Lecture Vi.

OF THE WISDOM OF THE DIVINE ORDER OF THINGS IN NATURE, AND OF THE RELATION OF NATURE TO THE OTHER LIFE AND TO THE INVISIBLE WORLD.

The highest and loftiest language would fail us were it our purpose to speak of the inmost essence of the Godhead, since He is that which no thought or conception can comprehend, and which no words are sufficient completely to describe or adequately to express. On the other hand, when we reflect on God’s work in creation, and of His superintending providence which rules the course of this earthly world, our thoughts can not be simple enough, nor, to judge by that principle of the divine condescension which formed the nucleus of our remarks in the last Lecture, too familiar or affectionate. In a general way this is commonly enough admitted, but practically it is neglected. Men do not clearly present to their minds all that is involved in it, and the remote consequences to which it leads. And so, in spite of their better convictions, they insensibly adopt a high-sounding and solemn strain, when the tone of a childlike reverence is alone the suitable and appropriate style for expressing the relation between the benignant Creator and His creatures, and man especially, as simply and as naturally as it is in reality.

I said as naturally, because it is implied in the very nature of things that if God did originally create free beings like men, He would give them all things needful, keep them constantly in His regard, and every where lend them a helping and directing hand. But from time to time He might, it is not inconsistent to suppose, withdraw, as it were, His guidance; for otherwise they would cease to be free beings. In this respect the divine Providence may be likened to a mother teaching her child to walk. Having chosen a clear spot, free from all things likely to hurt the infant in its fall, she places it firmly on its feet. For a little while she holds and supports it, and then, going back a few steps, she waits for its love to set its little limbs in motion and to follow her. But how watchful is her eye, how outstretched her arms to catch her babe the instant it begins to totter! Such nearly, and equally simple, is the relation of God to man; and not to individuals only, but also to the whole human race. For in the divine education and higher guidance of mankind we may trace the same degrees and natural gradation of developments as form the basis of the education of individuals, and may also be observed in all the processes of nature.

Now we take it for granted that God has willed the creation not only of free and pure spirits, but also of the natural world; for that He has so willed is a fact that, as it were, stares us in the face. If, then, along with the free spirits He has also created a nature, i.e., a living reproductive power, capable of and designed to develop and propagate itself, it is plain that we can not and ought not to think of such a nature as independent and self-subsisting. For, first of all, it had not its beginning in itself. Moreover, it would move as a blind force, and as such manifest itself only in destruction and desolation, if its Maker had not originally fixed and assigned to it the end toward which all its efforts were ultimately to be directed. Nature, indeed, is not free like man; but still it is not a piece of dead clock-work, which, when it is once wound up, works on mechanically till it has run itself down again. There is life in it. And if a few abstract but superficial thinkers have failed to discern, or even ventured expressly to deny this truth, the general feeling of mankind, on the other hand, bears witness to it. Yes, man feels that there is life rustling in the tree, as with its many arms and branches, its leaves and flowers, it moves backward and forward in the free air; and that, as compared with the clock, with all its ingenious but dead mechanism, it is even a living thing. And what the common feeling of mankind thus instinctively assumes is confirmed by the profounder investigations of physical science. Thus we know that even plants sleep, and they, too, as much as animals, though after a different sort, have a true impregnation and propagation. And is not nature, on the whole, a life-tree, as it were, whose leaves and flowers are perpetually expanding themselves and seeking nourishment from the balsamic air of heaven, while, as the sap rises from the deep-hidden root into the mighty stem, the branches stir and move, and invisible forces sweep to and fro in its waving crown. Most shallow and superficial, in truth, is that physical science which would consider the system of nature, with all the marvels of beauty and majesty wherewith its Maker has adorned it, as nothing more than a piece of lifeless clock-work. In such a system the all-mighty Creator must appear at best but a great mechanical artist who has at his command infinite resources; or, if we may be allowed so absurd an expression, as the fittest to expose the absurdity of those who would regard the divine work, both in its whole and in its parts, as dead, an omnipotent clockmaker. If, however, to meet the needs of man’s limited capacity, we must, when speaking of the Creator, employ such trifling and childish similes, then of all human avocations and pursuits that of the gardener will serve best to illustrate the divine operations in nature. All-mighty and omniscient, however, He has Himself created the trees and flowers that He cultivates, has Himself made the good soil in which they grow, and brings down from heaven the balmy spring, the dews and rain, and the sunshine that quicken and mature them into life and beauty.

If, then, there be life in nature, as, indeed, observation teaches, and the general feeling of man avouches, it must also possess a vital development, which in its movements observes a uniform course and intrinsic law. In truth, the Creator has not reserved to himself the beginning and the end alone, and left the rest to follow its own course; but in the middle, and at every point, also, of its progress, the Omnipotent Will can intervene at pleasure. If He pleases He can instantaneously stop this vital development, and suddenly make the course of nature stand still; or, in a moment, give life and movement to what before stood motionless and inanimate. Generally speaking, it is in the divine power to suspend the laws of nature, to interfere directly with them, and, as it were, to intercalate among them some higher and immediate operation of His power, as an exception to their uniform development. For, as in the social frame of civil life, the author and giver of the laws may occasionally set them aside, or, in their administration, allow certain special cases of exception, even so is it, also, with nature’s Lawgiver.

