.\u201d I will try to answer them in my next\nletter.\n\n\n\n\n                                  XXIX\n                       THE RELIGION OF THE MASSES\n\n\nMY DEAR \u2014\u2014,\n\nI have been thinking over your objection that my notions are \u201cvague;\u201d\nfeeling that there is some truth in it, but that your words do not quite\nexpress your probable meaning. I think you mean, not that the \u201cnotions\u201d\nare vague, but that the proofs are vague. The \u201cnotions\u201d are in the\nCreeds, if you interpret the Creeds spiritually: and I do not think that\nthe Creeds are more \u201cvague\u201d when interpreted spiritually than when\ninterpreted literally. The spiritual Resurrection of Christ, for\nexample\u2014is it more vague than the material Resurrection? If you admit\nthat there is a spirit in man, and that this spirit is made apparently\npowerless by death, is it \u201cvague\u201d to say that the spirit of Jesus, after\npassing through this state of death, manifested itself to the disciples\nin greater power than ever? Even those who maintain the material\nResurrection admit that it would be a mere mockery without the spiritual\nResurrection, and that the latter is the essence of the act: so that to\ndeclare the statement of the spiritual Resurrection of Jesus to be\n\u201cvague,\u201d appears to be equivalent to declaring that _any_ statement of\nthe _essential_ Resurrection of Jesus is \u201cvague.\u201d Again, redemption from\nsin is a spiritual notion, redemption from the flames of a material hell\nis a material notion; but is the former more \u201cvague\u201d than the latter? If\nso, then we are led to this conclusion, that all spiritual notions are\nmore vague than material notions; and the vagueness which you censure is\na necessary characteristic of every religion that approaches God as He\nought to be approached, I mean, as a Spirit and through the medium of\nspiritual conceptions. But to my mind you are not justified in thus\nusing the word \u201cvague,\u201d which ought rather to be applied to notions\nwanderingly and shiftingly defined; as for example, if I defined the\nResurrection of Jesus as being at one time the rising of His body, at\nanother the rising of His Spirit; or if I spoke of redemption, now as\ndeliverance from sin, and now as deliverance from punishment. Convict me\nof such inconsistencies, and I will submit to be called \u201cvague;\u201d but at\npresent I plead, \u201cNot guilty.\u201d\n\nHowever I think you meant that the proofs, and not the notions were\nvague; and here, although you should not have used the word \u201cvague,\u201d I\nwill admit that you would have been right if you had said that they were\n\u201ccomplex\u201d and \u201cmore easy to feel than to define.\u201d No doubt the proof of\nChrist\u2019s divinity from the material Resurrection is simple and\nstraightforward enough: \u201cIt is impossible that a man\u2019s body could have\narisen from the grave, and that the man could have afterwards lived with\nhis friends on earth for several days, and then have ascended into\nheaven, if he had not been under the express protection of God; and such\na man we are prepared to believe, if he tells us that he is the Son of\nGod.\u201d That certainly would seem to a large number of minds a very plain\nand straightforward argument\u2014as plain as Paley\u2019s _Evidences_. No trust,\nno faith, no affection, is here requisite: nothing is needed except that\nrough and ready assumption\u2014in which we are all disposed to\nacquiesce\u2014that any altogether exceptional and startling power must come\nfrom God. It must be admitted that this sort of proof would be cogent as\nwell as direct. Let a man rise from the dead to-morrow, and transport\nhis body through closed doors, and say that he is Christ, and then mount\nup to the clouds and disappear; and I doubt not many of those who saw\nhim would cry \u201cThis must be the Christ,\u201d without so much as enquiring\nwhat manner of man he was. But cogent and popular and delightfully\nsimple though it may be, this is not the kind of proof on which Jesus\nappears to have relied, or by which Jesus has produced a spiritual\nchange in the hearts of mankind. The very fact that no trust or faith or\naffection is needed in such a demonstration, unfits it for spiritual\npurposes. In order to believe in the Resurrection of Jesus, a man needs\nthe testimony of all his powers, emotional as well as intellectual,\ntrust and love as well as reason; and I have endeavoured to shew above\nthat the whole of the training of the human Imagination, and all the\nmysterious natural provisions which have stimulated the eye of the mind\nto see what the eye of the body cannot see, have contributed to bring\nabout the faith in the risen Saviour. As we are to love God with our\nstrength and with our mind as well as with our heart and our soul, so\nare we to believe in Christ with the same collective energy. The proof\ntherefore of Christ\u2019s Resurrection and of Christ\u2019s divinity is intended\nto be, in a certain sense, complex, because it is intended to appeal to\nour every faculty and to be based upon our every experience.\n\nBut \u201cthis form of Christianity can never commend itself to the masses.\u201d\nObjection in the shape of prophecy is always difficult to meet, and not\noften worth meeting. However, this prophecy has so specious a sound that\nit deserves some reply. But first let me ask, Does the present form of\nChristianity commend itself to the masses? Surely not to the very poor,\nthat is to say, not to the class to whom Christ appears to have\nspecially addressed Himself. And even among the classes which retain the\ntradition of worshipping Christ, has Christianity been such as would\ncommend itself to Christ? Has not our religion been too often divorced\nfrom morality? Has there been dominant among us that habit of mutual\nhelpfulness\u2014\u201ccomforting one another,\u201d as St. Paul calls it\u2014which is the\ncriterion of a truly Christian nation? Have not the laws in almost all\ncases, until the French Revolution, been made in the interests of the\nrich, rather than in the interests of the poor; and where the poor have\nbeen considered, has not the consideration arisen largely from the fear\nof violence and revolution? There has been a certain amount of\nalms-giving, or legacy-leaving, on the part of the minority who have\nlaid themselves out to lead religious lives; and there has always been a\nstill more select minority who have been imbued with a truly Christian\nenthusiasm for their fellow-creatures, a passionate desire to do\nsomething for Christ, and to leave the world a little better for their\nhaving lived: but the great unheeding mass of men in Christian countries\nhas rolled on in its selfish path, less selfish certainly, less\nbrutishly intent on present pleasure than the masses of heathendom, and\nindirectly humanized and leavened by a thousand Christian influences,\nbut still not more than superficially Christian. The reason for this\ncomparative failure has been, in part, that Christ has not been rightly\npresented to the hearts of the people. Too often it has not been Christ\nat all\u2014it has been but a lifeless semblance of Christianity\u2014to which\nthey have given their adhesion. The fear of hell, the hope of\nheaven\u2014these have been often the chief motives of religion; and\nalms-giving, church-going, Bible-reading, and the use of the sacraments,\nhave been the means by which men have thought they could escape the one\nand secure the other. Asking still further the cause for this\nperversion, by which Christ has been converted into a second Law, we\nfind that in some cases and more especially in recent times, it appears\nto have arisen in part from the miraculous element in our religion. This\nhas made Christ unreal to some of us by taking Him out of the reach of\nour sympathies and affection; this also has artificialized our religious\nconceptions and divorced our religion from morality by making us think\nthat God will suspend the laws of spiritual nature for us, as He has\nsuspended the laws of material nature for Christ and Christ\u2019s Apostles.\nHence has arisen too often a pitiable and preposterous reversal of the\nPauline theology. We have \u201cdied\u201d unto Christ, and \u201crisen again\u201d unto the\nLaw. \u201cGrace\u201d has fled away, and, with it, all natural and harmonious\nmorality; and the whole duty of a Christian man has been degraded to a\nroutine of \u201cworks.\u201d\n\nIt is for this cause that the morality of Agnostics frequently surpasses\nthe morality of professing Christians. The philanthropy of the former,\nso far as it goes, is at all events perfectly natural. They do not love\ntheir brother man in order to obey the Gospel or save their own souls;\nthey love because they must love. Christ\u2019s heaven is often in their\nhearts without any of the corruptions of a conventional Christianity.\nThey do not believe in a capricious Heaven and Hell, but they are drawn\ntowards goodness, kindness, justice and mutual helpfulness, whenever and\nwherever they see them; and such worship as they have, they give to\nthese qualities. Hence also in foreign politics the working people and\nthe Agnostics often manifest a much purer and more Christian feeling\nthan church-goers. For the Hyper-orthodox, foreign politics lie outside\nthe Bible; and whatsoever lies outside the Bible lies, for them, outside\nmorality: but the Agnostic makes no such distinction; he does not\nbelieve that the laws of right and wrong can be miraculously suspended\nin favour of his own country. The disbelief in a future Heaven makes the\npoor indisposed to tolerate present remediable miseries in the hope of\ncoming compensation. Hence they shew a much stronger determination not\nto put up with a state of things in which the happiness and prosperity\nof a whole nation are purchased by the misery of one class. They are\nwilling enough individually to make sacrifices for one another, and, in\nbad times the working people have sometimes collectively borne\nconsiderable burdens with an admirable patience; but that the unwilling\nwretchedness of some should form the basis of the prosperity of the\nrest, and that the rest should be content to have it so\u2014this they cannot\nendure; and sooner than this, they would prefer to see every class in\nthe nation pulled down two or three degrees in wealth and refinement, if\nthereby the lowest class could be raised a single degree.\n\nRich church-goers are far more ready to acquiesce in present\ninequalities, sometimes consoling themselves with the thought that in\nheaven all these evils will be redressed, sometimes fortifying their\nacquiescence in the inevitable with a text of Scripture. But the poor\ndeclaim passionately against the Bible, when thus quoted\u2014as being a mere\ninstrument in the hands of the rich, and the priests their accomplices,\nto keep the miserable in a state of contentment with their misery. It is\na pity that the poor should be embittered by misrepresentations against\nthat which is pre-eminently the poor man\u2019s Book; for no tribune or\ndemocrat more persistently than the Bible takes the side of the\noppressed, or more emphatically declares that it is part of God\u2019s method\nto raise up the poor from the dung-hill and to fill the hungry with good\nthings, while He casts down the princes and sends the rich empty away.\nBut the fact remains that, even when he raves against his own Book, the\npoor man is raving in the spirit of the Book. It is not in accordance\nwith the Bible\u2014and still less in accordance with the spirit of the New\nTestament and of Christ\u2014that any nation should tolerate and perpetuate\nthe misery of a class in order that the whole nation may prosper. Indeed\nin such a nation permanent prosperity\u2014in any sense, and much more in the\nChristian sense\u2014is quite impossible. Even though they may suppress\nrebellion and escape revolution for the time, the governing classes\ncannot escape the spiritual evils that must ultimately spring from that\ncomfortable acquiescence in the wretchedness of others to which they may\ngive the name of resignation but to which Christ would have given the\nname of hypocrisy. Material misery _may_ imply the immorality of those\nwho are forced to endure it; but it _must_ imply the immorality and\nspiritual degradation of those who acquiesce in it because it does not\ncome nigh them, and because \u201cthe Bible says it must be so.