{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_65545/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_65545","id":"gutenberg_65545","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/65545","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Conduct of life","Human beings"],"text":"Note: Images of the original pages are available through\n      Internet Archive. See\n      https://archive.org/details/makingofman00leej\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE MAKING OF A MAN\n\nby\n\nREV. J. W. LEE, D. D.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nNew York\nCassell Publishing Company\n104 & 106 Fourth Avenue\n\nCopyright, 1892, by\nCassell Publishing Company.\n\nAll rights reserved.\n\nThe Mershon Company Press,\nRahway, N. J.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\n                                                          PAGE\n\n    INTRODUCTION,                                            3\n\n                          I. BREAD.\n\n    THE PROVISION FOR THE PHYSICAL NATURE OF MAN,           39\n\n                         II. POWER.\n\n    THE PROVISION FOR THE SOCIAL NATURE OF MAN,             83\n\n                         III. TRUTH.\n\n    THE PROVISION FOR THE INTELLECTUAL NATURE OF MAN,      137\n\n                     IV. RIGHTEOUSNESS.\n\n    THE PROVISION FOR THE MORAL NATURE OF MAN,             203\n\n                         V. BEAUTY.\n\n    THE PROVISION FOR THE \u00c6STHETIC NATURE OF MAN,          253\n\n                          VI. LOVE.\n\n    THE PROVISION FOR THE SPIRITUAL NATURE OF MAN,         293\n\n                      VII. IMMORTALITY.\n\n    THE PERMANENCE OF THE COMPLETED LIFE OF MAN,           335\n\n\n\n\n_INTRODUCTION._\n\n\n    \u201cMy God, I heard this day\n    That none doth build a stately habitation\n    But he that means to dwell therein.\n    What house more stately hath there been,\n    Or can be, than is Man? to whose creation\n    All things are in decay.\n\n    \u201cMan is all symmetry\n    Full of proportions, one limb to another,\n    And all to all the world besides;\n    Each part may call the farthest brother,\n    For head with foot hath private amity,\n    And both with moons and tides.\n\n    \u201cFor us the winds do blow,\n    The earth doth rest, heaven move, and fountains flow:\n    Nothing we see but means our good\n    As our delight or as our treasure,\n    The whole is either our cupboard of food,\n    Or cabinet of pleasure.\n\n    \u201cSince then, my God, thou hast\n    So brave a palace built. Oh, dwell in it,\n    That it may dwell with thee at last!\n    Till then afford us so much wit\n    That as the world serves us, we may serve thee\n    And both thy servants be.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n\nNATURE AND MAN.\n\n\nThe meaning of creation is not understood till dust stands erect in\na living man. That a great purpose was present from the beginning,\ndirecting and controlling, there can be no doubt. It presided over the\nfirst nebulous mist that floated out to take form in the foundations of\nthe earth. It measured and weighed the matter and force necessary to\nform the globe. It determined the elements required to do the work lying\nthrough the years before it. It assigned to them their laws, specific\ngravities and affinities, and appointed, beforehand, the combinations and\ncollocations they were capable of making.\n\nBut not till the atoms throbbed in a human brain and beat in a human\nheart, did the purpose, which had through the ages run, stand out,\ndefined and justified. Then it was that the intention underneath the\ndrift of the ages spelled itself out in the unity of thought, the freedom\nof choice, and the capacity for love, potential in the intellect, will,\nand heart of the first man. He was the realization of an ideal, which\ngave meaning to the long periods of preparation. As the final expression\nof the creative process, he was at once the interpreter and the\ninterpretation of all that had gone before.\n\n\nI.\n\nWriters of a certain school have sought to minify man\u2019s place in nature.\nThey say, as Dr. Joseph Leconte well declares, that he is very closely\nconnected with, and forms a most insignificant part of, nature\u2014that\nhe has no kingdom of his own, but belongs to the animal kingdom; that\nin the animal kingdom he has no department of his own, but belongs\nto the department of the vertebrates\u2014along with birds, reptiles, and\nfishes; that in the department of the vertebrates he has no privileged\nclass of his own, but belongs to the class of the mammals, along with\nfour-footed beasts; that in the class of mammals he has no titled order\nof his own, but belongs to the order of primates, along with monkeys\nand baboons. His conscience is but the resultant of fear and instinct,\nslowly deposited through the years of his evolution. Its imperiousness\nis self-constituted. Its scepter it has usurped, and, from the\nexhalations of its own rising cowardice, it has woven the purple robes\nwhich constitute the badge of its authority. His morality consists of\nrules imposed by his own prudence, and which have no sanctions beyond\nthe opinions of his class or tribe. His religion is determined by the\nphysical conditions which surround his life\u2014his geographical situation,\nthe nature and configuration of his soil, his climate, and his food. Thus\nman is simply a natural product, while the civilization which he has\nproduced is as much determined by the physical conditions surrounding his\nlife, as the leaves and dates of the palm are determined by the physical\nconditions surrounding that tropical tree. The hopes and the trials, the\ncourage and the sacrifice of the best men, as well as the ambitions and\nmotives of the worst, are put on a level with the damps and winds. The\none class is entitled to no more credit for what is noble and heroic,\nthan is rain for nourishing the crops; while the other deserves no more\nrebuke for what is base and ignoble, than the lightning for striking\nthe Church and killing the people. The love which expresses itself in\nmonuments to commemorate the deeds of the good and the great, and the\ncondemnation which lifts itself into jails to confine the criminal and\nthe outlaw, have, in the last analysis, the same meaning. There is no\nsacred significance or obligations rooted in divine sanctions, in either\nthe monuments or the jails. Both are but fickle phases of the passing\nspirit.\n\nThe convictions of Moses, reproducing themselves in the government, laws,\nliterature, morality, and religion of a great people, conserving them\nthrough the ages as examples of order and health, have no more meaning\nthan the sap which rises in some monarch of the forest, to express\nitself in leaves and fruit. The conceptions of duty, which nerved the\nheart and inspired the courage of the Apostle Paul, leading him to plant\nchurches in Asia Minor, to become the seeds of modern civilization,\nwere as completely natural as the rising of the waters of some mountain\nspring, to flow over silver sands to the sea. The music of Beethoven,\nthe visions of Raphael, were but as the vapor in the light of the\nmorning sun, beautiful, perhaps, as the rainbow, but going out with the\nsetting day. Whatever of emotion or conscience they embodied, signified\nno more than the colors of the peach bloom, or the notes of the falling\ncascade. However esteemed the valor that risked life to break the reign\nof oppression and murder, it was but a varying form of the heartless\nambition that sought in strength to make it prevail. The patriotism of\nLeonidas, giving up his life to save his country, and the insane act of\nNero, swathing Christians in tar to light his feast, were forward and\nreverse movements of the same human spirit; both natural, and both as\nunmoral as the electricity that now strikes to destroy, and now burns the\nmalaria to save. No difference is made between poison in the fangs of\nsnakes, and mercy in the hearts of men.\n\nBack of nature there is no purpose, and in its manifold combinations and\nadaptations there is no design. It is only a vast aggregate of unresting\natoms, striking one upon another, and without intention and without\npurpose, forming pairs, clusters, and groups, and thus assuming the\nshapes we see. Why there happens to be order instead of chaos hangs on\nthe uncertain turn of luck.\n\n\nII.\n\nIf there is mind in the universe, and if there is purpose in the order\nand movements of the earth, then man is the culmination of that purpose,\nand with reference to him was the order constituted and the movements\ndetermined. If there is naught but matter and force, and these exist\nwithout any directing or co-ordinating mind, then all things are without\nintention and without reason. There is nothing good or bad. Nothing\nis right or wrong. All things are reduced to a meaningless level of\nindifference. But matter and force bear witness to mind. Matter is here\nwe know; and matter has not only form, extension, impenetrability, for\nits qualities, but indestructibility. Take the matter that enters into\nthe composition of the earth. The amount of it is fixed and definite. It\nmay be expressed in pounds weight. Since the beginning, not an atom has\nbeen added to it, or taken from it. Its presence here is to be accounted\nfor. It either determined its own existence, and the exact amount, in\npounds weight of that existence, or it was determined by some principle\nor power outside of itself, or within itself, called mind. If it\ndetermined itself to be, then it is intelligent, for self-determination\nand self-action are the essential characteristics of mind. Then\nintelligence is retained by being transferred from something called mind\nto something called matter. But it has never been claimed that matter is\nintelligent. Then it is not self-active or self-determining, and waits on\nmind for its existence and its movements.\n\nMatter as plainly bears testimony of the existence of mind, as to the\nexistence of itself. It is easier to believe that the earth has taken\nthe globular form and the circular motion by the determinations of mind,\nthan to believe that through its own determinations it has assumed a\ncircumference of twenty-five thousand miles, and the regular task of\nwheeling on its axis every twenty-four hours.\n\nNot only is it impossible to account for the exact amount of matter\nmaking up the earth\u2019s size and weight, without assuming the power of a\nco-ordinating, determining mind; but a still greater task is upon us,\nto account for the sixty odd original elements, out of which all things\nin nature are formed without mind. These elements differ in quantity,\nquality, specific gravity, and affinity. What determined their number,\ntheir tendencies, and affinities? Why something more than sixty; no\nmore, no less? Why so much of some, so little of others? We must either\nconclude that they determined themselves\u2014that they held a convention\nbefore they existed, and resolved upon taking form and motion, or else\nwe must believe that they were determined by some power, other than\nthemselves\u2014by mind. If by their own motion, oxygen, and iron, and gold\nare what they are; then the elements have the power of self-action and\nself-determination, and are therefore intelligent.\n\nThe collocations these elements form are more difficult still to be\naccounted for without the agency of mind. Figures piled up to the sun\nare not able to express the possible combinations they are capable of\nassuming. The possible combinations of even twenty-four letters of the\nalphabet could not be expressed in literature, filling the world with\nbooks. Much greater must be the number of combinations of the original\nelements\u2014the alphabet of creation. It is to be remembered, too, that\nthey disagree on more of their sides than they agree. They are by no\nmeans equally congenial. Friendships and unions between them are formed\nin accordance with the most exact rule and affinity. Does it not seem,\nthen, that combinations formed by chance would be mutually incompatible,\nneutralizing, and destructive? Would they not forever ferment in\nungoverned chaos? Yet we see them dwelling together in the utmost unity,\nlike seeking like, and in the bonds of law and harmony, uniting in\ncompound, mineral, vegetable, animal, and the body of man himself.\n\nWere there as many of the letter _a_, as there are atoms of oxygen; and\nas many of the letter _b_, as there are atoms of hydrogen; and were the\nletters of the alphabet to be increased in proportion to their use,\nuntil they should equal the atoms of all the elements which enter into\nthe composition of the globe; how long would it take these letters,\nstirred by some force like the winds, to assume the form of such a poem\nas Paradise Lost? We cannot believe that all these letters, stirred by an\nunseen force through infinite ages, would ever form a sensible verse of\npoetry, or a rational verse of prose. It is as difficult to understand\nhow the letters of the alphabet could ever get into the rhythm of\nParadise Lost, without Milton\u2019s mind, as to understand how unconscious\nelements took the form of mountain, sea, grove, and globe; round,\narticulate, and law abiding, without a great co-ordinating mind.\n\nThe physical forces and energies bear indubitable testimony to the\nexistence of mind, not only outside of themselves, but in themselves and\nthrough themselves. We have the force of gravitation, the power which\nbodies have of attracting one another in proportion to their mass, and\ninversely as the squares of their distance; in other words, that power\nwhich bodies have of getting up mutually aggregative motion, unless\nprevented by some other power of an opposite nature. A body suspended in\nthe air is attracted toward the earth by the force of gravitation. A lump\nof sugar held over a cup of tea, attracts into itself the water of the\ntea cup. This is done by the force known as capillarity. A piece of iron\nleft exposed attracts the particles of oxygen in the atmosphere. This\nis done by the force known as chemical affinity. Why do bodies attract\none another in proportion to their mass and inversely as the squares of\ntheir distance? Why does a lump of sugar, held close over a cup of water,\nattract the particles of water into itself? Why does a piece of iron in\nthe atmosphere attract to itself the oxygen? We are told it is because\nof gravitation, capillarity, and chemical affinity. How happens it that\nthese forces have methods of action known as gravitation, capillarity,\nand chemical affinity? They either determined themselves to have them and\nto act in accordance with them, or else some power other than themselves\ndetermined these methods of action for them.\n\nThe truth is, gravitation, capillarity, and chemical affinity are but\nterms we use to define the operations of mind. To name a force and to\nfind the formula in accordance with which it works, is not to determine\nthe origin of its source. And because we have, by observation and\nexperiment, found out the methods and the measures of the mind\u2019s working,\nis no good reason why we should read mind out of the process altogether.\nThis is to mistake names for causes; and to suppose when one learns how a\nforce acts, that he has also learned what it is that acts.\n\nA contemporary of Shakspere might have observed the poet so closely in\nhis home at Stratford-upon-Avon, as to be able to give to the world a\ndetailed and exact account of his habits of thought and hours of study;\nbut this would not have kept the intelligent part of mankind from\nbelieving that a great mind had embodied itself in the immortal plays of\nShakspere.\n\nHeat, electricity, light, and magnetism must also be expressions of mind,\nfor the same reason that matter is an expression of mind. To believe\nthem self-determined, is to believe them rational and intelligent. This\nhas never been claimed, hence our only way of accounting for their\nexistence is to regard them as the determinations of mind. We see them,\nday by day, lending themselves to the uses and devices of man\u2019s thought,\nand expressions of thought they must be.\n\n\nIII.\n\nThis whole subject resolves itself into the question, Which is\nfundamental and prior, mind or matter? If mind is fundamental and prior,\nthen there is design, intention, and purpose in nature. If matter is\nfirst and fundamental, there is no such thing as design, intention, or\npurpose anywhere. If mind is first and fundamental, then man is the end\nand aim of creation, for in him the mind that formed the earth finds a\ncompanion and an interpreter. If matter is first and fundamental, then\nthe earth is as much for crocodiles and wolves, as for men, and the\nlife of a human being is no better than that of a lizard. If matter is\nfundamental, it were better to be a crocodile or an elephant than to be\na man, for they have more of the fundamental stuff of the universe in\ntheir bodies; and their brains generate none of that subtle something\ncalled _mind_, which perpetually asks questions that have no answer, and\ncherishes beliefs that have no foundation. If matter is fundamental, then\nwe should trust our faculties, in proportion as they are animal, and deny\nthem in proportion as they are mental. Then the Neros and the Caligulas\nwere more rational in their sins, than the Luthers and the Wesleys in\ntheir virtues. By following their lusts, the former found pleasure, of a\nlow order of course, but in the realm of the real; the latter, following\ntheir convictions, found pleasure, of a higher order it may be, but it\nwas in a false and unreal domain. It were better to be true to the facts\non the plain of the appetites, than to be the silly victims of fraud on\nthe plain of the conscience and the affections. But it is impossible that\nmen have been true as they have been degraded, and false as they have\nbeen pure. The design and purpose which has been apparent in nature, and\nwhich men have felt in conscience approving the right and condemning\nthe wrong, must be there. To eliminate them, or to reason them away, is\nto bring mental confusion, and to take from the conviction and thought,\nwhich have made civilization, the principles on which they reposed, and\nby which they were inspired.\n\n\nIV.\n\nMan has no deeper and surer impression than that the world belongs to him\nand was made for him. It is deepened year by year, too, as he sees the\nrelations he sustains to it increase. No more certainly are the walls,\nroof, and floor of a house related to the comfort and protection of the\nfamily, than are the elements, forces, and seasons of nature related to\nthe well-being and civilization of man. Mountain and sky, meadow and\nforest, the past and the present are permeated with the thought, or idea,\nof man, whether in the first stages of progress, keeping beasts at bay\nwith sling or stone, or at a more advanced period, tunneling the rivers\nand digging down the mountains. Young or old, child or man, nature stands\nready to serve him. Water from her skies flows through his veins to and\nfrom his beating heart. Trees and shrubs and herbs minister to his\npleasure and his ills. Rocks, and timber, and steel lend themselves to\nhis service for house, hatchet, or chisel. When he ascends sufficiently\nin the grade of civilization to give expression to his conceptions of\nbeauty, he finds the colors in the ores under his feet to embody his\nvisions. Would he illuminate his humble home at night, there is the pine\nwith its light-giving tar. Does he live amid the plains, where the pine\ndoes not grow, there is the ox with his tallow ready to be made into\ncandles. Does he live on the coast, away from the ox or the pine, there\nis the whale with his oil. Does he want a better light than pine, or\ntallow, or oil can give, there are the coal beds, with their sunshine\nlaid up for his use for thousands of ages. Does he wish to turn night\ninto day, and make his streets glow with the radiance of the stars,\nthere is electricity to be drawn from its wide, mysterious fields, to\nserve his growing desire. Would he cross the sea, the winds lie ready to\nfill his canvas and draw him from continent to continent. Are the winds\ntoo slow, there is the heat, stored in the mountains, ready to move his\nengine and drive his wheel. Does he wish to make himself ubiquitous, and\nsend a message across the sea, before a ship could get out of port, there\nwaits on him again the mysterious lightning.\n\nNature teems with elements and forces to wait on man\u2019s every thought, to\ngratify his every desire, and to respond to his every aspiration. With\nall her wealth she surrounds him, and in ten thousand ways invites him to\nuse it. The naturalist Guyot said the hand of man prefigures his destiny\nas an intelligent worker. So the form of all continents and islands, the\noutlines of all seas and coasts, contain the idea of the human family. At\na time, geologically about the same, the surface conditions of the earth\nwere prepared for the advent of man. The great Himalaya Mountain range\nwas lifted up to prepare an embosoming plain to serve as a cradle for the\nhuman race. The long chain of mountains running through the whole length\nof the North and South American continents was raised to prepare the way\nfor civilization on this side of the sea. When the ocean beds were dug\nout and the waters called off from a part of the earth\u2019s surface; when\nthe mighty peaks and the majestic turrets of the mountain chains were\nlifted into the sky; when the encompassing atmosphere was filled with all\nlife-replenishing elements and wrapped about all oceans and shores; when\nthe poisonous forces destructive of man\u2019s life were locked up in soils\nand rocks; when the meadows were sown with grasses, and the hospitable\narms of the trees were loaded with fruit, then, upon the earth, adorned\nand ready for his coming, man appeared.\n\n\nV.\n\nConsidered as an embodiment of thought, man is the only creature who can\ninterpret Nature. The ideas and principles that fill his great books\nwere gathered from a study of her secrets and processes. The first books\non geology, giving the history of the earth, its upheavals, changes,\nand transformations, were written in the rocks, sands, coal-beds, and\nshells of the primal ages. The first books on chemistry were written in\nthe shape, sizes, affinities, and specific gravities of the atoms which\nenter into the composition of all natural bodies. The first books on\narithmetic, by the knowledge of which man learns to divide and conquer\nnature, were written in the qualitative relations and movements of\nmatter. The first books on astronomy were written in the orbits and\nmovements of the heavenly bodies. The first books on zo\u00f6logy were written\nin the structure and habits of the lower animals. The books that fill\nour libraries are but transcripts from the original volumes written in\nrocks, seas, flowers, and skies. Man is the only being who can read and\ntranscribe these wonderful volumes. They lie unopened and unknown till\nhis interest is provoked. Their language carries no meaning till he comes\nto find it and to ponder it. The herds that low amid the Alpine echoes\nsee, as well as the distinguished Tyndall, the great glaciers, as they\npress with slow and measured pace down the mountain side; but their\nmeaning, and the law by which they move, is not known till the man of\nscience comes. To him, they speak in awful and majestic terms. To the\nsheep in the meadow, the grass means nothing but food; to man, however,\nevery blade has a message, poetic and beautiful.\n\nConsidered as a home, this world was made for man; in a thousand senses,\nit was not made for any other creature. It is the home of the oyster,\nbut its wants are met by a little basin in the sea. It is the home of\nthe elephant, but a few acres of Asiatic jungle furnish the food and the\nconditions necessary to its life. It is the home of the bird, but give it\na tree and a worm, and a small circle of sky to fly around, and it needs\nno more. But man needs it all. For his hunger, the foods and the fruits\nof its continents, oceans, and skies. For his thirst, the waters of its\nthousand rills. For his shelter and protection, all its woods. For his\nthought, all its order and law. For his ills, the tender ministry of all\nits minerals and plants. He is related to it all, and to be completely\nfurnished must be able to use it all.\n\nConsidered as a place of discipline, the earth is for man, for he is the\nonly creature helped and advanced by discipline. The beaver cuts his\ntree and builds his dam to-day just as the beaver did in the first year\nof his existence. He has had the discipline that comes through work,\nbut it has not improved him nor elevated him. In order that the bee may\nlive, he must gather his honey and build his cell. This is discipline.\nBut he never improves. He never grows in culture or skill. The bee that\nbuilt his cell in the trees of paradise, and gathered his honey from the\nflowers that grew in the garden of Eden, knew as well how to construct\na cell according to mathematical principles, and to pack it with honey,\nas the Italian bee of the nineteenth century, who stores his honey in a\npainted gum prepared for him by man.\n\nMonkeys in South America cross rivers by twisting their tails, thus\nmaking bridges of themselves. This is discipline and exercise of a\ncomplex and marvelous sort, but they devise no new ways of building\nbridges. They do not increase in knowledge or skill by their work.\nThat he may gain the means of subsistence, man is under the necessity\nof work too. But his work is to him a means of growth and knowledge.\nHis work has helped him forward, and secured to him culture and skill.\nSuggestions come to him, as he fells the forest, as he plows the field,\nas he plants the seed, and as he rows his dug-out. These suggestions he\nturns to account. He builds them into better axes for cutting the trees,\ninto better plow-stocks for breaking the land, and into better boats for\ncrossing the sea.\n\nBy turning the suggestions he has received into better methods, into\nimproved tools and machinery, he has come from the dug-out to the ocean\nsteamer; from the pack-mule to the palace car; from the scythe-blade to\nthe mower and reaper; from the stone and sling to the improved army gun;\nfrom the spinning-wheel to the cotton-factory; and from the foaming steed\nof the flying messenger to the electric telegraph.\n\nBecause of the growth and improvement he has received through work,\nthe tom-tom has long given place to the piano, and the tent to the\nmodern home. Through struggle with nature, he has been piqued into a\ndetermination to conquer her, to ferret out her secrets, and master her\nprocesses.\n\nThe forces that oppose him he makes to serve him. The river current,\nwhich forbids him to cross, he utilizes to ferry him over. He sets his\nsail in the wind blowing eastward and avails himself of its power to\ncarry him westward. The waves that rise to engulf him he turns into\nsteam to outride them. The winds draw his water, the river saws his\nplank. The tail of the beaver is adjusted by nature to the mud he needs\nto cement his dam; his tooth is already adjusted to the hardness of the\ntree, so that he cuts it down by instinct and without thought. The eagle\nfinds the air already under his wings when he would fly, and his talons\nalready prepared to hold his food, or to grasp a limb in the forest. The\nfish finds itself in the beginning of its existence in an element ready\nto respond to its fins, and in the presence of food adapted to its life.\nThe lower animals find themselves at the start in a world immediately\nadjusted to their needs, so that they have only to use their feet, their\nteeth, their horns, their claws, their wings, and their fins, to conquer\ntheir enemies and find their food. The animal is wholly governed by\nnatural law, and hence has no history. He moves on nature\u2019s level, and\nis adjusted to her plains, her forests, her seas, and her skies, without\nhis thought or his device. Man is not related in the same outward,\nimmediate way to clothing, food, and fuel. His understanding, it is true,\ncorresponds to the scheme of nature, but he must grow into this by study,\nby insight, by hints, by the use of faculties the lower animals do not\npossess. As long as he remains on the plain of the tiger and panther, and\nemulates their stealthy step to creep upon his prey, or his human foe,\nlike them, he has no history.\n\nThe savage, perhaps, did master the mystery of the dug-out and the\nbirch-bark canoe, but he had no place for his archives but a hole in\nthe ground, and no experience but such as died with him. Man\u2019s history\nbegins with the attempt to conquer Nature. The contribution that Nature\nmakes to human civilization is that she sets herself against his inward\nenergies, as if to call them out. She puts limitations about him, that\nhe may be prompted to rise above them. The fury and storm of the sea\nprovokes his ingenuity to express itself in the steamship. The peril to\nlife and fortune contained in the lightning\u2019s flash, begets the steel rod\nthat disarms it. The distance between the wheat that grows in one part\nof the globe and the need for bread in another, leads to the discovery\nof a method of transportation that obliterates it. Civilization is the\nexpression that man has made of himself in his attempts, through thought\nand will, to effect the conquest of Nature. This witnesses to the\npeculiar and magnificent place which alone belongs to him in nature.\n\nIt may be true that he has no kingdom of his own, no privileged class of\nhis own, and no titled order of his own; but it can hardly be disputed\nthat he has a history of his own. This history, written in the dim\nglories of vast empires, in the rush of splendid cities, in the age-long\nconflict between good and evil, in the undying creed of martyred faith,\nin the hope, fidelity, trial, agony, triumph, and self-sacrifice of the\nhuman race, bears witness to the fact, either that the earth was made for\nman, or else that he is the only creature upon it capable of subduing it,\ntransforming it, recreating it, and appropriating it. If man is only a\nnatural product, the powers have certainly been engaged in a marvelously\nintelligent and complicated sort of conspiracy to advance his interests\nand to serve his dominion.\n\nNothing but what we have been accustomed to regard as design, intention,\npurpose, is sufficient to account for the fact, that the scheme of nature\nso completely corresponds to the understanding of man as to make it\npossible for him to command and claim all her possessions for his own.\n\nMen will never accept such a happy coincidence as the work of chance.\nThey will, by the very structure of their minds, believe that the scheme\nand the understanding, which, through the process of struggle and trial,\ngrows into it, were intended, by the Great Author of both, the one for\nthe other.\n\n\n\n\n_BREAD._\n\n\n    \u201cThe power that Greece had to throw out light is marvelous,\n    even now that we have the example of France. Greece did not\n    colonize without civilizing\u2014an example that more than one\n    modern nation might follow: to buy and sell is not all.\n\n    \u201cTyre bought and sold: Berytus bought and sold: Sidon bought\n    and sold: Sarepta bought and sold. Where are these cities?\n    Athens taught; and she is to this hour one of the capitals of\n    human thought.\n\n    \u201cThe grass is growing on the six steps of the tribune where\n    spoke Demosthenes: the Ceramicus is a ravine, half-choked with\n    the marble dust which was once the palace of Cecrops: the Odeon\n    of Herod Atticus, at the foot of the Acropolis, is now but a\n    ruin on which falls at certain hours the imperfect shadow of\n    the Parthenon: the temple of Theseus belongs to the swallows:\n    the goats browse on the Pnyx. Still the Greek spirit lives:\n    still Greece is queen: still Greece is goddess. A counting\n    house passes away: a school remains.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nTHE PROVISION FOR THE PHYSICAL NATURE OF MAN.\n\n\nIn the form of bread, using the term in a wide generic sense, matter\npasses into the service of man on the plane of human life. By regular\nsteps it is lifted and refined and adjusted to correspondence with human\nneed and comfort. In its raw and individual state, it is controlled by\nphysical force. From this crude condition it is carried by chemical\nforce to the order of the mineral kingdom. From this plane, it passes\nup through the agency of vital force to the vegetable kingdom. Through\nthe power of vital force of a higher kind, it is advanced to the animal\nkingdom. Here it is ready for man, and yields itself to the uses of\nhis life. From the time that vital force enters the realm of nature, a\nprocess of assimilation begins. The plant assimilates the mineral, the\nanimal assimilates the plant, and man assimilates the animal. Through\nregular gradations, matter passes up from the bottom of nature into\nthe service of man, who stands at the top. With each move upward it\ngets associated with force of a higher kind. With each advance its\nrange gets wider and its movements freer. In the form of bread, it is\nsufficiently refined and sublimated to be appropriated and utilized\nfor food, for shelter, for raiment, by the immortal spirit of man. The\nnecessity for food, for clothing, for shelter, creates commerce, and\ncommerce accomplishes results far more important than the production and\ndistribution of the temporal necessities of human life. It brings men\ntogether; it establishes relations. It is the wonderful institution\nwhich, early in the history of the race, began as a loom to catch up the\nseparate threads of individual life, to weave them into that marvelous\nfabric called humanity. Ends of an infinitely higher order are realized\nby the production and exchange of the elements of trade, than the\nsatisfying of hunger with bread, or the furnishing man with clothing and\nshelter. The higher ends are the essential and ordained ends. That we may\nunderstand what an important part the necessity for food has played in\nthe progress of man, it will be well to consider the significance of the\nrelations it first helped to establish.\n\n\nI.\n\nAll power whatever, that distinguishes man from the brute, that in any\nrespect contributes to his commercial, mental, moral, or human value,\nis due to union, relation, action and interaction among individuals.\nIn nature we may find illustrations of this truth. Sound, electricity,\nheat, and light, are forms of force which owe their existence to action,\nrelation, interaction among material particles. They would never arise\nin a universe of unrelated elements. Their difference is due, not to the\nvibration of different elements, but to different rates of vibration\namong the same elements. Consequent upon certain terms of formal and\nquiet social intercourse among the molecules, there is sound. When\nthey intermingle more actively and intimately, there is electricity.\nWith a slight change in the method, but no decrease in the velocity\nwith which they move, there is heat. When they go at the top of their\nspeed, waltzing and swinging corners at an unthinkable rate, there is\nlight. From varying relations and actions among material particles, we\nget the music which charms us, the means of communication which unite\nus, the power to do work which serves us, and the beauty which refines\nus. The unceasing play of these simple unseen elements made the fame of\nBeethoven, who threw their vibrations into symphonies; and of Morse,\nwho utilized their speed to carry the news; and of Watt, who hitched\ntheir radiations to the flying train; and of Daguerre, who put their\nundulations to painting pictures. All forms of physical force may be\ntraced to the union, relation, and vibration of material particles.\nThe distance from atoms to men is well-nigh infinite, but the points\nof resemblance between the genesis of physical force and the genesis\nof social force are sufficiently striking to make it permissible to\ntrace the analogy between them. By social force is understood all those\nforms of energy which men find themselves to possess by virtue of their\nrelations to one another in organized social life.\n\nCommerce insures the union, and brings about the relations that make this\nforce possible. It furnishes the conditions without which it could not be.\n\nA self-contained, self-included, insulated person does carry within the\ndepths of his being the organs of the civilized man, but they are as\ncompletely out of sight and out of use as the harvests that sleep within\nthe kernels of the mummy wheat. If it were possible for an individual to\ncome to years of maturity, out of relations with his fellows, he would be\nmore destitute than a brute. Such an one, growing up in the woods or on\nan island, with no associates but the squirrels and the birds, would not\nhave the personal furnishments of the monkey or the fox.\n\nWe can understand, too, by considering what man owes to his relations,\nhow widely and completely he is separated from the lower animals. A\nthousand blackbirds, living together in relation, are not different from\na thousand blackbirds living apart and out of relation. A squirrel gains\nno element of squirrelhood by companionship, and loses no element of it\nin isolation. He may be taken from his nest as soon as he is born and\nnever be permitted to see another squirrel, but he will be just as much\nof a squirrel, and know as well how to get the meat out of a nut, as if\nfree in the forests with others of his kind. A mocking bird comes to the\npower of song as well in a cage, separated from other birds, as when fed\nand trained in the orchard by the mother-bird. The chords in his throat\nwere set to music, and without teacher or praise, at a certain period of\nhis growth, his song will ring through the house.\n\nThe difference between a man brought up in some lone woods, out of all\nrelation with men, and one brought up in a civilized community, is\ninfinite. The lower animals get all they ever get by birth. No new\ngifts or powers come to them through companionship. They go unerringly\nto a certain destined end, whether they move in flocks or herds, or\nalone as individuals. Men, on the other hand, find themselves by coming\ntogether. Their organs sleep till waked by relation. By birth they can\nget nothing but the germs, the mere naked elements of what they are to\nbecome. Birth would be no blessing, but a deepening curse, but for what\ncomes to the child through relation. Birthright alone is not worth a mess\nof pottage. Men often congratulate themselves on what they are pleased\nto term their individual rights and personal freedom. While men do have\nindividual rights and personal freedom, it is always to be remembered\nthat these belong to them because of the relations woven around them by\nthe institutions of social life. The civilized man differs more from the\nsavage, than the savage differs from the highest animal. Yet the lowest\nsavage is infinitely removed from the highest animal, but solely in the\npossession of the germs of the attainments and the accomplishments which\nmay be provoked and maintained by relation. Society alone furnishes the\nsoil in which these germs can grow. The savage, alone in the woods,\nmight secure for himself a covering of skins, but the cloth in which the\ncivilized man clothes himself is possible only in social relations.\n\nWith the commencement of human relations, the outlines of an absolutely\nnew world come into view. Dim and vague at the outset, as the relations\nare simple and low. But as these increase in number, range, and degree,\nnot only the outlines, but the far-reaching surface, the mountains, the\nrivers, the products, the sky, and the climate of a new world stand out\nclear, definite, and unmistakable. This new realm we name _civilization_.