Now, this immediate operation, and occasional interference of Supreme Power with the order of nature, is exactly what constitutes the idea of miracle. The general possibility of miracles is a principle which man’s sound and unsophisticated reason has never allowed him to deny. But, on the other hand, it is evidently essential to their very idea that they should be thought of simply as deviations from the usual course of nature’s operations; if they were not exceptions to the laws of nature, then were they no miracles. Such miraculous exceptions, however, it may be observed, need not invariably to be contrary to the course of nature, though above nature, and far transcending its ordinary standard, they always are. Exceptions, therefore, they are; but such, at the same time, as do not permanently disturb the natural course and flow of the vital development, which, on the whole, continues unchanged. For it is only agreeable with Creative wisdom to maintain the world so long as the present state of things subsists, and the final consummation has not yet arrived, in the order originally prescribed to it by His omnipotence.

To this an objection might be made in the opposite sense. Taken then in their principle, the laws of nature, no less than those exceptions to them which are usually called miracles, are one and the same; they are alike from the Creator of all--and the laws themselves, therefore, are equally miraculous. This remark is quite true; but it only teaches us that we ought not to be too ready to see a miracle in every extraordinary event. But still, there will ever remain an essential difference between an immediate operation of omnipotence and the Creator’s original production of a living force, implanting in this creature an inner law, and thereupon leaving to it the further evolution of its powers in the course marked out for and assigned to it.

Now, if such a creature, like this terrestrial nature, be of a mixed constitution, composed of a principle of destruction as well as of a principle of productive development and progression--if its life be a constant struggle with death, then it is manifest that only by the same hand which first formed it, gave it laws, and prescribed its order, can its wise and divine economy be preserved, and the permanence of the organic evolution of its whole system be secured, and the outbursts of elementary dissolution, which are perpetually menacing it, held in check and averted. If this restraint be once relaxed, if the destructive energy of the wild elements be once let loose, and free scope given to their fury--and this globe presents the manifest traces of one such catastrophe, at least--then this, too, must be regarded as an exception, and is only explicable by the higher principle of divine permission. Viewed, however, as the retribution of divine justice on a guilty world, it forms an exception and a miracle of a peculiar kind, and must be distinguished from those other extraordinary operations properly called miracles, wherein, with some saving or quickening purpose, the Almighty, as it were, raises nature above herself, and takes her out of her usual course.

In this way, then, we ought unquestionably to refer every thing in the world to its author and preserver, whether it be conformable to the usual course and order of nature, or, as an extraordinary phenomenon, bespeak a higher and more immediate operation of divinity. But, at the same time, we must never forget that nature itself is a living force endowed with a capacity of self-development. Nature, indeed, is not free in the same sense that man is, possessed and conscious of a power of self-determination and choice; but as all life contains in itself the germ of a free movement and expansion, and while it expands itself a hidden and slumbering consciousness begins to stir and awake, so also in nature, an initiatory or preparatory grade of it, if not fully out-spoken, is at least indicated. In this respect it may be regarded as the vestibule of that temple of freedom which in man, the crowning work of this earthly creation, and made after the divine image and likeness, stands forth in its full dimensions and proportions. Considered from another point of view, the sensible world may be looked upon as a veil thrown over the spiritual world--the light-flowing and almost transparent robe, and, as it were, in all its parts the significant costume of the invisible powers. But in no point of view can we rightly consider nature as properly self-subsisting, or independent of its Creator, and, therefore, in no case as isolated by itself and apart from all reference to a superior being. Rather is it a living force, and one, too, doubly significant, both from within and from without; to which property an allusion is contained in the simile already employed, of a book written both on the inside and the outside. These two ideas, then, of the free will of man and of the living development of nature, must be taken as the basis, and serve as the fixed point of every attempt to ascertain the divine order in nature. On this account we have placed them in the foreground of the present Lecture, which will, in the main, be consecrated to such an investigation.

If, now, this demonstration of a divine order in nature seem to contain nothing less than a kind of Theodicée (so far as man can establish a justification of God’s ways), I, for my part, must confess that I would much rather have before my eyes a Theodicée for the feelings, conceived in the very spirit of love, than any purely rational theory. For such theories, founded in general on far-fetched hypotheses, subtilly introduce into nature numberless divine purposes and designs, of which, however, we are able neither clearly to understand, much less to prove that they were intended by the everlasting counsels, or even that such vestiges of a divine purpose are really discernible in the universe. In this province of speculation we must not be too rigorous in our determinations, and especially we must guard against systematizing. But, above all, we can not be too watchful against the fault which so many reasoners fall into, of transferring into the realm of nature, or of God, that logical necessary connection which is a part of and connatural with our rational constitution, and an indispensable aid to our limited intellectual powers. Such a way of thinking would inevitably lead us to that most mistaken notion of a blind fate--the phantom of destiny.

On the other hand, how many are the questioning feelings and perplexities which arise in the human heart at the sight of certain natural objects. And these even, because they are far from amounting to doubts and objections, or at least from assuming a definite expression or a scientific dignity, seem, on that account, only the more loudly to demand an answer. The mournful cry of some helpless and innocent animal when killed by man--or in a different category--the hissing of the venomous serpent; the lothsome mass of maggots in the putrid corpse: all these are but so many dumb exclamations which, as it were, do but keep back the question, Are, then, these the productions of the all-perfect Being--of the Supreme Intelligence?