\u201d Let but such\nPharisaism continue for a generation, and it will have gone far to\nextinguish the purest of religions and to prepare the way for\nrevolutionary strife.\n\nIt appears then that what is called \u201csocialism\u201d is really nothing but a\nnarrow and unwise form of Christianity; narrow because it excludes the\nrich from its sympathies, and unwise because, instead of going to the\nroot of evils, it simply aims at the branches; capable also, of course,\n(like every other theory) of being made to appear immoral, when adopted\nfor self-interested or vindictive purposes\u2014yet nevertheless containing\nmuch more of the Spirit of Christ than that selfish form of Christianity\nwhich has for its sole object the salvation of the individual. Socialism\nowes all that is good in it to Christ.\n\nThe gigantic evil of slavery (which is antagonistic to all true\nsocialism) after a contest of eighteen centuries, has succumbed at last\nin Christian countries to Christ\u2019s Spirit and to no other champion. Do\nyou suppose that it perished owing to the \u201cmarch of intellect,\u201d or the\ndiscoveries of science, or the general refinement and rise in the\nstandard of comfort and happiness among mankind? There is no reason at\nall for thinking so. The Law of Moses, as you know, recognized, though\nit controlled and mitigated, the institution of slavery. The race that\ngave birth to Socrates, Aristotle, Sophocles, Phidias, Euclid,\nArchimedes, and Ptolemy, was unable so much as to conceive of a state of\nsociety where slavery should not exist: civilization appeared to them to\nrequire the servitude of the masses as its necessary foundation. It was\nnot cruelty or callousness that prompted Aristotle to divide \u201ctools\u201d\ninto two classes, \u201clifeless\u201d and \u201cliving\u201d\u2014under which latter head came\nslaves: it was want of faith in human nature. \u201cWho would do the\nscullion-work in the great household of humanity if there were no\nslaves?\u201d Such was the question which perplexed the great philosophers of\nantiquity and which Christ came to answer by making Himself the slave of\nmankind and classing Himself among the scullions. How strangely dull and\nunappreciative do those words of Renan sound, that, if you deduct from\nwhat Christ taught, what other people have taught before Him, little\nwill be left that is original! \u201cTaught!\u201d It was not the teaching, it was\nthe doing. Nay, it was not the doing, it was the in-breathing into\nmankind of a new Spirit, by means of doing, that ultimately destroyed\nslavery. \u201cEven as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto but to\nminister and to give his life a ransom for many\u201d\u2014the Spirit that\ndictated these words, dictated also the death upon the Cross; and this\nSpirit has destroyed slavery and will establish true socialism upon\nearth.\n\n\u201cBut this Spirit of Christ has never been fully obeyed or even\nunderstood by His followers: even St. Paul does not seem to have\nunderstood that Christianity was incompatible with slavery.\u201d You are\nquite right. The Spirit of Christ has never yet been fully obeyed, and,\nwhen we thus obey it, life will be heaven. Do you not see that your\nobjection ignores the fact that we are not yet in heaven, and that\nChristianity is to be a gradual growth? Are you not a little like the\nchild who sows his mustard-seed at night and comes down next morning\nexpecting to see the great tree in which the birds of the air ought to\nhave built their nests? The important question is whether the Christian\nSpirit so far as it has been obeyed, has worked well; so that we may\ntrust it to lead us still further forward into practical ameliorations\nof our existence, whether individual or national. But to expect it to do\neverything in eighteen hundred years, is to forget all the teaching of\nhistory, astronomy, and geology, three voices that unite in proclaiming\nthat the Hand of God works slowly.\n\nAnd further, as to your objection that even St. Paul did not realize the\nincompatibility between Christianity and slavery, what follows from\nthat? Nothing I suppose except a confirmation of the words in the Fourth\nGospel, that the followers of Christ must not depend entirely upon St.\nPaul, but upon that Spirit which shall \u201cguide us into all truth.\u201d To my\nmind it is refreshing and delightful to confess\u2014as I am sure St. Paul\nhimself would have been the first to confess\u2014that he had not fully\nrealized all the consequences to which the Spirit of Christ would lead\nposterity. I believe that St. Paul wished slaves to take every lawful\nopportunity of becoming free, but that he would by no means have\nencouraged slaves to run away or to rise violently against their\nmasters. If he had encouraged them, and if he had universally succeeded,\nhe would have caused the whole Empire, all civilized society, to\ncollapse at once. Was he wrong in not causing this? I am not prepared to\nsay so. I think he shewed more statesmanlike and Christian intuition in\ndoing nothing of the kind. But he did much. He had no slaves of his own,\nyou may be sure; he worked like a slave all night, that he might preach\nall day; he bore fetters like a slave, and was proud to call himself a\nslave for the sake of Christ; he inveighed against the spirit of\nslavery, declaring that in Christ \u201cthere is neither bond nor free;\u201d and\non the only occasion that we know of, when he had to mediate in a\npractical way between an angry master and a runaway slave, he sent the\nman back to his master without conditions or stipulations, but with a\nletter that was equivalent to an emancipation: \u201cFor perhaps he was\ntherefore parted from thee for a season that thou shouldest have him for\never; no longer as a slave, but more than a slave, a brother beloved,\nspecially to me, but how much rather to thee, both in the flesh and in\nthe Lord. If then thou countest me a partner, receive him as myself.\u201d\nWas not this, practically and morally, more efficacious than if the\nApostle had fulminated against the master Philemon fiery utterances\nabout the rights of man and the incompatibility between Christianity and\nslavery? Was not Onesimus more sure of being emancipated by the quiet\napostolic method? Was not Philemon likely to feel a quickened sense of\nnew and higher duty when the Spirit of Christ was breathed into his\nheart by these touching and affectionate words, than if a Pauline edict\nhad confronted him with a \u201cThou shalt\u201d and \u201cThou shalt not\u201d? St. Paul\u2019s\nmethod has been the method of the Spirit of Christ: for eighteen\ncenturies Christ has been saying to men, not \u201cAll slavery is unlawful,\u201d\nbut to each master about each individual slave, \u201cIf then thou countest\nMe a partner, receive him as Myself.\u201d Hence by degrees has been shaped a\nconviction that slavery in itself is against the will of God.\n\nBut the destruction of slavery has not destroyed other problems of life\nwhich still await their solution from Christian socialism. When men\ncease to work from the compulsion of a master, they either give up\nworking, or they work for some other motive\u2014their own subsistence, or\ntheir own comfort, luxury, avarice, ambition, the mere pleasure and\ninterest of work, or for the sake of others. Are people to give up\nworking? And, if they work, which of these motives is to take the place\nof the old bestial coercion which prevailed in the days of slavery?\nThese are the great questions of the present, affecting the happiness,\nmorality, and religion of the whole human race. True Christians and true\nsocialists are here at one. \u201cIf a man will not work, neither let him\neat\u201d is their answer to the first question; and the more we can combine\nto make the drone feel that he is out of place in the hive, and that he\nmust either conform to the hive\u2019s ways or betake himself elsewhither,\nthe better will it be morally, and therefore ultimately better in all\nrespects, for the inhabitants of the hive. As to the second question,\nsocialists and moralists agree that each must work for the sake of\nothers, and, as far as possible, for all. To my mind, therefore, one of\nthe most hopeful signs of the times is to be discerned in the spread of\nthe higher socialist spirit which protests against making competition\nthe basis of national prosperity. Disguise it as you may, competition\ncontains an ugly element which was clearly brought out by its first\neulogist, the practical agricultural Hesiod, who tells us that there are\ntwo kinds of strife, namely, war and competition. The latter, he says,\nis good; for it rouses even the sluggard to action, when he sees his\nneighbour hastening to wealth:\n\n                        \u201c\u2014this strife is good for mortals,\n           And potter _envieth_ potter and carpenter carpenter.\u201d\n\nThis is the plain truth. Competition is always in danger of producing\n\u201cenvy,\u201d and, when it is carried consistently to its extreme\u2014as where a\nlarge manufacturer undersells and ruins small manufacturers that he may\nsecure a monopoly\u2014it verges on that other kind of strife which Hesiod\nhas himself described as \u201cblameful;\u201d it becomes a kind of war, and is\nmanifestly unchristian. Christianity might have been therefore expected\nto protest against it; but it has not done so: that task has been\nreserved for the informal kind of Christianity called socialism. But\nvery much more than protest is needed. The problem of competition and\nhow to dispense with it\u2014or how to restrain it while remedying its\nevils\u2014is far more complex than that of slavery. Some people regard it as\nan inherent law of human society, a natural and continuous development\nof the law of the struggle for existence which we have inherited from\nour remotest ancestry. Others, while admitting this prim\u00e6val origin,\nhope that, as progressive man has worked out from his nature much else\nof the baser element, so he may in time eliminate this also. But, if any\nsuccess is to be attained, all sorts of experiments will have to be\ntried; all sorts of failures will have to be encountered; and it may be\nthat in the end the Pauline method of dealing with slavery may be found\nthe best means of dealing with competition\u2014not so much protesting and\nfulminating, but the earnest, informal action of individual enthusiasm.\nAction like St. Paul\u2019s may prepare the way for legislation; but, without\nchange of temper, mere legislation cannot permanently help a people to\ndeal with a great social difficulty.\n\nIn the solution of the complicated problems presented by competition,\nsocialism, when severed from Christianity, labours (1885) under most\nserious disadvantages. Ignoring Christ, it reads amiss the whole of the\nhistory of the past and is in danger of making terrible mistakes in the\nfuture. Even where it avoids revolutionary extravagances, it is tempted\nto trust far too much to force, moral if not physical coercion,\nlegislative enactments, and other shapes of what St. Paul would call\n\u201cLaw.