\nIt is super-imposed upon the physical world, but is as distinct from it\nas thought from the molecules of the brain. Nature furnishes the basis,\nbut social relations furnish the conditions of the human energy that has\nlifted itself into the mighty edifice we call civilization.\n\nAll genera and species and families and individuals are so many forms\nin which the radiant energy of the sun has deposited itself. Playing\nwith its heat and its light upon soil, sea, and sky, the sun has built\nthe myriad organic forms we see. So all objects, interests, and laws\nembraced within the range of civilization are the forms in which social\nforce, arising through relations, has deposited itself. Human language\nitself is an embodiment of social force. The grammars of different\nlanguages actually advertise the social status and condition of the\npeoples who used them. In the Chinese language we have no distinction\nas to parts of speech, thus showing that the national consciousness was\narrested at the stage of paternalism in government. The ancient Romans\nput enormous stress upon the will. They formulated the laws by which men\nare still regulated in civilized social life. A hint of this we get in\nthe Latin language, by the small use made of the pronoun. Ideas, too,\nare expressions of translated social energy. Nothing seems to be more\ninsulated than the human brain, by the aid of which the mind does its\nthinking. Out of sight and out of touch, within the dark depths of its\nown mysterious home, it would appear to be shut up to absolute solitude.\nHere, at least, we would expect to find individual, independent work.\nBut not so. No individual brain can think, only as it uses the brains of\nothers in the process. Homer\u2019s Iliad is a poetic formulation of what all\nGreece felt. The elements of myth, thought, passion, which it contains,\nwere all in the contemporary Greek mind. In committing this poem to\nmemory, the Greeks were but storing up their own thoughts.\n\nHegel, in thinking out his remarkable system of philosophy, used the\nbrains of all the men who had preceded him in the difficult work of\nsolving the problems of existence. Darwin saw much in nature, because,\nthrough relation, he was able to look through the eyes of all naturalists.\n\nAll values, whether in soil, waterfalls, precious stones, or money,\nare forms of social force. Land in a great city sells for two thousand\ndollars a front foot, because millions of people, drawn by the powers of\ncommerce, have come into fellowship upon it. Robinson Crusoe would have\ngiven all the money he had on the ship for a loaf of bread. The heaps of\ngold and silver in Wall Street are so valuable, because seventy millions\nof people are circulating around them.\n\nMoral laws are social products. They are not empirical, but fundamental,\neternal, and essential. They inhere in the constitution of man. But it\nis only through relation that man comes to the recognition of them,\nas binding for conduct. Light and heat have their laws, definite and\nunfailing, but if natural particles never vibrated at a rate sufficient\nto create these forces, the laws would not appear. They arise along with\nthe forces, and the same conditions which give rise to the forces, give\nrise to the laws. So moral laws accompany a certain degree of attainment\nand culture, only possible through relation.\n\nReligion itself, the highest and most sacred deposit of human life, is\na product of social force. Whether we regard it as \u201cmodes of emotion,\u201d\nas Lecky; or the \u201crecognition of all our duties as divine commands,\u201d as\nKant; or as \u201cawe in the presence of the mystery of an inscrutable power\nin the universe,\u201d as Spencer; or as \u201cthe infinite nature of duty,\u201d as\nMill; or as \u201cthe immediate feeling of the dependence of man on God,\u201d as\nSchleiermacher, it never arises outside the range of relation. Still,\nreligion is something constitutional, inalienable, divine; but man would\nnever be thrilled by its hopes, or soothed by its peace, did he not\nstand in vital relation to his fellows. The elements and raw material\nof religion are eternally present, but relation calls into exercise the\nsusceptibilities and faculties which appropriate these elements and raw\nmaterial, turning them into hymns, theologies, prayers, sacrifices,\nliturgies, and ceremonies.\n\nCommerce, by bringing men together under the necessities of finding\nfood, clothing, shelter, enables them to find their intellects and what\nthey can know, their hearts and what they can love, and their wills and\nwhat they can do.\n\nThus we trace the genesis of social force, with the expressions which\nit makes of itself, in property, literature, law, art, and religion,\nto mutual human relations, for the establishment of which, among men,\nCommerce seems to have been ordained. If men could, without trading, have\nfound the means of subsistence, as do the foxes and the lions; then no\nrelations in the high sense of the term would have been established among\nthem; and like the foxes and the lions, they would have remained on the\nearth without progress and without history.\n\nThe sun must be making tremendous drafts upon some unseen sources of\npower, to be able to make, throughout the solar realm, such ample\nexpenditures of energy without bankruptcy.\n\nThe location of the vast depositories of power, upon which he draws so\nliberally, we are not to inquire here. We do know that the force which\nbuilds the forest, flushes the meadows with green, braids the vines into\nfestoons, and peoples the plant-world, comes from the sun. Wherever the\nmaterials which keep the sun\u2019s fires burning come from, they must pass\nup to that center before they are available for service on this globe.\nThe stamp and superscription of the sun must be upon them before they\ncan take the form of grass, or leaf, or bird on the earth. In this sense\nstand human relations between the force contained in the individual,\nunrelated life, and the force which takes form in the objects of\ncivilization. The crude and inarticulate force in the individuals of the\ntribe, or the nomads who only touch for war or passion, must be refined\nthrough moral, political, and spiritual relations before it is ready to\ntake the form of poem, anthem, temple, or Plato.\n\n\nII.\n\nWe wish to determine the principle in accordance with which the\nproduction and distribution of food, shelter, and clothing are to be\nregulated. These forms of value are embodiments of social energy,\ngenerated through relations formed above nature by intelligence and\nvolition. In nature, then, we are not to find the law that is to regulate\nthem.\n\nBees build their cells, and birds their nests, and beavers their dams,\nnot by intelligence and will, called into existence after birth through\ncompanionship, but by what is in-wrought into the very fibers of their\nbeing irrespective of companionship. Birds, bees, and beavers have been\nin the world thousands of years, yet the first bird, bee, or beaver\never created had as much sense as the last. A single bee has as much\nsense as all the bees in the world put together. Among all lower animals\neach individual inherits the sense of the species. Hence the law \u201cof the\nstruggle for existence,\u201d resulting in \u201cthe survival of the fittest,\u201d\nsaid to be a regulating principle in the plant and animal kingdoms, is\nnot severe, regarded with reference to the individuals which inhabit\nthem. But to regard the operations of this law as beneficent upon the\nplane of human life, as does Mr. Spencer, is altogether to overlook\nthe obligations men are under to one another, because of their mutual\nrelations. The life of each man, it must be remembered, in so far as it\nis above that of the unrelated savage, is contained in the life of every\nother man. In so far as it is comfortable, intelligent, and free, it has\nbeen brought to him, and made over to him by his fellow-man. The law\nwhich is to determine the regulation of the elements of commerce, which\nare but expressions of the energy arising through mutual human relations,\nmust be as elevated as the relations which commerce begets, and which in\nturn make commerce possible.\n\nWe must not go down among the tigers and the hyenas, who owe nothing but\nbare birth to companionship, where the principle of \u201cthe survival of\nthe fittest in the struggle for existence\u201d does prevail, to get the law\nwhich is to regulate the production and distribution of products possible\nonly through companionship. Each individual, be he weak or strong, has\ncontributed something to the social body. The strength of the one may\nhave contributed courage, the weakness of the other may have called forth\npity; but both pity and courage are virtues possible only in relation. A\nregulating principle that kills off the feeble ones, and drives the weak\nones to the wall, may do for brutes, who owe nothing to relationships;\nbut not for men, who owe everything to them. The attempt to regulate\nforms of value in accordance with the law of \u201cthe survival of the fittest\nin the struggle for existence\u201d does not have sufficient regard for the\ncontribution each individual has made, by the very fact of his existence,\nto make these values possible. The leading political economists of the\ntimes have come to see that the law of extreme individualism, of \u201cevery\nman for himself and the devil take the hindmost,\u201d must be substituted by\nsome more beneficent principle\u2014by some law that pays more respect to the\nmethods by which values have been created.\n\nThe province of commerce, as an institution, is to bring men together,\nnot merely that the boundaries of commerce may be extended and its\nvolume increased, but that men may learn the mutual obligations they\nare under to one another, that their sympathy for one another may be\nenlarged, and that respect for one another may be engendered.\n\nIt is only in an atmosphere of mutual trust, sympathy, and respect that\nmen can grow.\n\nThe need for bread, for protection, for raiment, prompts men to the\nexchange of products, that each may share into the work of all. But\nin the process of exchanging products, relations are established,\nthrough the influence and power of which an order of man comes the mere\nmaterial comforts of life cannot supply. The significance of commerce,\nthen, is not understood, if it is considered simply with reference to\nits immediate ends. These ends are met when men are supplied with the\nmaterial comforts of life. Ends, however, are mediated through it of\na kind different in order and degree. These we consider the essential\nand ultimate ends of the relations which are established through the\nexchange of products. What, then, is the ultimate end and object of human\nrelations? It is man. Man come to himself, conscious of himself, in\npossession of himself. It is human life, enriched, perfected, completed.\nIt is man, strong, free, holy. It is man, not lost in the social texture,\nnor swamped in the social organism; but, finding his individuality and\nhis peculiar, natural, simple self through them. The marvelous fabric\nthe social loom was set to weaving is man. The highest end of social\nrelations is a self-conscious, self-determining man, thinking the true,\nwilling the right, loving the good. These relations constitute the\norganism out of which alone he can be born into symmetrical, well rounded\nlife.\n\nThe lower animals come from natural birth into the world entire and\ncomplete. The young eaglet is correlated to the sky before he leaves the\negg. But man moves on a plane lower than the brutes, if he is not caught\nat birth and carried by relation to his proper place. As man is the\nhighest product of social relations, it follows that the highest product\nis the ultimate product.\n\nAn apple tree may be used for fire wood, or sawn into planks, but apples\nare the ultimate reasons for the existence of the apple tree. Toward an\napple the germ started when it burst the sod and stood a little sprig\nabove the ground. Beyond the apple, the tree goes no further. It throws\nits roots into the earth and its branches into the atmosphere, and\nperpetually acts and reacts upon its environment, but all for the purpose\nof turning soil, and sunshine, and rain into apples.\n\nAs we have seen, a part of the social energy arising through mutual\nhuman relations is to be converted into language, values, literature,\nmorality, and religion, as a part of the capital invested in a sewing\nmachine factory goes into tools. But man is greater than language,\nvalues, literature, morality, or religion; as the sewing machine is\ngreater than the tools by which it is made. Human relations create\nlanguage, values, art, morality, and religion, that they may be used to\nadvance and perfect the main work they were ordained to perform, \u201cthe\nmaking of a man.\u201d\n\nWhen the people of a nation come to regard the elements of wealth,\nliterature, art, or even religion, as ends to be enjoyed rather than as\nmeans to make man, they have missed the purpose of creation, and wander\namid the mazes of stupidity and blindness.\n\nAs far as outward splendor and wealth were concerned, Babylon had no\nrival among the nations of ancient times. She was a vast and rich\nempire. She embraced the most fertile portion of the globe. She had a\ncapital that eclipsed all others in magnificence. Her hanging gardens\nwere the wonder of the world; but her people stood not upon their\nterraces to observe the stars, or to reach a higher civilization through\nthe realization of the nobler ends of their being. These were used as\nplaces of revelry and sensual enjoyment. Thus the only work of art that\nmade them famous was used to make them stupid and depraved. Of her wealth\nshe made an end. Putting no estimate upon men, through the relations of\nwhom her wealth was created, she found at last that among all her people\nshe had produced no man amply endowed enough to give permanent mental\nsetting to her civilization and her faith. Her heart throbs, whatever\nthey were, got explained in no history, interpreted in no philosophy,\nand lived in no life. For knowledge of her, we are dependent upon her\nruins, her pottery, her broken columns. Into oblivion has fallen all that\nbejeweled and pampered life that reveled in her palaces and amid her\nfar-famed hanging gardens. Among none of her luxurious inhabitants did\nshe develop a man to commit the keeping of her secrets and the record of\nher progress. Over her history has settled the stillness of the desert\nand the gloom of eternal night.\n\nOn the other hand, how secure is the Greece, that flowered in her great\nmen! It was in the two centuries between 500 and 300 B. C., when she\nemphasized men more than the things they created, that she produced the\nmen who have been the teachers of the human race. She has been despoiled\nof her art treasures, her temples have fallen, her Parthenon is in ruins;\nbut the two hundred years of her life, which she deposited in her great\nmen, are immortal.\n\nNo tooth of time, no war\u2019s bloody hand, no devastation of the years, can\ntake from her the glory which she lifted and locked in the genius of her\ngenerals, her statesmen, her orators, and her philosophers. Epaminondas\nand Pericles still fight for her, and guard with sleepless vigilance her\nfair name. Plato and Aristotle still interpret her problems of destiny.\nSophocles and Pindar still sing her glory. Herodotus and Thucydides\nstill keep the record of her victories. Demosthenes and \u00c6schines still\ngive imperishable expression to her conceptions of form and symmetry.\nShe deposited her riches in the spirits of her great men, and they are\nforever secure. No thief can steal them, no rust can corrupt them. The\nunfolding centuries may look in upon them and enjoy them, but they cannot\narrest them. The spirits of great men, like immortal ships, sail the\nocean of time, bearing the treasures of the civilizations which gave them\nbirth. They outride the fury of all the storms, and will sail on, till\n\n              The stars grow old,\n              The sun grows cold,\n    And the leaves of the Judgment book unfold.\n\nBut when Greece came to think more of the results than of the living\nmen, she lost not only the power to produce the men, but the capacity\nto appreciate the results which had been created by them. Thinking more\nof the temple than the builder, she soon had no architect to conceive,\nand no son to understand the temple. Turning her national power into the\nspirits of her living men, she utilized the mountains and the mines in\nthe service of beauty. But when life got cheaper than art, she no longer\nhad power to create new art, or to protect from vandalism the old. By\nremoving the emphasis from men to things, she descended from the Cr\u0153sus\nto the pauper of civilization.\n\nAs long as Israel expended her national energy in the production of men,\nshe had Moses, greater than the Tabernacle; David, greater than his harp;\nand Isaiah, greater than his song. But when the forms of her worship were\nemphasized beyond the spirits of her people she lost the devotion which\ncreated her church and the manhood that guided it. The men who formulated\nthe laws that made Rome the mistress of the world, grew at a period when\na Roman was the center of interest in the empire. But when her laws were\nstressed to the obliteration of her men, she had them still, without\nthe ability to make more laws, or to execute the ones she had. Religion\nin India is emphasized more than character; hence her men are lost in\na wanton and luxurious surrender to a modeless, transcendental, pure\nbeing, and she is practically without a history.\n\n\nIII.\n\nThe ultimate reasons, then, for the existence of social relations,\nbrought about among human beings by exchange of products, is not the\nsatisfaction of hunger, or the enrichment of individuals in material\nwealth, but the making of men. This being so, we are able to determine\nthe law by which the production and distribution of commercial products\nare to be regulated. It must be a law that does not put the emphasis\non the products, but upon the men who are to be elevated through their\nexchange. It must not be a law leaning to extreme individualism on the\none side, or to extreme socialism on the other. It must have proper\nrespect to the individual, and to the social organism to which he is\nindebted for whatever of power he possesses. That law has already\nbeen formulated for us. It is this: \u201cThou shalt love thy neighbor as\nthyself.\u201d This is the coordination of self-love and good-will. As has\nbeen well said, this saves for us the strength of private enterprise,\nand individual initiative, the vigor of the self-regarding motives; yet\nenthrones by their side as co-equal and co-regent powers, the principle\nof benevolence, the obligation to promote the common weal. Self-support,\nself-help, self-reliance, are still cardinal virtues, but philanthropy is\ngiven co-ordinate authority with them in the commercial world. This is\nthe law most favorable to the growth of men.\n\nUnder its benign reign, men can come to themselves. Through the operation\nof this law, there will be no curtailment of the volume or the extent of\ncommerce; but the emphasis will be kept in the right place, and men will\nnot be lost in the process of securing the elements of food and shelter.\nCommerce will be the means of mediating to men their higher nature.\nSurrounded by conditions engendered by the operation of a law like this,\nlife will reach through relation higher and higher ranges of hope and\ninsight. The elements of poems, symphonies, philosophies, temples, and\npictures will flow in the blood.\n\nThe fierce competition we see in the commercial world to-day is the\nattempt to re-enact, in business life, the principle of natural\nselection, or \u201cthe survival of the fittest in the struggle for\nexistence.\u201d This is the law of the jungle, but not of the social realm.\nThis is doubtless the law among trees, determining their number, variety,\nand structure; for one tree gains nothing from association with other\ntrees. This law doubtless operates in the sea, among the fish, and in\nthe sky among the birds, for fish and birds are what they are by birth\nand not by association. Mr. Spencer regards the operation of this law\nas beneficent. It kills off the unsuccessful members of society, it\ndrives the weak ones to the wall. Those who survive in the struggle are\nthe fittest. The Greeks, who put Socrates to death, were, according to\nthis so-called beneficent principle, the fittest to survive. This law\nis regarded as beneficent as it operates among men to control their\nproducts, upon the supposition that man is an animal and a part and\nparcel of nature, as are the bears and the wolves. The things which\nelevate men and civilize them, however, do not come from nature, but\nare engendered through companionship and association. Hence, from the\nsense of obligation men are under to one another for the best and\nhighest things of life, the law is to be deduced which is to regulate\ntheir commerce and to determine the character of their actions. This\nlaw is, \u201cThou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.\u201d Thus business looks\nto character. The discipline it insures is worth more than the money it\nbrings. The highest product of trade is man himself. If in business such\nmethods are practiced, if such aims are followed as destroy the man,\nhowever great the returns in money, it is a thousand fold worse than a\nfailure. The man it was designed to make, it has destroyed.\n\n\nIV.\n\nThe disposition to accumulate, which is right and praiseworthy, should\nalways be modified by right knowledge of the uses of property, and the\nmethods by which it is amassed. Nothing is more pitiable than for a\nperson to have more property than he has manhood. This indicates that\nthe stress has been on the wrong side of the wealth. Such a man is\nunder the sad necessity of taking his significance from the money he\nhas accumulated, rather than the noble elements of life he should have\nsecured in the process of obtaining it. With such a man, the end of\nbusiness has been lost. He has consumed the end in the means. Instead of\nturning the elements of trade into manhood, manhood has been lost amid\nthe maze and chaos of things. The order of progress has been violated,\nand the man, instead of moving on through business cares to immortal\ncharacter, turns back to the earth, and seeks to substitute the tendency\nto move from it, by the disposition to settle permanently upon it. The\ndesire to get rich has grown so abnormal and perverted, that it seeks to\nsatisfy itself by the abundance of mere things. There are a great number\nof mowers and reapers, engines and cotton-gins, hats and shoes, pins and\nbuttons; but a man has been lost in the making of them. This is more\nthan all the mowers and reapers, cotton-gins and steam engines, pins and\nbuttons ever made are worth. It is not mete that men should be sacrificed\nto the beauty and perfection of machinery, or to things machinery turns\nout. It is not necessary either. What we gain is not worth what we give.\nThe machinery should be so manipulated as to get the things, and at the\nsame time secure the perfection of men through the process. It is not\nnecessary for the painter to lose himself in his art, and sacrifice his\nmanhood to make his vision glow on the canvas. A proper regard for the\nmethods and uses of art will result in leaving in the living spirit a\npicture more perfect than any painted by the brush. John Bunyan did\nnot lose his manhood in portraying the history of a human soul in its\nattempts to get from earth to heaven. While conducting his pilgrim\nsafely through the sorrow and temptations of life, to a home in a better\nworld, he opened the pearly gates to his own soul. His work transfigured\nhis life, and was the means of sanctifying it. All business and all work\nshould lift up, and not hold down; it should make free, and not enslave;\nit should ennoble and not degrade. It is as honorable to make shoes or\nanchors as to paint pictures or write books. The shoemaker should learn\nthe secret through his work of finding the sandals of manhood for his\nown feet. The blacksmith should learn, through the making of anchors for\nthe great ships, to find the anchor that is to hold his own soul to the\ntruth, amid the storms of life.\n\n\nV.\n\nIf through trade only the material result is sought, the ends it were\nintended to subserve are missed. Its bulk may be large, the machinery\nthrough which it is carried on manifold and complicated, but with the\nemphasis on the money side of it, no manhood will be reached through it.\nThe man side of a button machine is infinitely more important than the\nbutton side. The buttons which fall on one side may conform precisely to\nan approved and an exquisite pattern, but if the person who stands on the\nother side does not, through the process of making buttons, get a man out\nof himself, the whole thing is a disastrous failure. Human spirits are\ntoo valuable to be used up in making buttons. More respect is to be had\nto the human side of the loom than to the cloth side. The most beautiful\npattern of silk ever woven loses its power to please the eye when it is\nremembered that the soul of a woman has been drawn into its threads and\ncolors. The sacrifice of individual life is impressive and noble, if the\nobject for which it is made is worthy. This kind of sacrifice is not the\nmeans of losing life, but of gaining it. But no material result to be\nused up in the passing season of fashion is worth such costly sacrifice.\n\nThrough forces we name capillarity, cohesion, and gravitation, matter\naccomplishes the purposes of thought. They are but manifestations of the\npower of mind working through them, to build up the mineral, vegetable,\nand animal kingdoms. They look beyond themselves. They work for higher\nends. Thus all the industries we see in nature look to lifting and\nrefining matter, and force high enough to serve the uses of human life.\nSo the industries established on the plane of human life are to elevate\nman another step in the scale of being. Through sowing and reaping,\nthrough grinding and sawing, through spinning and weaving, through buying\nand selling, through building and furnishing, he is to be carried on in\nthe march of progress.\n\nThe history of the physical universe culminates in man, finds its\ninterpreter and its interpretation in him. Never was the thought of him\nabsent from her movements through Pliocene, Miocene, Eocene, Cretaceous,\nJurassic, Triassic, Carboniferous, Devonian, Silurian, or Cambrian ages.\nIn all her awful cosmic emotion to reach order and form, it was the\nanticipation of man that moved her, for he it is at last that comes of\nit. So, through all the course of her tumultuous history, nature was\npregnant with man. The stars which sang together in the early morning of\nthe world, caught the inspiration which gave melody to their song from\nthe thought of him.\n\nCommerce, if it is to be permanent and healthy and progressive, must\nfall into line with the purpose nature was put upon its perilous course\nto subserve. Her countless forms of industry established by the law\nof supply and demand; her cars, rushing hither and thither all round\nthe world; her great steamships on every sea; her great furnaces, whose\nchimneys lift themselves against the sky, must get their meaning and the\nreason for their existence from the fact that they are putting in their\ncontribution to the making of a man. Her wheels are to fly, her spindles\nare to whirl, her paddles are to splash, and her hammers are to ring,\nmaking music amid it all, in anticipation of his increasing worth, his\ngrowing thought, his enlarging hope. Her countless wheels of industry\nwill be throwing out axes, wagons, plow-stocks, hand-saws, and reapers\nas they fly; but these will be only so many means used to discipline\nthe precious life committed for a while to her training. What chemical\naffinity did in lifting the original elements to the mineral kingdom,\nand what the animal did to lift the plant to the animal kingdom, so the\ntrades and industries of commerce are to do in lifting human life from\nits individual, unrelated state to its social and fraternal state. The\nelements of commerce are to be the means to help human character out of\nhuman nature. Two kinds of raw material are to be refined. The iron in\nthe mountain is to be turned into razor blades and caligraphs; the reeds\nin the swamps and the woods in the forests are to be turned into the\nnotes of organ and piano; and in the process of refining these, man is to\nbe disciplined in the use of himself, in the possession of himself, and\nin the command of himself.\n\n\n\n\n_POWER._\n\n\n    \u201cExcessive devotion to the material is the evil of our epoch;\n    hence a certain sluggishness.\n\n    \u201cThe great problem is to restore to the human mind something of\n    the ideal. Whence shall we draw the ideal? Wherever it is to be\n    found. The poets, the philosophers, the thinkers, are its urns.\n\n    \u201cThe ideal is in \u00c6schylus, in Isaiah, in Juvenal, in Alighieri,\n    in Shakspere. Throw \u00c6schylus, throw Isaiah, throw Juvenal,\n    throw Dante, throw Shakspere into the deep soul of the human\n    race.\n\n    \u201cPour Job, Solomon, Pindar, Ezekiel, Sophocles, Euripides,\n    Herodotus, Theocritus, Plautus, Lucretius, Virgil, Terence,\n    Horace, Catulus, Tacitus, Saint Paul, Saint Augustine,\n    Tertullian, Petrarch, Pascal, Milton, Descartes, Corneille, La\n    Fontaine, Montesquieu, Diderot, Beaumarchais, Sedaine, Andr\u00e9\n    Chenier, Kant, Schiller\u2014pour all these souls into man.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nTHE PROVISION FOR THE SOCIAL NATURE OF MAN.\n\n\nI.\n\nMan has a body and a spirit. By the one, he is individual; by the other,\nhe is social. As individual, he needs bread; as social, he needs power.\nAs body, he is born from the loins; as spirit, he is born from the social\norganism. In the process of finding food, clothing, shelter, to meet the\nneeds of himself as individual, he discovers that illimitable social\nside of himself the material necessities of life do not supply. Here he\nfinds power, a more subtle and universal element, ready to serve his\nhigher need. This is the provision for the social side of man\u2019s nature;\nfor, as individual, he does not need it, and could not appropriate and\nuse it if he did. As an individual, he can only avail himself of the use\nof power, through the attempt of the social whole of which he forms a\nmember. In the primitive, unrelated, unorganized state, man is satisfied\nif he can secure food to satisfy his hunger, and a cave to shelter him\nfrom the storm. He does not even utilize the winds to draw his boat,\nuntil, through interdependence and mutual relations, he has reached a\nhigh degree of social life. The servants of man, on his individual side,\nare the foods of the field, the waters of the spring, the woods of the\nforest, the fruits of the orchard, and the wool on the sheep\u2019s back.\nThe servants of man, on his social side, are the driving power of the\nwinds, the transporting power of heat, and the thought-defying power of\nthe lightning. As individual, he is a citizen of the community where he\nfirst sees the light. As social, he is a citizen of the world. Through\nhis body, he is naturally related to his ancestors; through his spirit,\nhe is related to the human race. The rude elements of food, clothing,\nand shelter, he might secure as individual; but power, which waits to\nserve his higher, nobler nature, he can only secure through society. As\nindividual, he is narrow, meager, local. As social, he is broad, rich,\nuniversal. On his individual side, he is centripetal; on his social side,\ncentrifugal. Self-centered, self-contained, and self-included, on the\none side; while, upon the other, he is possessed of the conviction that\nprivate right must be subordinated to public good. Tethered to the earth\non the one side, linked with the immensities on the other. On the one\nside, his outlook is hard and literal and low; on the other, he seeks,\nthrough intellect, to transcend the infinite in time and space and truth.\nOn the side of himself, as individual, he knows no right or wrong. On\nthe side of himself, as social, he recognizes the infinite in duty, and\nseeks harmony through the infinite in love.\n\n\nII.\n\nYet this limited and unlimited self; transitory, perishable, and finite\non the one side; everlasting, imperishable, and infinite on the other,\nare bound together in the same person. The fall of the one is accompanied\nby the descent of the other, and the rise of the one is accompanied by\nthe ascent of the other. Their union involves perpetual conflict, and\nthere waits on the turn of the battle, the depression of remorse, or the\nexultation of triumph.\n\nOn the individual side of himself, man would take up with the present,\nthe immediate, with that which allures the sense, and, with unholy\nincense, regales the imagination. On the social side of himself, he\nwould despise the immediate, and give the casting vote in favor of the\nunbiased, immeasurable good. In such a being as man, conflict were\ninevitable. With a horizon measured by the edge of the plain where he\nstands on the one side, and a horizon melting into the infinite star\ndepths on the other, it were but to be expected that a contest would\narise between the larger and the lesser outlook. On the one side, he\nwould possess the field, concentrate his attention upon its grasses and\nits fruits, and lose himself in its products. On the other, he would go\nforth to see where the stars are, to consider the sources of their light,\nand to travel with them along their silent paths. With a view measured by\nthe hour that shuts him round on the one side, and with a view measured\nby the organic pulsations of the world on the other; the question would\nbe, whether to give himself to the immediate pleasures of the hour; or to\nelongate the pendulum of his timepiece till it should embrace the ages,\nand regulate his life by an eternal measure. With appetites on one side,\nclamoring for the things in sight, and with conscience on the other,\ncalling for harmony with things high and remote; the question would be,\nwhether to give the consent of the will to the demand of the appetites,\nor to the appeal of the conscience.\n\n\nIII.\n\nKnowing the side of himself of which a man takes counsel\u2014the individual,\nor the social\u2014you are prepared to fix his grade in the scale of being.\nThe difference between Benedict Arnold and George Washington was just\nthis: in the case of the one the individual side was dominant; in the\ncase of the other the social side held sway. This is the difference\nbetween the miser, despised of all, and the philanthropist, honored of\nall. This is the difference between the debauche and the saint, between\nthe man who lives for his God and his race, and the man who pours himself\nout on his lust and his passion. If the promptings of the individual\nside of man\u2019s nature are to be distrusted and watched, while liberal and\nunstinted recognition is to be given to the social side, it is well to\ninquire into the meaning and office of this larger fact of his life.\n\nLet it be granted that on the individual side of himself man has no\nkingdom of his own, no department of his own, no privileged class of\nhis own, and no titled order of his own. Let this side of him be left\nto the naturalist, to be classed with the vertebrates, the mammals, or\nthe primates. But what conclusion are we to reach concerning the social\nside of himself, that has found embodiment in that vast and complicated\nmovement we call civilization? Through this age-long historic process\nman has been seeking to realize the capacities of his larger nature. Like\na magnificent temple, civilization has been rising through the centuries.\nIts walls have silently come up from the earth, like Solomon\u2019s Temple,\nwithout clink of trowel or sound of hammer. It is built of granite, cut\nfrom the Gethsemanes of history. Leonidas and his brave three hundred at\nthe pass of Thermopyl\u00e6 carved some of the blocks of this great edifice,\ninto whose walls men have gone down as the living stones. The brave\nBritons, at the waters of Solway, lifted to place some of the richly\nfoliaged pillars that stand upon its floors. William the Silent, while\norganizing the forces and achieving the victories of the Netherlands,\nwas at the same time turning some of its arches and resting in place\nsome of its architraves. The Martyrs, who went to undying fame and\nhonor through fires of Smithfield, furnish themes for the music which\nresounds through its corridors. It is the triumph of the social nature\nof man, and stands upon the soil which has been made by the crumbling\ndust of all generations of brave men. Its pinnacles and towers pierce\nthe skies, and declare to the immeasurable heights, the force, the\nfaith, the sentiment, and the love of man. It defies the elements of\ndisintegration and change, and around the tops of its lofty pillars there\ncluster the buds of eternal spring. The gigantic trunks, whose arched\nbranches support the roof of this great structure, express themselves in\nnever withering flowers, and, where the boughs interlace at the summit of\nthe arches, there comes the light of heaven to color and illumine. Yet\nwithin its doors we are in no forest of stone, where thoughts of men have\nbeen chiseled into semblance with the trees. Its foundations are built\nof convictions, its pillars of hope, its vaulting of lofty purpose,\nand its windows of faith. Its cement is the blood of suffering, and its\ndecoration the loves of heroes. It is the edifice man has built in which\nto house the social side of his nature. It contains and will conserve all\ncontributions ever made to human weal.\n\nIn walking the streets of Rome, one has a strange and melancholy sense\nof the traditions and memories which cluster about every ruin and every\nspot. But around the myriad facts and forces of civilization there hang\nassociations more pathetic still. Here we walk, not amid the ruins of\nthe past, but amid the achievements, the victories, and the glories\nof the past. Achievements, victories, and glories not associated with\nbroken columns, defaced monuments and moldering ruins, but with the laws\nand institutions of living men. We have here, in ten thousand embodied\nforms, the travails of the souls of our fathers. Their spirits live in\nthe words we use, their consciences bind in the laws we observe, their\nvisions bless in the pictures we see, and their devotion sanctifies in\nthe religion we love. All the blood ever shed in sacrifice, all the\neloquence that ever thrilled senates and peoples in defense of the right,\nall the protests ever in silence felt or in public uttered against the\nwrong, are here held in everlasting form.\n\nAre we to regard civilization, the manifold and complicated sum in\nwhich man\u2019s social nature has expressed itself, as nothing more than\na natural product? Are we to account for this by the same physical\nprinciples in accordance with which the bee builds his cell, the monkey\nhangs his bridge, and the beaver erects his dam? Does this stately\nprojection of man\u2019s social nature mean no more than some lofty Alpine\nMatterhorn, pushed into the heavens by the unconscious fires in the\nearth\u2019s bosom? Is this only like some mighty Giants\u2019 Causeway, lifted up\nby the same physical forces and by the same natural processes? If this\nis so, why is it that when we turn away from civilization as a whole,\nto view it in some of its national forms, we see the spiritual ups and\ndowns of history in such striking contrast with the uniform face which\nnature wears? If the radiant civilization of Greece, that filled the\nearth with the eloquence of thought and the melody of song, with the\nRepublic of Plato and the Ethics of Aristotle, that clothed itself in\nthe Parthenon of Phidias and the Iliad of Homer, was as natural among\nthe nations as the uprising of Gibraltar among the mountains, why is it\nthat Gibraltar still stands as the solemn sentinel of the Ocean and the\nSea, while the civilization of Greece is but a memory of the past? The\nsame sky and earth, and Mar\u2019s Hill are there. Around her classic coast\nthere still murmurs the same heaving sea. But while ships may still\nsail to Gibraltar, never more can they draw up to the Pir\u00e6us of worthy\nrepresentatives of Plato and Aristotle. Not again do men, with noble\nbrows, deep eyes, and never dying thought, look into the \u00c6gean from that\nmemorable meeting place of the world\u2019s ships.