The sufferings of animals are indeed a theme for man to reflect upon; and I, for my part, can not concur with him who would regard this as a topic unworthy of his thoughts, and expel from the human bosom all sympathy with the animal creation. The consideration, however, of this subject, naturally enough gives rise to the question as to the soul of animals. Now, it certainly would do no discredit to philosophy, if it should succeed in giving a satisfactory answer to this question, and enable us to follow a middle course; as remote from the exaggerated assumptions of ancient nations with regard to animal existence, on the one hand, as on the other, from the unfeeling conclusions of modern science, which refuses to regard or to sympathize with any pains, and absolutely is unable to conceive the sufferings of any being which does not possess the character of rationality exactly in the same manner and degree as man. As greatly, on the other side, does the Hindoo theology err. Its dogma of the metempsychosis not only ascribes an immortal soul to animals, but it also further teaches that human souls are imprisoned in animal bodies, as the penalty of a guilt incurred in a previous state of existence. Beautiful, however, as is the compassionate sympathy with the sufferings of the brute creation, which this theory has occasioned, and confirmed by the sanction of a religious duty, still the assumption on which it is founded is wholly arbitrary, and the extension of the immortality of the soul to these creatures of our globe is an unwarrantable exaggeration, and has no foundation in observed phenomena. Moreover, the hypothesis of such a migratory state of departed souls is inconsistent with every notion of the divine government of the world; inasmuch as such a temporary punishment can produce no salutary effect, either of purification or of preparation, and consequently would be wholly motiveless and absurd.

Very questionable, moreover, does it seem, whether, with propriety, an individual soul can be attributed to animals. With those that are most closely domesticated with man, there does undoubtedly arise, as it were, by a sort of mental contagion, the appearance of individuality and difference of character, just as the artistic structures of certain species form a kind of analogy to human reason, and as the melodious intonations and feelings of some others seemed to me entitled, in a similar sense, to be termed reverberations of fancy. In all those kinds, however, which remain undisturbed in their natural state, the whole species possesses the same character, and have, consequently, the same common soul. The species itself is only an individual; and, consequently, the several species must be considered as so many living forms of the general organic force of animated nature, since an immortality of individual souls can, in the case of animals, neither be assumed nor allowed to be assumable.

Among those perplexities, or, as I termed them, questioning feelings about nature and its animating principle, I turn now to the consideration of the last instance, that of the maggots of putrefaction. Is not this one of the clearest possible proofs that all nature is animated? So much so, and so eminently is this the case, that even in death and corruption, in foulness and disease, it still livingly operates and produces life--the lowest grade, undoubtedly, of life--or, if any so prefers to call it, a false life--but still a life. Now, can such morbid productions of nature, the worms, e.g. [entozoa], which in certain diseases are engendered in the bowels, be regarded as real creatures? Naught are they but the dissolving and crumbling matter of life, which even in dissolution is still living. And this fact is not confined merely to organic corruption and disease. Even the element--the fresh water from the spring--is full of life, and it is the more so the clearer and the better it is and the purer from the microscopic animalculæ, which swarm in it more and more the longer it stagnates and becomes foul, until at last, as frequently happens when it has been kept long on shipboard, with the growing foulness of the water they increase in size, and swim about as worms of visible magnitude. Many other instances might be adduced in proof of this origination of worms and vermin out of corruption, and testifying to it as a general principle of nature. And are not those swarms of locusts which in Asiatic countries are a general plague of the lands over which they sweep with their thick and dark migratory hordes, a sickly proof that the atmosphere that has engendered them is passing, or has already fallen into corruption beneath the influence of some other contagious element?

That the air and atmosphere of our globe is in the highest degree full of life, I may, I think, take here for granted and generally admitted. It is, however, of a mixed kind and quality, combining the refreshing and balsamic breath of spring with the parching simoons of the desert, and where the healthy odors fluctuate in chaotic struggle with the most deadly vapors. What else, in general, is the wide-spread and spreading pestilence, but a living propagation of foulness, corruption, and death? Are not many poisons, especially animal poisons, in a true sense, living forces?

Now, may we not give a further extension to this mode of view, and apply the fact of a diseased propagation of a false life, as in the worms of putrefaction, to other unsightly productions of nature. May we not, for instance, consider serpents and snakes as the entozoa or intestinal worms of the earth? That the evil spirits are not without some influence on our terrestrial habitation, and that in many places their malignant influence is distinctly traceable is, at all events, undeniable. And accordingly, some have supposed the monkey tribe not to be an original creation of the Deity, but a satanic device and malicious parody upon man, as the envied favorite of God. That the “Prince of this world”--which expression, in its latter half, is surely not to be understood exclusively of man’s fallen race, but very evidently and expressively alludes to the existing fabric of nature and the corrupted world of sense--that the Prince of this world can exercise a certain degree of pernicious influence on the productive energies of the natural system in its present corrupt and vitiated condition, and that also, there is in nature itself a power to produce evil, are facts which do not admit of denial, and are noways inconsistent with revelation. Only we must not suppose that this baneful influence is not confined within certain limits. He to whom the Prince of this world, no less than the world itself, is subject, has, in His infinite wisdom, set a definite limit both of quantity and duration to this pernicious influence, as, in general, He does to every permission of evil.

At all events we must not for one moment suppose that in the book of nature we have a pure and uncorrupt text of God, and such as it originally came from the hands of its Author. It is of the highest consequence, for a due and right appreciation of the divine economy in nature, that we give full consideration to this fact. On this account it is important to keep in mind the distinction implied in that expression already quoted from the Mosaic history--“Let the earth bring forth.” For, according to this, it does not seem indispensably necessary to ascribe immediately to the good and wise Creator every thing that the earth brought forth; no, nor every thing that is produced by a nature now so imperfect--so diseased, too, in many parts--and visibly constrained to submit to hostile and foreign influences.