\u201d Looking up to no Leader in heaven, it does not feel sufficiently\nsure of ultimate success. \u201cHe that believeth,\u201d says the prophet, \u201cshall\nnot make haste:\u201d now socialism has no firm basis of belief and therefore\nis disposed to \u201cmake haste,\u201d not always the haste of energy, sometimes\nthe spasmodic haste of self-distrust and error, followed perhaps by\ndejection or inaction. Its neglect of the true religion leads it into\npolitical as well as religious mistakes. Taking too little account of\nsentiments, imaginations, and associations, it aims at a merely material\nprosperity which, if attained, would leave the minds of men still vacant\nand craving more; and besides, it proceeds by methods which excite alarm\nand distrust in many well-wishers. The most serious evil of all is that\nthe leaders of the socialist movement, if they themselves see no Leader\nabove them, are actuated by no sense of loyalty and affection such as\nChristians should feel for Christ, and consequently are far more exposed\nto the dangers arising from their own individual weaknesses and\nshortcomings. Their mainspring of action is a passionate enthusiasm for\npoor toiling humanity: but how if humanity shews itself to them at times\nin its basest aspects, ungrateful, suspicious, mean and shabby, timorous\nand traitorous, quite unworthy of their devotion? Are they to serve such\na god as this? And it is a perishable god too; for must not all things\nperish, and the earth itself become ultimately as vacant as the moon?\nFor so vile a master as this, then, are they to endure to be humiliated\nand attacked by the rich and powerful, envied and slandered by rival\nleaders, occasionally suspected even by the very poor to whom they are\ngiving their lives? In moments of depression, when thoughts like these\noccur\u2014as occur they must\u2014it is hard indeed for a leaderless leader of\nmen to refrain from flinging up his task, or from continuing to pursue\nit out of mere shame of inconsistency, or mere love of occupation,\nexcitement, and power. When that change comes over the tribune of the\npoor, all is over with him. His work is done, though he may have done\nnothing. Outwardly such a man\u2019s conduct may be little changed, but\ninwardly his spirit is dead within him. His religion\u2014for it was a\nreligion to him\u2014is now dead; and sooner or later his changed influence\nmust make itself felt in an infection of deadness spreading through the\nwhole of the multitudes whom he once inspired.\n\nIt is for these reasons that I look to a simpler form of Christianity as\nthe future religion of the masses; first because I see that the most\nactive religious forces of the present day are already unconsciously\nfollowing on the lines traced by Christ\u2019s spirit; and secondly, because\nthese movements already exhibit a deficiency which the worship of Christ\nalone can fill up.\n\nThe worship of Christ as the type and King of men helps to solve the\nproblems of the individual as well as those of the nation. As long as\nhuman nature is what it is, as long as friends and families are parted\nby death, as long as the mind is liable to be weighed down by\ndepression, and the body to be racked by physical pain, so long will\nthere be hours when we shall all look upward and demand some other\nconsolation than the commonplace; \u201cThese misfortunes are common to all.\u201d\nStripped of all myth and miracle, the life and death and triumph of\nChrist convey to the simplest heart the simplest answer that can be\ngiven to the irrepressible question, \u201cWhence comes this misery?\u201d From\nthe cross of Christ there is sent back to each of us this answer, \u201cWe\nknow not fully; but our Leader bore it, and good came of it in the end.\u201d\nAnd when we stand at the brink of the grave and ask, \u201cWhat is death?\u201d\nagain the answer comes back from the same source, \u201cWe know not fully;\nbut He passed through it and He still lives and reigns.\u201d\n\nBut besides the powerful influence of religion in the critical and\nexceptional moments of our lives, the influence of Christ would come\nfull of strength and blessing to the working men of England even if they\nacknowledged Him, at first, in the most inarticulate of creeds, as the\nman whom they admired most: \u201cWe used to think that Christ was a fiction\nof the priests; at all events not a man like us in any way; a different\nsort of being altogether; one who could do what he liked\u2014so people\nsaid\u2014and turn the world upside down if he pleased: and then we could not\nmake him out at all. Why, thought we, did he not turn the world upside\ndown and make it better, if he could? It was all a mystery to us. But\nnow we find he was a man after all, like us; a poor working man, who had\na heart for the poor, and wanted to turn the world upside down, but\ncould not do it at once; and he went a strange way, and a long way\nround, to do it; but he has come nearer doing it, spite of his enemies,\nthan any man we know; and now that we understand this, we say\u2014though we\ndon\u2019t understand it all or anything like it\u2014\u2018He is the man for us.\u2019\u201d I\nsay that even if this rudimentary feeling of gratitude and admiration\nfor their great Leader could possess the hearts of English working\nmen\u2014and this is surely not too much to expect\u2014much would come from even\nthis inadequate worship. And, for myself, I unhesitatingly declare that\nI would sooner be in the position of a working man who doubts about\nHeaven and Hell and even about God, but can say of Christ, \u201cHe is the\nman for me,\u201d than I would be in the position of the well-to-do\nmanufacturer who is persuaded of the reality of Heaven and Hell and of\nthe truth of all the theology of the Church of England, but can\nreconcile his religion with the deliberate establishment of a colossal\nfortune on the ruin of his fellow creatures.\n\nBut I do not believe that the feeling of the working man for Jesus of\nNazareth could long confine itself to admiration. It is not so easy to\nmake a happy nation or a happy world as the working man thinks: and this\nhe will soon find out. When sanitation, education, culture, science,\npolitical rearrangements, enlargements for the poor, and restrictions\nfor the rich, have all done their best and failed\u2014as they necessarily\nmust fail, unless helped by something more\u2014then the working man will\nfind what that \u201csomething more\u201d is, without which nothing effectual can\nbe done. Then he will perceive that, after all, unless there is a spirit\nof mutual concession in classes and individuals, no Acts of Parliament\ncan ever be devised to secure lasting prosperity and concord. Then he\nwill awaken to the fact that Jesus of Nazareth revealed and exemplified\nthat spirit of concession or self-sacrifice, and that it was by this\nmeans that He went as far as He did toward \u201cturning the world upside\ndown;\u201d and so he will be gradually led still further to see that the way\nwhich He went was after all not such a very \u201clong way round,\u201d but a\ndivine way, a way truly worthy of the Son of God. I believe that the\nrecognition of this single fact would go further than even the\nrecognition of the marvellous phenomena which manifested the\nResurrection of Christ, to convince working men that the man who\npossessed this sublime intuition into spiritual truth, and the perfect\nunselfishness and self-control needful to give effect to his plans for\nthe raising up of mankind, must be no other than the Son of God. The\nrest would follow. They would find they had been all their lives on a\nwrong track in their search after the divine reality; worshipping brute\nforce while protesting against it; bowing in their hearts to pomp, and\nwealth, and high birth, even while they professed to deride them;\ndespising things familiar and near; gaping in stupid servile admiration\nat things far and unknown; yet all the time God was near them, among\nthem, in them; the Spirit of God was none other than the spirit of true\nsocialism; the Son of God was none other than the poor and lowly Workman\nof Nazareth.\n\n\n\n\n                                APPENDIX\n\n\n\n\n                                  XXX\n                           MINISTERIAL TESTS\n\n\nMY DEAR\u2014\u2014,\n\nExcuse my delay in answering your letter of last month. The fact is I\nhave not so much leisure as I had. I was glad indeed to hear from you\n(last Christmas, I think) that you could not so lightly put away the\nworship and service of Christ as you had felt disposed, or compelled to\ndo, some eighteen months before; that the question appeared to you now a\ndeeper one than you had then supposed, not to be decided by mere\nhistorical evidence but, to some extent, by the experience of life; and\nthat you were inclined at least so far to take my advice as to wait a\nwhile, to stand in the old ways, and to adhere\u2014so far as you honestly\ncould\u2014to old religious habits, including the habit of prayer and\nattendance at public worship. This was as much as I could reasonably\nhope. I could not expect that a few letters from one who is quite\nconscious that he does not possess the strange and sometimes\ninstantaneous influence exerted by a strong religious character, would\ndo all that will, I trust, be done for you by patience, by a prayerful\nand laborious life devoted to good objects, and by cherishing habits of\nreverence for the good, and of thoughtfulness for all. I had been in the\nhabit of regularly giving my Sundays, and occasionally some hours on\nweek days, to our theological correspondence: but when I received that\nannouncement from you, I felt that my time might now be devoted to other\nobjects, and I made arrangements accordingly. Hence, when your recent\nletter reached me, I was not quite at leisure to reply to it\nimmediately. But you pressed me to answer \u201cone last question,\u201d which I\nshould rather call two questions (for they are quite distinct, although\nyou combine them so closely as to leave me uncertain whether you\nrecognize the wide difference between them): \u201cCan a man who rejects the\nmiraculous element in the Bible remain a member or a minister in the\nChurch of England?\u201d\n\nYour first question I should answer with an unhesitating affirmative.\nThe Church of England does not require from its lay members any\nsignature of the Articles or any test but a profession of belief in the\nCreed at the time of baptism, renewed in the Catechism and Confirmation\nservice; and I cannot think that any sincere worshipper of Christ ought\nso far to take offence at one or two expressions in the Creed\u2014which may\nbe interpreted by him metaphorically, though by others literally\u2014as to\nseparate himself on that account from the national church. Grant that\nhis interpretation may be a little strained, nay, grant even that he is\nobliged to say \u201cI cannot believe this;\u201d yet I should doubt the\nnecessity, or even wisdom and rightness, of cutting himself off from the\nChurch of England because of one or two clauses in the Creed, as long as\nhe feels himself in general harmony with the Church doctrine and\nservices. There would be no end to schisms, and no possibility of\ncombining for worship, if every one separated himself from every\ncongregational utterance with which he could not heartily agree in every\nparticular. On this point I find myself obliged to remember for my own\nsake, and to apply to myself, the advice I once gave a very little child\nmany years ago. We were singing a hymn, and had come to the words:\n\n                        \u201cAh me, ah me, that I\n                        In Kedar\u2019s tents here stay:\n                        No place like that on high,\n                        Lord, thither guide my way.\u201d\n\n\u201cI suppose,\u201d said the child (who was young but somewhat old-fashioned in\nthought and expression), \u201cthat these words mean that you want to die, if\nthey mean anything. But I don\u2019t want to die. So I don\u2019t think I ought to\nsay them.\u201d In my own mind I sympathized very much with the objector; but\nI endeavoured to meet the objection. \u201cHymns,\u201d I said, \u201care written not\nfor single persons but for congregations. In a whole churchful you will\nfind all sorts of people of different ages and ways of thinking. Some\nare glad and strong, others sad and weak. Some rejoice in life and look\nforward eagerly to labour. These are mostly the young; but the older\nsort are sometimes tired of life and longing for rest. Now when we are\nsinging a hymn we must all do our best, young and old, happy and sad, to\nenter into one another\u2019s feelings, and we must not expect that every\nword in every hymn will precisely represent our own particular feelings\nat the moment: the time will perhaps come when the words that now seem\nmeaningless to us will exactly represent our deepest feelings, and we\nshall wonder how we could have ever failed to feel them; but for the\npresent we must not be disposed always to be asking, \u2018Do I agree with\nthis? Do I exactly feel that?