\n\nIf the history of Israel, from the time of Abraham to the coming of John\nthe Baptist, was but a natural product, as easy to be accounted for as\nthe mountains round about Jerusalem; why is it that the mountains still\nencompass the holy city; while we find no more men like Moses, David, and\nIsaiah to lead, to rule, and to prophesy? There are the same Judean hills\nand valleys. There rapidly flows the same historic Jordan. There grow the\nsame grapes, the figs, and olives. There are the same holy mountains.\nThere are the same dangerous rocks in the sea at Joppa. The physical\nconditions that made the corn and the honey and the cattle are there; and\nthere still are found the corn, the honey, and the cattle. But no massive\nman like Moses ever more climbs Sinai to get law on tables of stone, or\nPisgah, to see the promised land and die. No man after God\u2019s own heart,\nlike David, any more minds sheep, watches the stars, and writes poetry\nthere. Never more do we find there a man like Isaiah, struggling on his\nknees in prayer that he may rise up to give his people the oracles of\nGod. A shallow, degenerate and fickle people dwell amid the groves and\nthe vines where once lived the great race which gave to men their ethics\nand the outlines of true religion.\n\nIf the civilization of Rome, that reached such volume and force as to\nmake her the mistress of the world, was as natural as the rising and\nfalling of the tides, why is it that Rome is in ruins, while the tides\ncontinue to rise and fall? With no other aid than such as is afforded\nby natural law and physical force, we cannot solve this problem. Where\nmonkeys grew once, monkeys grow to-day; where lions roamed once, lions\nroam to-day; where figs grew once, figs grow to-day. The same physical\nconditions, the same configuration of soil, the same degree of climate,\nproduce uniform natural results from age to age. These may be counted\non with the certainty of a coming eclipse, conditioned on varying\nconjunctions of the heavenly bodies. But we must pass from the level and\nrange of soil, sky, climate, and physical conditions, to account for the\nfact that a country in one period of its history produces a Pericles,\nand, in another, a muddy-headed numskull; in one age an aristocracy of\npoets, artists, statesmen, philosophers, and orators; and in another, a\nlistless swarm of stupid and secular cumberers of the ground.\n\n\nIV.\n\nThe explanation of this question is to be found in the fact that man has\na dual nature, a body and a spirit, by virtue of which he is individual\nand social. When the center of gravity is on the social side of human\nnature, the fortunes of man go up; when the center of gravity is on the\nindividual side, the fortunes of man go down. On the individual side, he\nis the subject of physical law. On the social side, of moral law.\n\nThat man was intended to express the force of his life through the social\nside of himself and in accordance with moral law, instead of through the\nindividual side of himself and in accordance with physical law, is plain,\nfrom the fact that it is only when he gives social expression to his\nlife that he reaches any degree of commanding and permanent influence.\n\nThe unrivaled place which the Greece of Pericles holds in history is due\nto the fact that he lived at a time when the emphasis was altogether\non the social side of her people. The individual side was completely\nsubordinated to the life of the whole. It is doubtless true that she\npressed a right to rule too far, and stressed the citizen too much, and\nconsidered the claims of the individual too little. A proper balance is\nto be preserved between the individual and the social man. But it is true\nthat in merging the life of the individual into that of the state, Greece\ndid prepare a soil compact and rich enough to grow the most ample harvest\nof literature, art, poetry, philosophy, and men, the world ever saw. As\nsoon as the emphasis passed over from the social to the individual side,\nthe process of pulverization began, and the continuities of thought\nand aspiration were broken up. National unity was dissolved, and the\nconditions of great men and great results were no longer present.\n\nThe difference between the Greece of 300 B. C. and the Greece of to-day,\nis the difference between giving the national life a social and an\nindividual expression. The Greece of 300 B. C. was a compact whole, made\nso by each man putting in his individual life as a contribution to the\nlife of the state. The Greece of to-day is an aggregate of self-centered\nunits, held together like so many potatoes in a basket, by outward force\nand barriers, rather than by loyalty, patriotism, fidelity, and the\ncling of man to man. In the Greece of 300 B. C. each man, while giving\nhis individual life to his fellows, gathered into his own being all\nthe life they had to give. Hence in Socrates we had a reproduction of\nall Greece. In Homer, all her poetic passion, and expression. In the\norations of Demosthenes, all the aspirations of her heart and all her\nlove of liberty. In the Greece of to-day, we have not the same intimacy\nof companionship, or the same network of relationships. Each man,\nthinking more of himself as individual than of himself as social, finds\nit no longer possible to make levies on the lives of his fellows, to\nthink his thought, conceive his temple, deliver his oration, or write his\npoem. So it follows, they no longer think great thoughts, conceive great\ntemples, deliver great orations, or write great poems. Each man, in the\nhigh sense, being a separate sand, they have a social soil as barren as a\ndesert.\n\nRome won her victories, wrote her laws, and laid the foundations of her\nworld-wide empire, when her people gave social rather than individual\nexpression to the force of their lives. A typical illustration we\nhave of this in the fidelity of Regulus. A prisoner at Carthage, he is\npermitted to go to Rome to induce his countrymen to make peace with the\nCarthaginians. He pledged his word to return if he failed. On reaching\nRome, however, instead of seeking to persuade his people to make peace,\nhe appealed to them to continue the war. The social side of himself\nbelonged to Rome; speaking through that, he called upon her to prosecute\nthe war. The individual side of himself was personal; acting through\nthat, he went back to Carthage in honor of his pledge, to be cruelly put\nto death by his captors. This single incident is sufficient to help us\nunderstand why, from her seven hills, Rome conquered and for a long time\nruled the world. The individual was sunk in the _Roman_. Not, as in the\ncase of Greece, that his personal identity might be swallowed up in the\nmass, but that he might find a personal identity as great as the empire,\nof whose social life he was the embodiment. Regulus was an epitome of\nRome. In him was all her indomitable will, her moral sturdiness, her iron\nprobity. In him she had a son, in the depth of whose spirit all the glory\nshe had won in war, and all the control she had found in sacrifice, was\nsafe. Regulus had the advantage of the Carthaginians, in that the larger,\nnobler side of himself was safe from their hate. The Roman, the social\nRegulus, was as eternal as the majesty, and fame, and mystery of the\nRoman empire.\n\nThe doom of Rome, as a nation, was never sealed till the stress was\nremoved from the social to the individual side of her people. She might\nhave lived on among the nations, as fixed as her own eternal hills,\nif the temptations to self-indulgence and self-gratification had been\nresisted. Her downfall was not due to physical causes, but to her sins.\nObservance of the moral laws, which made her great, would have kept her\ngreat. When she threw her larger, social self into the fires of her\nindividual lust and passion, she burned the foundations of her dominion,\nand a mighty wreck of shapeless ruins was all that was left of the once\nproud mistress of the world.\n\n\nV.\n\nWhat is the correlate to the social side of man\u2019s nature? Where is the\ndomain that matches it? Where is the vast realm, large enough to furnish\nsufficient scope for all the possibilities which seem to lie folded\nwithin it? A study of the eye reveals the fact that the light of the\nsun is necessary to furnish an element wide and ethereal enough for the\nexercise of its functions. By a study of the ear, we learn that it is\nrelated to sound with all its possibilities of harmony. The fin of the\nfish is related to the waters of the sea. The bird\u2019s wing is a prophecy\nof the sky. The migrating instinct of the wild goose is related to the\nSouth, with its soft skies and balmy air.\n\nIn the calculations of Adams, in England, and of Leverrier, in France,\nthe perturbations of the planet Uranus were in correspondence with the\nplanet Neptune.\n\nOn the side of himself as individual, as we have seen, man is related to\nthe earth with all it contains to satisfy the needs of the body. We wish\nalso to determine the nature and dimensions of the sphere to which he is\nrelated as social.\n\nWe have seen that, even within national boundaries, human life comes to\nbe fertile in great men, great deeds, and great art, when the expression\nof it is social, rather than individual. With such disposition of her\nnational life force, Greece reached an unparalleled height of grandeur\nand influence. But all outside of Greece were esteemed as barbarians. The\nbarbarian hordes around her state were like so many walls, which kept\nthe waves of national life from passing out into any world-wide sea.\nThe limits were soon reached, then the waves receded, to be thrown back\nagain in quick succession against the encompassing walls. Was this not in\nviolation of the law and nature of the expression which the social side\nof man, by its very structure, is inclined to give of itself? Is it not,\nby its nature, disposed to pass out in accordance with moral laws, which\nhave no boundaries and limits? And were not the walls they permitted\ntheir hate to build of the barbarians on the outside to arrest the\noutward flow of their national life, the evidence of a tacit treaty with\ntheir selfishness? Did these not, after all, bear witness to a hampered\nand halted surrender to the nobler side of their nature? Did they not\nshow that the Greeks were only willing to give social expression to their\nnational life, as far as the boundary lines of Achai? Too noble to permit\nthe emphasis to rest on the individual side of her people, as separate\nmembers of the state, she lifted narrowness and selfishness into greater\nplace by giving them national form.\n\nToo great of breadth to be individually selfish, she was not great\nenough to be nationally unselfish. The individual sides of themselves\nher people sacrificed on the altars of the state to her national unity,\nshe transmuted into contempt and hatred of other nations. Selfishness\nonly passed from the individual to the state. Retained by the state, it\nworked itself back into the individuals again, when the unity of the\nstate was disintegrated. Do we not have in the limitations which Greece\nattempted to put on the expression which the social nature of man would\ngive of itself, the real secret of their downfall? If, while giving\neven limited social expression to her national life, Greece developed a\ncivilization so rich, how much greater might have been her contribution\nto human progress had not the seeds of disintegration been sown among her\npeople through national enmity and hate. In the two hundred years which\nembraced the most fertile portion of her history she laid the foundation\nof thought. But it was only through thought that she sought to solve the\nproblems of life and destiny.\n\nThe social life of the Jews found only limited expression for itself.\nIt was worked out into religious lines that were unlimited and all\nembracing, but this was in spite of their prejudices.\n\nTheir compact social life, the vast depth and vigor of their social\nvitality, the tenacity with which they clung together, made it possible\nfor them to lay the foundation of a religion and an ethics larger than\nthey dreamed. Their scriptures, their prophets, and their saints were not\npossible in a soil less socially rich.\n\nTheir devotion, their loyalty, their voluntary subordination of private\nto public interests, their religious fidelity fitted them to become the\nchildren of God. The summit of civilization they reached enabled them\nto see and to transcribe the outlines of the kingdom of heaven. They\nascended high enough the mount of being to recognize the laws necessary\nto regulate human conduct. But they permitted their narrowness and\nprejudice to build of the Gentiles about them, walls to limit the outflow\nof their national life. Hate for the unfortunate people without, could\nnot be without its influence on the lives of those within.\n\nThe selfishness which, as a nation, they cherished toward other people,\nreproduced itself at length in their own lives. From the children of God\nthey descended until they became the children of the devil. The visions\nof their nobler men were discounted and despised. The selfishness that\nput them against the Gentiles, finally put them against one another; and\nwhile they kept together in a certain sense, in spite of the upper and\nnether mill stones of history, it was rather in memory of what they had\nbeen, than of what they were.\n\nIn the civilization of Rome, again, limitations were put on the\nexpression of the social side of man\u2019s nature. Within the precincts of\nRome, under her eagles and within her roads, there was a sinking of the\nindividual and an expression of the social side, that has been rarely\nequaled in history. It was this merging of the individual units into the\nsocial whole of Rome, that made it possible for her to formulate the\nlegal measures and provisions which continue to protect human life and\nproperty. But sacrifice, companionship, social cohesion on the inside,\ncould not, for many centuries, be accompanied with fierce opposition\nand cruel hate for others on the outside. It was inevitable that sooner\nor later the disposition on the outside would get distributed among the\nindividuals on the inside.\n\n\nVI.\n\nThe realm, then, to which man on the social side of himself is related,\nis larger than that encompassed by any national boundaries. The Greek,\non the social side of himself, was larger than Achai, the Jew than\nPalestine, and the Roman than the Empire. The Greek developed thought,\nthe Jew produced religion, and the Roman formulated law. But the larger\nside of man\u2019s nature is not met by thought simply, or by religion simply,\nor by law simply, but by the combination of these in right proportions.\n\nMan, on the social side of himself, is correlated through reciprocal\nrelations to the human race. To limit the social expression of man\u2019s life\nis to contract its nature, and to violate the moral laws in accordance\nwith which it must act. The understanding cannot rest in unrelated\nphenomena. Through science it reduces the forces of nature to one force,\nits energies to one energy, and its matter to its constituent elements.\nSo the social nature must find harmony in the union and cohesion of\nscattered, separated human beings. It must have companionship, such as\nthe relations of all men help to make. It must have a range as wide\nas the world. Because of the continuities of life and thought secured\nthrough universal social cohesion, it must be able to pass and repass\nthrough the length and breadth of human life. If man\u2019s social nature is\nto find its correlate, the race must be so completely one, so compact\nand contiguous in the spirit of fraternity and good will, as to make it\npossible for each man to share in the work, thought, and virtue of all\nmen. Individuals must be gathered into the network of social relations,\nso that, instead of separate and isolated units, they shall be known\nas farmers, merchants, blacksmiths, mechanics, shoemakers, lawyers,\ndoctors, editors, and ministers. The calling of each must relate to the\nwell-being of all. Every man must make for others and receive in return\nfor the supply of his own wants something of all the others make. Into\nthe multiplex flow of exchanges the shoemaker may put in simply one pair\nof shoes per day, as his personal contribution. To that extent he must\nbe able to make levies on the contributions of all the rest. No one will\nbe independent in an unrelated sense. All will be dependent, and each\nindependent, through dependence on the rest. The race, as civil society,\nwill be at work under all climes, and on all soils, producing the\ninfinite variety of goods for the world\u2019s market. By the specialization\nand division of labor, we will have great increase of skill and the\nmultiplication of all products. People will be at work raising coffee\nand drugs in Brazil, tea in China, creating a myriad of manufactures\nin England, France, and Germany, growing fruits on the Mediterranean\nIslands; these then will be gathered by various means of transportation\nand loaded on ships and cars, to be carried to every place on earth; that\neveryone may have the whole earth to serve him, while on his part he\nrenders service to all.\n\n\nVII.\n\nThe universal organization of the human race into one social whole has\nbeen the grand, far-off event, toward which the whole creation and the\nwhole process of history has moved. Toward this the race has been moving\nthrough all the fierce antagonisms and bloody wars of the past.\n\nPestilences, which have decimated the ranks of men, and earthquakes,\nwhich have swallowed up great cities, have contributed toward this\nconsummation.\n\nThe genius of men like Alexander the Great has been used to break up the\nnarrow and provincial groupings into which men had settled, that a way\nmight be opened for the distribution of products and the circulation of\nideas.\n\nIn the early history of the race, the process of organization began.\nEvery great man and every great movement helped toward its enlargement.\nAbraham, getting up from Ur of the Chaldees, and moving with his family\nand his herds across the plains of Syria, to plant a government in\nPalestine, widened its sphere. Ph\u0153nicia, the strongest maritime power of\nancient times, while she had no motive but gain for crowding every port\nwith her ships, and for turning the world into an exchange, did augment\nthe knowledge of men and increase the relations of men. The Jews, by\ntheir compact, social organization, lifted their national life into a\ngreat civilization. This civilization they sought to make provincial;\nthey sought to fence themselves off, with all they had accumulated of\ndevotion and law and literature, from the rest of mankind. But their\nsocial pulverization, due to their sins, helped forward universal\ncompanionship. They moved out into other parts of the world. They\nsettled along the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. They went into Asia\nMinor and back into Syria. They took up their abode in Alexandria and\nalong the Mediterranean coast. Wherever they went, they carried their\ncivilization; their synagogue, in which to teach their knowledge of the\none God; their Moses, to guide by his law their conduct; and their David,\nto soothe, with his songs, their sorrow.\n\nThe marvelous productions of Grecian thought and skill were kept, for\na time, from the barbarians. They attempted a monopoly of beauty. But\nthe breaking up of their Commonwealth hastened the coming of universal\nfraternity. They planted their civilization in Asia Minor. They went over\nto Syria, down to Alexandria, and around the Mediterranean Sea. Wherever\nthey went they carried their language and their philosophy. The Romans\nbroke down the walls between different tribes, and brought them under one\nlaw. They built roads into all parts of the civilized world, and thus\nprepared the first great highways of travel.\n\nLooking from this distance, back upon the movements of these great\npeoples, it seems as if they might have been, on set purpose, devising\nschemes and laying plans for bringing the world of mankind together.\nIt really looks as if all peoples above the grade of the savage had\nbeen unconsciously and in spite of themselves working for the unity of\nthe race. The very walls that have been raised to keep men apart have\nbeen battered down and used to make roads to bring them together. The\nmountains, that served as barriers to separate them, have been tunneled\nto unite them. The oceans, that seemed absolutely to insure isolation,\nare now the favorite means of communication. All inventions and\ndiscoveries have helped to the practical oneness of the race.\n\nThe mariner\u2019s compass, gunpowder, the printing press, the steam engine,\nthe electric telegraph, the sewing machine, the spectroscope, the\nelectric light, the telephone, with the phonograph and microphone, have\nwrought for this end. The discovery of the sun\u2019s place in the heavens,\nand of the shape and movements of the earth; the discovery of America\nand of the law of gravitation; the discovery of the circulation of the\nblood and of the wonderful remedies in nature which relieve the ills of\nthe body, have all reduced differences and augmented unity. Theologies,\nwhich have divided men into religious partisans, fomenting strife,\nand producing wars; which have separated men into parties bitter and\nrevengeful; have grown kinder and humaner as the years have passed, and\ntend now to unite men, rather than to divide them. Philosophies, which\nkept men apart under the heads of nominalist and realist, sensationalist\nand idealist, are now deduced from a broader survey of the facts, and\ntend to harmony rather than conflict.\n\nFrom the beginning nature and human effort have wrought together for\nuniversal good will and social organization. Lapses have been frequent\nand the net gain of fraternity small, but from age to age, without\ncessation and without intermission, in volume and sweep, it has been\nincreasing.\n\n\nVIII.\n\nBecause of the limited knowledge men had of the uses of power in the\npast, the growth of universal social organization has been slow. Methods\nof intercommunication between nations wide apart were meager, hence the\npeople in one division of the globe could know but little of the people\nwho lived in another. Any part of the earth not understood was counted\nas desert, and any people not known were considered barbarian. But with\nthe new uses and applications of power, all this is changed. The world\nnow lies open to all. The antipodes are neighbors. By hitching the\nsun\u2019s heat to the flying train, and the canvas to the favoring winds,\nand the lightning to human thought, all races on the globe stand face to\nface. The world is being encompassed, and no natural obstacles are now\npermitted to stand in the way of railway lines, or of submarine cables.\nAll mountain chains are being tunneled, all chasms spanned, all oceans\ntraversed, and all straits bridged. The continents of the earth are now\nconnected by 125,000 miles of submarine electric cable, and countries\nare crossed by thousands of miles of railroad lines. With an abiding and\nirrepressible, even if unconscious sense, that on the social side of\nhimself he is related to the whole human race, man has well-nigh subdued\nthe earth, and removed the obstacles that opposed the realization of his\nlarger nature. Already great enterprises are being contemplated, which\nlook to the speedy removal of whatever remaining obstacles there are to\nworld-wide companionship among men. Some of the great enterprises already\nprojected which are to help toward universal brotherhood, have been noted\nby Mr. Charles Hallock. A railway is to be built from Joppa to Jerusalem\nin Palestine, and a bridge across the Straits of Dover near Folkestone.\n\nThe Mombasa and Nyanza Railway in Africa is to connect the Nile with\nthe interior lakes and with the coast. A railway is to be constructed\nacross Siberia, from St. Petersburg to Behring Strait. Upon this side a\nrailway is to be built across Alaska to Behring Strait, while Behring\nStrait is to be bridged or ferried. A canal is to be cut across the\nIsthmus of Corinth in Greece, to connect the \u00c6gean Sea with the Gulf of\nCorinth. There is to be a ship canal around Niagara Falls, and a railroad\nfrom Quebec to Belle Isle in Labrador, with connecting ocean steamship\nlines to Medford in Wales. There is to be an ocean cable from Clew Bay,\nIreland, to Greeny Island, Strait of Belle Isle, 1900 miles long. And\na railroad from Winnipeg, Manitoba, to Hudson Bay, and steamship line\nthence to Liverpool.\n\nA railway is contemplated from Winnipeg to the Saskatchewan River, across\nthe Northwest Territory. A tunnel is to be cut under the Hudson River\nat New York, and a tunnel under the St. Clair River, between Sarnia\nand Port Huron, Mich. That the Panama and Nicaragua canals have been\nprojected and partially completed is known the world over. A tunnel is\nto be made through the Atlas Mountains in Russia, and the great Northern\nRailroad Company is to make one through the Rocky Mountains in Montana,\nand another is to be cut through the Sierras from Truckee River, Nevada,\ninto California. There is to be a canal from Knoxville, Tenn., through\nAlabama to the Gulf of Mexico, and one from Chicago to the Mississippi\nRiver, which is to cost $25,000,000. A ship railway 60 miles long is\nto be completed from Georgian Bay to Lake Ontario, connecting the\nGreat Lakes and the St. Lawrence River, costing $12,000,000. A canal\nis contemplated from Chicago to the Gulf of Mexico, and also a ship\nrailway around the Dalles of the Columbia River. There is to be a ship\ncanal across New Jersey to the Atlantic Ocean, 60 miles long, and a ship\nrailway to connect the Gulf of St Lawrence with the Bay of Fundy, 12\nmiles long, to cost $12,000,000. There are to be steam lines from Tampa,\nFla., to all parts of the West Indies, a longitudinal railway through the\naxis of North and South America, from Chicago to the Argentine Republic;\nsteam lines from Vancouver in British Columbia, to Japan and Australia,\nand steam lines from New York to the Carribbees and the Windward Islands.\nThere are to be steam lines from Scotland to the North Cape and the\nAntarctic Ocean; stated voyages between Sitka, Alaska, and Point Barrow\nin the Arctic Ocean, and steamboat navigation of all the great lakes and\nrivers of Siberia, British America, and Central Africa. Ports of entry\nare to be established in all countries to furnish terminal facilities for\nthese far reaching lines of transportation.\n\nWe are to have federation among the nations, as we now have it among the\nStates of the American Union. The social cohesion, once national, is to\nbe international. All are to think for each, and each is to think for\nall. All are to work for each, and each is to work for all. All are to\nplan for the good of each, and each is to plan for the good of all. Thus\nthe inequalities of life are to be reduced, and the littleness of life\nis to be redressed.\n\nAs all the power in the vine and its branches to make grapes is expended\nin the rounding and sweetening of each grape, so all the power in the\nsocial whole to make men will be reproduced in each man. All the justice\nin the race will regulate each man\u2019s will, all the thought in the race\nwill replenish each man\u2019s mind, and all the love in the race will feed\neach man\u2019s heart. Nothing less than this social whole, in which are\nbound together in one organic body the lives, the welfare, and the hopes\nof all, is the correlate of the social nature of man. Toward such a\nworld-wide organism, each living in the whole and the whole living in\neach, his social nature reaches out and is never at home until it is\nfound. Such universal brotherhood would be impossible without power in\nall its manifold forms. This serves the social body as bread serves the\nindividual body. Power, as the servant of the social body, waits on each\nman through his relations with the social whole. A city builds gas works\nand finds it possible to let down the price in proportion to the number\nof those who use it. A railroad company can lower the rate on passengers\nand freight in proportion to the number of men who travel and the volume\nof freight transported. The price of a newspaper goes up or down as the\nnumber of subscribers increases or diminishes. Mr. Edison expects to get\nelectricity from the disturbed conditions of the air, without the use of\nfuel. This will make the conditions of life easier by one-half; and then,\nas the number of people increases who avail themselves of the uses of\npower, the conditions of living will still be easier. Not only will the\nunity which comes through social organization lower the rate of insurance\nand the price of the necessities of life, but this increased force of\nthe social whole will tend to the moral health of the people in the same\ndegree. Health in one part of the body will be brought to bear to correct\ndisease in another part. The conscience of the whole will be turned into\nthe degraded sections of our great cities, and the sympathy and love of\nall will be called out to reclaim them. Starvation in one part of the\nglobe will be met by the over-supply of bread in another. Oppression\nand tyranny in one nation will be opposed by the sense of fairness and\novercome by the love of freedom in all the rest. As climatic conditions\nare made friendly to life by the circulation of oceanic and atmospheric\ncurrents, so moral health will be preserved by the circulation of the\ncurrents of conscience and justice.\n\n\nIX.\n\nThe emphasis is to be kept on the social rather than the individual side\nof human nature; not that personality may be lost, but that it may be\ngained.\n\nThe social mass that constricts and squeezes the single life until the\nvirility of self-assertion and the right of private initiative are\ndestroyed, is no improvement on Bedouin isolation. The latter brutalizes\nlife, while the former eviscerates it. The eye does not lose its capacity\nfor sight, and its place of peculiar responsibility by being brought\ninto reciprocal relations along with other organs in the same body. It\nwould have no meaning and no power of vision apart from relations with\nother organs. The ear is not discounted, nor are its wonderful functions\nbelittled amid the manifold members which work together in the same human\nframe. Its position of honor is secured to it by the organic relations\nit sustains to the other members. The foot, the hand, and the tongue find\nthemselves and their uses as they unite together in one living whole. The\nlone Bedouin, with no laws and no relations, seems to have all liberty,\nbut in reality he has none. He is as completely without meaning as\nwould be the finger separated from the hand. The man of whom nature is\na prophecy is not the being in the woods whose home is a cave and whose\nfood is wild meat; but it is the man in society, whose home all woods\nand metals and stones have helped to build, and whose food all soils and\nskies and seas have helped to produce.\n\nThe emphasis is to be kept on the social side of human nature, because it\nis through that side of himself that man is to pass into the world-wide\nwork and the glorious destiny for which he is fitted. Through that side\nof himself he moves out into order, and strength, and freedom. All men\nwhose names are cherished in history, passed into place, influence, and\nhonor through the social side of human nature.\n\nIn passing through the social side of himself, the life man finds is a\nmillion times larger and richer than the life he loses. That men might\nfind the life that belonged to them, the only life worth living, the\ntendency from the first has been toward the solidarity of the race. The\nrelations growing out of such solidarity are constitutive of the being of\neach man. The important properties of an acid cannot be known, when it is\nconsidered out of relation with an alkali. What a thing is for another,\nthat it is in itself. So what a man is through relations with others,\nthat he is in himself. But what he is in himself cannot be known until he\ncomes into relations with others.\n\nSolidarity is not to swamp single lives, but single lives are to come\nto all that is peculiar and high in themselves through solidarity. The\nuniverse is to preserve relations with each private spirit. By the\norganization of men into one social whole, provision is made for each\nman to participate in the life of humanity. It is intended that all the\noceans of life shall reach, through their waves, the shores of each man\u2019s\nbeing, and leave deposits of all their wealth in each man\u2019s spirit. When\nwe speak of the horse, the eagle, the whale, it is understood that we are\nusing generic terms, and are intended to refer to no particular horse or\neagle or whale. Yet in each horse the species is reproduced, and in each\neagle the species is epitomized, and in each whale the whole whale type\nis summarized. This is done in the case of the lower animals, without\ntheir thought or volition. No universal relations are necessary among\nwhales, for each whale to have within itself all the peculiarities and\nfurnishments possessed by all whales. The species are to be realized in\neach man, too; but this is to be accomplished through social relations\namong all men. All the men in the world must touch each man, to call\nforth the capacities which lie folded within his life. Humanity, as\nparcelled out in nations, generations, epochs, must lift itself into the\nbeing of each man; as the ocean, parcelled out in Atlantics, Pacifics,\nIndians, Arctics, Antarctics, lifts itself into each wave.\n\nPower, parcelled out in gravitation, heat, and electricity surrounding\nthe globe; advertised in every apple\u2019s fall, declared in every flash from\nthe clouds, and present in every sunbeam; stands ready to make universal\nbrotherhood, not simply an ideal, running through the dreams of poets and\nprophets, but an actual fact. The recognition of power, as the provision\nmade for the social nature of man, is enabling us to realize the dreams\nof prophets and poets.\n\n\n\n\n_TRUTH._\n\n\n    \u201cA century is a formula; an epoch is an expressed thought.\n    One such thought-expressed civilization passes to another.\n    The centuries are the phrases of civilization; what she says\n    here she does not repeat there. But these mysterious phrases\n    are linked together: logic\u2014the logos\u2014is within them, and their\n    series constitutes progress. In all these, phrase expressions\n    of a single thought, the divine thought, we are slowly\n    deciphering the word _fraternity_.\n\n    \u201cAll light is at some point condensed into a flame; likewise\n    every epoch is condensed in a man. The man dead, the epoch is\n    concluded: God turns over the leaf. Dante dead, a period is\n    placed at the end of the thirteenth century: John Huss may\n    come. Shakspere dead, a period is placed at the end of the\n    sixteenth century. After this part, who contains and epitomizes\n    all philosophy, may come the philosophers\u2014Pascal, Descartes,\n    Moli\u00e8re, Le Sage, Montesquieu, Diderot, Beaumarchais.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nTHE PROVISION FOR THE INTELLECTUAL NATURE OF MAN.\n\n\nTruth and reality stand for the same thing. Reality is truth out of the\nmind, and truth is reality in the mind. Reality is objective truth, and\ntruth is subjective reality. But all reality is in relation to mind;\nobjective reality to the divine mind, and subjective reality to the\nhuman mind. Objective reality is the realized thought of God; subjective\nreality is the realized thought of man. The correspondence of thoughts to\nthings is called scientific truth. Objective reality is truth, because it\ncorresponds to the thought of God. Knowledge in the human mind is truth\nwhen it corresponds to objective reality or the expressed thought of\nGod. When words and conduct correspond to knowledge, we have truth in the\ndomain of morals.\n\nIn saying that objective reality is the realized thought of God, we\ndenote its unity. This is not to destroy the particulars of which it is\ncomposed, or to swamp their individuality in an inarticulate mass, but\nsimply to indicate their oneness.\n\nWhen the observer looks out into the universe, which includes and shuts\nhim round, he is impressed by the infinite varieties and diversities\nwhich everywhere meet his gaze. No two things are alike. No two leaves,\nno two drops of water, no two snowflakes, no two apples, no two faces.\nEvery particular thing seems to be persistently determined to differ,\nin some respect at least, from everything else. The history of true\nknowledge begins, however, with the observation of resemblance and\nsimilarity\u2014just beneath the surface of difference and variety. The\nlightning that appears on the bosom of the cloud, like the writing of\nsome awful fiend, is seen to be the same with the gentle sparks emitted\nwhen a tag of silken ribbon is drawn briskly between the fingers. The\npower that pulls the ball to the ground is seen to be the same as that\nwhich keeps the sun in his place.\n\nThe plant lifts itself up as but a sum of organized varieties; but every\npart, corolla, petal, and stamen, is known to be only modified leaf.\nKeeping to their silent and lonely rounds since the dawn of time, are the\nstars in the heavens, differing in color, orbit, and size, but we now\nknow that to understand the elements of which they are composed, we have\nonly to lift our foot and see what the constituent parts of the earth\nbeneath it are. Were objective reality one amorphous mass, it would not\nbe intelligible. It is one and many, particular and universal, singular\nand manifold, concrete and discrete. All things cohere in a centrality\nthat includes and commands them.\n\nSo true is it that unity underlies all difference, that no single variety\ncan be understood, only as it is considered in relation with the whole of\nwhich it forms a part.\n\nNo one could ever get a correct notion of a particular star by directing\nhis entire attention to the study of that star. To understand it, he\nmust study it through the system of which it forms a member, and in\nconnection with all laws and forces related to it. Oxygen separate and\ndistinct from other elements has no meaning. It gets its definition and\nsignificance from the things to which it is related. What it is for rocks\nand water and trees and globes, that it is in itself. But it must be seen\nin connection with these before we can know what it is in itself. What\nan acid is for an alkali and for other things, that it is in itself.\nAlone, out of relation, we could know absolutely nothing of it. Society\nis the organism that reveals to each person the nature of his own life.\nOut of contact and touch with other human beings, no one would ever know\nanything concerning himself.\n\nObjective reality embraces manifold variety, but it is the unity that\npresides over it that makes it intelligible. Difference provokes\nquestions and unity answers them.