Many writers who, with the best intentions, undertake the task of indicating the divine wisdom in the existing order of things, and of defending the ways of Providence against the objections of human presumption and conceit, generally err by taking too narrow a view of their subject, and rigorously insisting on some one general principle, which, by means of very hazardous assertions, they succeed in finding in the whole and every part of the system of the universe. They leave out of sight altogether that Mosaic distinction already alluded to, which in appearance indeed is trifling enough, but yet in reality most essentially important. Consequently, the good work which they take in hand, instead of producing that general concurrence and conviction that it otherwise might, gives rise rather to fresh doubts and objections. The best solution of all such doubts--the most satisfactory answer to all such or similar questions or questioning feelings--lies in the final cause of the present constitution of things, considered as a whole and in general, and judged of from a regard to its triple character and triple destination. Now, according to this triple principle, we have, as already shown, to regard the present system of nature as being primarily a tombstone raised by Almighty benevolence--a bridge of safety thrown across the gulf of eternal death--a bridge, however, which we must not think of as quite so simple, broad, and straight as a bridge made by human hands, but an animated and ensouled bridge of life, and multiform, with many arms and branches, and presenting in some parts nothing more than a narrow footing, where the first false stop precipitates into the abyss beneath. But secondarily, according to this view, nature is grounded on and devoted to progress; a wonderful laboratory of manifold, diversified, and universal reproduction; and lastly, a glorious scale of resurrection, ascending up to the last and highest summit of terrestrial transfiguration. Now this laboratory lies in the hidden womb of nature, while in the noble outward structure of its organic formations this gradational scale manifests itself with a warning, a prognostication of the height of excellence to which it eventually leads. But now, if nature--as, judging from its original design, we may and must assume--were a Paradise for the blessed spirits of the previous creation, for the first-born sons of light, then most assuredly has it not continued so, any more than the first man has remained in the garden of Eden. No doubt, over a few favored spots of the existing globe, a rich fullness of ravishing beauty still hovers, awakening in the heart, as it were, the fleeting images of Paradisaical innocence--dying strains of a primal harmony--mournful reminiscences of the happy infancy of creation. For the powers of darkness and hostile spirits broke in upon the fair beauty of primeval nature, and laid it waste and wild. The garden of the earth in which the first man was placed, “to dress it and to keep it,” is, no doubt, called Paradise; and assuredly it was infinitely more beautiful, more wonderful, purer, and fuller of life, than the loveliest scenery which meets the eye in the fairest spots of the earth, and seems to be of an almost celestial beauty. But this is said only of the immediate inclosure, the immediate habitation of our first parent; the spot chosen and blessed by God--the garden watered and surrounded by the four streams. All the rest of nature, the whole of the world besides, must have ceased at that time to be a Paradise; for, otherwise, whence could the serpent have come? So that even according to the simple sense of the expression, “that old serpent,” he was already there, in the midst of the natural world. And was it not probably a part of the destination of man--at least, in its natural aspect--that, setting out from this divine starting-point of a Paradise prepared for and given to him, he was to go forth and convert the rest of the world into a similar Eden?

But this destination he did not, however, fulfill, and consequently lost even this beginning and model of the first Paradise. The names of the four streams which watered it are indeed still preserved in those regions of Asia, which even to this day are the richest and most fruitful, and, according to history, were the earliest inhabited. But the one source out of which they all took their rise has disappeared, and no vestige of it remains. With the loss of Paradise all is changed, not only in man himself, but in the earth as his place of abode.

The way of return out of this bewildered nature, or, if men prefer so to speak, out of this sunk and degraded, not to say unsound and sickly, state of the earthly and sensible world (and this way of return is even the way of obedience to the course of the divine order in nature), is indicated even by these three grades of its inmost character, its tendency, and ultimate destination. And in these, and in the final cause of the whole constitution of things, is contained its true key and interpretation, as well as the answer to so many questions about nature, which engage not merely the curious intellect of man, but also attract the sympathies of his soul, sweeping across it either with dark doubts and fears, or with bright intimations of life and glorious anticipation.

I spoke deliberately when I said to many of these questioning feelings and perplexities of the human mind, and not all of them. For to expect a satisfactory answer to them all in the present state of science, or generally in this terrestrial life, brief as it is, and limited on all sides and short-sighted, would be agreeable neither with the course nor whole constitution of human affairs. A thoroughly complete and perfectly systematic demonstration of the wisdom in the divine order of nature, which should meet and explain every difficulty, would, even on account of such a pretension, command little respect, and be of slight influence. Much is there in nature which is to remain long hidden from man; much, too, which we shall see first of all in the other world, when death shall have opened our eyes and made us clear-sighted in one direction or another. But the beginning and the end are even here and now placed clearly and intelligibly before us, if only we are ready and willing to walk by the light that is so graciously given us, and here, as elsewhere, invariably to refer the first cause and the final consummation to the Creator and to God. Without such a reference, without thus, as it were, placing its two poles in God, the right understanding of nature is absolutely impossible, and every scientific attempt to attain it apart from and independently of God, must simply as such prove vain and involve itself in absurdities. Hence it is, however paradoxical it may sound, that we can recognize more distinctly, and better understand the end of nature, its meaning and significance as a whole, than we can the final cause of many a single object in it, which, however, as contrasted with the whole, appears inconsiderable and trifling. For the clear perception that we have of the final cause of nature comes immediately from the divine illumination, which therefore we can, so far as it is given to us, see and understand. But in the darker levels, in the subterranean shaft of the obscure sensible world, the prophetic candle of an antlike burrowing science, even though it be originally kindled at that higher light, can not reach to every quarter, can not illuminate every object in this mine of darkness.