\u2019 Of course if it occurs to you that these\nor those words are so opposite to what you think, that you would be\ntelling a lie to God in uttering them, why then you must not utter them:\nbut you ought not to suppose that in a church service God exacts from\nyou a rigid account for every word of the congregational utterances in\nwhich you take part: if you can heartily join in the greater part of the\nservice, do not be afraid; He accepts your prayers and praises.\u201d Many\nyears have passed away since I spoke thus: and, since then, I have found\nmyself often obliged to repeat to myself, for my own guidance, the\nadvice which I then gave to guide another. In a public service one must\ngive and take, and I see no reason at all why a believer in\nnon-miraculous Christianity should not find himself in harmony with the\nservices of the Church of England. His interpretation both of the Bible\nand of the Prayer-book will be different from that of most of the\ncongregation; but he will accept both the Bible and the Prayer-book as\nthe best books that could be used for their several purposes, and would\nbe sorry to see them replaced by anything that could be devised by\nhimself or by those who think as he does.\n\nSo far I can speak confidently; but I am more doubtful as to the answer\nthat should be given to your second question, \u201cCan a believer in\nnon-miraculous Christianity remain a minister in the Church of England?\u201d\nLooking at the Articles, if I were forced to assume that every one of\nthem is binding on a Church of England minister, I should say that a\nbelief in the miraculous is necessary for every one who can honestly\nsign an assent to the Article on Christ\u2019s Resurrection, which asserts\nthat, \u201cChrist did truly rise again from death, and took again His body\nwith flesh, bones, and all things appertaining to the perfection of\nman\u2019s nature, wherewith He ascended into heaven.\u201d These words distinctly\ndeclare the Resurrection of Christ\u2019s material body; and as I do not\nbelieve in the fact, I cannot assent to the words, nor do I see how any\nbeliever in non-miraculous Christianity can assent to them.\n\nPerhaps you may think, in your innocence, that this disposes of the\nquestion, arguing logically thus: \u201cThe Church of England appoints\ncertain Articles as tests of belief for her ministers; A cannot assent\nto one of these Articles; therefore A has no right to remain a minister:\nthere is no loophole out of this logical statement of the case.\u201d There\nis not: and if the Church of England were governed in accordance with\nlogic, I (and a good many others) ought to have left the ranks of her\nministers as soon as we found that we had been forced to reject a single\nclause of a single Article. But the Church has not been fur several\ngenerations governed in this logical way. Besides practically and\ngenerally allowing among its members a great degree of freedom and\nlatitude, it has enlarged that latitude during the last generation by a\nspecific and authoritative alteration of the terms of subscription to\nthe Articles. When I signed them\u2014which I did, with perfect honesty and\nsincerity, some three or four and twenty years ago\u2014we were obliged to\n\u201cassent and consent\u201d to \u201ceach and every\u201d Article in each particular: I\nforget the exact terms, but I know they were as stringent as they well\ncould be. But in 1865 the Clerical Subscription Act introduced a new\nform:\u2014\u201cI assent to the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion and to the Book\nof Common Prayer.... I believe the doctrine of the Church of England as\ntherein set forth to be agreeable to the Word of God.\u201d Now if \u201ctherein\u201d\nmeant \u201cin each and every clause of each and every Article,\u201d that would\nhave been tantamount to a mere repetition of the old requirement.\nObviously therefore this alteration implies an obligation of the\nsubscriber to assent, no longer to \u201ceach and every Article\u201d in\nparticular, but to the Articles as a whole, regarded as an expression of\nAnglican doctrine. Consequently, at present, the necessity of\nsubscription need not repel any one unless he finds himself unable to\naccept \u201cthe doctrine of the Church of England as set forth,\u201d not in\ndetail, but generally, in the Articles and the Prayer-book; and I need\nnot say that a believer in non-miraculous Christianity by no means\noccupies a position of such dissent as this.\n\nThe only obstacle therefore for a scrupulous minister will be in the\nservices of the Church and in the reading of the Bible: and here I admit\nthat there is a very considerable obstacle, though it appears to me to\nbe less than it was a dozen years ago, and each year lessens it still\nfurther. The difficulty lies, not in the scepticism of the minister (who\nmay be a more faithful worshipper of Christ than any one in his flock)\nnor in any congregational suspicion or alarm (for his advanced views lie\nquite beyond the horizon of the thoughts of any country congregation,\nand any but an exceptional congregation elsewhere) but almost entirely\nin the minister\u2019s own uneasy sense of a difference between himself and\nhis people; in his fear that he may be acting hypocritically; in his\nconsequent loss of self-respect; and in a resulting demoralization\naffecting all his work.\n\nClearly this is a difficulty which would be diminished, if not\naltogether removed, by publicity; but as long as it is not publicly\nrecognized that widely different interpretations of the Scripture are\npossible and compatible with the worship of Christ, the difficulty is a\nvery serious one. Whenever such a man reads the Bible in the discharge\nof his public duty, he is liable to be haunted with the consciousness\nthat he is two-faced. He conveys to his congregation an obvious meaning\nand they assume that he accepts that meaning himself; but he does not.\nSuppose, for example, he reads the story of the battle of Beth-horon:\nhis congregation believes that it is listening to the most stupendous\nmiracle that the world has witnessed; the minister believes that he is\nreading an account of one of the twenty, or more, decisive battles of\nhistory. Similarly, in the New Testament, if he reads the narrative of\nthe feeding of the 4,000 or 5,000, he reads it as a religious legend,\ncuriously preserving a deep spiritual truth, but of no value except for\nits emblematic meaning; but his congregation listens to him as if he\nwere reciting one of the most important proofs that Jesus was no mere\nman, but truly the Son of God. I do not wish to exaggerate the\ndifference between the rationalizing minister and the literalizing\ncongregation. Both he and they believe that in the battle of Beth-horon\nGod was working out the destiny of Israel and preparing for Himself a\nchosen people; both he and they believe that Jesus Christ was the true\nBread of Life; and similarly, as regards many other miraculous\nnarratives of the Scriptures, the congregation and the minister, though\ndivided as to the acceptance of the historical fact, will be united in\naccepting the spiritual interpretation which is the essence of the\nnarrative. Moreover, every year is probably increasing the number of the\nlaity who take the same esoteric view as the minister takes about many\nof the miracles. In any educated congregation there must be a large\nnumber of men, and there will soon be a large number of women, who do\nnot believe in the literal stories of Balaam\u2019s ass, Elisha\u2019s floating\naxe-head, and Samson\u2019s exploit with the jaw-bone. Unless educated people\nare kept out of our churches, or separate themselves from the Church,\nthis number must soon increase. Thus the gulf between the rationalizing\nminister and the congregation tends yearly to diminish through the\naction of the congregation; and if only both the esoteric and the\nexoteric interpretation of the Scripture were generally recognized as\nbeing compatible with the faithful worship of Christ, I do not see why\nthe minister should not claim for himself, without any sense of\nconstraint or insincerity, the same freedom of interpreting the Bible\nwhich is accorded to the laity.\n\nThere still remains however the clause in the Creed stating the\nMiraculous Conception, which to me appears the greatest difficulty of\nall. It is one thing, in my judgment, to repeat the prayers of the\nChurch and to read passages from the sacred books of the Church, as the\nmouthpiece of the congregation, and rather a different thing to stand up\nand say\u2014not only as the mouthpiece of the congregation, but in your\nindividual character, as a Christian, and as a priest as well\u2014\u201cI believe\nthis, or that,\u201d and to take money for so saying; while all the time you\nare saying under your breath, \u201cBut I only believe it metaphorically.\u201d\nHere, again, my scruples would be removed, if it were only generally\nunderstood that the metaphorical interpretation was possible and\npermissible. As regards the Athanasian Creed, for example, I should have\nno scruples at all. For the tone and spirit, as well as for the\nphraseology, of that Creed, I feel the strongest aversion. Yet I should\nrepeat it as the mouthpiece of the congregation without any hesitation,\nbecause they would all know that the Church of England, so far as it can\nspeak through the archbishops and bishops, has signified that the\nrepulsive clauses in the Creed may all be so explained as practically to\nbe explained away. I do not in the least believe that this mild\ninterpretation of the damnatory clauses explains their original meaning;\nbut that matters little or nothing. Provided there be no suspicion of\ninsincerity, I am willing to make considerable sacrifices of personal\nconvictions in so complex a rite as congregational worship. The\nclergyman whom I most respect has not read the Athanasian Creed for\nthirty years: for my own sake, as a participator in the worship of his\nchurch, I rejoice; but all my respect for him did not prevent me from\ndoubting sometimes whether he was right in this matter, until I found\nthat his action had been prompted by an expression of feeling on the\npart of some representative members of his congregation. For if one\nclergyman is justified in omitting the Athanasian Creed whenever he\nlikes, I do not see why another is not justified in reading it whenever\nhe likes: the liberty of the clergy might easily become the slavery of\nthe laity. I should therefore be ready to read the repugnant Athanasian\nCreed because every member of my congregation would know (and I should\nfeel justified in letting them know from the pulpit) that I read it in\nobedience to the law and in spite of my convictions. But I am not so\nready, at present, to read the Apostles\u2019 Creed or Nicene Creed, although\nI cordially accept them except so far as concerns the one word which\nexpresses the Miraculous Conception. My reason is, that I should not\nlike to leave my congregation under the impression that I accepted that\ndogma, and on the other hand I should not feel justified in using a\npulpit of the National Church to explain why I rejected it.