\n\nIn calling objective reality truth, we tacitly assume the laws and\nrelations constitutive of it. We could not speak of the truth of the\nglobe, had there been no method in its formation, no order in its\ndevelopment, no system in its parts, and no relations between its\nconstituent elements. To speak of the truth of it, is to imply the\nthought of it, the intelligibility of it. Were it not the expression of\nmind, man\u2019s reason could find no truth in it. Scholars have been able,\nafter long and painstaking study, to understand the meaning of Egyptian\nand Assyrian hieroglyphics, but they never could have found thought in\nthem, had they contained no thought. The original elements which make\nup the matter of the globe, have come into such relations with one\nanother as that they make up the soil, rocks, water, trees, and animals\nwe see. Thought, then, is the result of the internal relations of the\nparticles which compose it. These internal relations, too, constitute its\nintelligibility. The globe that wheels on its axis is objective. This\nmay be taken into the mind, and by its synthesizing, organizing activity\nconverted into a subjective globe. The difference between the objective\nand the subjective globe will be, that one will be thought and the other\nwill be thing. But the same internal relations found in the objective\nglobe will be preserved in the subjective, and the transcript of the\nglobe that is held in thought will be truth in exact proportion as it\ncorresponds to the material globe that rolls out of the mind. That an\nobjective globe, which is a thing, may become a subjective globe, which\nis a thought and not a thing, implies that there is something in common\nbetween thoughts and things; that is, the mind, by its constitution,\nis capable of apprehending and taking into itself the constitution and\nrelations of things. This is its capacity for truth, and shows that truth\nis not foreign to it, but one with itself.\n\nThe sides and angles of a right angle triangle have certain relations\nto one another. The square described on the hypotenuse of such an angle\nis equal to the squares described on the other two sides. This may be\ndemonstrated on a piece of blank paper, or the mind may conceive a right\nangle triangle, and prove the proposition without making any marks at\nall. The constitutional relations which were in the nature of a right\nangle triangle are the same, whether it be drawn on paper or conceived\nby the imagination. The relations of the triangle make it intelligible,\nbecause they constitute its truth.\n\n\nI.\n\nTo truth the intellect is related, as is the eye to light, and the ear\nto sound. If the eye were destroyed, the sun would not cease to shine.\nHis light would still come upon hill and plain to feed the flowers and to\ndisclose their beauty, but without the organ of vision no creature in the\nuniverse would be able to see the things which his light reveals. The ear\ndoes not create sound. Let it be forever sealed, and the Niagaras would\nstill continue to fall and the thunders to shake the heavens, but they\nwould not be heard. The intellect does not create truth, but it is the\nonly faculty with which man is endowed by which he is able to discover it.\n\nIt was the error of the idealists that they made the order, laws, and\nrelations of things as so many principles projected out of the observer\u2019s\nown mind into the universe about him. What he seemed to see in things,\nwere but modifications of his own mental states. The only order things\nhad was in the observer\u2019s own mind. It was regarded not only as the pivot\nupon which the universe turned, but also as the creative principle from\nwhich the universe took form. Apparently this was a great gain to mind,\nbut it was at the expense of any real world for the mind to contemplate.\nIt seemed to win a victory for the intelligence absolute and entire,\nbut it was by shutting it up to its own shadowy abstractions, and\nabandoning it in a shoreless and bottomless void to its own vain musings.\nThe personal pronoun _I_ was extended perpendicularly and horizontally,\ntill topways and sideways the whole of space and time was filled with\nit. No solid earth, no burning sun, no rolling orbs were left. A great,\nillimitable, irresponsible ego became the sole occupant of all that is.\n\nThis extreme idealism is in direct contrast to the realism of the early\nthinkers. They taught that things depended on man neither for their\nexistence nor their intelligibility. That each thing carried the real\nintelligible essence as an ultimate fact in itself. Thought in man was\nbut the reflection of this intelligible essence in the thing, as the\nlight in the mirror is but the reflection of the light of the lamp.\n\nOf the two systems, extreme idealism is preferable to extreme realism.\nAll mind and no matter, is better than all matter and no mind. Thought\nwith no place to stand, is better than a place to stand and no thought.\nThe eye with nothing to see, is better than something to see and no eye.\n\nThe solution which realism gave of the problem of existence, left no\nplace for mind, the solution which idealism gave of it left no place for\nmatter. But both the external world, upon which realism was founded,\nand the intelligence, upon which idealism was founded, are expressions\nof mind. The one as intelligible content, the other as combining active\ncapacity and the intelligibility of the content, exactly corresponds to\nthe active grasp of the capacity.\n\n\nII.\n\nBut it must be remembered that the intellect which is the organ of truth,\nand objective reality which is abstract truth, do not come together to\nform knowledge in any accidental way.\n\nA basket may be said to have capacity for holding potatoes, and potatoes\nmay lend themselves as content to fill up the basket. But the union of\npotatoes and basket; the one as content, the other as capacity, is only\nmechanical. The basket would serve as well to hold onions, or muskadines,\nor chinquepins, as potatoes, and the potatoes could be carried as well in\na wooden box or in a tin pan, as in a basket. No necessity inheres in the\nnature of a basket to contain potatoes, and no necessity is in the nature\nof potatoes to get into a basket. Truth and the intellect, however, are\nintended the one for the other. Truth is correlated to the intellect as\nthe bird\u2019s wing is to the atmosphere. Nothing can take hold of the truth\nbut the intellect, and nothing can satisfy and furnish the intellect but\ntruth.\n\nAbstract truth, or objective reality, is converted by the combining\norganizing activity of the mind into knowledge, and when this knowledge\ncorresponds to the reality it is truth in the realm of thought.\n\nBefore knowledge is possible, then, there must be an intelligence capable\nof knowing, and an object capable of being known.\n\nHow the intelligence and the knowable object get together to form\nknowledge is the most important question in philosophy. Upon the right\nsettlement of it, everything depends. This has been the point about which\nthe battle of thought, in modern times, has been most fiercely waged. If\nthe mind firmly grasps the meaning of this problem and settles it right,\nit is almost sure to think right on other questions. If it is wrong here,\nit is sure to be wrong everywhere else. Mistake here is as fatal to the\ncorrect solution of the question we are considering, as would be the\nmistake that two and two make five to the correct solution of a sum in\narithmetic.\n\n\nIII.\n\nThe distance of a question from ordinary thought does not render it\nany the less important, even for ordinary thinking. How the knowing\nintelligence and the knowable object get together to form knowledge is\nthe most important problem to-day before the human mind. If writers\nwould only take their bearings from the only rational solution that can\nbe given to it, they would find half the books they are writing on the\ninspiration of the Scriptures, the existence of God, the divinity of\nJesus Christ, agnosticism and materialism, unnecessary.\n\nAgnosticism and materialism pass away with a correct theory of knowing.\nLabor and painstaking thought are involved in the task of getting a\nright theory of knowledge, but agnosticism and materialism are in line\nwith ignorance and indolence.\n\nSo, while few men ever ask themselves how the knowing intelligence and\nthe knowable object get together to form knowledge, millions of men are\naffected, even in their practical life, by the answer which is given to\nthe question. Someone has said that not more than six men in any one age\never read Plato or understand him. Yet for the six men Plato comes down\nthrough the ages. The six men who understand him translate him into the\nvernacular of the one hundred men who live on the next plane of thought\nbelow them.\n\nThe one hundred translate him into the common language of one thousand\nbelow them. These, in turn, translate Plato into the ordinary thought\nof the millions below them. So it happens at length that Plato gets so\nuniversally known, that not a laborer in the field but wears his hat\nafter one style, rather than another, because Plato wrote.\n\nDoubtless it would have been considered a very unimportant question two\nhundred years ago, as to whether heat were an igneous fluid or a mode of\nmotion. Perhaps not more than two or three men wrestled with the question\nfor centuries before it was settled. By the masses of the people they\nwere regarded as wasting their time in vain and idle speculation. By an\nexperiment made by Count Rumford, it was put beyond the possibility of\ndoubt that heat was not an igneous fluid, but a mode of motion. Was this\na question that concerned the multitudes, that two or three men spent a\nhundred years talking about and torturing their brains to understand?\nThere is not a single human being in the civilized world to-day whose\ninterests and welfare have not been touched by the settlement of it.\nThere are millions of peasants in Russia who never heard of Count\nRumford, or of an igneous fluid, or of caloric, who have this present\nyear been fed by flour sent them by the western millers and transported\non the strength of the conclusion that heat is not an igneous fluid,\nbut a mode of motion. Every steam-car that crosses the continent, and\nevery steamboat that crosses the ocean, moves in the wake of this same\nconclusion. At first we see some algebraic formulas, an array of curves\nand figures, that practical people said had nothing to do with everyday\nlife. After a while we see the abstract conclusions reached by aid of the\nalgebraic signs, and settled by the test of experiment, translated into\nsteam engines, and transporting even the peasants of India and Mexico\nfrom one end of the country to the other. We see the abstract conclusions\nof the few thinkers turned into steam to spin the people\u2019s clothes and\ngrind the people\u2019s bread.\n\nIn 1632 there was born at Wrington, Somersetshire, England, a boy,\nwho was educated at the University of Oxford. In the esteem of his\ncontemporaries he devoted his time to the consideration of subjects of\nno practical value. In the course of events he put the results of his\nstudy into a book known as \u201cThe Essay on the Human Understanding.\u201d Few\npeople read it. But the few who did read it started the ideas of it\nto circulating. They were translated into French and Latin, and were\nsoon potent influences in the intellectual life of Europe. Were they\npractical and did they concern the ordinary affairs of men? They created\nthe Encyclopedists of France. These learned men were the authors of the\nradical opinions which cut the people from the moorings of traditional\nand age-long thought. The fire and the blood of the Revolution were the\nlegitimate expressions of the speculative essay of John Locke that not\none in ten thousand ever read. The persons whose heads were cut off in\nthe Reign of Terror must have thought the ideas exceedingly practical\nthat led to the destruction of social and political institutions, that\ntook form in a movement which respected neither law nor property nor\nlife. The speculative opinions of John Locke not only helped to create\nthe French Revolution, but they led to the idealism of Bishop Berkeley,\nand this in turn to the skeptical philosophy of David Hume. The modern\nsuccessors of Hume are John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Leslie\nStephen, Frederic Harrison, and Professor Huxley, whose contributions\nhave been given to the popular reviews, and which have been read by all\nintelligent people. Every man in Europe and America has been influenced\nboth in conduct and character by the speculative \u201cEssay on the Human\nUnderstanding.\u201d\n\nLocke\u2019s speculative philosophy passed through Berkeley to Hume, and\nthrough Hume reached Kant, the great German thinker, and resulted in the\n\u201cCritique of Pure Reason.\u201d This led to Fichte and Schelling, and finally\nto Hegel. This led to Heidelberg and the T\u00fcbingen school, to Bauer and\nDewette, to extreme idealism and rationalism, translated into books and\nreviews and newspapers, and read by all the people, affecting their\nthought and life.\n\nEven people who never read, who never open a book or a newspaper, have\nbeen influenced by the subtle piece of speculative reasoning given to\nthe world by the great sensational philosopher of England. The spirit\nof utilitarianism and secularism prevalent throughout the world at the\npresent time is easily traceable to it.\n\n\nIV.\n\nBefore we can possibly know that truth is the provision for the\nintellectual nature of man, we must determine whether the knowing\nfaculties, which he finds himself to possess, are capable of grasping\ntruth and turning it into knowledge. The fight of skepticism in modern\ntimes has been made upon the knowing faculties. It is useless to\ntalk about the existence of God, the inspiration of the Scriptures,\nthe divinity of Christ, or the immortality of the soul, if the human\nintellect is, by its limitations, denied the possibility of knowing\nanything whatsoever concerning these things. It is a waste of time for me\nto attempt to dip water out of the ocean with a bucket with no bottom to\nit. What is the relation of the intelligence to the outer world? Does the\noutside world create knowledge in the mind by the impressions it makes\nupon it, or does the mind bring something to the outside world which\nconverts this raw material into knowledge? Is knowledge a reflection of\nthe outer, or a creation of the inner? Does nature work it in us, or is\nthere some spontaneous, creative, organizing, mental activity within us\nthat takes the material presented by nature, turning it into a rational\nsystem of knowledge? What is the relation between the being that knows\nand the object known? How much of the creative factor of knowledge\ndoes nature supply? How much does man supply? Can a man with deranged\nfaculties get order out of a rational world? Can a man of sane mind get\norder out of an irrational world? If there is to be a rational system of\nknowledge built up in the mind, must there not be reason in the thinker\nand reason in the outside world, coming into organic relations, the one\nwith the other? As to how we regard this question will determine how we\nregard truth, and whether or not it is possible for us to know it.\n\n\nV.\n\nThe human mind has never been able to resist the conviction that there is\nsuch a thing as truth. Though baffled and defeated a thousand times, in\nevery age, in its attempt to formulate truth, it has never been able to\nconsent to give up the search for it. Interest in truth has kept alive\nand fostered the belief that the mind has power to understand it. The\nmind\u2019s passion for truth has deepened its confidence in the faculties\nwith which it is ever trying to discover it. The everlasting longing to\nknow truth has been taken as implicit capacity to find it. Philosophic\nsystems have been only so many devices and creations of the mind with\nwhich to take hold of truth. The methods proposed, in the first stages\nof philosophic thinking, for getting at the truth were crude, as the\nfirst instruments devised for cultivating the soil and getting out of\nit what there was in it for food, were crude. Thales, Pythagoras, and\nAnaximander first attempted to penetrate objective reality, to know its\ncause, to bring its multiplicity to unity, and to reduce its variety\nto law. The ever-changing phenomena by which they were surrounded\nnecessarily eluded the meager theories with which they attempted to\nreduce them to order. They prepared the way, however, for systems which\naccommodated a greater number of facts. They made possible Plato and\nAristotle, who, with hypotheses more complicated and more consonant\nwith the reality they sought to grasp, found truth enough to keep the\nhuman race thinking for two thousand years. The blocks of truth they\nquarried from the mines of objective reality were used to carry up the\ntheological and speculative temples of the Middle Ages.\n\nAfter the failure of scholasticism, which denotes a period in human\nthought rather than a particular system of philosophy, Lord Bacon\nproposed the method of material induction to bring the mind into\nrelations of knowledge with truth. He emphasized the study of the outward\nfacts, their classification and organization. In his esteem, truth was to\nbe reached by the consideration of actual, tangible things. Man was the\ninterpreter of nature, and not necessarily its interpretation.\n\nTruth in the mind was the image of objective truth. It differed from\ntruth out of the mind, as the direct from the reflected ray. He failed\nfrom lack of adequate recognition of one of the important factors in the\nproblem of truth. Descartes\u2019 method was more successful, because larger\nand completer recognition was taken of man.\n\nHe began by doubting everything that could be doubted. Heir to the\nbeliefs of all the ages, he determined to summon these, one by one,\nbefore the bar of reason, and force them to show cause for their\nexistence. Everyone was to be called into court and put out that could\nbe doubted. The existence of a God was called up and doubted, condemned,\nand put out. The existence of an external world was called up, doubted,\ncondemned, and put out. In the same summary and shorthand way, man and\nmind were doubted and put out. All positive beliefs were doubted. After\nhis process of elimination, he found himself without God, without man,\nwithout mind, without a permanent external world. All that remained after\nemptying himself of all mental furnishments and beliefs was the fact\nthat he doubted. But he could not doubt without thinking. In the very\nact of doubting, he thought. If one thinks, he must think something.\nThe nearest something to the thinking subject is his own personal being.\nSo he thought himself and concluded, \u201cI think, therefore, I am.\u201d But he\nwas not always; he began to be. So he must think of a being that caused\nhim. The being that caused him must himself be uncaused. Moreover, there\ncould not be an uncaused cause, without an effect. Creation, then, with\nwhich he stood face to face, was the effect of the great first cause.\nThus Descartes\u2019 method, based upon the thought underlying doubt, led\nhim, necessarily, to himself, the object of his thought; and to God,\nthe cause of himself; and to creation, the effect of the great first\ncause or God. Through his process of coming at the problem, he was able,\nrationally, to believe in the existence of himself, the outer world,\nand God, the cause of both. Descartes, as a thinker, was affirmative,\npositive, constructive. He only doubted down to the point where he could\ndoubt no longer, that he might have a sure foundation upon which to\nbuild. His contribution gave fresh courage and inspiration to the human\nmind. He failed to determine the boundary line between the self and the\nnot-self, between mind and matter, between the thinker and the creation\nwith which he stood face to face. This was the work Spinoza proposed for\nhimself, and in the celebrated Ethics, published to the world at the\nperil of his life and soul, imagined the task mathematically performed.\nThe two poles of Descartes\u2019 philosophy, the self and the not-self, he\nunited in Descartes\u2019 cause, and named the whole sum substance. The self\nand the not-self reappeared as attributes of substance, which Spinoza\nnamed thought and extension. All the phenomena in the universe, mental\nor material, were but modes of the infinite substance. The result of\nhis thinking was pure pantheism. He reached a sort of mechanical unity,\nbut he left no place for the affirmation of distinctions. His Ethics was\nlarge enough to accommodate everything, but in such a way as to preserve\nthe individuality of nothing. A thought is valuable in proportion to its\ncapacity to take hold of things as they are. The old opinion that heat\nwas caloric, served as a working hypothesis for the mind a long time.\nIn the view of those who held it, it was satisfactory and adequate. But\nit never really got hold of heat, because it contradicted the nature of\nheat. The astronomers thought, for a long time, that they had come into\nrelations of knowledge with the stars through the Ptolemaic conception\nof the heavenly bodies. They were mistaken, however. Their theory did\nnot fit the real celestial order at all. As a work of genius, Spinoza\u2019s\nEthics is one of the most remarkable productions ever formulated by\nthe human intellect, but it conducted the mind away from truth, rather\nthan into relations with it. Locke began his work as a philosopher, as\nDescartes began his, by looking into his own mind. Descartes began by\ncasting out everything that could be doubted. Locke began by making an\ninventory of what his mind contained. Descartes wanted to find out how\nmuch he could know, as measured by what remained after throwing out\neverything that could be doubted. Locke sought to see how little he could\nknow, by putting the sensations and impressions he found in his mind on\nthe witness stand, and getting them to tell how they came to be there,\nand where they came from. Descartes began by a study of the intelligence,\nthe instrument of knowledge. Locke began by a study of the facts which,\nby some means or other, had found their way into his intelligence.\nDescartes got rid of every belief that could be doubted. Locke ran every\nidea out of his mind that had been imported from the outside world, in\norder that he might see if the mind had any constitutional power to\nproduce any. Descartes, having dislodged all inherited beliefs, such as\ntook for granted the existence of God, man, mind, and outer world, found\nsome mental laws, capabilities, and tendencies left, which compelled a\nman, if he thought at all, to think in a given way; and if he thought on\ngiven lines, to think to a given conclusion. Not being able to get these\nlaws out of the mind, he called them innate ideas. They were in the mind\nby structure and constitution.\n\nAfter Locke had carefully examined the contents of his mind, he declared\nthey were all imported from an outside realm. Nothing he found in the\nmind was indigenous to the soil. When all foreign importations were\nremoved, nothing remained but an empty vessel. The mind was nothing but\na receptacle, into which the senses dumped such objects as they happened\nto find lying round loose in the outside world. It had no more power\nto understand or turn into thought what was brought in than a piece of\nwhite paper had to read and interpret what was written upon it; or than\na kettle to recognize the liquid making up its contents as water. It is\nlike a table of wax; any sort of letters may be graven upon it, but the\ntable cannot read them.\n\nLocke proposed to find out what the mind could know by counting and\ntabulating the things he found in his own intelligence. This is very\nmuch like trying to understand the nature of light, by considering the\nblue things and green things and red things the light discloses. All\nbodies, it is said, which the light enables us to see, attract each other\nin proportion to their mass, and inversely as the squares of their\ndistance. The law of gravity, which regulates the bodies light reveals\nto us, is not the law of light. We can never understand the nature of\nlight, or the laws of light, by the study of things which light enables\nus to see. If all knowledge is but the sum of the impressions which the\nexternal world has made on the mind, then the cause of knowledge is\nmatter, and knowledge is but the image or reflection of material things.\nKnowledge, then, would sustain the same relation to the outside world,\nthat the shadow of a tree does to the tree. One would come as near\nlifting up the tree by its own shadow as lifting up the truth by Locke\u2019s\nsystem of sensational philosophy.\n\nImpressions are simple, atomic. They come into the mind, one after\nanother. They cohere in no unity. They are held together by no necessary\nrelation. They are separate, one from the other. If there is no primary,\ninnate faculty; no abiding and indwelling mental activity, that lies\nbehind, and determines and co-ordinates the objects which nature supplies\nthrough the senses, converting them into rational, orderly knowledge,\nthen we can never get hold of truth. We are shut up to hopeless ignorance.\n\n\nVI.\n\nBerkeley, in order to escape the materialism to which Locke\u2019s philosophy\nled, accepted his theory of knowledge, but destroyed his outward,\nmaterial world. In his view, there was no matter, nothing but ideas.\nThe impressions conveyed through the senses into our minds are but\nreflections of the ideas of God.\n\nIn Hume, the empirical theory of knowing found a disciple who did not\nhesitate to affirm all that was involved in it. Locke said there was an\noutward world, and knowledge was its image. Berkeley said there was no\nmaterial world; that knowledge was the reflection of God\u2019s ideas. Hume\nsaid there was neither outer world nor inner; that there was nothing but\nimpressions, sensations, ideas, in perpetual flow and flux. He claimed\nthat all ideas which could not be resolved into impressions were false.\nHe declared we could have no ideas of substance, because, if perceived by\nthe eye, it must be a color; if by the ear, a sound; if by the palate,\na taste. And because we could not think of substance as a color or a\nsound or a taste, we could therefore have no idea of it whatever. Belief\nin a permanent external world was rendered irrational by his theory\nof knowledge. Nothing is more vital and irrepressible than belief in\none\u2019s own existence, but even this could not be retained in accordance\nwith the teachings of Hume\u2019s philosophy. \u201cWhence,\u201d says he, \u201ccould\nthe impression of the idea of self be derived? What impression could\ncreate this idea? This question it is impossible to answer without a\nmanifest contradiction and absurdity, and yet it is a question that must\nnecessarily be answered. For my part, when I enter most intimately into\nwhat I call myself, I always stumble upon some perception or other; heat\nor cold, light or shade, pain or pleasure. I cannot catch myself at any\ntime without a perception, or observe anything but a perception. When\nmy perceptions are removed at any time, as by sound sleep, so long am I\ninsensible of myself, and may be said truly not to exist.\u201d\n\nThe sensational philosophy which promised so much, which appeared so\neminently practical, that took to itself such an air of common sense as\nit got about obliterating innate ideas, was seen at length to be utterly\nimpotent. It corresponded with absolutely nothing in heaven or in earth.\nThe very impressions it admitted, passed through it like drops of water\nout of a fisherman\u2019s net. Where the impressions came from or where they\nwent to, it furnished no means of knowing. God and world and cause and\nlaw and self might be, but the human mind could never know whether they\nwere or not. The human observer stood before a procession of images,\nsensations, perceptions going by like an unending circus troupe.\n\nIn Hume may be traced the entire breakdown of empirical philosophy as\na method for getting at the truth. He recognized this himself. \u201cWhen I\nturn my eye inward,\u201d he says, \u201cI find nothing but doubt and ignorance.\u201d\n\u201cThe understanding, when it acts alone, and according to its most general\nprinciples, entirely subverts itself, and leaves not the lowest degree of\nevidence in any proposition, either in philosophy or common life.\u201d \u201cWe\nhave, therefore, no choice left, but betwixt a false reason and none at\nall.\u201d\n\n\nVII.\n\nThe most remarkable thing in the whole search for truth, is that anybody\nafter Hume should have attempted to find it with Hume\u2019s principles. Yet\nthe two best known writers who have lived in England since Hume\u2019s day,\nhave rested their dogmatic doctrines on the foundations laid by the\nsensational philosophers. Hume\u2019s impressions and ideas became John Stuart\nMill\u2019s permanent possibilities of sensation and feeling, and Herbert\nSpencer\u2019s vivid and faint manifestations of the unknowable. In our time\nHerbert Spencer has undertaken the herculean task of explaining matter\nand mind, time and space, society and morals; of showing what they\nare and what they are not, by the same principles which Hume himself\ndemonstrated to be incapable of explaining anything. Spencer\u2019s units of\nknowledge are vivid and faint manifestations of the Unknown. How the\nunknowable remains unknown, after vividly and faintly manifesting itself,\nwe are not told. Mr. Spencer\u2019s vivid and faint manifestations of the\nunknown are old acquaintances with new names.\n\nLocke knew them as impressions and sensations. Berkeley recognized them\nas ideas of sense and imagination. John Stuart Mill was on speaking\nterms with them as permanent possibilities of sensation and feeling. Mr.\nSpencer gives them another baptism and another name. He calls them vivid\nand faint manifestations of the unknowable. While they have been changed\nin name, however, it must not be supposed that they have undergone any\nchange in nature or character. They stand apart, the one from the other,\njust the same as ever. They are just as foreign to the mind, where they\nvividly and faintly manifest themselves, as were the impressions of John\nLocke. They flare and flicker, rise and fall, like the jack-o\u2019-lantern\nlights of legend and tale. One light is not of a piece with any other\nlight. The lights follow one another in such quick succession, first\nvivid, then faint, that one cannot tell from the momentary flames and\nflashes what is intended to be advertised. That something is trying, by\nvarious pyrotechnic displays, to get itself revealed seems to be evident.\nBut there is such hurry on the part of the something that makes the\nmanifestations, such a disorderly whirl and changing of lights, that the\nobserver is totally bewildered; and, being under the necessity of making\nsome account to himself as to their meaning, concludes that they are\nvivid and faint illuminations of the unknowable. Hume\u2019s procession of\nsensations and ideas has by Spencer been converted into the fire-works\nof the unknowable. With Hume\u2019s physiological theory, the mind could know\nnothing but its own sensations. Spencer\u2019s vivid and faint manifestations\nof the unknowable are equally as incapable of furnishing any rational\nbasis for belief in mind or matter, law or cause, self or God. To ask the\nhuman mind to believe the encyclopedic, dogmatic system of philosophy he\naddressed to it, after insisting that all our knowledge is but the sum\nof vivid and faint manifestations of the unknowable, is as irrational as\ntrying to build a cathedral on a London fog bank. Underneath every one of\nSpencer\u2019s general terms, the indestructibility of matter, the continuity\nof motion, the persistence of force, there is nothing but sensations,\nvivid or faint manifestations of the unknown.\n\n\u201cThe doctrine of the indestructibility of matter,\u201d he says, \u201chas now\nbecome a commonplace.\u201d \u201cMatter never either comes into existence,\nor ceases to exist.\u201d How are we to know this, with minds incapable\nof any other knowledge except such as is made up of vivid and\nfaint manifestations of the unknown? Who ever had a sensation or a\nmanifestation of the indestructibility of matter? This is an idea\ninvolving all past time and all future time, and all the laws and forces\nby which matter is regulated and conserved. How could an image of the\nindestructibility of matter be photographed on the sensitive plate of\nthe mind? To do this it would be necessary to compress all past time and\nall future time into one moment, and all matter into one single square\ninch or square yard of space, so that the impression of it could be\nmade. To believe in the indestructibility of matter, with Mr. Spencer\u2019s\ntheory of the mind\u2019s capacity to know, is delirium and insanity. It is\nto believe in something that the mind, by its very nature, cannot even\nget an impression of. It is believing that the ocean can be carried in\na thimble without any bottom. Any man who should utter this publicly,\nand sincerely, would be put in the insane asylum. He says again, \u201cthe\nvery nature of the intelligence negatives the supposition that motion\ncan be conceived (much less known) either to commence or to cease.\u201d The\nnature of the intelligence is such that all the knowledge it possesses\nis made up of sensations and manifestations of the unknown. How can the\ncontinuity of motion be conceived? To do this, we must have a conception\nof all past time and all future time. It is an idea as transcendent as\nthe idea of God.\n\nMr. Spencer claims that the power the universe manifests to us is utterly\ninscrutable; that space and time are wholly incomprehensible; that\nmatter, in its ultimate nature, is as absolutely incomprehensible as\nspace and time; that all efforts to understand the essential nature of\nmotion do but bring us to alternative absurdities of thought; that it is\nimpossible to form any idea of force in itself, and equally impossible to\ncomprehend either its mode of exercise or its law of variation; that we\nare unable to believe or to conceive that the duration of consciousness\nis infinite, and equally unable to know it as finite, or to conceive\nit as finite; and that the personality of which we are each conscious,\nand of which the existence is to each a fact beyond all others the\nmost certain, yet is a thing which cannot truthfully be known at all:\nknowledge of it is forbidden by the very nature of thought. All this is\nperfectly consistent with his theory of knowledge. This is the point to\nwhich David Hume, his master, conducted the human mind in its search\nfor truth. But Spencer is not logical; he had a theory of being that\ncontradicted his theory of knowing. So he reasons first one way and then\nanother. He says, elsewhere in his First Principles, that common sense\nasserts the existence of a reality; that objective science proves that\nthis reality cannot be what we think it; that subjective science shows\nwhy we cannot think of it as it is, and yet are compelled to think of it\nas existing; and that in this assertion of a reality utterly inscrutable\nin nature, religion finds an assertion essentially coinciding with her\nown. That we are compelled to regard every phenomenon as a manifestation\nof some power by which we are acted upon. That though omnipresence is\nunthinkable, yet as experience discloses no bounds to the diffusion\nof phenomena, we are unable to think of limits to the presence of\nthis power, while the criticisms of science teach us that this power\nis incomprehensible. Analyzing the above declarations, we find that\nMr. Spencer knows there is an ultimate reality. Then it has being. It\nacts upon us. Then it has the attribute of action. All phenomena are\nmanifestations of it. Then it has power. All phenomena are manifestations\nof an inscrutable power, by which we are acted upon. Then it has causal\nenergy. We are unable to think of limits to the presence of this power.\nThen it is omnipresent. So the unknowable, inscrutable something has\nbeing, power, activity, causal energy, and omnipresence. But how are we\nto grasp these universal, transcendental attributes of the unknowable,\nwith an intelligence incapable of receiving anything but simple,\nseparate, unrelated, broken impressions and manifestations? It takes as\nmuch mind to believe in the unknowable, with the attributes of power,\nactivity, being, causal energy, and omnipresence, as to believe in a\nself-existent God, with the attributes of power, wisdom, justice, truth,\nand love.\n\nSpencer\u2019s theory of knowing is destructive, while his theory of being is\nconstructive and transcendental.\n\n\nVIII.\n\nThe intelligence, as the organ of truth, must be large enough to find\ntruth and contain truth. No sane man would undertake to dig down a\nmountain with a toothpick. Mr. Spencer devoted page after page to the\ndiscussion of cause, time, space, force, and ultimate reality, while\nholding a theory of knowledge that made the very thought of these\ninconceivable. The very things that he labeled as knowable contained a\nsubstrate the mind could never get at. Knowable things, then, could not\nbe known as they were; hence if they were known at all, must be known\nas they were not, which made the mind\u2019s knowledge error. All who accept\nMr. Spencer\u2019s theory of knowledge are shut up to absolute ignorance or\nabsolute error. If we are to know the truth of reality, of mind, of\nexternal existence, we must have knowing faculties up to the style of the\ntruth we are to know. If we are to know light, we must have eyes capable\nof taking in the light, of analyzing it, and turning it into vision. The\ndisposition to limit our power to know, by telling us, on the strength\nof Mansel and Hamilton and Kant, that all our knowledge is relative, is\ninnocent enough when stripped of its seeming wisdom. It is true that we\ncan know no more than our knowing faculties permit us.\n\nWe cannot know more than we can know. We are not absolute and omniscient\nas to our capacity to know. All we can see is what we can see with our\neyes. We cannot see with our fingers or with the back of our heads. All\nwe can hear is what we can hear with our ears. We have no other organs\nwith which to hear. All sounds that vibrate at the rate of sixteen times\nto the second up to thirty-eight thousand times to the second, we can\nhear. Whatsoever sounds vibrate at a lower rate than sixteen times to\nthe second or at a higher rate than thirty-eight thousand times to the\nsecond, we cannot hear, because such sounds are not related to the ear.\nBut the eye, being adjusted to and related to much finer wave lengths\nthan the ear, can see waves that vibrate up as high as seven hundred\nand twenty-seven trillion times to the second. The eye cannot see waves\nshorter than seven hundred and twenty-seven trillion vibrations to the\nsecond, because such waves are not adjusted to the eye. The waves the ear\ncannot hear are not sound waves. The waves the eye cannot see are not\nlight waves. There are no sound waves in the universe the ear cannot\nhear, provided they are near enough to come into contact with it. There\nare no light waves in the universe that the eye cannot turn into vision,\nif they strike the retina. Are we going to fall out with the eye, and\ndiscredit the beauty it does see, because it is not as large as the rim\nof immensity, and cannot see everything disclosed by the light of suns\nand stars at once? Are we to hold the ear in contempt after it takes in\nthe harmonies of Beethoven and Mozart, because it cannot hear all the\nmusic the stars are making as they move through the heavens?