But this final cause of creation, such as it is given to us clearly and intelligibly, will be rendered most clear by a comparison and contrast with the conceptions of the end of nature which human reason has put forth. If the proposition already quoted from one of the latest of German philosophers, that the essence of mind consists in the negation of the opposite, be now applied (which was the application I then had in my mind) to the Creator of the world and uncreated Intelligence, then the following must be the meaning involved in it. That which is the opposite of God or the Creator is nothing; and so far the proposition is quite true, since man can not but admit that the Almighty has created the world out of nothing. For if, with some of the ancient philosophers, we were to suppose a matter existing from all eternity, out of which God did not so much create as form the world, then in this case we should have two Gods, and both imperfect and finite, instead of the one all-perfect and self-sufficient Being. But if, on the other hand, the Deity be regarded as merely a not-nothing; if the final cause of creation be simply the negation of naught, then would such a view ascribe a sort of imaginary reality to the nothing, and it would seem that the world was created solely in order to get rid of the nothing, which comes pretty much to the same as saying--if we may allow ourselves so Lessing-like a boldness of expression--the Infinite made the world out of ennui. Thus, in every case do the skeptical views and empty negations of idealism lead to a contradictory nothing.

But, in reality and truth, it was out of love that God made the worlds; and, indeed, out of a superabundant love. This we may well venture to assert, and even to call it a fact; and that the divine love is also the final cause, as well as the beginning of creation. A superabundance of love in God we must, however, call the final cause-ground of creation, inasmuch as He stood in no need of it; no need of the love of the creature, nor absolutely of the world itself, or created things. For in His inmost essence, where one depth of eternal love responds fully and eternally to the other, He was perfectly sufficient for himself. And yet it is even so: there is in God the superabundance of love, for He has created the worlds, and it is the divine will to be loved by His creatures. For this end and purpose has He created them; and because He would have their love, He has created them free, and given both to the pure spirits and to men a free will. The whole secret in the relation subsisting between the creature, and man especially, and the Creator, lies even in this great fact, that He has created them out of love, and requires in return the service of their love. There is, perhaps, something awful in this requisition, and in the relation thus found to subsist between a weak and imperfect creature and the infinite and omnipotent Being. But it is even so: we are really free, and are really required by God to give him our love. But now a finite and created being can only be free so far as God leaves him free; and this is only conceivable in the light I have already set it in by the simile of a fond mother teaching her babe to walk, and in order to tempt it to make the first essay with its little limbs, stepping back from it a few steps, and leaving it a moment to itself. No creature could be free did not God, in a similar way, leave it to itself, and, after the first impulse of creation, withhold from it His controlling energy. But if He did not do so--were He, on the contrary, to act upon His creatures without reserve, and with the whole infinite extent of his might--then the liberty of the latter, overwhelmed in His omnipotence, must be destroyed, as being only possible through the spontaneous limitation of the divine power, which results from the superabundance of creative love.

Now we can, it is true, distinguish in the essence or energy of God, between His intelligence and His will--His omniscience and His omnipotence; but they can not be absolutely separated from and opposed to each other, for in Him and in His operations, they, as indeed all else in Him, are one. It would, therefore, be nothing but a foolish and unmeaning subtlety to demand, “Why, then, has the Omniscient created rational beings, of whom He must assuredly have known beforehand that they would fall and perish?” For it is but a logical illusion, when we transfer from the human to the divine mind a form of thought fluctuating between the conceivably possible and the apparently necessary. Man’s freedom undoubtedly consists in the choice between one possibility and another, or in that indefinite possibility which subsists half way between one necessity and another. But God’s freedom is not as man’s: in Him there is neither contingent possibility nor unconditional necessity. All in Him is truly actual, living, and positive. His freedom lies even in the superabundance of His essence--the fact, viz., that He is not bound by any law of necessity to remain contented with this His own internal fullness. For otherwise He were a Fate rather than a free God, and to that conclusion the doctrine of the Stoics consistently enough arrived at last. Extremely difficult must it ever be, in such a system and with such a conception of an intrinsically necessary God, and one bound by this necessity, consistently to account for the creation of the world, which, in appearance, is so irreconcilable with the idea of the self-sufficiency of the divine Being. On this account some of the similarly rationalizing systems of ancient times had recourse to the ingenious device of ascribing the work of creation to a spiritual being of an inferior order, and degrading this secondary deity far below the infinite perfections of the supreme and all-sufficient God. But by this expedient men did but fall, as is, alas! but too commonly the case, from one error into another still greater and even more monstrous. It is, in short, nothing but a mere logical delusion and an illegitimate transference from our limited faculty of thought to the divine intelligence, which gives rise to these pernicious doctrines of an absolute and unconditional predestination, which fundamentally amount and bring us back to a blind and heathenish fatalism.

Thus much, as connected with our subject, will be sufficient on the difficult subject both of the freedom of the pure created spirits and also of man’s will, as regarded solely from its philosophical aspect, and without any reference to the moral theory, and solely in relation to the system of the universe. Difficult, however, is this subject, merely on one account. The logical illusion, from which springs all error, strife, and confusion, and which we are too apt to transfer to the divine mind, is so far innate in the very form of man’s finite intellect, than even when we have recognized it for what it really is; yet, so long as we confine ourselves to mere logical reasoning, and are seduced by its seeming rigor of consequence, we are ever ready to fall anew into this dangerous error without even remarking it.