\n\nHere again, as in the previous instance, I feel that times are rapidly\nchanging, and the freedom of ministers in the Church of England is\nrapidly increasing. For scruples as to the use of the Creeds, no less\nthan for scruples as to the reading of the Scriptures, publicity is the\nchief remedy wanting to dissipate scruples; and time is on the side of\nfreedom. Belief in miracles now rests on an inclined plane; friction is\ndaily lessening, the downward motion is rapidly increasing; in a few\nmore years the authorities of the Church of England may recognize, not\nwith reluctance but with delight, that there are some young men who know\nenough of Greek, and of history, and of evidence, to be convinced that\nthe miracles are unhistorical, and who, nevertheless, are worshippers of\nChrist on conviction, with a faith not to be shaken by anything that\nscience or criticism can discover, and with a readiness to serve Christ,\nas ministers in the English Church, if they can do so without sacrifice\nof their opinions and without suspicion of insincerity.\n\nPersonally, I have not felt these scruples very acutely. Circumstances\nhave placed me where nothing has been required of me which might not\nhave been done as well by a Nonconformist as by a member of the Church\nof England. To help a friend, or do occasional work in an unofficial\nway, has never caused me the least misgiving; for I have always remained\nin cordial accord with the forms of worship current in the Church of\nEngland. The only difference that my views have made in my clerical\naction has been this, that I have preferred for a time not to place\nmyself in any position where ministerial work might officially be\nrequired of me. Yet even these scruples have been doubtfully\nentertained, and would vanish altogether if ever I were to publish a\nvolume of such letters as I am now writing to you, so that I could be\nsure that my opinions were no secret from my Bishop and from such\nmembers of my congregation as were likely to understand them.\n\nThe advice which I have given to myself, I should also be inclined to\ngive to others who are already ministers in the Church of England, and\nwho have scruples of conscience in consequence of some divergence from\northodox views: \u201cStay where you are, as long as you feel that you can\nsincerely worship Christ as the Eternal Son of God, and as long as you\ncan preach a gospel of faith and strength, not only from the pulpit but\nalso by the bedside of the dying. If you can do this, you may stay,\nthough you are obliged to interpret metaphorically some expressions in\nthe Creed. If you cannot do this, go at once, even though you can accept\nevery syllable in all the Creeds in the most literal sense.\u201d\n\nTo young men who have not yet been ordained and who incline to\n\u201crational\u201d views of Christianity, I have been disposed hitherto to give\ndifferent advice: \u201cWait a while. The fashion of men\u2019s opinion is rapidly\nchanging; the excessive fear of science on the part of the Clergy\u2014many\nof whom come from Public Schools where they have received no training in\nthe rudiments of science or mathematics\u2014is, strange to say, predisposing\nall but extreme High Churchmen to welcome the adhesion of any who are\nfirm believers in Christ, even though they may doubt or reject the\nmiracles. It would be a miserable thing to be ordained, and to undertake\nthe task of preaching a doctrine implying the highest conceivable\nmorality, and presently to find yourself condemned by those to whom you\nshould be an example as well as an instructor, for what appears to them\npatent insincerity\u2014condemned by others, and perhaps not wholly acquitted\nby yourself. In a few years you may perhaps find it possible to be\nordained not upon tolerance but with a hearty reception, and then there\nneed be no concealment of your opinions.\u201d\n\nSuch is the language that I have hitherto used on the very few occasions\nwhen I have been consulted, generally advising delay. But now I am\ninclined to think that the time has come when young men with these\nopinions ought not to wait, but ought at least to set their case before\nthe Bishops, leaving it to them to accept or refuse them as candidates\nfor ordination. Schisms and prosecutions are very objectionable things,\nbut there are worse evils even than these. There is the danger of\nhypocrisy, spreading, like an infection, from oneself to others. The\nhour has perhaps come for authorizing or condemning the extreme freedom\nof opinion which some of the Broad Churchmen have assumed. Proverbs and\ntexts might be quoted in equal abundance to justify action or inaction\nin the abstract; but two important practical considerations appear to me\nto dictate some kind of action without delay.\n\nOn the one hand, we hear the complaint that the ablest and most\nconscientious men are deterred by scruples from entering the ministry in\nthe Church of England, even when they feel a strong bent for clerical\nwork. If this scarcity of able candidates for ordination continues for\nmany more years, we shall have bad times in store for us. Already I\nthink I have noted, among some ministers who are conscious of but little\nintellectual and not much more spiritual power, a disposition unduly to\nmagnify their office, the ritual, the mechanical use of the sacraments,\nparochial machinery, processions, sensational hymns, church\nsalvation-armies, and church-routine generally, because they feel they\nhave no evangelic message of their own, no individual inspiration. In\nsome degree, such a subordination of self is good and may argue modesty;\nbut in many cases it is not good, when it leads young men to materialize\nand sensualize religion, to suppose that the preaching of Christ\u2019s\nGospel and the elevation of the souls of men can be effected by\necclesiastical battalion drill; to dispense with study, thought, and\nobservation; to acquiesce in the letter of the collected dogmas of the\npast, and to hope for no new spiritual truth from the progress of the\nages controlled by the ever fresh revelations of the Spirit of God.\n\nOn the other hand, there is the opposite evil, on which I have already\ntouched\u2014I mean the danger that some of the more intellectual among the\nclergy, those who do not sympathize with sacerdotalism and are popularly\nreckoned among the \u201cBroad Church,\u201d may not only be suspected of\ninsincerity in professing to believe what they, as a fact, disbelieve,\nbut may also become actually demoralized by self-suspicions and hence\nindirectly demoralize their congregations. I confess my sympathies are\nvery much with a man in that position. He has been sometimes the victim\nof cruel circumstances. In his youth, the religious problems of the\npresent day lay all in the background. Before he was ordained, he may\nvery well have discerned no difficulties at all in the career before\nhim, nothing but the prospect of a noble work, to which he felt himself\ncalled. His life was probably spent in a public boarding-school, where\nhe scarcely ever had a minute to himself for thought and meditation; it\nbeing the ideal of the educator so to engross the time and energy of\neach pupil in studies or in games that the average youth might be kept\nout of moral mischief and the clever youth might get a scholarship at\nOxford or Cambridge. When he came to the University he found himself\nexpected to devote himself to \u201creading for a degree,\u201d and there was\nlittle or no time for theology; after taking his degree he found himself\nunder the necessity of earning his living, and if he was intending to\nbecome a clergyman he naturally desired to be ordained as soon as\npossible. If he was very fortunate, he may have contrived (as I did) to\nget a year\u2019s reading at theology while he supported himself by taking\npupils; but that was probably the utmost of his preparation. Soon after\nreaching his twenty-third year he was ordained. And now, for the first\ntime, leaving school and college, he begins to realize what life means,\nand to think for himself. Can we wonder that this \u201cthinking for himself\u201d\nproduces considerable changes of thought? If he is healthy, and active\nin his parish, and has not much time for reflection and reading, the\nchanges will be long deferred, and he will be scarcely conscious of\nthem: but if he has any mind at all in him, and gives it the least\nexercise, it is hardly possible that an able and honest student of the\nBible at the age of forty-six, when he comes to compare the opinions of\nhis manhood with those of his youth, will not find that he has ceased to\nbelieve, or at all events to be certain of, the historical accuracy of a\ngood deal which he accepted with unquestioning confidence at the age of\ntwenty-three.\n\nChanges of this kind are inevitable, and they ought not to be feared.\nYet perhaps the fear of them deters some of the more thoughtful young\nmen from presenting themselves for ordination. They know that they\nbelieve in such and such facts now, but, say they, \u201cMany sincere and\nthoughtful persons dispute the truth of these facts; and what will be my\nposition some ten years hence if I find that I am driven to deny what I\nnow affirm?\u201d What one would like to be able to reply, in answer to such\nan appeal, would be, that the worship of Christ does not depend upon the\ntruth of a few isolated and disputable pieces of evidence, but upon the\ntestimony of the conscience based upon indisputable (though complex)\nevidence; so that, if the man\u2019s conscience remains the same, he need not\nfear lest the fundamental principles of his faith will be shaken by any\nhistorical or scientific criticism. From the terrestrial point of view,\nChrist is human nature at its divinest. Whoever therefore in the highest\ndegree loves and trusts and reveres human nature at its divinest, he\nnaturally worships a representation of Christ, even though he may never\nhave heard of the name. Now life will bring a young man many\ndisappointments and disillusions and paradoxes: but no one, who has once\nworshipped Christ in this natural way, need fear (or hope?) that life\nwill ever bring him anything more worthy of representing human nature at\nits divinest, anything therefore more worthy of worship, than Jesus of\nNazareth. The only danger is, that one may cease to be able to love and\ntrust and revere the objects that deserve these feelings. There is\nindeed that danger, just as there is the danger that one may cease to be\nable to be honest. But what young man, in mapping out his future, would\nmake insurance against such a moral paralysis? A man ought no more\u2014a man\nought still less\u2014to contemplate the possibility of becoming unable to\nworship Christ, than the possibility of becoming unable to revere a kind\nfather or love affectionate children. If then our candidate for\nordination regards Christ in this spirit, one would like to encourage\nhim to present himself for ordination even though he may already doubt\nthe Biblical narrative on some points, and though he may be pretty\ncertain that he will change his mind on many others by the time he is\ntwice as old as he is now. However it rests very much with Bishops to\nsettle this question; and the question as to what the Bishops might do\nis so important as to demand a separate letter.\n\n\nP.S. Since writing the above remarks about the reluctance of the ablest\nmen at the Universities to be ordained, I have been told that the state\nof things is even worse than I had conceived at Cambridge. There, at the\ntwo largest colleges, Trinity and St. John\u2019s, I am told that of the\nFellows who took their degrees between 1873-9 only eight, out of sixty\nor thereabouts, took holy orders; and of those who took degrees between\n1880-6, only three out of sixty. Trinity is conspicuous; of the sixty\nFellows who took degrees from 1873-86 only two have been ordained.\n\n\n\n\n                                  XXXI\n                       WHAT THE BISHOPS MIGHT DO\n\n\nMY DEAR \u2014\u2014,\n\nI reminded you in my last letter that ordination or non-ordination must\nlargely depend upon the judgment of the Bishops. This, I suppose, must\nhave always been the case to some extent: but there are reasons why it\nmay well be so now to a greater extent than before. The important change\nmade in the form of subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles has\nsupplied a solid and definite ground upon which the Bishops may fairly\nclaim to ascertain from candidates for ordination some details about\ntheir religious opinions. In the times when candidates had to assent to\nevery point in every Article, no further examination was necessary: but\nnow that the candidate is allowed (by implication) to dissent from some\nthings in the Articles, the Bishop may surely, without any inquisitorial\noppression, say: \u201cBefore I ordain you, I should like to know, in a\ngeneral way, how far your dissent from the Articles extends.