\n\nWhatever is real and true the mind can know, because the mind is\ncorrelated to the real and the true. It cannot know what is unreal and\nuntrue. It cannot know that two and two make five, because that is unreal\nand untrue. It cannot know that a crooked line is the shortest distance\nbetween two points, because that is unknowable. It cannot know that it\nis more rational to tell a lie than to tell the truth, because that is\nunknowable and untrue. There is much that is unknowable, but whatever\nis, we may be sure is irrational and unreal. Whatever is true in being,\ncause, time, space, mind, matter, force, motion may be known. The finite\nmind cannot know it at once, and can never, throughout all infinite time,\ndirectly take it into the intelligence; but it is knowable, because\nthe underlying, fundamental, prior thing in the universe is mind, the\nmind of the absolute and eternal One. All things are set in order and\nreason. The external universe is the expression of mind, and is therefore\nintelligible. The human intelligence is the expression of the same\nmind, and is therefore capable of grasping and turning into thought the\nintelligible order without.\n\nAccording to the theory of Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Mill, and Spencer,\nany knowledge whatsoever is impossible. If the knowing subject and the\nknowable object, the two factors of knowledge, can only come together in\na mechanical way, as basket and potatoes, kettle and water, paper and\nletters, then the very conditions of knowledge are denied, and we are\nshut up to blank, square ignorance.\n\nThings come together to form knowledge, as things come together to form\na tree, and not as house, calico, pins, lace, shoes, and blankets come\ntogether to form a store. An acorn is a living something. It is not a\ntree, but within itself are the germs of a tree. When grown, it may be\nsaid to have forms, as root, trunk, and branches. These were potentially\nand ideally contained in the acorn. But their realization and active\nexpression involved a process, in which the ideal forms, tendencies, and\nforces contained in germ in the acorn met and united with the elements\nof the outside world. Suppose we consider the acorn the subject, and the\nparticles in soil and rain and atmosphere capable of making a tree as\nthe object. What happens when an oak with all its beauty stands out upon\nthe hillside? This subject and object have come together in unity, in an\norganism. Suppose Locke should have undertaken the work of understanding\nhow a tree came to be, instead of how knowledge came to be. We will say\nhe began by analyzing a full grown tree. After thorough examination of\nits contents, he finds that all the parts of the tree, carbon, water,\netc., are found outside of it in the external world.\n\nHe finds that the tree is composed of various atoms, all of which may\nbe found in the soil and in the atmosphere. He concludes, then, that\nthese atoms from soil and atmosphere, began to move up to and down to\nthe acorn. The acorn, passive meanwhile, lets them fall on it. So, of\ntheir own free will and accord, the atoms kept piling themselves upon\nthe acorn, until in the process of a hundred years there was a tree.\nNow a brick column might be carried up after this fashion, but not a\ntree. The prior and fundamental thing in an oak tree is the acorn. It\ncontains an active, organizing life principle. Falling into the soil,\nthis folded life power begins to stir. It lays hold upon the elements\nabout it, digests them, assimilates them, and turns them into an oak. The\nmind is to the raw material of knowledge, what the acorn is to the raw\nmaterial of oak. Through the senses the raw material is conveyed into\nthe mind. It is then appropriated, assimilated, digested, and turned\ninto knowledge. The active, organizing, combining power that turns the\nraw material presented by the senses into knowledge, does not come from\nthe outside world. It is constitutional, fundamental, original. Just as\nthe organic forces of the plant take up the elements from the outside\nenvironment upon which it subsists, so the synthesizing, living power of\nthe mind takes the matter of sensation and turns it into the whole called\nknowledge. Knowledge is a unifying process. It combines the manifold into\none. It reduces multiplicity to unity. All that is real and all that is\ntrue in the heavens above or in the earth below, in mind or in matter,\nin time or in space, in man or in external world, are capable of being\nreduced to unity in knowledge.\n\nKnowledge is the subjective unity in the finite mind that corresponds\nto the objective unity that lies within the infinite mind. Nothing less\nthan a universal synthesis satisfies the finite mind, because it is a\ncopy of the infinite mind. The finite self-consciousness is a copy of\nthe infinite self-consciousness. The infinite mind knows all things at\nonce; the finite mind comes to knowledge through a gradual process. It\ncan never, through all eternity, know all the infinite mind knows, but it\ncan eternally advance in knowledge, and comfort itself at every stage of\nthe process with the thought that nothing in the mind of the infinite and\nabsolute one is foreign to it, or in contradiction with its capacity to\nknow. In thinking, the finite mind is at home in its father\u2019s realm, and\nbecause this realm stretches out illimitably every way should not oppress\nus or discourage us. For this the finite mind can know, that throughout\nthe limitless domain of God there is order and truth and reality.\n\nThus standing face to face with truth, and being endowed with\nintellectual capacities capable of recognizing it, grasping it, in its\nunity and in its particulars, it is proper to inquire the object and\nthe purpose of it. It is the revelation which the infinite mind has made\nto the finite. It is the language of God, in which he has embodied his\nthought. It is the word of the universal spirit. Man is a spirit, and\nhe is to grow and come to the full realization of himself by partaking\nof the word of God. Truth has been revealed for no other purpose than\nto make men. Sir William Hamilton represents truth as game, and the\nmethod of getting truth to a chase. He says the exercise of our powers\ninvolved in the process of getting truth is better than the game we seek.\nLessings says, \u201cIf the Almighty, holding in one hand truth, and in the\nother search after truth, presented them to me and asked me which I would\nchoose, with all humility, but without hesitation, I should say, give me\nsearch after truth.\u201d\n\nMallbranche says: \u201cIf I held truth captive, like a bird in my hand, I\nwould let it go again, that I might chase and capture it.\u201d M\u00fcller says:\n\u201cTruth is the property of God alone. Search after truth belongs to man.\u201d\nSuch sentiments indicate that the men who uttered them had no correct\nidea of the real nature of truth, or of man\u2019s intellectual nature, the\nnecessary food of which is truth. It is true that the search after truth\ngives exercise and pleasure to the intellectual faculties, as search\nafter bread gives exercise and health to the physical powers. But an\neternal search for bread is not sufficient to keep man\u2019s body robust and\nstrong. The very condition upon which he will be able to keep up the\nsearch for it is, that he regularly and steadily partake of it. A tree,\nhad it intelligence and emotion, would, doubtless, enjoy wrestling with\nthe storms, and throwing its roots into the earth and its branches into\nthe heavens, making levies upon earth and sky for its own nourishment;\nbut if it did not constantly turn the elements it found into its trunk\nand branches, it would not be able to wrestle long with the storms, or\nforage long upon the earth and sky.\n\nTo claim that the intellectual faculties are always to search for truth,\nand that the search is better than the truth, is tacitly to assume that\ntruth is not for them; or, if for them, and should ever be found, would\nbe as useless as a poor, tired, half-dead fox overtaken by the hunters in\nthe chase. Searching for truth is doing; partaking of truth is being. The\nsearch gives agility and skill; the partaking of truth gives wealth of\ncharacter. To hunt game with no other object than that which comes from\nthe sport of the chase is degrading. To shoot birds only for the purpose\nof seeing them fall is mean and wicked. So, to search for truth with no\nother purpose than that which comes from the exercise of the search, is\nunworthy the intellect that was given, not only to find truth, but to\ngrow rich and God-like by partaking of the truth.\n\nMan\u2019s need for bread, we saw, led to the establishment of commerce, and\ncommerce did far more than secure to man food and clothing and shelter.\nIt brought men together and discovered themselves to themselves. Power\nlent itself to the uses of man\u2019s social nature, awakened and developed\nby commerce, and made it possible for men to come into relations with\none another, not simply in states and nations, but on all the earth. The\nneed for bread helped to the formation of society, the nature of power\nand the applications to which it lent itself widened the social domain\ninto a universal brotherhood, to which man, as a spirit, was correlated.\nBut many saw bread only in its relations to hunger, and power only in\nits relations to wealth and worldly dominion. So, many see in truth no\npurpose except the practical and material ends to which it can be put.\nIn the esteem of the utilitarians, it was well enough that learned men\nconsecrated their genius and their industry to the study of the subtle\nsubject of heat. It was well that they discovered the real nature of\nheat, and saw that it was not caloric, but a mode of motion. Because\nthis opened the way for our railroads and steamboats and quick methods\nof transportation, which have contributed so much to the world\u2019s wealth.\nIt was well that the impracticable and theoretical men, who had nothing\nbetter to do, spent ages studying the nature of electricity, and finally\ndiscovered that there were certain metals for which it had affinity,\nand that it had speed equal to thought itself. For these studies have\nenabled the practical and substantial men to order their corn and meat\nby telegraph, and the practical housewives to order their roast beef by\ntelephone. It is well that people who had no practical turn of mind spent\nyears in considering the structure of the human frame, and the plants and\nminerals capable of ministering to it, for in this way the doctors have\ngot ideas by which they are enabled to keep us practical men alive, so\nthat we can trade longer, and build more factories and eat more victuals.\n\nNow it is true that the knowledge the intelligence comes to by insight\ninto the relations and nature and truth of things, can be turned to\npractical account. But the truth the mind finds by study was not\nprimarily intended to open the way for steam cars and telegraphs and the\nproduction of wealth. These things are incidental. Truth is the provision\nGod has made for the intellect. The knowledge of the stars has helped man\nto sail the sea and to take his bearings on any part of its surface. But\nthe practical account to which this knowledge has been turned is not to\nbe compared, in value, to the effect it was intended to have on the human\nmind, strengthening it, ennobling it, and harmonizing it with the divine\nmind.\n\n\n\n\n_RIGHTEOUSNESS._\n\n\n    \u201cWhile smitten with the fatal wanness of approaching doom, the\n    flamboyant pleiad of the men of violence descends the steep\n    slope to the gulf of devouring time: lo! at the other extremity\n    of space, when the last cloud has but now faded in the deep\n    sky of the future, azure forevermore, rises resplendent the\n    sacred galaxy of the true stars\u2014Orpheus, Hermes, Job, Homer,\n    \u00c6schylus, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Hippocrates, Phidias, Socrates,\n    Sophocles, Plato, Aristotle, Archimedes, Euclid, Pythagoras,\n    Lucretius, Plautus, Juvenal, Tacitus, Saint Paul, John of\n    Patmos, Tertullian, Pelagius, Dante, Gutenberg, Joan of Arc,\n    Christopher Columbus, Luther, Michael Angelo, Copernicus,\n    Galileo, Rabelais, Calderon, Cervantes, Shakspere, Rembrandt,\n    Kepler, Milton, Moli\u00e8re, Newton, Descartes, Kant, Piranesi,\n    Beccari, Diderot, Beethoven, Fulton, Montgolfier, Washington:\n    and the marvelous constellations, brighter from moment to\n    moment, radiant as a tiara of celestial diamonds, shine in the\n    clear horizon, and, as it rises, blends, with the boundless\n    dawn of Jesus Christ.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nTHE PROVISION FOR THE MORAL NATURE OF MAN.\n\n\nTwo elements are essential to the process of thinking, the intellect and\nthe truth. One is within, the other is without. The one is subjective,\nthe other is objective. Two elements are also essential to the process\nof volition, the will and the right. The one within, the other without.\nThe one subjective, the other objective. Before sight is possible, there\nmust be an eye and there must be light. The one is within, the other is\nwithout. The one is subjective, the other is objective. Before hearing,\nthere must be an ear and there must be sound. The one is within, the\nother is without. The one is subjective, the other is objective. Before\nbreathing there must be lungs and there must be atmosphere. The one\nis within, the other is without. The one is subjective, the other is\nobjective.\n\nNo definition of man is large enough to accommodate the facts of his\nnature, that does not embrace what he is without as well as what he is\nwithin, what he is objectively as well as what he is subjectively. It\nmust not only embrace the intellect, but the truth which it thinks; not\nonly the will, but the right which corresponds to it; not only the eye,\nbut the light which gives it meaning; not only the ear, but the sound\nwhich matches it; not only the lungs, but the atmosphere to which they\nare correlated. Human nature is dually constituted, so that the larger\nhalf of itself is outside of itself.\n\nIllustrations of the same duality of constitution may be found on a\nlimited scale in the organic and in the inorganic worlds. The greater\nhalf of the oak is not in the life germ of the acorn, but in the elements\nof the soil and the sky which environ it. The larger part of the fish is\nin the ocean which surrounds it. Most of the fuel which makes the heat in\nthe grate is not in the carbon of the coal, but in the oxygen of the air\nwhich fills the room.\n\n\nI.\n\nThe possession of a will and the capacity for choice make man a moral\nbeing. Man\u2019s will is bounded on every side by the laws of God. These laws\nare only another name for God\u2019s will. Man is made in God\u2019s image and has\na will, as far as it goes, just like God\u2019s will.\n\nBy choosing to act and to move along the lines of law which gather from\nevery whither about his will, he finds he can go somewhere, that he can\nleave the narrow, provincial, and local neighborhood of ease and sense\nand subjection, and find his life in that broad realm of freedom, that\nbelongs to him as a thinking and willing being.\n\nAt the termini of some railroads there are huge contrivances called\nturntables. They are constructed of immense timbers and balanced on\npivots. They are large enough to accommodate the full length of a steam\nengine. Iron rails are laid across these tables, of the same size and\nthe same distance apart as the rails which make up the lines of the main\ntrack. When the train comes in from the far interior, the engine is run\nout on one of these tables and turned round, so that the headlight faces\nthe main track again. Before the engine is ready to leave the short\ntrack, however, the rails on the turntable must exactly correspond to\nthe rails on the main road. Then the engineer pulls the throttle, and\nthe great locomotive rolls past the circumference of its pivoted and\ntemporary resting place into commerce with the railways of the globe.\nImagine railway lines coming together about such a revolving table from\nall the earth, so that an engine could pass from this circular platform\ntoward any quarter of the globe, the only condition being that the short\ntrack on the table correspond to the rails of the long track on which it\nwas proposed for the engine to run, and you have an illustration, which\nin some degree helps us to understand the relation of man\u2019s will to the\nlaws of God.\n\nShould the engineer undertake to get the engine from the table without\nreference to the lines upon which it was intended to run, we know very\nwell what the consequences would be. He would not go far, and even\nthe little distance he should manage to make would be attended with\ntremendous bumping and friction. All movement would be in the direction\nof chaos and confusion. However great the expenditure of energy, no\npoint would be reached, and the end of the undertaking would be waste\nand failure. If, on the other hand, we should imagine an engine on such\na revolving plane, capable of making fifty miles an hour, with no tracks\nleaving it, we know it could not go anywhere, and besides there would be\nno reason for its being. It would be without meaning. Before the distance\nbetween one point and another can be passed by a train, two things are\nnecessary, an engine and a railroad. The one may be called subjective,\nthe other objective. The one implies the other. They are the necessary\nelements of transportation. As long as the train keeps to the iron rails\nlaid for it, it moves without friction. It is only when the subjective\nelement jumps the track and essays to determine its own objective\ndirection, that trouble comes. Then it is that cars are ditched and\npeople killed or crippled. The laws of God run to and fro throughout the\nwhole earth. They cross and recross every realm. They pass through every\ndomain, physical, mental, and moral. They go straight through matter\nand straight through mind. They lead under the sea and over the sea and\nthrough the sea. Down through the earth and up through the air they may\nbe noted, embracing with their invisible tracks every square inch of soil\nand sky. They insure the order of the universe, visible and invisible,\ntangible and intangible. They reach from globe to globe and make possible\nthe commerce of the spheres. They run out into the infinitely great and\nback into the infinitely small, and bind in unity the atoms and the stars.\n\nWhen man, by the aid of his reason, discovers the truth of things, which\nis the provision for his intellect, these laws appear as provision for\nhis will.\n\nSo truth and law, reality and righteousness, expressions of the thought\nand will of God, are the everlasting facts to which man is to adjust his\nintellect and will, if he is to cross the oceans, travel the continents,\nand claim the possessions which in the universe belong to him. If he\nmisreads the facts, he will of course misread the laws which govern the\nfacts, and will thus be unable to get facts or laws to serve him. But\nclearly seeing the truth of things, he is able to avail himself of the\nlaws of things. As long as he only saw things in the lump, and looked\nupon the world as so much air and earth and fire and water, he missed the\nsubtle laws which regulate the atomic and molecular structure of bodies,\nand failed to make them his servants. When, by the aid of observation\nand experiment, he reduced the earth to its ultimate particles and came\nto such knowledge of it as corresponded to the facts of it; when he\ncame to see the laws and drift of things, the tendencies and affinities\nof things; he had only to put the productions of his will in line with\nthe way things were going, to have them serve him. Seeing that forces\nhave power to do work in proportion to their energy of position, and\napplying this insight to the river with forty feet fall, he builds his\nmill beside it and thus utilizes it to grind his wheat. Seeing what\nsoil and sunlight and rain can do when they combine to unwrap the life\nin a seed, he commits his wheat to their benevolent tendencies and gets\na harvest of twenty bushels for every one he seems to lose. He studies\nfire. He sees it wrap in flame and level in an hour fortunes it took a\nlifetime to accumulate. He learns what a furious and awful force it\nis. He gets insight into its real nature. He gets knowledge of it that\ncorresponds to the reality of it. He sees that it is only a flaming and\nlurid method of movement. With the truth of it he gets the law of it.\nSo by the aid of volition, put forth in accordance with intelligence,\nhe contrives a machine corresponding to the laws of heat, as a mode of\nmotion. In this way he utilizes the heat that burned up his cities, to\ntransport him in ease and comfort over the country. He studies the stars\nuntil his knowledge of them corresponds to them as they are; along with\nthis knowledge, he comes to an understanding of their laws, their uniform\nmethods of action. Then he builds his great ships and commits them to the\nwild and storm-tossed sea, sure that his power to guide them will never\nfail as long as law and order remain in the heavens.\n\nThat there is a natural order, with certain inhering laws, men readily\naccept. That this order has the consistency of being developed in one\nway; that there is a dip to things that must be followed; that there is\na clew, in accordance with which things may be worked; that there is\na trend, drift, and law of things that must be accepted and followed;\nall this, men readily assent to. They do not attempt to farm the Sahara\nDesert, for they know the conditions of harvests are not there. They do\nnot put out orange groves in Minnesota, nor plant cotton in Canada, nor\nsow rice in British Columbia. They do not expect the soil that spews up\nthe ice to produce watermelons at the same time. They do not pretend to\nnavigate ships over the continents, and to lay their railway lines on the\nsurface of the sea. They fix their telegraph wires to poles by means of\nlittle glass contrivances, and never attempt to send electricity through\nthe grape vine. Natural laws they know inhere in the facts of nature,\nand are not read into earth and rock and river and atmosphere. They know\nthat necessary laws reside in the facts of condition, and that they must\nstudy these laws to know the line of practical work they require. In\nbuilding a house of stone they know it is necessary to defer to the law\nof gravity, that this law cannot be ignored or set aside, so they carry\nup the edifice in such conformity to rule and line as that the center\nof gravity falls in a line inside the base. They might prefer a house\nbuilt with reference to a different order of things, one in which the\ncenter of gravity would fall in a line outside the base. But it is very\nwell understood among men that the law of gravity must be respected.\nEven anarchists and nihilists, who seem to have irrepressible antipathy\nfor all ancient orders and laws and establishments, do condescend\nsufficiently to respect the time-honored, even if slightly belated, laws\nof gravity.\n\n\nII.\n\nThe time was when men accepted the existence of a moral order with the\nsame implicit, unquestioned confidence, that all men to-day accept\nthe existence of a natural order. In Homer\u2019s Themistes we have an\nillustration of this confidence. The very word by which the decision of\na judge is described attributes it to Themis, the invisible embodiment\nof justice. Thus the judge is but the channel through which the decision\npasses from the unseen moral order into the Greek court of justice. The\njudge is not respected because he has authority to make the decision, but\nbecause his vocation makes him the vehicle through which the decision of\na higher power is rendered. Moses said to the people of Israel, \u201cThou\nshalt not lie,\u201d \u201cThou shalt not steal,\u201d \u201cThou shalt not commit adultery,\u201d\nbut these were not his words simply, but the words through which a\nmoral order was interpreted. The solemn and awful import given to these\ncommands did not arise from the vehicle through which they passed into\nthe Hebrew social order, but from the fact that they inhered in the very\nconstitution of man as a social being, and when they were uttered, they\nwere felt to come from the God who fashioned man\u2019s life and set him in\ncommunities and states. They had the same sort of authority in the moral\nrealm that the declarations of Newton, concerning the power of gravity,\nhad in the natural. Newton did not conceive in his own brain the laws of\ngravity, he saw them and formulated them. Nor did Moses create the Ten\nCommandments, he saw them and interpreted them. The laws of gravity were\ntranscripts from the will of God concerning matter, the Ten Commandments\nwere transcripts from the will of God concerning men. When natural\nbodies come together, it would be found that they always attracted each\nother in proportion to their mass and inversely as the squares of their\ndistance. When men come together, it would always be found, that if they\nwere to live together in harmony and health; if they were to advance and\nget above the planes of the brutes and the savages; they must abstain\nfrom lying, and stealing, and adultery, and thus be truthful, and honest,\nand virtuous.\n\nThe laws of gravity were not arbitrary rules, ordained to oppress suns\nand systems without rhyme or reason. Order of some sort had to be\npreserved among the millions of blazing, rolling worlds. Nor were the Ten\nCommandments arbitrary lines of conduct imposed upon men at the pleasure\nof a great, omnipotent tyrant. Men could not live apart, out of touch and\ncontact with one another. Thus living, they were lower than the beasts\nthat perish. They could not live together without rules of some sort\nto regulate their lives. And laws which looked to the preservation of\ntruthfulness, honesty, and virtue, were thought better than laws which\nlooked to the production of lying, dishonesty, and adultery.\n\nBecause of the impetus given to the studies of material science within\nrecent years, by the discoveries of scholars, the attention of men has\nbeen directed to the objects of the natural world and the laws which\nregulate them. Discoveries into the nature of heat, light, etc., has had\nthe same effect upon the human mind that the discoveries of the gold\nfields in the West had upon the people of America in the early days.\nPeople abandoned fields and shops and stores and went in search for\ngold. The attention of the civilized world has in this generation been\ndirected to the consideration of outward facts. There has been promise\nhere of earthly fortune. Conviction as to the existence of a moral order\nwith its rewards and penalties is not so deep and abiding as it once was\namong English speaking people. But it is well to remember that the moral\nlaws of the universe have not in the meantime been suspended, because\nmen have not seen proper to consider them and to act with reference to\nthem. They are just as real and as unfailing as ever. When accepted and\nfollowed, their presence is seen in health, in political stability, in\nintellectual progress. When ignored and forgotten, their presence is seen\nin disease, in political corruption, in mental stupidity, in sham and\nemptiness. In one way or another they always manage to get in their work.\nThey never sleep, they never tire, they are eternally present to bless\nor to curse, to lift up or to cast down. They get round to every man\u2019s\nhome, and sooner or later to every man\u2019s life, bearing honor or dishonor,\nlegitimate reward or righteous infamy. They are not to be bribed,\nwhitewashed, or bulldozed; they come clean, unvarnished, and unveneered\nto posit their labels on every man\u2019s character; and whatever is read on\nthe label, absolutely defines the content. Irrespective of money, titles,\nplace, or rank, they come. The president in his seat, the judge on his\nbench, the preacher in his pulpit, cannot escape. If the president gets\nlabeled pigmy, pigmy he is. If the judge gets classified fraud, fraud he\nis. If the preacher gets down as trimmer and sham, trimmer and sham he is.\n\n\nIII.\n\nHow are we to find moral laws? Just as we find natural laws. When we find\nthe truth of natural bodies, reason sees the laws which inhere in them,\nand prudence dictates such action on our part as these laws require.\nWhen we come to truth, on the moral plane, or to such knowledge of the\nfacts as corresponds to the truth, reason, unless perverted, sees the\nlaws that reside in them, and conscience dictates that these laws should\nbe obeyed. Conscience unerringly and infallibly approves the right. By\nthe aid of the light which is thrown upon it when the intellect comes\ninto relations of knowledge with moral truth, it recognizes the laws the\nwill ought to follow. These laws make up a part of the truth. Before\nthe right can be recognized, the truth must be seen. When that which\nthe intelligence takes for truth is not the truth, the conscience will\nrecognize laws for the will to follow that do not correspond to the laws\nof God. It has often happened that what the intelligence took for truth\ndid not correspond to objective reality, and hence was not the truth;\nhence the conscience has often approved and suggested lines of action\nthat were at variance with that which was essentially and eternally\nright. Those who followed the dictates of conscience, however, under\nsuch conditions, did, under the circumstances, right. To have refused to\nfollow conscience would have increased their confusion. A man in the bog,\nwith the certainty of death before him, ought to follow the guide that\nappears, even though he should not know how to lead him out of the swamp.\nConscience never fails to come as near recognizing the right as the\nintellect comes to discovering the truth. When that which the intellect\napprehends as truth corresponds to objective reality, we may be sure that\nthe laws which inhere in it, and which conscience suggests as the ones\nthe will ought to follow, correspond to the laws of God. One\u2019s conscience\nmay lead him wrong, but only when the intellect has led him wrong. St.\nPaul\u2019s conscience led him wrong when it impelled him to persecute the\nChristians of the early church, but it was because that which he held for\ntruth did not tally with the outward facts, and hence was not the truth.\nHad the supposed truth which he held while persecuting the Christians\nbeen real truth, then in persecuting the Christians he would have done\nright. The reversal of conscience resulted from the incoming of new\ntruth, or such knowledge as was sustained by the outward facts. The\nconscience of the Hindoo mother that leads her to throw her child into\nthe River Ganges is as good as the conscience of the Christian mother\nthat leads her to carry her child to the Sunday school. The trouble with\nthe Hindoo mother is not with her conscience, but with her religious\nknowledge; it does not correspond to the facts of the order of the moral\nand spiritual universe. We are to determine the value of the affirmations\nof conscience by determining the value of the knowledge out of which\nthose affirmations grow. Knowledge is valuable in proportion to its\ncorrespondence with that which is real. As often as the intellect grasps\nthe truth, the conscience will suggest the right that accompanies it.\nThere is no truth of a moral nature that has not its attendant right.\n\n\nIV.\n\nWe know the moral truth as we know material truth, through its relations.\nRelation makes the difference between chaos and cosmos. To define any\nnatural object is to place it in its relations. We could not define\noxygen without naming the elements to which it is related. To take it\nout of relation is to take from it any meaning. Error is wrong relation.\nWhen the mind assigns a place to an object other than that which really\nbelongs to it, in the order of which it forms a part, we call this\nerror. If, seeing the parts of a house scattered over a field by a\nstorm, we should confound a sleeper with a rafter, we should take it from\nits proper place and take away its meaning as a part of the building. All\nof our knowledge is of relations and not of sensations, as Hume taught.\nSensations set the mind to classifying and comparing, and the knowledge\nit comes to is of relations. Take the sensations the mind has when a\nred object is presented to the eye. Does not the mind begin at once to\ndistinguish this sensation as one of redness from other sensations that\nare of different colors?\n\nIs not its reality as a particular color constituted for us by its\nrelation to colors, by its place in the scale of colors? If there was but\none color, and that color the one we now know as red, how could we know\nit as such? How could we call it red unless to distinguish it from some\nother color with which we, for the time being, compared it or contrasted\nit? So true is it that reality is constituted for us by the sum of its\nrelations, that if the relations of things are maintained, no increase\nor diminution of the quantity of things related will be detected in our\nknowledge of them. If the earth were compressed into a sphere no larger\nthan a marble, no one could know it if the relations among the objects\nwhich make it up were the same.\n\nAgain, the earth might be enlarged until it should be a billion times\nlarger than what it is; yet this could not be known as long as men and\ngates and spoons and saucers and houses and cuff-buttons were enlarged\nin the same proportion. The leaf of a man\u2019s dining table might be ten\nmiles square, and the ball of butter on his table as big as the Stone\nMountain in Georgia; yet if cook, and cat, and stove, and water-bucket\nwere increased in the same ratio, he would not recognize any difference.\n\n\nV.\n\nWe enter the world of humanity, which is the realm of morality, through\nthe family. Here we open our eyes to the light, and here we have the\nfirst intimations of truth, which is provision for the intellect, and of\nrighteousness, which is provision for the will. The truth of the family\nis the sum of the relations which subsist among the members of it. The\nfamily consists, we will say, of father and mother, and children. Here\nis a man and a woman, then, bound together by the relation of marriage.\nThe children are related to the parents as offspring. The children are\nrelated to one another as brothers and sisters. Altogether they are\none and they are many. There is unity and there is difference. In the\nrelations implied in the names husband and wife, father and mother,\nparents and children, brothers and sisters, we have the truth of the\nfamily. We know the family and can only know the family through these\nrelations. Take the relations away, and you take the family away. There\ncannot be a husband without a wife, a father without a mother, parents\nwithout children, and children without a father and a mother. Abiding in\nthese relations, which make up the truth of the family, wrapt up with\nthem and growing out of them, are the laws of right which the will is\nto obey. The relation of marriage is accompanied by certain obligations\nand duties which husband and wife are to observe. These obligations\nand duties are divine laws, because marriage is a divine relation. The\nrelations involved in the term parents, are attended by certain necessary\nlaws the father and the mother are to observe with reference to children.\nThe names of child, brother, sister, imply relations that in turn imply\nlaws the child is to follow with reference to parents, and brothers and\nsisters are to regard with reference to one another. These laws, which\ngrow out of the relations which constitute the family, are not arbitrary,\nartificial, or accidental. They have not been formed by the opinions of\nmen, nor formulated in the legislative assemblies of men. Legislative\nbodies have, perhaps, confirmed them and reproduced them in statutes,\nbut this was not to create, but to transcribe what was already present.\nThe laws with reference to which the members of a family find themselves\nplaced are as essential and constitutional as the laws governing natural\nobjects, which we define when we say bodies attract each other in\nproportion to their mass and inversely as the squares of their distance.\nThese are subtle and invisible principles which cannot be read out of\nrocks and logs and moons and suns. Displace rocks and logs and suns and\nmoons, and the apparent power of these laws would not be seen, but upon\nthe appearance of the natural objects, they would be immediately grasped\nand dominated by the power of the laws.\n\nWe pass from the family into the school. Here again we find laws already\nlaid for the will to follow. They grow out of the truth, constitutive\nof the school, and this truth is made up of the relations subsisting\namong the members of the school. There are teachers, whose duty it is to\ncontrol and to instruct. There are children, whose duty it is to learn\nand obey. The school is an institution, the object of which is to lead\nyoung minds into a knowledge of the earth, its continents, seas, rivers,\nand mountains; into a knowledge of language, its structure, uses, and\nthe meaning of its terms; into a knowledge of humanity, its races,\ngovernments, and religions. If children are to share in the benefits of\nthe object for which the school is established, they must observe the\nlaws which inhere in the very constitution of it.\n\nThey must obey the teacher, they must study the books, they must be\npolite, forbearing and kind to one another. It often happens that a child\nenters the school and refuses to follow the laws that reside in the\nstructure and purpose of the school. He is willful and conceited, and\nthinks his own way better than the necessary and essential way ordained\nfor him. He has the same sort of experience the engineer has who attempts\nto run his engine from the turntable, without reference to the railway\nlines laid for it. There is friction and trouble. Various methods of\npunishment are resorted to with the view to get his will to move along\nthe lines laid for it. If rebuke and punishment fail, then he is turned\nout, to attempt the stupid and insane experiment of getting himself\nthrough the world without reference to the laws fixed for his will to\nobey. Of course he does not go far. He turns up sooner or later in the\njail, the hospital, the penitentiary, or the poorhouse.\n\nLeaving the school, we find ourselves citizens of the state, members\nof society. But we do not go into society like an ax-man in a frontier\nforest to clear a place for his house, his fence, and his field. Methods\nof conduct are already prescribed, lines of action are already fixed, and\nthe laws which claim our obedience are already formulated. Society is an\norganism of mutually dependent members; the object of it is the equity\nof all, the welfare of all, and the liberty of all. Equity, liberty,\nwelfare do not come by accident. Men cannot reach them out of touch and\ncontact with one another. They are only possible to men living together,\nand only possible in conformity with certain conditions, and in the\nobservance of certain laws. These laws lie folded in the nature of men as\nsocial beings. They are fundamental, and Aristotle saw them when he said,\n\u201cman is by nature a political animal.\u201d The germs of government and law\nare in the depths of every man\u2019s being, as the germs of the oak are in\nthe acorn. Wise men, living in society, have seen the truth of society,\nmade up of the relations subsisting among people living together.\nAccompanying these relations, and counterparts of them, they have\ndiscovered the laws necessary to insure the equity, liberty, and welfare\nof all. These laws have been embodied in constitutions, enactments, and\nstatutes. To carry out these laws and to make them prevail, certain\ninstitutions have been established, a body of men whose duty it is to\nexecute the laws, a Judiciary, whose duty it is to interpret and expound\nthe laws, and a legislative body, whose duty it is to repeal old laws\nthat did not work well, and to frame new laws to meet the exigencies of\nnew conditions. To protect the rights of all, certain penalties have\nbeen made to accompany the violations of laws. To make these penalties\nreal, and to inflict them upon the proper parties, courts and jails and\npenitentiaries have been established.