In the same way, now, that the existence of free beings follows naturally from the love of God, as the final cause of creation, so, on the other hand, the permission of moral evil is a mere result of that freedom in and through which these created beings have to run their appointed time. For this freedom, as considered with a reference to God and futurity, or to the immortality of the soul, is nothing else than the time of trial and the state of probation itself. But, perhaps it will be asked, “Why, then, does not God, by one nod of retributive justice, by one breath of His omnipotence, annihilate forever, as He so easily might, the whole company of evil and rebellious spirits, together with their leader, the Prince of this world, and so purify the whole visible creation, and release external nature from their desolating influence?” To this the answer is simple and at hand. Man is placed in this world on his trial and for a struggle with evil, and this warfare is not yet ended. But by such an annihilation of evil, the living development of nature would be precipitated in that course which God originally designed it to advance through, and cut short before the appointed time of final purification, when, according to His promise, He will, as Holy Writ expresses it, create new heavens and a new earth, and make perfect the whole creation.

Man is free, but utterly unripe as yet; and thoroughly incomplete also is nature, or the sensible world, and material creation; consequently, the immortality of the soul is the corner-stone and key for understanding the whole. For the mere beginning of creation is perfectly unintelligible so long as we do not take into consideration the other extreme or end--its final completion and ultimate consummation. Just as the half of human life on this side the grave can not be understood unless we contemplate, at the same time with it, its second half on the other side of the tomb, as its complement, and as a necessary element toward the elucidation of the whole.

As, then, the permission of evil finds a satisfactory explanation in man’s probationary state, and in God’s love, as the final cause of the creation, so also the physical evils and sufferings to which the free being is liable are fully accounted for on that principle. This is the key of the enigma of their existence. None of the sufferings of the free being, on either side of the grave, are unprofitable and without a motive. They all serve, either in this preparatory state of earthly existence, for probation, for discipline, or for confirmation, or else, after it, for the perfect healing of the soul, and its purification from all the remaining dross and taints of earth. Scarcely ever can the diseased matter be got rid of and expelled from the organic body with out a struggle, and very seldom without pain. Gold is purified by the fire, and pain is the fiery purification of the body. This belief is one which ought least of all to have been called into question, inasmuch as it is only consonant to the simple feelings of human nature. For otherwise, how narrowly must the hopes of the future be confined, if nothing that is unclean shall enter into heaven--the Holy of Holies--the immediate presence of the pure and holy God!

It is not, however, my intention to make this consolatory and blessed hope of a loving and longing heart the topic of dispute, especially since it lies altogether beyond my present limits. I will only allude to the words of the Savior, “In my Father’s house are many mansions.” By the “Father’s house” we must, it is clear, understand the future world. On other side, therefore, of the grave, as well as on this, many divisions, many degrees, and many different states, and also manifold transitions, are not merely conceivable and possible, but must of necessity be assumed as actually existent, even though we can not be too cautious in avoiding all hasty decisions as to what is going on in this hidden world. Only we must ever remember that any absolute line of demarcation which on one side has nothing but white, while all that lies on the other is black, is very rarely the line of truth. And this principle holds good, it is plain, in every relation and every possible application. For such a trenchant line of sharp and unmitigated contrast between black and white is even one of those intellectual deceptions connatural to man, which disposes him too hastily to transfer to all without him the limited form of his own finite intellect. All the pains, therefore, and all the sufferings of the creature, whether on this or the other side of the grave, serve either to exercise and strengthen, or to heal and purify, the yet imperfect being, with the single exception of that bitterest of all agonies--the pain of being left eternally to ourselves. But even here, although there is no hope of a salutary effect, a species of converse propriety seems to hold.

It is, we remarked, the problem of philosophy, leaving to physics the whole development of life that lies intermediate between the beginning and end, to explain the two extremes of nature. As, therefore, we have examined one of these extremes, and have discovered in the whole terrestrial creation a Paradise as the blessed state of the still innocent infancy of nature, before the revolt of the rebellious spirits and the fall of the first man, the present seems the place for a few words touching the opposite extreme--the regions of outer darkness. We can safely admit that the figurative representations, not merely of painters and poets, but occasionally also of the preacher, are so horrible, and heaped together with so little consistency--the dark colors laid on so thick, that the whole assumes to the feelings an appearance of improbability, and, on this account, makes, for the most part, no very deep impression. But the spiritual significance of these sufferings, and the sort of propriety and design which holds, even in this unnatural state, on the utmost borders of creation, may, perhaps, be made clear by a very simple illustration. Most reluctantly, and with a heavy heart assuredly, would an earthly parent resolve to turn out of his house, and formally to disinherit, his first-born and beloved son, even though he should have proved himself utterly worthless and hopelessly depraved. But even if an earthly parent might be too hasty in his anger, and actually be harsh and unjust, still we may boldly assume that the love of our Heavenly Father, in patience and gentleness, far transcends the truest parental love that is to be found on earth. But when it actually comes to this point of offended mercy and justice, then the disinherited, cast out into the regions of darkness, joins the band of robbers who in the night lurk about his father’s house, seeking where they may break into it. No other choice is left him than to become a robber, and, whether he will or no, he must obey the leader of the band. But better taught and as yet softer of heart than the rest, he must go through many hardships and sufferings ere he becomes quite like the others--as hard-hearted as the “murderers from the beginning,” who the while look down upon him with scorn and contempt.