\u201d Some\nBishops may be inclined to shrink from such an interrogation, as though\nit implied doubt of the candidate\u2019s sincerity: and of course such an\nexamination might be abused in a narrow or bigoted or even tyrannical\nmanner. But on the whole, I think, it might be even more useful as a\nprotection and help to the young candidate than to the Bishop. Here and\nthere, perhaps, a young man might be advised to give up, or defer, the\nprospect of ordination; but others (who would have otherwise been\ndeterred by scruples) might be encouraged to be ordained in spite of\nsome intellectual difficulties; and this fatherly encouragement from a\nman of authority and experience would be a great help and comfort,\nstrengthening the young man in the conviction that mere intellectual\ndifficulties could not interfere with his faith in Christ. Still more\nvaluable would be the young man\u2019s consciousness that he could not be\ncalled insincere or hypocritical, since he had concealed nothing from\nthe Bishop, who, after hearing all, had decided that there was nothing\nto exclude him from ordination.\n\nI would therefore advise any man who desired to be ordained but was\ndeterred by present scruples or the fear of future scruples, to write at\nan early period to the Bishop at whose hands he would be likely to seek\nordination, stating his difficulties frankly and fully, and asking\nwhether they would be considered an impediment. If he felt any touch of\ndoubt on the subject of the miracles, I would have him make them the\nsubject of a special question. In some dioceses I should expect the\nanswer to be unfavourable. From others perhaps the answer would come\nthat the Bishop was \u201cunwilling to undertake so heavy a responsibility;\neach man must decide for himself whether he can honestly read the\nservices of the Church and the lessons from the Scriptures without\nbelieving in miracles.\u201d That answer would be, in my judgment,\nregrettable, though not unnatural or indefensible. But even that answer\nwould be of value, as it would be a record that, at all events, the\nBishop had not been kept in ignorance of anything that the candidate\nought to have revealed to him: and this in itself would be of great\nvalue in lightening for a scrupulous and self-introspective young man\nthe burden of the questions which might sometimes arise in his mind as\nhe read aloud in the congregation the words of the Bible or the\nPrayer-book. Moreover, I should anticipate that every year would see an\nincrease in the number of those dioceses from which a still more\nfavourable answer might be returned: \u201cIf with all your heart you worship\nChrist as the Eternal Son of God, if you can honestly and sincerely\naccept the Church services as excellent (though imperfect) expressions\nof congregational worship; and the Scriptures as super-excellent (though\nimperfect) expressions of spiritual fact; if you feel that you have a\nmessage of good news for the poor and simple as well as for the rich and\neducated, and that you can preach the spiritual truths which you and all\nof us recognize to be the essence of the Gospel, without attacking those\nmaterial shapes in which, for many generations to come, all spiritual\ntruths must find expression for the vast majority of Christians, then I\ncan encourage you to come to the ministry of Christ. I myself am of the\nold school and believe in the miracles, or if not in all, at all events\nin most; but I recognize that this belief\u2014though to me it seems safer\nand desirable\u2014is not essential: come therefore to the ministry, with the\nmiracles if you can, without them if you cannot.\u201d\n\nHere indeed is a reasonable criterion of fitness for ordination: and if\na man cannot satisfy this, I do not see how he can complain of being\nexcluded. But no other criterion seems likely to be permanently tenable.\nFor imagine yourself to be a Bishop, trying to lay down some short,\nprecise, and convenient test, as regards the belief in the miraculous:\nwhere are you to draw the line? A young man, eminently fit in all\nrespects for ministerial work, comes to you and says that he accepts all\nthe miracles but one; he cannot bring himself to believe that Joshua\nstopped the movement of the sun (or earth). What are you to do? Reject\nhim? Surely not: not even though you were Canon Liddon, raised (as I\nhope he will be raised) to the episcopal bench. The Universities would\njoin in protest against your bigotry; the whole of educated society\nwould secede from the Church on such conditions: the masses of\nnon-Christian and semi-Christian working men would cry out that such a\nrejection was a portent of tyranny, and that the men who could accept\nadmission to the priesthood on such terms as these were no better than\nsuperstitious dolts and slaves, creatures to be suppressed in a free\ncountry! Well, then, you admit him: will you reject his younger brother\nnext year, who finds that he cannot accept the miracle of Balaam\u2019s ass\nspeaking with a human voice? Certainly you will admit him too. And now\nwhere are you to stop? If you admit a man who denies two miracles, will\nyou accept a man who denies a third, say, the miracle of Elisha\u2019s\nfloating axe-head? And if three, why not four? why not five? and so on\nto the end of the list?\n\nAgain, a man comes to you and says that he feels obliged to reject as an\ninterpolation\u2014although willing to read them as part of an erroneous but\nlong cherished tradition\u2014the well-known words at the end of the Lord\u2019s\nPrayer, \u201cfor thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and\never:\u201d what will you do to him? Refuse him? Surely not. The Revisers of\nthe New Testament have themselves rejected the addition, and I am quite\nsure no scholar who valued God\u2019s Word, and certainly no Bishop, would\nwish to reject a man for preferring the New Version of the Bible to the\nOld. But, if you admit him, what are you to say to his companion, who\nrejects also the last twelve verses of St. Mark\u2019s Gospel? In my opinion,\na man must be, Hellenistically speaking, an \u201cidiot,\u201d\u2014a Greek \u201cidiot,\u201d\nwhat the Greeks call _idiot\u00e8s_\u2014to believe in their genuineness. But even\nthough you, being a busy Bishop, may have forgotten a good deal of\nGreek, you cannot forget the decision of the Revisers. For here again\nthe Revisers are on the young man\u2019s side. They have printed this passage\nas a kind of Appendix, placing an interval between it and the Gospel,\nand appending this note: \u201cThe two oldest Greek MSS. and some older\nauthorities, omit from verse 9 to the end. Some other authorities have a\ndifferent ending to the Gospel.\u201d Now if you admit the rejecter of these\ntwo passages, will you refuse his companion, who tells you he is\ncompelled to agree with the Revisers also as to a third passage, John\nvii. 53\u2014viii. 11, where the Revised Version brackets several verses,\nadding this note, \u201cMost of the ancient authorities omit John vii.\n53\u2014viii. 11. Those which contain it vary much from each other\u201d? You must\ncertainly accept him. But if you accept him, what are you to say to\nyoung men who go further and reject whole books of the New Testament,\nfor example, the Second Epistle of St. Peter; the genuineness of which\nhas been impeached by a great consent of authorities, and concerning\nwhich Canon Westcott says that it is the \u201cone exception\u201d to the\nstatement that the combined canons of the Eastern and Western Churches\nwould produce \u201ca perfect New Testament\u201d? And if we let him pass, under\nCanon Westcott\u2019s wing, how shall we deal with the next candidate, who\nreminds us that Luther rejected the Apocalypse and the Epistle of St.\nJames, and declares that he cannot help agreeing with Luther? What\nlastly is to be the fate of those who avow that they cannot shut their\neyes to the traces, even in the Synoptic Gospels, of considerable\ninterpolations or late traditions, especially in those portions which\ncontain miraculous narrative? Perhaps we might feel inclined to say, \u201cWe\nwill take our stand on Westcott and Hort\u2019s text, or on the text of the\nRevised Version, and will refuse any candidate who rejects a word of the\nNew Testament that is contained in either of these texts; the line must\nbe drawn somewhere, and we will draw it there.\u201d What! Shall we reject a\ncandidate for ordination because he does not accept the Gospel according\nto Westcott and Hort, or the Gospel according to an unauthorized though\nscholarly knot of men called the Revisers? Impossible! all Christendom\nwould cry shame upon us. On the whole, we seem driven to the conclusion\nthat no candidate for Anglican ordination can be reasonably rejected for\nbelieving that parts of the Bible are spurious or un-historical,\nprovided that he is willing to read in the presence of the congregation\nthe portions of Scripture appointed by the Church.\n\nIf the test of miracles fails, and if the test of an infallible book\nfails, so too does failure await the test of an infallible Creed. It\nwould be, at all events, departing strangely from the spirit of the\nReformers and from the spirit of the Articles, to allow men laxity as\nregards the interpretation of the Scriptures, which are regarded as\nspecially inspired, and yet to pin them to the letter of the Creeds,\nwhich are regarded as being authoritative because they are based on the\nScriptures. If a candidate were to tell you, his Bishop, that \u201che\naccepted the Resurrection of Christ, and even of Christ\u2019s body, but that\nhe could not honestly say that Christ rose on the third day; for Christ\nwas buried on the evening of Friday, and rose early on the morning of\nSunday, that is to say, on the second day,\u201d you would perhaps reason\nwith him, and say that it was the Jewish way of reckoning; and if he\nwere then to reply to you that to the greater part of the congregation\nthis way of reckoning was unknown, and that the phrase might therefore\nconvey a false impression\u2014what would you say to this ultra-conscientious\nyoung man? This probably: that \u201cthe Creeds of Christendom could not be\ndisturbed on account of the eccentricities of well-meaning individuals;\nthat, if this was his only obstacle, you, his Bishop, could take upon\nyourself to justify him in repeating these words as the mouthpiece of\nthe congregation; that it was quite open to him to explain the true\nmeaning of the words from the pulpit; and that little misunderstandings\nof this kind, if indeed there was danger of any, were insignificant as\ncompared with belief in the essential fact that Jesus rose from the\ndead.\u201d\n\nWhen the young man goes out\u2014probably satisfied, unless he is very\nobstinate, and you a little impatient\u2014let us suppose that another man\ncomes in, with a different objection to the same clause. He accepts the\nessential fact that Jesus rose from the dead, and he does not object to\nthe words, \u201cthe third day,\u201d but he does not believe that the material\nbody of Jesus rose from the tomb. He believes that Jesus Himself, that\nis to say, His spirit, rose from the dead, and that He manifested\nHimself to His disciples in a spiritual body, which, in accordance with\nsome law of our human spiritual nature, was manifested to those, and\nonly to those, who loved Him or believed in Him.