\n\nSo we see, as the acorn cannot grow without appropriating the elements\nalready prepared for it in the soil and the sky; and as the carbon cannot\nburn without laying hold of the oxygen already existing for it in the\natmosphere of the room; and as the fish cannot swim without utilizing\nthe water already adjusted to its fins; so man cannot fill out the\npossibilities of his being without obeying the laws he finds already\nordained for his will, when he comes into the world. These laws converge\nabout his will in the home where he first sees the light, and are always\ndeducible from the particular relations in which, at any time, his moral\nlife is placed. They are as real as the laws of heat and motion and\ngravity. They run out from the home through the school, and from the\nschool through all the continents of the social realm. They grow out of\nthe truth of the facts of the family, the school, and society. They are\nas fundamental, necessary, and divine as the family, the school, and\nsociety. By observing them, man is able to turn into his character the\ntenderness of the home, the learning of the school, and the resources of\nsociety.\n\n\nVI.\n\nThe authority of the laws which govern society is not found in the fact\nthat the laws have been made by the will of the majority, or the will of\nthe minority, or by the will of a king, or by the wills of any or all\nof the people; but because they are founded in the constitution of human\nnature. The basis for the constitution of human nature is the mind of\nGod, who created man in his own image. Social laws have authority, then,\nbecause they are consonant with the nature of man, and have their source\nin the will of God.\n\nIt is easy to show, however, from the records of history, that nations\nhave often lived under laws imposed upon them that contradicted every\nprinciple of human nature. Men were accustomed once to find the laws\nof society as well as the laws of nature, not from the study of men,\nor from the study of the objects of nature, but in the depths of their\nown imaginations. In former times men met in convention and council and\ndetermined by resolution the shape of the earth and the sun\u2019s method of\nmovement. They also subjected themselves to the criticism of posterity\nby cutting the heads of the people off who did not agree with them. But\nit gradually dawned on the human mind that to find out for certain the\nshape of the earth it might be well to devote a little study to the earth\nitself. Thus it happened that in the course of events men ceased to read\nlaws into God\u2019s material universe from the boundless realms of their\nfancy and conceit, and fell upon the more rational habit of taking the\nlaws that were already there. Herein is the difference between medi\u00e6val\nand modern times.\n\nThe disposition to read laws into nature, without reference to the\nfacts of nature, was in line with the programme to read laws into the\nsocial realm without reference to the facts of human nature. The laws of\nastronomy to-day are such as have been found by a study of the stars. The\nlaws of chemistry are such as have been found by a study of the atomic\nstructures of bodies. One might fall out now with the celestial laws of\nPtolemy, and head a movement to set them aside. But it is not rational\nto fall out with the astronomical laws of Norman Lockyer, for that is to\nbuck against the sun, and to make faces at the stars. Lockyer\u2019s laws came\nstraight to him from the skies, and find their value and verification in\nthe close calculation of every steamer that sails on the wide, restless\nsea. The laws of civilized nations to-day are such as have been found\nby a study of the facts of human nature. To quarrel with them is to set\none\u2019s self against the way man is built. It would not do to say that the\nsocial laws of civilized peoples to-day are exact transcripts from the\nwill of God concerning the conduct of social life. Men do not now, and\nperhaps will not for a long time, read aright the facts of human nature.\nOne thing is certain, however: in the making of laws among civilized,\nrepublican peoples, reference is had to the facts of human nature, and\nnot to the fancy of those who wish to govern. It cannot be disputed that\nthe right facts are considered from which to make deductions. This means\na complete change of front in the modern world over the ages past. There\nare doubtless many minor laws on the statute books of the liberal and\nprogressive nations of the earth to-day which are not in accordance with\nthe nature of man; but it seems that any rational person is compelled\nto admit that the great legal trunk-lines conform to the essential laws\nof human nature. Take the Constitution of the United States. Some one\nhas said that the apple from which Newton deduced the laws of gravity\nwas two thousand years falling. He would have been nearer the truth if\nhe had said six thousand years. The Constitution of the United States\nis as clearly a deduction from the facts of human nature, as were the\nlaws of gravity from a study of falling bodies. The convention that met\nin Philadelphia to frame the Constitution of the United States, in 1787,\nwas called to order on the top of the centuries. The members had such\nadvantage of position as made it possible for them to look all down the\nages. They were in a position to see all sides of human nature, under all\nforms of government.\n\nIn the preamble to the Constitution, they specified certain objects for\nwhich, in their esteem, this government should be formed\u2014union, domestic\ntranquillity, justice, liberty, welfare. Any government constituted by\na document like that has for the basis of its existence the facts of\nhuman nature, as really as the law of gravity has for the basis of its\nexistence the facts of the stars.\n\n\nVII.\n\nIf it is necessary that man grasp the truth of things before he can\ndetermine the laws of things, we cannot fail to see how important it is\nthat he have a proper theory of knowledge.\n\nMan\u2019s idea of law will correspond to his theory of knowledge. When the\nFrench people accepted Locke\u2019s theory of knowing they immediately applied\nit to the laws, establishments, and institutions of the nation. They\nconcluded logically, if all knowledge is of sensations, then there can\nbe no authority for the belief in God, the immortality of the soul, or\nthe divinity of law. These are universal and transcendent facts, but\nthe mind has no capacity to know universal or transcendent facts. So\nsociety was to be dissolved into its constituent atoms, in order that\nindividuals could arrange their lives on a universal, go-as-you-please\nprinciple. All existing laws and institutions were to be obliterated.\nEverything that was up was to be put down. There are to-day, scattered\nthrough the civilized states of Europe and in some parts of the United\nStates, men who want to emancipate the people from the dominion of all\nauthority. All this grows out of the fashionable and sensational theory\nof knowledge taught first by John Locke and David Hume, and within recent\nyears by John Stuart Mill and Herbert Spencer. Here is the source of\nanarchy. There is not an influential anarchist in the world, but is one\nupon the basis of the physiological theory of knowledge. There is no\nobjective reality, but such as is composed of material atoms. These have\ngot their arrangement and collocations without the agency of any great\nco-ordinating mind. They come together in pairs and clusters and groups,\nby the aid of no power but such as issues from the unknowable. A man\nis no more a criminal for killing people than is the Mississippi River\nfor overflowing its banks and drowning people. Men are mere products of\nnature, and their thoughts are only secretions of the brain. Laws and\ninstitutions are just the brain deposits of animals we call men, as dams\nacross rivers and cells in gums are the deposits of the brains of beavers\nand bees.\n\nIn a document found on the person of a recent anarchist arrested by the\nauthorities in England, it is asserted that the purpose of the anarchists\nis to put down all political, religious, and military authority; to burn\nall churches, palaces, soldier-barracks, fortresses, provisions, and to\ndestroy all that has lived till now by business-work without contributing\nto it. From such documents we are to understand that the anarchists take\nit for granted that all laws and institutions among civilized peoples\nhave been imposed arbitrarily by those who govern upon those who are\ngoverned; that the parties to be governed have as much right to ignore\nthem as the governing parties had to make them; that there is in the\nuniverse no moral order to which the political and social orders among\nmen correspond; that every man has the privilege of setting up his own\norder; that every engineer has the right to ignore the rails laid for the\nflanges of his wheels on the long roads leading out from the turntable,\nand the inestimable subjective liberty of pulling open the throttle\nvalve and running out into the country according to his own sweet will.\nSuppose all the anarchists in the world should be sent to some great\nisland so that they could test their own theories, would they not be\nunder the necessity of founding some sort of a government? They would\nhave to construct roads, devise ways and means for lights, water, and\nfor protection against individual violence. Would they not have to bind\nthemselves together by some kind of social contract, or compact? If a\nnumber of men should unite themselves into a syndicate for the purpose of\nbuilding houses without reference to the laws of gravity, if they should\ndeclare it as their set purpose to so build houses as that the center\nof gravity should fall in a line outside the base, the whole company\nwould be tried for lunacy and confined in the insane asylum. So the most\nsummary and straightforward methods should be adopted for ridding society\nof all that class of men who propose to manage human affairs without\nreference to the facts of man\u2019s nature and the laws of the universe. It\nis a question whether they should be put into an insane asylum or into\na jail, for it is hard to determine which they have the most of: insane\nstupidity or insane meanness.\n\nSociety has made great advances, but every increment of progress has been\nalong the lines of the eternal laws of the universe. Those laws were here\nbefore man appeared upon the stage of action; they will be here when he\nis gone. Men may doctor themselves with error about truth, and error\nabout right, until they come to be great imbeciles; but the truth and the\nright will remain clear and immortal for the intellect and the will of\nthe wise and the good.\n\n\nVIII.\n\nIt is important, as never before, for those who see the truth and\nrecognize the right to declare the same with all authority. It is said\nthat the Emperor Henry IV. stood shivering two whole days and nights\nin the snows of the courtyard of Canossa Castle, suing piteously for\npermission to throw himself, in agonized submission, at the feet of\nHildebrand. That he was shunned by his subjects more absolutely\nbecause of the ban that was upon him than he would have been had he\nbeen afflicted with the smallpox. This incident illustrates for us the\nauthority wielded by the Church of the Middle Ages. The Church was then\nfelt to be in touch with tremendous power. Its fulminations carried\nterror to the hearts of kings and subjects. What the Church declared\nshould be done, or should be left undone, the people felt could only be\ndisregarded at the peril of all hope for time and eternity. It not only\ndeclared the duties men were under the necessity of observing in order to\nsave their souls, but the kind of thoughts men were under the necessity\nof thinking concerning the shape of the earth, the movements of the\nstars, and the structure of the human body, in order to save themselves\nfrom the odium of heresy. The Church reigned without a rival in all the\ncivilized world. She was not expected to give any reason for her actions\nor her utterances. When she determined what the order of the solar system\nwas, the brains of men were compelled, without question, to acquiesce.\nEven to doubt was to deny the faith. The Church dictated the policy of\nthe stars without being at the trouble of studying the stars; and no\nother sidereal opinions were tolerated but such as she formulated and\npublished.\n\nBut the minds of scholars and students, in different parts of Europe,\nbegan to reach other conclusions concerning the nature and order\nof things than such as had been ecclesiastically settled for them.\nCopernicus saw that the heavenly bodies did not move in accordance with\nthe teachings of the Church. And when the Venetian scholars looked\nthrough the telescope of Galileo at Padua, and saw Jupiter and his\nsatellites, a central sun and revolving planets, the authority of the\nChurch on the subject of astronomy was gone. In this way the Church has\nbeen forced to give up one position after another. The people, seeing she\nhad no foundation for the opinions she held concerning nature, began to\nquestion the value of her opinions concerning God, and heaven and hell,\nand right and wrong.\n\nNow the Church must regain her note of authority. She must do this by\nseeing what the laws are which grow out of the facts of condition. The\nlaws of the family are to be deduced from the truths of relation which\nconstitute the family. These will be seen to coincide with the old laws\nuttered from Sinai. The laws of society are to be deduced from the truths\nof relation which constitute society. These, it will be seen, are summed\nup as was said of old in the formula, \u201cThou shalt love thy neighbor\nas thyself.\u201d When men get through framing laws for the regulation of\nhuman conduct, from a study of the facts of human nature, they will\nfind to their amazement that they have reinstated the Ten Commandments,\nand that Sinai is not a burnt out volcano. They will find that the Ten\nCommandments are still the foundations of social health, and harmony,\nand progress. God wrote them for Moses on tables of stone because he had\nalready written them in the nature of man. The laws of gravity can no\nmore be read out of the world of space than the Eternal Decalogue can be\nread out of the world of human life. So the man of law should speak with\nthe same authority as the man of science, without apology and without\nmisgivings.\n\n\n\n\n_BEAUTY._\n\n\n    \u201cIf the endeavor to analyze the world is a trifle, it is\n    because the world is such. The sum of things can have no second\n    intention, nor can it be characterized by any trait that is\n    not included in itself. Some things are sweet, but what is our\n    sense which perceives them; some things are good, but what is\n    our conscience which judges them; some things are true, but\n    what is our intellect which argues them; some things are deep,\n    but what is our reason which fathoms them? Everyone who thinks\n    deeply, must have reflected that, if the purposes and results\n    of man\u2019s practice are vanity, so also must be those of his\n    speculation. Goethe said, that there was no refuge from virtues\n    that were not our own, but in loving them; and Ecclesiastes,\n    that there was none from the vanity of life, but in fearing and\n    obeying God. So, also, from the vanity of speculation there\n    is no refuge but in acquiescing in its relative nature, and\n    accepting truth for what it is.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nTHE PROVISION FOR THE \u00c6STHETIC NATURE OF MAN.\n\n\nThe glory of the mind is the possession of two eyes, the eye of sense\nand the eye of reason. Through the one, it looks out upon the world of\nmatter and fact. Through the other, it beholds the world of idea and\nrelation. The world of matter and fact, seen through the eye of sense, is\nlifted and transfigured and multiplied a thousandfold when contemplated\nthrough the eye of reason. When the literal world is transferred to the\nideal world, it takes on hues and dimensions in accordance with the\nuniversal and illimitable nature of man. The world which the sense sees,\nand the world which the reason sees, are both real, and through the mind\ncommerce is kept up between them. Along this mental highway facts make\na pilgrimage to the holy land of reason; there they are changed into\nideas. Stars are turned into astronomy, atoms into chemistry, rocks into\ngeology, plants into botany, colors into beauty and sounds into harmony.\n\nOver the same royal road, ideas pass to the world of sense. There they\nare changed again into facts. Ideas of beauty, distilled in the alembic\nof the imagination from the seven prismatic colors, are turned into\npainting, and Raphael\u2019s \u201cTransfiguration\u201d blesses the world. Ideas of\nharmony, formed by the power of the imagination from the notes of the\nmusical scale, are turned into song, and Handel\u2019s \u201cMessiah\u201d agitates\nthe thoughts and feelings of men with the melody of the skies. Ideas of\nform, deduced from the contemplation of the shapes of things, are turned\ninto sculpture, and Michael Angelo\u2019s \u201cMoses\u201d augments the world\u2019s fund\nof conviction and courage. By changing facts into ideas, the mind gives\nus science. By changing ideas back to facts, it gives us art. Without\nscience, life would be without bread; without art, it would be without\nideals.\n\nScience ministers to the body, art to the spirit. Men who go from things\nto ideas are practical; those who go from ideas back to things are the\nseers. Practical men conserve, but never venture. Seers throw the light\nof their genius into the dark beyond, disclosing new worlds for men. They\nare the leaders, they are in the vanguard of human progress.\n\nBy the possession of two eyes, the eye of sense and the eye of reason,\nman is placed into relation with two worlds.\n\nThe world he sees by the eye of sense is meager, limited,\npoverty-stricken. There are only a few houses in it, a little clump\nof trees, a little patch of meadow, a horizon hounded by the curl of\nhis cabin smoke. The world he sees by the eye of reason stretches far\ndown into the twilight of the past, embracing all ages, all stages of\nprogress, all empires and republics, all literature and peoples.\n\nThrough the eye of sense, he sees a world of hard limitation and fact.\nThrough the eye of reason, a universe of ideas, visions, relations.\nThrough the eye of sense, he sees a candle, with its flickering and\npassing flame. Through the eye of reason, he sees a kingdom of light,\nwith truth and beauty, and love billowing away to infinity.\n\nThrough the eye of sense he sees a little mountain spring rise from the\nground, to lose itself in the deepening shadows of the trees. Through the\neye of reason he sees a river, clear as crystal, flowing forever from\nunder the throne of God. A few violets and buttercups, covering with\ntheir blue and their beauty a little strip of meadow, he sees through\nthe eye of sense. The hills of day, numberless and immeasurable, covered\nwith flowers, whose leaves never wither and whose beauty never fades, he\nsees through the eye of reason.\n\nIt is the conceit of those whose habit of mind is to look through the\neye of sense alone, that they see more in the actual tangible world than\nthose who are accustomed to look through the eye of reason as well as\nthrough the eye of sense. There never was a greater mistake. Those who\nsee most in the world of mountain and sea and sky, are those who look\nmost through the eye of reason into the world of idea, principle, and\nrelation. Adams in England, and Leverrier in France, discovered Neptune,\nnot by sweeping the heavens with their telescopes, but by careful\nciphering in their studies. \u201cMr. Turner,\u201d said a friend to him one day,\n\u201cI never see in nature the glows and colors you put into your pictures.\u201d\n\u201cAh! don\u2019t you wish you could, though,\u201d was the painter\u2019s reply. In an\napple\u2019s fall Newton sees the law of gravitation. Goethe sees in the\nsections of a deer\u2019s skull the spinal column modified. Emerson sings:\n\n    \u201cLet me go where\u2019er I will,\n    I hear a sky-born music still.\n    \u2019Tis not in the stars alone,\n    Nor in the cups of budding flowers,\n    Nor in the red-breast\u2019s yellow tone,\n    Nor in the bow that smiles in showers;\n    But in the mud and scum of things,\n    There always, always something sings.\u201d\n\nHumboldt habitually dwelt in the realm of principles and ideas. He spent\nonly five years in America, and it took twelve quartos, and sixteen\nfolios, and half a dozen helpers, and many years to put on record what he\nsaw.\n\n    \u201cThe poem hangs on the berry bush,\n    When comes the poet\u2019s eye,\n    And the street is one long masquerade\n    When Shakspere passes by.\u201d\n\n\nI.\n\nYet the mind must first see through the eye of sense, before it is\ncapable of seeing through the eye of reason. The universe, that really\nbelongs to the mind, the eye of sense never sees, but it sees something\nthat suggests it. Through the eye of sense man takes in a few colors, but\nthese suggest to Rubens the magnificent visions which illuminate the art\ngalleries of Europe. Through the sense man hears a few notes, but these\nare taken and multiplied into the symphonies of Beethoven.\n\nThrough the eye of sense, Columbus sees a few pieces of driftwood brought\nto the shore by the waves of the ever-restless sea; but these help him,\nthrough the eye of reason, to see a new world with its virgin forests,\nits wide-reaching plains and its majestic mountain ranges. Agassiz sees\nthrough the eye of sense an indentation on a rock in the State of Maine.\nThis gives him a suggestion which helps him to see, through the eye of\nreason, the icebergs and the glaciers, which, in the early ages, ground\ntheir way to the south. The man of science sees through the eye of sense,\nonly a bit of chalk; but from this a suggestion comes to him, which\nenables him to see through the eye of reason the oozy bed upon which\nthe submarine cable rests; and the life that sported in the vast oceans\nwhen the Dover Cliffs were being formed. Through the eye of sense Cuvier\nsees an immense tooth, larger than any known at the present. Through the\neye of reason he sees the huge animal in whose jaw it was set. Upon the\ncomprehensive, active power of reason, man relies to determine for him\nthe elements good for food, the power which serves his social nature, the\ntruth which furnishes his intellect, the right which matches his will,\nand the beauty which corresponds with his \u00e6sthetic nature.\n\nThe universe lends itself in its totality to the scale and the dip of\nthe particular capacity or power through which man, for the time being,\nseeks to appropriate it. It stands before the sense of hunger in terms\nof bread. It stands before the social nature in terms of power. It\nstands before the intellect in terms of truth. It stands before the\nwill in terms of law. It stands before the \u00e6sthetic nature in terms of\nbeauty. The person who has related himself to the world through all\nthe powers of his nature, finds it capable, by turns, of feeding every\nfaculty with which he is endowed. The universe is now all bread, now all\npower, now all truth, now all law, and now all beauty. It will be any\nor all of these, according to the side, or sides, of himself through\nwhich he addresses it. One of the great discoveries of modern times is\nthe correlation of forces. The persistent force may express itself in\nheat, or light, or electricity, or magnetism. These are only different\nforms of the same thing, and any one may pass to any of the others. In\nthe world, as a whole, we find the sense of correlation inheres, as it\nrelates itself to the different faculties man has for taking hold of it.\nAs the correlate of hunger, it is all bread; as the correlate of the\nsocial nature, it is all power; as the correlate of the intellect, it\nis all truth; as the correlate of the will, it is all law, and as the\ncorrelate of the \u00e6sthetic sense, it is all beauty. Objective reality is\naddressed to the many sides of human life, in order that the whole of it\nmay be used up for the purpose of making a man. It is all to be drawn\ninto manhood. As all rivers meet in the ocean, and all colors meet in the\nwhite ray of light; so objective reality, in all that it is for food, for\npower, for truth, for right, for beauty; is to meet in human life, for\nnutriment, for furnishment, and for the completion of manhood. If you\nwant to know what the objective self of the fish is, look at the ocean.\nIf you want to know what the objective self of the eagle is, look at the\nsky. If you want to know what the objective self of the elephant is,\nlook at the Asiatic jungle. If you want to know what the objective self\nof man is, look at the conditions of food, power, truth, law, and beauty\nwhich environ him. The fish gets the water, the bird gets the air, and\nthe elephant gets the jungle; but man, with a nature illimitable, with\ncapacities inexhaustible, with hunger deep as truth, with aspirations\nas wide as right, and with an ideal as unfathomable as beauty, is the\nchild of the eternal God, and is to get the fullness of his nature in\nnothing less than the entire expression which God has made of himself in\nobjective reality.\n\n\nII.\n\nAll truth, as we have before stated, which man has tried to express, is\nbut a transcript of divine truth. The truth of astronomy is a transcript\nfrom the reality of the stars. The truth of botany is a transcript\nfrom the reality of plants. The truth of geology is a transcript from\nthe reality of the earth\u2019s structure. All right, which man has sought\nto embody in statutes, in constitutions, in enactments, is but a\ntranscript from the will of God. So all beauty, which man has attempted\nto symbolize, is contained in the nature of things, and has its source\nin God. The beauty man has seen has taken in the process of history many\nforms. It is seen in architecture, sculpture, poetry, painting, and\nmusic. These are different forms of the same thing. As the persistent\nphysical force expresses itself in heat, light, electricity, and\nmagnetism, so genius is the persistent mental force which expresses\nitself in art. Sometimes the persistent mental force comes to such unity\nand fullness in some massive soul that from him it goes out into all\nthe fine arts. Michael Angelo was by turns poet, painter, sculptor, and\narchitect. Had he lived in Germany in the time of Beethoven he would have\nadded to his other accomplishments that of music. The noblest specimens\nof music are only great cathedrals constructed out of sound, as Michael\nAngelo\u2019s \u201cMoses\u201d was a great epic poem wrought in stone.\n\nWe wish to consider beauty in its relation to the \u00e6sthetic sense, in two\naspects of itself.\n\nThe most important forms of beauty have as the physical conditions of\ntheir existence light and sound, and as the ideal conditions of their\nexistence space and time. The names man gives to these forms of beauty,\nwhen he expresses them, or re-expresses them, are painting and music. For\nno element of man\u2019s nature has more marvelous provision been made than\nfor the \u00e6sthetic element. The objective conditions of the beauty, which\ncorrespond to the subjective \u00e6sthetic sense, are contained in sound and\nlight. Sound and light are the invisible physical forces which play upon\nthe objects of nature, and call from them the responses of melody and\nvision which the \u00e6sthetic nature appropriates for ecstasy and delight.\n\nCapacity for sound is lodged in well-nigh all created objects. Minerals,\nwoods, gases, and liquids even, contain the notes of the musical scale.\nBuilders of pianos, harps, put no notes in the elements they use in the\nconstruction of these instruments. They simply comply with conditions\nnecessary to bring them out. The music we get out of wood and steel and\nbrass, as we find them arranged in the piano, the organ, the harp, by\nstriking them at regular intervals, is the melody breathed into them when\nthey were created. Beethoven, Handel, and Mozart created no music. Their\ngenius was manifested simply in the power to bring out of forest and mine\nand cane-brake what God put into them.\n\nAs to what note a body shall give up under tension and pressure, is owing\nto its ultimate structure, and the elements which compose it; and also\nthe note latent in the object by which it is struck, or pressed. Sing\ninto a piano and the same notes respond which are used in the execution\nof the song. A storm, howling through a forest, makes a loud noise, but\nno music. Its notes do not synchronize with those contained in the limbs\nand leaves of the trees. But when the low, sad murmur of the evening\nwinds gently strike the needles of the long-leaf pine there is music. The\nnotes of the one are related to the notes of the other.\n\nAs all things have capacity for sound, so well-nigh all created things\nhave capacity for color. The color which an object takes on in the\npresence of light is determined also by its ultimate structure and the\nelements which constitute it. Nearly every object absorbs a portion of\nthe light and throws back to the eye of the beholder a portion. Bodies\nabsorb those rays which are synchronous with their constituent elements.\nWhen the particles which compose a body are not capable of vibrating at\nthe rate of any portion of the light particles, then they are all thrown\nback, and the body is pronounced white. It is to be observed that no body\nhas color or sound of its own, but only the capacity for these. The note\nof a body is discovered by striking it, and its color by stimulating it\nwith a light ray.\n\nAnother interesting fact is to be noted here\u2014that is the analogy\nbetween sound and light, or music and painting. The difference between\na sound wave and a light wave is only a difference of length. The\nprinciples underlying them are the same, and the methods by which they\nare produced are the same. Sound waves, to be heard, must vibrate at\nleast as often as sixteen beats to the second. Light waves, in order\nto pass through the organ of vision, and reach the retina of the eye,\nmust not vibrate at a less rate than four hundred trillions of times to\nthe second. The difference between the eye and the ear is, one is more\nrefined than the other. A painting is a silent piece of music, and a\npiece of music is an audible picture. The notes of the musical scale and\nthe colors of the prismatic scale are analogous. The distance between\nC and A of the musical scale is the same as the distance between red\nand orange of the prismatic scale. The notes of the one scale may be\ntranslated into the colors of the other. Harmony of colors in a silk\ndress, would, if translated into their analogous notes, produce a piece\nof music that would be equally as pleasing to the ear as the colors are\nto the eye. Painting is only a more refined form of music. This is not\nfancy; it is mathematics and science. All things about us are capable\nof music, silent or audible. Notes belonging to some part of a great\nsong are lodged in all created objects. Things are not measured off in\ncontinents, oceans, islands, mountains, forests, and mines only, but also\nin octaves. The music of the spheres is no longer a dream of the poets,\nbut in accordance with exact science. The material system into which we\nare born is capable, then, not only of furnishing us food to eat and\nclothes to wear, but music and painting for the sense of the beautiful.\nA mere utilitarian, bread-and-butter philosophy does not exhaust the\npossibilities of even the material world. In its very construction\nrespect to man\u2019s higher nature was had, as well as to his lower. By\nso much as music and harmony of color surpass in their subtlety and\nrefinement the coarser elements necessary to sustain the lower nature;\nby so much has God emphasized the value of the higher nature. Had God\nintended his children for no higher plane than that upon which the\nanimals live, and no greater future for them than that which belongs to\n\u201cthe beasts that perish,\u201d doubtless the beauty would have been left out.\nMen have been told, by one having authority, not to cast their pearls\nbefore swine. The beauty that was flung at the feet of man contained a\nmessage to a side of himself keyed to a radiant and imperishable realm.\n\nWho does not feel, under the charm of music, or the influence of a great\npainting, reasons for high living which no words can express? The tear\nwhich often gathers in the eye of the most abandoned, hardened man, under\nthe power of song, bespeaks the fact that chords have been touched which\nvibrate responsive to no earthly interest or relation.\n\n\nIII.\n\nThe melody in sound and the harmony in color are correlated to the\n\u00e6sthetic nature of man through the ear and the eye. In the ear is found\nthe musical scale, and in the eye the prismatic scale.\n\nNotes are in the ear which correspond with the C D E F G A B of the\nmusical scale, and parts are in the eye which correspond to the red,\norange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet of the prismatic scale.\nIt is only through D in the ear that D out of the ear can be heard, and\nit is with C in the ear that C out of the ear is heard.\n\nIf there were no notes in the ear except D, and all other notes in\nnature were destroyed, the ear could hear no notes at all. A hears A,\nand B hears B, and C hears C. What A hears, B does not hear, and what C\nhears, A does not hear. What is true of the ear is true of the eye. The\nparts of the eye with which red is seen are not the parts with which\ngreen is seen. Red in the eye sees red out of the eye. Blue in the eye\nsees blue out of the eye, and green in the eye sees green out of the eye.\nIf there was in the prismatic scale located in the eye only the part\nwith which blue is seen, no color in the world would be visible except\nthe blue. The notes latent in all natural objects are addressed to the\n\u00e6sthetic sense, through the corresponding notes latent in the ear; and\nthe seven colors, capacity for which is latent in all earthly objects,\naddress themselves to the \u00e6sthetic nature through the corresponding\ncapacities for color contained in the eye. That man is related to\nthe kingdom of beauty in a sense which marks him off from the animals\nbelow him, is proven by the fact that he can take the elements of this\nkingdom into his imagination and send them back to the realms of sense,\nin oratorios and paintings. The masters have given all history ideal\nand permanent setting by means of sound and light. Man cannot only see\nthe truth, but repeat it; not only recognize the right, but conform to\nit, and not only appreciate beauty, but express it. In this he has the\nevidence of his kinship with the author of the true, the good, and the\nbeautiful. The lower animals, as far as we know, may be thrilled with\nthat which is beautiful; we do know they never repeat the beautiful. In\nthe art galleries and conservatories of the world all the past is brought\nto life again and stands before the eye and the ear, under the ideal\nforms of time and space. Moses is not only immortal in the laws which he\nwrote, and in the race which he civilized, but, through Michael Angelo\u2019s\ngenius, he has been made eternal in the kingdom of beauty.\n\nThus, through his \u00e6sthetic side, man not only receives, but he gives.\nThe melody of sound and the harmony of color not only come to him, but\ngo from him; and from him, too, charged and shot through with all the\nsuffering, temptation, sin, and sacrifice he has known.\n\n\nIV.\n\nThe empirical philosophy, which reduces knowledge to sensations and\nmorality to laws imposed by prudence, and man himself to the same\nplane of life occupied by the lower animals, invades the domain of\n\u00e6sthetics, and makes of beauty a mere matter of individual feeling, local\nconvention, and arbitrary fashion. This philosophy of the dirt denies\nto mind any inherent, creative activity, in the region of knowledge,\nmorals, or art. Now, it is doubtless true, that food and power and beauty\nof color and tone are addressed to the lower animals; sufficiently,\nat least, for them to get the means of subsistence, and some low sort\nof pleasure from them. They do this, however, not by reason, but by\ninstinct. The bee is determined by its nature to build his cell in\naccordance with mathematical principles, and to store it with honey from\nthe leaves and the flowers. The bee does this as naturally as water runs\ndown-hill. There is no calculation in it, and the bee does not recognize\nitself in the process of this work.\n\nThe bird may be determined in the selection of its mate by brilliant\nplumage, or joyous song, but this it does just as a rock turned loose\nfrom the top of a house falls to the ground. The evidence of a combining,\nmental activity in man, to which things in the outside world are\naddressed, in a peculiar and distinct sense, is found in the fact that\nman not only receives the things that come to him, but sends them from\nhim in the forms of his own thought.\n\nThe bee appropriates the honeydew that covers the surface of the leaves,\nstores it in his cell, and eats it in the winter; but who ever knew bees\nto plant out trees in order that there might be leaves from which to\nsecure honeydew? Man finds the bananas that grow in the tropics, and the\nberries that grow in the temperate zones, and eats them; but he sees how\nbananas and berries grow, and so clears fields and hedges, to insure a\nmore abundant crop.\n\nThe monkey hears the thunder and sees the lightning as well as the man,\nbut man investigates the nature of lightning; he sees the principle\nunderlying its weird movements, the things for which it has affinity.\nSo he contrives various methods for utilizing it. The mind within him\nbeing the same in kind as the mind which sends the lightning, he sees how\nlightning is sent, and sends it. He not only sees thunder-storms, but\nhow they are made. So the professor creates them in glass jars for the\nbenefit of his class.\n\nNature presents herself to man under uniform methods of action.\nEverywhere is regularity and orderliness. He reproduces this order in\npolitical and social life. The laws without him kindle into expression\nthe moral magazine of volition within him.\n\nNature presents herself to man as unity. This implies mind. Unity is\nimpossible without mind. The mind underneath the unity, without him,\nspeaks to the mind within him. Then by his own mind he recreates the\nuniverse in literature.\n\nHe hears the cawing of rooks, the cooing of doves, the purling of brooks,\nand the roar of tempests. These, with all other sounds in nature, are\ncaught and combined in the marvelous creation of Mozart and Beethoven.\n\nMuch is said by the learned men who are ever seeking to minify man\u2019s\nplace in nature, about the reason and memory, and intelligence, and\neven conscience of the lower animals. It is almost enough to make one\nwish he were a dog or a horse when he reads how much sense and how much\nconscience dogs and horses have. Not much weight, however, will ever be\ngiven to these long treatises on the intelligence of the lower animals,\nuntil some bee shall give us a book on mathematics, or until some horse\nshall tell through one of our agricultural journals the best time to sow\nclover; or some dog shall give us the philosophy of the chase. We see the\ncapacity of the human mind in Shakspere\u2019s plays. So one picture painted\nby a cat, one poem written by a mule, one philosophical dissertation\ncomposed by an owl, or one cocoanut plantation planted by the monkeys,\nwould establish beyond question that the high claims made for the mental\ncapabilities of these humble members of the animal creation are justified.