What I would say is this: many degrees, and undoubtedly extreme degrees, of pain and torment, are necessary before the man cast out from the presence of God can be wholly and completely transformed into an evil spirit. And this is, perhaps, the proper meaning and essential character under which we are to think of these endless torments of spiritual death and ruin. If, moreover, this eternal death is often described as an unquenchable fire, then unquestionably there lies in this figure, even physically considered, a certain truth, inasmuch as even in this world and in visible nature, fire, when left to itself and to its true essential character, is the proper element of destruction. In the sun’s genial influence, indeed, and in the blood of the living soul, it is constrained and moderated into the wholesome warmth of life; but in itself, and working in its elementary state, it is destructive and opposed to all the other elements. To the light all that has life turns instinctively, and in the air it breathes and pulsates, and from water it draws a part at least of its nourishment. It is only incidentally that the air and water become destructive, but the fire is so in its proper nature. A perfectly organized animal that lived in fire would, in a greater or less degree, fill every mind with horror and alarm, as having no part in and wholly alien from that nature which is known to and friendly to man. On this account, many even of the ancient philosophers taught that the end of the present visible and the external and sensible world, would be brought about by a general conflagration.

The permission of evil is an immediate consequence of the creation of free beings. But although it may be regarded as a fact, that God has created free both the spirits and man, still we must be on our guard how we introduce into this matter any notion of necessity, and suppose that God must have made them free, and could not have created any other. For man is only too prone to transfer his own imaginary conceit of necessity to the Deity himself, and to feign to see it in Him. This, however, were a most grievous error; and yet it is one into which men almost inevitably fall when they adopt either a rigorously systematic or purely logical view of the matter. Could not God in his omnipotence have created powers and dominions which, even though they were living energies and ensouled principalities, should, nevertheless, be without the property of self-determination and a true liberty, and which would consequently require some other nature, but similar to themselves, to rule and direct them? In this sense we read of the spirits of nature, ensouled elementary powers and living forces, which are described as being seized and taken possession of by the power of evil, but as hereafter to be set free by the efficacy of redeeming love, and again subjected to and united to God. Now, as connected with this subject, it is deserving of consideration, that in all the declarations and allusions of the Eternal Truth this present earthly nature is spoken of as the battle-place of invisible powers, the debatable ground on which the two armies of good and evil spirits and elements are posted in hostile array against each other, and perpetually coming into collision.

Could not God, had such been His pleasure, have created other beings, and by the fiat of His all-mighty will have raised them at once above all the dangers of liberty, and enduing them with perfect holiness, and exempt from all liability to fall, have drawn them to Himself in eternal love?

I have hitherto, wherever it has been my object to give a clearer and sharper characterization of the human consciousness by means of a comparison with the faculties of intellect and will possessed by superior but created spirits, confined myself to the idea of the pure spirits, genii or angels. But if it should have been the divine pleasure to create other spiritual beings with an organic body--one, perhaps, not like the human, but still of a very noble though animal form, endued of course with an immortal soul and with a knowledge of God--who is there in such a case to set limits to the omnipotent will? Now if, as already supposed, they were created in perfect holiness, and exempt from the liability to fall, it is easily conceivable how in this respect they would be higher than frail and imperfect man, and must be regarded as a part of the spiritual world, rather than as belonging to the human race or to the existing system of nature.

All these are not so much inappropriate and impertinent conjectures and idle fancies, as calmly mooted questions for explanation, which arise out of and are suggested by certain traditions and points of revelation.

Lastly, if the Almighty had resolved to create a perfect being, so far above and before all the other creatures of His will, as to stand next to Himself, and be, as it were, the mirror and reflection of His own infinite perfections--and many a word in Holy Writ seems to allude to something of the kind--then it is not difficult to see how the already-quoted expression of a soul of God would receive a better sense. This being, so superior to all other created spirits, must in any case be regarded as a soul, and for the most part of a passive essence, for otherwise it would stand too close and near to Deity itself. And it is manifest, that even here the ever-immeasurable interval which separates the Creator from the most perfect of creatures must be most carefully kept in view. And at all events this expression must in no case be applied to the second or third persons of the Godhead, nor be confounded therewith, otherwise this designation would not only be false, but altogether an abomination.

Revelation contains an inexhaustible mine of verities, and I have only wished, by the way, to call attention to these as yet unexplored treasures. But it is above all important, for the philosophical point of view, steadily to insist upon and enforce the truth, that in no respect can we form a notion adequately grand and lofty, or rich and manifold enough, of the Creation. The compactly-closed and orderly-arranged system is almost always the death of truth. So also is that line--which, however, seems to be a connatural fault in the very form of man’s faculty of judgment--that straight line between black and white, for even if it be not radically wrong, it yet leaves much on both sides unconsidered and ill understood.

With this impression, I shall allow myself to notice an opinion but little known, which, moreover, if I had not met with it in writers who, in this province of inquiry, are of the highest authority, I should scarcely have ventured to adduce. In this department of spiritual knowledge, a man would much rather confine himself to the simple primary truth than call attention to mere opinions. The opinion I allude to is to be found in St. Jerome, i.e., in that very Father who, for theological judgment, is acknowledged by all to be the first and the greatest. It was held also by St. Francis de Sales, that holy saint of spiritual love, and who, even on that account, is so superior to the many hundreds of the schoolmen before him, as also to so many ideologists after him. Lastly, it occurred to Leibnitz, who, of all philosophers, was most possessed of a true and fine intellectual tact to perceive and discover all the most secret, delicate traits of a great system, even though most remote in character from his own. But still, with this array of great authorities, it remains nothing more than a wholly problematical opinion, on which, as an article of positive faith, nothing is or ever can be decided. Now this opinion is, that in the revolt of the rebellious spirits, while those who remained in their state of innocence and in their allegiance rallied only the closer round their Creator, a considerable number, fearful and undecided, vacillated between good and evil, and, as we might justly say, with the weakness of the human character, remained neutral in the conflict, and thereby lost their original place in the hierarchy of the heavenly host, without, however, being counted among the utterly lost. As a fourth authority for this opinion, I might adduce Dante. He is indeed a poet, but still a theological poet, and deeply versed in theology, who would never have arbitrarily devised or invented, or even adopted such a notion, had he not found it existing among others before him, and had he not been able to adduce a good and valid authority for it. As a good Ghibelline, he was, moreover, no friend of neutral spirits, either in this world or the other; and he passes the most severe sentence upon those beings whom, as he says, heaven has cast out, and hell would not receive.