[39] This is a more\nserious objection by far: for you have to consider, first, whether the\nyoung man is likely to hold fast his belief in the spiritual\nResurrection of Jesus, when based on such evidence as this; and secondly\nwhether he can preach the Gospel of the risen Saviour without raising\nall sorts of questions and difficulties in minds unprepared to grapple\nwith them. At this point, then, I cannot blame your episcopal judgment\nif you take time to decide, and if, before deciding, you do your best to\nascertain what manner of man you have to deal with, and, in particular,\nwhether his stability is equal to his ability. \u201cDoubts and difficulties\u201d\nmay sometimes betoken, not so much a mind that thinks for itself, as a\ndisposition to affect singularity and to strain after constant novelty.\nBut if you are satisfied on this point, I think you would do well to\nadmit him to ordination. I would not exclude from the ministry any one\nwho can conscientiously worship Christ in accordance with the services\nof the Church of England, and preach the Gospel without shaking the\nfaith of the masses.\n\nPerhaps I shall seem to you (not now in the temporary episcopal capacity\nwhich you have occupied during the last few paragraphs, but as plain \u2014\u2014)\nvery illiberal in excluding from the broad boundaries of the National\nChurch those who are unable to worship Christ. But I am not prepared to\nalter the Nicene Creed or the Church Services; and if I could not\nworship Christ, I cannot think that I myself should desire to be\nincluded in the Church of England, as long as that Creed and the Church\nServices remained in use. For how could I offer prayer to Jesus? or say,\nin any sense, \u201cI believe in Jesus Christ, God of God, Light of Light,\nvery God of very God\u201d? No plea of metaphor would ever enable me to\nrepeat these words with any honesty, as long as I found myself unable to\nworship Christ. I confess to a secret feeling that many of those who at\nthe present time think they do not worship Christ, do in reality worship\nHim; and I have good hopes that some of them may, in time, when they\nsearch out their deepest feelings, find out that they have long been\nunconsciously worshipping Him, and that they can accept, with a\nspiritual interpretation, some things that have hitherto appeared to\nthem inadmissible.[40] But to demand that the Creeds and Church Services\nmay be remoulded, is a very different thing from asking to be allowed to\nput a metaphorical interpretation on one or two phrases in them. When\nParochial Councils are established, it may be found ultimately possible\nto give some larger latitude in the modification or multiplication of\nServices so as to make them more inclusive: but, after all,\ncongregations meet for worship, not for the sake of being liberal and\ninclusive; and the inclusion of non-worshippers of Christ can hardly be\ndemanded from a Church that worships Christ. Nor must the inclusion of\n\u201cadvanced thinkers\u201d be carried to such an extent as to exclude the great\nmass of ordinary believers.\n\nI myself, deeply though I sympathize in all essential matters with the\nChurch of England, should nevertheless be willing not only to be\nexcluded from it, but also to see excluded all who may take the same\nviews as I take, rather than that the simple faith in Christ entertained\nby the great body of Christians should be injured by the premature\ndisruption of those material beliefs and integumentary illusions with\nwhich, at present, their spiritual beliefs are inseparably connected.\nAnd this brings me to another side of the question. If I were publishing\nan appeal to the Bishops, I should certainly add an appeal to the\nyounger Broad Church clergy. It ought not to be asking too much from a\nyoung preacher who is an \u201cadvanced thinker,\u201d to remember that some\nreverence is due to the simpler members of his flock. Many of those whom\nhe authoritatively instructs are older, wiser at present, of larger\nexperience in life, some of them perhaps more spiritually minded, than\nhe is. What if their deepest and most cherished religious convictions,\nright in the main, are tied to certain expressions and narratives that\nmay not be historically accurate? Does it follow that their feelings are\nto be outraged at any moment by assaults upon the ancient forms and\nexpressions of their belief from the lips of a young man who professes\nto accept these forms, and takes the money of the Church for accepting\nthem? Such attacks upon the forms are at present worse than useless,\nbecause they are sure to be construed into attacks upon the spirit. In\ntime a change will come, and even now a minister may do something to\nprepare the way for the change. He may institute Bible lectures to which\nhe may invite the attendance of those alone who wish to study the Bible\ncritically, and those whose reading and attainments qualify them to\ncriticize, or to follow criticism. But, from the pulpit, matter of this\nkind should be altogether excluded.\n\nNor need the preacher fear lest such restriction should shackle his\nliberty and take the life out of his sermons. In almost every case one\ninvariable rule can be laid down which will give ample scope to him and\nno offence to his hearers: \u201cAlways preach what you believe to be true,\nand never go out of your way in order to attack what you believe to be\nuntrue.\u201d For example, your flock believes that Christ\u2019s body (the\ntangible body) was raised from the grave; you do not. Well then, do not\nattack their material belief; but preach your spiritual belief. Teach\nthem that Christ\u2019s Resurrection implies a real though invisible triumph\nover the invisible enemy death; a real, though invisible, sitting at the\nright hand of God; a real, though invisible, presence in the heart of\nevery one who loves and trusts Him. Thus you may teach the habit of\nreverence, simultaneously with the habit of inquiry; a love of the old\nforms, combined with a still deeper love of the new truths that may be\ndiscovered beneath them; thus you will not shake the faith of a single\nchild; you will be impressing upon all alike unadulterated, precious\ntruth without sacrificing a little of your own convictions; and at the\nsame time you will be insensibly preparing the younger portion of your\nflock to detach the material part of their belief from the spiritual,\nand to retain the latter when the time may come that shall force them to\ngive up the former. In a similar spirit you should deal with the\nAscension and the Incarnation, not pointing out the difficulties\ninvolved in the material belief of those dogmas, nor saying a word to\ndisparage those who believe in them, but doing your utmost to bring out\nthe spiritual truths and invisible processes which are represented by\nthose dogmas. Surely such a self-restraint as this is not more than may\nfairly be demanded from any honourable man, I will not say from a\nChristian, but from a gentleman. Your congregation are in their own\nparish church; they are bound by conventional respect and by\ndeeply-rooted reverence for tradition and for the House of God, not to\nmanifest any such open disapprobation of your teaching as would be\nfreely permissible at a public meeting; you are their servant, and the\nservant, the paid servant, of the National Church; and yet you have them\nat your mercy while you stand in the pulpit. Profound consideration may\nfairly be expected from you for their prejudices, as you may please to\ncall them; and all the more because they are, as it were, in possession\nof the church, while you are an innovator, holding what must\u2014at all\nevents for some time to come\u2014appear to the multitude an entirely new\ndoctrine: they \u201cstand on the old ways.\u201d\n\nIf the teachers of natural or non-miraculous Christianity could be\ntrusted to preach in this spirit, they might, I think, do a good work as\nministers in the Church of England, without injury to themselves, and\nwith much advantage to the nation. If not, they must come out of the\nChurch for the purposes of teaching; and that, I fear, would result in\nmischief both for the Church and for the State. I believe that not a few\nof the educated clergy are either suspending their belief about\nmiracles, or have decided against them; and if these were suddenly to be\nbanished, or gradually to drop out of the clerical ranks without\nreceiving any successors of their way of thinking, the gulf would be\nwidened between the clergy and the educated laity. The men who might\ndiscover new religious truth and prepare the way for new religious\ndevelopment, having henceforth to earn their living in other ways, would\nfind little leisure for critical study. The end would be that the nation\nwould be for a time divided between superstition and agnosticism; and\nsober religion would go to the wall.\n\nNot indeed that the destinies of the Gospel of Christ are to be supposed\nto be permanently determinable by the fate of a fraction of the Broad\nChurch section of the English clergy! The attraction of the natural\nworship of Christ\u2014strange, nay, impossible though it may seem when first\npresented to the miracle-craving mind\u2014is far too great to admit the\npossibility of its ultimate failure. But first there must come a vast\nand depressing defection on the part of those nominal Christians who\nhave hitherto worshipped Christ on the basis of an infallible Church, or\non the basis of an infallible Book, or on the basis of indisputable\nMiracles. Perhaps this collapse will be precipitated by the discovery of\na copy of some Gospel of the first century, turned up when\nConstantinople is evacuated by the Turks. You cannot have forgotten how\nthis year (1885) the educated religious world in England held its breath\nin horrible suspense when the correspondent of the _Times_ telegraphed\nthat among the Egyptian manuscripts recently purchased by an Austrian\narch-duke, there had been disinterred a fragment belonging to a Gospel\npreceding, and differing from, any now extant. From this terrible\ndiscovery orthodoxy was delivered, for this once, by the learning of\nProfessor Hort: but who shall guarantee that a Professor Hort shall be\nable, or even willing, to deny the proto-evangelic claims of the\nnext-discovered manuscript from the East? And then, what will become of\nsome of us!\n\nIn any case, with or without such discoveries, the present word-faith,\nand book-faith, and authority-faith in the Lord Jesus, must sooner or\nlater collapse; and people must be driven to the conclusion that the\nLord Jesus Himself must somehow be worshipped through Himself\u2014Jesus\nthrough the Spirit of Jesus, that Spirit which is apparent in families\nand nations and Churches as well as in the New Testament, the Spirit of\nLove whence springs that mutual helpfulness which in the New Testament\nwe call \u201cfellowship\u201d and in the newspapers \u201csocialism.\u201d This and this\nalone will help us to apply our science to settle land questions, Church\nquestions, and war questions, policy domestic and foreign, and to\nestablish concord in the world, the nation, and the human heart. I do\nnot say that a time will ever come when there will be no obstacles to\nfaith in Christ. Moral obstacles will still exist to make faith\ndifficult: but some at least of the intellectual difficulties by which\nwe now shut ourselves out from Christian hope will then be dissipated.\n_Odium theologicum_ will become meaningless. There will have arrived at\nlast that blessed time, predicted (1603) by Francis Bacon (shall we say\njust three hundred years too soon?), bringing with it \u201cthe consumption\nof all that can ever be said in controversies of religion;\u201d and\nhenceforth there will be no \u201ccontroversies,\u201d only discussions and\ndiscoveries.\n\nThen, with its mind freed from superstitious terrors and full of an\nunquenchable hope, the human race, owning its allegiance to the Eternal\nGoodness, and accepting as its captain the Working Man of Nazareth, will\naddress itself steadily to the work of Christian socialism, honouring\nand encouraging labour without unwise and spasmodic pampering of it,\ndishonouring and discouraging idleness without unwise and direct\nrecourse to forcible suppression of it; remembering always that, as the\nideal Working Man was subject to law, so must they be subject to law,\nand as He bore suffering for the good of others, so must they be\nprepared to suffer as well as to work. This is true socialism and this\nis true Christianity. Do you deny it, and say, \u201cThis is not the\nChristianity that has been current for eighteen centuries\u201d? I reply,\nPerhaps not; and, if it is not, we can call it by some other name. You\nremember the saying of Lessing, that after eighteen centuries of\nChristianity, it was high time to try Christ. Let us then amend our\nphrase and say that true socialism will not be \u201cthe Christian religion\u201d\nbut something better. It will be the Christian Spirit.