\n\nMan grows wheat by the use of the mind within him, which sees how the\nmind without him has made the growth of wheat possible. Man utilizes\npower, by the use of the mind within him, which recognizes how power\nis produced and controlled by the mind without him. Man sees truth,\nbecause the mind within him is like the mind without him, which expresses\nitself in truth. Man sees law, because the mind within him is like the\nmind without him which ordained law. So man sees beauty, because the\nmind within him is like the mind without him, which expresses itself in\nbeauty. Food, and truth, and law, and beauty, cannot be reproduced by\nman, except by the laws of mind acting in him as the laws of mind do\nwithout him.\n\n\nV.\n\nWhat is the use of beauty? Like truth and law, it looks beyond itself.\nIt is to help realize the purpose for which the earth was created, the\npurpose which finds its consummation in a perfect man.\n\nBeauty comes to man, bearing intimations of his high origin and also\nof his glorious destiny. Under the magic spell which beauty throws\naround him, he forgets for the time being his limitations, his fears,\nhis doubts. He is lifted into a realm of universal freedom, where all\ndifficulties disappear, where all conflicts are eliminated. The \u00e6sthetic\nnature is not at all seclusive and aristocratic. It receives the melody,\nand symmetry, and harmony which reason finds in the tones, and forms, and\ncolors of the outside world, and turns over to it. These rich gifts are\nthen shared with all other human powers and faculties. Hunger is served\nwith food set in painted china. Around the table, where man satisfies\nhis appetite, pictures are hung, and the beef market and the mill are\nbuilt and arranged in accordance with the dictates of symmetry and taste.\nThe college, where truth is taught, and the courthouse, where law is\nadministered, are invested with all the beauty of the architect\u2019s genius.\nThus beauty, high, heaven-born, and refreshing, is drawn into all the\nrelations, and thrown around all the institutions of life. It reduces\nfriction, redresses littleness, and adds to life good cheer and depth.\nIt smoothes the rough places, rounds the sharp corners, and hangs the bow\nof hope on the dark cloud of coming trial.\n\nThe \u00e6sthetic sense, nurtured on beauty, keeps before the minds of men\nand nations a proper ideal of life. When the ideal held before the mind\nat one period of advancement is reached, the \u00e6sthetic sense has already\nlifted another and a nobler, as far ahead of the actual as the first.\nIn presenting to the living spirit ideals always in advance of actual\nattainment, the \u00e6sthetic nature opens the unending path of progress. It\nis incorrect to suppose that the ideal is worked out only in painting,\nsymphony, or cathedral. Its presence is manifest in the useful, as well\nas the fine arts. The ideal often gets itself translated into the heel\nof a shoe, into the crown of a hat, into the wheel of a wagon, into the\nfence around the field, and into the structure of the mower and the\nreaper. It curves in the arches of bridges, echoes in the sound of the\nhammer, and breaks over the hills in the whistle of the engine.\n\nThe progress of beauty in modern times has not been in the direction of\nform or coloring or symmetry, simply, but toward wider distribution. In\nearly times, its ministry was to kings and scholars; it has advanced by\nexpanding. The pyramid of Gizeh, the most expensive monument ever seen,\nwas reared to perpetuate the memory of a great Egyptian king. A country\nwas drained of revenue and of life to regale the pride of one man. The\nParthenon ministered to a few great men in Greece. The cathedrals of the\nmiddle ages blest and helped a wider circle. But it was left to the time\nwhich is ours to build churches and chapels, as broad in their aims and\nministry as the life of humanity. The early poetry concerned itself about\nthe wars of gods and the contentions of kings. But as the sacredness of\nhuman life came to be seen more and more, did it tend to catch within the\nsweep of its rhythm the incidents and traditions and loves of the common\npeople. The ideal in our day is being worked out in fields of waving\ngrain, into the cattle upon the hills, into the homes of the people. It\nis being turned into orchards and vineyards. It is being traced in vines\nand flowers over the poor man\u2019s cottage. The ideals were once housed\nand confined in the museums; now they are being turned out into the\nstreet. It was once the custom to bring Venus and Diana, by the aid of\nthe chisel, from rough marble. The tendency now is to put the beauty of\nVenus and the enterprise of Diana into the spirits of our women. Sublime\nconceptions were once mainly realized in temples and cathedrals, but now\nwe would see them distributed into dwellings for families, into schools\nfor children, and into churches for the true worship of God. We would see\nthem in bridges spanning all the rivers, in mills grinding the people\u2019s\nbread, in factories spinning their clothes, and in railroads transporting\ntheir products. We would see them lifted into an asylum for the blind,\na shelter for the orphan, and a home for the aged and infirm. We would\nhear them in the whirl of the spindle, in the ring of the hammer, in the\nsplash of the paddle, and in the sound of the flying train. We would\nhear them in the steady march of progress, and in the pulse-beats of\nthe happy plowman. Beauty is to be used to stimulate human courage, to\nembellish human spirit, and to enlarge human thought. Life\u2019s shadows are\nto be chased by the light of eternity\u2019s day, and its tumult hushed by\nthe repose of eternity\u2019s harmony. The \u00e6sthetic element in man\u2019s nature\nwas appointed to receive the beauty provided for it. But it was to be\nGod\u2019s almoner; having received it, also freely to give it. Thus it was\nto be the power whose function should be to put the whole of life into\nterms of harmony. Bernard Palissy put his ideal into a white enamel for\nhis pottery; Columbus worked his ideal into a new world; Morse left his\nin the electric telegraph; Cyrus W. Field turned his into the submarine\ncable; and Thomas A. Edison has given his to the world in the telephone.\nIt is not to be inferred, however, that those who work their ideals\nout in the useful arts contribute more to the making of men than those\nwho express their ideals in poetry, painting, sculpture, or music. The\ntendency of beauty to get down into the ordinary work and relations of\nlife is an intimation that all life should be beautiful in itself, and\nin all expressions which it makes of itself. The \u00e6sthetic sense is the\nbadge of man\u2019s royalty. A tutor was once employed to teach the son of\na king. The young prince was sometimes disobedient. But in the esteem\nof the tutor, it was not quite proper to whip the son of a king with a\ncommon switch. So to the lapel of the boy\u2019s coat the teacher pinned a\npiece of purple ribbon. When the young prince manifested a disposition\nto defy authority, the instructor pointed with the end of the rod to the\npurple ribbon on his coat. This was an appeal to his royal blood.\n\nNot a flower gathers on the limbs of a rose bush but addresses the high\nand purple nature of everyone who beholds it. In Mexico, where the\naverage of life is so low, the flowers which grow in such profusion are\nabout all that is left to keep the people reminded that they are the\nchildren of God, the author of all beauty. The highest evidence of the\nremaining worth of the Mexican people is found in the fact that they\nlove flowers with a deep and unfailing passion.\n\n\nVI.\n\nBeauty is to feed enthusiasm. Tones and colors are to be used to jostle\nthe elements of mind, and will, and emotion into harmony with the high\nand holy life of our Father who art in Heaven. Beauty is to nerve the\nsoldier for the battle, the martyr for the stake, and the hero for his\nwork. There is a height of development to which the human spirit aspires,\nthat the logical understanding is unable to reach. Here, then, where\ntruth in logical form fails, beauty comes, and helps the human spirit to\ndisentangle itself from the sphere of contradictions and antagonisms.\n\nTruth and right command the spirit by an external necessity; beauty\nmoves it by an internal necessity and starts it to vibrating in the very\ncenters of its being, in consonance with itself. Beauty lifts it to a\npinnacle where the horizon quadrates with its irrepressible longings; and\nwhere the whole of life is rounded into an orb from which all strife is\neliminated, and all discord extracted. Men seek artificial stimulants and\nnarcotics, because of the abiding conviction they have, that their lives\nwere keyed to some ideal realm of unity and freedom.\n\nWhat intoxicants do to the detriment of the spirit, beauty accomplishes\nto its health and vigor. It is carried by beauty into no land of\nvague dream, and unreal delirium, but into a radiant region where the\nenvironing conditions exactly match its undying hopes.\n\n\n\n\n_LOVE._\n\n\n    \u201cThere are indeed men whose souls are like the sea. Those\n    billows that ebb and flood, that inexorable going and\n    coming, that noise of all the winds, that blackness and\n    that translucency, that vegetation peculiar to the deep,\n    that democracy of clouds in full hurricane, those eagles\n    flecked with foam, those wonderful star-risings reflected in\n    mysterious agitation by millions of luminous wavetops, confused\n    heads of the multitudinous sea\u2014the errant lightnings, which\n    seem to watch; those prodigious sobbings, those half-seen\n    monsters, those nights of darkness broken by howlings, those\n    furies, those frenzies, those torments, those rocks, those\n    shipwrecks, those fleets crushing each other; then that charm,\n    that mildness, those festivals, those gay white sails, those\n    fishing boats, those songs amid the uproar, those shining\n    ports, those mists rising from the shore; those wraths and\n    those appeasements, that all in one, the unforeseen amid\n    the changeless, the vast marvel of inexhaustibly varied\n    monotony\u2014all this may exist in a mind, and that mind is called\n    genius, and you have \u00c6schylus, you have Isaiah, you have Dante,\n    you have Michael Angelo, you have Shakspere.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nTHE PROVISION FOR THE SPIRITUAL NATURE OF MAN.\n\n\nIn speaking of the spiritual nature of man, reference is not had to a\nside or faculty or power of himself, but to his real, essential life. Man\nis a spirit. All faculties and powers exist for him as such. The hunger,\nand the food provided for it, are to serve man as spirit. The social\nelement, and the power provided for it, are to serve him as spirit. The\nintellect and truth, the will and right, the \u00e6sthetic sense and beauty,\nare all to serve him as spirit. The correlate of man as spirit, on one\nside of himself, we have seen to be the life of humanity\u2014the correlate of\nman as spirit, on the other side of himself, is the life of God. Man\u2019s\nspiritual nature is mediated to him on one side by the family, by the\nschool, by the institutions of the state, by the establishments of trade,\nby the newspaper, by literature, by art, by history. Man\u2019s spiritual\nnature is mediated to him on the other side by love, embodied in the one\nMediator between God and man.\n\nThe mud-philosophy of Locke, and Hume, and Mill, and Spencer dissolves\nspirit, because it dissolves the idea of a mind, an ego, or an external\nworld. If the mind can know nothing but a succession of things in time,\nif nothing but a constant flow and flux of sensations; of course it\ncannot know itself, only as a sensation in the perpetual procession\nof sensations always passing by. But how is it possible for the mind\nto know a succession of things in time, and a procession of things in\nspace, unless it is itself out of and apart from the succession and the\nprocession. One sensation, say of the self, in a flow of sensations,\ncould not know itself as a part of such a flow, without knowing itself\nas related to a before and an after in the process. To know even a\nprocession of sensations, we must have a spirit that stands still and\ndoes not pass on with the procession. The spirit, then, must be out\nof time to know succession, and out of space to know procession, and\nself-conscious, so as to distinguish itself from the succession and the\nprocession. The human spirit is something in the midst of time, yet\npasses not with the tides of time. It is to the succession of things\never passing through it, and to the procession of sensations ever\npassing before it, like some mighty Teneriffe with its peak of Teyde in\nthe midst of the sea, pushing its proud head up 12,000 feet above the\nsea, and contrasting with its ever changing waves, the immutability of\neternity. Man, as a spirit, is after God, the most universal of all\nfacts. He is illimitable in more ways than space, remaining when all the\nevents of time have passed, and with a nature dipping into the eternal\nspirit of God. The respect in which man is made in the image of God,\nis, that he is endowed with self-consciousness, and self-determination.\nSelf-consciousness and self-determination are the universal forms of\nspiritual activity. Man, as a self-conscious and self-determining spirit,\nis not independent. He must find his true self beyond himself. He is\ndependent upon the absolute self-consciousness and self-determination of\nGod. He is the child of God, and as there cannot be an absolute without\na relative, he is the relativity of the absolute. God\u2019s nature is the\nground of man\u2019s nature, and in God he is mirrored to himself.\n\nIn God man lives and moves and has his being. In finding God, man finds\nhimself. In the revelation of God is the revelation of man. God is a\nspirit and man is a spirit; but man, as a relative spirit, comes to\nhimself in God, the absolute spirit; as the life-germ of the acorn comes\nto itself in the natural conditions of soil and sky which environ it.\n\n\nI.\n\nAs man is essentially spirit, he can never come to unity, only as he\ncomes to it in himself as a spirit. As long as he abandons himself\nto mere bread, or power, or knowledge, or law, or beauty, there is\ncontradiction. Not in any one of these can he find full-orbed life.\nThese all bring nutriment to him, as a spirit, from the several spheres\nto which they are variously correlated. But provision is made not only\nfor the sides and faculties of himself, but for the essential nature\nof himself. We have seen how hunger was met by bread, the needs of\nthe social nature by power, intellect by truth, will by law, and the\n\u00e6sthetic sense by beauty; but here we come to life, and find that love,\ntimeless and illimitable love, alone corresponds to it. But love can only\nfind its embodiment and its expression in life. Therefore, love has taken\nthe form of life to meet the needs of man as a spirit.\n\nWe do not propose to discuss this subject dogmatically. The writer\nbelieves in dogmatism; but in this work the attempt has been to treat\nman, and the things provided for him, scientifically. We have taken\nnothing for granted, and have intended to say nothing but what was\nwarranted by the facts. That man is a spirit, and related to an unseen\nrealm, is attested by the fact that all round this world temples and\nmosques, and synagogues and churches lift themselves sublimely, or\nmodestly, to the sky. That there is something in man that seeks provision\nfrom beyond the range of sense and sight, no one in his senses can deny.\nThis deep and fundamental and irrepressible need of man\u2019s nature finds\nits correlate in love. Speaking out of the depths of his life, it is an\neverlasting call for sympathy, for reconciliation, for pardon, for peace.\nLove gives sympathy, insures reconciliation, grants pardon, and secures\npeace. But love can only come from the unseen and eternal in the form of\nlife. Let us see how the love expressed in the life and sacrifice and\ndeath of Jesus Christ, as the embodiment of divine love, is set over\nagainst the spiritual nature of man, as its correlate; as completely as\nbread is set over against hunger, or the truth against the intellect, or\nas beauty is set over against the \u00e6sthetic sense. We believe this is so\nin the nature of things, and will finally be taught as truth, as absolute\nand unfailing as the multiplication table. Men will come to it, after\na while, not only as a dogmatic doctrine taught by the churches, but\nalso as absolute doctrine, taught by the constitution and needs of human\nnature. The time will come when to doubt this will not simply be to write\none\u2019s self down as mean, but as mentally unbalanced. If Jesus Christ, as\nlove, is the correlate of the spiritual needs of the human race, then his\nlife is peculiar and unique. It cannot be classed with any other life.\nIt cannot be measured by any rule used to measure other things or other\nlives. We propose to test this life by a principle said, by scientific\nmen, to have universal application in this time.\n\n\nII.\n\nThe doctrine of the correlation, equivalence, persistence,\ntransmutability and indestructibility of force, or the conservation of\nenergy has had vast influence upon the thought and life of our time.\nIt has furnished a new opening through which to behold the nature of\nthings. It has given to men a new working hypothesis and richer views and\nconceptions of the universe and its author.\n\nThe tremendous advancement made in the material civilization of the\npresent is due more to this than any other scientific doctrine or\nprinciple. According to Professor Balfour Stewart, there are eight\nforms of energy or force. The energy of visible motion, visible energy\nof position, heat motion, molecular separation, atomic or chemical\nseparation, electrical separation, electricity in motion, and radiant\nenergy. Now taking this earth as a complete whole, containing within\nitself all these forms of energy, and so isolated from the rest of the\nuniverse as to receive nothing from it and to add nothing to it, then the\nprinciple of the correlation of forces asserts that the sum of all these\nforces is constant.\n\n\u201cThis does not assert that each is constant in itself, or any other of\nthe forms of force enumerated, for in truth they are always changing\nabout into each other\u2014now some visible energy being changed into heat\nor electricity, and heat or electricity being changed back again into\nvisible energy; but it only means that the sum of all the energies taken\ntogether is constant. There are eight variable quantities, and it is\nonly asserted that their sum is constant, not by any means that they are\nconstant themselves.\u201d\n\nFor the purpose of elucidating our principle in the realm of nature, we\nwill consider it as it applies to some of the useful forces whose effects\nwe can measure and whose origin we can trace and determine.\n\nThere is the force of conserved fuel. Away back in the carboniferous\nperiod of the world\u2019s history, there grew immense forests, which in\nsucceeding ages were turned under the earth, and, in the process of the\nyears, were changed into coal and oil and gas. These have been treasured\nfor untold ages in the mountains and in the bowels of the earth. Now they\nare brought forth by the applied intelligence of man, to turn his wheel,\ndraw his car, cook his food, propel his plow, and to light his home and\nhis street. The force in one ton of coal is capable of accomplishing more\nwork in a few hours than one man could in a lifetime. All this force, as\nwell as that contained in the growing forests of to-day, originated in\nthe sun.\n\nThere is the conserved force of food. This is found primarily in the\ngrass, the wheat, the rice, the fruit, which grow in our fields and\norchards. The lower animals feed on these, and through the process of\ndigestion and assimilation, they are transmuted into blood and bone and\nmuscle\u2014thus furnishing man, who stands at the top and the end of the\ncreative process, with a more refined higher form of food. But whether\nin the shape of grass, rice, wheat, or in the more refined form of\nanimal flesh, these various elements of food are only so much transmuted\nsunshine. Before they ever adorned the surface of our fields, or moved\nin the lowing herd over the meadow, they were held in solution in the\nsunshine. The food, the fuel, and the animal life of our earth are all\ntraceable to the sun.\n\nThere is the conserved force of flowing water. This turns the wheel,\nspins the thread, gins the cotton, weaves the cloth, and grinds the corn.\nAll the force that water possesses for the performance of work, comes\nfrom the sun. The warm rays of the sun, coming down on southern seas and\nrivers, causes the waters thereof to evaporate, and then it is carried\non the wings of north-bound winds to a colder clime. There the diffused\nwaters gather themselves into clouds and fall in rain to flow down\nthe rivers, thus exchanging their energy of position, which they have\nobtained from the sun, for the actual energy of the turning wheel.\n\nThere is also the conserved force of moving winds. By the aid of this\nships spread their sails, and pass from continent to continent with the\nproducts of the earth. Again all the force the winds possess for the\naccomplishment of work comes from the sun. The rays of the sun come\ndown with great intensity upon certain parts of the earth and heat the\natmosphere. Into these heated places come the winds from colder regions.\nThus currents and counter-currents are created. By putting the wheel\nof the windmill into these currents this force is converted into the\nground wheat and the drawn water. Thus all the different forms of force\ndisplayed in the growing forests, the waving harvest fields, the flying\nbirds, the lowing herds, the rushing railway train, the whir of the\nspindle, the ring of the hammer, and the pulsating blood come directly\nfrom the sun. The force, too, seen in all these physical, vegetable,\nanimal, commercial realms, is the exact equivalent of what was poured\ninto them from the sun. The earth contains no other force capital than\nwhat was paid over to it by the sun. It has issued no currency of its\nown, not even enough to run a watch, or to send the blood once around the\nbody, or even to transport a piece of bread to a starving man. All the\nforce our earth possesses is borrowed, and if we were to cease to borrow,\nwe would be bankrupt in a single day. We are to remember, too, that by\nso much force as the sun has parted with to our earth, and to other\nworlds which look to it for supplies, by so much has its own force been\ndecreased. If we knew how much force the sun had in the beginning, and\nwould subtract from this amount all that it has given away to the present\ntime, we might be able to form some estimate of its assets to-day.\n\nWe know not what the sun\u2019s resources are. We know not by what methods\nit has been replenishing its supplies of light and heat for ages past;\nwhether by chemical combination, meteoric impact, or condensation; we\nonly know by so much as it has in the ages past parted with, by so much\nless force it has to-day. That it has been able to supply our world and\nothers like it, however, with heat and light and physical life for ages,\nis not at all strange when we remember what an immense ball of fire the\nsun is. It has a diameter of a million miles, in round numbers. Storms,\nwhich travel across our world at the rate of sixty miles an hour, would\nmove across the surface of the sun at the rate of twenty thousand miles\nan hour. The flames of a burning forest, which on our world would rise\none hundred feet in the air, on the sun would rise to the height of two\nhundred thousand miles. The sun, too, has enough force on hand to supply\nour earth and others with heat for untold ages yet to come, but unless\nits supply is replenished, the time will come when it will be bankrupt\nand nothing but a burnt out char in the heavens. This is so, because the\nsun is the center of that great natural realm, the universal law of which\nis the law of exclusiveness.\n\nIn accordance with this law what the sun has in the way of force the\nother planets do not have, and what other planets obtain from the sun\nthat body has forever lost. This is only another name for the law of the\ncorrelation of forces. This law applies not only to the force of the sun,\nbut to all forces on this earth which come from that body. What one\ntree gathers into itself is at the expense of the general fund of force\nwhich goes to make trees. What one bird takes into his body is at the\nexpense of all force which goes to make birds. What one man takes into\nhis physical frame is at the expense of the general fund of force which\ngoes to make human bodies. Whatever amount of force is contained in the\ncloud, in conserved water to turn the wheel, or in conserved electricity\nto carry the message, is at the expense of the general fund of force.\n\nAccording to the doctrine of the correlation of forces, the rising up of\nforce in one place involves the subsidence of force in another place. The\namount rising up, too, is the exact equivalent of the amount subsiding.\nWhen a rock falls from a church steeple the earth rises as much to meet\nthe rock, in proportion to its mass, as the rock falls to meet the earth,\nin proportion to its mass. When a man shoots a rifle ball from a gun, as\nmuch force goes back against his shoulder as goes out through the muzzle\nof the gun. What the gun lacks in velocity it makes up in mass, and what\nthe ball lacks in mass it makes up in velocity. When a pine tree is cut\ndown and split into small pieces and put into an engine, just the same\namount of heat is gathered from it that was garnered from the sun in the\nfifty years of its growth. This heat is also converted into an equivalent\nof steam, and this steam into an equivalent amount of mechanical motion.\nThe sunshine, the pine tree, the heat, the steam, the mechanical\nmotion, are only different forms of the same thing. Scientists of the\nmaterialistic school claim that this law holds good not only in the realm\nof the natural world, but in the mental and moral, as well. Prof. Thomas\nH. Huxley said, in a celebrated address in this country once, that a\nspeech was only so much transmuted mutton. According to Prof. Alexander\nBain, there are five chief powers, or forces in nature: one mechanical or\nmolar, the momentum of moving matter; the others, molecular, are embodied\nin the molecules, also supposed in motion\u2014these are light, heat, chemical\nforce, electricity. One member of vital energies, the nerve force, allied\nto electricity, fully deserves to rank in the correlation. According to\nthis same distinguished authority, mind is only a refined and sublimated\nform of physical force. In this view the great poems, paintings, and\nliterature of the world would be only so much transmuted sunshine\u2014a\nhigher form of the same force we see manifested in the flying railway\ntrain. In the one case the solidified sunshine contained in the coal is\ntransmuted through the furnace of the engine into mechanical motion; in\nthe other, the heat contained in food is transmuted through the human\nbrain into literature and art. Perhaps it might not be at wide variance\nfrom the truth to assume that the force, mental or otherwise, expended\nby men who spend their lives under the dominion of the natural law of\nexclusiveness, may be accounted for in accordance with the doctrine of\nthe correlation of forces. Even mind, when earthly and low, is subject to\nthe bearing of the law of sin and death, which is the scriptural name for\nthe law of exclusiveness.\n\n\nIII.\n\nIt might be plausibly contended that the religious movement of the\nprophet Mohammed could be accounted for in accordance with the doctrine\nof the correlation of forces. It is to be remembered that the personality\nof Mohammed is no more the equivalent of the vast movement which\nhas existed and exists to-day under his name, than the acorn is the\nquantitative equivalent of the immense oak tree which has grown from it.\nThe acorn, plus all the oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and other\nforces of sky and earth which it caught and organized, is the equivalent\nof the oak tree. The soil and the sky contain oaks in solution. Through\nacorns these are precipitated into trees.\n\nThe mental, political, and social atmosphere of Turkey contained the\nMohammedan movement in solution before Mohammed was born. Through him it\nwas precipitated into Koran, mosque, prayer, and worship.\n\nMohammed relied for success upon the methods with which men ordinarily\nsucceed. He appealed to men\u2019s love of fame, of pleasure, of conquest, of\npower, of riches. He simply organized the latent aspirations, and hopes,\nand fears of his countrymen into a great kingdom, essentially secular\nand sensual.\n\nIn accordance with the principle of the correlation of forces, it might\nbe possible to account for the success of Buddha, Confucius, C\u00e6sar,\nand Bonaparte. What we wish now, is to apply this doctrine, which the\nmaterialists claim is capable of measuring everything, from an atom to\nMilton\u2019s \u201cParadise Lost,\u201d to the life and work of Christ. Granting, as we\nmust, that all physical force may be estimated by it, and even that the\nwork and thought of men, in so far as they live under the natural law of\nselfishness or exclusiveness, may be estimated by it.\n\nWhat we desire to inquire is, if the life and work of Christ form no\nexception to its operation, as ordinarily regarded. Can we, in accordance\nwith this principle, account for the life and influence of Christ on the\nassumption that he was only a man? Has no more force issued from the\nperson of Christ than subsided when only a man named Jesus was crucified?\n\nWe have seen how the forms of physical force in the shape of fuel, food,\nmoving waters, and winds may be traced directly to the sun. Let us\nalso consider some of the forms of spiritual force which are traceable\ndirectly to the life of Christ, and inquire if they may be accounted for\nas the force which comes from the sun may be, by the principle of the\nconvertibility of force.\n\n\nIV.\n\nThere is the conserved spiritual force of Christian literature. This is\nstored up in the Bibles of the world, in commentaries upon its text, in\nexpositions of its principles, in books illustrating its meaning. If all\nthe Bibles of the world, books written about the Bible\u2014in favor of it or\nagainst it\u2014and all the books which have been inspired by some truth or\nprecept taught in the Bible, and all the books which owe their existence\ndirectly or indirectly to the Bible, were burned up, Christendom would\nbe well-nigh without literature. All Bibles and all books and literature\nwhich have grown out of the Bible owe their existence directly to Christ.\nThey have come as straight from him as the coal in the mountain has\ncome from the sun. Much force has been expended in the writing of all\nthese books and in printing them, binding them, circulating them. They\nrepresent millions of dollars, ages of painful, patient thought. Into\nthem a marvelous amount of force has lifted itself\u2014physical force, money\nforce, thought force. We are to find its equivalent. All the force that\nhas arisen in Christian literature has subsided at some point, and the\namount that subsided is the exact equivalent of that which has arisen. It\nmust be remembered, too, that distinctly Christian literature has not\nmade its way in the world, as have the writings of Homer and Plato, by\ntheir affinity with man\u2019s fancy. The wonderful interest which has ever\ncentered around the Bible is totally different in kind and degree from\nthat which centers around the works of Shakspere. Whatever there is of\nliterary merit, of philosophic thought, or of poetic depth in the Bible\nis incidental.\n\nThere is the conserved spiritual force of Christian art. The masterpieces\nin painting, sculpture, music, poetry, and architecture are Christian.\nThe inspiration which produced Milton\u2019s \u201cParadise Lost,\u201d Handel\u2019s\n\u201cMessiah,\u201d Powers\u2019 \u201cEve,\u201d and St. Peter\u2019s at Rome, has all come from\nChrist. In the conception and production of these an immense amount of\nthe most subtle, refined force has been expended.\n\nThere is the conserved force of Christian money. This has taken the form\nof church buildings, buildings for education, for orphans, for the sick,\nfor the wretched and the poor. There is not a great city in the world\nto-day without a Christian church edifice. They are the expressions of\na great force, of which we are seeking to find the equivalent. They owe\ntheir existence directly to the person of Christ. The millions of money\nwhich have been spent in their erection have been because of love to\nhim. They are as directly related to him as the oak tree is to the sun.\nIf all these churches were burned down to-day, men would begin at once\nthe erection of better ones to take their places. The conserved force of\nChristian money, then, which tends to lift itself into church edifices,\nis not exhausted in those which already stand upon the earth; but just as\nmuch as has lifted itself into brick and marble, and window, and dome,\nand pinnacle is ready to take the same forms if the necessity for them\nwere laid upon the Christian world.\n\nThere is the conserved force of Christian home life. The force here\nreferred to is not manifest in the life itself, but in the form which\nfamily life has taken in the Christian world. There is hardly a home\nin Christendom to-day, but has been formed directly or indirectly with\nreference to Christ. Into those places where character is formed, where\nrevolutions are started, where Wesleys and Gladstones are developed,\nwhere eternal issues pend, Christ has come quietly and silently to\nregulate, to dominate and control. To thus influence, regulate, and\nvitally touch homes, to thus determine their form, appointment, and\ncharacter, requires a great deal of force.\n\nThere is the conserved force implied in the inception and perpetuation\nof the Christian Calendar. Infidels, materialists, and atheists, in\ndating their letters, pay tribute to the character of Christ in the fact\nthat they recognize he has ushered in a new era. Christ has claimed and\nheld through nearly two thousand years one day out of every week to be\ndevoted to his service. The day upon which he was born is celebrated in\nthe hearts of men and in the arts of men. To change the world\u2019s calendar,\nto inaugurate and make permanent a new date, to impel the world to set\napart a day for his worship, to furnish the world with new festivals and\nholidays, has required, certainly, a vast amount of force. This we are to\ntrace and determine, and we are also to find its equivalent.\n\nThere is the conserved Christian force implied in the fact that Christ\nhas won the hearts of men. To win the disinterested love of one man takes\nmuch force, more than most men have. To win the love of a state takes\nmore. But to win and to hold, through the perturbations and revolutions\nof kingdoms and republics, the undying love of the best and purest men\non earth requires an infinite amount of force. This point in Christ\u2019s\ncharacter greatly impressed the first Napoleon. Said he, \u201cI know men.\nChrist is not a man. I have seen the time when I could inspire thousands\nto die for me, but it took the inspiration of my presence and the power\nof my word. Since I am away from men, a prisoner on Helena, no one will\ndie for me. Christ, on the other hand, has been away from the world\nnearly two thousand years, and yet there are millions who would die for\nhim. I tell you, Christ is not a man. I know men.\u201d\n\n\nV.\n\nIt would be impossible to recount all the institutions, books,\ncivilizations, laws, discoveries, inventions, homes and hearts, into\nwhich the force of Christ\u2019s life has for the past nineteen hundred\nyears been lifting itself. As the sun expresses itself in the meadow,\nand lifts itself into the trees of the forests, so Christ has been\nembodying himself in the institutions, homes, and thoughts of men. The\nscientists say all force can be accounted for. When force has risen up\nat one point it has subsided at another: the amount rising up being\nthe exact equivalent of that subsiding. Upon this principle we are\nseeking to account for all this force that, coming from Christ, has\nexpressed itself in the domestic, social, political, and ecclesiastical\ninstitutions of men. More has risen than can be computed by human\narithmetic, or compassed by human imagination, or comprehended by human\nthought. Where did it come from? Where did it subside? At what point\ndid it disappear to rise again in such overwhelming volume, and such\nsweeping and far-reaching influence? We go back through eighteen hundred\nyears. We are standing in Jerusalem. We hear conflicting reports of a\nstrange, daring young man. At length he is pointed out to us. There is\nnothing remarkable about his appearance. He is a Jew. He was born among\nthe poor. He is not noted for culture. He has no social position. He has\nno money. He has no political power or prestige. He has no army at his\ncommand. He has no philosophical system. He is connected with no academy.\nHe is only thirty-three years old. His words are contained in no books.\nThey are simply in the memory of his disciples. He is misunderstood. His\nown disciples do not know what to make of him. Finally he is arrested,\nand tried, and condemned, and crucified. He dies between two thieves,\nscorned, scoffed, buffeted, and friendless. Keep in mind the principle\nwe are considering. All force can be measured. No more force rises up\nthan subsides. Action and reaction are equal. We are seeking to account,\nin accordance with this principle, for the vast amount of force Christ\nhas poured into the institutions and thoughts of humanity. Is this young\nman\u2019s life, seemingly so insignificant and weak, the exact equivalent\nof all the churches, schools, colleges, arts, literature, homes,\ngovernments, sacrifice, heroism, good works, martyrdom, patience, love,\nand hope that have by general consent resulted from his existence in the\nworld? If so, was he only a man? Multiply thirty-three years by poverty,\ntoil, contempt, sorrow, and crucifixion, and you have one product.\nMultiply nineteen hundred years by millions of churches, schools, and\nhomes; by millions of books, paintings, and poems; by social position,\nwealth, and power; by success, triumph, and conquest; by love, mercy,\nand truth; by a hold upon humanity unequaled, and by an influence on\nhome and thought unrivaled, and you have another product. The question\nis: does one of these products seem to be the equivalent of the other?\nDoes not the outcome surpass by an infinite degree the income? Is not\nthe evolution out of all proportion to the involution? Has not a great\ndeal more force risen up than seemingly subsided? Is there not much more\npower seemingly on this side the Cross than there was on the other?\nManifestly and clearly Christ\u2019s life and work cannot be accounted for by\nthe principle of the correlation of forces.