But what--if we may propound the question with something more of philosophical indifference than the poet--what, according to the analogy of the divine economy and merciful justice, as elsewhere displayed, are we to suppose the doom of these undecided and wavering spirits? In the first place, we may well suppose that they would be submitted to a new probation: just as a general gives another opportunity to the troops, who in some evil moment have shown a want of spirit, to retrieve their honor. Now, if it be allowable to assume that this, or some similar idea, or some tradition of the kind, had an influence on and gave rise to the doctrine of the pre-existence of men, which is so generally diffused among the Hindoos, and which was also held by the Platonists, and even Christian Platonists, of the first centuries, we can then conceive how this otherwise so arbitrary assumption and groundless hypothesis could have arisen. Groundless, however, it may well be named, not only because no cause or explanation of it is adduced, but as being agreeable neither to the nature of the soul nor to the constitution of things; so that, regarded even in this light, it must be looked upon as a singular instance, and consequently as an exception from the laws of nature and as a miraculous intervention of divine power. But a mere pre-existence of spirits would, however, be no true pre-existence in the sense of the Hindoo theology, or of the Platonists, since, by its union with and by the accession of a soul, it becomes a wholly different and quite a new being. Moreover, in this hypothesis, as it is further worked out in the Hindoo and Platonic systems, the whole character and true destination of human life is entirely misunderstood, inasmuch as it is represented as a place and period of punishment; whereas, rightly conceived, and even philosophically contemplated, it appears rather as a battle-place, and the time of discipline and preparation for eternity.

It is the problem and vocation of philosophy not merely to set forth the truth clearly and simply, but also, whenever it can be done incidentally and easily, to account for and explain great and remarkable errors, especially such as were prevalent among the earliest nations and ages. Now, among those errors which are most remarkable in ancient history, this of the Hindoos and Platonists holds in my eyes a very prominent place. But philosophically to explain an error, means not to reject it at once as absurd and undeserving of notice, but requires rather that we should first of all really understand it, i.e., that we should study it, and, to a certain degree, enter into its spirit, and seek to discover its best significance, or, in other words, that interpretation which is nearest to the truth, and then in conclusion accurately to determine the point where error begins and truth is violated.

All this, however, may now be left to its own merits. In touching upon it, my only object has been to call attention to the wonderful variety of God’s creative power, even in the copious theme of the immortality of the soul. And in this view it appeared to me not unprofitable to notice even the most discrepant theories on the subject, as being nevertheless well calculated to throw a clear and steady light on the simple truth. In the last age, since the Hindoo metempsychosis, as it is now accurately and authentically known, appeared too serious and sad a doctrine to meet with the welcome and concurrence of the existent generation, a brighter and more fanciful theory was propounded. In it this life has been astronomically depicted in the brightest and most attractive colors as a walk among the stars, continually ascending from one sidereal existence to another. In the limited range of human knowledge, it is alike impossible to deny or to prove the possibility of such a migration among the stars. But it is evidently a wiser course, and one far more agreeable to the nature and limits of man’s powers of understanding, for him to confine his views to his own immediate home--the earth--investigating, sifting, and divining its mysteries, than to lose himself in airy dreams amid the whole starry universe. For, perhaps, that which man is seeking so far off he may find much closer to his own doors than he suspects. For it is not improbable that this planet of our earth contains in its interior many subterranean courses and secret chambers of death, together with the seeds of light which are to spring up into the future resurrection.

But this may be reserved for consideration in another place. Here I will only add, in conclusion, that opposite to that gradational scale, already so often mentioned, which the vast pyramid of nature forms in relation to God and its own living development, stands another scale for man, adapted to his needs and suited to his narrow position and limited intelligence. In this scale, nature, i.e., in this sense, the nature which most immediately surrounds and environs man, this planet of our earth which bears and nourishes the human race, is first of all man’s habitation, teeming, indeed, with life, and even itself a living thing, in which, however, he is ever meeting here and there with something that tells him it is not his proper home. In the second step of this view of nature, which contemplates it principally in its relation to man and man’s wants, the natural world in its present form appears as the battle-place and debatable ground of the still undecided, or, rather, not as yet terminated, struggle between the good and evil powers, and the fiercer the strife again begins to be, the more necessary is it not to overlook this aspect of the matter. The third gradation in this view of nature, considered relatively to the mind or spirit of man in his finite existence, is that which teaches him to look upon it as the visible veil of the invisible world, covered all over and richly ornamented with significant symbols and hieroglyphics. And even because nature itself is even a symbolical being, therefore, when we speak of its inmost life and its spirit, or its meaning as a whole, i.e., when we attempt to study and to understand it, not physically only, but even philosophically, we can only hope to convey our meaning symbolically, by employing scientific illustrations and living symbols.