\n\nWe are taught by our Scriptures that it has been sometimes God\u2019s method\nto teach the wise in this world by means of those whom the world calls\nfoolish, and the strong and the rich in this world by those whom the\nworld calls weak and poor. If history is thus to repeat itself, it may\nbe reserved for the semi-Christian or non-Christian working man, for the\nheretic or agnostic socialist, to guide orthodox and religious England\ninto a higher and purer and more spiritual form of Christianity. Yet on\nthe other hand, since intellectual movements come often from above,\nthough moral movements come from below, I cannot give up the hope that\nit may be reserved for the clergy of the Church of England to do\nsomething towards the removal of those merely intellectual difficulties\nwhich are at present keeping multitudes of the workers, and not a few of\nthe thinkers, in our country, from recognizing their true Deliverer.\n\nFootnote 39:\n\n  For the apparent exception of St. Paul, see above, p. 244.\n\nFootnote 40:\n\n  You should look at a most interesting and instructive article by Dr.\n  Martineau in the _Christian Reformer_ (vol. i. p. 78), in which he\n  points out that, in a certain sense, the faith professed by\n  Trinitarians \u201cin the Son, is so far from being an idolatry, that it is\n  identical, under change of name, with the Unitarian worship of Him who\n  dwelt in Christ. He who is the Son in one creed is the Father in the\n  other; and the two are agreed, not indeed by any means _throughout_,\n  but in that which constitutes the pith and kernel of both faiths.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n                              DEFINITIONS\n\n\n                               i. Reality\n\n\n    1. _Absolute reality cannot be comprehended by men, and can only be\n    apprehended as God or in God by a combination of Desire and\n    Imagination, to which we give the name of Faith._\n\n    2. _Among objects of sensation those are (relatively) real which\n    present similar sensations in similar circumstances._\n\n\n                               ii. Force\n\n\n\u201cImagined\u201d is inserted, throughout these Definitions, as a reminder that\nthe existence of all these objects of definition, however real, is\nsuggested to us by the Imagination.\n\n    _Force is that which is imagined to immediately produce, or tend to\n    produce, motion._\n\nWhy \u201cimmediately\u201d? Because a particle of \u201cmatter\u201d\u2014attracting, as it\ndoes, every other particle of \u201cmatter\u201d\u2014may be said to \u201ctend to produce\nmotion.\u201d Yet \u201cmatter\u201d is not said to _be_ force, but to \u201c_exert_\u201d force.\n\u201cMatter\u201d is imagined to attract \u201cmatter\u201d through the medium of force, or\n\u201cmediately.\u201d But force is imagined to act \u201cimmediately.\u201d Hence the\ninsertion of the word.\n\n\n                         iii. Cause and Effect\n\n\n    _When one thing is imagined to produce, or tend to produce, a\n    second, the first is called the Cause of the second, and the second\n    the Effect of the first._\n\n\n                               iv. Spirit\n\n\n    _Spirit, i.e. Breath or Wind, is a metaphorical name\u2014implying\n    subtleness, invisibility, ubiquitousness and life-giving power\u2014given\n    to the ultimate Cause of Force; and hence sometimes to the Cause of\n    beneficent Force in the Universe, i.e. God; sometimes to the Cause\n    of Force in the human individual; more rarely to the Cause or Causes\n    of maleficent Forces in the Universe._\n\n\n                               v. Matter\n\n\nThe existence of Matter has never been proved; and it is nothing but a\nhypothesis. All the phenomena called \u201cmaterial\u201d might be explained,\nwithout Matter, by the hypothesis of a number of centres of force. The\n_raison d\u2019\u00eatre_ of Matter is the notion of tangibility. But scientific\nmen now tell us that no atom ever touches another. If this be so,\nscientific tangibility disappears and the _raison d\u2019\u00eatre_ of Matter\ndisappears, with it. But it is so natural a figment that we shall all\nprobably talk about it, and most of us probably will believe in it,\nuntil human nature is very much changed.\n\nMatter cannot be defined positively except by repeating, in some\ndisguise, the word to be defined, as thus:\u2014\n\n    _Material, or Matter, is a name given to an unascertained and\n    hypothetical \u201cmaterial,\u201d \u201cmatter,\u201d_ \u201c_substance,\u201d or \u201cfundamental\n    stuff,\u201d of which we commonly imagine all objects of sensation to be\n    composed._\n\n\n                               vi. Nature\n\n\n    1. _Nature means sometimes the (1) ordinary, or (2) orderly course\n    of things apart from the present and direct intervention of human\n    Will; sometimes the (3) ordinary or (4) orderly course of humanity;\n    sometimes the (5) ordinary or (6) orderly course of all things._\n\n    2. _Law of Nature is a metaphorical name for a frequently observed\n    sequence of phenomena (apart from human Will) implying, to some\n    minds, regularity; to others, absolute invariability._\n\n    3. _Miracle means a supposed suspension of a Sequence, or Law, of\n    Nature; Marvel, or Mighty Work, means a rare Sequence of Nature, in\n    which great Effects are produced by Causes seemingly, but not\n    really, inadequate._\n\n    4. _\u201cSupernatural\u201d is the name given, in these letters, to the\n    existence of a God; and to His creation and continuous development\n    of all things: the divine action being regarded, not as contrary to\n    Nature, but as above Nature; not as suspending the sequences of\n    Nature, but as originating and supporting them._\n\n\n                               vii. Will\n\n\n    _The Will is the power of giving to some one of our desires, or to\n    some one group of compatible desires, permanent predominance over\n    the rest._\n\nAn addition might be suggested: \u201cthe power of controlling our desires.\u201d\nBut we appear never to control our desires except by enthroning some one\ndesire (or group of desires)\u2014whether it be the desire to gain power, to\nruin an enemy, to do right, or to serve God.\n\n\n                            viii. Attention\n\n\n    _Attention is the power by which we impress upon our mind that which\n    is present._\n\n\n                               ix. Memory\n\n\n    _Memory is the power by which we retain or recall to our mind that\n    which is past._\n\n\n                             x. Imagination\n\n\n    _Imagination is the power by which we combine or vary the mental\n    images retained by Memory, often with a view to finding some unity\n    in them; and by which we are enabled to image forth the future\n    through anticipating its harmony with the past and present._\n\n\n                               xi. Reason\n\n\n    _Reason (or, as some prefer to call it in this limited sense,\n    Understanding) is the power by which we compare, and, from our\n    comparisons, draw inferences or conclusions. By means of it we\n    compare the suggestions of the Imagination with the suggestions of\n    Experience, and accept or reject the former in accordance with the\n    result of our comparison._\n\n\n                               xii. Hope\n\n\n    _Hope is desire, of which we imagine the fulfilment, while\n    recognizing the presence of doubt._\n\n\n                              xiii. Faith\n\n\nThe following Definition appears to me to be the basis of all theology.\nIt is no more than an emphatic restatement of the old saying, \u201cFaith is\nthe _assurance of_ (or _giving substance to_) things _hoped for_.\u201d Since\n_hope_ is but a weaker and more hesitant form of _desire_, the _imaging\nforth of_ (or _giving substance to_) things earnestly _hoped for_ must\nimply the vivid _imagination_ of the fulfilment of things _desired_.\n\n    _Faith (when not loosely used for Belief) is desire (approved by the\n    Conscience) of which we imagine the fulfilment, while putting doubt\n    at a distance._\n\n\u201c_Faith_ in a friend\u201d means a _desire_ as well as a belief\u2014that he will\ndo what you think he ought to do. \u201cFaith\u201d should never be used to\nexpress a belief that something undesirable or wrong will happen, _e.g._\n\u201cI have great _faith_ that the boy will go wrong.\u201d \u201cFaith\u201d in the\nuniformity of Nature implies a desire that Nature should be uniform, and\na feeling that it is God\u2019s will. In moments when we dread the uniformity\nof Nature we should say that we have a \u201cconviction\u201d or \u201cexpectation\u201d of\nit, not that we have \u201cfaith\u201d in it.\n\n\u201cPutting doubt at a distance is intended to include the different\ndegrees of faith: in the highest faith, the \u2018distance\u2019 is infinite.\n\n\u201cWhen \u2018faith\u2019 is said to be \u2018shaken,\u2019 we may mean that, though the\ndesire may remain, doubt is not \u2018put at a distance;\u2019 or that the\nConscience no longer approves of the desire; or that the desire itself\nis weakened.\u201d\n\n\n                              xiv. Belief\n\n\n    _Belief (when it is not used for Faith) means a sense, mixed with\n    doubt, that the affirmations of our mind will harmonize with\n    Experience._[41]\n\n\n                      xv. Certainty, or Conviction\n\n\n    _Certainty, or Conviction, is a sense, unmixed with doubt, that the\n    affirmations of our mind will harmonize with Experience._\n\n\n                             xvi. Knowledge\n\n\n    1. _Absolute knowledge, which is possessed by no man, would be an\n    identity between our mental affirmations and those of the Creator;\n    who knows all things in their Essence and Causes._\n\n    2. _Knowledge (relative and ordinary) is (very often) a name loosely\n    given to a harmony between our mental affirmations and the\n    affirmations of the vast majority of those who have (or are thought\n    by the majority to have) the best opportunities for observation and\n    judgement._\n\n    _It might be more usefully defined as those mental affirmations\n    which harmonize with our nature and environment, i.e. with our\n    spiritual and material experience._\n\n\n                     xvii. Illusions and Delusions\n\n\n    _Illusions are mental affirmations not harmonizing with immediate\n    experience, but preparatory for absolute knowledge. Delusions are\n    mental affirmations not harmonizing with experience, nor preparatory\n    for absolute knowledge._\n\nFootnote 41:\n\n  Some might prefer \u201charmonize with experience _or with fact_.\u201d But\n  \u201charmony with _fact_\u201d can _never_ be proved: you can only prove\n  harmony with your experience, or with the general experience, of the\n  fact; or with experience of what others say about the fact.\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\nRICHARD CLAY AND SONS, LONDON AND BUNGAY.\n\n\n\n\n \u25cf Transcriber\u2019s Notes:\n    \u25cb Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected.\n    \u25cb Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only\n      when a predominant form was found in this book.\n    \u25cb Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).\n    \u25cb Text that was in bold face is enclosed by equals signs (=bold=).\n    \u25cb Footnotes have been moved to follow the letters in which they are\n      referenced.","title":"The Kernel and the Husk: Letters on Spiritual Christianity","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":120361}