\n\nMohammed\u2019s success and disciples we can understand. He succeeded by the\nordinary methods by which men succeed. He appealed to men\u2019s love of\nfame, conquest, wealth, power, pleasure. He offered men, as a reward for\ntheir fealty to him, a great earthly kingdom, and such a heaven beyond\nthe grave as would regale the senses, please the fancy, and gratify the\nappetites. He simply organized and applied the latent earthly forces\nalready existing in his countrymen. His success is in line with that\nof C\u00e6sar and Bonaparte. The kingdom which he proposed to establish was\nmerely an earthly, sensual kingdom. His methods were carnal, the motives\nto which he appealed were sensual, and the hopes which he inspired were\ncarnal. Christ, on the other hand, condemned men\u2019s love of conquest,\npower, fame, riches, and pleasure. He made the conditions of discipleship\nto consist in the denial of self and in the relinquishment of all\nearthly hopes, gratifications, and prospects. \u201cIf you find your life in\nmy kingdom,\u201d said he, \u201cyou must lose it in this.\u201d He proposed to build\nup a kingdom as wide as the world, and as lasting as eternity, without\nadopting a single method or utilizing any of the means ordinarily relied\non for success. Not only did he propose a new kingdom, but to populate it\nwith new men, motives, hopes, conceptions, and opinions. Hence, to come\ninto his kingdom, men were to be made over. They were to die to self, to\nthe world, to pleasure. So Christ\u2019s work and influence in the world not\nonly forms an exception to the principle of the correlation of forces,\nbut here we have an unparalleled amount of force rising up when, to all\nhuman appearances, none subsided at all.\n\n\nVI.\n\nA poor young carpenter dies. He goes down in ignominy. Amid the jeers\nand contempt of the multitude, he goes down into the grave. But from\nthat moment, commotion begins. Forgiveness of sin in the name of Christ\nis preached; disciples are won; books are written; civilizations are\ntouched; movements are inaugurated; persecutions, bloody and relentless,\nare waged. The fires of hate are kindled; storms from all round the\nsocial, political, and religious sky gather, and howl, and empty their\nfury upon the new movement. Nothing impedes it; fire cannot hinder it;\npersecution intensifies it; death does not alarm it. Now, we submit, does\nnot such a movement, starting from such a source, and moving out with\nsuch vigor, and becoming intenser and deeper as it is extended, form a\nremarkable and singular exception to the principle we are considering?\nIs there any rule among men by which it may be estimated and classified\nand labeled? Can any human, or logical, or philosophical formula or\nprinciple measure the multiform and widely diversified facts in this\ncase? Does it not form an exception to all rules and human methods of\nmeasurements? Do we not augment the difficulties of accounting for the\nwork of Christ by minifying him, and calling him a mere man? Is not the\neasier way to account for Christ\u2019s work, to accord to him all that he\nclaims for himself and all that his disciples claimed for him. He said,\n\u201cAll power is given to me in heaven and in earth.\u201d If we accept this as\ntrue, we can account for his work. But in this view, we will see that\nhis life was divine and one with the Father of us all. Then we will see\nthat he was the Son of God, the Word made flesh, the incarnation of the\ndivine mind and wisdom and power. It is impossible to account for the\nlife and work of Christ by the principles with which physical force and\nmerely human force and thought are measured. The sun is the center of the\nsystem of nature, a system destined to end. Any system, the center of\nwhich is gradually losing its force, cannot last. Christ is the center of\na spiritual system totally different from the system of nature. By all\nthe force the sun parts with to the worlds about it, by so much less has\nit. It is gradually losing itself, to find itself no more forever. Christ\nis pouring his force into the system of which he is the center, but by\nsuch a process he is not losing his force, but increasing it. By losing\nhimself he finds himself. The universal law of the system of which he is\nthe center, is the law of communion. The force he gives away comes back\nto him augmented by the personality of all who partake of it. Instead of\nbecoming poorer by giving, he becomes richer. This great truth St. Paul\nsaw when he said: \u201cAll things are yours, whether Paul, or Apollos, or\nCephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to\ncome, all are yours, and ye are Christ\u2019s; and Christ is God\u2019s.\u201d\n\n\nVII.\n\nOne life has appeared among men, then, that was all love. Jesus Christ\nis the only original, absolutely unselfish life that has been lived on\nearth. The saints have found the secret, and strength, and inspiration of\ntheir unselfishness and love in him. The love which matches and meets the\nillimitable nature of the human spirit is embodied in a life that cannot\nbe measured by the ordinary rules and standards of men. The object of\nwhich hunger is the subject, is bread; the object of which intellect is\nthe subject, is truth; the object of which will is the subject, is law;\nthe object of which the \u00e6sthetic sense is the subject, is beauty; the\nobject of which the spiritual nature is the subject, is Jesus Christ. The\nspirit of man which has for its correlate in time, the race, has for its\ncorrelate in eternity, the life of one in which is summed up all power,\nall truth, all law, all beauty, and all love. As the embodiment of love\nthe human spirit finds in Christ the climate and the conditions exactly\nadapted to its own realization. The plan and pattern, the invisible\nframework and ideal of every man\u2019s life is Christian. To be an oak is to\nbe a perfect acorn, to be an apple is to be a complete flower, to be a\nChristian is to be a complete man.\n\n\n\n\n_IMMORTALITY._\n\n\n    \u201cHow does the rivulet find its way?\n    How does the floweret know its day\n    And open its cup to catch the ray?\n\n    \u201cI see the germ to the sunlight reach,\n    And the nestling knows the old bird\u2019s speech.\n    I do not know who is there to teach.\n\n    \u201cI see the hare through the thicket glide,\n    And the stars through the trackless spaces ride.\n    I do not see who is there to guide.\n\n    \u201cHe is eyes for all, who is eyes for the mole,\n    See motion goes to the rightful goal.\n    O God! I can trust for the human soul.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nTHE PERMANENCE OF THE COMPLETED LIFE OF MAN.\n\n\nBack of the movement which began in creation and culminated in man, we\nposited the mind of a self-conscious, self-determining, self-active,\npersonal God. Necessity was upon us to assume a first principle of some\nkind, and it seemed proper to have one large enough to account for the\nfacts we were about to consider. The first principle Thales set up was\nwater. In water he saw the origin of all and the end of all. But all that\ncame out of water must, in the end, find its death in water. With nothing\nbut a vast ocean to start with, we shall find, at the conclusion, nothing\nmore articulate and rational than an infinite expanse of water to end\nwith.\n\nHerbert Spencer, \u201cthe heir of all the ages in the foremost files of\ntime,\u201d took as the starting point of his philosophy the unknowable. In\nthe selection of a first principle, however, we think Thales, though the\nfirst philosopher who ever lived, had the advantage of him.\n\nWater is a definite and positive somewhat; the unknowable is an\nindefinite and inarticulate vacuity. With water for a first principle,\nthe prospect is certain destruction in a general deluge. With the\nunknowable for a first principle, the prospect is sure imbecility in\nuniversal ignorance. It is better to be drowned in water than to have\nthe light of intelligence put out in everlasting night. Mr. Spencer\u2019s\nunknowable was a convenient receptacle into which to dump difficulties\nand troublesome problems; but, as a working hypothesis, it was not\nsufficient even to build the universe Mr. Spencer saw. In the process\nof constructing his system, Mr. Spencer gave to his unknowable nearly\nall the attributes which theologians give to a personal God. As we\nhave already seen, when Mr. Spencer got through with drawing from his\nunknowable all that he had to have to give his system the order and show\nof reason, it was found that the unknowable part of the unknowable had\nabout been scattered in the light of knowledge. For this same unknowable\nwas found to have Being, Power, Activity, Causal Energy, and Omnipresence\nfor attributes. Nothing more can come out of a first principle than what\nis contained in it. Out of water, nothing but water comes, and out of the\nunknowable, nothing but the unknowable comes. One can posit an acorn,\nunder certain conditions of soil and sky, and get an oak; but the germ of\nthe oak must be in the acorn, and the nutriment of the oak must be in the\nconditions before any oak can come out. It is the old truism, that \u201cout\nof nothing, nothing comes.\u201d No one ever attempts to account for anything\nwithout a first principle. The test of the reality and value of a first\nprinciple will be determined solely by its capacity to account for the\nfacts which come out of it. It is because the unknowable fails to account\nfor the facts of nature, and for self-consciousness, self-determination,\nand self-activity in man, who stands as the complete consummation and\nrealization of nature, that it is not accepted as an adequate first\nprinciple.\n\nMatthew Arnold, in order to escape the objections which he had to\ntaking a self-conscious, self-determining, personal God for a first\nprinciple, substituted \u201cThe Stream of Tendency, not ourselves, that\nmakes for righteousness.\u201d But this sentence, when analyzed, reveals the\nfact that Matthew Arnold\u2019s Stream has about the same essential elements\nthe theologian supposes to reside in God. A stream has a source, a\ndirection, and an end. Here, then, we have cause, means, and ultimate\nobject. It is also said that the stream makes for something; here is\nself-determination. It is said to make for righteousness; here is the\nattribute of Justice, and justice can only be predicated of a person.\n\nGiven nature, with its elements, laws, and unity, and man as the being\nin whom the whole of nature is summed up, with self-consciousness,\nself-determination, and self-activity; the only first principle\nsufficient to account for the facts is a self-conscious,\nself-determining, self-active personal God. It is only such a first\nprinciple that is large enough to account for the number, and order, and\ndrift, and collocations of the facts; and to such a first principle the\nnumber, and order, and drift, and collocations of the facts may be traced.\n\nIf we see red and violet and blue colors appearing in the carpet on\none side of the loom, we are warranted in assuming that red and violet\nand blue threads are entering the carpet on the other side of the loom.\nNature is a marvelous loom. At first there are simple elements, then\nthere are compounds, then there are plants, then there are animals. At\nlast all the elements, as so many strands, with their manifold hues and\nvariegated colors, appear in the life of man. Man is the harbor where\nall the freight, started on its stormy course at creation, comes to\nshore. Its matter takes majestic form in his body, its power lends itself\nas wind to his sail, as heat to his engine, as light to his street:\nits truth is arranged by the intellect into literature and science:\nits law is formulated into statutes, enactments, and constitutions:\nits beauty is built into oratorios and spread in radiant visions: its\nlove is accepted and turned into tenderness, and sacrifice, and hope.\nInfinite personality at the beginning, self-conscious, self-determining,\nand self-active. Finite personality at the conclusion, self-conscious,\nself-determining, and self-active.\n\nIf you call the process evolution, then no more has been evolved than\nwas involved. If you prefer direct creation, then nothing is seen in the\ncreature that was not built into him by the Creator. Either way, if a\nself-conscious, self-determining, and self-active man appears on one side\nof nature, a self-conscious, self-determining, and self-active personal\nGod is, we may know, on the other.\n\n\nI.\n\nThe importance of a correct first principle, and of a right idea of the\nnature of that first principle, cannot be urged too strongly. In the\nright solution of the question we are considering, everything depends on\nit. If we start with water, as Thales did, we will be forced to conclude\nthat individual lives, like bubbles, will eventually fall back and mingle\nwith the waves of the sea.\n\nIf we start with the unknowable, as Spencer did, we shall be led to see\nthat human spirits will lose themselves at death, as candles lose their\nlight when the wicks are consumed.\n\nIt is not left us, however, arbitrarily to assume such a first principle\nas comports with the particular theory of life it is our purpose to\nestablish. The first principle that corresponds to reality is already\nimplicit in the facts, the origin, and purpose, and end of which we\nwish to know. The law of gravity is implicit in falling bodies, and in\nthe revolving stars. The sunbeam is implicit in the growing tree. All\nthat happens when one posits a first principle that is not implicit in\nthe facts he is considering, is that his first principle will fail to\naccount for the facts. Matthew Arnold had a perfect right to assume as\na first principle, \u201cThe Stream of Tendency, not ourselves, that makes\nfor righteousness.\u201d This looked poetic and impersonal, and in his esteem\nserved him as a working hypothesis.\n\nIt never seemed to occur to him that his principle implied the same\nelements and attributes the theologians regarded as uniting in God;\nthe elements and attributes he was so anxious to get rid of. Herbert\nSpencer, with a theory to work out, and a particular system to buttress\nand bolster, devised and adopted a first principle that seemed to promise\nmost to his peculiar views. This he had a right to do. But he had no\nright to take as a first principle the unknowable, with which to destroy\nthe Christian\u2019s God; and just as soon as he had accomplished this to his\nentire satisfaction, to turn deliberately and take nearly every attribute\nof the Christian\u2019s God to bestow upon his unknowable. It is hardly to be\nsupposed that Mr. Spencer, with malice aforethought planned the death\nof God in order to steal his attributes. The more charitable view is to\nsuppose that at the outset his intention was to erect an absolutely new\nphilosophic edifice, upon a new and original foundation. To do this, it\nwas necessary to clear the ground of everything in sight. So in a high\nmoment of philosophic self-confidence, he determined on the obliteration\nof all previous and time-honored first principles, that he might posit\none of his own making and to his own liking.\n\nThis was the destructive stage of his mental movement, and it did not\noccur to him that many of the elements he was clearing away in such\nwholesale fashion would be necessary to carry up his new philosophic\ntemple. When he got through with the period of preparation, he had\nnothing to start with but a plain, simple, empty, unknowable. But it\nsoon became evident that the unknowable must have some content, in order\nto support a decent and orderly structure. At this point he took the\nattributes of the Christian\u2019s God, Being, Power, Activity, Causal Energy,\nOmnipresence, and filled up his empty unknowable with them. Then he\nproceeded with his work.\n\n\nII.\n\nIn starting with a self-conscious, self-determining and personal God,\nthen, as a first principle that accommodates and insures the immortality\nof the individual spirit, we are only beginning with what is implicit\nin the facts of nature and human life. Let it be clearly apprehended\nthat the ground of the self-conscious, self-determining, personal God\nis thought. That the fundamental and first thing in this universe is\nmind. That the being of God is secondary to the mind, or thought of God.\nGod has being, because he has thought, and not thought, because he has\nbeing. The trouble with the pantheistic system of Spinoza was that he\nlooked upon God, first as infinite substance or being, while thought was\nonly one of the modes of this being, and extension was the other. The\nroot of all doubt and skepticism is to be traced to a confused notion of\nthe nature of God. Many speak of God as the Supreme Being, and advertise\nby their language that in their esteem God is diffused nebulosity, or\nuniversally extended externality. There never was a skeptic in the world\nwho had come to the rational and tenable position, that God is primarily,\nand fundamentally, and essentially thought. We may properly speak of\nhis being, his wisdom, his justice, his truth, his love; but these are\ndifferent determinations of his thought. God\u2019s being is the externality\nof his thought. His wisdom is his thought devising means to ends. His\njustice is his thought balancing and regulating. His truth is his thought\nin realization. His love is his thought in sacrifice. \u201cIn the beginning\nwas the Word.\u201d A word is an expressed thought. \u201cThe Word was with God.\u201d\nThe realized thought or word was with God, the Eternal Thinker, or\nThought. \u201cGod said, Let there be light, and there was light.\u201d Light was\nthus the expression of thought. Nearly all materialism and pantheism\nlook upon things as an emanation from something. Vapor emanates from the\nsurface of a river, and is only the river in diffusion. But the universe\ndoes not emanate from God; it is the direct creation and expression of\nhis thought. Potentially the universe was always in the thought of God.\n\n\nIII.\n\nWe have dwelt at length on the self-consciousness and self-determination\nof God, as these unite in him as an absolute personality, for the\nreason that the immortality of the human spirit finds its condition\nand its security here. If God is a person, and self-conscious,\nself-determining, and self-active, man is immortal, for in him the\nelements which constitute the essential nature of God appear. Man is\na person and a spirit, made in the likeness and image of God. He is,\ntherefore, as imperishable and indestructible as God is. He has thought\nand is therefore self-conscious; he has a will, and is therefore\nself-determining; he has power, and is therefore self-active; he\nmaintains his identity through change, and is therefore a person. But\nthe finite person finds his life through the infinite Person. He finds\nhis knowledge by partaking of truth, the realized thought of God; he\nfinds his freedom by the observance of law, the expressed will of God;\nhe finds his peace by partaking of the life that was in Christ, the\nmanifested love of God. As the fundamental and prior thing in the being\nof God is thought, so the fundamental and prior thing in the being of\nman is thought. His progress in the practical matters of life will be in\nproportion to his thought. His political status will be in proportion\nto his thought; his religious attainment will be in proportion to his\nthought. Schleiermacher said \u201cFeeling is the source of religion\u2014a feeling\nof dependence.\u201d But one cannot have a feeling of dependence without\nhaving the thought of dependence. One cannot feel that he depends unless\nhe thinks of himself as dependent. Matthew Arnold said that religion\nwas morality touched by emotion. But there cannot be morality without\nthe thought of some rule by which conduct ought to be guided. Even the\nAfrican savage, who worships a snake, thinks there is something in the\nsnake entitled to his adoration. Thought is the clearest self-explication\nof the human spirit. In thought it comes to itself and knows itself.\nTake thought out of the spirit of man, and you take out its essential\nnature. Its immortality, even were it possible, would then not be worth\ncontending for. One had as well be blotted out, as to lose the only\nelement of his spirit by which he is able to recognize himself as such.\nLooking upon thought as the center and kernel of the human spirit,\nwe see that to deny the immortality of the human spirit is to assume\nthat thought is destructible; and this is a flat contradiction, for\ndestruction has no meaning, except in relation to thought. It is of the\nvery nature of thought to be eternal. No thought ever dies, or can die.\nAll the determinations of God\u2019s thought are eternal. The mind of God\nhas within it all determinations of thought; those past, those present,\nand those to come. Some of these determinations of the divine thought\nhave taken the form of objects in the inorganic world, some have taken\nthe form of objects in the vegetable kingdom, and some have taken the\nform of objects in the animal kingdom. The determinations of thought, of\nwhich inorganic things, trees, and animals were the expressions, are all\neternal.\n\nIt is of the nature of the things in which the determinations of thought\ntook form to change and pass away. But the ideal patterns, of which they\nwere only the temporary forms, are held in the mind of God forever. The\nhouse which expresses the architect\u2019s ideal may be blown away, or burned\nup, but the ideal in the thought of the architect cannot be blown away or\nburned up. Now in man the determination of God\u2019s thought is not expressed\nin a thing, but in a thought. Man, as God\u2019s child, inherits, or comes\nthrough creation into the possession of thought, of mind, so that he is\nable to set up thinking\u2014in his own behalf, and by the self-determining,\nself-conscious, and self-active power of his own mind. God as thought is\nhis own object and his own subject, and man as thought is his own object\nand his own subject. God has set him up to housekeeping in the republic\nof thought.\n\nIn the changes which take place in material objects, there is\npreservation of the species, but the loss of the individual. The object\nis an element and not a self. When it changes, it is by something\nexternal to itself, and in changing, realizes its nature. It is\nindifferent to change, as there is no central self that retains its\nessential identity in the midst of all change. The tree belongs to\na higher order of existence than a rock. It is the expression of\nunconscious life. The animal belongs to a still higher plane than the\ntree. Besides appropriating food from its environment, as does the tree,\nit takes in the images of things, and lives a low order of sentient life.\nBut in order that animals may take in the images of things through the\nsenses, the things must be present before them. When the thing is gone,\nthe image fades. The objects which stand around man in his environment\npass into his consciousness through the senses. But when the environment\nchanges and the objects are taken away, the impressions made by the\nobjects remain. In this way man re-creates the universe for his own\nthought. The gurgling of brooks, the murmur of the sea, the sighing of\nthe winds, the cooing of doves, he hears just as the animal does. But\naway from brooks, and seas, and winds, and doves, Beethoven throws into\none of his symphonies all the notes that were ever on sea or land. He\nhas within him the same kind of mind that expressed itself in all the\nnotes of music, and he not only hears these notes, but he re-combines and\nreorganizes them in his great compositions.\n\n\nIV.\n\nThe spirit of man is simple. It is an ultimate and indivisible unity.\nDeath divides, breaks up, and disintegrates. The nature of the human\nspirit is such, however, that it cannot be divided, broken up, or\ndisintegrated. We see it maintain its identity through the storms and\nmutations of eighty years. All things change about it. The very body\nthat constitutes its temporary abiding place is torn down and rebuilt\nmany times in the course of a long life. It advances in knowledge and\nexperience; grows larger and richer in hope and love, but all its\naccumulations of thought and increasing wealth of life are stored in the\nsame self-conscious, self-determining, personal spirit. In the evening of\nlife the old man sits in the midst of his grandchildren and recounts the\nscenes of his boyhood days. All the waves of time contained within the\nsweep of three score years and ten have left their labels of drift and\nstorm on the shores of his life. But they have not worn, or wasted, or\naltered his spirit.\n\nA rock wears away, or is crumbled to dust, when it is a rock no longer.\nA tree is cut down and split into cord wood and burned in the engine,\nand it is a tree no longer. In the furnace it is turned back into its\noriginal elements. In the fire it is altered or othered. The other of a\ntree is oxygen, hydrogen, etc. The bird in the thicket is shot by the\nheartless sportsman. It falls to the ground and its little heart ceases\nto beat. Soon its body is changed back into earth and air. The other of\na bird is not a bird, but the particles which were organized under the\nprocess of natural law to form its body. The images which fell on its\nvision in the grove, faded away when the objects which caused them were\nremoved. The sounds which came to its ears from here and there in the\nforest passed from its sense when the air that caused them ceased to\nvibrate. In the bird there was no inner self, abiding, self-conscious,\ndetermining, and active, that was capable of grasping and holding and\nrecreating the visions and the notes which came to it. It may have\nhad a sort of sentient consciousness, but it was not much above the\nconsciousness of the sea, which holds the images of the stars in its\ndark blue waves, as long as they stand above it.\n\nBy comparing man with the classes of individuals below him, we may see\nthe respects in which he rises infinitely above them. And we may see,\ntoo, by this comparison, that immortality is not something to which\nman is to come beyond death, but something that he has already in the\nvery constitution of the personal spirit. The same may be said of man\u2019s\nbody, that is said of the bodies of trees and birds, its other is the\noriginal elements which compose it. The life in a tree cannot other\nitself, because it is not conscious. The life in a bird cannot other\nitself because its consciousness is not self-consciousness. But in man\u2019s\nbody there resides a spirit that can other itself. Man, as a personal\nspirit, can project himself out of himself, and reason with himself and\ncommune with himself. The self he projects out of himself is another\nself, but not a different self. The other of man\u2019s spirit, then, is not\nsomething else, but it is the same spirit. Man is subject and object,\nactive and passive, determiner and determined. Man, as subject, may\nexternalize himself, and thus make of himself his own object, and by this\nself-separation enrich himself and advance within himself. Beethoven, as\na thinking subject, objectified his thought in the symphonies, and thus\nregaled and thrilled his own spirit. By putting his own thought into the\nform of sound waves, it came back to him in the rain, and storm, and\nthunder, and sigh, and murmur of music. As a thinking subject Raphael\nobjectified his own thought in the transfiguration, and thus had it\ncome back to him in a vision as immortal as the spirit that created it.\nMichael Angelo objectified his own thought in the Last Judgment, and by\nthis self-separation of his spirit, advertised its indestructibility.\nHomer, as a thinking subject, objectified his thought into the Iliad.\nThis great epic poem has already lived, even on this side of the grave,\nwhere the order is change and decay, nearly three thousand years. Are we\nto conclude that a personal spirit that could deposit itself in numbers\nnever to die, was itself subject to dissolution? This would be to have an\neffect greater than the cause. The sunbeam may deposit itself in a tree,\nand thus secure to itself life in embodied form for hundreds of years.\nBut in order that this may be, the sun must send his beams to warm and\nnourish the tree all the days of its life. The Iliad has lived, however,\nnearly three thousand years, without the daily ministrations of Homer\u2019s\nspirit. For a bubble on the sea of life to lift itself into imperishable\nform and then fall back to mingle with the waves and the waters, is to\ncontradict the principle of the correlation of forces, which declares\nthat action and reaction must always be equal. The expression a spirit\nmakes of itself cannot be more enduring than the spirit itself.\n\n    \u201cThe ship may sink and I may drink\n      A hasty death in the bitter sea;\n    But all that I leave in the ocean grave\n      May be slipped and spared, and no loss to me.\n\n    \u201cWhat care I, though falls the sky,\n      And the shriveled earth to a cinder turn?\n    No fires of doom can ever consume\n      What never was made nor meant to burn.\n\n    \u201cLet go the breath! There is no death\n      For the living soul, nor loss nor harm.\n    Nor of the clod is the life of God;\n      Let it mount, as it will, from form to form.\u201d\n\nWhen a train of cars stops suddenly at the depot, the energy that caused\nit to fly along the track is not lost, it is only transformed. When a\ntree is cut down, the energy that expressed itself in its trunk and\nbranches is not lost, it will only take other forms. When a horse dies,\nthe energy of which its life was the expression is not lost, it is\ntransformed. When a tree or a horse passes from the living world into the\nworld of inorganic things, the exact amount of energy in the body of the\nliving tree or horse takes other forms. The amount on the side of death\nis equal to the amount on the side of life. If we consider man only as a\nphysical organism, the same may be said of him. The amount transformed\ninto earth and air, will be the equivalent of the organized fund of\nbone, and sinew, and muscle, turned over to death. If we thus estimate\nman, however, as we do a tree or a horse, have we taken into account the\nentire sum of assets that were in his possession during life? What of\nhis thought, affection, and volition? When Kepler died, what became of\nthe intelligence that discovered the \u201cThree Laws,\u201d which constitute the\narches of the sublime bridge that spans the vast chasm between Ptolemaic\nand modern astronomy? When Laplace died, what became of the spirit that\nsolved the problems of the M\u00e9canique C\u00e9leste, by the aid of which the\nirregularities of the heavenly bodies were reduced to order? When Adams\ndied, what became of the massive spirit that built in the depths of his\nown study the planet Neptune, with no other raw material to work from\nthan the perturbations of Uranus? When Moses died, what became of the\naffection that expressed itself in the training and civilization of a\nrace? When Jesus Christ died, what became of the love that sacrificed\nitself for a sinful world?\n\nWhen we begin to talk about human life, we find all that has made\ncivilization is not physical. In the death of human beings, the energies\nof thought, and affection, and volition are not represented in the\ntransformations which take place with reference to their bodies. Yet all\nthe energies man has put forth that give any evidence of his record on\nthe earth are such as come from thought, and affection, and volition. As\nthese energies are not transformed at death, as are the forces of the\nbody, they must continue. For to suppose they ceased at death would be to\nbreak the law of the correlation and the conservation of forces. If they\nare not transformed at death, along with the forces of the body, they\nmust reside in another than the material world, and must not, therefore,\nbe subject to its changes.\n\n\nV.\n\nThe personal spirit, by its very nature, and tendencies, and\npossibilities, seems to be addressed to another than the tangible, local,\nand physical realm in which it finds itself while residing in the body.\nAn irrepressible and wide-reaching something in the spirit of each man\nseems to impel him to triumph over space, and time, and change. In the\naccumulation of property, he would own the whole world. A very small\nportion of land would be adequate to his physical needs. But he would\nadd acre to acre, till his private domain compassed the surface of the\nwhole earth. Alexander, weeping because there was not another world he\ncould get to conquer, advertises the immensity and illimitability of the\nhuman spirit. By the aid of instruments by which man has augmented and\nlengthened his power of vision, he has come upon stars rolling in the\nimmensity of space to the circle of the thirteenth magnitude. He has not\nbeen content to look upon the stars in the vast depths of space, but he\nhas photographed them, so as to behold their faces in his study. Back\nbeyond the dim dawn of time, commensurate with the appearance of human\nlife on earth, he has gone, to return with the chemical, physical, and\nstratigraphical history of the globe. By the aid of steam, he has made\nhimself a cosmopolite, and through the application of electricity, he has\nmade himself ubiquitous. Must we not posit a spirit correlated to the\nuniversal to account for this disposition to compass all things, to know\nall things, and to be everywhere? The tendency of the human spirit to\ncompass and possess universality is seen, too, by its capacity to create\nlanguage, in which it embodies all things and through which it expresses\nits thought of all things. If there had to be separate words for all\nindividual things any but the most limited knowledge would be impossible,\nand such knowledge alone there would be if man was shut up to atomic\nsensations for the data of knowledge. But the mind, by its creative,\ncombining power, and its active spontaneous insight, forms words which\nrepresent not only individual things, but classes and species of things.\nMan devises the word _oak_, and lets it stand for all the oaks in the\nworld. He creates the word _humanity_, and puts into it the whole human\nrace. He coins the word _vegetable_, and uses it to define the whole\nkingdom of plants. Thus he not only goes over the world and sees it\ndirectly, but he produces language manifold and complicated, and elastic\nenough to accommodate and contain the world, with all that is in it. This\nmakes it possible for him to go round the world and see all its wonders,\nwithout leaving the place of his birth.\n\nHe not only builds for himself the universe in language, so that he can\ncontemplate its moons, and measure its suns, and sail its oceans, and\nclimb its mountains in the silent precincts of his study, but he avails\nhimself of sound and light, also, to give expression to universal ideas.\nHe takes a few notes, and so combines and mixes them as to be able to\ntouch all the chords of the universal human heart in one song. Michael\nAngelo put all the theology of all the books into the Last Judgment.\n\nThroughout the length and breadth of nature, there is economy of faculty\nand resource until we come to man. The fish has not a gill nor a fin too\nmany, and there is not in the water where he lives any surplus or margin\nupon which he does not make levies for his life.\n\nThe wings and tail and bones of the bird are all necessary to his poise\nand circle in the sky. The same economy is found in the atmosphere\nthrough which the bird flies. It is none too heavy and none too light.\nBut when we come to man, we find that margin and surplus is the rule.\nHe has a surplus of faculty and a surplus of resource, a surplus of\nendowment and a surplus of environment. He finds it necessary to make\nlevies on hardly any of himself to get along in this world, at least as\nfar as his natural wants are concerned. What would be the use for a\ncarpenter to have all the tools necessary to build St. Peter\u2019s at Rome,\nif his only work was to put up a tent for a week\u2019s camping excursion in\nthe woods? Why have an engine with a million horse power to run a flutter\nmill?\n\nWith the animal there is changing endowment and changing environment.\nLimitations are clear and distinct within and without. But with man\nthere is infinite environment. Within he has a self-determining spirit,\nsubject and object, bound together in a simple and indissoluble unity.\nSurrounding this spirit, infinite in structure and capacity, is infinite\ntruth, infinite law, and infinite love. Even Herbert Spencer said\n\u201cPerfect correspondence would be perfect life. Were there no changes in\nthe environment but such as the organism had adapted changes to meet, and\nwere it never to fail in the efficiency with which it met them, there\nwould be eternal existence, and eternal knowledge.\u201d In the personal\nspirit and the elements which surround it, we have the two eternal terms\nof eternal correspondence. A self-determining spirit is essentially,\nstructurally, and constitutionally imperishable. It others itself only\nthrough its own act. And the other of itself is itself. It is its own\nsubject and its own object. When it goes out of itself, it is itself\nthat goes out. It is a complete circle, an absolute and indestructible\nindividuation. It is the final expression of God\u2019s creative power.\nThrough all the revolutions and mutations of time, this was the destined\ngoal. The destruction of a human spirit would register the death of\nGod. It is the direct expression of the spirit of God, and bears his\nown likeness and image, and has for the guarantee of its permanence the\nperson of the eternal God himself.\n\n\nVI.\n\nRev. Edward White of England, Dr. E. Petavel of France, and Dr. Lyman\nAbbott of America, have denied what Dr. Abbott is pleased to call\nfacultative immortality. Immortality, in their esteem, is an importation\nfrom without. It is the claim of Locke, and Hume, and Mill, and Spencer,\nthat knowledge is an importation from the realm of sensation. Their\nwar was upon the knowing faculties. From the domain of philosophy\nthe conflict has passed up to the plane of religion, and we now have\nthe attack made upon the self-determining spirit. In the sensational\nphilosophy, we have seen all things dissolved. It not only makes it\nimpossible to rationally believe in God, but also in mind, and self,\nand external world. The sensational philosophy got the object of\nknowledge by a process that destroyed the subject of knowledge, so this\nirrational theory of Dr. Lyman Abbot would secure the object of life by\nthe destruction of the subject of life. We know that the raw material of\nknowledge is found in the objective world, but unless the mind has the\ninherent combining, active power to take this raw material and organize\nit into an orderly system, then the individual can never know anything.\nThere being in the mind no master of ceremonies, no director and referee,\nthe tramp and vagabond sensations may wander in and wander out at their\nsweet will. They would come in with their own opinions and go out with\ntheir own opinions. There being no head of the house within, the tramps\ncould have it all their own way.\n\nKnowledge, beginning out of the mind, would have its cause and end out of\nthe mind. Beginning with matter, knowledge could be resolved back into\nmatter.\n\nWe believe the life in which the human spirit is to realize its nature\nfully and harmoniously was embodied in Jesus Christ, who was the word\nmade flesh.\n\nBut it is because the spirit of man is essentially indestructible, that\nit has power to take hold of this life and assimilate it. If it refuses\nthis divine embodiment of life, it brings disorder, and confusion, and\neverlasting sorrow to itself, but not destruction. The self-determining\nspirit is in its structure and constitution up to the style of life\noffered it in the Son of Man and the Son of God. In finding the life that\nwas in Christ, it finds its own life, and enters the path of everlasting\nprogress.","title":"The Making of a Man","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":55645}